The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of England from James II
#9 in our series by Thomas Babington Macaulay   [Volume 2]

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The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 2

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

December, 2000  [Etext #2439]


The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 2
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The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

Volume II

(Chapters VI-X)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay




CHAPTER VI

The Power of James at the Height--His Foreign Policy--His Plans
of Domestic Government; the Habeas Corpus Act--The Standing Army-
-Designs in favour of the Roman Catholic Religion--Violation of
the Test Act--Disgrace of Halifax; general Discontent--
Persecution of the French Huguenots--Effect of that Persecution
in England--Meeting of Parliament; Speech of the King; an
Opposition formed in the House of Commons--Sentiments of Foreign
Governments--Committee of the Commons on the King's Speech--
Defeat of the Government--Second Defeat of the Government; the
King reprimands the Commons--Coke committed by the Commons for
Disrespect to the King--Opposition to the Government in the
Lords; the Earl of Devonshire--The Bishop of London--Viscount
Mordaunt--Prorogation--Trials of Lord Gerard and of Hampden--
Trial of Delamere--Effect of his Acquittal--Parties in the Court;
Feeling of the Protestant Tories--Publication of Papers found in
the Strong Box of Charles II.--Feeling of the respectable Roman
Catholics--Cabal of violent Roman Catholics; Castlemaine--Jermyn;
White; Tyrconnel--Feeling of the Ministers of Foreign
Governments--The Pope and the Order of Jesus opposed to each
other--The Order of Jesus--Father Petre--The King's Temper and
Opinions--The King encouraged in his Errors by Sunderland--
Perfidy of Jeffreys--Godolphin; the Queen; Amours of the King--
Catharine Sedley--Intrigues of Rochester in favour of Catharine
Sedley--Decline of Rochester's Influence--Castelmaine sent to
Rome; the Huguenots illtreated by James--The Dispensing Power--
Dismission of Refractory Judges--Case of Sir Edward Hales--Roman
Catholics authorised to hold Ecclesiastical Benefices;--Sclater;
Walker--The Deanery of Christchurch given to a Roman Catholic--
Disposal of Bishoprics--Resolution of James to use his
Ecclesiastical Supremacy against the Church--His Difficulties--He
creates a new Court of High Commission--Proceedings against the
Bishop of London--Discontent excited by the Public Display of
Roman Catholic--Rites and Vestments--Riots--A Camp formed at
Hounslow--Samuel Johnson--Hugh Speke--Proceedings against
Johnson--Zeal of the Anglican Clergy against Popery--The Roman
Catholic Divines overmatched--State of Scotland--Queensberry--
Perth and Melfort--Favour shown to the Roman Catholic Religion in
Scotland--Riots at Edinburgh--Anger of the King; his Plans
concerning Scotland--Deputation of Scotch Privy Councillors sent
to London--Their Negotiations with the King --Meeting of the
Scotch Estates; they prove refractory--They are adjourned;
arbitrary System of Government in Scotland--Ireland--State of the
Law on the Subject of Religion--Hostility of Races--Aboriginal
Peasantry; aboriginal Aristocracy--State of the English Colony--
Course which James ought to have followed--His Errors--Clarendon
arrives in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant--His Mortifications; Panic
among the Colonists--Arrival of Tyrconnel at Dublin as General;
his Partiality and Violence--He is bent on the Repeal of the Act
of Settlement; he returns to England--The King displeased with
Clarendon--Rochester attacked by the Jesuitical Cabal--Attempts
of James to convert Rochester--Dismission of Rochester--
Dismission of Clarendon; Tyrconnel Lord Deputy--Dismay of the
English Colonists in Ireland--Effect of the Fall of the Hydes


JAMES was now at the height of power and prosperity. Both in
England and in Scotland he had vanquished his enemies, and had
punished them with a severity which had indeed excited their
bitterest hatred, but had, at the same time, effectually quelled
their courage. The Whig party seemed extinct. The name of Whig
was never used except as a term of reproach. The Parliament was
devoted to the King; and it was in his power to keep that
Parliament to the end of his reign. The Church was louder than
ever in professions of attachment to him, and had, during the
late insurrection, acted up to those professions. The Judges were
his tools; and if they ceased to be so, it was in his power to
remove them. The corporations were filled with his creatures. His
revenues far exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride rose
high. He was not the same man who, a few months before, in doubt
whether his throne might not be overturned in a hour, had
implored foreign help with unkingly supplications, and had
accepted it with tears of gratitude. Visions of dominion and
glory rose before him. He already saw himself, in imagination,
the umpire of Europe, the champion of many states oppressed by
one too powerful monarchy. So early as the month of June he had
assured the United Provinces that, as soon as the affairs of
England were settled, he would show the world how little he
feared France. In conformity with these assurances, he, within a
month after the battle of Sedgemoor, concluded with the States
General a defensive treaty, framed in the very spirit of the
Triple League. It was regarded, both at the Hague and at
Versailles, as a most significant circumstance that Halifax, who
was the constant and mortal enemy of French ascendency, and who
had scarcely ever before been consulted on any grave affair since
the beginning of the reign, took the lead on this occasion, and
seemed to have the royal ear. It was a circumstance not less
significant that no previous communication was made to Barillon.
Both he and his master were taken by surprise. Lewis was much
troubled, and expressed great, and not unreasonable, anxiety as
to the ulterior designs of the prince who had lately been his
pensioner and vassal. There were strong rumours that William of
Orange was busied in organizing a great confederacy, which was to
include both branches of the House of Austria, the United
Provinces, the kingdom of Sweden, and the electorate of
Brandenburg. It now seemed that this confederacy would have at
its head the King and Parliament of England.

In fact, negotiations tending to such a result were actually
opened. Spain proposed to form a close alliance with James; and
he listened to the proposition with favour, though it was evident
that such an alliance would be little less than a declaration of
war against France. But he postponed his final decision till
after the Parliament should have reassembled. The fate of
Christendom depended on the temper in which he might then find
the Commons. If they were disposed to acquiesce in his plans of
domestic government, there would be nothing to prevent him from
interfering with vigour and authority in the great dispute which
must soon be brought to an issue on the Continent. If they were
refractory, he must relinquish all thought of arbitrating between
contending nations, must again implore French assistance, must
again submit to French dictation, must sink into a potentate of
the third or fourth class, and must indemnify himself for the
contempt with which he would be regarded abroad by triumphs over
law and public opinion at home.1

It seemed, indeed, that it would not be easy for him to demand
more than the Commons were disposed to give. Already they had
abundantly proved that they were desirous to maintain his
prerogatives unimpaired, and that they were by no means extreme
to mark his encroachments on the rights of the people. Indeed,
eleven twelfths of the members were either dependents of the
court, or zealous Cavaliers from the country. There were few
things which such an assembly could pertinaciously refuse to the
Sovereign; and, happily for the nation, those few things were the
very things on which James had set his heart.

One of his objects was to obtain a repeal of the Habeas Corpus
Act, which he hated, as it was natural that a tyrant should hate
the most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny.
This feeling remained deeply fixed in his mind to the last, and
appears in the instructions which he drew up, in exile, for the
guidance of his son.2 But the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed
during the ascendency of the Whigs, was not more dear to the
Whigs than to the Tories. It is indeed not wonderful that this
great law should be highly prized by all Englishmen without
distinction of party: for it is a law which, not by circuitous,
but by direct operation, adds to the security and happiness of
every inhabitant of the realm.3

James had yet another design, odious to the party which had set
him on the throne and which had upheld him there. He wished to
form a great standing army. He had taken advantage of the late
insurrection to make large additions to the military force which
his brother had left. The bodies now designated as the first six
regiments of dragoon guards, the third and fourth regiments of
dragoons, and the nine regiments of infantry of the line, from
the seventh to the fifteenth inclusive, had just been raised.4
The effect of these augmentations, and of the recall of the
garrison of Tangier, was that the number of regular troops in
England had, in a few months, been increased from six thousand to
near twenty thousand. No English King had ever, in time of peace,
had such a force at his command. Yet even with this force James
was not content. He often repeated that no confidence could be
placed in the fidelity of the train-bands, that they sympathized
with all the passions of the class to which they belonged, that,
at Sedgemoor, there had been more militia men in the rebel army
than in the royal encampment, and that, if the throne had been
defended only by the array of the counties, Monmouth would have
marched in triumph from Lyme to London.

The revenue, large as it was when compared with that of former
Kings, barely sufficed to meet this new charge. A great part of
the produce of the new taxes was absorbed by the naval
expenditure. At the close of the late reign the whole cost of the
army, the Tangier regiments included, had been under three
hundred thousand pounds a year. Six hundred thousand pounds a
year would not now suffice.5 If any further augmentation were
made, it would be necessary to demand a supply from Parliament;
and it was not likely that Parliament would be in a complying
mood. The very name of standing army was hateful to the whole
nation, and to no part of the nation more hateful than to the
Cavalier gentlemen who filled the Lower House. In their minds a
standing army was inseparably associated with the Rump, with the
Protector, with the spoliation of the Church, with the purgation
of the Universities, with the abolition of the peerage, with the
murder of the King, with the sullen reign of the Saints, with
cant and asceticism, with fines and sequestrations, with the
insults which Major Generals, sprung from the dregs of the
people, had offered to the oldest and most honourable families of
the kingdom. There was, moreover, scarcely a baronet or a squire
in the Parliament who did not owe part of his importance in his
own county to his rank in the militia. If that national force
were set aside, the gentry of England must lose much of their
dignity and influence. It was therefore probable that the King
would find it more difficult to obtain funds for the support of
his army than even to obtain the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act.

But both the designs which have been mentioned were subordinate
to one great design on which the King's whole soul was bent, but
which was abhorred by those Tory gentlemen who were ready to shed
their blood for his rights, abhorred by that Church which had
never, during three generations of civil discord, wavered in
fidelity to his house, abhorred even by that army on which, in
the last extremity, he must rely.

His religion was still under proscription. Many rigorous laws
against Roman Catholics appeared on the Statute Book, and had,
within no long time, been rigorously executed. The Test Act
excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from
the Church of England; and, by a subsequent Act, passed when the
fictions of Oates had driven the nation wild, it had been
provided that no person should sit in either House of Parliament
without solemnly abjuring the doctrine of transubstantiation.
That the King should wish to obtain for the Church to which he
belonged a complete toleration was natural and right; nor is
there any reason to doubt that, by a little patience, prudence,
and justice, such a toleration might have been obtained.

The extreme antipathy and dread with which the English people
regarded his religion was not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to
theological animosity. That salvation might be found in the
Church of Rome, nay, that some members of that Church had been
among the brightest examples of Christian virtue, was admitted by
all divines of the Anglican communion and by the most illustrious
Nonconformists. It is notorious that the penal laws against
Popery were strenuously defended by many who thought Arianism,
Quakerism, and Judaism more dangerous, in a spiritual point of
view, than Popery, and who yet showed no disposition to enact
similar laws against Arians, Quakers, or Jews.

It is easy to explain why the Roman Catholic was treated with
less indulgence than was shown to men who renounced the doctrine
of the Nicene fathers, and even to men who had not been admitted
by baptism within the Christian pale. There was among the English
a strong conviction that the Roman Catholic, where the interests
of his religion were concerned, thought himself free from all the
ordinary rules of morality, nay, that he thought it meritorious
to violate those rules if, by so doing, he could avert injury or
reproach from the Church of which he was a member.

Nor was this opinion destitute of a show of reason. It was
impossible to deny that Roman Catholic casuists of great eminence
had written in defence of equivocation, of mental reservation, of
perjury, and even of assassination. Nor, it was said, had the
speculations of this odious school of sophists been barren of
results. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the murder of the
first William of Orange, the murder of Henry the Third of France,
the numerous conspiracies which had been formed against the life
of Elizabeth, and, above all, the gunpowder treason, were
constantly cited as instances of the close connection between
vicious theory and vicious practice. It was alleged that every
one of these crimes had been prompted or applauded by Roman
Catholic divines. The letters which Everard Digby wrote in lemon
juice from the Tower to his wife had recently been published, and
were often quoted. He was a scholar and a gentleman, upright in
all ordinary dealings, and strongly impressed with a sense of
duty to God. Yet he had been deeply concerned in the plot for
blowing up King, Lords, and Commons, and had, on the brink of
eternity, declared that it was incomprehensible to him how any
Roman Catholic should think such a design sinful. The inference
popularly drawn from these things was that, however fair the
general character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of
fraud or cruelty of which he was not capable when the safety and
honour of his Church were at stake.

The extraordinary success of the fables of Oates is to be chiefly
ascribed to the prevalence of this opinion. It was to no purpose
that the accused Roman Catholic appealed to the integrity,
humanity, and loyalty which he had shown through the whole course
of his life. It was to no purpose that he called crowds of
respectable witnesses, of his own persuasion, to contradict
monstrous romances invented by the most infamous of mankind. It
was to no purpose that, with the halter round his neck, he
invoked on himself the whole vengeance of the God before whom, in
a few moments, he must appear, if he had been guilty of
meditating any ill to his prince or to his Protestant fellow
countrymen. The evidence which he produced in his favour proved
only how little Popish oaths were worth. His very virtues raised
a presumption of his guilt. That he had before him death and
judgment in immediate prospect only made it more likely that he
would deny what, without injury to the holiest of causes, he
could not confess. Among the unhappy men who were convicted of
the murder of Godfrey was one Protestant of no high character,
Henry Berry. It is a remarkable and well attested circumstance,
that Berry's last words did more to shake the credit of the plot
than the dying declarations of all the pious and honourable Roman
Catholics who underwent the same fate.6

It was not only by the ignorant populace, it was not only by
zealots in whom fanaticism had extinguished all reason and
charity, that the Roman Catholic was regarded as a man the very
tenderness of whose conscience might make him a false witness, an
incendiary, or a murderer, as a man who, where his Church was
concerned, shrank from no atrocity and could be bound by no oath.
If there were in that age two persons inclined by their judgment
and by their temper to toleration, those persons were Tillotson
and Locke. Yet Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of
schismatics and heretics brought on him the reproach of
heterodoxy, told the House of Commons from the pulpit that it was
their duty to make effectual provision against the propagation of
a religion more mischievous than irreligion itself, of a religion
which demanded from its followers services directly opposed to
the first principles of morality. His temper, he truly said, was
prone to lenity; but his duty to he community forced him to be,
in this one instance, severe. He declared that, in his judgment,
Pagans who had never heard the name of Christ, and who were
guided only by the light of nature, were more trustworthy members
of civil society than men who had been formed in the schools of
the Popish casuists.7 Locke, in the celebrated treatise in which
he laboured to show that even the grossest forms of idolatry
ought not to be prohibited under penal sanctions, contended that
the Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics had
no claim to toleration.8

It is evident that, in such circumstances, the greatest service
which an English Roman Catholic could render to his brethren in
the faith was to convince the public that, whatever some rash men
might, in times of violent excitement, have written or done, his
Church did not hold that any end could sanctify means
inconsistent with morality. And this great service it was in the
power of James to render. He was King. He was more powerful than
any English King had been within the memory of the oldest man. It
depended on him whether the reproach which lay on his religion
should be taken away or should be made permanent.

Had he conformed to the laws, had be fulfilled his promises, had
he abstained from employing any unrighteous methods for the
propagation of his own theological tenets, had he suspended the
operation of the penal statutes by a large exercise of his
unquestionable prerogative of mercy, but, at the same time,
carefully abstained from violating the civil or ecclesiastical
constitution of the realm, the feeling of his people must have
undergone a rapid change. So conspicuous an example of good faith
punctiliously observed by a Popish prince towards a Protestant
nation would have quieted the public apprehensions. Men who saw
that a Roman Catholic might safely be suffered to direct the
whole executive administration, to command the army and navy, to
convoke and dissolve the legislature, to appoint the Bishops and
Deans of the Church of England, would soon have ceased to fear
that any great evil would arise from allowing a Roman Catholic to
be captain of a company or alderman of a borough. It is probable
that, in a few years, the sect so long detested by the nation
would, with general applause, have been admitted to office and to
Parliament.

If, on the other hand, James should attempt to promote the
interest of his Church by violating the fundamental laws of his
kingdom and the solemn promises which he had repeatedly made in
the face of the whole world, it could hardly be doubted that the
charges which it had been the fashion to bring against the Roman
Catholic religion would be considered by all Protestants as fully
established. For, if ever a Roman Catholic could be expected to
keep faith with heretics, James might have been expected to keep
faith with the Anglican clergy. To them he owed his crown. But
for their strenuous opposition to the Exclusion Bill he would
have been a banished man. He had repeatedly and emphatically
acknowledged his obligation to them, and had vowed to maintain
them in all their legal rights. If he could not be bound by ties
like these, it must be evident that, where his superstition was
concerned, no tie of gratitude or of honour could bind him. To
trust him would thenceforth be impossible; and, if his people
could not trust him, what member of his Church could they trust?
He was not supposed to be constitutionally or habitually
treacherous. To his blunt manner, and to his want of
consideration for the feelings of others, he owed a much higher
reputation for sincerity than he at all deserved. His eulogists
affected to call him James the Just. If then it should appear
that, in turning Papist, he had also turned dissembler and
promisebreaker, what conclusion was likely to be drawn by a
nation already disposed to believe that Popery had a pernicious
influence on the moral character?

On these grounds many of the most eminent Roman Catholics of that
age, and among them the Supreme Pontiff, were of opinion that the
interest of their Church in our island would be most effectually
promoted by a moderate and constitutional policy. But such
reasoning had no effect on the slow understanding and imperious
temper of James. In his eagerness to remove the disabilities
under which the professors of his religion lay, he took a course
which convinced the most enlightened and tolerant Protestants of
his time that those disabilities were essential to the safety of
the state. To his policy the English Roman Catholics owed three
years of lawless and insolent triumph, and a hundred and forty
years of subjection and degradation.

Many members of his Church held commissions in the newly raised
regiments. This breach of the law for a time passed uncensured:
for men were not disposed to note every irregularity which was
committed by a King suddenly called upon to defend his crown and
his life against rebels. But the danger was now over. The
insurgents had been vanquished and punished. Their unsuccessful
attempt had strengthened the government which they had hoped to
overthrow. Yet still James continued to grant commissions to
unqualified persons; and speedily it was announced that he was
determined to be no longer bound by the Test Act, that he hoped
to induce the Parliament to repeal that Act, but that, if the
Parliament proved refractory, he would not the less have his own
way.

As soon as this was known, a deep murmur, the forerunner of a
tempest, gave him warning that the spirit before which his
grandfather, his father, and his brother had been compelled to
recede, though dormant, was not extinct. Opposition appeared
first in the cabinet. Halifax did not attempt to conceal his
disgust and alarm. At the Council board he courageously gave
utterance to those feelings which, as it soon appeared, pervaded
the whole nation. None of his colleagues seconded him; and the
subject dropped. He was summoned to the royal closet, and had two
long conferences with his master. James tried the effect of
compliments and blandishments, but to no purpose. Halifax
positively refused to promise that he would give his vote in the
House of Lords for the repeal either of the Test Act or of the
Habeas Corpus Act.

Some of those who were about the King advised him not, on the eve
of the meeting of Parliament, to drive the most eloquent and
accomplished statesman of the age into opposition. They
represented that Halifax loved the dignity and emoluments of
office, that, while he continued to be Lord President, it would
be hardly possible for him to put forth his whole strength
against the government, and that to dismiss him from his high
post was to emancipate him from all restraint. The King was
peremptory. Halifax was informed that his services were no longer
needed; and his name was struck out of the Council-Book.9

His dismission produced a great sensation not only in England,
but also at Paris, at Vienna, and at the Hague: for it was well
known, that he had always laboured to counteract the influence
exercised by the court of Versailles on English affairs. Lewis
expressed great pleasure at the news. The ministers of the United
Provinces and of the House of Austria, on the other hand,
extolled the wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a
manner which gave great offence at Whitehall. James was
particularly angry with the secretary of the imperial legation,
who did not scruple to say that the eminent service which Halifax
had performed in the debate on the Exclusion Bill had been
requited with gross ingratitude.10

It soon became clear that Halifax would have many followers. A
portion of the Tories, with their old leader, Danby, at their
head, began to hold Whiggish language. Even the prelates hinted
that there was a point at which the loyalty due to the prince
must yield to higher considerations. The discontent of the chiefs
of the army was still more extraordinary and still more
formidable. Already began to appear the first symptoms of that
feeling which, three years later, impelled so many officers of
high rank to desert the royal standard. Men who had never before
had a scruple had on a sudden become strangely scrupulous.
Churchill gently whispered that the King was going too far.
Kirke, just returned from his western butchery, swore to stand by
the Protestant religion. Even if he abjured the faith in which he
had been bred, he would never, he said, become a Papist. He was
already bespoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a
solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco to turn Mussulman.11

While the nation, agitated by many strong emotions, looked
anxiously forward to the reassembling of the Houses, tidings,
which increased the prevailing excitement, arrived from France.

The long and heroic struggle which the Huguenots had maintained
against the French government had been brought to a final close
by the ability and vigour of Richelieu. That great statesman
vanquished them; but he confirmed to them the liberty of
conscience which had been bestowed on them by the edict of
Nantes. They were suffered, under some restraints of no galling
kind, to worship God according to their own ritual, and to write
in defence of their own doctrine. They were admissible to
political and military employment; nor did their heresy, during a
considerable time, practically impede their rise in the world.
Some of them commanded the armies of the state; and others
presided over important departments of the civil administration.
At length a change took place. Lewis the Fourteenth had, from an
early age, regarded the Calvinists with an aversion at once
religious and political. As a zealous Roman Catholic, he detested
their theological dogmas. As a prince fond of arbitrary power, he
detested those republican theories which were intermingled with
the Genevese divinity. He gradually retrenched all the privileges
which the schismatics enjoyed. He interfered with the education
of Protestant children, confiscated property bequeathed to
Protestant consistories, and on frivolous pretexts shut up
Protestant churches. The Protestant ministers were harassed by
the tax gatherers. The Protestant magistrates were deprived of
the honour of nobility. The Protestant officers of the royal
household were informed that His Majesty dispensed with their
services. Orders were given that no Protestant should be admitted
into the legal profession. The oppressed sect showed some faint
signs of that spirit which in the preceding century had bidden
defiance to the whole power of the House of Valois. Massacres and
executions followed. Dragoons were quartered in the towns where
the heretics were numerous, and in the country seats of the
heretic gentry; and the cruelty and licentiousness of these rude
missionaries was sanctioned or leniently censured by the
government. Still, however, the edict of Nantes, though
practically violated in its most essential provisions, had not
been formally rescinded; and the King repeatedly declared in
solemn public acts that he was resolved to maintain it. But the
bigots and flatterers who had his ear gave him advice which he
was but too willing to take. They represented to him that his
rigorous policy had been eminently successful, that little or no
resistance had been made to his will, that thousands of Huguenots
had already been converted, that, if he would take the one
decisive step which yet remained, those who were still obstinate
would speedily submit, France would be purged from the taint of
heresy, and her prince would have earned a heavenly crown not
less glorious than that of Saint Lewis. These arguments
prevailed. The final blow was struck. The edict of Nantes was
revoked; and a crowd of decrees against the sectaries appeared in
rapid succession. Boys and girls were torn from their parents and
sent to be educated in convents. All Calvinistic ministers were
commanded either to abjure their religion or to quit their
country within a fortnight. The other professors of the reformed
faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in order to
prevent them from making their escape, the outports and frontiers
were strictly guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus
separated from the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true
fold. But in spite of all the vigilance of the military police
there was a vast emigration. It was calculated that, in a few
months, fifty thousand families quitted France for ever. Nor were
the refugees such as a country can well spare. They were
generally persons of intelligent minds, of industrious habits,
and of austere morals. In the list are to be found names eminent
in war, in science, in literature, and in art. Some of the exiles
offered their swords to William of Orange, and distinguished
themselves by the fury with which they fought against their
persecutor. Others avenged themselves with weapons still more
formidable, and, by means of the presses of Holland, England, and
Germany, inflamed, during thirty years, the public mind of Europe
against the French government. A more peaceful class erected silk
manufactories in the eastern suburb of London. One detachment of
emigrants taught the Saxons to make the stuffs and hats of which
France had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the first
vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope.12

In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would
have eagerly applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on
heresy. But such was the hatred inspired by the injustice and
haughtiness of Lewis that, when he became a persecutor, the
courts of Spain and Rome took the side of religious liberty, and
loudly reprobated the cruelty of turning a savage and licentious
soldiery loose on an unoffending people.13 One cry of grief and
rage rose from the whole of Protestant Europe. The tidings of the
revocation of the edict of Nantes reached England about a week
before the day to which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was
clear then that the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva was still the
spirit of the Roman Catholic Church. Lewis was not inferior to
James in generosity and humanity, and was certainly far superior
to James in all the abilities and acquirements of a statesman.
Lewis had, like James, repeatedly promised to respect the
privileges of his Protestant subjects. Yet Lewis was now avowedly
a persecutor of the reformed religion. What reason was there,
then, to doubt that James waited only for an opportunity to
follow the example? He was already forming, in defiance of the
law, a military force officered to a great extent by Roman
Catholics. Was there anything unreasonable in the apprehension
that this force might be employed to do what the French dragoons
had done?

James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects by the conduct
of the court of Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if
it had meant to embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask from
a Protestant legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics.
Nothing, therefore, could be more unwelcome to him than the
intelligence that, in a neighbouring country, toleration had just
been withdrawn by a Roman Catholic government from Protestants.
His vexation was increased by a speech which the Bishop of
Valence, in the name of the Gallican clergy, addressed at this
time to Lewis, the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of England,
the orator said, looked to the most Christian King for support
against a heretical nation. It was remarked that the members of
the House of Commons showed particular anxiety to procure copies
of this harangue, and that it was read by all Englishmen with
indignation and alarm.14 James was desirous to counteract the
impression which these things had made, and was also at that
moment by no means unwilling to let all Europe see that he was
not the slave of France. He therefore declared publicly that he
disapproved of the manner in which the Huguenots had been
treated, granted to the exiles some relief from his privy purse,
and, by letters under his great seal, invited his subjects to
imitate his liberality. In a very few months it became clear that
all this compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajoling his
Parliament, that he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred, and
that he regretted nothing so much as his own inability to do what
Lewis had done.

On the ninth of November the Houses met. The Commons were
summoned to the bar of the Lords; and the King spoke from the
throne. His speech had been composed by himself. He congratulated
his loving subjects on the suppression of the rebellion in the
West: but he added that the speed with which that rebellion had
risen to a formidable height, and the length of time during which
it had continued to rage, must convince all men how little
dependence could be placed on the militia. He had, therefore,
made additions to the regular army. The charge of that army would
henceforth be more than double of what it had been; and he
trusted that the Commons would grant him the means of defraying
the increased expense. He then informed his hearers that he had
employed some officers who had not taken the test; but he knew
them to be fit for public trust. He feared that artful men might
avail themselves of this irregularity to disturb the harmony
which existed between himself and his Parliament. But he would
speak out. He was determined not to part with servants on whose
fidelity he could rely, and whose help he might perhaps soon
need.15

This explicit declaration that he had broken the laws which were
regarded by the nation as the chief safeguards of the established
religion, and that he was resolved to persist in breaking those
laws, was not likely to soothe the excited feelings of his
subjects. The Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in
opposition to a government, consented to vote him formal thanks
for what he had said. But the Commons were in a less complying
mood. When they had returned to their own House there was a long
silence; and the faces of many of the most respectable members
expressed deep concern. At length Middleton rose and moved the
House to go instantly into committee on the King's speech: but
Sir Edmund Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who was
supposed to speak the sentiments of Danby, protested against this
course, and demanded time for consideration. Sir Thomas Clarges,
maternal uncle of the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished
in Parliament as a man of business and a viligant steward of the
public money, took the same side. The feeling of the House could
not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
insisted that the delay should not exceed forty-eight hours; but
he was overruled; and it was resolved that the discussion should
be postponed for three days.16

The interval was well employed by those who took the lead against
the court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three
days a country party was to be organized. The difficulty of the
task is in our age not easily to be appreciated; for in our age
all the nation may be said to assist at every
deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is said by the
leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after midnight is
read by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of
Northumberland and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and
the Highlands of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore,
the stages of legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of
faction, the opinions, temper, and style of every active member
of either House, are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man
who now enters Parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth
century, would have been called a great stock of parliamentary
knowledge. Such knowledge was then to be obtained only by actual
parliamentary service. The difference between an old and a new
member was as great as the difference between a veteran soldier
and a recruit just taken from the plough; and James's Parliament
contained a most unusual proportion of new members, who had
brought from their country seats to Westminster no political
knowledge and many violent prejudices. These gentlemen hated the
Papists, but hated the Whigs not less intensely, and regarded the
King with superstitious veneration. To form an opposition out of
such materials was a feat which required the most skilful and
delicate management. Some men of great weight, however, undertook
the work, and performed it with success. Several experienced Whig
politicians, who had not seats in that Parliament, gave useful
advice and information. On the day preceding that which had been
fixed for the debate, many meetings were held at which the
leaders instructed the novices; and it soon appeared that these
exertions had not been thrown away.17

The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was well
understood that a few days would now decide the great question,
whether the King of England was or was not to be the vassal of
the King of France. The ministers of the House of Austria were
most anxious that James should give satisfaction to his
Parliament. Innocent had sent to London two persons charged to
inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by example. One of
them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been
secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a
rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous,
and taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of
Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand,
Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild
temper and courtly manners, had been appointed Nuncio. These
functionaries were eagerly welcomed by James. No Roman Catholic
Bishop had exercised spiritual functions in the island during
more than half a century. No Nuncio had been received here during
the hundred and twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the
death of Mary. Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, and received a
pension of a thousand pounds a year. Adda did not yet assume a
public character. He passed for a foreigner of rank whom
curiosity had brought to London, appeared daily at court, and was
treated with high consideration. Both the Papal emissaries did
their best to diminish, as much as possible, the odium
inseparable from the offices which they filled, and to restrain
the rash zeal of James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared that
nothing could be more injurious to the interests of the Church of
Rome than a rupture between the King and the Parliament.18

Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he
received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be
studied; for they furnish a key to the policy systematically
pursued by his master towards England during the twenty years
which preceded our revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis
wrote, were alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there that
James would ally himself closely with the House of Austria, as
soon as he should be assured that his Parliament would give him
no trouble. In these circumstances, it was evidently the interest
of France that the Parliament should prove refractory. Barillon
was therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions
against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was to
omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the
kingly pride of James; but at the same time it might be
desirable to have some secret communication with the
malecontents. Such communication would indeed be hazardous and
would require the utmost adroitness; yet it might perhaps be in
the power of the Ambassador, without committing himself or his
government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for the laws
and liberties of England, and to let it be understood that those
laws and liberties were not regarded by his master with an
unfriendly eye.19

Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how
speedily and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by
the obstinacy and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November
the House of Commons, resolved itself into a committee on the
royal speech. The Solicitor General Heneage Finch, was in the
chair. The debate was conducted by the chiefs of the new country
party with rare tact and address. No expression indicating
disrespect to the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels was suffered
to escape. The western insurrection was always mentioned with
abhorrence. Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and
Jeffreys. It was admitted that the heavy expenditure which had
been occasioned by the late troubles justified the King in asking
some further supply: but strong objections were made to the
augmentation of the army and to the infraction of the Test Act.

The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have
carefully avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on
the great superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them
tauntingly asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be
entrusted to the beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad
to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion
before Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household
troops of Lewis. But these arguments had little effect on
Cavaliers who still remembered with bitterness the stern rule of
the Protector. The general feeling was forcibly expressed by the
first of the Tory country gentlemen of England, Edward Seymour.
He admitted that the militia was not in a satisfactory state, but
maintained that it might be remodelled. The remodelling might
require money; but, for his own part, he would rather give a
million to keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear,
than half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever be
afraid. Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be
strengthened; and the country would be secure. A standing army
was at best a mere drain on the public resources. The soldier was
withdrawn from all useful labour. He produced nothing: he
consumed the fruits of the industry of other men; and he
domineered over those by whom he was supported. But the nation
was now threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a
Popish standing army, with a standing army officered by men who
might be very amiable and honourable, but who were on principle
enemies to the constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden,
member for the county of Kent, spoke on the same side with great
keenness and loud applause. Sir Richard Temple, one of the few
Whigs who had a seat in that Parliament, dexterously
accommodating his speech to the temper of his audience, reminded
the House that a standing army had been found, by experience, to
be as dangerous to the just authority of princes as to the
liberty of nations. Sir John Maynard, the most learned lawyer of
his time, took part in the debate. He was now more than eighty
years old, and could well remember the political contests of the
reign of James the First. He had sate in the Long Parliament, and
had taken part with the Roundheads, but had always been for
lenient counsels, and had laboured to bring about a general
reconciliation. His abilities, which age had not impaired, and
his professional knowledge, which had long overawed all
Westminster Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He,
too, declared himself against the augmentation of the regular
forces.

After much debate, it was resolved that a supply should be
granted to the crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should
be brought in for making the militia more efficient. This last
resolution was tantamount to a declaration against the standing
army. The King was greatly displeased; and it was whispered that,
if things went on thus, the session would not be of long
duration.20

On the morrow the contention was renewed. The language of the
country party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the
preceding day. That paragraph of the King's speech which related
to supply preceded the paragraph which related to the test. On
this ground Middleton proposed that the paragraph relating to
supply should be first considered in committee. The opposition
moved the previous question. They contended that the reasonable
and constitutional practice was to grant no money till grievances
had been redressed, and that there would be an end of this
practice if the House thought itself bound servilely to follow
the order in which matters were mentioned by the King from the
throne.

The division was taken on the question whether Middletons motion
should be put. The Noes were ordered by the Speaker to go forth
into the lobby. They resented this much, and complained loudly of
his servility and partiality: for they conceived that, according
to the intricate and subtle rule which was then in force, and
which, in our time, was superseded by a more rational and
convenient practice, they were entitled to keep their seats; and
it was held by all the Parliamentary tacticians of that age that
the party which stayed in the House had an advantage over the
party which went out; for the accommodation on the benches was
then so deficient that no person who had been fortunate enough to
get a good seat was willing to lose it. Nevertheless, to the
dismay of the ministers, many persons on whose votes the court
had absolutely depended were seen moving towards the door. Among
them was Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and son of Sir
Stephen Fox, Clerk of the Green Cloth. The Paymaster had been
induced by his friends to absent himself during part of the
discussion. But his anxiety had become insupportable. He come
down to the Speaker's chamber, heard part of the debate,
withdrew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between
conscience and five thousand pounds a year, took a manly
resolution and rushed into the House just in time to vote. Two
officers of the army, Colonel John Darcy, son of the Lord
Conyers, and Captain James Kendall, withdrew to the lobby.
Middleton went down to the bar and expostulated warmly with them.
He particularly addressed himself to Kendall, a needy retainer of
the court, who had, in obedience to the royal mandate, been sent
to Parliament by a packed corporation in Cornwall, and who had
recently obtained a grant of a hundred head of rebels sentenced
to transportation. "Sir," said Middleton, "have not you a troop
of horse in His Majesty's service?" "Yes, my Lord," answered
Kendall: "but my elder brother is just dead, and has left me
seven hundred a year."

When the tellers had done their office it appeared that the Ayes
were one hundred and eighty-two, and the Noes one and eighty-
three. In that House of Commons which had been brought together
by the unscrupulous use of chicanery, of corruption, and of
violence, in that House of Commons of which James had said that
more than eleven twelfths of the members were such as he would
himself have nominated, the court had sustained a defeat on a
vital question.21

In consequence of this vote the expressions which the King had
used respecting the test were, on the thirteenth of November,
taken into consideration. It was resolved, after much discussion,
that an address should be presented to him, reminding him that he
could not legally continue to employ officers who refused to
qualify, and pressing him to give such directions as might quiet
the apprehensions and jealousies of his people.22

A motion was then made that the Lords should be requested to join
in the address. Whether this motion was honestly made by the
opposition, in the hope that the concurrence of the peers would
add weight to the remonstrance, or artfully made by the
courtiers, in the hope that a breach between the Houses might be
the consequence, it is now impossible to discover. The
proposition was rejected.23

The House then resolved itself into a committee, for the purpose
of considering the amount of supply to be granted. The King
wanted fourteen hundred thousand pounds: but the ministers saw
that it would be vain to ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer mentioned twelve hundred thousand pounds. The
chiefs of the opposition replied that to vote for such a grant
would be to vote for the permanence of the present military
establishment: they were disposed to give only so much as might
suffice to keep the regular troops on foot till the militia could
be remodelled and they therefore proposed four hundred thousand
pounds. The courtiers exclaimed against this motion as unworthy
of the House and disrespectful to the King: but they were
manfully encountered. One of the western members, John Windham,
who sate for Salisbury, especially distinguished himself. He had
always, he said, looked with dread and aversion on standing
armies; and recent experience had strengthened those feelings. He
then ventured to touch on a theme which had hitherto been
studiously avoided. He described the desolation of the western
counties. The people, he said, were weary of the oppression of
the troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still
fouler crimes which the law called felonies, but for which, when
perpetrated by this class of felons, no redress could be
obtained. The King's servants had indeed told the House that
excellent rules had been laid down for the government of the
army; but none could venture to say that these rules had been
observed. What, then, was the inevitable inference? Did not the
contrast between the paternal injunctions issued from the throne
and the insupportable tyranny of the soldiers prove that the army
was even now too strong for the prince as well as for the people?
The Commons might surely, with perfect consistency, while they
reposed entire confidence in the intentions of His Majesty,
refuse to make any addition to a force which it was clear that
His Majesty could not manage.

The motion that the sum to be granted should not exceed four
hundred thousand pounds, was lost by twelve votes. This victory
of the ministers was little better than a defeat. The leaders of
the country party, nothing disheartened, retreated a little, made
another stand, and proposed the sum of seven hundred thousand
pounds. The committee divided again, and the courtiers were
beaten by two hundred and twelve votes to one hundred and
seventy.24

On the following day the Commons went in procession to Whitehall
with their address on the subject of the test. The King received
them on his throne. The address was drawn up in respectful and
affectionate language; for the great majority of those who had
voted for it were zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and
had readily agreed to insert some complimentary phrases, and to
omit every word which the courtiers thought offensive. The answer
of James was a cold and sullen reprimand. He declared himself
greatly displeased and amazed that the Commons should have
profited so little by the admonition which he had given them.
"But," said he, "however you may proceed on your part, I will be
very steady in all the promises which I have made to you."25

The Commons reassembled in their chamber, discontented, yet
somewhat overawed. To most of them the King was still an object
of filial reverence. Three more years filled with injuries, and
with insults more galling than injuries, were scarcely sufficient
to dissolve the ties which bound the Cavalier gentry to the
throne.

The Speaker repeated the substance of the King's reply. There
was, for some time, a solemn stillness; then the order of the day
was read in regular course; and the House went into committee on
the bill for remodelling the militia.

In a few hours, however, the spirit of the opposition revived.
When, at the close of the day, the Speaker resumed the chair,
Wharton, the boldest and most active of the Whigs, proposed that
a time should be appointed for taking His Majesty's answer into
consideration. John Coke, member for Derby, though a noted Tory,
seconded Wharton. "I hope," he said, "that we are all Englishmen,
and that we shall not be frightened from our duty by a few high
words."

It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower,"
resounded from every side. Those who were most lenient proposed
that the offender should be reprimanded: but the ministers
vehemently insisted that he should be sent to prison. The House
might pardon, they said, offences committed against itself, but
had no right to pardon an insult offered to the crown. Coke was
sent to the Tower. The indiscretion of one man had deranged the
whole system of tactics which had been so ably concerted by the
chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that moment,
Edward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted them to
fix a day for discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that the discussion would be conducted with the
respect due from subjects to the sovereign. The members were so
much cowed by the royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the
rudeness of Coke, that it would not have been safe to divide.26

The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that
the spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the
nineteenth of November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The
time had arrived for taking into consideration the petitions
which had been presented from all parts of England against the
late elections. When, on the first meeting of the Parliament,
Seymour had complained of the force and fraud by which the
government had prevented the sense of constituent bodies from
being fairly taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had
then flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, and,
with Sir John Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had,
before the recess, suggested that there ought to be an enquiry
into the abuses which had so much excited the public mind. The
House was now in a much more angry temper; and many voices were
boldly raised in menace and accusation. The ministers were told
that the nation expected, and should have, signal redress.
Meanwhile it was dexterously intimated that the best atonement
which a gentleman who had been brought into the House by
irregular means could make to the public was to use his ill
acquired power in defence of the religion and liberties of his
country. No member who, in that crisis, did his duty had anything
to fear. It might be necessary to unseat him; but the whole
influence of the opposition should be employed to procure his
reelection.27

On the same day it became clear that the spirit of opposition had
spread from the Commons to the Lords, and even to the episcopal
bench. William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took the lead in
the Upper House; and he was well qualified to do so. In wealth
and influence he was second to none of the English nobles; and
the general voice designated him as the finest gentleman of his
time. His magnificence, his taste, his talents, his classical
learning, his high spirit, the grace and urbanity of his manners,
were admitted by his enemies. His eulogists, unhappily, could not
pretend that his morals had escaped untainted from the widespread
contagion of that age. Though an enemy of Popery and of arbitrary
power, he had been averse to extreme courses, had been willing,
when the Exclusion Bill was lost, to agree to a compromise, and
had never been concerned in the illegal and imprudent schemes
which had brought discredit on the Whig party. But, though
regretting part of the conduct of his friends, he had not, on
that account, failed to perform zealously the most arduous and
perilous duties of friendship. He had stood near Russell at the
bar, had parted from him on the sad morning of the execution with
close embraces and with many bitter tears, nay, had offered to
manage an escape at the hazard of his own life.28 This great
nobleman now proposed that a day should be fixed for considering
the royal speech. It was contended, on the other side, that the
Lords, by voting thanks for the speech, had precluded themselves
from complaining of it. But this objection was treated with
contempt by Halifax. "Such thanks," he said with the sarcastic
pleasantry in which he excelled, "imply no approbation. We are
thankful whenever our gracious Sovereign deigns to speak to us.
Especially thankful are we when, as on the present occasion, he
speaks out, and gives us fair warning of what we are to
suffer."29 Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of London, spoke strongly
for the motion. Though not gifted with eminent abilities, nor
deeply versed in the learning of his profession, he was always
heard by the House with respect; for he was one of the few
clergymen who could, in that age, boast of noble blood. His own
loyalty, and the loyalty of his family, had been signally proved.
His father, the second Earl of Northampton, had fought bravely
for King Charles the First, and, surrounded by the parliamentary
soldiers, had fallen, sword in hand, refusing to give or take
quarter. The Bishop himself, before he was ordained, had borne
arms in the Guards; and, though he generally did his best to
preserve the gravity and sobriety befitting a prelate, some
flashes of his military spirit would, to the last, occasionally
break forth. He had been entrusted with the religious education
of the two Princesses, and had acquitted himself of that
important duty in a manner which had satisfied all good
Protestants, and had secured to him considerable influence over
the minds of his pupils, especially of the Lady Anne.30 He now
declared that he was empowered to speak the sense of his
brethren, and that, in their opinion and in his own, the whole
civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was in danger.

One of the most remarkable speeches of that day was made by a
young man, whose eccentric career was destined to amaze Europe.
This was Charles Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, widely renowned,
many years later, as Earl of Peterborough. Already he had given
abundant proofs of his courage, of his capacity, and of that
strange unsoundness of mind which made his courage and capacity
almost useless to his country. Already he had distinguished
himself as a wit and a scholar, as a soldier and a sailor. He had
even set his heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and Bossuet. Though an
avowed freethinker, he had sate up all night at sea to compose
sermons, and had with great difficulty been prevented from
edifying the crew of a man of war with his pious oratory.31 He
now addressed the House of Peers, for the first time, with
characteristic eloquence, sprightliness, and audacity. He blamed
the Commons for not having taken a bolder line. "They have been
afraid," he said, "to speak out. They have talked of
apprehensions and jealousies. What have apprehension and jealousy
to do here? Apprehension and jealousy are the feelings with which
we regard future and uncertain evils. The evil which we are
considering is neither future nor uncertain. A standing army
exists. It is officered by Papists. We have no foreign enemy.
There is no rebellion in the land. For what, then, is this force
maintained, except for the purpose of subverting our laws and
establishing that arbitrary power which is so justly abhorred by
Englishmen?"32

Jeffreys spoke against the motion in the coarse and savage style
of which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite
so easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in
their own hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended
on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man
whose life has been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever
may be his talents and courage, generally makes a mean figure
when he is vigorously assailed,
for, being unaccustomed to stand on the defensive, he becomes
confused; and the knowledge that all those whom he has insulted
are enjoying his confusion confuses him still more. Jeffreys was
now, for the first time since he had become a great man,
encountered on equal terms by adversaries who did not fear him.
To the general delight, he passed at once from the extreme of
insolence to the extreme of meanness, and could not refrain from
weeping with rage and vexation.33 Nothing indeed was wanting to
his humiliation; for the House was crowded by about a hundred
peers, a larger number than had voted even on the great day of
the Exclusion Bill. The King, too, was present. His brother had
been in the habit of attending the sittings of the Lords for
amusement, and used often to say that a debate was as
entertaining as a comedy. James came, not to be diverted, but in
the hope that his presence might impose some restraint on the
discussion. He was disappointed. The sense of the House was so
strongly manifested that, after a closing speech, of great
keenness, from Halifax, the courtiers did not venture to divide.
An early day was fixed for taking the royal speech into
consideration; and it was ordered that every peer who was not at
a distance from Westminster should be in his place.34

On the following morning the King came down, in his robes, to the
House of Lords. The Usher of the Black Rod summoned the Commons
to the bar; and the Chancellor announced that the Parliament was
prorogued to the tenth of February.35 The members who had voted
against the court were dismissed from the public service. Charles
Fox quitted the Pay Office. The Bishop of London ceased to be
Dean of the Chapel Royal, and his name was struck out of the list
of Privy Councillors.

The effect of the prorogation was to put an end to a legal
proceeding of the highest importance. Thomas Grey, Earl of
Stamford, sprung from one of the most illustrious houses of
England, had been recently arrested and committed close prisoner
to the Tower on a charge of high treason. He was accused of
having been concerned in the Rye House Plot. A true bill had been
found against him by the grand jury of the City of London, and
had been removed into the House of Lords, the only court before
which a temporal peer can, during a session of Parliament, be
arraigned for any offence higher than a misdemeanour. The first
of December had been fixed for the trial; and orders had been
given that Westminster Hall should be fitted up with seats and
hangings. In consequence of the prorogation, the hearing of the
cause was postponed for an indefinite period; and Stamford soon
regained his liberty.36

Three other Whigs of great eminence were in confinement when the
session closed, Charles Gerard, Lord Gerard of Brandon, eldest
son of the Earl of Macclesfield, John Hampden, grandson of the
renowned leader of the Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord
Delamere. Gerard and Hampden were accused of having taken part in
the Rye House Plot: Delamere of having abetted the Western
insurrection.

It was not the intention of the government to put either Gerard
or Hampden to death. Grey had stipulated for their lives before
he consented to become a witness against them.37 But there was a
still stronger reason for sparing them. They were heirs to large
property: but their fathers were still living. The court could
therefore get little in the way of forfeiture, and might get much
in the way of ransom. Gerard was tried, and, from the very scanty
accounts which have come down to us, seems to have defended
himself with great spirit and force. He boasted of the exertions
and sacrifices made by his family in the cause of Charles the
First, and proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered Russell by
telling one story and Cornish by telling another, to be utterly
undeserving of credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a
verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to
redeem himself.38 Hampden had inherited the political opinions
and a large share of the abilities of his grandfather, but had
degenerated from the uprightness and the courage by which his
grandfather had been distinguished. It appears that the prisoner
was, with cruel cunning, long kept in an agony of suspense, in
order that his family might be induced to pay largely for mercy.
His spirit sank under the terrors of death. When brought to the
bar of the Old Bailey he not only pleaded guilty, but disgraced
the illustrious name which he bore by abject submissions and
entreaties. He protested that he had not been privy to the design
of assassination; but he owned that he had meditated rebellion,
professed deep repentance for his offence, implored the
intercession of the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal clemency
were extended to him, his whole life should be passed in evincing
his gratitude for such goodness. The Whigs were furious at his
pusillanimity, and loudly declared him to be far more deserving
of blame than Grey, who, even in turning King's evidence, had
preserved a certain decorum. Hampden's life was spared; but his
family paid several thousand pounds to the Chancellor. Some
courtiers of less note succeeded in extorting smaller sums. The
unhappy man had spirit enough to feel keenly the degradation to
which he had stooped. He survived the day of his ignominy several
years. He lived to see his party triumphant, to be once more an
important member of it, to rise high in the state, and to make
his persecutors tremble in their turn. But his prosperity was
embittered by one insupportable recollection. He never regained
his cheerfulness, and at length died by his own hand.39

That Delamere, if he had needed the royal mercy, would have found
it is not very probable. It is certain that every advantage which
the letter of the law gave to the government was used against him
without scruple or shame. He was in a different situation from
that in which Stamford stood. The indictment against Stamford had
been removed into the House of Lords during the session of
Parliament, and therefore could not be prosecuted till the
Parliament should reassemble. All the peers would then have
voices, and would be judges as well of law as of fact. But the
bill against Delamere was not found till after the prorogation.40
He was therefore within the jurisdiction of the Court of the Lord High Steward.
This court, to which belongs, during a recess of
Parliament, the cognizance of treasons and felonies committed by
temporal peers, was then so constituted that no prisoner charged
with a political offence could expect an impartial trial. The
King named a Lord High Steward. The Lord High Steward named, at
his discretion, certain peers to sit on their accused brother.
The number to be summoned was indefinite. No challenge was
allowed. A simple majority, provided that it consisted of twelve,
was sufficient to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of the
law; and the Lords Triers formed merely a jury to pronounce on
the question of fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He
selected thirty Triers; and the selection was characteristic of
the man and of the times. All the thirty were in politics
vehemently opposed to the prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels
of regiments, and might be removed from their lucrative commands
at the pleasure of the King. Among the remaining fifteen were the
Lord Treasurer, the principal Secretary of State, the Steward of
the Household, the Comptroller of the Household, the Captain of
the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen's Chamberlain, and
other persons who were bound by strong ties of interest to the
court. Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages over the
humbler culprits who had been arraigned at the Old Bailey. There
the jurymen, violent partisans, taken for a single day by courtly
Sheriffs from the mass of society and speedily sent back to
mingle with that mass, were under no restraint of shame, and
being little accustomed to weigh evidence, followed without
scruple the directions of the bench. But in the High Steward's
Court every Trier was a man of some experience in grave affairs.
Every Trier filled a considerable space in the public eye. Every
Trier, beginning from the lowest, had to rise separately and to
give in his verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse.
That verdict, accompanied with his name, would go to every part
of the world, and would live in history. Moreover, though the
selected nobles were all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of
them had begun to look with uneasiness on the King's proceedings,
and to doubt whether the case of Delamere might not soon be their
own.

Jeffreys conducted himself, as was his wont, insolently and
unjustly. He had indeed an old grudge to stimulate his zeal. He
had been Chief Justice of Chester when Delamere, then Mr. Booth,
represented that county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly
complained to the Commons that the dearest interests of his
constituents were intrusted to a drunken jackpudding.41 The
revengeful judge was now not ashamed to resort to artifices which
even in an advocate would have been culpable. He reminded the
Lords Triers, in very significant language, that Delamere had, in
Parliament, objected to the bill for attainting Monmouth, a fact
which was not, and could not be, in evidence. But it was not in
the power of Jeffreys to overawe a synod of peers as he had been
in the habit of overawing common juries. The evidence for the
crown would probably have been thought amply sufficient on the
Western Circuit or at the City Sessions, but could not for a
moment impose on such men as Rochester, Godolphin, and Churchill;
nor were they, with all their faults, depraved enough to condemn
a fellow creature to death against the plainest rules of justice.
Grey, Wade, and Goodenough were produced, but could only repeat
what they had heard said by Monmouth and by Wildman's emissaries.
The principal witness for the prosecution, a miscreant named
Saxton, who had been concerned in the rebellion, and was now
labouring to earn his pardon by swearing against all who were
obnoxious to the government, who proved by overwhelming evidence
to have told a series of falsehoods. All the Triers, from
Churchill who, as junior baron, spoke first, up to the Treasurer,
pronounced, on their honour, that Delamere was not guilty. The
gravity and pomp of the whole proceeding made a deep impression
even on the Nuncio, accustomed as he was to the ceremonies of
Rome, ceremonies which, in solemnity and splendour, exceed all
that the rest of the world can show.42 The King, who was present,
and was unable to complain of a decision evidently just, went
into a rage with Saxton, and vowed that the wretch should first
be pilloried before Westminster Hall for perjury, and then sent
down to the West to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for
treason.43

The public joy at the acquittal of Delamere was great. The reign
of terror was over. The innocent began to breathe freely, and
false accusers to tremble. One letter written on this occasion is
scarcely to be read without tears. The widow of Russell, in her
retirement, learned the good news with mingled feelings. "I do
bless God," she wrote, "that he has caused some stop to be put to
the shedding of blood in this poor land. Yet when I should
rejoice with them that do rejoice, I seek a corner to weep in. I
find I am capable of no more gladness; but every new
circumstance, the very comparing my night of sorrow after such a
day, with theirs of joy, does, from a reflection of one kind or
another, rack my uneasy mind. Though I am far from wishing the
close of theirs like mine, yet I cannot refrain giving some time
to lament mine was not like theirs."44

And now the tide was on the turn. The death of Stafford,
witnessed with signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to
whose rage he was sacrificed, marks the close of one
proscription. The acquittal of Delamere marks the close of
another. The crimes which had disgraced the stormy tribuneship of
Shaftesbury had been fearfully expiated. The blood of innocent
Papists had been avenged more than tenfold by the blood of
zealous Protestants. Another great reaction had commenced.
Factions were fast taking new forms. Old allies were separating.
Old enemies were uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through
all the ranks of the party lately dominant. A hope, still indeed
faint and indefinite, of victory and revenge, animated the party
which had lately seemed to be extinct. Amidst such circumstances
the eventful and troubled year 1685 terminated, and the year 1686
began.

The prorogation had relieved the King from the gentle
remonstrances of the Houses: but he had still to listen to
remonstrances, similar in effect, though uttered in a tone even
more cautious and subdued. Some men who had hitherto served him
but too strenuously for their own fame and for the public welfare
had begun to feel painful misgivings, and occasionally ventured
to hint a small part of what they felt.

During many years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary
monarchy and his zeal for the established religion had grown up
together and had strengthened each other. It had never occurred
to him that the two sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even
identical, might one day be found to be not only distinct but
incompatible. From the commencement of the strife between the
Stuarts and the Commons, the cause of the crown and the cause of
the hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one. Charles the First
was regarded by the Church as her martyr. If Charles the Second
had plotted against her, he had plotted in secret. In public he
had ever professed himself her grateful and devoted son, had
knelt at her altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had
succeeded in persuading the great body of her adherents that he
felt a sincere preference for her. Whatever conflicts, therefore,
the honest Cavalier might have had to maintain against Whigs and
Roundheads he had at least been hitherto undisturbed by conflict
in his own mind. He had seen the path of duty plain before him.
Through good and evil he was to be true to Church and King. But,
if those two august and venerable powers, which had hitherto
seemed to be so closely connected that those who were true to one
could not be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly
enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take? What
situation could be more trying than that in which he would be
placed, distracted between two duties equally sacred, between two
affections equally ardent? How was he to give to Caesar all that
was Caesar's, and yet to withhold from God no part of what was
God's? None who felt thus could have watched, without deep
concern and gloomy forebodings, the dispute between the King and
the Parliament on the subject of the test. If James could even
now be induced to reconsider his course, to let the Houses
reassemble, and to comply with their wishes, all might yet be
well.

Such were the sentiments of the King's two kinsmen, the Earls of
Clarendon and Rochester. The power and favour of these noblemen
seemed to be great indeed. The younger brother was Lord Treasurer
and prime minister; and the elder, after holding the Privy Seal
during some months, had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. The venerable Ormond took the same side. Middleton and
Preston, who, as managers of the House of Commons, had recently
learned by proof how dear the established religion was to the
loyal gentry of England, were also for moderate counsels.

At the very beginning of the new year these statesmen and the
great party which they represented had to suffer a cruel
mortification. That the late King had been at heart a Roman
Catholic had been, during some months, suspected and whispered,
but not formally announced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be
made without great scandal. Charles had, times without number,
declared himself a Protestant, and had been in the habit of
receiving the Eucharist from the Bishops of the Established
Church. Those Protestants who had stood by him in his
difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance
of him, must be filled with shame and indignation by learning
that his whole life had been a lie, that, while he professed to
belong to their communion, he had really regarded them as
heretics, and that the demagogues who had represented him as a
concealed Papist had been the only people who had formed a
correct judgment of his character. Even Lewis understood enough
of the state of public feeling in England to be aware that the
divulging of the truth might do harm, and had, of his own accord,
promised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret.45
James, while his power was still new, had thought that on this
point it was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to
inter his brother with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a
time, therefore, every man was at liberty to believe what he
wished. The Papists claimed the deceased prince as their
proselyte. The Whigs execrated him as a hypocrite and a renegade.
The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy as a calumny which
Papists and Whigs had, for very different reasons, a common
interest in circulating. James now took a step which greatly
disconcerted the whole Anglican party. Two papers, in which were
set forth very concisely the arguments ordinarily used by Roman
Catholics in controversy with Protestants, had been found in
Charles's strong box, and appeared to be in his handwriting.
These papers James showed triumphantly to several Protestants,
and declared that, to his knowledge, his brother had lived and
died a Roman Catholic.46 One of the persons to whom the
manuscripts were exhibited was Archbishop Sancroft. He read them
with much emotion, and remained silent. Such silence was only the
natural effect of a struggle between respect and vexation. But
James supposed that the Primate was struck dumb by the
irresistible force of reason, and eagerly challenged his Grace to
produce, with the help of the whole episcopal bench, a
satisfactory reply. "Let me have a solid answer, and in a
gentlemanlike style; and it may have the effect which you so much
desire of bringing me over to your Church." The Archbishop
mildly said that, in his opinion, such an answer might, without
much difficulty, be written, but declined the controversy on the
plea of reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This
plea the King considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished
disputant.47 Had he been well acquainted with the polemical
literature of the preceding century and a half, he would have
known that the documents to which he attached so much value might
have been composed by any lad of fifteen in the college of Douay,
and contained nothing which had not, in the opinion of all
Protestant divines, been ten thousand times refuted. In his
ignorant exultation he ordered these tracts to be printed with
the utmost pomp of typography, and appended to them a declaration
attested by his sign manual, and certifying that the originals
were in his brother's own hand. James himself distributed the
whole edition among his courtiers and among the people of humbler
rank who crowded round his coach. He gave one copy to a young
woman of mean condition whom he supposed to be of his own
religious persuasion, and assured her that she would be greatly
edified and comforted by the perusal. In requital of his kindness
she delivered to him, a few days later, an epistle adjuring him
to come out of the mystical Babylon and to dash from his lips the
cup of fornications.48

These things gave great uneasiness to Tory churchmen. Nor were
the most respectable Roman Catholic noblemen much better pleased.
They might indeed have been excused if passion had, at this
conjuncture, made them deaf to the voice of prudence and justice:
for they had suffered much. Protestant jealousy had degraded them
from the rank to which they were born, had closed the doors of
the Parliament House on the heirs of barons who had signed the
Charter, had pronounced the command of a company of foot too high
a trust for the descendants of the generals who had conquered at
Flodden and Saint Quentin. There was scarcely one eminent peer
attached to the old faith whose honour, whose estate, whose life
had not been in jeopardy, who had not passed months in the Tower,
who had not often anticipated for himself the fate of Stafford.
Men who had been so long and cruelly oppressed might have been
pardoned if they had eagerly seized the first opportunity of
obtaining at once greatness and revenge. But neither fanaticism
nor ambition, neither resentment for past wrongs nor the
intoxication produced by sudden good fortune, could prevent the
most eminent Roman Catholics from perceiving that the prosperity
which they at length enjoyed was only temporary, and, unless
wisely used, might be fatal to them. They had been taught, by a
cruel experience, that the antipathy of the nation to their
religion was not a fancy which would yield to the mandate of a
prince, but a profound sentiment, the growth of five generations,
diffused through all ranks and parties, and intertwined not less
closely with the principles of the Tory than with the principles
of the Whig. It was indeed in the power of the King, by the
exercise of his prerogative of mercy, to suspend the operation of
the penal laws. It might hereafter be in his power, by discreet
management, to obtain from the Parliament a repeal of the acts
which imposed civil disabilities on those who professed his
religion. But, if he attempted to subdue the Protestant feeling
of England by rude means, it was easy to see that the violent
compression of so powerful and elastic a spring would be followed
by as violent a recoil. The Roman Catholic peers, by prematurely
attempting to force their way into the Privy Council and the
House of Lords, might lose their mansions and their ample
estates, and might end their lives as traitors on Tower Hill, or
as beggars at the porches of Italian convents.

Such was the feeling of William Herbert, Earl of Powis, who was
generally regarded as the chief of the Roman Catholic
aristocracy, and who, according to Oates, was to have been prime
minister if the Popish plot had succeeded. John Lord Bellasyse
took the same view of the state of affairs. In his youth he had
fought gallantly for Charles the First, had been rewarded after
the Restoration with high honours and commands, and had quitted
them when the Test Act was passed. With these distinguished
leaders all the noblest and most opulent members of their church
concurred, except Lord Arundell of Wardour, an old man fast
sinking into second childhood.

But there was at the court a small knot of Roman Catholics whose
hearts had been ulcerated by old injuries, whose heads had been
turned by recent elevation, who were impatient to climb to the
highest honours of the state, and who, having little to lose,
were not troubled by thoughts of the day of reckoning. One of
these was Roger Palmer, Earl of Castelmaine in Ireland, and
husband of the Duchess of Cleveland. His title had notoriously
been purchased by his wife's dishonour and his own. His fortune
was small. His temper, naturally ungentle, had been exasperated
by his domestic vexations, by the public reproaches, and by what
he had undergone in the days of the Popish plot. He had been long
a prisoner, and had at length been tried for his life. Happily
for him, he was not put to the bar till the first burst of
popular rage had spent itself, and till the credit of the false
witnesses had been blown upon. He had therefore escaped, though
very narrowly.49 With Castelmaine was allied one of the most
favoured of his wife's hundred lovers, Henry Jermyn, whom James
had lately created a peer by the title of Lord Dover. Jermyn had
been distinguished more than twenty years before by his vagrant
amours and his desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, and
was eager to retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of lucrative
posts from which the laws excluded him.50 To the same party
belonged an intriguing pushing Irishman named White, who had been
much abroad, who had served the House of Austria as something
between an envoy and a spy, and who had been rewarded for his
services with the title of Marquess of Albeville.51

Soon after the prorogation this reckless faction was strengthened
by an important reinforcement. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel,
the fiercest and most uncompromising of all those who hated the
liberties and religion of England, arrived at court from Dublin.

Talbot was descended from an old Norman family which had been
long settled in Leinster, which had there sunk into degeneracy,
which had adopted the manners of the Celts, which had, like the
Celts, adhered to the old religion, and which had taken part with
the Celts in the rebellion of 1641. In his youth he had been one
of the most noted sharpers and bullies of London. He had been
introduced to Charles and James when they were exiles in
Flanders, as a man fit and ready for the infamous service of
assassinating the Protector. Soon after the Restoration, Talbot
attempted to obtain the favour of the royal family by a service
more infamous still. A plea was wanted which might justify the
Duke of York in breaking that promise of marriage by which he had
obtained from Anne Hyde the last proof of female affection. Such
a plea Talbot, in concert with some of his dissolute companions,
undertook to furnish. They agreed to describe the poor young lady
as a creature without virtue, shame, or delicacy, and made up
long romances about tender interviews and stolen favours. Talbot
in particular related how, in one of his secret visits to her, he
had unluckily overturned the Chancellor's inkstand upon a pile of
papers, and how cleverly she had averted a discovery by laying
the blame of the accident on her monkey. These stories, which, if
they had been true, would never have passed the lips of any but
the basest of mankind, were pure inventions. Talbot was soon
forced to own that they were so; and he owned it without a blush.
The injured lady became Duchess of York. Had her husband been a
man really upright and honourable, he would have driven from his
presence with indignation and contempt the wretches who had
slandered her. But one of the peculiarities of James's character
was that no act, however wicked and shameful, which had been
prompted by a desire to gain his favour, ever seemed to him
deserving of disapprobation. Talbot continued to frequent the
court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose
ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of
chief pandar to her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown
into confusion by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly
called, had laid a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo
was sent to the Tower: but in a few days he was again swaggering
about the galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward
between his patron and the ugliest maids of honour. It was in
vain that old and discreet counsellors implored the royal
brothers not to countenance this bad man, who had nothing to
recommend him except his fine person and his taste in dress.
Talbot was not only welcome at the palace when the bottle or the
dicebox was going round, but was heard with attention on matters
of business. He affected the character of an Irish patriot, and
pleaded, with great audacity, and sometimes with success, the
cause of his countrymen whose estates had been confiscated. He
took care, however, to be well paid for his services, and
succeeded in acquiring, partly by the sale of his influence,
partly by gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three
thousand pounds a year. For under an outward show of levity,
profusion, improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was in truth
one of the most mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no
longer young, and was expiating by severe sufferings the
dissoluteness of his youth: but age and disease had made no
essential change in his character and manners. He still, whenever
he opened his mouth, ranted, cursed and swore with such frantic
violence that superficial observers set him down for the wildest
of libertines. The multitude was unable to conceive that a man
who, even when sober, was more furious and boastful than others
when they were drunk, and who seemed utterly incapable of
disguising any emotion or keeping any secret, could really be a
coldhearted, farsighted, scheming sycophant. Yet such a man was
Talbot. In truth his hypocrisy was of a far higher and rarer sort
than the hypocrisy which had flourished in Barebone's Parliament.
For the consummate hypocrite is not he who conceals vice behind
the semblance of virtue, but he who makes the vice which he has
no objection to show a stalking horse to cover darker and more
profitable vice which it is for his interest to hide.

Talbot, raised by James to the earldom of Tyrconnel, had
commanded the troops in Ireland during the nine months which
elapsed between the death of Charles and the commencement of the
viceroyalty of Clarendon. When the new Lord Lieutenant was about
to leave London for Dublin, the General was summoned from Dublin
to London. Dick Talbot had long been well known on the road which
he had now to travel. Between Chester and the capital there was
not an inn where he had not been in a brawl. Wherever he came he
pressed horses in defiance of law, swore at the cooks and
postilions, and almost raised mobs by his insolent rodomontades.
The Reformation, he told the people, had ruined everything. But
fine times were coming. The Catholics would soon be uppermost.
The heretics should pay for all. Raving and blaspheming
incessantly, like a demoniac, he came to the court.52 As soon as
he was there, he allied himself closely with Castelmaine, Dover,
and Albeville. These men called with one voice for war on the
constitution of the Church and the State. They told their master
that he owed it to his religion and to the dignity of his crown
to stand firm against the outcry of heretical demagogues, and to
let the Parliament see from the first that he would be master in
spite of opposition, and that the only effect of opposition would
be to make him a hard master.

Each of the two parties into which the court was divided had
zealous foreign allies. The ministers of Spain, of the Empire,
and of the States General were now as anxious to support
Rochester as they had formerly been to support Halifax. All the
influence of Barillon was employed on the other side; and
Barillon was assisted by another French agent, inferior to him in
station, but far superior in abilities, Bonrepaux. Barillon was
not without parts, and possessed in large measure the graces and
accomplishments which then distinguished the French gentry. But
his capacity was scarcely equal to what his great place required.
He had become sluggish and self indulgent, liked the pleasures of
society and of the table better than business, and on great
emergencies generally waited for admonitions and even for
reprimands from Versailles before he showed much activity.53
Bonrepaux had raised himself from obscurity by the intelligence
and industry which he had exhibited as a clerk in the department
of the marine, and was esteemed an adept in the mystery of
mercantile politics. At the close of the year 1685, he was sent
to London, charged with several special commissions of high
importance. He was to lay the ground for a treaty of commerce; he
was to ascertain and report the state of the English fleets and
dockyards; and he was to make some overtures to the Huguenot
refugees, who, it was supposed, had been so effectually tamed by
penury and exile, that they would thankfully accept almost any
terms of reconciliation. The new Envoy's origin was plebeian, his
stature was dwarfish, his countenance was ludicrously ugly, and
his accent was that of his native Gascony: but his strong sense,
his keen penetration, and his lively wit eminently qualified him
for his post. In spite of every disadvantage of birth and figure
he was soon known as a most pleasing companion and as a most
skilful diplomatist. He contrived, while flirting with the
Duchess of Mazarin, discussing literary questions with Waller and
Saint Evremond, and corresponding with La Fontaine, to acquire a
considerable knowledge of English politics. His skill in maritime
affairs recommended him to James, who had, during many years,
paid close attention to the business of the Admiralty, and
understood that business as well as he was capable of
understanding anything. They conversed every day long and freely
about the state of the shipping and the dock-yards. The result of
this intimacy was, as might have been expected, that the keen and
vigilant Frenchman conceived a great contempt for the King's
abilities and character. The world, he said, had much overrated
His Britannic Majesty, who had less capacity than Charles, and
not more virtues.54

The two envoys of Lewis, though pursuing one object, very
judiciously took different paths. They made a partition of the
court. Bonrepaux lived chiefly with Rochester and Rochester's
adherents. Barillon's connections were chiefly with the opposite
faction. The consequence was that they sometimes saw the same
event in different points of view. The best account now extant of
the contest which at this time agitated Whitehall is to be found
in their despatches.

As each of the two parties at the Court of James had the support
of foreign princes, so each had also the support of an
ecclesiastical authority to which the King paid great deference.
The Supreme Pontiff was for legal and moderate courses; and his
sentiments were expressed by the Nuncio and by the Vicar
Apostolic.55 On the other side was a body of which the weight
balanced even the weight of the Papacy, the mighty Order of
Jesus.

That at this conjuncture these two great spiritual powers, once,
as it seemed, inseparably allied, should have been opposed to
each other, is a most important and remarkable circumstance.
During a period of little less than a thousand years the regular
clergy had been the chief support of the Holy See. By that See
they had been protected from episcopal interference; and the
protection which they had received had been amply repaid. But for
their exertions it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have
been merely the honorary president of a vast aristocracy of
prelates. It was by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the
Seventh was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian
Caesars and against the secular priesthood. It was by the aid of
the Dominicans and Franciscans that Innocent the Third crushed
the Albigensian sectaries. In the sixteenth century the
Pontificate exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever
before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which
was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite
skill. When the Jesuits came to the rescue of the Papacy, they
found it in extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of
battle turned. Protestantism, which had, during a whole
generation, carried all before it, was stopped in its progress,
and rapidly beaten back from the foot of the Alps to the shores
of the Baltic. Before the Order had existed a hundred years, it
had filled the whole world with memorials of great things done
and suffered for the faith. No religious community could produce
a list of men so variously distinguished: - none had extended its
operations over so vast a space; yet in none had there ever been
such perfect unity of feeling and action. There was no region of
the globe, no walk of speculative or of active life, in which
Jesuits were not to be found. They guided the counsels of Kings.
They deciphered Latin inscriptions. They observed the motions of
Jupiter's satellites. They published whole libraries,
controversy, casuistry, history, treatises on optics, Alcaic
odes, editions of the fathers, madrigals, catechisms, and
lampoons. The liberal education of youth passed almost entirely
into their hands, and was conducted by them with conspicuous
ability. They appear to have discovered the precise point to
which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of
intellectual emancipation. Enmity itself was compelled to own
that, in the art of managing and forming the tender mind, they
had no equals. Meanwhile they assiduously and successfully
cultivated the eloquence of the pulpit. With still greater
assiduity and still greater success they applied themselves to
the ministry of the confessional. Throughout Catholic Europe the
secrets of every government and of almost every family of note
were in their keeping. They glided from one Protestant country to
another under innumerable disguises, as gay Cavaliers, as simple
rustics, as Puritan preachers. They wandered to countries which
neither mercantile avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever
impelled any stranger to explore. They were to be found in the
garb of Mandarins, superintending the observatory at Pekin. They
were to be found, spade in hand, teaching the rudiments of
agriculture to the savages of Paraguay. Yet, whatever might be
their residence, whatever might be their employment, their spirit
was the same, entire devotion to the common cause, implicit
obedience to the central authority. None of them had chosen his
dwelling place or his vocation for himself. Whether the Jesuit
should live under the arctic circle or under the equator, whether
he should pass his life in arranging gems and collating
manuscripts at the Vatican or in persuading naked barbarians in
the southern hemisphere not to eat each other, were matters which
he left with profound submission to the decision of others. If he
was wanted at Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. If
he was wanted at Bagdad, he was toiling through the desert with
the next caravan. If his ministry was needed in some country
where his life was more insecure than that of a wolf, where it
was a crime to harbour him, where the heads and quarters of his
brethren, fixed in the public places, showed him what he had to
expect, he went without remonstrance or hesitation to his doom.
Nor is this heroic spirit yet extinct. When, in our own time, a
new and terrible pestilence passed round the globe, when, in some
great cities, fear had dissolved all the ties which hold society
together, when the secular clergy had deserted their flocks, when
medical succour was not to he purchased by gold, when the
strongest natural affections had yielded to the love of life,
even then the Jesuit was found by the pallet which bishop and
curate, physician and nurse, father and mother, had deserted,
bending over infected lips to catch the faint accents of
confession, and holding up to the last, before the expiring
penitent, the image of the expiring Redeemer.

But with the admirable energy, disinterestedness, and self-
devotion which were characteristic of the Society, great vices
were mingled. It was alleged, and not without foundation, that
the ardent public spirit which made the Jesuit regardless of his
ease, of his liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless
of truth and of mercy; that no means which could promote the
interest of his religion seemed to him unlawful, and that by the
interest of his religion he too often meant the interest of his
Society. It was alleged that, in the most atrocious plots
recorded in history, his agency could be distinctly traced; that,
constant only in attachment to the fraternity to which he
belonged, he was in some countries the most dangerous enemy of
freedom, and in others the most dangerous enemy of order. The
mighty victories which he boasted that he had achieved in the
cause of the Church were, in the judgment of many illustrious
members of that Church, rather apparent than real. He had indeed
laboured with a wonderful show of success to reduce the world
under her laws; but he had done so by relaxing her laws to suit
the temper of the world. Instead of toiling to elevate human
nature to the noble standard fixed by divine precept and example,
he had lowered the standard till it was beneath the average level
of human nature. He gloried in multitudes of converts who had
been baptized in the remote regions of the East: but it was
reported that from some of those converts the facts on which the
whole theology of the Gospel depends had been cunningly
concealed, and that others were permitted to avoid persecution by
bowing down before the images of false gods, while internally
repeating Paters and Ayes. Nor was it only in heathen countries
that such arts were said to be practised. It was not strange that
people of alt ranks, and especially of the highest ranks, crowded
to the confessionals in the Jesuit temples; for from those
confessionals none went discontented away. There the priest was
all things to all men. He showed just so much rigour as might not
drive those who knelt at his spiritual tribunal to the Dominican
or the Franciscan church. If he had to deal with a mind truly
devout, he spoke in the saintly tones of the primitive fathers,
but with that very large part of mankind who have religion enough
to make them uneasy when they do wrong, and not religion enough
to keep them from doing wrong, he followed a very different
system. Since he could not reclaim them from guilt, it was his
business to save them from remorse. He had at his command an
immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded consciences. In the
books of casuistry which had been written by his brethren, and
printed with the approbation of his superiors, were to be found
doctrines consolatory to transgressors of every class. There the
bankrupt was taught how he might, without sin, secrete his goods
from his creditors. The servant was taught how he might, without
sin, run off with his master's plate. The pandar was assured that
a Christian man might innocently earn his living by carrying
letters and messages between married women and their gallants.
The high spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France were
gratified by a decision in favour of duelling. The Italians,
accustomed to darker and baser modes of vengeance, were glad to
learn that they might, without any crime, shoot at their enemies
from behind hedges. To deceit was given a license sufficient to
destroy the whole value of human contracts and of human
testimony. In truth, if society continued to hold together, if
life and property enjoyed any security, it was because common
sense and common humanity restrained men from doing what the
Society of Jesus assured them that they might with a safe
conscience do.

So strangely were good and evil intermixed in the character of
these celebrated brethren; and the intermixture was the secret of
their gigantic power. That power could never have belonged to
mere hypocrites. It could never have belonged to rigid moralists.
It was to be attained only by men sincerely enthusiastic in the
pursuit of a great end, and at the same time unscrupulous as to
the choice of means.

From the first the Jesuits had been bound by a peculiar
allegiance to the Pope. Their mission had been not less to quell
all mutiny within the Church than to repel the hostility of her
avowed enemies. Their doctrine was in the highest degree what has
been called on our side of the Alps Ultramontane, and differed
almost as much from the doctrine of Bossuet as from that of
Luther. They condemned the Gallican liberties, the claim of
oecumenical councils to control the Holy See, and the claim of
Bishops to an independent commission from heaven. Lainez, in the
name of the whole fraternity, proclaimed at Trent, amidst the
applause of the creatures of Pius the Fourth, and the murmurs of
French and Spanish prelates, that the government of the faithful
had been committed by Christ to the Pope alone, that in the Pope
alone all sacerdotal authority was concentrated, and that through
the Pope alone priests and bishops derived whatever divine
authority they possessed.56 During many years the union between
the Supreme Pontiffs and the Order had continued unbroken. Had
that union been still unbroken when James the Second ascended the
English throne, had the influence of the Jesuits as well as the
influence of the Pope been exerted in favour of a moderate and
constitutional policy, it is probable that the great revolution
which in a short time changed the whole state of European affairs
would never have taken place. But, even before the middle of the
seventeenth century, the Society, proud of its services and
confident in its strength, had become impatient of the yoke. A
generation of Jesuits sprang up, who looked for protection and
guidance rather to the court of France than to the court of Rome;
and this disposition was not a little strengthened when Innocent
the Eleventh was raised to the papal throne.

The Jesuits were, at that time, engaged in a war to the death
against an enemy whom they had at first disdained, but whom they
had at length been forced to regard with respect and fear. Just
when their prosperity was at the height, they were braved by a
handful of opponents, who had indeed no influence with the rulers
of this world, but who were strong in religious faith and
intellectual energy. Then followed a long, a strange, a glorious
conflict of genius against power. The Jesuit called cabinets,
tribunals, universities to his aid; and they responded to the
call. Port Royal appealed, not in vain, to the hearts and to the
understandings of millions. The dictators of Christendom found
themselves, on a sudden, in the position of culprits. They were
arraigned on the charge of having systematically debased the
standard of evangelical morality, for the purpose of increasing
their own influence; and the charge was enforced in a manner
which at once arrested the attention of the whole world: for the
chief accuser was Blaise Pascal. His intellectual powers were
such as have rarely been bestowed on any of the children of men;
and the vehemence of the zeal which animated him was but too well
proved by the cruel penances and vigils under which his macerated
frame sank into an early grave. His spirit was the spirit of
Saint Bernard: but the delicacy of his wit, the purity, the
energy, the simplicity of his rhetoric, had never been equalled,
except by the great masters of Attic eloquence. All Europe read
and admired, laughed and wept. The Jesuits attempted to reply:
but their feeble answers were received by the public with shouts
of mockery. They wanted, it is true, no talent or accomplishment
into which men can be drilled by elaborate discipline; but such
discipline, though it may bring out the powers of ordinary minds,
has a tendency to suffocate, rather than to develop, original
genius. It was universally acknowledged that, in the literary
contest, the Jansenists were completely victorious. To the
Jesuits nothing was left but to oppress the sect which they could
not confute. Lewis the Fourteenth was now their chief support.
His conscience had, from boyhood, been in their keeping; and he
had learned from them to abhor Jansenism quite as much as he
abhorred Protestantism, and very much more than he abhorred
Atheism. Innocent the Eleventh, on the other hand, leaned to the
Jansenist opinions. The consequence was, that the Society found
itself in a situation never contemplated by its founder. The
Jesuits were estranged from the Supreme Pontiff; and they were
closely allied with a prince who proclaimed himself the champion
of the Gallican liberties and the enemy of Ultramontane
pretensions. Thus the Order became in England an instrument of
the designs of Lewis, and laboured, with a success which the
Roman Catholics afterwards long and bitterly deplored, to widen
the breach between the King and the Parliament, to thwart the
Nuncio, to undermine the power of the Lord Treasurer, and to
support the most desperate schemes of Tyrconnel.

Thus on one side were the Hydes and the whole body of Tory
churchmen, Powis and all the most respectable noblemen and
gentlemen of the King's own faith, the States General, the House
of Austria, and the Pope. On the other side were a few Roman
Catholic adventurers, of broken fortune and tainted reputation,
backed by France and by the Jesuits.

The chief representative of the Jesuits at Whitehall was an
English brother of the Order, who had, during some time, acted as
Viceprovincial, who had been long regarded by James with peculiar
favour, and who had lately been made Clerk of the Closet. This
man, named Edward Petre, was descended from an honourable family.
His manners were courtly: his speech was flowing and plausible;
but he was weak and vain, covetous and ambitious. Of all the evil
counsellors who had access to the royal ear, he bore, perhaps,
the largest part in the ruin of the House of Stuart.

The obstinate and imperious nature of the King gave great
advantages to those who advised him to be firm, to yield nothing,
and to make himself feared. One state maxim had taken possession
of his small understanding, and was not to be dislodged by
reason. To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending.
His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not
uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to
be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and,
as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it
was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words,
and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all
objections.57 "I will make no concession," he often repeated; "my
father made concessions, and he was beheaded."58 If it were true
that concession had been fatal to Charles the First, a man of
sense would have known that a single experiment is not sufficient
to establish a general rule even in sciences much less
complicated than the science of government; that, since the
beginning of the world, no two political experiments were ever
made of which all the conditions were exactly alike; and that the
only way to learn civil prudence from history is to examine and
compare an immense number of cases. But, if the single instance
on which the King relied proved anything, it proved that he was
in the wrong. There can be little doubt that, if Charles had
frankly made to the Short Parliament, which met in the spring of
1640, but one half of the concessions which he made, a few months
later, to the Long Parliament, he would have lived and died a
powerful King. On the other hand, there can be no doubt whatever
that, if he had refused to make any concession to the Long
Parliament, and had resorted to arms in defence of the ship money
and of the Star Chamber, he would have seen, in the hostile
ranks, Hyde and Falkland side by side with Hollis and Hampden.
But, in truth, he would not have been able to resort to arms; for
nor twenty Cavaliers would have joined his standard. It was to
his large concessions alone that he owed the support of that
great body of noblemen and gentlemen who fought so long and so
gallantly in his cause. But it would have been useless to
represent these things to James.

Another fatal delusion had taken possession of his mind, and was
never dispelled till it had ruined him. He firmly believed that,
do what he might, the members of the Church of England would act
up to their principles. It had, he knew, been proclaimed from ten
thousand pulpits, it had been solemnly declared by the University
of Oxford, that even tyranny as frightful as that of the most
depraved of the Caesars did not justify subjects in resisting the
royal authority; and hence he was weak enough to conclude that
the whole body of Tory gentlemen and clergymen would let him
plunder, oppress, and insult them without lifting an arm against
him. It seems strange that any man should have passed his
fiftieth year without discovering that people sometimes do what
they think wrong: and James had only to look into his own heart
for abundant proof that even a strong sense of religious duty
will not always prevent frail human beings from indulging their
passions in defiance of divine laws, and at the risk of awful
penalties. He must have been conscious that, though he thought
adultery sinful, he was an adulterer: but nothing could convince
him that any man who professed to think rebellion sinful would
ever, in any extremity, be a rebel. The Church of England was, in
his view, a passive victim, which he might, without danger,
outrage and torture at his pleasure; nor did he ever see his
error till the Universities were preparing to coin their plate
for the purpose of supplying the military chest of his enemies,
and till a Bishop, long renowned for loyalty, had thrown aside
his cassock, girt on a sword, and taken the command of a regiment
of insurgents.

In these fatal follies the King was artfully encouraged by a
minister who had been an Exclusionist, and who still called
himself a Protestant, the Earl of Sunderland. The motives and
conduct of this unprincipled politician have often been
misrepresented. He was, in his own lifetime, accused by the
Jacobites of having, even before the beginning of the reign of
James, determined to bring about a revolution in favour of the
Prince of Orange, and of having, with that view, recommended a
succession of outrages on the civil and ecclesiastical
constitution of the realm. This idle story has been repeated down
to our own days by ignorant writers. But no well informed
historian, whatever might be his prejudices, has condescended to
adopt it: for it rests on no evidence whatever; and scarcely any
evidence would convince reasonable men that Sunderland
deliberately incurred guilt and infamy in order to bring about a
change by which it was clear that he could not possibly be a
gainer, and by which, in fact, he lost immense wealth and
influence. Nor is there the smallest reason for resorting to so
strange a hypothesis. For the truth lies on the surface. Crooked
as this man's course was, the law which determined it was simple.
His conduct is to be ascribed to the alternate influence of
cupidity and fear on a mind highly susceptible of both those
passions, and quicksighted rather than farsighted. He wanted more
power and more money. More power he could obtain only at
Rochester's expense; and the obvious way to obtain power at
Rochester's expense was to encourage the dislike which the King
felt for Rochester's moderate counsels. Money could be most
easily and most largely obtained from the court of Versailles;
and Sunderland was eager to sell himself to that court. He had no
jovial generous vices. He cared little for wine or for beauty:
but he desired riches with an ungovernable and insatiable desire.
The passion for play raged in him without measure, and had not
been tamed by ruinous losses. His hereditary fortune was ample.
He had long filled lucrative posts, and had neglected no art
which could make them more lucrative: but his ill luck at the
hazard table was such that his estates were daily becoming more
and more encumbered. In the hope of extricating himself from his
embarrassments, he betrayed to Barillon all the schemes adverse
to France which had been meditated in the English cabinet, and
hinted that a Secretary of State could in such times render
services for which it might be wise in Lewis to pay largely. The
Ambassador told his master that six thousand guineas was the
smallest gratification that could be offered to so important a
minister. Lewis consented to go as high as twenty-five thousand
crowns, equivalent to about five thousand six hundred pounds
sterling. It was agreed that Sunderland should receive this sum
yearly, and that he should, in return, exert all his influence to
prevent the reassembling of the Parliament.59 He joined himself
therefore to the Jesuitical cabal, and made so dexterous an use
of the influence of that cabal that he was appointed to succeed
Halifax in the high dignity of Lord President without being
required to resign the far more active and lucrative post of
Secretary.60 He felt, however, that he could never hope to obtain
paramount influence in the court while he was supposed to belong
to the Established Church. All religions were the same to him.
In private circles, indeed, he was in the habit of talking
with profane contempt of the most sacred things. He therefore
determined to let the King have the delight and glory
of effecting a conversion. Some management, however,
was necessary. No man is utterly without regard for the
opinion of his fellow creatures; and even Sunderland, though not
very sensible to shame, flinched from the infamy of public
apostasy. He played his part with rare adroitness. To the world
he showed himself as a Protestant. In the royal closet he assumed
the character of an earnest inquirer after truth, who was almost
persuaded to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and who, while
waiting for fuller illumination, was disposed to render every
service in his power to the professors of the old faith. James,
who was never very discerning, and who in religious matters was
absolutely blind, suffered himself, notwithstanding all that he
had seen of human knavery, of the knavery of courtiers as a
class, and of the knavery of Sunderland in particular, to be
duped into the belief that divine grace had touched the most
false and callous of human hearts. During many months the wily
minister continued to be regarded at court as a promising
catechumen, without exhibiting himself to the public in the
character of a renegade.61

He early suggested to the King the expediency of appointing a
secret committee of Roman Catholics to advise on all matters
affecting the interests of their religion. This committee met
sometimes at Chiffinch's lodgings, and sometimes at the official
apartments of Sunderland, who, though still nominally a
Protestant, was admitted to all its deliberations, and soon
obtained a decided ascendency over the other members. Every
Friday the Jesuitical cabal dined with the Secretary. The
conversation at table was free; and the weaknesses of the prince
whom the confederates hoped to manage were not spared. To Petre
Sunderland promised a Cardinal's hat; to Castelmaine a splendid
embassy to Rome; to Dover a lucrative command in the Guards; and
to Tyrconnel high employment in Ireland. Thus hound together by
the strongest ties of interest, these men addressed themselves to
the task of subverting the Treasurer's power.62

There were two Protestant members of the cabinet who took no
decided part in the struggle. Jeffreys was at this time tortured
by a cruel internal malady which had been aggravated by
intemperance. At a dinner which a wealthy Alderman gave to some
of the leading members of the government, the Lord Treasurer and
the Lord Chancellor were so drunk that they stripped themselves
almost stark naked, and were with difficulty prevented from
climbing up a signpost to drink His Majesty's health. The pious
Treasurer escaped with nothing but the scandal of the debauch:
but the Chancellor brought on a violent fit of his complaint. His
life was for some time thought to be in serious danger. James
expressed great uneasiness at the thought of losing a minister
who suited him so well, and said, with some truth, that the loss
of such a man could not be easily repaired. Jeffreys, when he
became convalescent, promised his support to both the contending
parties, and waited to see which of them would prove victorious.
Some curious proofs of his duplicity are still extant. It has
been already said that the two French agents who were then
resident in London had divided the English court between them.
Bonrepaux was constantly with Rochester; and Barillon lived with
Sunderland. Lewis was informed in the same week by Bonrepaux that
the Chancellor was entirely with the Treasurer, and by Barillon
that the Chancellor was in league with the Secretary.63

Godolphin, cautious and taciturn, did his best to preserve
neutrality. His opinions and wishes were undoubtedly with
Rochester; but his office made it necessary for him to be in
constant attendance on the Queen; and he was naturally unwilling
to be on bad terms with her. There is indeed reason to believe
that he regarded her with an attachment more romantic than often
finds place in the hearts of veteran statesmen; and
circumstances, which it is now necessary to relate, had thrown
her entirely into the hands of the Jesuitical cabal.64

The King, stern as was his temper and grave as was his
deportment, was scarcely less under the influence of female
attractions than his more lively and amiable brother had been.
The beauty, indeed, which distinguished the favourite ladies of
Charles was not necessary to James. Barbara Palmer, Eleanor
Gwynn, and Louisa de Querouaille were among the finest women of
their time. James, when young, had surrendered his liberty,
descended below his rank, and incurred the displeasure of his
family for the coarse features of Anne Hyde. He had soon, to the
great diversion of the whole court, been drawn away from his
plain consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His
second wife, though twenty years younger than himself, and of no
unpleasing face or figure, had frequent reason to complain of his
inconstancy. But of all his illicit attachments the strongest was
that which bound him to Catharine Sedley.

This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the
most brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The
licentiousness of his writings is not redeemed by much grace or
vivacity; but the charms of his conversation were acknowledged
even by sober men who had no esteem for his character. To sit
near him at the theatre, and to hear his criticisms on a new
play, was regarded as a privilege.65 Dryden had done him the
honour to make him a principal interlocutor in the Dialogue on
Dramatic Poesy. The morals of Sedley were such as, even in that
age, gave great scandal. He on one occasion, after a wild revel,
exhibited himself without a shred of clothing in the balcony of a
tavern near Covent Garden, and harangued the people who were
passing in language so indecent and profane that he was driven in
by a shower of brickbats, was prosecuted for a misdemeanour, was
sentenced to a heavy fine, and was reprimanded by the Court of
King's Bench in the most cutting terms.66 His daughter had
inherited his abilities and his impudence. Personal charms she
had none, with the exception of two brilliant eyes, the lustre of
which, to men of delicate taste, seemed fierce and unfeminine.
Her form was lean, her countenance haggard. Charles, though he
liked her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and said that
the priests must have recommended her to his brother by way of
penance. She well knew that she was not handsome, and jested
freely on her own homeliness. Yet, with strange inconsistency,
she loved to adorn herself magnificently, and drew on herself
much keen ridicule by appearing in the theatre and the ring
plastered, painted, clad in Brussels lace, glittering with
diamonds, and affecting all the graces of eighteen.67

The nature of her influence over James is not easily to be
explained. He was no longer young. He was a religious man; at
least he was willing to make for his religion exertions and
sacrifices from which the great majority of those who are called
religious men would shrink. It seems strange that any attractions
should have drawn him into a course of life which he must have
regarded as highly criminal; and in this case none could
understand where the attraction lay. Catharine herself was
astonished by the violence of his passion. "It cannot be my
beauty," she said; "for he must see that I have none; and it
cannot be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any."

At the moment of the King's accession a sense of the new
responsibility which lay on him made his mind for a time
peculiarly open to religious impressions. He formed and announced
many good resolutions, spoke in public with great severity of the
impious and licentious manners of the age, and in private assured
his Queen and his confessor that he would see Catharine Sedley no
more. He wrote to his mistress intreating her to quit the
apartments which she occupied at Whitehall, and to go to a house
in Saint James's Square which had been splendidly furnished for
her at his expense. He at the same time promised to allow her a
large pension from his privy purse. Catharine, clever,
strongminded, intrepid, and conscious of her power, refused to
stir. In a few months it began to be whispered that the services
of Chiffinch were again employed, and that the mistress
frequently passed and repassed through that private door through
which Father Huddleston had borne the host to the bedside of
Charles. The King's Protestant ministers had, it seems, conceived
a hope that their master's infatuation for this woman might cure
him of the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to
attack their religion. She had all the talents which could
qualify her to play on his feelings, to make game of his
scruples, to set before him in a strong light the difficulties
and dangers into which he was running headlong. Rochester, the
champion of the Church, exerted himself to strengthen her
influence. Ormond, who is popularly regarded as the
personification of all that is pure and highminded in the English
Cavalier, encouraged the design. Even Lady Rochester was not
ashamed to cooperate, and that in the very worst way. Her office
was to direct the jealousy of the injured wife towards a young
lady who was perfectly innocent. The whole court took notice of
the coldness and rudeness with which the Queen treated the poor
girl on whom suspicion had been thrown: but the cause of Her
Majesty's ill humour was a mystery. For a time the intrigue went
on prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the King
plainly what the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to
hint in the most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at
stake: the old dotard Arundell and the blustering Tyrconnel would
lead him to his ruin. It is possible that her caresses might have
done what the united exhortations of the Lords and the Commons,
of the House of Austria and the Holy See, had failed to do, but
for a strange mishap which changed the whole face of affairs.
James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make his mistress
Countess of Dorchester in her own right. Catharine saw all the
peril of such a step, and declined the invidious honour. Her
lover was obstinate, and himself forced the patent into her
hands. She at last accepted it on one condition, which shows her
confidence in her own power and in his weakness. She made him
give her a solemn promise, not that he would never quit her, but
that, if he did so, he would himself announce his resolution to
her, and grant her one parting interview.

As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace
was in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of
the Queen. Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank
and of her stainless chastity, she could not without agonies of
grief and rage see herself deserted and insulted for such a
rival. Rochester, perhaps remembering how patiently, after a
short struggle, Catharine of Braganza had consented to treat the
mistresses of Charles with politeness, had expected that, after a
little complaining and pouting, Mary of Modena would be equally
submissive. It was not so. She did not even attempt to conceal
from the eyes of the world the violence of her emotions. Day
after day the courtiers who came to see her dine observed that
the dishes were removed untasted from the table. She suffered the
tears to stream down her cheeks unconcealed in the presence of
the whole circle of ministers and envoys. To the King she spoke
with wild vehemence. "Let me go," she cried. "You have made your
woman a Countess: make her a Queen. Put my crown on her head.
Only let me hide myself in some convent, where I may never see
her more." Then, more soberly, she asked him how he reconciled
his conduct to his religious professions. "You are ready," she
said, "to put your kingdom to hazard for the sake of your soul;
and yet you are throwing away your soul for the sake of that
creature." Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these
remonstrances. It was his duty to do so; and his duty was not the
less strenuously performed because it coincided with his
interest. The King went on for a time sinning and repenting. In
his hours of remorse his penances were severe. Mary treasured up
to the end of her life, and at her death bequeathed to the
convent of Chaillot, the scourge with which he had vigorously
avenged her wrongs upon his own shoulders. Nothing but
Catharine's absence could put an end to this struggle between an
ignoble love and an ignoble superstition. James wrote, imploring
and commanding her to depart. He owned that he had promised to
bid her farewell in person. "But I know too well," he added, "the
power which you have over me. I have not strength of mind enough
to keep my resolution if I see you." He offered her a yacht to
convey her with all dignity and comfort to Flanders, and
threatened that if she did not go quietly she should be sent away
by force. She at one time worked on his feelings by pretending to
be ill. Then she assumed the airs of a martyr, and impudently
proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then
again she adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the King
to remove her. She would try the right with him. While the Great
Charter and the Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she
would live where she pleased. "And Flanders," she cried; "never!
I have learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin;
and that is never to trust myself in a country where there are
convents." At length she selected Ireland as the place of her
exile, probably because the brother of her patron Rochester was
viceroy there. After many delays she departed, leaving the
victory to the Queen.68

The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect, if
it were not added that there is still extant a religious
meditation, written by the Treasurer, with his own hand, on the
very same day on which the intelligence of his attempt to govern
his master by means of a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to
Versailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit
of more fervent and exalted piety than this effusion. Hypocrisy
cannot be suspected: for the paper was evidently meant only for
the writer's own eye, and was not published till he had been more
than a century in his grave. So much is history stranger than
fiction; and so true is it that nature has caprices which art
dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture to bring on
the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, ready to
sacrifice his crown in order to serve the interests of his
religion, indefatigable in making proselytes, and yet deserting
and insulting a wife who had youth and beauty for the sake of a
profligate paramour who had neither. Still less, if possible,
would a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping to
the wicked and shameful part of a procurer, and calling in his
wife to aid him in that dishonourable office, yet, in his moments
of leisure, retiring to his closet, and there secretly pouring
out his soul to his God in penitent tears and devout
ejaculations.69

The Treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous means for the
purpose of obtaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a
crime, but a folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected,
indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused their
recent conduct as well as they could; and she occasionally
pretended to use her influence in their favour: but she must have
been more or less than woman if she had really forgiven the
conspiracy which had been formed against her dignity and her
domestic happiness by the family of her husband's first wife. The
Jesuits strongly represented to the King the danger which he had
so narrowly escaped. His reputation, they said, his peace, his
soul, had been put in peril by the machinations of his prime
minister. The Nuncio, who would gladly have counteracted the
influence of the violent party, and cooperated with the moderate
members of the cabinet, could not honestly or decently separate
himself on this occasion from Father Petre. James himself, when
parted by the sea from the charms which had so strongly
fascinated him, could not but regard with resentment and contempt
those who had sought to govern him by means of his vices. What
had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church in
his esteem, and of lowering the Church of England. The Jesuits,
whom it was the fashion to represent as the most unsafe of
spiritual guides, as sophists who refined away the whole system
of evangelical morality, as sycophants who owed their influence
chiefly to the indulgence with which they treated the sins of the
great, had reclaimed him from a life of guilt by rebukes as sharp
and bold as those which David had heard from Nathan and Herod
from the Baptist. On the other hand, zealous Protestants, whose
favourite theme was the laxity of Popish casuists and the
wickedness of doing evil that good might come, had attempted to
obtain advantages for their own Church in a way which all
Christians regarded as highly criminal. The victory of the cabal
of evil counsellors was therefore complete. The King looked
coldly on Rochester. The courtiers and foreign ministers soon
perceived that the Lord Treasurer was prime minister only in
name. He continued to offer his advice daily, and had the
mortification to find it daily rejected. Yet he could not prevail
on himself to relinquish the outward show of power and the
emoluments which he directly and indirectly derived from his
great place. He did his best, therefore, to conceal his vexations
from the public eye. But his violent passions and his intemperate
habits disqualified him for the part of a dissembler. His gloomy
looks, when he came out of the council chamber, showed how little
he was pleased with what had passed at the board; and, when the
bottle had gone round freely, words escaped him which betrayed
his uneasiness.70

He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and unpopular
measures followed each other in rapid succession. All thought of
returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. The
King explicitly avowed to the ministers of those continental
powers with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that
all his views had undergone a change, and that England was still
to be, as she had been under his grandfather, his father, and his
brother, of no account in Europe. "I am in no condition," he said
to the Spanish Ambassador, "to trouble myself about what passes
abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take their
course, to establish my authority at home, and to do something
for my religion." A few days later he announced the same
intentions to the States General.71 From that time to the close
of his ignominious reign, he made no serious effort to escape
from vassalage, though, to the last, he could never hear, without
transports of rage, that men called him a vassal.

The two events which proved to the public that Sunderland and
Sunderland's party were victorious were the prorogation of the
Parliament from February to May, and the departure of Castelmaine
for Rome with the appointments of an Ambassador of the highest
rank.72

Hitherto all the business of the English government at the papal
court had been transacted by John Caryl. This gentleman was known
to his contemporaries as a man of fortune and fashion, and as the
author of two successful plays, a tragedy in rhyme which had been
made popular by the action and recitation of Betterton, and a
comedy which owes all its value to scenes borrowed from Moliere.
These pieces have long been forgotten; but what Caryl could not
do for himself has been done for him by a more powerful genius.
Half a line in the Rape of the Lock has made his name immortal.

Caryl, who was, like all the other respectable Roman Catholics,
an enemy to violent courses, had acquitted himself of his
delicate errand at Rome with good sense and good feeling. The
business confided to him was well done; but he assumed no public
character, and carefully avoided all display. His mission,
therefore, put the government to scarcely any charge, and excited
scarcely any murmurs. His place was now most unwisely supplied by
a costly and ostentatious embassy, offensive in the highest
degree to the people of England, and by no means welcome to the
court of Rome. Castelmaine had it in charge to demand a
Cardinal's hat for his confederate Petre.

About the same time the King began to show, in an unequivocal
manner, the feeling which he really entertained towards the
banished Huguenots. While he had still hoped to cajole his
Parliament into submission and to become the head of an European
coalition against France, he had affected to blame the revocation
of the edict of Nantes, and to pity the unhappy men whom
persecution had driven from their country. He had caused it to be
announced that, at every church in the kingdom, a collection
would be made under his sanction for their benefit. A
proclamation on this subject had been drawn up in terms which
might have wounded the pride of a sovereign less sensitive and
vainglorious than Lewis. But all was now changed. The principles
of the treaty of Dover were again the principles of the foreign
policy of England. Ample apologies were therefore made for the
discourtesy with which the English government had acted towards
France in showing favour to exiled Frenchmen. The proclamation
which had displeased Lewis was recalled.73 The Huguenot ministers
were admonished to speak with reverence of their oppressor in
their public discourses, as they would answer it at their peril.
James not only ceased to express commiseration for the sufferers,
but declared that he believed them to harbour the worst designs,
and owned that he had been guilty of an error in countenancing
them. One of the most eminent of the refugees, John Claude, had
published on the Continent a small volume in which he described
with great force the sufferings of his brethren. Barillon
demanded that some opprobrious mark should be put on his book.
James complied, and in full council declared it to be his
pleasure that Claude's libel should be burned by the hangman
before the Royal Exchange. Even Jeffreys was startled, and
ventured to represent that such a proceeding was without example,
that the book was written in a foreign tongue, that it had been
printed at a foreign press, that it related entirely to
transactions which had taken place in a foreign country, and that
no English government had ever animadverted on such works. James
would not suffer the question to be discussed. "My resolution,"
he said, "is taken. It has become the fashion to treat Kings
disrespectfully; and they must stand by each other. One King
should always take another's part: and I have particular reasons
for showing this respect to the King of France." There was
silence at the board. The order was forthwith issued; and
Claude's pamphlet was committed to the flames, not without the
deep murmurs of many who had always been reputed steady
loyalists.74

The promised collection was long put off under various pretexts.
The King would gladly have broken his word; but it was pledged so
solemnly that he could not for very shame retract.75 Nothing,
however, which could cool the zeal of congregations was omitted.
It had been expected that, according to the practice usual on
such occasions, the people would be exhorted to liberality from
the pulpits. But James was determined not to tolerate
declamations against his religion and his ally. The Archbishop of
Canterbury was therefore commanded to inform the clergy that they
must merely read the brief, and must not presume to preach on the
sufferings of the French Protestants.76 Nevertheless the
contributions were so large that, after all deductions, the sum
of forty thousand pounds was paid into the Chamber of London.
Perhaps none of the munificent subscriptions of our own age has
borne so great a proportion to the means of the nation.77

The King was bitterly mortified by the large amount of the
collection which had been made in obedience to his own call. He
knew, he said, what all this liberality meant. It was mere
Whiggish spite to himself and his religion.78 He had already
resolved that the money should be of no use to those whom the
donors wished to benefit. He had been, during some weeks, in
close communication with the French embassy on this subject, and
had, with the approbation of the court of Versailles, determined
on a course which it is not very easy to reconcile with those
principles of toleration to which he afterwards pretended to be
attached. The refugees were zealous for the Calvinistic
discipline and worship. James therefore gave orders that none
should receive a crust of bread or a basket of coals who did not
first take the sacrament according to the Anglican ritual.79 It
is strange that this inhospitable rule should have been devised
by a prince who affected to consider the Test Act as an outrage
on the rights of conscience: for, however unjustifiable it may be
to establish a sacramental test for the purpose of ascertaining
whether men are fit for civil and military office, it is surely
much more unjustifiable to establish a sacramental test for the
purpose of ascertaining whether, in their extreme distress, they
are fit objects of charity. Nor had James the plea which may be
urged in extenuation of the guilt of almost all other
persecutors: for the religion which he commanded the refugees to
profess, on pain of being left to starve, was not his own
religion. His conduct towards them was therefore less excusable
than that of Lewis: for Lewis oppressed them in the hope of
bringing them over from a damnable heresy to the true Church:
James oppressed them only for the purpose of forcing them to
apostatize from one damnable heresy to another.

Several Commissioners, of whom the Chancellor was one, had been
appointed to dispense the public alms. When they met for the
first time, Jeffreys announced the royal pleasure. The refugees,
he said, were too generally enemies of monarchy and episcopacy.
If they wished for relief, they must become members of the Church
of England, and must take the sacrament from the hands of his
chaplain. Many exiles, who had come full of gratitude and hope to
apply for succour, heard their sentence, and went brokenhearted
away.80

May was now approaching; and that month had been fixed for the
meeting of the Houses: but they were again prorogued to
November.81 It was not strange that the King did not wish to meet
them: for he had determined to adopt a policy which he knew to
be, in the highest degree, odious to them. From his predecessors
he had inherited two prerogatives, of which the limits had never
been defined with strict accuracy, and which, if exerted without
any limit, would of themselves have sufficed to overturn the
whole polity of the State and of the Church. These were the
dispensing power and the ecclesiastical supremacy. By means of
the dispensing power the King purposed to admit Roman Catholics,
not merely to civil and military, but to spiritual, offices. By
means of the ecclesiastical supremacy he hoped to make the
Anglican clergy his instruments for the destruction of their own
religion.

This scheme developed itself by degrees. It was not thought safe
to begin by granting to the whole Roman Catholic body a
dispensation from all statutes imposing penalties and tests. For
nothing was more fully established than that such a dispensation
was illegal. The Cabal had, in 1672, put forth a general
Declaration of Indulgence. The Commons, as soon as they met, had
protested against it. Charles the Second had ordered it to be
cancelled in his presence, and had, both by his own mouth and by
a written message, assured the Houses that the step which had
caused so much complaint should never be drawn into precedent. It
would have been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a
barrister of reputation to argue in defence of a prerogative
which the Sovereign, seated on his throne in full Parliament, had
solemnly renounced a few years before. But it was not quite so
clear that the King might not, on special grounds, grant
exemptions to individuals by name. The first object of James,
therefore, was to obtain from the courts of common law an
acknowledgment that, to this extent at least, he possessed the
dispensing power.

But, though his pretensions were moderate when compared with
those which he put forth a few months later, he soon found that
he had against him almost the whole sense of Westminster Hall.
Four of the Judges gave him to understand that they could not, on
this occasion, serve his purpose; and it is remarkable that all
the four were violent Tories, and that among them were men who
had accompanied Jeffreys on the Bloody Circuit, and who had
consented to the death of Cornish and of Elizabeth Gaunt. Jones,
the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a man who had never before
shrunk from any drudgery, however cruel or servile, now held in
the royal closet language which might have become the lips of the
purest magistrates in our history. He was plainly told that he
must either give up his opinion or his place. "For my place," he
answered, "I care little. I am old and worn out in the service of
the crown; but I am mortified to find that your Majesty thinks me
capable of giving a judgment which none but an ignorant or a
dishonest man could give." "I am determined," said the King, "to
have twelve Judges who will be all of my mind as to this matter."
"Your Majesty," answered Jones, "may find twelve Judges of your
mind, but hardly twelve lawyers."82 He was dismissed together
with Montague, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and two puisne
Judges, Neville and Charlton. One of the new Judges was
Christopher Milton, younger brother of the great poet. Of
Christopher little is known except that, in the time of the civil
war, he had been a Royalist, and that he now, in his old age,
leaned towards Popery. It does not appear that he was ever
formally reconciled to the Church of Rome: but he certainly had
scruples about communicating with the Church of England, and had
therefore a strong interest in supporting the dispensing power.83

The King found his counsel as refractory as his Judges. The first
barrister who learned that he was expected to defend the
dispensing power was the Solicitor General, Heneage Finch. He
peremptorily refused, and was turned out of office on the
following day.84 The Attorney General, Sawyer, was ordered to
draw warrants authorising members of the Church of Rome to hold
benefices belonging to the Church of England. Sawyer had been
deeply concerned in some of the harshest and most unjustifiable
prosecutions of that age; and the Whigs abhorred him as a man
stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney: but on this
occasion he showed no want of honesty or of resolution. "Sir,"
said he, "this is not merely to dispense with a statute; it is to
annul the whole statute law from the accession of Elizabeth to
this day. I dare not do it; and I implore your Majesty to
consider whether such an attack upon the rights of the Church be
in accordance with your late gracious promises."85 Sawyer would
have been instantly dismissed as Finch had been, if the
government could have found a successor: but this was no easy
matter. It was necessary for the protection of the rights of the
crown that one at least of the crown lawyers should be a man of
learning, ability, and experience; and no such man was willing to
defend the dispensing power. The Attorney General was therefore
permitted to retain his place during some months. Thomas Powis,
an insignificant man, who had no qualification for high
employment except servility, was appointed Solicitor.

The preliminary arrangements were now complete. There was a
Solicitor General to argue for the dispensing power, and twelve
Judges to decide in favour of it. The question was therefore
speedily brought to a hearing. Sir Edward Hales, a gentleman of
Kent, had been converted to Popery in days when it was not safe
for any man of note openly to declare himself a Papist. He had
kept his secret, and, when questioned, had affirmed that he was a
Protestant with a solemnity which did little credit to his
principles. When James had ascended the throne, disguise was no
longer necessary. Sir Edward publicly apostatized, and was
rewarded with the command of a regiment of foot. He had held his
commission more than three months without taking the sacrament.
He was therefore liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds,
which an informer might recover by action of debt. A menial
servant was employed to bring a suit for this sum in the Court of
King's Bench. Sir Edward did not dispute the facts alleged
against him, but pleaded that he had letters patent authorising
him to hold his commission notwithstanding the Test Act. The
plaintiff demurred, that is to say, admitted Sir Edward's plea to
be true in fact, but denied that it was a sufficient answer. Thus
was raised a simple issue of law to be decided by the court. A
barrister, who was notoriously a tool of the government, appeared
for the mock plaintiff, and made some feeble objections to the
defendant's plea. The new Solicitor General replied. The Attorney
General took no part in the proceedings. Judgment was given by
the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edward Herbert. He announced that he
had submitted the question to all the twelve Judges, and that, in
the opinion of eleven of them, the King might lawfully dispense
with penal statutes in particular cases, and for special reasons
of grave importance. The single dissentient, Baron Street, was
not removed from his place. He was a man of morals so bad that
his own relations shrank from him, and that the Prince of Orange,
at the time of the Revolution, was advised not to see him. The
character of Street makes it impossible to believe that he would
have been more scrupulous than his brethren. The character of
James makes it impossible to believe that a refractory Baron of
the Exchequer would have been permitted to retain his post. There
can be no reasonable doubt that the dissenting Judge was, like
the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counsel, acting collusively. It
was important that there should be a great preponderance of
authority in favour of the dispensing power; yet it was important
that the bench, which had been carefully packed for the occasion,
should appear to be independent. One Judge, therefore, the least
respectable of the twelve, was permitted, or more probably
commanded, to give his voice against the prerogative.86

The power which the courts of law had thus recognised was not
suffered to lie idle. Within a month after the decision of the
King's Bench had been pronounced, four Roman Catholic Lords were
sworn of the Privy Council. Two of these, Powis and Bellasyse,
were of the moderate party, and probably took their seats with
reluctance and with many sad forebodings. The other two, Arundell
and Dover, had no such misgivings.87

The dispensing power was, at the same time, employed for the
purpose of enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical
preferment. The new Solicitor readily drew the warrants in which
Sawyer had refused to be concerned. One of these warrants was in
favour of a wretch named Edward Sclater, who had two livings
which he was determined to keep at all costs and through all
changes. He administered the sacrament to his parishioners
according to the rites of the Church of England on Palm Sunday
1686. On Easter Sunday, only seven days later, he was at mass.
The royal dispensation authorised him to retain the emoluments of
his benefices. To the remonstrances of the patrons from whom he
had received his preferment he replied in terms of insolent
defiance, and, while the Roman Catholic cause prospered, put
forth an absurd treatise in defence of his apostasy. But, a very
few weeks after the Revolution, a great congregation assembled at
Saint Mary's in the Savoy, to see him received again into the
bosom of the Church which he had deserted. He read his
recantation with tears flowing from his eyes, and pronounced a
bitter invective against the Popish priests whose arts had
seduced him.88

Scarcely less infamous was the conduct of Obadiah Walker. He was
an aged priest of the Church of England, and was well known in
the University of Oxford as a man of learning. He had in the late
reign been suspected of leaning towards Popery, but had outwardly
conformed to the established religion, and had at length been
chosen Master of University College. Soon after the accession of
James, Walker determined to throw off the disguise which he had
hitherto worn. He absented himself from the public worship of the
Church of England, and, with some fellows and undergraduates whom
he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. One of
the first acts performed by the new Solicitor General was to draw
up an instrument which authorised Walker and his proselytes to
hold their benefices, notwithstanding their apostasy. Builders
were immediately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an
oratory. In a few weeks the Roman Catholic rites were publicly
performed in University College. A Jesuit was quartered there as
chaplain. A press was established there under royal license for
the printing of Roman Catholic tracts. During two years and a
half, Walker continued to make war on Protestantism with all the
rancour of a renegade: but when fortune turned he showed that he
wanted the courage of a martyr. He was brought to the bar of the
House of Commons to answer for his conduct, and was base enough
to protest that he had never changed his religion, that he had
never cordially approved of the doctrines of the Church of Rome,
and that he had never tried to bring any other person within the
pale of that Church. It was hardly worth while to violate the
most sacred obligations of law and of plighted faith, for the
purpose of making such converts as these.89

In a short time the King went a step further. Sclater and Walker
had only been permitted to keep, after they became Papists, the
preferment which had been bestowed on them while they passed for
Protestants. To confer a high office in the Established Church on
an avowed enemy of that Church was a far bolder violation of the
laws and of the royal word. But no course was too bold for James.
The Deanery of Christchurch became vacant. That office was, both
in dignity and in emolument, one of the highest in the University
of Oxford. The Dean was charged with the government of a greater
number of youths of high connections and of great hopes than
could then be found in any other college. He was also the head of
a Cathedral. In both characters it was necessary that he should
be a member of the Church of England. Nevertheless John Massey,
who was notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and who had
not one single recommendation, except that he was a member of the
Church of Rome, was appointed by virtue of the dispensing power;
and soon within the walls of Christchurch an altar was decked, at
which mass was daily celebrated.90 To the Nuncio the King said
that what had been done at Oxford should very soon be done at
Cambridge.91

Yet even this was a small evil compared with that which
Protestants had good ground to apprehend. It seemed but too
probable that the whole government of the Anglican Church would
shortly pass into the hands of her deadly enemies. Three
important sees had lately become vacant, that of York, that of
Chester, and that of Oxford. The Bishopric of Oxford was given to
Samuel Parker, a parasite, whose religion, if he had any
religion, was that of Rome, and who called himself a Protestant
only because he was encumbered with a wife. "I wished," the King
said to Adda, "to appoint an avowed Catholic: but the time is not
come. Parker is well inclined to us; he is one of us in feeling;
and by degrees he will bring round his clergy."92 The Bishopric
of Chester, vacant by the death of John Pearson, a great name
both in philology and in divinity, was bestowed on Thomas
Cartwright, a still viler sycophant than Parker. The
Archbishopric of York remained several years vacant. As no good
reason could be found for leaving so important a place unfilled,
men suspected that the nomination was delayed only till the King
could venture to place the mitre on the head of an avowed Papist.
It is indeed highly probable that the Church of England was saved
from this outrage by the good sense and good feeling of the Pope.
Without a special dispensation from Rome no Jesuit could be a
Bishop; and Innocent could not be induced to grant such a
dispensation to Petre.

James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert
vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the
Established Church all the powers which he possessed as her head.
He plainly said that, by a wise dispensation of Providence, the
Act of Supremacy would be the means of healing the fatal breach
which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion
which rightfully belonged to the Holy See. That dominion had, in
the course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, and
would be held by him in trust for the Holy See. He was authorised
by law to repress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse
which he would repress should be the liberty which the Anglican
clergy assumed of defending their own religion and of attacking
the doctrines of Rome.93

But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesiastical
supremacy which had devolved on him, was by no means the same
great and terrible prerogative which Elizabeth, James the First,
and Charles the First had possessed. The enactment which annexed
to the crown an almost boundless visitatorial authority over the
Church, though it had never been formally repealed, had really
lost a great part of its force. The substantive law remained; but
it remained unaccompanied by any formidable sanction or by any
efficient system of procedure, and was therefore little more than
a dead letter.

The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual dominion
assumed by her father and resigned by her sister, contained a
clause authorising the sovereign to constitute a tribunal which
might investigate, reform, and punish all ecclesiastical
delinquencies. Under the authority given by this clause, the
Court of High Commission was created. That court was, during many
years, the terror of Nonconformists, and, under the harsh
administration of Laud, became an object of fear and hatred even
to those who most loved the Established Church. When the Long
Parliament met, the High Commission was generally regarded as the
most grievous of the many grievances under which the nation
laboured. An act was therefore somewhat hastily passed, which not
only took away from the Crown the power of appointing visitors to
superintend the Church, but abolished all ecclesiastical courts
without distinction.

After the Restoration, the Cavaliers who filled the House of
Commons, zealous as they were for the prerogative, still
remembered with bitterness the tyranny of the High Commission,
and were by no means disposed to revive an institution so odious.
They at the same time thought, and not without reason, that the
statute which had swept away all the courts Christian of the
realm, without providing any substitute, was open to grave
objection. They accordingly repealed that statute, with the
exception of the part which related to the High Commission. Thus,
the Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of
Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the Court of Delegates were
revived: but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her successors
had been empowered to appoint Commissioners with visitatorial
authority over the Church was not only not revived, but was
declared, with the utmost strength of language, to be completely
abrogated. It is therefore as clear as any point of
constitutional law can be that James the Second was not competent
to appoint a Commission with power to visit and govern the Church
of England.94 But, if this were so, it was to little purpose that
the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding words, empowered him to
amend what was amiss in that Church. Nothing but a machinery as
stringent as that which the Long Parliament had destroyed could
force the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the
destruction of the Anglican doctrine and discipline. He
therefore, as early as the month of April 1686, determined to
create a new Court of High Commission. This design was not
immediately executed. It encountered the opposition of every
minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits. It was
regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation of the law, and by
Churchmen as a direct attack upon the Church. Perhaps the contest
might have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the
pride and inflamed the rage of the King. He had, as supreme
ordinary, put forth directions, charging the clergy of the
establishment to abstain from touching in their discourses on
controverted points of doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence
of the Roman Catholic religion were preached on every Sunday and
holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the Church of
the state, the Church of the great majority of the nation, was
forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit
of the whole clerical order rose against this injustice. William
Sherlock, a divine of distinguished abilities, who had written
with sharpness against Whigs and Dissenters, and had been
rewarded by the government with the Mastership of the Temple and
with a pension, was one of the first who incurred the royal
displeasure. His pension was stopped, and he was severely reprimanded.95 John
Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields,
soon gave still greater offence. He was a man of learning and
fervent piety, a preacher of great fame, and an exemplary parish
priest. In politics he was, like most of his brethren, a Tory,
and had just been appointed one of the royal chaplains. He
received an anonymous letter which purported to come from one of
his parishioners who had been staggered by the arguments of Roman
Catholic theologians, and who was anxious to be satisfied that
the Church of England was a branch of the true Church of Christ.
No divine, not utterly lost to all sense of religious duty and of
professional honour, could refuse to answer such a call. On the
following Sunday Sharp delivered an animated discourse against
the high pretensions of the see of Rome. Some of his expressions
were exaggerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to
Whitehall. It was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely
of the theological disquisitions which had been found in the
strong box of the late King, and which the present King had
published. Compton, the Bishop of London, received orders from
Sunderland to suspend Sharp till the royal pleasure should be
further known. The Bishop was in great perplexity. His recent
conduct in the House of Lords had given deep offence to the
court. Already his name had been struck out of the list of Privy
Councillors. Already he had been dismissed from his office in the
royal chapel. He was unwilling to give fresh provocation but the
act which he was directed to perform was a judicial act. He felt
that it was unjust, and he was assured by the best advisers that
it was also illegal, to inflict punishment without giving any
opportunity for defence. He accordingly, in the humblest terms,
represented his difficulties to the King, and privately requested
Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. Reasonable as
were Compton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James
was greatly incensed. What insolence to plead either natural
justice or positive law in opposition to an express command of
the Sovereign Sharp was forgotten. The Bishop became a mark for
the whole vengeance of the government.96 The King felt more
painfully than ever the want of that tremendous engine which had
once coerced refractory ecclesiastics. He probably knew that, for
a few angry words uttered against his father's government, Bishop
Williams had been suspended by the High Commission from all
ecclesiastical dignities and functions. The design of reviving
that formidable tribunal was pushed on more eagerly than ever. In
July London was alarmed by the news that the King had, in direct
defiance of two acts of Parliament drawn in the strongest terms,
entrusted the whole government of the Church to seven
Commissioners.97 The words in which the jurisdiction of these
officers was described were loose, and might be stretched to
almost any extent. All colleges and grammar schools, even those
founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were placed
under the authority of the new board. All who depended for bread
on situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from
the Primate down to the youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors
of Oxford and Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught
Corderius, were at the royal mercy. If any one of those many
thousands was suspected of doing or saying anything distasteful
to the government, the Commissioners might cite him before them.
In their mode of dealing with him they were fettered by no rules.
They were themselves at once prosecutors and judges. The accused
party was furnished with no copy of the charge. He was examined
and crossexamined. If his answers did not give satisfaction, he
was liable to be suspended from his office, to be ejected from
it, to be pronounced incapable of holding any preferment in
future. If he were contumacious, he might be excommunicated, or,
in other words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned
for life. He might also, at the discretion of the court, be
loaded with all the costs of the proceeding by which he had been
reduced to beggary. No appeal was given. The Commissioners were
directed to execute their office notwithstanding any law which
might be, or might seem to be, inconsistent with these
regulations. Lastly, lest any person should doubt that it was
intended to revive that terrible court from which the Long
Parliament had freed the nation, the new tribunal was directed to
use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same
superscription with the seal of the old High Commission.98

The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and
assent were necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how
unjustly, insolently, and barbarously he had acted in courts
where he had been, to a certain extent, restrained by the known
laws of England. It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee how
he would conduct himself in a situation in which he was at entire
liberty to make forms of procedure and rules of evidence for
himself.

Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates and three
laymen. The name of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. But he was
fully convinced that the court was illegal, that all its
judgments would be null, and that by sitting in it he should
incur a serious responsibility. He therefore determined not to
comply with the royal mandate. He did not, however, act on this
occasion with that courage and sincerity which he showed when
driven to extremity two years later. He begged to be excused on
the plea of business and ill health. The other members of the
board, he added, were men of too much ability to need his
assistance. These disingenuous apologies ill became the Primate
of all England at such a crisis; nor did they avert the royal
displeasure. Sancroft's name was not indeed struck out of the
list of Privy Councillors: but, to the bitter mortification of
the friends of the Church, he was no longer summoned on Council
days. "If," said the King, "he is too sick or too busy to go to
the Commission, it is a kindness to relieve him from attendance
at Council."99

The government found no similar difficulty with Nathaniel Crewe,
Bishop of the great and opulent see of Durham, a man nobly born,
and raised so high in his profession that he could scarcely wish
to rise higher, but mean, vain, and cowardly. He had been made
Dean of the Chapel Royal when the Bishop of London was banished
from the palace. The honour of being an Ecclesiastical
Commissioner turned Crewe's head. It was to no purpose that some
of his friends represented to him the risk which he ran by
sitting in an illegal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that
he could not live out of the royal smile, and exultingly
expressed his hope that his name would appear in history, a hope
which has not been altogether disappointed.100

Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the third clerical
Commissioner. He was a man to whose talents posterity has
scarcely done justice. Unhappily for his fame, it has been usual
to print his verses in collections of the British poets; and
those who judge of him by his verses must consider him as a
servile imitator, who, without one spark of Cowley's admirable
genius, mimicked whatever was least commendable in Cowley's
manner: but those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose writings
will form a very different estimate of his powers. He was indeed
a great master of our language, and possessed at once the
eloquence of the orator, of the controversialist, and of the
historian. His moral character might have passed with little
censure had he belonged to a less sacred profession; for the
worst that can be said of him is that he was indolent, luxurious,
and worldly: but such failings, though not commonly regarded as
very heinous in men of secular callings, are scandalous in a
prelate. The Archbishopric of York was vacant; Sprat hoped to
obtain it, and therefore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical
board: but he was too goodnatured a man to behave harshly; and he
was too sensible a man not to know that he might at some future
time be called to a serious account by a Parliament. He
therefore, though he consented to act, tried to do as little
mischief, and to make as few enemies, as possible.101

The three remaining Commissioners were the Lord Treasurer, the
Lord President, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
Rochester, disapproving and murmuring, consented to serve. Much
as he had to endure at the court, he could not bear to quit it.
Much as he loved the Church, he could not bring himself to
sacrifice for her sake his white staff, his patronage, his salary
of eight thousand pounds a year, and the far larger indirect
emoluments of his office. He excused his conduct to others, and
perhaps to himself, by pleading that, as a Commissioner, he might
be able to prevent much evil, and that, if he refused to act,
some person less attached to the Protestant religion would be
found to replace him. Sunderland was the representative of the
Jesuitical cabal. Herbert's recent decision on the question of
the dispensing power seemed to prove that he would not flinch
from any service which the King might require.

As soon as the Commission had been opened, the Bishop of London
was cited before the new tribunal. He appeared. "I demand of
you," said Jeffreys, "a direct and positive answer. Why did not
you suspend Dr. Sharp?"

The Bishop requested a copy of the Commission in order that he
might know by what authority he was thus interrogated. "If you
mean," said Jeffreys, "to dispute our authority, I shall take
another course with you. As to the Commission, I do not doubt
that you have seen it. At all events you may see it in any
coffeehouse for a penny." The insolence of the Chancellor's reply
appears to have shocked the other Commissioners, and he was
forced to make some awkward apologies. He then returned to the
point from which he had started. "This," he said, "is not a court
in which written charges are exhibited. Our proceedings are
summary, and by word of mouth. The question is a plain one. Why
did you not obey the King?" With some difficulty Compton obtained
a brief delay, and the assistance of counsel. When the case had
been heard, it was evident to all men that the Bishop had done
only what he was bound to do. The Treasurer, the Chief Justice,
and Sprat were for acquittal. The King's wrath was moved. It
seemed that his Ecclesiastical Commission would fail him as his
Tory Parliament had failed him. He offered Rochester a simple
choice, to pronounce the Bishop guilty, or to quit the Treasury.
Rochester was base enough to yield. Compton was suspended from
all spiritual functions; and the charge of his great diocese was
committed to his judges, Sprat and Crewe. He continued, however,
to reside in his palace and to receive his revenues; for it was
known that, had any attempt been made to deprive him of his
temporalities, he would have put himself under the protection of
the common law; and Herbert himself declared that, at common law,
judgment must be given against the crown. This consideration
induced the King to pause. Only a few weeks had elapsed since he
had packed the courts of Westminster Hall in order to obtain a
decision in favour of his dispensing power. He now found that,
unless he packed them again, he should not be able to obtain a
decision in favour of the proceedings of his Ecclesiastical
Commission. He determined, therefore, to postpone for a short
time the confiscation of the freehold property of refractory
clergymen.102

The temper of the nation was indeed such as might well make him
hesitate. During some months discontent had been steadily and
rapidly increasing. The celebration of the Roman Catholic worship
had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several
generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit
himself in any public place with the badges of his office.
Against the regular clergy, and against the restless and subtle
Jesuits by name, had been enacted a succession of rigorous
statutes. Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to
be hanged, drawn, and quartered. A reward was offered for his
detection. He was not allowed to take advantage of the general
rule, that men are not bound to accuse themselves. Whoever was
suspected of being a Jesuit might be interrogated, and, if he
refused to answer, might be sent to prison for life.103 These
laws, though they had not, except when there was supposed to be
some peculiar danger, been strictly executed, and though they had
never prevented Jesuits from resorting to England, had made
disguise necessary. But all disguise was now thrown off.
Injudicious members of the King's Church, encouraged by him, took
a pride in defying statutes which were still of undoubted
validity, and feelings which had a stronger hold of the national
mind than at any former period. Roman Catholic chapels rose all
over the country. Cowls, girdles of ropes, and strings of beads
constantly appeared in the, streets, and astonished a population,
the oldest of whom had never seen a conventual garb except on the
stage. A convent rose at Clerkenwell on the site of the ancient
cloister of Saint John. The Franciscans occupied a mansion in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Carmelites were quartered in the City.
A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in Saint James's
Palace. In the Savoy a spacious house, including a church and a
school, was built for the Jesuits.104 The skill and care with
which those fathers had, during several generations, conducted
the education of youth, had drawn forth reluctant praises from
the wisest Protestants. Bacon had pronounced the mode of
instruction followed in the Jesuit colleges to be the best yet
known in the world, and had warmly expressed his regret that so
admirable a system of intellectual and moral discipline should be
subservient to the interests of a corrupt religion.105 It was not
improbable that the new academy in the Savoy might, under royal
patronage, prove a formidable rival to the great foundations of
Eton, Westminster, and Winchester. Indeed, soon after the school
was opened, the classes consisted of four hundred boys, about one
half of whom were Protestants. The Protestant pupils were not
required to attend mass: but there could be no doubt that the
influence of able preceptors, devoted to the Roman Catholic
Church, and versed in all the arts which win the confidence and
affection of youth, would make many converts.

These things produced great excitement among the populace, which
is always more moved by what impresses the senses than by what is
addressed to the reason. Thousands of rude and ignorant men, to
whom the dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commission were
words without a meaning, saw with dismay and indignation a Jesuit
college rising on the banks of the Thames, friars in hoods and
gowns walking in the Strand, and crowds of devotees pressing in
at the doors of temples where homage was paid to graven images.
Riots broke out in several parts of the country. At Coventry and
Worcester the Roman Catholic worship was violently
interrupted.106 At Bristol the rabble, countenanced, it was said,
by the magistrates, exhibited a profane and indecent pageant, in
which the Virgin Mary was represented by a buffoon, and in which
a mock host was carried in procession. The garrison was called
out to disperse the mob. The mob, then and ever since one of the
fiercest in the kingdom, resisted. Blows were exchanged, and
serious hurts inflicted.107 The agitation was great in the
capital, and greater in the City, properly so called, than at
Westminster. For the people of Westminster had been accustomed to
see among them the private chapels of Roman Catholic Ambassadors:
but the City had not, within living memory, been polluted by any
idolatrous exhibition. Now, however, the resident of the Elector
Palatine, encouraged by the King, fitted up a chapel in Lime
Street. The heads of the corporation, though men selected for
office on account of their known Toryism, protested against this
proceeding, which, as they said, the ablest gentlemen of the long
robe regarded as illegal. The Lord Mayor was ordered to appear
before the Privy Council. "Take heed what you do," said the King.
"Obey me; and do not trouble yourself either about gentlemen of
the long robe or gentlemen of the short robe." The Chancellor
took up the word, and reprimanded the unfortunate magistrate with
the genuine eloquence of the Old Bailey bar. The chapel was
opened. All the neighbourhood was soon in commotion. Great crowds
assembled in Cheapside to attack the new mass house. The priests
were insulted. A crucifix was taken out of the building and set
up on the parish pump. The Lord Mayor came to quell the tumult,
but was received with cries of "No wooden gods." The trainbands
were ordered to disperse the crowd: but they shared in the
popular feeling; and murmurs were heard from the ranks, "We
cannot in conscience fight for Popery."108

The Elector Palatine was, like James, a sincere and zealous
Catholic, and was, like James, the ruler of a Protestant people;
but the two princes resembled each other little in temper and
understanding. The Elector had promised to respect the rights of
the Church which he found established in his dominions. He had
strictly kept his word, and had not suffered himself to be
provoked to any violence by the indiscretion of preachers who, in
their antipathy to his faith, occasionally forgot the respect
which they owed to his person.109 He learned, with concern, that
great offence had been given to the people of London by the
injudicious act of his representative, and, much to his honour,
declared that he would forego the privilege to which, as a
sovereign prince, he was entitled, rather than endanger the peace
of a great city. "I, too," he wrote to James, "have Protestant
subjects; and I know with how much caution and delicacy it is
necessary that a Catholic prince so situated should act." James,
instead of expressing gratitude for this humane and considerate
conduct, turned the letter into ridicule before the foreign
ministers. It was determined that the Elector should have a
chapel in the City whether he would or not, and that, if the
trainbands refused to do their duty, their place should be
supplied by the Guards.110

The effect of these disturbances on trade was serious. The Dutch
minister informed the States General that the business of the
Exchange was at a stand. The Commissioners of the Customs
reported to the King that, during the month which followed the
opening of Lime Street Chapel, the receipt in the port of the
Thames had fallen off by some thousands of pounds.111 Several
Aldermen, who, though zealous royalists appointed under the new
charter, were deeply interested in the commercial prosperity of
their city, and loved neither Popery nor martial law, tendered
their resignations. But the King was resolved not to yield. He
formed a camp on Hounslow Heath, and collected there, within a
circumference of about two miles and a half, fourteen battalions
of foot and thirty-two squadrons of horse, amounting to thirteen
thousand fighting men. Twenty-six pieces of artillery, and many
wains laden with arms and ammunition, were dragged from the Tower
through the City to Hounslow.112 The Londoners saw this great
force assembled in their neighbourhood with a terror which
familiarity soon diminished. A visit to Hounslow became their
favourite amusement on holidays. The camp presented the
appearance of a vast fair. Mingled with the musketeers and
dragoons, a multitude of fine gentlemen and ladies from Soho
Square, sharpers and painted women from Whitefriars, invalids in
sedans, monks in hoods and gowns, lacqueys in rich liveries,
pedlars, orange girls, mischievous apprentices and gaping clowns,
was constantly passing and repassing through the long lanes of
tents. From some pavilions were heard the noises of drunken
revelry, from others the curses of gamblers. In truth the place
was merely a gay suburb of the capital. The King, as was amply
proved two years later, had greatly miscalculated. He had
forgotten that vicinity operates in more ways than one. He had
hoped that his army would overawe London: but the result of his
policy was that the feelings and opinions of London took complete
possession of his army.113

Scarcely indeed had the encampment been formed when there were
rumours of quarrels between the Protestant and Popish
soldiers.114 A little tract, entitled A humble and hearty Address
to all English Protestants in the Army, had been actively
circulated through the ranks. The writer vehemently exhorted the
troops to use their arms in defence, not of the mass book, but of
the Bible, of the Great Charter, and of the Petition of Right. He
was a man already under the frown of power. His character was
remarkable, and his history not uninstructive.

His name was Samuel Johnson. He was a priest of the Church of
England, and had been chaplain to Lord Russell. Johnson was one
of those persons who are mortally hated by their opponents, and
less loved than respected by their allies. His morals were pure,
his religious feelings ardent, his learning and abilities not
contemptible, his judgment weak, his temper acrimonious,
turbulent, and unconquerably stubborn. His profession made him
peculiarly odious to the zealous supporters of monarchy; for a
republican in holy orders was a strange and almost an unnatural
being. During the late reign Johnson had published a book
entitled Julian the Apostate. The object of this work was to show
that the Christians of the fourth century did not hold the
doctrine of nonresistance. It was easy to produce passages from
Chrysostom and Jerome written in a spirit very different from
that of the Anglican divines who preached against the Exclusion
Bill. Johnson, however, went further. He attempted to revive the
odious imputation which had, for very obvious reasons, been
thrown by Libanius on the Christian soldiers of Julian, and
insinuated that the dart which slew the imperial renegade came,
not from the enemy, but from some Rumbold or Ferguson in the
Roman ranks. A hot controversy followed. Whig and Tory disputants
wrangled fiercely about an obscure passage, in which Gregory of
Nazianzus praises a pious Bishop who was going to bastinado
somebody. The Whigs maintained that the holy man was going to
bastinado the Emperor; the Tories that, at the worst, he was only
going to bastinado a captain of the guard. Johnson prepared a
reply to his assailants, in which he drew an elaborate parallel
between Julian and James, then Duke of York, Julian had, during
many years, pretended to abhor idolatry, while in heart an
idolater. Julian had, to serve a turn, occasionally affected
respect for the rights of conscience. Julian had punished cities
which were zealous for the true religion, by taking away their
municipal privileges. Julian had, by his flatterers, been called
the Just. James was provoked beyond endurance. Johnson was
prosecuted for a libel, convicted, and condemned to a fine which
he had no means of paying. He was therefore kept in gaol; and it
seemed likely that his confinement would end only with his
life.115

Over the room which he occupied in the King's Bench prison lodged
another offender whose character well deserves to be studied.
This was Hugh Speke, a young man of good family, but of a
singularly base and depraved nature. His love of mischief and of
dark and crooked ways amounted almost to madness. To cause
confusion without being found out was his business and his
pastime; and he had a rare skill in using honest enthusiasts as
the instruments of his coldblooded malice. He had attempted, by
means of one of his puppets, to fasten on Charles and James the
crime of murdering Essex in the Tower. On this occasion the
agency of Speke had been traced and, though he succeeded in
throwing the greater part of the blame on his dupe, he had not
escaped with impunity. He was now a prisoner; but his fortune
enabled him to live with comfort; and he was under so little
restraint that he was able to keep up regular communication with
one of his confederates who managed a secret press.

Johnson was the very man for Speke's purposes, zealous and
intrepid, a scholar and a practised controversialist, yet as
simple as a child. A close intimacy sprang up between the two
fellow prisoners. Johnson wrote a succession of bitter and
vehement treatises which Speke conveyed to the printer. When the
camp was formed at Hounslow, Speke urged Johnson to compose an
address which might excite the troops to mutiny. The paper was
instantly drawn up. Many thousands of copies were struck off and
brought to Speke's room, whence they were distributed over the
whole country, and especially among the soldiers. A milder
government than that which then ruled England would have been
moved to high resentment by such a provocation. Strict search was
made. A subordinate agent who had been employed to circulate the
address saved himself by giving up Johnson; and Johnson was not
the man to save himself by giving up Speke. An information was
filed, and a conviction obtained without difficulty. Julian
Johnson, as he was popularly called, was sentenced to stand
thrice in the pillory, and to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn.
The Judge, Sir Francis Withins, told the criminal to be thankful
for the great lenity of the Attorney General, who might have
treated the case as one of high treason. "I owe him no thanks,"
answered Johnson, dauntlessly. "Am I, whose only crime is that I
have defended the Church and the laws, to be grateful for being
scourged like a dog, while Popish scribblers are suffered daily
to insult the Church and to violate the laws with impunity?" The
energy with which he spoke was such that both the Judges and the
crown lawyers thought it necessary to vindicate themselves, and
protested that they knew of no Popish publications such as those
to which the prisoner alluded. He instantly drew from his pocket
some Roman Catholic books and trinkets which were then freely
exposed for sale under the royal patronage, read aloud the titles
of the books, and threw a rosary across the table to the King's
counsel. "And now," he cried with a loud voice, "I lay this
information before God, before this court, and before the English
people. We shall soon see whether Mr. Attorney will do his duty."

It was resolved that, before the punishment was inflicted,
Johnson should be degraded from the priesthood. The prelates who
had been charged by the Ecclesiastical Commission with the care
of the diocese of London cited him before them in the chapter
house of Saint Paul's Cathedral. The manner in which he went
through the ceremony made a deep impression on many minds. When
he was stripped of his sacred robe he exclaimed, "You are taking
away my gown because I have tried to keep your gowns on your
backs." The only part of the formalities which seemed to distress
him was the plucking of the Bible out of his hand. He made a
faint struggle to retain the sacred book, kissed it, and burst
into tears. "You cannot," he said, "deprive me of the hopes which
I owe to it." Some attempts were made to obtain a remission of
the flogging. A Roman Catholic priest offered to intercede in
consideration of a bribe of two hundred pounds. The money was
raised; and the priest did his best, but in vain.

"Mr. Johnson," said the King, "has the spirit of a martyr; and it
is fit that he should be one." William the Third said, a few
years later, of one of the most acrimonious and intrepid
Jacobites, "He has set his heart on being a martyr, and I have
set mine on disappointing him." These two speeches would alone
suffice to explain the widely different fates of the two princes.

The day appointed for the flogging came. A whip of nine lashes
was used. Three hundred and seventeen stripes were inflicted; but
the sufferer never winced. He afterwards said that the pain was
cruel, but that, as he was dragged at the tail of the cart, he
remembered how patiently the cross had been borne up Mount
Calvary, and was so much supported by the thought that, but for
the fear of incurring the suspicion of vain glory, he would have
sung a psalm with as firm and cheerful a voice as if he had been
worshipping God in the congregation. It is impossible not to wish
that so much heroism had been less alloyed by intemperance and
intolerance.116

Among the clergy of the Church of England Johnson found no
sympathy. He had attempted to justify rebellion; he had even
hinted approbation of regicide; and they still, in spite of much
provocation, clung to the doctrine of nonresistance. But they saw
with alarm and concern the progress of what they considered as a
noxious superstition, and, while they abjured all thought of
defending their religion by the sword, betook themselves manfully
to weapons of a different kind. To preach against the errors of
Popery was now regarded by them as a point of duty and a point of
honour. The London clergy, who were then in abilities and
influence decidedly at the head of their profession, set an
example which was bravely followed by their ruder brethren all
over the country. Had only a few bold men taken this freedom,
they would probably have been at once cited before the
Ecclesiastical Commission; but it was hardly possible to punish
an offence which was committed every Sunday by thousands of
divines, from Berwick to Penzance. The presses of the capital, of
Oxford, and of Cambridge, never rested. The act which subjected
literature to a censorship did not seriously impede the exertions
of Protestant controversialists; for it contained a proviso in
favour of the two Universities, and authorised the publication of
theological works licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It
was therefore out of the power of the government to silence the
defenders of the established religion. They were a numerous, an
intrepid, and a well appointed band of combatants. Among them
were eloquent declaimers, expert dialecticians, scholars deeply
read in the writings of the fathers and in all parts of
ecclesiastical history. Some of them, at a later period, turned
against one another the formidable arms which they had wielded
against the common enemy, and by their fierce contentions and
insolent triumphs brought reproach on the Church which they had
saved. But at present they formed an united phalanx. In the van
appeared a rank of steady and skilful veterans, Tillotson,
Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Prideaux, Whitby, Patrick, Tenison,
Wake. The rear was brought up by the most distinguished bachelors
of arts who were studying for deacon's orders. Conspicuous
amongst the recruits whom Cambridge sent to the field was a
distinguished pupil of the great Newton, Henry Wharton, who had,
a few months before, been senior wrangler of his year, and whose
early death was soon after deplored by men of all parties as an
irreparable loss to letters.117 Oxford was not less proud of a
youth, whose great powers, first essayed in this conflict,
afterwards troubled the Church and the State during forty
eventful years, Francis Atterbury. By such men as these every
question in issue between the Papists and the Protestants was
debated, sometimes in a popular style which boys and women could
comprehend, sometimes with the utmost subtlety of logic, and
sometimes with an immense display of learning. The pretensions of
the Holy See, the authority of tradition, purgatory,
transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, the adoration of
the host, the denial of the cup to the laity, confession,
penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the invocation of saints,
the adoration of images, the celibacy of the clergy, the monastic
vows, the practice of celebrating public worship in a tongue
unknown to the multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome,
the history of the Reformation, the characters of the chief
reformers, were copiously discussed. Great numbers of absurd
legends about miracles wrought by saints and relics were
translated from the Italian and published as specimens of the
priestcraft by which the greater part of Christendom had been
fooled. Of the tracts put forth on these subjects by Anglican
divines during the short reign of James the Second many have
probably perished. Those which may still be found in our great
libraries make up a mass of near twenty thousand pages.118

The Roman Catholics did not yield the victory without a struggle.
One of them, named Henry Hills, had been appointed printer to the
royal household and chapel, and had been placed by the King at
the head of a great office in London from which theological
tracts came forth by hundreds. Obadiah Walker's press was not
less active at Oxford. But, with the exception of some bad
translations of Bossuet's admirable works, these establishments
put forth nothing of the smallest value. It was indeed impossible
for any intelligent and candid Roman Catholic to deny that the
champions of his Church were, in every talent and acquirement,
completely over-matched. The ablest of them would not, on the
other side, have been considered as of the third rate. Many of
them, even when they had something to say, knew not how to say
it. They had been excluded by their religion from English schools
and universities; nor had they ever, till the accession of James,
found England an agreeable, or even a safe, residence. They had
therefore passed the greater part of their lives on the
Continent, and had almost unlearned their mother tongue. When
they preached, their outlandish accent moved the derision of the
audience. They spelt like washerwomen. Their diction was
disfigured by foreign idioms; and, when they meant to be
eloquent, they imitated, as well as they could, what was
considered as fine writing in those Italian academies where
rhetoric had then reached the last stage of corruption.
Disputants labouring under these disadvantages would scarcely,
even with truth on their side, have been able to make head
against men whose style is eminently distinguished by simple
purity and grace.119

The situation of England in the year 1686 cannot be better
described than in the words of the French Ambassador. "The
discontent," he wrote, "is great and general: but the fear of
incurring still worse evils restrains all who have anything to
lose. The King openly expresses his joy at finding himself in a
situation to strike bold strokes. He likes to be complimented on
this subject. He has talked to me about it, and has assured me
that he will not flinch."120

Meanwhile in other parts of the empire events of grave importance
had taken place. The situation of the episcopalian Protestants of
Scotland differed widely from that in which their English
brethren stood. In the south of the island the religion of the
state was the religion of the people, and had a strength
altogether independent of the strength derived from the support
of the government. The sincere conformists were far more numerous
than the Papists and the Protestant Dissenters taken together.
The Established Church of Scotland was the Church of a small
minority. The majority of the lowland population was firmly
attached to the Presbyterian discipline. Prelacy was abhorred by
the great body of Scottish Protestants, both as an unscriptural
and as a foreign institution. It was regarded by the disciples of
Knox as a relic of the abominations of Babylon the Great. It
painfully reminded a people proud of the memory of Wallace and
Bruce that Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded to a
fairer inheritance, had been independent in name only. The
episcopal polity was also closely associated in the public mind
with all the evils produced by twenty-five years of corrupt and
cruel maladministration. Nevertheless this polity stood, though
on a narrow basis and amidst fearful storms, tottering indeed,
yet upheld by the civil magistrate, and leaning for support,
whenever danger became serious, on the power of England. The
records of the Scottish Parliament were thick set with laws
denouncing vengeance on those who in any direction strayed from
the prescribed pale. By an Act passed in the time of Knox, and
breathing his spirit, it was a high crime to hear mass, and the
third offence was capital.121 An Act recently passed, at the
instance of James, made it death to preach in any Presbyterian
conventicle whatever, and even to attend such a conventicle in
the open air.122 The Eucharist was not, as in England, degraded
into a civil test; but no person could hold any office, could sit
in Parliament, or could even vote for a member of Parliament,
without subscribing, under the sanction of an oath, a declaration
which condemned in the strongest terms the principles both of the
Papists and of the Covenanters.123

In the Privy Council of Scotland there were two parties
corresponding to the two parties which were contending against
each other at Whitehall. William Douglas, Duke of Queensberry,
was Lord Treasurer, and had, during some years, been considered
as first minister. He was nearly connected by affinity, by
similarity of opinions, and by similarity of temper, with the
Treasurer of England. Both were Tories: both were men of hot
temper and strong prejudices; both were ready to support their
master in any attack on the civil liberties of his people; but
both were sincerely attached to the Established Church.
Queensberry had early notified to the court that, if any
innovation affecting that Church were contemplated, to such
innovation he could be no party. But among his colleagues were
several men not less unprincipled than Sunderland. In truth the
Council chamber at Edinburgh had been, during a quarter of a
century, a seminary of all public and private vices; and some of
the politicians whose character had been formed there had a
peculiar hardness of heart and forehead to which Westminster,
even in that bad age, could hardly show anything quite equal. The
Chancellor, James Drummond, Earl of Perth, and his brother, the
Secretary of State, John Lord Melfort, were bent on supplanting
Queensberry. The Chancellor had already an unquestionable title
to the royal favour. He had brought into use a little steel
thumbscrew which gave such exquisite torment that it had wrung
confessions even out of men on whom His Majesty's favourite boot
had been tried in vain.124 But it was well known that even
barbarity was not so sure a way to the heart of James as
apostasy. To apostasy, therefore, Perth and Melfort resorted with
a certain audacious baseness which no English statesman could
hope to emulate. They declared that the papers found in the
strong box of Charles the Second had converted them both to the
true faith; and they began to confess and to hear mass.125 How
little conscience had to do with Perth's change of religion he
amply proved by taking to wife, a few weeks later, in direct
defiance of the laws of the Church which he had just joined, a
lady who was his cousin german, without waiting for a
dispensation. When the good Pope learned this, he said, with
scorn and indignation which well became him, that this was a
strange sort of conversion.126 But James was more easily
satisfied. The apostates presented themselves at Whitehall, and
there received such assurances of his favour, that they ventured
to bring direct charges against the Treasurer. Those charges,
however, were so evidently frivolous that James was forced to
acquit the accused minister; and many thought that the Chancellor
had ruined himself by his malignant eagerness to ruin his rival.
There were a few, however, who judged more correctly. Halifax, to
whom Perth expressed some apprehensions, answered with a sneer
that there was no danger. "Be of good cheer, my Lord; thy faith
hath made thee whole." The prediction was correct. Perth and
Melfort went back to Edinburgh, the real heads of the government
of their country.127 Another member of the Scottish Privy
Council, Alexander Stuart, Earl of Murray, the descendant and
heir of the Regent, abjured the religion of which his illustrious
ancestor had been the foremost champion, and declared himself a
member of the Church of Rome. Devoted as Queensberry had always
been to the cause of prerogative, he could not stand his ground
against competitors who were willing to pay such a price for the
favour of the court. He had to endure a succession of
mortifications and humiliations similar to those which, about the
same time, began to embitter the life of his friend Rochester.
Royal letters came down authorising Papists to hold offices
without taking the test. The clergy were strictly charged not to
reflect on the Roman Catholic religion in their discourses. The
Chancellor took on himself to send the macers of the Privy
Council round to the few printers and booksellers who could then
be found in Edinburgh, charging them not to publish any work
without his license. It was well understood that this order was
intended to prevent the circulation of Protestant treatises. One
honest stationer told the messengers that he had in his shop a
book which reflected in very coarse terms on Popery, and begged
to know whether he might sell it. They asked to see it; and he
showed them a copy of the Bible.128 A cargo of images, beads,
crosses and censers arrived at Leith directed to Lord Perth. The
importation of such articles had long been considered as illegal;
but now the officers of the customs allowed the superstitious
garments and trinkets to pass.129 In a short time it was known
that a Popish chapel had been fitted up in the Chancellor's
house, and that mass was regularly said there. The mob rose. The
mansion where the idolatrous rites were celebrated was fiercely
attacked. The iron bars which protected the windows were wrenched
off. Lady Perth and some of her female friends were pelted with
mud. One rioter was seized, and ordered by the Privy Council to
be whipped. His fellows rescued him and beat the hangman. The
city was all night in confusion. The students of the University
mingled with the crowd and animated the tumult. Zealous burghers
drank the health of the college lads and confusion to Papists,
and encouraged each other to face the troops. The troops were
already under arms. They were received with a shower of stones,
which wounded an officer. Orders were given to fire; and several
citizens were killed. The disturbance was serious; but the
Drummonds, inflamed by resentment and ambition, exaggerated it
strangely. Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any
person, who had not been a witness of the tumult, to believe that
a sedition as formidable as that of Masaniello had been raging at
Edinburgh. They in return accused the Treasurer, not only of
extenuating the crime of the insurgents, but of having himself
prompted it, and did all in their power to obtain evidence of his
guilt. One of the ringleaders, who had been taken, was offered a
pardon if he would own that Queensberry had set him on; but the
same religious enthusiasm, which had impelled the unhappy
prisoner to criminal violence, prevented him from purchasing his
life by a calumny. He and several of his accomplices were hanged.
A soldier, who was accused of exclaiming, during the affray, that
he should like to run his sword through a Papist, was shot; and
Edinburgh was again quiet: but the sufferers were regarded as
martyrs; and the Popish Chancellor became an object of mortal
hatred, which in no long time was largely gratified.130

The King was much incensed. The news of the tumult reached him
when the Queen, assisted by the Jesuits, had just triumphed over
Lady Dorchester and her Protestant allies. The malecontents
should find, he declared, that the only effect of the resistance
offered to his will was to make him more and more resolute.131 He
sent orders to the Scottish Council to punish the guilty with the
utmost severity, and to make unsparing use of the boot.132 He
pretended to be fully convinced of the Treasurer's innocence, and
wrote to that minister in gracious words; but the gracious words
were accompanied by ungracious acts. The Scottish Treasury was
put into commission in spite of the earnest remonstrances of
Rochester, who probably saw his own fate prefigured in that of
his kinsman.133 Queensberry was, indeed, named First
Commissioner, and was made President of the Privy Council: but
his fall, though thus broken, was still a fall. He was also
removed from the government of the castle of Edinburgh, and was
succeeded in that confidential post by the Duke of Gordon, a
Roman Catholic.134

And now a letter arrived from London, fully explaining to the
Scottish Privy Council the intentions of the King. What he wanted
was that the Roman Catholics should be exempted from all laws
imposing penalties and disabilities on account of nonconformity,
but that the persecution of the Covenanters should go on without
mitigation.135 This scheme encountered strenuous opposition in
the Council. Some members were unwilling to see the existing laws
relaxed. Others, who were by no means averse to some relaxation,
yet felt that it would he monstrous to admit Roman Catholics to
the highest honours of the state, and yet to leave unrepealed the
Act which made it death to attend a Presbyterian conventicle. The
answer of the board was, therefore, less obsequious than usual.
The King in reply sharply reprimanded his undutiful Councillors,
and ordered three of them, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George
Lockhart, and General Drummond, to attend him at Westminster.
Hamilton's abilities and knowledge, though by no means such as
would have sufficed to raise an obscure man to eminence, appeared
highly respectable in one who was premier peer of Scotland.
Lockhart had long been regarded as one of the first jurists,
logicians, and orators that his country had produced, and enjoyed
also that sort of consideration which is derived from large
possessions; for his estate was such as at that time very few
Scottish nobles possessed.136 He had been lately appointed
President of the Court of Session. Drummond, a younger brother of
Perth and Melfort, was commander of the forces in Scotland. He
was a loose and profane man: but a sense of honour which his two
kinsmen wanted restrained him from a public apostasy. He lived
and died, in the significant phrase of one of his countrymen, a
bad Christian, but a good Protestant.137

James was pleased by the dutiful language which the three
Councillors used when first they appeared before him.
He spoke highly of them to Barillon, and particularly extolled
Lockhart as the ablest and most eloquent Scotchman living. They
soon proved, however, less tractable than had been expected; and
it was rumoured at court that they had been perverted by the
company which they had kept in London. Hamilton lived much with
zealous churchmen; and it might be feared that Lockhart, who was
related to the Wharton family, had fallen into still worse
society. In truth it was natural that statesmen fresh from a
country where opposition in any other form than that of
insurrection and assassination had long been almost unknown, and
where all that was not lawless fury was abject submission, should
have been struck by the earnest and stubborn, yet sober,
discontent which pervaded England, and should have been
emboldened to try the experiment of constitutional resistance to
the royal will. They indeed declared themselves willing to grant
large relief to the Roman Catholics; but on two conditions;
first, that similar indulgence should be extended to the
Calvinistic sectaries; and, secondly, that the King should bind
himself by a solemn promise not to attempt anything to the
prejudice of the Protestant religion.

Both conditions were highly distasteful to James. He reluctantly
agreed, however, after a dispute which lasted several days, that
some indulgence should be granted to the Presbyterians but he
would by no means consent to allow them the full liberty which he
demanded for members of his own communion.138 To the second
condition proposed by the three Scottish Councillors he
positively refused to listen. The Protestant religion, he said,
was false and he would not give any guarantee that he would not
use his power to the prejudice of a false religion. The
altercation was long, and was not brought to a conclusion
satisfactory to either party.139

The time fixed for the meeting of the Scottish Estates drew near;
and it was necessary that the three Councillors should leave
London to attend their parliamentary duty at Edinburgh. On this
occasion another affront was offered to Queensberry. In the late
session he had held the office of Lord High Commissioner, and had
in that capacity represented the majesty of the absent King. This
dignity, the greatest to which a Scottish noble could aspire, was
now transferred to the renegade Murray.

On the twenty-ninth of April the Parliament met at Edinburgh. A
letter from the King was read. He exhorted the Estates to give
relief to his Roman Catholic subjects, and offered in return a
free trade with England and an amnesty for political offences. A
committee was appointed to draw up an answer. That committee,
though named by Murray, and composed of Privy Councillors and
courtiers, framed a reply, full indeed of dutiful and respectful
expressions, yet clearly indicating a determination to refuse
what the King demanded. The Estates, it was said, would go as far
as their consciences would allow to meet His Majesty's wishes
respecting his subjects of the Roman Catholic religion. These
expressions were far from satisfying the Chancellor; yet, such as
they were, he was forced to content himself with them, and even
had some difficulty in persuading the Parliament to adopt them.
Objection was taken by some zealous Protestants to the mention
made of the Roman Catholic religion. There was no such religion.
There was an idolatrous apostasy, which the laws punished with
the halter, and to which it did not become Christian men to give
flattering titles. To call such a superstition Catholic was to
give up the whole question which was at issue between Rome and
the reformed Churches. The offer of a free trade with England was
treated as an insult. "Our fathers," said one orator, "sold their
King for southern gold; and we still lie under the reproach of
that foul bargain. Let it not be said of us that we have sold our
God!" Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, one of the Senators of the
College of Justice, suggested the words, "the persons commonly
called Roman Catholics." "Would you nickname His Majesty?"
exclaimed the Chancellor. The answer drawn by the committee was
carried; but a large and respectable minority voted against the
proposed words as too courtly.140 It was remarked that the
representatives of the towns were, almost to a man, against the
government. Hitherto those members had been of small account in
the Parliament, and had generally, been considered as the
retainers of powerful noblemen. They now showed, for the first
time, an independence, a resolution, and a spirit of combination
which alarmed the court.141

The answer was so unpleasing to James that he did not suffer it
to be printed in the Gazette. Soon he learned that a law, such as
he wished to see passed, would not even be brought in. The Lords
of Articles, whose business was to draw up the acts on which the
Estates were afterwards to deliberate, were virtually nominated
by himself. Yet even the Lords of Articles proved refractory.
When they met, the three Privy Councillors who had lately
returned from London took the lead in opposition to the royal
will. Hamilton declared plainly that he could not do what was
asked. He was a faithful and loyal subject; but there was a limit
imposed by conscience. "Conscience!" said the Chancellor:
"conscience is a vague word, which signifies any thing or
nothing." Lockhart, who sate in Parliament as representative of
the great county of Lanark, struck in. "If conscience," he said,
"be a word without meaning, we will change it for another phrase
which, I hope, means something. For conscience let us put the
fundamental laws of Scotland." These words raised a fierce
debate. General Drummond, who represented Perthshire, declared
that he agreed with Hamilton and Lockhart. Most of the Bishops
present took the same side.142

It was plain that, even in the Committee of Articles, James could
not command a majority. He was mortified and irritated by the
tidings. He held warm and menacing language, and punished some of
his mutinous servants, in the hope that the rest would take
warning. Several persons were dismissed from the Council board.
Several were deprived of pensions, which formed an important part
of their income. Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh was the most
distinguished victim. He had long held the office of Lord
Advocate, and had taken such a part in the persecution of the
Covenanters that to this day he holds, in the estimation of the
austere and godly peasantry of Scotland, a place not far removed
from the unenviable eminence occupied by Claverhouse. The legal
attainments of Mackenzie were not of the highest order: but, as a
scholar, a wit, and an orator, he stood high in the opinion of
his countrymen; and his renown had spread even to the
coffeehouses of London and the cloisters of Oxford. The remains
of his forensic speeches prove him to have been a man of parts,
but are somewhat disfigured by what he doubtless considered as
Ciceronian graces, interjections which show more art than
passion, and elaborate amplifications, in which epithet rises
above epithet in wearisome climax. He had now, for the first
time, been found scrupulous. He was, therefore, in spite of all
his claims on the gratitude of the government, deprived of his
office. He retired into the country, and soon after went up to
London for the purpose of clearing himself, but was refused
admission to the royal presence.143 While the King was thus
trying to terrify the Lords of Articles into submission, the
popular voice encouraged them to persist. The utmost exertions of
the Chancellor could not prevent the national sentiment from
expressing itself through the pulpit and the press. One tract,
written with such boldness and acrimony that no printer dared to
put it in type, was widely circulated in manuscript. The papers
which appeared on the other side of the question had much less
effect, though they were disseminated at the public charge, and
though the Scottish defenders of the government were assisted by
an English auxiliary of great note, Lestrange, who had been sent
down to Edinburgh, and had apartments in Holyrood House.144

At length, after three weeks of debate, the Lords of Articles
came to a decision. They proposed merely that Roman Catholics
should be permitted to worship God in private houses without
incurring any penalty; and it soon appeared that, far as this
measure was from coming up to the King's demands and
expectations, the Estates either would not pass it at all, or
would pass it with great restrictions and modifications.

While the contest lasted the anxiety in London was intense. Every
report, every line, from Edinburgh was eagerly devoured. One day
the story ran that Hamilton had given way and that the government
would carry every point. Then came intelligence that the
opposition had rallied and was more obstinate than ever. At the
most critical moment orders were sent to the post-office that the
bags from Scotland should be transmitted to Whitehall. During a
whole week not a single private letter from beyond the Tweed was
delivered in London. In our age such an interruption of
communication would throw the whole island into confusion: but
there was then so little trade and correspondence between England
and Scotland that the inconvenience was probably much smaller
than has been often occasioned in our own time by a short delay
in the arrival of the Indian mail. While the ordinary channels of
information were thus closed, the crowd in the galleries of
Whitehall observed with attention the countenances of the King
and his ministers. It was noticed, with great satisfaction, that,
after every express from the North, the enemies of the Protestant
religion looked more and more gloomy. At length, to the general
joy, it was announced that the struggle was over, that the
government had been unable to carry its measures, and that the
Lord High Commissioner had adjourned the Parliament.145

If James had not been proof to all warning, these events would
have sufficed to warn him. A few months before this time the most
obsequious of English Parliaments had refused to submit to his
pleasure. But the most obsequious of English Parliaments might be
regarded as an independent and high spirited assembly when
compared with any Parliament that had ever sate in Scotland; and
the servile spirit of Scottish Parliaments was always to be found
in the highest perfection, extracted and condensed, among the
Lords of Articles. Yet even the Lords of Articles had been
refractory. It was plain that all those classes, all those
institutions, which, up to this year, had been considered as the
strongest supports of monarchical power, must, if the King
persisted in his insane policy, be reckoned as parts of the
strength of the opposition. All these signs, however, were lost
upon him. To every expostulation he had one answer: he would
never give way; for concession had ruined his father; and his
unconquerable firmness was loudly applauded by the French embassy
and by the Jesuitical cabal.

He now proclaimed that he had been only too gracious when he had
condescended to ask the assent of the Scottish Estates to his
wishes. His prerogative would enable him not only to protect
those whom he favoured, but to punish those who had crossed him.
He was confident that, in Scotland, his dispensing power would
not be questioned by any court of law. There was a Scottish Act
of Supremacy which gave to the sovereign such a control over the
Church as might have satisfied Henry the Eighth. Accordingly
Papists were admitted in crowds to offices and honours. The
Bishop of Dunkeld, who, as a Lord of Parliament, had opposed the
government, was arbitrarily ejected from his see, and a successor
was appointed. Queensberry was stripped of all his employments,
and was ordered to remain at Edinburgh till the accounts of the
Treasury during his administration had been examined and
approved.146 As the representatives of the towns had been found
the most unmanageable part of the Parliament, it was determined
to make a revolution in every burgh throughout the kingdom. A
similar change had recently been effected in England by judicial
sentences: but in Scotland a simple mandate of the prince was
thought sufficient. All elections of magistrates and of town
councils were prohibited; and the King assumed to himself the
right of filling up the chief municipal offices.147 In a formal
letter to the Privy Council he announced his intention to fit up
a Roman Catholic chapel in his palace of Holyrood; and he gave
orders that the Judges should be directed to treat all the laws
against Papists as null, on pain of his high displeasure. He
however comforted the Protestant Episcopalians by assuring them
that, though he was determined to protect the Roman Catholic
Church against them, he was equally determined to protect them
against any encroachment on the part of the fanatics. To this
communication Perth proposed an answer couched in the most
servile terms. The Council now contained many Papists; the
Protestant members who still had seats had been cowed by the
King's obstinacy and severity; and only a few faint murmurs were
heard. Hamilton threw out against the dispensing power some hints
which he made haste to explain away. Lockhart said that he would
lose his head rather than sign such a letter as the Chancellor
had drawn, but took care to say this in a whisper which was heard
only by friends. Perth's words were adopted with inconsiderable
modifications; and the royal commands were obeyed; but a sullen
discontent spread through that minority of the Scottish nation by
the aid of which the government had hitherto held the majority
down.148

When the historian of this troubled reign turns to Ireland, his
task becomes peculiarly difficult and delicate. His steps,--to
borrow the fine image used on a similar occasion by a Roman
poet,--are on the thin crust of ashes, beneath which the lava is
still glowing. The seventeenth century has, in that unhappy
country, left to the nineteenth a fatal heritage of malignant
passions. No amnesty for the mutual wrongs inflicted by the Saxon
defenders of Londonderry, and by the Celtic defenders of
Limerick, has ever been granted from the heart by either race. To
this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys the many noble
qualities which characterize the children of the victors, while a
Helot feeling, compounded of awe and hatred, is but too often
discernible in the children of the vanquished. Neither of the
hostile castes can justly be absolved from blame; but the chief
blame is due to that shortsighted and headstrong prince who,
placed in a situation in which he might have reconciled them,
employed all his power to inflame their animosity, and at length
forced them to close in a grapple for life and death.

The grievances under which the members of his Church laboured in
Ireland differed widely from those which he was attempting to
remove in England and Scotland. The Irish Statute Book,
afterwards polluted by intolerance as barbarous as that of the
dark ages, then contained scarce a single enactment, and not a
single stringent enactment, imposing any penalty on Papists as
such. On our side of Saint George's Channel every priest who
received a neophyte into the bosom of the Church of Rome was
liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. On the other side he
incurred no such danger. A Jesuit who landed at Dover took his
life in his hand; but he walked the streets of Dublin in
security. Here no man could hold office, or even earn his
livelihood as a barrister or a schoolmaster, without previously
taking the oath of supremacy, but in Ireland a public functionary
was not held to be under the
necessity of taking that oath unless it were formally tendered to
him.149 It therefore did not exclude from employment any person
whom the government wished to promote. The sacramental test and
the declaration against transubstantiation were unknown nor was
either House of Parliament closed against any religious sect.

It might seem, therefore, that the Irish Roman Catholic was in a
situation which his English and Scottish brethren in the faith
might well envy. In fact, however, his condition was more
pitiable and irritating than theirs. For, though not persecuted
as a Roman Catholic, he was oppressed as an Irishman. In his
country the same line of demarcation which separated religions
separated races; and he was of the conquered, the subjugated, the
degraded race. On the same soil dwelt two populations, locally
intermixed, morally and politically sundered. The difference of
religion was by no means the only difference, and was perhaps not
even the chief difference, which existed between them. They
sprang from different stocks. They spoke different languages.
They had different national characters as strongly opposed as any
two national characters in Europe. They were in widely different
stages of civilisation. Between two such populations there could
be little sympathy; and centuries of calamities and wrongs had
generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which the minority
stood to the majority resembled the relation in which the
followers of William the Conqueror stood to the Saxon churls, or
the relation in which the followers of Cortes stood to the
Indians of Mexico.

The appellation of Irish was then given exclusively to the Celts
and to those families which, though not of Celtic origin, had in
the course of ages degenerated into Celtic manners. These people,
probably somewhat under a million in number, had, with few
exceptions, adhered to the Church of Rome. Among them resided
about two hundred thousand colonists, proud of their Saxon blood
and of their Protestant faith.150

The great preponderance of numbers on one side was more than
compensated by a great superiority of intelligence, vigour, and
organization on the other. The English settlers seem to have
been, in knowledge, energy, and perseverance, rather above than
below the average level of the population of the mother country.
The aboriginal peasantry, on the contrary, were in an almost
savage state. They never worked till they felt the sting of
hunger. They were content with accommodation inferior to that
which, in happier countries, was provided for domestic cattle.
Already the potato, a root which can be cultivated with scarcely
any art, industry, or capital, and which cannot be long stored,
had become the food of the common people.151 From a people so fed
diligence and forethought were not to be expected. Even within a
few miles of Dublin, the traveller, on a soil the richest and
most verdant in the world, saw with disgust the miserable burrows
out of which squalid and half naked barbarians stared wildly at
him as he passed.152

The aboriginal aristocracy retained in no common measure the
pride of birth, but had lost the influence which is derived from
wealth and power. Their lands had been divided by Cromwell among
his followers. A portion, indeed, of the vast territory which he
had confiscated had, after the restoration of the House of
Stuart, been given back to the ancient proprietors. But much the
greater part was still held by English emigrants under the
guarantee of an Act of Parliament. This act had been in force a
quarter of a century; and under it mortgages, settlements, sales,
and leases without number had been made. The old Irish gentry
were scattered over the whole world. Descendants of Milesian
chieftains swarmed in all the courts and camps of the Continent.
Those despoiled proprietors who still remained in their native
land, brooded gloomily over their losses, pined for the opulence
and dignity of which they had been deprived, and cherished wild
hopes of another revolution. A person of this class was described
by his countrymen as a gentleman who would be rich if justice
were done, as a gentleman who had a fine estate if he could only
get it.153 He seldom betook himself to any peaceful calling.
Trade, indeed, he thought a far more disgraceful resource than
marauding. Sometimes he turned freebooter. Sometimes he
contrived, in defiance of the law, to live by coshering, that is
to say, by quartering himself on the old tenants of his family,
who, wretched as was their own condition, could not refuse a
portion of their pittance to one whom they still regarded as
their rightful lord.154 The native gentleman who had been so
fortunate as to keep or to regain some of his land too often
lived like the petty prince of a savage tribe, and indemnified
himself for the humiliations which the dominant race made him
suffer by governing his vassals despotically, by keeping a rude
haram, and by maddening or stupefying himself daily with strong
drink.155 Politically he was insignificant. No statute, indeed,
excluded him from the House of Commons: but he had almost as
little chance of obtaining a seat there as a man of colour has of
being chosen a Senator of the United States. In fact only one
Papist had been returned to the Irish Parliament since the
Restoration. The whole legislative and executive power was in the
hands of the colonists; and the ascendency of the ruling caste
was upheld by a standing army of seven thousand men, on whose
zeal for what was called the English interest full reliance could
be placed.156

On a close scrutiny it would have been found that neither the
Irishry nor the Englishry formed a perfectly homogeneous body.
The distinction between those Irish who were of Celtic blood, and
those Irish who sprang from the followers of Strong-bow and De
Burgh, was not altogether effaced. The Fitzes sometimes permitted
themselves to speak with scorn of the Os and Macs; and the Os and
Macs sometimes repaid that scorn with aversion. In the preceding
generation one of the most powerful of the O'Neills refused to
pay any mark of respect to a Roman Catholic gentleman of old
Norman descent. "They say that the family has been here four
hundred years. No matter. I hate the clown as if he had come
yesterday."157 It seems, however, that such feelings were rare,
and that the feud which had long raged between the aboriginal
Celts and the degenerate English had nearly given place to the
fiercer feud which separated both races from the modern and
Protestant colony.

The colony had its own internal disputes, both national and
religious. The majority was English; but a large minority came
from the south of Scotland. One half of the settlers belonged to
the Established Church; the other half were Dissenters. But in
Ireland Scot and Southron were strongly bound together by their
common Saxon origin. Churchman and Presbyterian were strongly
bound together by their common Protestantism. All the colonists
had a common language and a common pecuniary interest. They were
surrounded by common enemies, and could be safe only by means of
common precautions and exertions. The few penal laws, therefore,
which had been made in Ireland against Protestant Nonconformists,
were a dead letter.158 The bigotry of the most sturdy churchman
would not bear exportation across St. George's Channel. As soon
as the Cavalier arrived in Ireland, and found that, without the
hearty and courageous assistance of his Puritan neighbours, he
and all his family would run imminent risk of being murdered by
Popish marauders, his hatred of Puritanism, in spite of himself,
began to languish and die away. It was remarked by eminent men of
both parties that a Protestant who, in Ireland, was called a high
Tory would in England have been considered as a moderate Whig.159

The Protestant Nonconformists, on their side, endured, with more
patience than could have been expected, the sight of the most
absurd ecclesiastical establishment that the world has ever seen.
Four Archbishops and eighteen Bishops were employed in looking
after about a fifth part of the number of churchmen who inhabited
the single diocese of London. Of the parochial clergy a large
proportion were pluralists and resided at a distance from their
cures. There were some who drew from their benefices incomes of
little less than a thousand a year, without ever performing any
spiritual function. Yet this monstrous institution was much less
disliked by the Puritans settled in Ireland than the Church of
England by the English sectaries. For in Ireland religious
divisions were subordinate to national divisions; and the
Presbyterian, while, as a theologian, he could not but condemn
the established hierarchy, yet looked on that hierarchy with a
sort of complacency when he considered it as a sumptuous and
ostentatious trophy of the victory achieved by the great race
from which he sprang.160

Thus the grievances of the Irish Roman Catholic had hardly
anything in common with the grievances of the English Roman
Catholic. The Roman Catholic of Lancashire or Staffordshire had
only to turn Protestant; and he was at once, in all respects, on
a level with his neighbours: but, if the Roman Catholics of
Munster and Connaught had turned Protestants, they would still
have continued to be a subject people. Whatever evils the Roman
Catholic suffered in England were the effects of harsh
legislation, and might have been remedied by a more liberal
legislation. But between the two populations which inhabited
Ireland there was an inequality which legislation had not caused
and could not remove. The dominion which one of those populations
exercised over the other was the dominion of wealth over poverty,
of knowledge over ignorance, of civilised over uncivilised man.

James himself seemed, at the commencement of his reign, to be
perfectly aware of these truths. The distractions of Ireland, he
said, arose, not from the differences between the Catholics and
the Protestants, but from the differences between the Irish and
the English.161 The consequences which he should have drawn from
this just proposition were sufficiently obvious; but unhappily
for himself and for Ireland he failed to perceive them.

If only national animosity could be allayed, there could be
little doubt that religious animosity, not being kept alive, as
in England, by cruel penal acts and stringent test acts, would of
itself fade away. To allay a national animosity such as that
which the two races inhabiting Ireland felt for each other could
not be the work of a few years. Yet it was a work to which a wise
and good prince might have contributed much; and James would have
undertaken that work with advantages such as none of his
predecessors or successors possessed. At once an Englishman and a
Roman Catholic, he belonged half to the ruling and half to the
subject caste, and was therefore peculiarly qualified to be a
mediator between them. Nor is it difficult to trace the course
which he ought to have pursued. He ought to have determined that
the existing settlement of landed property should be inviolable;
and he ought to have announced that determination in such a
manner as effectually to quiet the anxiety of the new
proprietors, and to extinguish any wild hopes which the old
proprietors might entertain. Whether, in the great transfer of
estates, injustice had or had not been committed, was immaterial.
That transfer, just or unjust, had taken place so long ago, that
to reverse it would be to unfix the foundations of society. There
must be a time of limitation to all rights. After thirty-five
years of actual possession, after twenty-five years of possession
solemnly guaranteed by statute, after innumerable leases and
releases, mortgages and devises, it was too late to search for
flaws in titles. Nevertheless something might have been done to
heal the lacerated feelings and to raise the fallen fortunes of
the Irish gentry. The colonists were in a thriving condition.
They had greatly improved their property by building, planting,
and fencing. The rents had almost doubled within a few years;
trade was brisk; and the revenue, amounting to about three
hundred thousand pounds a year, more than defrayed all the
charges of the local government, and afforded a surplus which was
remitted to England. There was no doubt that the next Parliament
which should meet at Dublin, though representing almost
exclusively the English interest, would, in return for the King's
promise to maintain that interest in all its legal rights,
willingly grant to him a very considerable sum for the purpose of
indemnifying, at least in part, such native families as had been
wrongfully despoiled. It was thus that in our own time the French
government put an end to the disputes engendered by the most
extensive confiscation that ever took place in Europe. And thus,
if James had been guided by the advice of his most loyal
Protestant counsellors, he would have at least greatly mitigated
one of the chief evils which afflicted Ireland.162

Having done this, he should have laboured to reconcile the
hostile races to each other by impartially protecting the rights
and restraining the excesses of both. He should have punished
with equal severity the native who indulged in the license of
barbarism, and the colonist who abused the strength of
civilisation. As far as the legitimate authority of the crown
extended,--and in Ireland it extended far,--no man who was
qualified for office by integrity and ability should have been
considered as disqualified by extraction or by creed for any
public trust. It is probable that a Roman Catholic King, with an
ample revenue absolutely at his disposal, would, without much
difficulty, have secured the cooperation of the Roman Catholic
prelates and priests in the great work of reconciliation. Much,
however, must still have been left to the healing influence of
time. The native race would still have had to learn from the
colonists industry and forethought, the arts of life, and the
language of England. There could not be equality between men who
lived in houses and men who lived in sties, between men who were
fed on bread and men who were fed on potatoes, between men who
spoke the noble tongue of great philosophers and poets and men
who, with a perverted pride, boasted that they could not writhe
their mouths into chattering such a jargon as that in which the
Advancement of Learning and the Paradise Lost were written.163
Yet it is not unreasonable to believe that, if the gentle policy
which has been described had been steadily followed by the
government, all distinctions would gradually have been effaced,
and that there would now have been no more trace of the hostility
which has been the curse of Ireland than there is of the equally
deadly hostility which once raged between the Saxons and the
Normans in England.

Unhappily James, instead of becoming a mediator became the
fiercest and most reckless of partisans. Instead of allaying the
animosity of the two populations, he inflamed it to a height
before unknown. He determined to reverse their relative position,
and to put the Protestant colonists under the feet of the Popish
Celts. To be of the established religion, to be of the English
blood, was, in his view, a disqualification for civil and
military employment. He meditated the design of again
confiscating and again portioning out the soil of half the
island, and showed his inclination so clearly that one class was
soon agitated by terrors which he afterwards vainly wished to
soothe, and the other by hopes which he afterwards vainly wished
to restrain. But this was the smallest part of his guilt and
madness. He deliberately resolved, not merely to give to the
aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland the entire possession of their
own country, but also to use them as his instruments for setting
up arbitrary government in England. The event was such as might
have been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with the stubborn
hardihood of their race. The mother country justly regarded their
cause as her own. Then came a desperate struggle for a tremendous
stake. Everything dear to nations was wagered on both sides: nor
can we justly blame either the Irishman or the Englishman for
obeying, in that extremity, the law of self-preservation. The
contest was terrible, but short. The weaker went down. His fate
was cruel; and yet for the cruelty with which he was treated
there was, not indeed a defence, but an excuse: for, though he
suffered all that tyranny could inflict, he suffered nothing that
he would not himself have inflicted. The effect of the insane
attempt to subjugate England by means of Ireland was that the
Irish became hewers of wood and drawers of water to the English.
The old proprietors, by their effort to recover what they had
lost, lost the greater part of what they had retained. The
momentary ascendency of Popery produced such a series of
barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book of Ireland
a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom. Such were the bitter
fruits of the policy of James.

We have seen that one of his first acts, after he became King,
was to recall Ormond from Ireland. Ormond was the head of the
English interest in that kingdom: he was firmly attached to the
Protestant religion; and his power far exceeded that of an
ordinary Lord Lieutenant, first, because he was in rank and
wealth the greatest of the colonists, and, secondly, because he
was not only the chief of the civil administration, but also
commander of the forces. The King was not at that time disposed
to commit the government wholly to Irish hands. He had indeed
been heard to say that a native viceroy would soon become an
independent sovereign.164 For the present, therefore, he
determined to divide the power which Ormond had possessed, to
entrust the civil administration to an English and Protestant
Lord Lieutenant, and to give the command of the army to an Irish
and Roman Catholic General. The Lord Lieutenant was Clarendon;
the General was Tyrconnel.

Tyrconnel sprang, as has already been said, from one of those
degenerate families of the Pale which were popularly classed with
the aboriginal population of Ireland. He sometimes, indeed, in
his rants, talked with Norman haughtiness of the Celtic
barbarians:165 but all his sympathies were really with the
natives. The Protestant colonists he hated; and they returned his
hatred. Clarendon's inclinations were very different: but he was,
from temper, interest, and principle, an obsequious courtier. His
spirit was mean; his circumstances were embarrassed; and his mind
had been deeply imbued with the political doctrines which the
Church of England had in that age too assiduously taught. His
abilities, however, were not contemptible; and, under a good
King, he would probably have been a respectable viceroy.

About three quarters of a year elapsed between the recall of
Ormond and the arrival of Clarendon at Dublin. During that
interval the King was represented by a board of Lords Justices:
but the military administration was in Tyrconnel's hands. Already
the designs of the court began gradually to unfold themselves. A
royal order came from Whitehall for disarming the population.
This order Tyrconnel strictly executed as respected the English.
Though the country was infested by predatory bands, a Protestant
gentleman could scarcely obtain permission to keep a brace of
pistols. The native peasantry, on the other hand, were suffered
to retain their weapons.166 The joy of the colonists was
therefore great, when at length, in December 1685, Tyrconnel was
summoned to London and Clarendon set out for Dublin. But it soon
appeared that the government was really directed, not at Dublin,
but in London. Every mail that crossed St. George's Channel
brought tidings of the boundless influence which Tyrconnel
exercised on Irish affairs. It was said that he was to be a
Marquess, that he was to be a Duke, that he was to have the
command of the forces, that he was to be entrusted with the task
of remodelling the army and the courts of justice.167 Clarendon
was bitterly mortified at finding himself a subordinate in
ember of that administration of which he had expected to be the
head. He complained that whatever he did was misrepresented by
his detractors, and that the gravest resolutions touching the
country which he governed were adopted at Westminster, made known
to the public, discussed at coffee houses, communicated in
hundreds of private letters, some weeks before one hint had been
given to the Lord Lieutenant. His own personal dignity, he said,
mattered little: but it was no light thing that the
representative of the majesty of the throne should be made an
object of contempt to the people.168 Panic spread fast among the
English when they found that the viceroy, their fellow countryman
and fellow Protestant, was unable to extend to them the
protection which they had expected from him. They began to know
by bitter experience what it is to be a subject caste. They were
harassed by the natives with accusations of treason and sedition.
This Protestant had corresponded with Monmouth: that Protestant
had said something disrespectful of the King four or five years
ago, when the Exclusion Bill was under discussion; and the
evidence of the most infamous of mankind was ready to
substantiate every charge. The Lord Lieutenant expressed his
apprehension that, if these practices were not stopped, there
would soon be at Dublin a reign of terror similar to that which
he had seen in London, when every man held his life and honour at
the mercy of Oates and Bedloe.169

Clarendon was soon informed, by a concise despatch from
Sunderland, that it had been resolved to make without delay a
complete change in both the civil and the military government of
Ireland, and to bring a large number of Roman Catholics instantly
into office. His Majesty, it was most ungraciously added, had
taken counsel on these matters with persons more competent to
advise him than his inexperienced Lord Lieutenant could possibly
be.170

Before this letter reached the viceroy the intelligence which it
contained had, through many channels, arrived in Ireland. The
terror of the colonists was extreme. Outnumbered as they were by
the native population, their condition would be pitiable indeed
if the native population were to be armed against them with the
whole power of the state; and nothing less than this was
threatened. The English inhabitants of Dublin passed each other
in the streets with dejected looks. On the Exchange business was
suspended. Landowners hastened to sell their estates for whatever
could be got, and to remit the purchase money to England. Traders
began to call in their debts and to make preparations for
retiring from business. The alarm soon affected the revenue.171
Clarendon attempted to inspire the dismayed settlers with a
confidence which he was himself far from feeling. He assured them
that their property would be held sacred, and that, to his
certain knowledge, the King was fully determined to maintain the
act of settlement which guaranteed their right to the soil. But
his letters to England were in a very different strain. He
ventured even to expostulate with the King, and, without blaming
His Majesty's intention of employing Roman Catholics, expressed a
strong opinion that the Roman Catholics who might be employed
should be Englishmen.172

The reply of James was dry and cold. He declared that he had no
intention of depriving the English colonists of their land, but
that he regarded a large portion of them as his enemies, and
that, since he consented to leave so much property in the hands
of his enemies, it was the more necessary that the civil and
military administration should be in the hands of his friends.173

Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of the Privy
Council; and orders were sent to corporations to admit Roman
Catholics to municipal advantages.174 Many officers of the army
were arbitrarily deprived of their commissions and of their
bread. It was to no purpose that the Lord Lieutenant pleaded the
cause of some whom he knew to be good soldiers and loyal
subjects. Among them were old Cavaliers, who had fought bravely
for monarchy, and who bore the marks of honourable wounds. Their
places were supplied by men who had no recommendation but their
religion. Of the new Captains and Lieutenants, it was said, some
had been cow-herds, some footmen, some noted marauders; some had
been so used to wear brogues that they stumbled and shuffled
about strangely in their military jack boots. Not a few of the
officers who were discarded took refuge in the Dutch service, and
enjoyed, four years later, the pleasure of driving their
successors before them in ignominious rout through the waters of
the Boyne.175

The distress and alarm of Clarendon were increased by news which
reached him through private channels. Without his approbation,
without his knowledge, preparations were making for arming and
drilling the whole Celtic population of the country of which he
was the nominal governor. Tyrconnel from London directed the
design; and the prelates of his Church were his agents. Every
priest had been instructed to prepare an exact list of all his
male parishioners capable of bearing arms, and to forward it to
his Bishop.176

It had already been rumoured that Tyrconnel would soon return to
Dublin armed with extraordinary and independent powers; and the
rumour gathered strength daily. The Lord Lieutenant, whom no
insult could drive to resign the pomp and emoluments of his
place, declared that he should submit cheerfully to the royal
pleasure, and approve himself in all things a faithful and
obedient subject. He had never, he said, in his life, had any
difference with Tyrconnel, and he trusted that no difference
would now arise.177 Clarendon appears not to have recollected
that there had once been a plot to ruin the fame of his innocent
sister, and that in that plot Tyrconnel had borne a chief part.
This is not exactly one of the injuries which high spirited men
most readily pardon. But, in the wicked court where the Hydes had
long been pushing their fortunes, such injuries were easily
forgiven and forgotten, not from magnanimity or Christian
charity, but from mere baseness and want of moral sensibility. In
June 1686, Tyrconnel came. His commission authorised him only to
command the troops, but he brought with him royal instructions
touching all parts of
the administration, and at once took the real government of the
island into his own hands. On the day after his arrival he
explicitly said that commissions must be largely given to Roman
Catholic officers, and that room must be made for them by
dismissing more Protestants. He pushed on the remodelling of the
army eagerly and indefatigably. It was indeed the only part of
the functions of a Commander in Chief which he was competent to
perform; for, though courageous in brawls and duels, he knew
nothing of military duty. At the very first review which he held,
it was evident to all who were near to him that he did not know
how to draw up a regiment.178 To turn Englishmen out and to put
Irishmen in was, in his view, the beginning and the end of the
administration of war. He had the insolence to cashier the
Captain of the Lord Lieutenant's own Body Guard: nor was
Clarendon aware of what had happened till he saw a Roman
Catholic, whose face was quite unknown to him, escorting the
state coach.179 The change was not confined to the officers
alone. The ranks were completely broken up and recomposed. Four
or five hundred soldiers were turned out of a single regiment
chiefly on the ground that they were below the proper stature.
Yet the most unpractised eye at once perceived that they were
taller and better made men than their successors, whose wild and
squalid appearance disgusted the beholders.180 Orders were given
to the new officers that no man of the Protestant religion was to
be suffered to enlist. The recruiting parties, instead of beating
their drums for volunteers at fairs and markets, as had been the
old practice, repaired to places to which the Roman Catholics
were in the habit of making pilgrimages for purposes of devotion.
In a few weeks the General had introduced more than two thousand
natives into the ranks; and the people about him confidently
affirmed that by Christmas day not a man of English race would be
left in the whole army.181

On all questions which arose in the Privy Council, Tyrconnel
showed similar violence and partiality. John Keating, Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, a man distinguished by ability,
integrity, and loyalty, represented with great mildness that
perfect equality was all that the General could reasonably ask
for his own Church. The King, he said, evidently meant that no
man fit for public trust should be excluded because he was a
Roman Catholic, and that no man unfit for public trust should be
admitted because he was a Protestant. Tyrconnel immediately began
to curse and swear. "I do not know what to say to that; I would
have all Catholics in."182 The most judicious Irishmen of his own
religious persuasion were dismayed at his rashness, and ventured
to remonstrate with him; but he drove them from him with
imprecations.183 His brutality was such that many thought him
mad. Yet it was less strange than the shameless volubility with
which he uttered falsehoods. He had long before earned the
nickname of Lying Dick Talbot; and, at Whitehall, any wild
fiction was commonly designated as one of Dick Talbot's truths.
He now daily proved that he was well entitled to this unenviable
reputation. Indeed in him mendacity was almost a disease. He
would, after giving orders for the dismission of English
officers, take them into his closet, assure them of his
confidence and friendship, and implore heaven to confound him, sink him,
blast him, if he did not take good care of their interests.
Sometimes those to whom he had thus perjured himself learned,
before the day closed, that he had cashiered them.184

On his arrival, though he swore savagely at the Act of
Settlement, and called the English interest a foul thing, a
roguish thing, and a damned thing, he yet intended to be
convinced that the distribution of property could not, after the
lapse of so many years, be altered.185 But, when he had been a
few weeks at Dublin, his language changed. He began to harangue
vehemently at the Council board on the necessity of giving back
the land to the old owners. He had not, however, as yet, obtained
his master's sanction to this fatal project. National feeling
still struggled feebly against superstition in the mind of James.
He was an Englishman: he was an English King; and he could not,
without some misgivings, consent to the destruction of the
greatest colony that England had ever planted. The English Roman
Catholics with whom he was in the habit of taking counsel were
almost unanimous in favour of the Act of Settlement. Not only the
honest and moderate Powis, but the dissolute and headstrong
Dover, gave judicious and patriotic advice. Tyrconnel could
hardly hope to counteract at a distance the effect which such
advice must produce on the royal mind. He determined to plead the
cause of his caste in person; and accordingly he set out, at the
end of August, for England.

His presence and his absence were equally dreaded by the Lord
Lieutenant. It was, indeed, painful to be daily browbeaten by an
enemy: but it was not less painful to know that an enemy was
daily breathing calumny and evil counsel in the royal ear.
Clarendon was overwhelmed by manifold vexations. He made a
progress through the country, and found that he was everywhere
treated by the Irish population with contempt. The Roman Catholic
priests exhorted their congregations to withhold from him all
marks of honour. The native gentry, instead of coming to pay
their respects to him, remained at their houses. The native
peasantry everywhere sang Erse songs in praise of Tyrconnel, who
would, they doubted not, soon reappear to complete the
humiliation of their oppressors.186 The viceroy had scarcely
returned to Dublin, from his unsatisfactory tour, when he
received letters which informed him that he had incurred the
King's serious displeasure. His Majesty--so these letters ran--
expected his servants not only to do what he commanded, but to do
it from the heart, and with a cheerful countenance. The Lord
Lieutenant had not, indeed, refused to cooperate in the reform of
the army and of the civil administration; but his cooperation had
been reluctant and perfunctory: his looks had betrayed his
feelings; and everybody saw that he disapproved of the policy
which he was employed to carry into effect.187 In great anguish
of mind he wrote to defend himself; but he was sternly told that
his defence was not satisfactory. He then, in the most abject
terms, declared that he would not attempt to justify himself,
that he acquiesced in the royal judgment, be it what it might,
that he prostrated himself in the dust, that he implored pardon,
that of all penitents he was the most sincere, that he should
think it glorious to die in his Sovereign's cause, but found it
impossible to live under his Sovereign's displeasure. Nor was
this mere interested hypocrisy, but, at least in part, unaffected
slavishness and poverty of spirit; for in confidential letters,
not meant for the royal eye, he bemoaned himself to his family in
the same strain. He was miserable; he was crushed; the wrath of
the King was insupportable; if that wrath could not be mitigated,
life would not be worth having.188 The poor man's terror
increased when he learned that it had been determined at
Whitehall to recall him, and to appoint, as his successor, his
rival and calumniator, Tyrconnel.189 Then for a time the prospect
seemed to clear; the King was in better humour; and during a few
days Clarendon flattered himself that his brother's intercession
had prevailed, and that the crisis was passed.190

In truth the crisis was only beginning. While Clarendon was
trying to lean on Rochester, Rochester was unable longer to
support himself. As in Ireland the elder brother, though
retaining the guard of honour, the sword of state, and the title
of Excellency, had really been superseded by the Commander of the
Forces, so in England, the younger brother, though holding the
white staff, and walking, by virtue of his high office, before
the greatest hereditary nobles, was fast sinking into a mere
financial clerk. The Parliament was again prorogued to a distant
day, in opposition to the Treasurer's known wishes. He was not
even told that there was to be another prorogation, but was left
to learn the news from the Gazette. The real direction of affairs
had passed to the cabal which dined with Sunderland on Fridays.
The cabinet met only to hear the despatches from foreign courts
read: nor did those despatches contain anything which was not
known on the Royal Exchange; for all the English Envoys had
received orders to put into the official letters only the common
talk of antechambers, and to reserve important secrets for
private communications which were addressed to James himself, to
Sunderland, or to Petre.191 Yet the victorious faction was not
content. The King was assured by those whom he most trusted that
the obstinacy with which the nation opposed his designs was
really to be imputed to Rochester. How could the people believe
that their Sovereign was unalterably resolved to persevere in the
course on which he had entered, when they saw at his right hand,
ostensibly first in power and trust among his counsellors, a man
who notoriously regarded that course with strong disapprobation?
Every step which had been taken with the object of humbling the
Church of England, and of elevating the Church of Rome, had been
opposed by the Treasurer. True it was that, when he had found
opposition vain, he had gloomily submitted, nay, that he had
sometimes even assisted in carrying into effect the very plans
against which he had most earnestly contended. True it was that,
though he disliked the Ecclesiastical Commission, he had
consented to be a Commissioner. True it was that he had, while
declaring that he could see nothing blamable in the conduct of
the Bishop of London, voted sullenly and reluctantly for the
sentence of deprivation. But this was not enough. A prince,
engaged in an enterprise so important and arduous as that on
which James was bent, had a right to expect from his first
minister, not unwilling and ungracious acquiescence, but zealous
and strenuous cooperation. While such advice was daily given to
James by those in whom he reposed confidence, he received, by the
penny post, many anonymous letters filled with calumnies against
the Lord Treasurer. This mode of attack had been contrived by
Tyrconnel, and was in perfect harmony with every part of his
infamous life.192

The King hesitated. He seems, indeed, to have really regarded his
brother in law with personal kindness, the effect of near
affinity, of long and familiar intercourse, and of many mutual
good offices. It seemed probable that, as long as Rochester
continued to submit himself, though tardily and with murmurs, to
the royal pleasure, he would continue to be in name prime
minister. Sunderland, therefore, with exquisite cunning,
suggested to his master the propriety of asking the only proof of
obedience which it was quite certain that Rochester never would
give. At present,--such was the language of the artful
Secretary,--it was impossible to consult with the first of the
King's servants respecting the object nearest to the King's
heart. It was lamentable to think that religious prejudices
should, at such a conjuncture, deprive the government of such
valuable assistance. Perhaps those prejudices might not prove
insurmountable. Then the deceiver whispered that, to his
knowledge, Rochester had of late had some misgivings about the
points in dispute between the Protestants and Catholics.193 This
was enough. The King eagerly caught at the hint. He began to
flatter himself that he might at once escape from the
disagreeable necessity of removing a friend, and secure an able
coadjutor for the great work which was in progress. He was also
elated by the hope that he might have the merit and the glory of
saving a fellow creature from perdition. He seems, indeed, about
this time, to have been seized with an unusually violent fit of
zeal for his religion; and this is the more remarkable, because
he had just relapsed, after a short interval of selfrestraint,
into debauchery which all Christian divines condemn as sinful,
and which, in an elderly man married to an agreeable young wife,
is regarded even by people of the world as disreputable. Lady
Dorchester had returned from Dublin, and was again the King's
mistress. Her return was politically of no importance. She had
learned by experience the folly of attempting to save her lover
from the destruction to which he was running headlong. She
therefore suffered the Jesuits to guide his political conduct and
they, in return, suffered her to wheedle him out of money; She
was, however, only one of several abandoned women who at this
time shared, with his beloved Church, the dominion over his
mind.194 He seems to have determined to make some amends for
neglecting the welfare of his own soul by taking care of the
souls of others. He set himself, therefore, to labour, with real
good will, but with the good will of a coarse, stern, and
arbitrary mind, for the conversion of his kinsman. Every audience
which the Treasurer obtained was spent in arguments about the
authority of the Church and the worship of images. Rochester was
firmly resolved not to abjure his religion; but he had no scruple
about employing in selfdefence artifices as discreditable as
those which had been used against him. He affected to speak like
a man whose mind was not made up, professed himself desirous to
be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books, and
listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several
interviews with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the
chaplain and almoner of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure
Giffard, a theologian trained to polemics in the schools of
Douay. It was agreed that there should be a formal disputation
between these doctors and some Protestant clergymen. The King
told Rochester to choose any ministers of the Established Church,
with two exceptions. The proscribed persons were Tillotson and
Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of that age,
and in manners the most inoffensive of men, had been much
connected with some leading Whigs; and Stillingfleet, who was
renowned as a consummate master of all the weapons of
controversy, had given still deeper offence by publishing an
answer to the papers which had been found in the strong box of
Charles the Second. Rochester took the two royal chaplains who
happened to be in waiting. One of them was Simon Patrick, whose
commentaries on the Bible still form a part of theological
libraries; the other was Jane, a vehement Tory, who had assisted
in drawing up that decree by which the University of Oxford had
solemnly adopted the worst follies of Filmer. The conference took
place at Whitehall on the thirtieth of November. Rochester, who
did not wish it to be known that he had even consented to hear
the arguments of Popish priests, stipulated for secrecy. No
auditor was suffered to be present except the King. The subject
discussed was the real presence. The Roman Catholic divines took
on themselves the burden of the proof. Patrick and Jane said
little; nor was it necessary that they should say much; for the
Earl himself undertook to defend the doctrine of his Church, and,
as was his habit, soon warmed with conflict, lost his temper, and
asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he should
change his religion on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered
how much he was risking, began again to dissemble, complimented
the disputants on their skill and learning, and asked time to
consider what had been said.195

Slow as James was, he could not but see that this was mere
trifling. He told Barillon that Rochester's language was not that
of a man honestly desirous of arriving at the truth. Still the
King did not like to propose directly to his brother in law the
simple choice, apostasy or dismissal: but, three days after the
conference, Barillon waited on the Treasurer, and, with much
circumlocution and many expressions of friendly concern, broke
the unpleasant truth. "Do you mean," said Rochester, bewildered
by the involved and ceremonious phrases in which the intimation
was made, "that, if I do not turn Catholic, the consequence will
be that I shall lose my place?" "I say nothing about
consequences," answered the wary diplomatist. "I only come as a
friend to express a hope that you will take care to keep your
place." "But surely," said Rochester, "the plain meaning of all
this is that I must turn Catholic or go out." He put many
questions for the purpose of ascertaining whether the
communication was made by authority, but could extort only vague
and mysterious replies. At last, affecting a confidence which he
was far from feeling, he declared that Barillon must have been
imposed upon by idle or malicious reports. "I tell you," he said,
"that the King will not dismiss me, and I will not resign. I know
him: he knows me; and I fear nobody." The Frenchman answered that
he was charmed, that he was ravished to hear it, and that his
only motive for interfering was a sincere anxiety for the
prosperity and dignity of his excellent friend the Treasurer. And
thus the two statesmen parted, each flattering himself that he
had duped the other.196

Meanwhile, in spite of all injunctions of secrecy, the news that
the Lord Treasurer had consented to be instructed in the
doctrines of Popery had spread fast through London. Patrick and
Jane had been seen going in at that mysterious door which led to
Chiffinch's apartments. Some Roman Catholics about the court had,
indiscreetly or artfully, told all, and more than all, that they
knew. The Tory churchmen waited anxiously for fuller information.
They were mortified to think that their leader should even have
pretended to waver in his opinion; but they could not believe
that he would stoop to be a renegade. The unfortunate minister,
tortured at once by his fierce passions and his low desires,
annoyed by the censures of the public, annoyed by the hints which
he had received from Barillon, afraid of losing character, afraid
of losing office, repaired to the royal closet. He was determined
to keep his place, if it could be kept by any villany but one. He
would pretend to be shaken in his religious opinions, and to be
half a convert: he would promise to give strenuous support to
that policy which he had hitherto opposed: but, if he were driven
to extremity, he would refuse to change his religion. He began,
therefore, by telling the King that the business in which His
Majesty took so much interest was not sleeping, that Jane and
Giffard were engaged in consulting books on the points in dispute
between the Churches, and that, when these researches were over,
it would be desirable to have another conference. Then he
complained bitterly that all the town was apprised of what ought
to have been carefully concealed, and that some persons, who,
from their station, might be supposed to be well informed,
reported strange things as to the royal intentions. "It is
whispered," he said, "that, if I do not do as your Majesty would
have me, I shall not be suffered to continue in my present
station." The King said, with some general expressions of
kindness, that it was difficult to prevent people from talking,
and that loose reports were not to be regarded. These vague
phrases were not likely to quiet the perturbed mind of the
minister. His agitation became violent, and he began to plead for
his place as if he had been pleading for his life. "Your Majesty
sees that I do all in my power to obey you. Indeed I will do all
that I can to obey you in every thing. I will serve you in your
own way. Nay," he cried, in an agony of baseness, "I will do what
I can to believe as you would have me. But do not let me be told,
while I am trying to bring my mind to this, that, if I find it
impossible to comply, I must lose all. For I must needs tell your
Majesty that there are other considerations." "Oh, you must
needs," exclaimed the King, with an oath. For a single word of
honest and manly sound, escaping in the midst of all this abject
supplication, was sufficient to move his anger. "I hope, sir,"
said poor Rochester, "that I do not offend you. Surely your
Majesty could not think well of me if I did not say so." The King
recollected himself protested that he was not offended, and
advised the Treasurer to disregard idle rumours, and to confer
again with Jane and Giffard.197

After this conversation, a fortnight elapsed before the decisive
blow fell. That fortnight Rochester passed in intriguing and
imploring. He attempted to interest in his favour those Roman
Catholics who had the greatest influence at court. He could not,
he said, renounce his own religion: but, with that single
reservation, he would do all that they could desire. Indeed, if
he might only keep his place, they should find that he could be
more useful to them as a Protestant than as one of their own
communion.198 His wife, who was on a sick bed, had already, it
was said, solicited the honour of a visit from the much injured
Queen, and had attempted to work on Her Majesty's feelings of
compassion.199 But the Hydes abased themselves in vain. Petre
regarded them with peculiar malevolence, and was bent on their
ruin.200 On the evening of the seventeenth of December the Earl
was called into the royal closet. James was unusually
discomposed, and even shed tears. The occasion, indeed, could not
but call up some recollections which might well soften even a
hard heart. He expressed his regret that his duty made it
impossible for him to indulge his private partialities. It was
absolutely necessary, he said, that those who had the chief
direction of his affairs should partake his opinions and
feelings. He owned that he had very great personal obligations to
Rochester, and that no fault could be found with the way in which
the financial business had lately been done: but the office of
Lord Treasurer was of such high importance that, in general, it
ought not to be entrusted to a single person, and could not
safely be entrusted by a Roman Catholic King to a person zealous
for the Church of England. "Think better of it, my Lord," he
continued. "Read again the papers from my brother's box. I will
give you a little more time for consideration, if you desire it."
Rochester saw that all was over, and that the wisest course left
to him was to make his retreat with as much money and as much
credit as possible. He succeeded in both objects. He obtained a
pension of four thousand pounds a year for two lives on the post
office. He had made great sums out of the estates of traitors,
and carried with him in particular Grey's bond for forty thousand
pounds, and a grant of all the estate which the crown had in
Grey's extensive property.201 No person had ever quitted office
on terms so advantageous. To the applause of the sincere friends
of the Established Church Rochester had, indeed, very slender
claims. To save his place he had sate in that tribunal which had
been illegally created for the purpose of persecuting her. To
save his place he had given a dishonest vote for degrading one of
her most eminent ministers, had affected to doubt her orthodoxy,
had listened with the outward show of docility to teachers who
called her schismatical and heretical, and had offered to
cooperate strenuously with her deadliest enemies in their designs
against her. The highest praise to which he was entitled was
this, that he had shrunk from the exceeding wickedness and
baseness of publicly abjuring, for lucre, the religion in which
he had been brought up, which he believed to be true, and of
which he had long made an ostentatious profession. Yet he was
extolled by the great body of Churchmen as if he had been the
bravest and purest of martyrs. The Old and New Testaments, the
Martyrologies of Eusebius and of Fox, were ransacked to find
parallels for his heroic piety. He was Daniel in the den of
lions, Shadrach in the fiery furnace, Peter in the dungeon of
Herod, Paul at the bar of Nero, Ignatius in the amphitheatre,
Latimer at the stake. Among the many facts which prove that the
standard of honour and virtue among the public men of that age
was low, the admiration excited by Rochester's constancy is,
perhaps, the most decisive.

In his fall he dragged down Clarendon. On the seventh of January
1687, the Gazette announced to the people of London that the
Treasury was put into commission. On the eighth arrived at Dublin
a despatch formally signifying that in a month Tyrconnel would
assume the government of Ireland. It was not without great
difficulty that this man had surmounted the numerous impediments
which stood in the way of his ambition. It was well known that
the extermination of the English colony in Ireland was the object
on which his heart was set. He had, therefore, to overcome some
scruples in the royal mind. He had to surmount the opposition,
not merely of all the Protestant members of the government, not
merely of the moderate and respectable heads of the Roman
Catholic body, but even of several members of the jesuitical
cabal.202 Sunderland shrank from the thought of an Irish
revolution, religious, political, and social. To the Queen
Tyrconnel was personally an object of aversion. Powis was
therefore suggested as the man best qualified for the
viceroyalty. He was of illustrious birth: he was a sincere Roman
Catholic: and yet he was generally allowed by candid Protestants
to be an honest man and a good Englishman. All opposition,
however, yielded to Tyrconnel's energy and cunning. He fawned,
bullied, and bribed indefatigably. Petre's help was secured by
flattery. Sunderland was plied at once with promises and menaces.
An immense price was offered for his support, no less than an
annuity of five thousand pounds a year from Ireland, redeemable
by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. If this proposal were
rejected, Tyrconnel threatened to let the King know that the Lord
President had, at the Friday dinners, described His Majesty as a
fool who must be governed either by a woman or by a priest.
Sunderland, pale and trembling, offered to procure for Tyrconnel
supreme military command, enormous appointments, anything but the
viceroyalty: but all compromise was rejected; and it was
necessary to yield. Mary of Modena herself was not free from
suspicion of corruption. There was in London a renowned chain of
pearls which was valued at ten thousand pounds. It had belonged
to Prince Rupert; and by him it had been left to Margaret Hughes,
a courtesan who, towards the close of his life, had exercised a
boundless empire over him. Tyrconnel loudly boasted that with
this chain he had purchased the support of the Queen. There were
those, however, who suspected that this story was one of Dick
Talbot's truths, and that it had no more foundation than the
calumnies which, twenty-six years before, he had invented to
blacken the fame of Anne Hyde. To the Roman Catholic courtiers
generally he spoke of the uncertain tenure by which they held
offices, honours, and emoluments. The King might die tomorrow,
and might leave them at the mercy of a hostile government and a
hostile rabble. But, if the old faith could be made dominant in
Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that country could be
destroyed, there would still be, in the worst event, an asylum at
hand to which they might retreat, and where they might either
negotiate or defend themselves with advantage. A Popish priest
was hired with the promise of the mitre of Waterford to preach at
Saint James's against the Act of Settlement; and his sermon,
though heard with deep disgust by the English part of the
auditory, was not without its effect. The struggle which
patriotism had for a time maintained against bigotry in the royal
mind was at an end. "There is work to be done in Ireland," said
James, "which no Englishman will do."203

All obstacles were at length removed; and in February 1687,
Tyrconnel began to rule his native country with the power and
appointments of Lord Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of
Lord Deputy.

His arrival spread dismay through the whole English population.
Clarendon was accompanied, or speedily followed, across St.
George's Channel, by a large proportion of the most respectable
inhabitants of Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artificers. It
was said that fifteen hundred families emigrated in a few days.
The panic was not unreasonable. The work of putting the colonists
down under the feet of the natives went rapidly on. In a short
time almost every Privy Councillor, Judge, Sheriff, Mayor,
Alderman, and Justice of the Peace was a Celt and a Roman
Catholic. It seemed that things would soon be ripe for a general
election, and that a House of Commons bent on abrogating the Act
of Settlement would easily be assembled.204 Those who had lately
been the lords of the island now cried out, in the bitterness of
their souls, that they had become a prey and a laughingstock to
their own serfs and menials; that houses were burnt and cattle
stolen with impunity; that the new soldiers roamed the country,
pillaging, insulting, ravishing, maiming, tossing one Protestant
in a blanket, tying up another by the hair and scourging him;
that to appeal to the law was vain; that Irish Judges, Sheriffs,
juries, and witnesses were all in a league to save Irish
criminals; and that, even without an Act of Parliament, the whole
soil would soon change hands; for that, in every action of
ejectment tried under the administration of Tyrconnel, judgment
had been given for the native against the Englishman.205

While Clarendon was at Dublin the Privy Seal had been in the
hands of Commissioners. His friends hoped that it would, on his
return to London, be again delivered to him. But the King and the
Jesuitical cabal had determined that the disgrace of the Hydes
should be complete. Lord Arundell of Wardour, a Roman Catholic,
received the Privy Seal. Bellasyse, a Roman Catholic, was made
First Lord of the Treasury; and Dover, another Roman Catholic,
had a seat at the board. The appointment of a ruined gambler to
such a trust would alone have sufficed to disgust the public. The
dissolute Etherege, who then resided at Ratisbon as English
envoy, could not refrain from expressing, with a sneer, his hope
that his old boon companion, Dover, would keep the King's money
better than his own. In order that the finances might not be
ruined by incapable and inexperienced Papists, the obsequious,
diligent and silent Godolphin was named a Commissioner of the
Treasury, but continued to be Chamberlain to the Queen.206

The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch in the reign
of James. From that time it was clear that what he really wanted
was not liberty of conscience for the members of his own church,
but liberty to persecute the members of other churches.
Pretending to abhor tests, he had himself imposed a test. He
thought it hard, he thought it monstrous, that able and loyal men
should be excluded from the public service solely for being Roman
Catholics. Yet he had himself turned out of office a Treasurer,
whom he admitted to be both loyal and able, solely for being a
Protestant. The cry was that a general proscription was at hand,
and that every public functionary must make up his mind to lose
his soul or to lose his place.207 Who indeed could hope to stand
where the Hydes had fallen? They were the brothers in law of the
King, the uncles and natural guardians of his children, his
friends from early youth, his steady adherents in adversity and
peril, his obsequious servants since he had been on the throne.
Their sole crime was their religion; and for this crime they had
been discarded. In great perturbation men began to look round for
help; and soon all eyes were fixed on one whom a rare concurrence
both of personal qualities and of fortuitous circumstances
pointed out as the deliverer.


CHAPTER VII

William, Prince of Orange; his Appearance--His early Life and
Education--His Theological Opinions--His Military Qualifications-
-His Love of Danger; his bad Health--Coldness of his Manners and
Strength of his Emotions; his Friendship for Bentinck--Mary,
Princess of Orange--Gilbert Burnet--He brings about a good
Understanding between the Prince and Princess--Relations between
William and English Parties--His Feelings towards England--His
Feelings towards Holland and France--His Policy consistent
throughout--Treaty of Augsburg--William becomes the Head of the
English Opposition--Mordaunt proposes to William a Descent on
England--William rejects the Advice--Discontent in England after
the Fall of the Hydes--Conversions to Popery; Peterborough;
Salisbury--Wycherley; Tindal; Haines--Dryden--The Hind and
Panther--Change in the Policy of the Court towards the Puritans--
Partial Toleration granted in Scotland--Closeting--It is
unsuccessful--Admiral Herbert_--Declaration of Indulgence--
Feeling of the Protestant Dissenters--Feeling of the Church of
England--The Court and the Church--Letter to a Dissenter; Conduct
of the Dissenters--Some of the Dissenters side with the Court;
Care; Alsop--Rosewell; Lobb--Venn--The Majority of the Puritans
are against the Court; Baxter; Howe,--Banyan--Kiffin--The Prince
and Princess of Orange hostile to the Declaration of Indulgence--
Their Views respecting the English Roman Catholics vindicated--
Enmity of James to Burnet--Mission of Dykvelt to England;
Negotiations of Dykvelt with English Statesmen--Danby--
Nottingham--Halifax--Devonshire--Edward Russell; Compton;
Herbert--Churchill--Lady Churchill and the Princess Anne--Dykvelt
returns to the Hague with Letters from many eminent Englishmen--
Zulestein's Mission--Growing Enmity between James and William--
Influence of the Dutch Press--Correspondence of Stewart and
Fagel--Castelmaine's embassy to Rome

THE place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, occupies
in the history of England and of mankind is so great that it may
be desirable to portray with some minuteness the strong
lineaments of his character.208

He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and in
mind he was older than other men of the same age. 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, an
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 goodhumoured man. But it indicates in a
manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the most arduous
enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or
dangers.

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. He 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 perfection 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 hornwork. 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 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
placed at the head of the administration. At twenty-three be 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 of a
statesman: but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silent prince
who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a 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 their 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 army. 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 Conde 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 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.209 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 Conde,
remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff 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 of what the public interest
required that he was always at the 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.210

The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his
physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had
been weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood 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 cough. 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 fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of
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.

He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: but
the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From
the multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and his
resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made him
pass for the most coldblooded 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 bear his full
share in festive conversation. Highest in his favour stood a
gentleman of his household named 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 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 how
his Highness was. At length his complaint took a favourable 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 performed his task, he
had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up
against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced
convalescent. Then, at length, 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 the Prince'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 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."211 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.212 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.213 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."214 There is a singular charm in such letters,
penned by a man whose irresistible energy and inflexible firmness
extorted the respect 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 friendship.
Yet his marriage had not at first promised much domestic
happiness. His choice had been determined chiefly 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.215 He was indeed ashamed of his errors, and
spared no pains to conceal them: but, in spite of all his
precautions, Mary well knew that he was not strictly faithful to
her. Spies and talebearers, 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.216 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 than to give
utterance to them; and in this particular case his 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 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. Yet 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 of
Pastoral 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 detractors are vain. A
writer, whose voluminous works, in several branches of
literature, find numerous readers a 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.217 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.218 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 and
heretics whose lives were pure, and whose errors appeared to be
the effect rather of some perversion of the understanding 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 an European reputation. His
History of the Reformation had been received with loud 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 Wilmot, 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 gaining so active and able a
divine. Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable
preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though infected in early
youth by those servile doctrines which were commonly held by the
clergy of that age, had become on conviction a Whig; and he
firmly adhered through all vicissitudes to his principles. He
had, however, no part in that conspiracy which brought so much
disgrace and 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, had
gone to unjustifiable lengths against the government. 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 victory 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 inmost knot
of the Prince's private friends. When the Doctor took liberties,
which was not seldom the case, his patron 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 selfcomplacency, 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 ought to
esteem and love each other are kept asunder, as often happens, by
some cause which three words of frank explanation would remove,
they are fortunate if they possess an indiscreet friend who
blurts out the whole truth. Burnet 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 resolution which, having once been
announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted." "I want no time
for consideration," answered Mary. "It is enough that I have an
opportunity of 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 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 government; but he spoke
with sharpness and scorn of the bigotry of those who thought
episcopal ordination essential to 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.219

He therefore long observed the contest between the English
factions attentively, but without feeling a strong predilection
for either side. Nor in truth did he ever, to the 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 patriotic feeling he had was for Holland. There was the
stately tomb where slept the great politician whose blood, whose
name, whose temperament, and whose genius he had 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 banishment it was his 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 he 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 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 Aeneas 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. He 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 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 arms, are to
be ascribed to his unconquerable energy. When in 1678 the States
General, exhausted and disheartened, were desirious 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 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.220

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.221

The clue of which we are now possessed will enable us to track
without difficulty the course, in reality consistent, though in
appearance sometimes tortuous, which he pursued towards our
domestic factions. He clearly saw what had not escaped persons
far 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 he 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 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, he 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 reflux 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 his master regarded the
Whig conspiracy.

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.222

The Prince was evidently at this time inclined to hope that the
great plan to which in his mind everything 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 darkened. 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 to promote the interest of his Church, put an
end to the delusion. It was plain that, when the European crisis
came, 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 by which the
Princes of the Empire bound themselves closely 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.223 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 from the
English court, the causes which had hitherto produced a coolness
between him and the two great sections of the English people
disappeared. A large portion, perhaps a numerical majority, of
the Whigs had favoured the pretensions of Monmouth: but Monmouth
was now no more. The Tories, on the other hand, had entertained
apprehensions that the interests of the Anglican Church might not
be safe under the rule of a man bred among Dutch Presbyterians,
and well known to hold latitudinarian opinions about robes,
ceremonies, and Bishops: but, since that beloved Church had been
threatened by far more formidable dangers from a very different
quarter, these apprehensions had lost almost all their power.
Thus, at the same moment, both the great parties began to fix
their hopes and their affections on the same leader. Old
republicans could not refuse their confidence to one who had
worthily filled, during many years, the highest magistracy of a
republic. Old royalists conceived that they acted according to
their principles in paying profound respect to a prince so near
to the throne. At this conjuncture it was of the highest moment
that there should be entire union between William and Mary. A
misunderstanding between the presumptive heiress of the crown and
her husband must have produced a schism in that vast mass which
was from all quarters gathering round one common rallying point.
Happily all risk of such misunderstanding was averted in the
critical instant by the interposition of Burnet; and the Prince
became the unquestioned chief of the whole of that party which
was opposed to the government, a party almost coextensive with
the nation.

There is not the least reason to believe that he at this time
meditated the great enterprise to which a stern necessity
afterwards drove him. He was aware that the public mind of
England, though heated by grievances, was by no means ripe for
revolution. He would doubtless gladly have avoided the scandal
which must be the effect of a mortal quarrel between persons
bound together by the closest ties of consanguinity and affinity.
Even his ambition made him unwilling to owe to violence that
greatness which might be his in the ordinary course of nature and
of law. For he well knew that, if the crown descended to his wife
regularly, all its prerogatives would descend unimpaired with it,
and that, if it were obtained by election, it must be taken
subject to such conditions as the electors might think fit to
impose. He meant, therefore, as it appears, to wait with patience
for the day when he might govern by an undisputed title, and to
content himself in the meantime with exercising a great influence
on English affairs, as first Prince of the blood, and as head of
the party which was decidedly preponderant in the nation, and
which was certain whenever a Parliament should meet, to be
decidedly preponderant in both Houses.

Already, it is true, he had been urged by an adviser, less
sagacious and more impetuous than himself, to try a bolder
course. This adviser was the young Lord Mordaunt. That age had
produced no more inventive genius, and no more daring spirit.
But, if a design was splendid, Mordaunt seldom inquired whether
it were practicable. His life was a wild romance made up of
mysterious intrigues, both political and amorous, of violent and
rapid changes of scene and fortune, and of victories resembling
those of Amadis and Launcelot rather than those of Luxemburg and
Eugene. The episodes interspersed in this strange story were of a
piece with the main plot. Among them were midnight encounters
with generous robbers, and rescues of noble and beautiful ladies
from ravishers. Mordaunt, having distinguished himself by the
eloquence and audacity with which, in the House of Lords, he had
opposed the court, repaired, soon after the prorogation, to the
Hague, and strongly recommended an immediate descent on England.
He had persuaded himself that it would be as easy to surprise
three great kingdoms as he long afterwards found it to surprise
Barcelona. William listened, meditated, and replied, in general
terms, that he took a great interest in English affairs, and
would keep his attention fixed on them.224 Whatever his purpose
had been, it is not likely that he would have chosen a rash and
vainglorious knight errant for his confidant. Between the two men
there was nothing in common except personal courage, which rose
in both to the height of fabulous heroism. Mordaunt wanted merely
to enjoy the excitement of conflict, and to make men stare.
William had one great end ever before him. Towards that end he
was impelled by a strong passion which appeared to him under the
guise of a sacred duty. Towards that end he toiled with a
patience resembling, as he once said, the patience with which he
had seen a boatman on a canal, strain against an adverse eddy,
often swept back, but never ceasing to pull, and content if, by
the labour of hours, a few yards could be gained.225 Exploits
which brought the Prince no nearer to his object, however
glorious they might be in the estimation of the vulgar, were in
his judgment boyish vanities, and no part of the real business of
life.

He determined to reject Mordaunt's advice; and there can be no
doubt that the determination was wise. Had William, in 1686, or
even in 1687, attempted to do what he did with such signal
success in 1688, it is probable that many Whigs would have risen
in arms at his call. But he would have found that the nation was
not yet prepared to welcome an armed deliverer from a foreign
country, and that the Church had not yet been provoked and
insulted into forgetfulness of the tenet which had long been her
peculiar boast. The old Cavaliers would have flocked to the royal
standard. There would probably have been in all the three
kingdoms a civil war as long and fierce as that of the preceding
generation. While that war was raging in the British Isles, what
might not Lewis attempt on the Continent? And what hope would
there be for Holland, drained of her troops and abandoned by her
Stadtholder?

William therefore contented himself for the present with taking
measures to unite and animate that mighty opposition of which he
had become the head. This was not difficult. The fall of the
Hydes had excited throughout England strange alarm and
indignation: Men felt that the question now was, not whether
Protestantism should be dominant, but whether it should be
tolerated. The Treasurer had been succeeded by a board, of which
a Papist was the head. The Privy Seal had been entrusted to a
Papist. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had been succeeded by a
man who had absolutely no claim to high place except that he was
a Papist. The last person whom a government having in view the
general interests of the empire would have sent to Dublin as
Deputy was Tyrconnel. His brutal manners made him unfit to
represent the majesty of the crown. The feebleness of his
understanding and the violence of his temper made him unfit to
conduct grave business of state. The deadly animosity which he
felt towards the possessors of the greater part of the soil of
Ireland made him especially unfit to rule that kingdom. But the
intemperance of his bigotry was thought amply to atone for the
intemperance of all his other passions; and, in consideration of
the hatred which he bore to the reformed faith, he was suffered
to indulge without restraint his hatred of the English name.
This, then, was the real meaning of his Majesty's respect for the
rights of conscience. He wished his Parliament to remove all the
disabilities which had been imposed on Papists, merely in order
that he might himself impose disabilities equally galling on
Protestants. It was plain that, under such a prince, apostasy was
the only road to greatness. It was a road, however, which few
ventured to take. For the spirit of the nation was thoroughly
roused; and every renegade had to endure such an amount of public
scorn and detestation, as cannot be altogether unfelt even by the
most callous natures.

It is true that several remarkable conversions had recently taken
place; but they were such as did little credit to the Church of
Rome. Two men of high rank had joined her communion; Henry
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of
Salisbury. But Peterborough, who had been an active soldier,
courtier, and negotiator, was now broken down by years and
infirmities; and those who saw him totter about the galleries of
Whitehall, leaning on a stick and swathed up in flannels and
plasters, comforted themselves for his defection by remarking
that he had not changed his religion till he had outlived his
faculties.226 Salisbury was foolish to a proverb. His figure was
so bloated by sensual indulgence as to be almost incapable of
moving, and this sluggish body was the abode of an equally
sluggish mind. He was represented in popular lampoons as a man
made to be duped, as a man who had hitherto been the prey of
gamesters, and who might as well be the prey of friars. A
pasquinade, which, about the time of Rochester's retirement, was
fixed on the door of Salisbury House in the Strand, described in
coarse terms the horror with which the wise Robert Cecil, if he
could rise from his grave, would see to what a creature his
honours had descended.227

These were the highest in station among the proselytes of James.
There were other renegades of a very different kind, needy men of
parts who were destitute of principle and of all sense of
personal dignity. There is reason to believe that among these was
William Wycherley, the most licentious and hardhearted writer of
a singularly licentious and hardhearted school.228 It is certain
that Matthew Tindal, who, at a later period, acquired great
notoriety by writing against Christianity, was at this time
received into the bosom of the infallible Church, a fact which,
as may easily be supposed, the divines with whom he was
subsequently engaged in controversy did not suffer to sink into
oblivion.229 A still more infamous apostate was Joseph Haines,
whose name is now almost forgotten, but who was well known in his
own time as an adventurer of versatile parts, sharper, coiner,
false witness, sham bail, dancing master, buffoon, poet,
comedian. Some of his prologues and epilogues were much admired
by his contemporaries; and his merit as an actor was universally
acknowledged. This man professed himself a Roman Catholic, and
went to Italy in the retinue of Castelmaine, but was soon
dismissed for misconduct. If any credit is due to a tradition
which was long preserved in the green room, Haines had the
impudence to affirm that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and
called him to repentance. After the Revolution, he attempted to
make his peace with the town by a penance more scandalous than
his offence. One night, before he acted in a farce, he appeared
on the stage in a white sheet with a torch in his hand, and
recited some profane and indecent doggerel, which he called his
recantation.230

With the name of Haines was joined, in many libels the name of a
more illustrious renegade, John Dryden. Dryden was now
approaching the decline of life. After many successes and many
failures, he had at length attained, by general consent, the
first place among living English poets. His claims on the
gratitude of James were superior to those of any man of letters
in the kingdom. But James cared little for verses and much for
money. From the day of his accession he set himself to make small
economical reforms, such as bring on a government the reproach of
meanness without producing any perceptible relief to the
finances. One of the victims of his injudicious parsimony was the
Poet Laureate. Orders were given that, in the new patent which
the demise of the crown made necessary, the annual butt of sack,
originally granted to Jonson, and continued to Jonson's
successors, should be omitted.231 This was the only notice which
the King, during the first year of his reign, deigned to bestow
on the mighty satirist who, in the very crisis of the great
struggle of the Exclusion Bill, had spread terror through the
Whig ranks. Dryden was poor and impatient of poverty. He knew
little and cared little about religion. If any sentiment was
deeply fixed in him, that sentiment was an aversion to priests of
all persuasions, Levites, Augurs, Muftis, Roman Catholic divines,
Presbyterian divines, divines of the Church of England. He was
not naturally a man of high spirit; and his pursuits had been by
no means such as were likely to give elevation or delicacy to
his mind. He had, during many years, earned his daily bread by
pandaring to the vicious taste of the pit, and by grossly
flattering rich and noble patrons. Selfrespect and a fine sense
of the becoming were not to be expected from one who had led a
life of mendicancy and adulation. Finding that, if he continued
to call himself a Protestant, his services would be overlooked,
he declared himself a Papist. The King's parsimony instantly
relaxed. Dryden was gratified with a pension of a hundred pounds
a year, and was employed to defend his new religion both in prose
and verse.

Two eminent men, Samuel Johnson and Walter Scott, have done their
best to persuade themselves and others that this memorable
conversion was sincere. It was natural that they should be
desirous to remove a disgraceful stain from the memory of one
whose genius they justly admired, and with whose political
feelings they strongly sympathized; but the impartial historian
must with regret pronounce a very different judgment. There will
always be a strong presumption against the sincerity of a
conversion by which the convert is directly a gainer. In the case
of Dryden there is nothing to countervail this presumption. His
theological writings abundantly prove that he had never sought
with diligence and anxiety to learn the truth, and that his
knowledge both of the Church which he quitted and of the Church
which he entered was of the most superficial kind. Nor was his
subsequent conduct that of a man whom a strong sense of duty had
constrained to take a step of awful importance. Had he been such
a man, the same conviction which had led him to join the Church
of Rome would surely have prevented him from violating grossly
and habitually rules which that Church, in common with every
other Christian society, recognises as binding. There would have
been a marked distinction between his earlier and his later
compositions. He would have looked back with remorse on a
literary life of near thirty years, during which his rare powers
of diction and versification had been systematically employed in
spreading moral corruption. Not a line tending to make virtue
contemptible, or to inflame licentious desire, would
thenceforward have proceeded from his pen. The truth unhappily is
that the dramas which he wrote after his pretended conversion are
in no respect less impure or profane than those of his youth.
Even when he professed to translate he constantly wandered from
his originals in search of images which, if he had found them in
his originals, he ought to have shunned. What was bad became
worse in his versions. What was innocent contracted a taint from
passing through his mind. He made the grossest satires of Juvenal
more gross, interpolated loose descriptions in the tales of
Boccaccio, and polluted the sweet and limpid poetry of the
Georgics with filth which would have moved the loathing of
Virgil.

The help of Dryden was welcome to those Roman Catholic divines
who were painfully sustaining a conflict against all that was
most illustrious in the Established Church. They could not
disguise from themselves the fact that their style, disfigured
with foreign idioms which had been picked up at Rome and Douay,
appeared to little advantage when compared with the eloquence of
Tillotson and Sherlock. It seemed that it was no light thing to
have secured the cooperation of the greatest living master of the
English language. The first service which he was required to
perform in return for his pension was to defend his Church in
prose against Stillingfleet. But the art of saying things well is
useless to a man who has nothing to say; and this was Dryden's
case. He soon found himself unequally paired with an antagonist
whose whole life had been one long training for controversy. The
veteran gladiator disarmed the novice, inflicted a few
contemptuous scratches, and turned away to encounter more
formidable combatants. Dryden then betook himself to a weapon at
which he was not likely to find his match. He retired for a time
from the bustle of coffeehouses and theatres to a quiet retreat
in Huntingdonshire, and there composed, with unwonted care and
labour, his celebrated poem on the points in dispute between the
Churches of Rome and England. The Church of Rome he represented
under the similitude of a milkwhite hind, ever in peril of
death, yet fated not to die. The beasts of the field were bent on
her destruction. The quaking hare, indeed, observed a timorous
neutrality: but the Socinian fox, the Presbyterian wolf, the
Independent bear, the Anabaptist boar, glared fiercely at the
spotless creature. Yet she could venture to drink with them at
the common watering place under the protection of her friend, the
kingly lion. The Church of England was typified by the panther,
spotted indeed, but beautiful, too beautiful for a beast of prey.
The hind and the panther, equally hated by the ferocious
population of the forest, conferred apart on their common danger.
They then proceeded to discuss the points on which they differed,
and, while wagging their tails and licking their jaws, held a
long dialogue touching the real presence, the authority of Popes
and Councils, the penal laws, the Test Act, Oates's perjuries,
Butler's unrequited services to the Cavalier party,
Stillingfleet's pamphlets, and Burnet's broad shoulders and
fortunate matrimonial speculations.

The absurdity of this plan is obvious. In truth the allegory
could not be preserved unbroken through ten lines together. No
art of execution could redeem the faults of such a design. Yet
the Fable of the Hind and Panther is undoubtedly the most
valuable addition which was made to English literature during the
short and troubled reign of James the Second. In none of Dryden's
works can be found passages more pathetic and magnificent,
greater ductility and energy of language, or a more pleasing and
various music.

The poem appeared with every advantage which royal patronage
could give. A superb edition was printed for Scotland at the
Roman Catholic press established in Holyrood House. But men were
in no humour to be charmed by the transparent style and melodious
numbers of the apostate. The disgust excited by his venality, the
alarm excited by the policy of which he was the eulogist, were
not to be sung to sleep. The just indignation of the public was
inflamed by many who were smarting from his ridicule, and by many
who were envious of his renown. In spite of all the restraints
under which the press lay, attacks on his life and writings
appeared daily. Sometimes he was Bayes, sometimes Poet Squab. He
was reminded that in his youth he had paid to the House of
Cromwell the same servile court which he was now paying to the
House of Stuart. One set of his assailants maliciously reprinted
the sarcastic verses which he had written against Popery in days
when he could have got nothing by being a Papist. Of the many
satirical pieces which appeared on this occasion, the most
successful was the joint work of two young men who had lately
completed their studies at Cambridge, and had been welcomed as
promising novices in the literary coffee-houses of London,
Charles Montague and Matthew Prior. Montague was of noble
descent: the origin of Prior was so obscure that no biographer
has been able to trace it: but both the adventurers were poor and
aspiring; both had keen and vigorous minds; both afterwards
climbed high; both united in a remarkable degree the love of
letters with skill in those departments of business for which men
of letters generally have a strong distaste. Of the fifty poets
whose lives Johnson has written, Montague and Prior were the only
two who were distinguished by an intimate knowledge of trade and
finance. Soon their paths diverged widely. Their early friendship
was dissolved. One of them became the chief of the Whig party,
and was impeached by the Tories. The other was entrusted with all
the mysteries of Tory diplomacy, and was long kept close prisoner
by the Whigs. At length, after many eventful years, the
associates, so long parted, were reunited in Westminster Abbey.

Whoever has read the tale of the Hind and Panther with attention
must have perceived that, while that work was in progress, a
great alteration took place in the views of those who used Dryden
as their interpreter. At first the Church of England is mentioned
with tenderness and respect, and is exhorted to ally herself with
the Roman Catholics against the Puritan sects: but at the close
of the poem, and in the preface, which was written after the poem
had been finished, the Protestant Dissenters are invited to make
common cause with the Roman Catholics against the Church of
England.

This change in the language of the court poet was indicative of a
great change in the policy of the court. The original purpose of
James had been to obtain for the Church of which he was a member,
not only complete immunity from all penalties and from all civil
disabilities, but also an ample share of ecclesiastical and
academical endowments, and at the same time to enforce with
rigour the laws against the Puritan sects. All the special
dispensations which he had granted had been granted to Roman
Catholics. All the laws which bore hardest on the Presbyterians,
Independents, and Baptists, had been for a time severely executed
by him. While Hales commanded a regiment, while Powis sate at the
Council board, while Massey held a deanery, while breviaries and
mass books were printed at Oxford under a royal license, while
the host was publicly exposed in London under the protection of
the pikes and muskets of the footguards, while friars and monks
walked the streets of London in their robes, Baxter was in gaol;
Howe was in exile; the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Act were
in full vigour; Puritan writers were compelled to resort to
foreign or to secret presses; Puritan congregations could meet
only by night or in waste places, and Puritan ministers were
forced to preach in the garb of colliers or of sailors. In
Scotland the King, while he spared no exertion to extort from the
Estates full relief for Roman Catholics, had demanded and
obtained new statutes of unprecedented severity against the
Presbyterians. His conduct to the exiled Huguenots had not less
clearly indicated his feelings. We have seen that, when the
public munificence had placed in his hands a large sum for the
relief of those unhappy men, he, in violation of every law of
hospitality and good faith, required them to renounce the
Calvinistic ritual to which they were strongly attached, and to
conform to the Church of England, before he would dole out to
them any portion of the alms which had been entrusted to his
care.

Such had been his policy as long as he could cherish, any hope
that the Church of England would consent to share ascendency with
the Church of Rome. That hope at one time amounted to confidence.
The enthusiasm with which the Tories had hailed his accession,
the elections, the dutiful language and ample grants of his
Parliament, the suppression of the Western insurrection, the
complete prostration of the party which had attempted to exclude
him from the crown, elated him beyond the bounds of reason. He
felt an assurance that every obstacle would give way before his
power and his resolution. His Parliament withstood him. He tried
the effects of frowns and menaces. Frowns and menaces failed. He
tried the effect of prorogation. From the day of the prorogation
the opposition to his designs had been growing stronger and
stronger. It seemed clear that, if he effected his purpose, he
must effect it in defiance of that great party which had given
such signal proofs of fidelity to his office, to his family, and
to his person. The whole Anglican priesthood, the whole Cavalier
gentry, were against him. In vain had he, by virtue of his
ecclesiastical supremacy, enjoined the clergy to abstain from
discussing controverted points. Every parish in the nation was
warned every Sunday against the errors of Rome; and these
warnings were only the more effective, because they were
accompanied by professions of reverence for the Sovereign, and of
a determination to endure with patience whatever it might be his
pleasure to inflict. The royalist knights and esquires who,
through forty-five years of war and faction, had stood so
manfully by the throne, now expressed, in no measured phrase,
their resolution to stand as manfully by the Church. Dull as was
the intellect of James, despotic as was his temper, he felt that
he must change his course. He could not safely venture to outrage
all his Protestant subjects at once. If he could bring himself to
make concessions to the party which predominated in both Houses,
if he could bring himself to leave to the established religion
all its dignities, emoluments, and privileges unimpaired, he
might still break up Presbyterian meetings, and fill the gaols
with Baptist preachers. But if he was determined to plunder the
hierarchy, he must make up his mind to forego the luxury of
persecuting the Dissenters. If he was henceforward to be at feud
with his old friends, he must make a truce with his old enemies.
He could overpower the Anglican Church only by forming against
her an extensive coalition, including sects which, though they
differed in doctrine and government far more widely from each
other than from her, might yet be induced, by their common
jealousy of her greatness, and by their common dread of her
intolerance, to suspend their animosities till she was no longer
able to oppress them.

This plan seemed to him to have one strong recommendation. If he
could only succeed in conciliating the Protestant Nonconformists
he might flatter himself that he was secure against all chance of
rebellion. According to the Anglican divines, no subject could by
any provocation be justified in withstanding the Lord's anointed
by force. The theory of the Puritan sectaries was very different.
Those sectaries had no scruple about smiting tyrants with the
sword of Gideon. Many of them did not shrink from using the
dagger of Ehud. They were probably even now meditating another
Western insurrection, or another Rye House Plot. James,
therefore, conceived that he might safely persecute the Church if
he could only gain the Dissenters. The party whose principles
afforded him no guarantee would be attached to him by interest.
The party whose interests he attacked would be restrained from
insurrection by principle.

Influenced by such considerations as these, James, from the time
at which he parted in anger with his Parliament, began to
meditate a general league of all Nonconformists, Catholic and
Protestant, against the established religion. So early as
Christmas 1685, the agents of the United Provinces informed the
States General that the plan of a general toleration had been
arranged and would soon be disclosed.232 The reports which had
reached the Dutch embassy proved to be premature. The separatists
appear, however, to have been treated with more lenity during the
year 1686 than during the year 1685. But it was only by slow
degrees and after many struggles that the King could prevail on
himself to form an alliance with all that he most abhorred. He
had to overcome an animosity, not slight or capricious, not of
recent origin or hasty growth, but hereditary in his line,
strengthened by great wrongs inflicted and suffered through a
hundred and twenty eventful years, and intertwined with all his
feelings, religious, political, domestic, and personal. Four
generations of Stuarts had waged a war to the death with four
generations of Puritans; and, through that long war, there had
been no Stuart who had hated the Puritans so much, or who had
been so much hated by them, as himself. They had tried to blast
his honour and to exclude him from his birthright; they had
called him incendiary, cutthroat, poisoner; they had driven him
from the Admiralty and the Privy Council; they had repeatedly
chased him into banishment; they had plotted his assassination;
they had risen against him in arms by thousands. He had avenged
himself on them by havoc such as England had never before seen.
Their heads and quarters were still rotting on poles in all the
market places of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire. Aged women held
in high honour among the sectaries for piety and charity had, for
offences which no good prince would have thought deserving even
of a severe reprimand, been beheaded and burned alive. Such had
been, even in England, the relations between the King and the
Puritans; and in Scotland the tyranny of the King and the fury of
the Puritans had been such as Englishmen could hardly conceive.
To forget an enmity so long and so deadly was no light task for a
nature singularly harsh and implacable.

The conflict in the royal mind did not escape the eye of
Barillon. At the end of January, 1687, he sent a remarkable
letter to Versailles. The King,--such was the substance of this
document,--had almost convinced himself that he could not obtain
entire liberty for Roman Catholics and yet maintain the laws
against Protestant Dissenters. He leaned, therefore, to the plan
of a general indulgence; but at heart he would be far better
pleased if he could, even now, divide his protection and favour
between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, to the
exclusion of all other religious persuasions.233

A very few days after this despatch had been written, James made
his first hesitating and ungracious advances towards the
Puritans. He had determined to begin with Scotland, where his
power to dispense with acts of parliament had been admitted by
the obsequious Estates. On the twelfth of February, accordingly,
was published at Edinburgh a proclamation granting relief to
scrupulous consciences.234 This proclamation fully proves the
correctness of Barillon's judgment. Even in the very act of
making concessions to the Presbyterians, James could not conceal
the loathing with which he regarded them. The toleration given to
the Catholics was complete. The Quakers had little reason to
complain. But the indulgence vouchsafed to the Presbyterians, who
constituted the great body of the Scottish people, was clogged by
conditions which made it almost worthless. For the old test,
which excluded Catholics and Presbyterians alike from office, was
substituted a new test, which admitted the Catholics, but
excluded most of the Presbyterians. The Catholics were allowed to
build chapels, and even to carry the host in procession anywhere
except in the high streets of royal burghs: the Quakers were
suffered to assemble in public edifices: but the Presbyterians
were interdicted from worshipping God anywhere but in private
dwellings: they were not to presume to build meeting houses: they
were not even to use a barn or an outhouse for religious
exercises: and it was distinctly notified to them that, if they
dared to hold conventicles in the open air, the law, which
denounced death against both preachers and hearers, should be
enforced without mercy. Any Catholic priest might say mass: any
Quaker might harangue his brethren: but the Privy Council was
directed to see that no Presbyterian minister presumed to preach
without a special license from the government. Every line of this
instrument, and of the letters by which it was accompanied, shows
how much it cost the King to relax in the smallest degree the
rigour with which he had ever treated the old enemies of his
house.235

 There is reason, indeed, to believe that, when he published this
proclamation, he had by no means fully made up his mind to a
coalition with the Puritans, and that his object was to grant
just so much favour to them as might suffice to frighten the
Churchmen into submission. He therefore waited a month, in order
to see what effect the edict put forth at Edinburgh would produce
in England. That month he employed assiduously, by Petre's
advice, in what was called closeting. London was very full. It
was expected that the Parliament would shortly meet for the
dispatch of business; and many members were in town. The King set
himself to canvass them man by man. He flattered himself that
zealous Tories,--and of such, with few exceptions, the House of
Commons consisted,--would find it difficult to resist his earnest
request, addressed to them, not collectively, but separately, not
from the throne, but in the familiarity of conversation. The
members, therefore, who came to pay their duty at Whitehall were
taken aside, and honoured with long private interviews. The King
pressed them, as they were loyal gentlemen, to gratify him in the
one thing on which his heart was fixed. The question, he said,
touched his personal honour. The laws enacted in the late reign
by factious Parliaments against the Roman Catholics had really
been aimed at himself. Those laws had put a stigma on him, had
driven him from the Admiralty, had driven him from the Council
Board. He had a right to expect that in the repeal of those laws
all who loved and reverenced him would concur. When he found his
hearers obdurate to exhortation, he resorted to intimidation and
corruption. Those who refused to pleasure him in this matter were
plainly told that they must not expect any mark of his favour.
Penurious as he was, he opened and distributed his hoards.
Several of those who had been invited to confer with him left his
bedchamber carrying with them money received from the royal hand.
The Judges, who were at this time on their spring circuits, were
directed by the King to see those members who remained in the
country, and to ascertain the intentions of each. The result of
this investigation was, that a great majority of the House of
Commons seemed fully determined to oppose the measures of the
court.236 Among those whose firmness excited general admiration
was Arthur Herbert, brother of the Chief Justice, member for
Dover, Master of the Robes, and Rear Admiral of England. Arthur
Herbert was much loved by the sailors, and was reputed one of the
best of the aristocratical class of naval officers. It had been
generally supposed that he would readily comply with the royal
wishes: for he was heedless of religion; he was fond of pleasure
and expense; he had no private estate; his places brought him in
four thousand pounds a year; and he had long been reckoned among
the most devoted personal adherents of James. When, however, the
Rear Admiral was closeted, and required to promise that he would
vote for the repeal of the Test Act, his answer was, that his
honour and conscience would not permit him to give any such
pledge. "Nobody doubts your honour," said the King; "but a man
who lives as you do ought not to talk about his conscience." To
this reproach, a reproach which came with a bad grace from the
lover of Catharine Sedley, Herbert manfully replied, "I have my
faults, sir: but I could name people who talk much more about
conscience than I am in the habit of doing, and yet lead lives as
loose as mine." He was dismissed from all his places; and the
account of what he had disbursed and received as Master of the
Robes was scrutinised with great and, as he complained, with
unjust severity.237

It was now evident that all hope of an alliance between the
Churches of England and of Rome, for the purpose of sharing
offices and emoluments, and of crushing the Puritan sects, must
be abandoned. Nothing remained but to try a coalition between the
Church of Rome and the Puritan sects against the Church of
England.

On the eighteenth of March the King informed the Privy Council
that he had determined to prorogue the Parliament till the end of
November, and to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of
conscience to all his subjects.238 On the fourth of April
appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence.

In this Declaration the King avowed that it was his earnest wish
to see his people members of that Church to which he himself
belonged. But, since that could not be, he announced his
intention to protect them in the free exercise of their religion.
He repeated all those phrases which, eight years before, when he
was himself an oppressed man, had been familiar to his lips, but
which he had ceased to use from the day on which a turn of
fortune had put it into his power to be an oppressor. He had long
been convinced, he said, that conscience was not to be forced,
that persecution was unfavourable to population and to trade, and
that it never attained the ends which persecutors had in view. He
repeated his promise, already often repeated and often violated,
that he would protect the Established Church in the enjoyment of
her legal rights. He then proceeded to annul, by his own sole
authority, a long series of statutes. He suspended all penal laws
against all classes of Nonconformists. He authorised both Roman
Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform their worship
publicly. He forbade his subjects, on pain of his highest
displeasure, to molest any religious assembly. He also abrogated
all those acts which imposed any religious test as a
qualification for any civil or military office.239

That the Declaration of Indulgence was unconstitutional is a
point on which both the great English parties have always been
entirely agreed. Every person capable of reasoning on a political
question must perceive that a monarch who is competent to issue
such a declaration is nothing less than an absolute monarch. Nor
is it possible to urge in defence of this act of James those
pleas by which many arbitrary acts of the Stuarts have been
vindicated or excused. It cannot be said that he mistook the
bounds of his prerogative because they had not been accurately
ascertained. For the truth is that he trespassed with a recent
landmark full in his view. Fifteen years before that time, a
Declaration of Indulgence had been put forth by his brother with
the advice of the Cabal. That Declaration, when compared with the
Declaration of James, might be called modest and cautious. The
Declaration of Charles dispensed only with penal laws. The
Declaration of James dispensed also with all religious tests. The
Declaration of Charles permitted the Roman Catholics to celebrate
their worship in private dwellings only. Under the Declaration of
James they might build and decorate temples, and even walk in
procession along Fleet Street with crosses, images, and censers.
Yet the Declaration of Charles had been pronounced illegal in the
most formal manner. The Commons had resolved that the King had no
power to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical.
Charles had ordered the obnoxious instrument to be cancelled in
his presence, had torn off the seal with his own hand, and had,
both by message under his sign manual, and with his own lips from
his throne in full Parliament, distinctly promised the two Houses
that the step which had given so much offence should never be
drawn into precedent. The two Houses had then, without one
dissentient voice, joined in thanking him for this compliance
with their wishes. No constitutional question had ever been
decided more deliberately, more clearly, or with more harmonious
consent.

The defenders of James have frequently pleaded in his excuse the
judgment of the Court of King's Bench, on the information
collusively laid against Sir Edward Hales: but the plea is of no
value. That judgment James had notoriously obtained by
solicitation, by threats, by dismissing scrupulous magistrates,
and by placing on the bench other magistrates more courtly. And
yet that judgment, though generally regarded by the bar and by
the nation as unconstitutional, went only to this extent, that
the Sovereign might, for special reasons of state, grant to
individuals by name exemptions from disabling statutes. That he
could by one sweeping edict authorise all his subjects to disobey
whole volumes of laws, no tribunal had ventured, in the face of
the solemn parliamentary decision of 1673, to affirm.

Such, however, was the position of parties that James's
Declaration of Indulgence, though the most audacious of all the
attacks made by the Stuarts on public freedom, was well
calculated to please that very portion of the community by which
all the other attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom had been
most strenuously resisted. It could scarcely be hoped that the
Protestant Nonconformist, separated from his countrymen by a
harsh code harshly enforced, would be inclined to dispute the
validity of a decree which relieved him from intolerable
grievances. A cool and philosophical observer would undoubtedly
have pronounced that all the evil arising from all the intolerant
laws which Parliaments had framed was not to be compared to the
evil which would be produced by a transfer of the legislative
power from the Parliament to the Sovereign. But such coolness and
philosophy are not to be expected from men who are smarting under
present pain, and who are tempted by the offer of immediate ease.
A Puritan divine, could not indeed deny that the dispensing power
now claimed by the crown was inconsistent with the fundamental
principles of the constitution. But he might perhaps be excused
if he asked, What was the constitution to him? The Act of
Uniformity had ejected him, in spite of royal promises, from a
benefice which was his freehold, and had reduced him to beggary
and dependence. The Five Mile Act had banished him from his
dwelling, from his relations, from his friends, from almost all
places of public resort. Under the Conventicle Act his goods had
been distrained; and he had been flung into one noisome gaol
after another among highwaymen and housebreakers. Out of prison
he had constantly had the officers of justice on his track; he
had been forced to pay hushmoney to informers; he had stolen, in
ignominious disguises, through windows and trapdoors, to meet his
flock, and had, while pouring the baptismal water, or
distributing the eucharistic bread, been anxiously listening for
the signal that the tipstaves were approaching. Was it not
mockery to call on a man thus plundered and oppressed to suffer
martyrdom for the property and liberty of his plunderers and
oppressors? The Declaration, despotic as it might seem to his
prosperous neighbours, brought deliverance to him. He was called
upon to make his choice, not between freedom and slavery, but
between two yokes; and he might not unnaturally think the yoke of
the King lighter than that of the Church.

While thoughts like these were working in the minds of many
Dissenters, the Anglican party was in amazement and terror.
This new turn in affairs was indeed alarming. The House of Stuart
leagued with republican and regicide sects against the old
Cavaliers of England; Popery leagued with Puritanism against an
ecclesiastical system with which the Puritans had no quarrel,
except that it had retained too much that was Popish, these were
portents which confounded all the calculations of statesmen. The
Church was then to be attacked at once on every side and the
attack was to be under the direction of him who, by her
constitution, was her head. She might well be struck with
surprise and dismay. And mingled with surprise and dismay came
other bitter feelings; resentment against the perjured Prince
whom she had served too well, and remorse for the cruelties in
which he had been her accomplice, and for which he was now, as it
seemed, about to be her punisher. Her chastisement was just. She
reaped that which she had sown. After the Restoration, when her
power was at the height, she had breathed nothing hut vengeance.
She had encouraged, urged, almost compelled the Stuarts to
requite with perfidious ingratitude the recent services of the
Presbyterians. Had she, in that season of her prosperity,
pleaded, as became her, for her enemies, she might now, in her
distress, have found them her friends. Perhaps it was not yet too
late. Perhaps she might still be able to turn the tactics of her
faithless oppressor against himself. There was among the Anglican
clergy a moderate party which had always felt kindly towards the
Protestant Dissenters. That party was not large; but the
abilities, acquirements, and virtues of those who belonged to it
made it respectable. It had been regarded with little favour by
the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries, and had been mercilessly
reviled by bigots of the school of Laud but, from the day on
which the Declaration of Indulgence appeared to the day on which
the power of James ceased to inspire terror, the whole Church
seemed to be animated by the spirit, and guided by the counsels,
of the calumniated Latitudinarians.

Then followed an auction, the strangest that history has
recorded. On one side the King, on the other the Church, began to
bid eagerly against each other for the favour of those whom tip
to that time King and Church had combined to oppress. The
Protestant Dissenters, who, a few months before, had been a
despised and proscribed class, now held the balance of power. The
harshness with which they had been treated was universally
condemned. The court tried to throw all the blame on the
hierarchy. The hierarchy flung it back on the court. The King
declared that he had unwillingly persecuted the separatists only
because his affairs had been in such a state that he could not
venture to disoblige the established clergy. The established
clergy protested that they had borne a part in severity
uncongenial to their feelings only from deference to the
authority of the King. The King got together a collection of
stories about rectors and vicars who had by threats of
prosecution wrung money out of Protestant Dissenters. He talked
on this subject much and publicly, threatened to institute an
inquiry which would exhibit the parsons in their true character
to the whole world, and actually issued several commissions
empowering agents on whom he thought that he could depend to
ascertain the amount of the sums extorted in different parts of
the country by professors of the dominant religion from
sectaries. The advocates of the Church, on the other hand, cited
instances of honest parish priests who had been reprimanded and
menaced by the court for recommending toleration in the pulpit,
and for refusing to spy out and hunt down little congregations of
Nonconformists. The King asserted that some of the Churchmen whom
he had closeted had offered to make large concessions to the
Catholics, on condition that the persecution of the Puritans
might go on. The accused Churchmen vehemently denied the truth of
this charge; and alleged that, if they would have complied with
what he demanded for his own religion, he would most gladly have
suffered them to indemnify themselves by harassing and pillaging
Protestant Dissenters.240

The court had changed its face. The scarf and cassock could
hardly appear there without calling forth sneers and malicious
whispers. Maids of honour forbore to giggle, and Lords of the
Bedchamber bowed low, when the Puritanical visage and the
Puritanical garb, so long the favourite subjects of mockery in
fashionable circles, were seen in the galleries. Taunton, which
had been during two generations the stronghold of the Roundhead
party in the West, which had twice resolutely repelled the armies
of Charles the First, which had risen as one man to support
Monmouth, and which had been turned into a shambles by Kirke and
Jeffreys, seemed to have suddenly succeeded to the place which
Oxford had once occupied in the royal favour.241 The King
constrained himself to show even fawning courtesy to eminent
Dissenters. To some he offered money, to some municipal honours,
to some pardons for their relations and friends who, having been
implicated in the Rye House Plot, or having joined the standard
of Monmouth, were now wandering on the Continent, or toiling
among the sugar canes of Barbadoes. He affected even to
sympathize with the kindness which the English Puritans felt for
their foreign brethren. A second and a third proclamation were
published at Edinburgh, which greatly extended the nugatory
toleration granted to the Presbyterians by the edict of
February.242 The banished Huguenots, on whom the King had frowned
during many months, and whom he had defrauded of the alms
contributed by the nation, were now relieved and caressed. An
Order in Council was issued, appealing again in their behalf to
the public liberality. The rule which required them to qualify
themselves for the receipt of charity, by conforming to the
Anglican worship, seems to have been at this time silently
abrogated; and the defenders of the King's policy had the
effrontery to affirm that this rule, which, as we know from the
best evidence, was really devised by himself in concert with
Barillon, had been adopted at the instance of the prelates of the
Established Church.243

While the King was thus courting his old adversaries, the friends
of the Church were not less active. Of the acrimony and scorn
with which prelates and priests had, since the Restoration, been
in the habit of treating the sectaries scarcely a trace was
discernible. Those who had lately been designated as schismatics
and fanatics were now dear fellow Protestants, weak brethren it
might be, but still brethren, whose scruples were entitled to
tender regard. If they would but be true at this crisis to the
cause of the English constitution and of the reformed religion,
their generosity should be speedily and largely rewarded. They
should have, instead of an indulgence which was of no legal
validity, a real indulgence, secured by Act of Parliament. Nay,
many Churchmen, who had hitherto been distinguished by their
inflexible attachment to every gesture and every word prescribed
in the Book of Common Prayer, now declared themselves favourable,
not only to toleration, but even to comprehension. The dispute,
they said, about surplices and attitudes, had too long divided
those who were agreed as to the essentials of religion. When the
struggle for life and death against the common enemy was over, it
would be found that the Anglican clergy would be ready to make
every fair concession. If the Dissenters would demand only what
was reasonable, not only civil but ecclesiastical dignities would
be open to them; and Baxter and Howe would be able, without any
stain on their honour or their conscience, to sit on the
episcopal bench.

Of the numerous pamphlets in which the cause of the Court and the
cause of the Church were at this time eagerly and anxiously
pleaded before the Puritan, now, by a strange turn of fortune,
the arbiter of the fate of his persecutors, one only is still
remembered, the Letter to a Dissenter. In this masterly little
tract, all the arguments which could convince a Nonconformist
that it was his duty and his interest to prefer an alliance with
the Church to an alliance with the Court were condensed into the
smallest compass, arranged in the most perspicuous order,
illustrated with lively wit, and enforced by an eloquence earnest
indeed, yet never in its utmost vehemence transgressing the
limits of exact good sense and good breeding. The effect of this
paper was immense; for, as it was only a single sheet, more than
twenty thousand copies were circulated by the post; and there was
no corner of the kingdom in which the effect was not felt.
Twenty-four answers were published, but the town pronounced that
they were all bad, and that Lestrange's was the worst of the
twenty-four.244 The government was greatly irritated, and spared
no pains to discover the author of the Letter: but it was found
impossible to procure legal evidence against him. Some imagined
that they recognised the sentiments and diction of Temple.245 But
in truth that amplitude and acuteness of intellect, that vivacity
of fancy, that terse and energetic style, that placid dignity,
half courtly half philosophical, which the utmost excitement of
conflict could not for a moment derange, belonged to Halifax, and
to Halifax alone.

The Dissenters wavered; nor is it any reproach to them that they
did so. They were suffering, and the King had given them relief.
Some eminent pastors had emerged from confinement; others had
ventured to return from exile. Congregations, which had hitherto
met only by stealth and in darkness, now assembled at noonday,
and sang psalms aloud in the hearing of magistrates,
churchwardens, and constables. Modest buildings for the worship
of God after the Puritan fashion began to rise all over England.
An observant traveller will still remark the date of 1687 on some
of the oldest meeting houses. Nevertheless the offers of the
Church were, to a prudent Dissenter, far more attractive than
those of the King. The Declaration was, in the eye of the law, a
nullity. It suspended the penal statutes against nonconformity
only for so long a time as the fundamental principles of the
constitution and the rightful authority of the legislature should
remain suspended. What was the value of privileges which must be
held by a tenure at once so ignominious and so insecure? There
might soon be a demise of the crown. A sovereign attached to the
established religion might sit on the throne. A Parliament
composed of Churchmen might be assembled. How deplorable would
then be the situation of Dissenters who had been in league with
Jesuits against the constitution. The Church offered an indulgence
very different from that granted by James, an indulgence as valid
and as sacred as the Great Charter. Both the contending parties
promised religious liberty to the separatist: but one party
required him to purchase it by sacrificing civil liberty; the
other party invited him to enjoy civil and religious liberty
together.

For these reasons, even if it could be believed that the Court
was sincere, a Dissenter might reasonably have determined to cast
in his lot with the Church. But what guarantee was there for the
sincerity of the Court? All men knew what the conduct of James
had been tip to that very time. It was not impossible, indeed,
that a persecutor might be convinced by argument and by
experience of the advantages of toleration. But James did not
pretend to have been recently convinced. On the contrary, he
omitted no opportunity of protesting that he had, during many
years, been, on principle, adverse to all intolerance. Yet,
within a few months, he had persecuted men, women, young girls,
to the death for their religion. Had he been acting against light
and against the convictions of his conscience then? Or was he
uttering a deliberate falsehood now? From this dilemma there was
no escape; and either of the two suppositions was fatal to the
King's character for honesty. It was notorious also that he had
been completely subjugated by the Jesuits. Only a few days before
the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had been honoured,
in spite of the well known wishes of the Holy See, with a new
mark of his confidence and approbation. His confessor, Father
Mansuete, a Franciscan, whose mild temper and irreproachable life
commanded general respect, but who had long been hated by
Tyrconnel and Petre, had been discarded. The vacant place had
been filled by an Englishman named Warner, who had apostatized
from the religion of his country and had turned Jesuit. To the
moderate Roman Catholics and to the Nuncio this change was far
from agreeable. By every Protestant it was regarded as a proof
that the dominion of the Jesuits over the royal mind was
absolute.246 Whatever praises those fathers might justly claim,
flattery itself could not ascribe to them either wide liberality
or strict veracity. That they had never scrupled, when the
interest of their Order was at stake, to call in the aid of the
civil sword, or to violate the laws of truth and of good faith,
had been proclaimed to the world, not only by Protestant
accusers, but by men whose virtue and genius were the glory of
the Church of Rome. It was incredible that a devoted disciple of
the Jesuits should be on principle zealous for freedom of
conscience: but it was neither incredible nor improbable that he
might think himself justified in disguising his real sentiments,
in order to render a service to his religion. It was certain that
the King at heart preferred the Churchmen to the Puritans. It was
certain that, while he had any hope of gaining the Churchmen, he
had never shown the smallest kindness to the Puritans. Could it
then be doubted that, if the Churchmen would even now comply with
his wishes, he would willingly sacrifice the Puritans? His word,
repeatedly pledged, had not restrained him from invading the
legal rights of that clergy which had given such signal proofs of
affection and fidelity to his house. What security then could his
word afford to sects divided from him by the recollection of a
thousand inexpiable wounds inflicted and endured?

When the first agitation produced by the publication of the
Indulgence had subsided, it appeared that a breach had taken
place in the Puritan party. The minority, headed by a few busy
men whose judgment was defective or was biassed by interest,
supported the King. Henry Care, who had long 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.247 The chief agent who was employed by the
government to manage the Presbyterians was Vincent Alsop, a
divine of 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.248 With Alsop was joined Thomas 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
convicted 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 Rosewell remained bound under heavy
recognisances to good 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.249

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.250

With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never been
a strongheaded 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 a market town in England
without at least a knot of separatists. No exertion was spared to
induce them to express their 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 posthorses. 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.251

The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly attached to
civil liberty, and distrusting the promises of the King and of
the Jesuits, steadily refused to return thanks for a favour
which, it might well be suspected, concealed a snare. This was
the temper of all the most illustrious chiefs of the party. One
of these was Baxter. He had, as we have seen, 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 an
address of thanks for the Indulgence, and exerted all his
influence to promote good feeling between the Church and the
Presbyterians.252

If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation of the
Protestant 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 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.253

To 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 sensibility 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, hut from which he was separated
by a waste of snow. He felt the Devil behind him pulling his
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.254 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 great 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 no
other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to
make abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love.255

It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered more
severely under the penal 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.256

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 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
he 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. Kiffin 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 hardhearted and lowminded man, unable to
conceive any laceration of the affections for which a place or a
pension would not be a full compensation.257

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 Declaration 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 meeting house, 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 tittering 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.258

Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court
were rapidly losing the influence which they had once 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, 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 Declaration
of Indulgence. For a time hopes were entertained at Whitehall
that his known respect for the rights of conscience 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 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.259
"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.260 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 younger 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 he 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 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.261

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
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 of those 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 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
great English 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 excluded
from civil employment on account of 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 selfdefence: 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 all public 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 determined 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 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 possible to doubt that Protestants would have
been as effectually excluded from employment, by a strictly legal
use of the royal prerogative, as ever Roman Catholics had been by
Act of Parliament?

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 at 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 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 Rome 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.262

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 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 Edmondsbury 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.

The services of Burnet indeed it was necessary to employ with
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 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 His 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 find a secure asylum in France. Burnet
was well aware of his 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. He 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 no 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
foolhardiness.263

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 knowledge of English affairs none seems
to have been his equal. A pretence was found for despatching him,
early in the year 1687, 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.264

Dykvelt reported that James was bitterly mortified by the conduct
of the Prince and Princess. "My nephew's duty," said the King,
"is to strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in
crossing me." Dykvelt answered that in 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.265 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 Roman 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.266
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 chiefly spoken by
the Earls of Danby and Nottingham. Though more 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 head.
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.267 A considerable
part of the moral and intellectual character of this great
magistrate had descended with the title of Nottingham to his
eldest son. This son, Earl Daniel, was 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 his
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.268

With these two great Tory Earls was now united 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 enmity which
began in the court of Charles, and which, at a later period,
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 and
Russell 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 a private brawl in
which even his warmest friends could not pronounce him altogether
blameless. He had gone to Whitehall to pay his duty, and had
there been insulted by a man named Colepepper, one of a set of
bravoes who invested the perlieus 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 Colepepper's windows. This was 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 Colepepper in the drawingroom 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. The 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
tittered: 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 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 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 he 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 he should remain in the background.269

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 eager section of the
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. Bishop Compton was the
agent employed to manage the clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook to
exert all his influence 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 displeasure by 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 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 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 amass. 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.270

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.271
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 Tyrconnel. Baron, 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 infamous wages bestowed on him by
the 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 farsighted and surefooted
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. In the reign of
James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine highspirited
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 drawingroom; 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 income was large and
her tastes simple, contracted debts which her father, not without
some murmurs, discharged; and it was rumoured that her embarrassments had been
caused by her prodigal bounty to her
favourite.272

At length the time had arrived when this singular friendship was
to exercise a great influence on public affairs. 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 Dykvelt returned to the Hague. He presented to the
States General a royal epistle filled with eulogies of his
conduct during his residence in London. These eulogies however
were merely formal. James, in private communications written with
his own hand, bitterly complained 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 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.273

Dykvelt's mission had succeeded so well that a pretence was 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 estrangement between the King of England and the Prince of
Orange became daily more complete. A serious dispute had arisen
concerning the six British regiments which were in the pay of the
United Provinces. The King wished to put these regiments under
the command of Roman Catholic officers. The Prince resolutely
opposed this design. The 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 in Holland 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.

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.274

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 official announcement of that opinion had appeared, many
persons who had not access to good private sources of information
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 a simple 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, some years before,
to Holland, in order to avoid the boot and the gallows, and had
become intimate with the Grand Pensionary Fagel, who enjoyed a
large share of the Stadtholder's confidence 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 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 Roman 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.

It is probable that the Pope himself was among those who read
this celebrated letter with pleasure. He had some 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.275 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
Marchioness 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 Tichbornes. 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. 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.276
The front of the Ambassador's palace was decorated on this great
day with absurd allegorical paintings of gigantic size.  There
was Saint George with his foot on the neck of Titus Cares, and
Hercules 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
Aeneid 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 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 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 be 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 be 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.277

CHAPTER VIII

Consecration of the Nuncio at Saint James's Palace; his public
Reception--The Duke of Somerset--Dissolution of the Parliament;
Military Offences illegally punished--Proceedings of the High
Commission; the Universities--Proceedings against the University
of Cambridge--The Earl of Mulgrave--State of Oxford--Magdalene
College, Oxford--Anthony Farmer recommended by the King for
President--Election of the President--The Fellows of Magdalene
cited before the High Commission--Parker recommended as
President; the Charterhouse--The Royal Progress--The King at
Oxford; he reprimands the Fellows of Magdalene--Penn attempts to
mediate--Special Ecclesiastical Commissioners sent to Oxford--
Protest of Hough--Parker--Ejection of the Fellows--Magdalene
College turned into a Popish Seminary--Resentment of the Clergy--
Schemes of the Jesuitical Cabal respecting the Succession--Scheme
of James and Tyrconnel for preventing the Princess of Orange from
succeeding to the Kingdom of Ireland--The Queen pregnant; general
Incredulity--Feeling of the Constituent Bodies, and of the Peers-
-James determines to pack a Parliament--The Board of Regulators--
Many Lords Lieutenants dismissed; the Earl of Oxford--The Earl of
Shrewsbury--The Earl of Dorset--Questions put to the Magistrates-
-Their Answers; Failure of the King's Plans--List of Sheriffs--
Character of the Roman Catholic Country Gentlemen--Feeling of the
Dissenters; Regulation of Corporations--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 Royal 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 Bishops--The Verdict; Joy of the People--Peculiar
State of Public Feeling at this Time

THE marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irritated the
meekest of princes. But the only effect which it produced on
James was to make him more lavish of caresses and compliments.
While Castelmaine, his whole soul festered with angry passions,
was on his road back to England, the 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 of Pontus, 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.278 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 of Pandolph.

In a short time a still more ostentatious pageant was performed
in honour of the Holy See. It was determined that the Nuncio
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. Among these the most
conspicuous was the second temporal peer of the realm, Charles
Seymour, commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset. He was in
truth a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost
to a disease. The fortune which he 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.279

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 many persons of quality sate the
whole day in their carriages waiting for the exhibition. At
length, late in the afternoon, 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.280

On the following day appeared in the Gazette a proclamation
dissolving that Parliament which of all the fifteen Parliaments
held by the Stuarts had been the most obsequious.281

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 chiefly
depended for the accomplishing of his designs when he found that
he could not himself control it. When war was 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,
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 in England
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 eightpence 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 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 recordership. 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 such 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 care was taken that the
executions should be announced in the London Gazette, which very
seldom noticed such events.282

It may well be believed, that the law, so grossly insulted by
courts which derived from it all their authority, and which were
in the habit of looking to it as their guide, would be little
respected by a tribunal which had originated in tyrannical
caprice. The new High Commission had, during the first months of
its existence, merely inhibited clergymen from exercising
spiritual functions. The rights of property had remained
untouched. But, early in the year 1687, 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.

It would have been prudent to try the first experiment on some
obscure 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 Leipzig, 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 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 zealous 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 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.283

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 Monmouth, but had marked her abhorrence of
his treason in a manner unworthy of a scat 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.284
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 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 be instantly 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, was no
longer a member. In his stead appeared the Lord Chamberlain, John
Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave. The fate of this nobleman has, in
one respect, resembled the fate of his colleague Sprat. Mulgrave
wrote verses which scarcely 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 convert. This abject hypocrisy had been
rewarded by a place in the Ecclesiastical Commission.285

Before that formidable tribunal now appeared the Vicechancellor
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 Francis stood. The
delegates offered to prove that, in the late reign, several 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 Vice chancellor
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.'"286

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 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.287

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
scat 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 highspirited youths who a few months
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.288 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 gave him pain.
What he had not the generosity 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 nation with a conviction that the estate
of a Protestant English freeholder under a Roman Catholic King
must be as insecure as that of a Greek under Moslem domination.

Magdalene College at Oxford, founded in the fifteenth century by
William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord High
Chancellor, was one of the most remarkable of our 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 slugish waters of the
Cherwell. He passed through a gateway overhung by a noble
oriel289, 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 be lodged in Magdalene. 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 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.290

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 Wykeham 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 wealthiest 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.291

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 Rabbi 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."

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 of William of Waynflete.
William of Waynflete had also enjoined those who partook of his
bounty to have a particular regard to moral character in choosing
their head; and, even if he had left no 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 one of the Fellows who had
lately turned Papist, Robert Charnock, a man of parts and spirit,
but of a violent and restless 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 to their
chapel. No answer had arrived from Whitehall. Two or three of the
Seniors, among whom was Smith, were 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 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.

Early in June the Fellows were cited to appear before the High
Commission at Whitehall. Five of them, deputed by the rest,
obeyed the summons. Jeffreys treated them after his usual
fashion. When one of them, a grave Doctor named
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 was not an avowed Papist. Still there was an objection to
him which, even if the presidency had been 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.

While Oxford was thus opposing a firm resistance to tyranny, a
stand not less resolute was made in another quarter. James had,
some time before, commanded the trustees of 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 case
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 His Majesty 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 Commission would take up the case: but these
threats gradually died away.292

The summer was now far advanced; and the King set out 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.293

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.294 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.295

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.296

From Cheshire the King turned southward, and, in the 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 of Edgehill, 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 near the stately bridge. In the evening he reached Oxford.
He was received 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 chapel fitted up for the
celebration of the Mass.297 On the day after his arrival, the
Fellows of Magdalene College were 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 flung it down. "Get you gone, I tell you. I will receive
nothing from you till you have admitted the Bishop."

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 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
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 had 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 hallowed 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 said, "is a
pleasant college. Christ Church is a noble place. Magdalene is a
fine building. The situation is convenient. 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 off; 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 of
Chester, to Wright, Chief justice of the King's Bench, and to Sir
Thomas Jenner, a Baron of the Exchequer, appointing them to
exercise visitatorial jurisdiction over the college. On the
twentieth of October they arrived at Oxford, 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. Charneck 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.

And now Hough himself craved permission to address a few words to
the Commissioners. They consented with much civility, perhaps
expecting from the calmness and suavity of his manner that he
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
Bishop of Oxford was quietly installed by proxy: but only 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.

And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter might have
stopped. The Fellows in general were not inclined 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 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 or men 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 scat 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 Vicechancellor had been asked to dine with the
Commissioners on the day of the expulsion. He refused. "My
taste," he said, "differs from that 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 coffeehouse. 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 corrupt them by offers of the
lucrative fellowships which had just been declared vacant: but
one undergraduate after 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. The
college was turned into a Popish seminary. Bonaventure Giffard,
the Roman Catholic Bishop of Madura, was appointed President. The
Roman Catholic service was performed in the chapel. In one day
twelve Roman Catholics were 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.298

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 coffeehouses 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 vicar, 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
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 he, 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 life.
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, her
property and dignity would be fenced by new guarantees; and those
wicked ministers who had injured and insulted her in the day of
her adversity would be signally punished.

The event to which the Church of England looked forward as to an
honourable and peaceful termination of her troubles was one of
which even the most reckless members of the 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 this scheme was warmly
approved; and Bonrepaux gave it as his opinion that the assent of
James would be easily obtained.299 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, 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.300 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."301 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.302 During many months 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.303

It is not probable however that James ever meant to take a course
so insane. He must have known that England would never bear for a
single day the yoke of an usurper who was also a Papist, and that
any attempt to set aside the Lady Mary would have been withstood
to the death, both by all those who had supported the Exclusion
Bill, and by all those who had opposed it. There is however no
doubt that the King was an accomplice in a plot less absurd, but
not less unjustifiable, against the rights of his children.
Tyrconnel had, with his 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.304 These transactions,
which, though perhaps not in all parts accurately known at the
Hague, 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 sacred ties of
consanguinity, she only followed her father's example. She did
not assist to depose him till he had conspired to disinherit her.

Scarcely had Bonrepaux been informed that Lewis had resolved to
assist the enterprise of Tyrconnel when all thoughts 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 be
whispered. It was observed that Her Majesty had absented 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 coffeehouses 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 eminent members 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 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 with
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 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 coffeehouses 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.305

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 and of
Saint Winifred might be turned into a curse.306 This was a danger
against which nothing but, an Act of Parliament could be a
security; and to obtain such an Act was not easy. Everything
seemed to indicate that, if the Houses were convoked, they would
come up to Westminster animated by the spirit of 1640. The event
of the county elections could hardly be 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 for support only to four or
five sycophants despised by their profession and by their
country.307

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 goodnatured Charles.308 Even
Jeffreys wavered. As long as he 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: but Barillon, 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.309

Nevertheless James determined to persevere. The sanction of a
Parliament was necessary to his system. The sanction of a free
and lawful Parliament it was evidently impossible 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 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."310

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 of Peace and of Lieutenancy, and to
retain in public employment only such gentlemen as should be
disposed to support his policy.311 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
belonged to the Jesuitical faction. Among them was Petre, who had
just been sworn of the Council. Till he took his seat 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 of regulators all over the country
corresponded with the central board at Westminster.312

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.313

The first effect produced by these orders would have at once
sobered a prince less infatuated than James. Half the Lords
Lieutenants of England peremptorily refused to stoop 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 de Vere,
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 Plantagenet 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 Beauclerc. 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 Pointiers. 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 Maastricht. 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, and I cannot comply." He was
instantly deprived of his lieutenancy and of his regiment.314

Inferior in antiquity and splendour to the house of De Vere, but
to the house of De Vere alone, was the house of Talbot. Ever
since the reign of Edward the Third, the Talbots 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 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 of Florence. It
was impossible that a youth 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 develop 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.315 Shrewsbury
was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of
one of the regiments of horse which had been 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.316 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
goodnature, 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 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 coffeehouses 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 Saint Evremond and La
Fontaine. 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.317

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.318 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.319

The other dismissions must be more concisely related. 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 Newport, 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 Husband 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. Scarsdale 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 rejected, not only from the lieutenancy of
Hampshire, but also from the government of Portsmouth and the
rangership of the New Forest, two places for which he had, only a
few months before, given five thousand pounds.320

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.

At length the new machinery was put in action; and soon from
every corner of the realm arrived the news of complete and
hopeless failure. The catechism by which the Lords Lieutenants
had been directed to test the sentiments of the country gentlemen
consisted of three questions. Every magistrate and Deputy
Lieutenant was to be asked, first, 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.321

As soon as the questions got abroad, a form of answer, 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 answer, far more provoking than a direct
refusal, because slightly tinged with a sober and decorous irony
which could 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.322 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.323 The Duke of Beaufort, whose authority
extended over four English shires and over the whole principality
of Wales, came up to Whitehall with an account not less
discouraging.324 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.325 The same answer was
given to the Chancellor in Buckinghamshire.326 The gentry of
Shropshire, assembled at Ludlow, unanimously refused to fetter
themselves by the pledge which the King demanded of them.327 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.328 The renegade Peterborough made no
progress in Northamptonshire.329  His brother renegade Dover was
equally unsuccessful in Cambridgeshire.330 Preston brought cold
news from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dorsetshire and
Huntingdonshire were animated by the same spirit. The Earl of
Bath, after a long canvass, returned from the West with gloomy
tidings. He had been authorised to make the most tempting offers
to 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."331 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 Catholic,
reported that two thirds of his deputies and of the magistrates
were opposed to the court.332 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 announced, seriously thought of setting him up as a
competitor of the Princess of Orange.333 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 he 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
cavalcade 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.334

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 be bent.335

It is to be observed that those who displayed this spirit were
not the old enemies of the House of Stuart. The Commissions 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 scars
given by the swords of Roundheads, and receipts for plate sent to
Charles the First in his distress. The younger had adhered firmly
to James against Shaftesury 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 expected. 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.336 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 the Roman Catholic country gentleman
there was very little sympathy. That cabal which domineered at
Whitehall consisted partly of fanatics, who were ready to break
through all rules of morality and to throw the world into
confusion for the purpose of propagating their religion, and
partly of hypocrites, who, for lucre, had apostatized from the
faith in which they had been brought up, and who now over acted
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
grandfather 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 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 Langhorne, 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 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 beads
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.337

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 desirous of making atonement by casting
in their lot with the great body of their countrymen.

The consequence of this change in the feeling of the
Nonconformists, was that the government found almost as great
difficulty in the towns as in the counties. When the regulators
began their work, they had taken it for granted that every
Dissenter who had been induced to express gratitude for 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.338 But scarcely had the new
officebearers 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 Alderman.
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.339 At
Reading twenty-four Tory aldermen were dismissed. Twenty-four new
aldermen were appointed. Twenty-three of these immediately
declared against the Indulgence, and were dismissed in their
turn.340 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.341 These are mere  examples of what was
passing all over the kingdom. The Dutch Ambassador informed the
States that at many towns the public functionaries had, within
one month, been changed twice, and even thrice, and yet changed
in vain.342 From the records of the Privy Council it appears that
the number of  regulations, as they were called, exceeded two
hundred.343 The regulators  indeed found that, in not a few
places, the change had been for the worse. The discontented
Tories, even while murmuring against the king's policy, had
constantly expressed respect for his person and his office, and
had disclaimed all thoughts 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.344

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.345

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 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.346 Meanwhile the great majority of the boroughs firmly
refused to give up 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.347
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.348 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 of 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.349 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.350 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 years before excited formidable
discontents, and had been solemnly pronounced illegal by the
Petition of Right, 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 Right
could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted the
Chief justice of the King's Bench on this subject:351 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 similar promise from all their subordinates.352 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."353 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.354 It seems certain
that, if such a step had been taken, the houses of entertainment
and of public resort all over the kingdom would have been at once
shut up by hundreds. 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, round 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 corner 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 the
humblest servants of the government to support his policy 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 was 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 than Powis, 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 labour. An Attorney, the value of
whose professional talents was much diminished by his
conscientious scruples, was 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 virulence
than William Williams. He had distinguished himself 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 filed 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 every assault on those liberties and on that
religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He 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.355

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 1688, 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 he 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.356

This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It contained
nothing new; and men wondered that the King should think it worth
while to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of
telling them that he had not changed his mind.357 Perhaps James
was nettled by the indifference with 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.358

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 Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary as
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 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.359

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 necessary to make a choice: 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 acknowledged to be the flower of
their profession, held a meeting. Fifteen Doctors of Divinity
were present. Tillotson, 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
Stillingfleet, 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 brought to a close by the
firmness and wisdom of Doctor 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.360 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
Stillingfleet 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.361

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 of Peterborough, 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 propounded and
discussed. The general opinion was that the Declaration ought not
to be read. Letters were forthwith 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.362 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.363 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.364 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, Stillingfleet,
Patrick, and Sherlock, were present. Prayers 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 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 London, 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 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!" cried Trelawney, 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 rebel!" 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, "our 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 Bishops respectfully retired.365 That very
evening the document 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 broadside. 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.366
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 said that such
grave men, if they thought themselves bound in conscience to
remonstrate with the King, ought to have 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.367 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 Council obeyed.
At Saint Gregory's the Declaration was read by a divine of the
name of Martin. As soon as he 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
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.368

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.369

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 read the week before. The
minister who had officiated at the chapel in Saint James's Palace
had been turned out of his 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.370

Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence of the
tempest which he had raised. What step was he next to take? He
must either advance or recede: and it was impossible to advance
without peril, or to recede without humiliation. 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.371 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 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 therefore recommended
a criminal information. It was accordingly resolved that the
Archbishop and the six other petititioners 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 serving,
both in and out of Parliament, the designs of the Sovereign.372

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 great 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."373

On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates,
furnished by the ablest lawyers in England with full advice,
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 with so much effect all over the kingdom: but their
language was so guarded that nothing was gained by the
examination. The Chancellor then told them that a criminal
information would be exhibited against them in the Court of
King's Bench, 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 was therefore made out directing the
Lieutenant of the Tower to keep them in safe custody, and a barge
was manned to convey them down the river.374

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 of Ridley 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 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.375 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.376

Scarcely had the gates of the Tower been closed on the prisoners
when an event took place which increased the public excitement.
It had been announced that the Queen did not expect to be
delivered till July. But, on the day after the 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 up 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 birth. The
nation over which, according to the ordinary course of
succession, he would have reigned, was fully persuaded that his
mother was not really pregnant. By whatever evidence the fact of
his birth had been proved, a considerable number of people would
probably have persisted 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 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 trifling or imaginary. She fancied that the Queen
carefully shunned her scrutiny, and ascribed to guilt a reserve
which was perhaps the effect of delicacy.377 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, in compliance, 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.378 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 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 Sancroft 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.379
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, and Mulgrave, 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.380  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 bad 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 excluded. Anne had been tricked into visiting
Bath. The Primate had, on the very day preceding that which had
been fixed for the villainy, 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 he 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.381

The Prince of Orange, not himself suspecting any trick, and not
aware of the state of public feeling in England, ordered prayers
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.382

The demeanour of the seven prelates meanwhile strengthened the
interest which their situation excited. On 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.383

The Bishops edified all who approached them by the firmness and
cheerfulness with which they endured confinement, by the modesty
and meekness with which they received the applauses and blessings
of the whole nation, and by the loyal attachment which they
professed for the persecutor who 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 landingplace to
the Court of Requests 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 information which he had been commanded to prepare,
and moved that the defendants might be ordered to plead. The
counsel on the other side 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 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 giving 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 wellwishers. 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 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 Sancroft
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.384

Sir Edward Hales now came to demand fees from those who had
lately been his prisoners. They refused to pay anything for the
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 menace divines of venerable age and dignity with all the
barbarities of Lollard's Tower.385

Before the day of trial the agitation had spread to the farthest
corners of the island. From Scotland the Bishops received letters
assuring them of the sympathy of the Presbyterians of that
country, so long and so bitterly hostile to prelacy.386 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."387

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.388  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
timidity or of caprice. On such happy occasions it had been
usual for sovereigns to make the hearts of subjects glad by 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," be said. "I have
been only too indulgent. Indulgence ruined my father."389 The
artful minister found that his advice had been formerly taken
only because it had been shaped to suit the royal temper, and
that, from the moment at which he 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.390 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 and 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 attempted to
propitiate the King by affecting a willingness to be reconciled
to his Church. But there was a 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 had
renounced the heresies in which he had been brought up. The news
spread fast. At all the coffeehouses 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.391

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 registered 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.392 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.393 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.394

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. Allybone 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 of the Tory party had,
one after another, refused to comply, and had 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.395

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 but 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 best lawyers that could be found in
the Inns of Court: Pemberton, 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 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.396

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, in consequence, it should seem, of some prejudice
conceived against him by Sancroft, but was privately consulted on
the case by the Bishop of London.397 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 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."398

The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolly 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 from anxiety to exultation and back again from
exultation to still deeper anxiety.

The information charged the Bishops with having written or
published, 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. Pemberton, Pollexfen, and Levinz contended
that there was no evidence to go to the jury. Two of the judges,
Holloway and Powell, 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 Blathwayt, 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 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.399 At length Blathwayt 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. 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
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
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.

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 of Parliament, 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. Allybone 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."400

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; "and the decision is not yet known. The
judges and the culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury
remain together. Tomorrow 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.401

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.402

At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. The
jury appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness.

Sir Samuel Astry spoke. "Do you find the defendants, or any of
them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or
not guilty?" Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not guilty." As the
words passed his lips, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At
that signal, benches and galleries 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 gunpowder was heard on
the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few moments,
the glad tidings went flying 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 coffeehouses,
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.403

It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other
business. Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, 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."404

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 goodnatured gentlemen; you have saved us all today." 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.405

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
today."406  The King had that morning visited the camp on
Hounslow Heath. Sunderland instantly sent a courier thither with
the news. James was in Lord Feversham'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."407

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 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 for what 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. Round 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 much as one with which they had, a few years before,
been familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed
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.408 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 of the parish churches were ringing for
early prayers, before the fires began to languish and the crowds
to disperse. A proclamation was speedily put forth 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.409

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, were 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 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 his 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 their 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.410 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.411

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 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.

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--Conduct of James after the Trial of the Bishops--
Dismissions and Promotions--Proceedings of the High Commission;
Sprat resigns his Seat--Discontent of the Clergy; Transactions at
Oxford--Discontent of the Gentry--Discontent of the Army--Irish
Troops brought over; Public Indignation--Lillibullero--Politics
of the United Provinces; Errors of the French King--His Quarrel
with the Pope concerning Franchises--The Archbishopric of
Cologne--Skilful Management of William--His Military and Naval
Preparations--He receives numerous Assurances of Support from
England--Sunderland--Anxiety of William--Warnings conveyed to
James--Exertions of Lewis to save James--James frustrates them--
The French Armies invade Germany--William obtains the Sanction of
the States General to his Expedition--Schomberg--British
Adventurers at the Hague--William's Declaration--James roused to
a Sense of his Danger; his Naval Means--His Military Means--He
attempts to conciliate his Subjects--He gives Audience to the
Bishops--His Concessions ill received--Proofs of the Birth of the
Prince of Wales submitted to the--Privy Council--Disgrace of
Sunderland--William takes leave of the States of Holland--He
embarks and sails; he is driven back by a Storm--His Declaration
arrives in England; James questions the Lords--William sets sail
the second Time--He passes the Straits--He lands at Torbay--He
enters Exeter--Conversation of the King with the Bishops--
Disturbances in London--Men of Rank begin to repair to the Prince
--Lovelace--Colchester; Abingdon--Desertion of Cornbury--Petition
of the Lords for a Parliament--The King goes to Salisbury--
Seymour; Court of William at Exeter--Northern Insurrection--
Skirmish at Wincanton--Desertion of Churchill and Grafton--
Retreat of the Royal Army from Salisbury--Desertion of Prince
George and Ormond--Flight of the Princess Anne--Council of Lords
held by James--He appoints Commissioners to treat with William--
The Negotiation a Feint--Dartmouth refuses to send the Prince of
Wales into France--Agitation of London--Forged Proclamation--
Risings in various Parts of the Country--Clarendon joins the
Prince at Salisbury; Dissension in the Prince's Camp--The Prince
reaches Hungerford; Skirmish at Reading; the King's Commissioners
arrive at Hungerford--Negotiation--The Queen and the Prince of 
Wales sent to France; Lauzun--The King's Preparations for Flight-
-His Flight

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
misgovernment, 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 hive 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 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, 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 has 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 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 or 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 such 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 discontented and factious men who 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 even 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 nonresistance 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 lawyer, has ever been able nicely to mark the limits of
the right of selfdefence? All our jurists bold that a certain
quantity of risk to life or limb justifies a man in shooting or
stabbing an assailant: but they have long given up in despair the
attempt to describe, in precise words, that quantity of risk.
They only say that it 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
selfdefence? The right which a people has to resist a bad
government bears a close analogy to the right which 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 thoroughpaced 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 derived from heaven. But the great
body of Tories, though, 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 perhaps
be, 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 Caesar 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
Whiggish: for they now held that extreme oppression might justify
resistance, and they held that the oppression which the nation
suffered was extreme.412

It must not, however, be supposed that all the Tories renounced,
even at that conjuncture, a tenet which they had from childhood
been taught to regard as an essential part of Christianity, which
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 bad 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 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 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 Dykvelt.413 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.414

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 on private 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: for it 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 be
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 Mordaunt,
with all his vivacity and invention, or Burnet, with all his
multifarious knowledge and fluent elocution never could have
done.415

With the old Whigs there could be no difficulty. In their opinion
there had been scarcely a moment, during many years, at which the
public wrongs would not have justified resistance. Devonshire,
who might be regarded as their chief, had private as well as
public wrongs to revenge. He went into the scheme with his whole
heart, and answered for his party.416

Russell opened the design to Shrewsbury. Sidney sounded 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 set his 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. Sidney
understood him and said no more.417

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 the writer in whom he
most delighted was Montaigne.418 Danby 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 be bore a chief part in a revolution which
should confound all the schemes of the Papists, which should put
an end to the long vassalage 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 indeed it ever had been duped, by such childish fallacies. He
at once gave in his own adhesion to the conspiracy. He then
exerted himself to obtain the concurrence of Compton, the
suspended Bishop of London, and succeeded without difficulty. No
prelate had been so insolently and unjustly treated by the
government as Compton; nor had any prelate so much to expect from
a revolution: for he had directed the education of the Princess
of Orange, and was supposed to possess a large share of her
confidence. He 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.419

Both Danby and Compton were desirous to secure the 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 scruple were extremely
vague, 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 conduct on this occasion
to have been perfectly honest, though most unwise and
irresolute.420

The agents of the Prince had more complete success with Lord
Lumley, who knew himself to be, in spite of the eminent service
which he had performed at the time of the Western insurrection,
abhorred at Whitehall, not only as a heretic but 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.421

During June the meetings of those who were in the secret were
frequent. At length, on the last day of the month, the day on
which the Bishops were pronounced not guilty, the 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
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.422

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 the Bishops. 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.423

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. He had a far greater revenue than
any of his predecessors had ever possessed, and regularly allowed
to her younger sister forty thousand pounds a year424: 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.425 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. He 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 enterprise which William meditated appeared not only just,
but holy.

But, though she carefully abstained from doing or saying anything
that could add to his difficulties, those difficulties were
serious indeed. They were in truth but imperfectly 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.

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
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.426

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.427

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 Protestant feeling of
England, and by stimulating that feeling till it became, for a
time, the dominant and almost the exclusive 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 England, 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 effort that afternoon to appear cheerful:428 but the
bonfires, the rockets, and above all the waxen Popes who were
blazing in every quarter of London, were not likely to soothe
him. Those who saw him on the morrow could easily read in his
face and demeanour the violent emotions which agitated his
mind.429 During some days he appeared so unwilling to talk about
the trial that even Barillon could not venture to introduce the
subject.430

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 read the
Declaration.431 The King anticipated with delight the terror with
which the offenders would learn that they were to be cited before
a court which would give them no quarter.432 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 from his
great defeat in Westminster Hall, resolved to harass the clergy.
Meanwhile he tried to show the lawyers, by a 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.433 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.434 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 tone had been that of a
man who remembered that a day of 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.435 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, Silas Titus, a noted
Presbyterian, a vehement Exclusionist, and a manager of
Stafford's impeachment, was invited to occupy a seat in the Privy
Council. He was one of the persons on whom the opposition had
most confidently reckoned. But 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.436

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 he summoned to answer for the crime of disobedience
arrived. The High Commission met. It appeared that scarcely one
ecclesiastical officer had sent up a return. At the same time a
paper of grave import was delivered to the board. It came from
Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. During two years, supported by the
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 goodnatured 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 faults of their
colleague, the known laxity of his principles, 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.437

While the High Commission shrank from a conflict with 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 his infirmities. The intelligence of
his death was conveyed 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
irrevocable.438 A few weeks later the infamous Timothy Hall, who
had distinguished himself among the clergy of London 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 him for holy orders: no cap was touched to him and, in
his palace, he found himself alone.439

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.440

The gentry were not less refractory than the clergy. The assizes
of that summer wore all over the country an aspect never before
known. The Judges, before they set out on 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 Sancroft'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 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 shire 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.441

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
clamorous 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.442

James flattered himself that it would he 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 into effect his intentions concerning the test, and that
all who did not choose to comply must quit the service on the
spot. 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."443

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.444

James wavered. He wished to be surrounded by troops on whom he
could rely: but he dreaded the explosion of national feeling
which the appearance of a great Irish force on 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 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.445

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 of 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
despised: the most hated, for they had, during five centuries,
always been our enemies; the most despised, for they were 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 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 coffeehouse to coffeehouse and from
alebench to alebench, 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 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.446

So strong and general, indeed, was at that time the aversion of
the English 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.447 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 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.448

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 libertine and as a Whig, had
written a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyrconnel. In
this little poem an Irishman 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.449

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 which William meditated.

The party in Holland which was favourable to France was a
minority, but a minority strong enough, according to the
constitution of the Batavian federation, to prevent the
Stadtholder 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, laboured, 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 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 intercession of the magistrates. The pulpits
resounded with invectives and lamentations. The press poured
forth heartrending 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 the House 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 selfwill, 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. The
Envoy, with all his skill, vainly endeavoured to rally the party
by the help of which he had, during several years, held the
Stadtholder in check. The arrogance and obstinacy of the master
counteracted all the efforts of the servant. At length Avaux was
compelled to send to Versailles the alarming tidings that no
reliance could be placed on Amsterdam, 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.450

While Lewis was thus forcing his friends in Holland to become, or
to pretend to become, his enemies, he was labouring with not less
success to remove all the scruples which might have prevented the
Roman Catholic princes of the Continent 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 justice or
finance could enter the dwelling inhabited by the minister 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 stolen 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
monarchs, 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.451

This dispute was at the height when another dispute arose, in
which the Germanic body was as deeply concerned as the Pope.

Cologne and the surrounding district were governed by an
Archbishop, who was an Elector of the Empire. The right of
choosing this great prelate belonged, under certain limitations,
to the Chapter of the Cathedral. The Archbishop was also Bishop
of Liege, of Munster, and of Hildesheim. 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 1688 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.452

Thus Lewis, by two opposite errors, raised against himself at
once the resentment of both the religious parties between which
Western Europe was divided. Having alienated one great section of
Christendom by persecuting the Huguenots, he alienated another by
insulting the Holy 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 he 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.453 He
disclaimed, and with truth, all bigotry. The real enemy, he 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 the horrors of such a persecution was one
of his chief objects. If he 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 be 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 and 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
withdrawn from the strongholds in Dutch Brabant. Even the
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 bolsters. 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; for they 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.454

Through the latter part of July and the whole of August the
preparations went on rapidly, yet too slowly for the vehement
spirit of William. Meanwhile the intercourse between England and
Holland was active. The ordinary modes of conveying intelligence
and passengers were no longer thought safe. A light bark of
marvellous speed constantly ran backward and forward between
Schevening and the eastern coast of our island.455 By this vessel
William received a succession 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 Trelawney, 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.456

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.457 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.458 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, William
first received assurances of support from a very different
quarter. The history of Sunderland's intrigues is covered with an
obscurity which it is not probable that any inquirer will ever
succeed in penetrating: but, though it is impossible to 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. He 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 has been 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 look forward 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.459 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 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."460 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 his 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 June 1688, he solemnly joined the
communion of the Church of Rome.

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.461 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 amid 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.462 The
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 tenderest
point, of the man whom, of all others, I ought most to hate?"463
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 fury of the storm is
over.464

The help of Sunderland was most welcome. For, as the time of
striking the great blow drew near, the anxiety of William became
intense. From common eyes his feelings were concealed by the icy
tranquillity of his demeanour: but his whole heart was open to
Bentinck. The preparations 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."465  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."466

It was indeed impossible that a design so vast as that which had
been formed against the King of England should 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 Albeville
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 truth. Every courier
who arrived at Westminster, either from the Hague or from
Versailles, brought earnest warnings.467 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 1672, 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! 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.468 The alarm and indignation of Lewis increased daily.
The style of his letters became sharp and vehement.469 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 foolhardy 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.

Lewis bestirred himself vigorously. Bonrepaux, who was far
superior to Barillon in shrewdness, and who had always disliked
and distrusted Sunderland, was despatched to London with an offer
of naval assistance. Avaux was at the same time ordered to
declare to the States General that France had taken James under
her protection. A large body of troops was held in readiness to
march towards the Dutch frontier. This bold 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.470

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.

But there was no cause for alarm. James was bent on ruining
himself; and every attempt to stop him only made him rush more
eagerly to his doom. When his throne was secure, when his people
were submissive, when the most obsequious 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 assure 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."471 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 of France.472

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 Avaux had said,
touching the alliance between France and Great 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.473

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.474

Lewis admitted the force of these reasonings: but he had already
resolved on a different line of action. Perhaps he had been
provoked by the discourtesy and wrongheadedness 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 Boufflers, seized Worms, Mentz,
and Treves. A third, commanded by the Marquess of Humieres,
entered Bonn. All down the Rhine, from Carlsruhe 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.475 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.

William now urged on his preparations with indefatigable activity
and with less secrecy than he had hitherto thought necessary.
Assurances of support came pouring in daily from foreign courts.
Opposition had become extinct at the Hague. It was in vain that
Avaux, even at this last moment, exerted all his skill to
reanimate the faction which had contended against three
generations of the House of Orange. The chiefs of that faction,
indeed, still regarded the Stadtholder 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.476

The Prince had already fixed upon a general well qualified to be
second in command. This was indeed no light matter. A random shot
or the dagger of an assassin might in a moment 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 band 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 Schomberg, 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.477

And now the Hague was crowded with British adventurers of all the
various parties which the tyranny of James had united in a
strange coalition, old royalists who had shed their blood for the
throne, old agitators of the army of the Parliament, 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 Dumblame, 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 presbyterian minister from Scotland, who in craft
and courage had no superior among the politicians of his age. He
had been entrusted some years before by Fagel 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.478 Ferguson could not remain quiet when a
revolution was preparing. He secured for himself a passage in the
fleet, and made himself busy among his fellow emigrants: but he
found himself generally distrusted and despised. He had been a
great man in the knot of ignorant and hotheaded outlaws who had
urged the feeble Monmouth to destruction: but there was no place
for a lowminded 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 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. The Prince 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 to a new court of High Commission; and
in that court one 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 bad 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 persons
of all ranks, to go over at the head of a force sufficient to
repel violence. He abjured all thought of conquest. 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 banded 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 counterproject, 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.479

While these things were passing in Holland, James had at length
become sensible of his danger. Intelligence which could not be
disregarded came pouring in from various quarters. At length a
despatch from Albeville removed all doubts. It is said that, when
the King had read it, the blood left his cheeks, and he remained
some time speechless.480 He might, indeed, well be appalled. The
first easterly wind 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 birthright of
his infant son. His means were indeed in appearance great. The
navy was in a much more efficient 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 collected in the
Thames, under the command of Lord Dartmouth. The loyalty of
Dartmouth was above suspicion; and 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.481

The regular army was the largest that any King of England had
ever commanded, and was rapidly augmented. New 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.482

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 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.483 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.484 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 magistrates and Deputy Lieutenants who had been
dismissed for refusing to support his policy. On the day after
the appearance of this notification Compton's suspension was
taken off.485

At the same time the King gave an audience to all the Bishops who
were then in London. They had requested admittance to his
presence for the purpose of tendering their 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 bad been said.486 Of the dispensing power he would not yield
one tittle. No unqualified person was removed from any civil or
military office. But some of Sancroft's suggestions were adopted.
Within forty-eight hours the Court of High Commission was
abolished.487 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.488 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.489 In a few days appeared a proclamation
restoring the forfeited franchises of all the municipal
corporations.490

James flattered himself that concessions so great made in the
short space of a month would bring back to him the hearts of his
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. A Parliament
eminently loyal had ventured to protest gently and respectfully
against a violation of the fundamental laws 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 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.491

The general feeling was strengthened by an event which, though
merely accidental, was not unnaturally ascribed to the perfidy of
the King. The Bishop 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 Visitor 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: but the Bishop did not make his
appearance; and soon it was known that be 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 the worst, 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 well informed, was without foundation. It is
certain that the mishap of the Dutch fleet could not, by any mode
of communication, 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 the habit of breaking
faith should be distrusted when they mean to keep it is part of
their just and natural punishment.492

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 necessary
to produce proofs of the birth of his son. The arts of bad men
had poisoned the public mind to such an extent that very many
believed the Prince of Wales to be a supposititious child. But
Providence had graciously ordered things so that scarcely any
prince had ever come into the world in the 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 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.493 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 bedchamber?
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 understanding
was weak, that his temper was despotic, and that he had willingly
seized an opportunity of manifesting his 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 tirewomen 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 abroad that
Sunderland had been dismissed from all his places. The news of
his disgrace seems to have taken the politicians of the
coffeehouses 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? 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.494

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.495 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. The Prince
came to bid them farewell. He thanked them for the kindness with
which they had watched over him when he was left an orphan child,
for the confidence which they had reposed in him during his
administration, and for the assistance which they had granted to
him at this momentous crisis. He entreated them to believe that
he 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 visit to his
hunting grounds at Loo.496

The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to his
yacht. Even the representatives of Amsterdam, so long the chief
seat of opposition to his administration, joined in paying him
this compliment. Public prayers were offered for him on that day
in all the churches of the Hague.

In the evening he arrived at Helvoetsluys and went on board of a
frigate called the Brill. His flag was immediately 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 filled up with words of
high import, "The liberties of England and the Protestant
religion."

The Prince had not been many hours on board when the wind became
fair. On the nineteenth the armament put to sea, and traversed,
before a strong breeze, about half the distance between the Dutch
and English coasts. Then the wind changed, blew hard from 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 reached Helvoetsluys on the twenty-first. The
Prince's fellow 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 board, he
should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe that 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 had perished: but this
loss the Prince with great expedition repaired; and, before the
London Gazette had spread the news of his mishap, he was again
ready to sail.497

His Declaration preceded him only by a few hours. On the first of
November it began to be mentioned in mysterious whispers by the
politicians of London, was passed secretly from man to man, and
was slipped into the boxes of the post office. One of the agents
was arrested, and the packets of which he was in charge were
carried to Whitehall. The King read, and was greatly troubled.
His first impulse was to bide 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.498

The paragraph in the manifesto which disturbed him most was that
in which it was said that some of the Peers, Spiritual and
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
answer. "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? Even if I had
invited His Highness 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."499 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.500 The Primate and the few
Spiritual Peers who happened to be then in London had orders to
wait upon the King. Preston was in attendance 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.501

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 Dartmouth
from coming out of the Thames. His ships were forced 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.502

The Dutch fleet ran fast before the gale, and reached the Straits
at about ten in the morning of Saturday the third of 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 Tromp had
threatened to sweep the Channel, or the fire which De Ruyter had
lighted in the dockyards of the Medway. Had the rival nations
been once more brought face to face on the element of which both
claimed the sovereignty, all other thoughts might have given
place to mutual animosity. A bloody and obstinate battle might
have been fought. Defeat would have been fatal to William's
enterprise. Even victory would have 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 mess-
mates for Popish tyranny. Such 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.503

Happily William's precautions were not necessary. Soon 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.504

Meanwhile a courier bad 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 Sunday morning there was a
great muster by torchlight in Hyde Park. The King had sent
several regiments northward 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 Portsmouth 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.505

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
of November 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 cape of Berry Head, and rode safe in
the harbour of Torbay.506

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
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.507

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 floor.508 There
was some difficulty about landing the horses; 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.509 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.510

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 obedient elements had fought for the good
cause. The wind had blown strong from the east while the Prince
wished to sail 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 state 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. Lamplugh, the
bishop, as soon as he heard that the Dutch were 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 Mordaunt, 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.511 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,
had 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 pageant were
circulated all over the kingdom. They contained much that was
well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite 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 off 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 swords and curvetting horses, touched
the hand of the deliverer, 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 Conde 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 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 moveable 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.512

Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, 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 flight 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!" and many fervent voices answered, "Amen."513

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
halfwitted knave, fancying that the times of Fleetwood and
Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through the
congregation sword in hand, mounted the pulpit, and there poured
forth a fiery invective against the King. The time for such
follies had gone by; and this exhibition excited nothing but
derision and disgust.514

While these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment was
great in London. The Prince's Declaration, in spite of all
precautions, was now in every man's hands. On the sixth of
November James, still uncertain on what part of the coast the
invaders had landed, summoned the Primate and three other
Bishops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and Sprat of
Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened
graciously while the prelates made warm professions of loyalty,
and assured them that he did not suspect them. "But where," said
he, "is the paper that you were to bring me?" "Sir," answered
Sancroft, "we have brought no paper. We are not solicitous to
clear our fame to the world. It is no new thing to us to be
reviled and falsely accused. Our consciences acquit us: your
Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied." "Yes," said the King;
"but a declaration from you is necessary to my service." He then
produced a copy of the Prince's manifesto. "See," he said, "how
you are mentioned here." "Sir," answered one of the Bishops, "not
one person in five hundred believes this manifesto to be
genuine." "No!" cried the King fiercely; "then those five hundred
would bring the Prince of Orange to cut my throat." "God forbid,"
exclaimed the prelates in concert. But the King's understanding,
never very clear, was now quite bewildered. One of his
peculiarities was that, whenever his opinion was not adopted, he
fancied that his veracity was questioned. "This paper not
genuine!" he exclaimed, turning over the leaves with his hands.
"Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word not to be taken?" "At
all events, sir," said one of the Bishops, "this is not an
ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere of the civil
power. God has entrusted your Majesty with the sword: and it is
not for us to invade your functions." Then the Archbishop, with
that gentle and 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
already smarted severely for meddling with affairs of state; and
we shall be very cautious how we do so again. We once subscribed
a petition of the most harmless kind: we presented it in the most
respectful manner; and we found that we had committed a high
offence. We were saved from ruin only by the merciful protection
of God. And, sir, the ground then taken by your Majesty's
Attorney and Solicitor was that, out of Parliament, we were
private men, and that it was criminal presumption in private men
to meddle with politics. They attacked us so fiercely that for my
part I gave myself over for lost." "I thank you for that, my Lord
of Canterbury," said the King; "I should have hoped that you
would not have thought yourself lost by falling into my hands."
Such a speech might have become the mouth of a merciful
sovereign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had
burned a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies,
from a prince round whose knees his own nephew had clung in vain
agonies of supplication. The Archbishop was not to be so
silenced. He resumed his story, and recounted the insults which
the creatures of the court had offered to the Church of England,
among which some ridicule thrown on his own style occupied a
conspicuous place. The King had nothing to say but that there was
no use in repeating old grievances, and that he had hoped that
these things had been quite forgotten. He, who never forgot the
smallest injury that he had suffered, could not understand how
others should remember for a few weeks the most deadly injuries
that he had inflicted.

At length the conversation came back to the point from which it
had wandered. The King insisted on having from the Bishops a
paper declaring their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise.
They, with many professions of the most submissive loyalty,
pertinaciously refused. The Prince, they said, asserted that he
had been invited by temporal as well as by spiritual peers. The
imputation was common. Why should not the purgation be common
also? "I see how it is," said the King. "Some of the temporal
peers have been with you, and have persuaded you to cross me in
this matter." The 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."515

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 following week London
was violently agitated. On Sunday, 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. 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.516

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 a rising, 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
prosperity and independence of his native land, should feel
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 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. He 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. He 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.517 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 government had held many midnight conferences during that
anxious time when England was impatiently expecting the
Protestant wind.518 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.519

Others were more fortunate. On the day on which the 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 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 James 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 and rebellion. He was the first
peer of the realm who made his appearance at the quarters of the
Prince of Orange.520

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 of Clarendon,
was a young man of slender abilities, loose principles, 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. 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.521

The news of these events reached London on the fifteenth. James
had been on the morning of that day in high good humour. Bishop
Lamplugh 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 shaking
hands and congratulating each other in the adjoining gallery.
When the news was carried to the Queen's apartments she and her
ladies broke out into tears and loud cries of sorrow.522

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 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 God!" 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 by some persons of high station. His niece, the
Princess of Denmark, 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."523

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 regiment 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 cause. 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.524

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 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 petition." 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.525

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 now.
You have excited this rebellious temper among your flocks, and
now you foment it. You would be better employed 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."526

Bitter as was the King's language to the petitioners, it was far
less bitter that 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
overtures 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.527 In
such a mood James set out for Salisbury. His last act before 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 garrisoned, and was under
the government of Berwick. The fleet 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.528

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 of Hestercombe, whose
interest was great in Somersetshire.529 But the most important of
the new comets 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 of my family."530

The quarters of William now began to present the appearance 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 Schomberg, who
thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough, maintained
that, if the expedition could not succeed without such help, it
would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much
professional feeling as Schomberg, 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."531

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 undertaking
till the liberties and the religion of the nation should be
effectually secured.532

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.533

While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North
was all in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Delamere 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.534 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 should 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. Four 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 hundred to one. But
at that time no story of Popish atrocity could be so wild and
marvellous as not to find ready belief. 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.535

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 be 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 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.536

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. He 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 Wincanton. Mackay's
regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the
King's Irish troops, commanded by their countryman, 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.537

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 were 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 coach was at
the door of the episcopal palace when his nose 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 goodhearted and
inexperienced stripling than 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 think 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 retreat. Churchill saw or imagined that
he was distrusted, and, though gifted with a rare self command,
could not conceal his uneasiness. Before the day broke he fled to
the Prince's quarters, accompanied by Grafton.538

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.539

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.540 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 have been committed; for
men who have once engaged in a 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.

All these things confirmed James in the resolution which he had
taken on the preceding evening. Orders were given 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.541

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, in consequence 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, "possible?" "Is
it possible?" This catchword was now of great use to him. "Est-
il-possible?" he 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?"

 Prince George and Ormond were invited to sup with the King at
Andover. The meal must have been a sad one. The King was
overwhelmed by his misfortunes. His son in law was the dullest of
companions. "I have tried Prince George sober," said Charles the
Second; "and I have tried him drunk; and, drunk or sober, there
is nothing in him."542 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 Queensberry.
The defection of this young nobleman was no insignificant event.
For Queensberry 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. "What!" said James,
"is Est-il-possible gone too? After all, a good trooper would
have been a greater loss."543 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 been
induced by them to notify under her own hand to William, a week
before, her approbation of his enterprise. 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.544 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 chamber as usual. At
dead of night she rose, and, accompanied by her friend Sarah and
two other female attendants, 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 jackboots, 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.545

When, on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Anne's apartment 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 Princess'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 tenor
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."546

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 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 Godolphin 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 King of pusillanimity. Why
retreat from Salisbury? Why 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
bettor than rebels were everywhere rising in rebellion. It was
his ambition to be, at this conjuncture, the peacemaker between
the throne and the nation. His 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 great 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 propositions, it should seem,
admitted of no dispute. For, though 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 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. "My
Lords," he said, "you have used great freedom: but I 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."547

At first James seemed disposed to make excellent use of the time
which he had taken for consideration. The Chancellor was directed
to issue writs convoking a Parliament for the thirteenth of
January. Halifax was sent for to the closet, 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.548 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. The same
Gazette which announced that the Houses were about to meet
contained a notification that Sir Edward Hales, 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.549

But these concessions were meant only to blind the Lords and the
nation to the King's real designs. He had secretly 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 tale refuge in Ireland, in Scotland, or with your
master."550

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.551 The King now sent positive orders that the
child should instantly be conveyed to the nearest continental
port.552 Next to the Prince 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.553

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 tamper 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 convoked,
and that Commissioners had been named to treat with the Prince of
Orange. The joy was clamorous throughout 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 that he
had already carried his obedience to the farthest point to which
a Protestant and an Englishman could go. To put the heir apparent
of the British crown into the hands of Lewis would be nothing
less than treason against the monarchy. 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.554

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. 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.555 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.556 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.557 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 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 had promised to act as a spy upon
them; that he had thus 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 and forwards 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.558

While these things happened in London, every post from every part
of the country brought tidings of some new insurrection. Lumley
had seized Newcastle. The inhabitants had 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.559

The Pastern Counties were up. The Duke of Norfolk, attended by
three hundred gentlemen armed and mounted, appeared in the
stately marketplace of Norwich. The Mayor and Aldermen met him
there, and engaged to stand by him against Popery and arbitrary
power.560 Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Edward Harley took up
arms in Worcestershire.561 Bristol, the second city of the realm,
opened its gates to Shrewsbury. Trelawney, the Bishop, who had
entirely unlearned 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.562 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 to the Protestant Englishman of civil and
religious freedom, to the Roman Catholic Celt of subjugation and
persecution.563

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 danger in repairing to William. The
King, in calling on the nation to elect representatives, had, by
implication, authorised all men to repair to 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.564

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 same military pomp
which he had displayed at Exeter, and was lodged there in the
palace which the King had occupied a few days before.565

His train was now swelled by the Earls of Clarendon and Oxford,
and by other men of high rank, who had, till within a few days,
been considered as jealous Royalists. Van Citters also 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 wrath valuable information about men and
things, he came to assist the deliberations of William.566

Thus far the Prince's enterprise had prospered beyond the
anticipations of the most sanguine. And now, according to the
general law which governs human affairs, prosperity began to
produce disunion. The Englishmen assembled at Salisbury 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 to 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 strong 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
persecuting, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, old
soldiers 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 schismatical
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 because he was 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 them to his 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, Barnet, among whose many good qualities
selfcommand 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.567

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 prance; 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 Hungerford. 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 the West; and at Oxford were many chiefs of the Northern
insurrection.

Late on Thursday, the sixth of December, he reached Hungerford.
The little town was soon crowded with men of rank 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.568

While the Prince lay at Hungerford a sharp encounter took place
between two hundred and fifty of his troops and six hundred
Irish, who were posted at Reading. 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 hart, and fled with the loss of them colours and of
fifty men. Of the conquerors only five fell. The satisfaction
which this 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.569

On the morning of Saturday, the eighth of December, the King's
Commissioners reached Hungerford. The Prince's body guard was
drawn up to receive them with military respect. 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
bedchamber, where they found him surrounded by a crowd of
noblemen and gentlemen. Halifax, whose rank, age, and abilities
entitled him to precedence, was spokesman. The proposition which
the Commissioners had been instructed to make was that the points
in dispute should be referred to the Parliament, for which the
writs were 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 own times,
not more on account of its venerable architecture and furniture
than an account of a horrible and mysterious crime which was
perpetrated there in the days of the Tudors.570

Before he left Hungerford, he 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 his 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 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 at
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 selfcommand. 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 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 themselves absolved from all allegiance to
him. They were not disposed to recognise the authority of a
Parliament convoked 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 meat them.
The old hall, hung with coats of mail which had seen the wars of
the Roses, and with portraits of gallants who had adorned the
court of Philip and Nary, 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 your
power?" " Not at all," said Burnet; "we would not do the least
harm to his person." "And if he were to go away?" said Halifax.
"There is nothing," said Burnet, "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 important it was that his flight should be
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.571

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.572

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 expect the highest
employments under the French crown. Then his fortunes had
undergone an eclipse. Lewis had 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
Montpensier. 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 of
Great Britain and of the Prince of Wales, he might return 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," said the King, "a man at the door of the
antechamber; bring him hither." The servant obeyed, and Lauzun
was ushered into the royal bedchamber. "I confide to 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 of Lambeth Church, and distracted by terror whenever the
ostler approached her with his lantern. Two of her women 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.573

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 Hungerford. Had James
been a little more discerning, or a 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
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 by inflicting 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 on the morrow; and, while
stepping into bed, whispered to Mulgrave that the news from
Hungerford was highly satisfactory. 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 December,
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 passed Lambeth 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
Sheerness, where a boy belonging to the Custom House had been
ordered to await his arrival.574

CHAPTER X

The Flight of James known; great Agitation--The Lords meet at
Guildhall--Riots in London--The Spanish Ambassador's House
sacked--Arrest of Jeffreys--The Irish Night--The King detained
near Sheerness--The Lords order him to be set at Liberty--
William's Embarrassment--Arrest of Feversham--Arrival of James in
London--Consultation at Windsor--The Dutch Troops occupy
Whitehall--Message from the Prince delivered to James--James sets
out for Rochester; Arrival of William at Saint James's--He is
advised to assume the Crown by Right of Conquest --He calls
together the Lords and the Members of the Parliaments of Charles
II.--Flight of James from Rochester--Debates and Resolutions of
the Lords--Debates and Resolutions of the Commoners summoned by
the Prince--Convention called; Exertions of the Prince to restore
Order--His tolerant Policy--Satisfaction of Roman Catholic
Powers; State of Feeling in France--Reception of the Queen of
England in France--Arrival of James at Saint Germains--State of
Feeling in the United Provinces--Election of Members to serve in
the Convention--Affairs of Scotland--State of Parties in England-
-Sherlock's Plan--Sancroft's Plan--Danby's Plan--The Whig Plan--
Meeting of the Convention; leading Members of the House of
Commons--Choice of a Speaker--Debate on the State of the Nation--
Resolution declaring the Throne vacant--It is sent up to the
Lords; Debate in the Lords on the Plan of Regency--Schism between
the Whigs and the Followers of Danby--Meeting at the Earl of
Devonshire's--Debate in the Lords on the Question whether the
Throne was vacant--Majority for the Negative; Agitation in
London--Letter of James to the Convention--Debates; Negotiations;
Letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby--The Princess Anne
acquiesces in the Whig Plan--William explains his views--The
Conference between the houses--The Lords yield--New Laws proposed
for the Security of Liberty--Disputes and Compromise--The
Declaration of Right--Arrival of Mary--Tender and Acceptance of
the Crown--William and Mary proclaimed; peculiar Character of the
English Revolution

NORTHUMBERLAND strictly obeyed the injunction which had been laid
on him, and did not open the door of the royal apartment till it
was broad day. The antechamber was filled with 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.

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 order.575 The Peers repaired to 
Guildhall, and were received there with all honour by the
magistracy of the city. In strictness 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 his 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.576

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 hostile
operations against the Dutch fleet, and to displace all the
Popish officers who held commands under him.577

The part taken in these 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 which a murderer can be punished, by which the
right to an estate can be decided, by which the effects of a
bankrupt 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 that 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 a right 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 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, cutpurses and ringdroppers. 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 Inn Fields.
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 offices, 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 placed under the care of the foreign Ambassadors. To the
savage and ignorant populace the law of nations and the risk 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 hued 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 Wild
House, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish
ambassador Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court
had not deserved ill of the English nation, had thought it
unnecessary to ask for soldiers: but the mob was not in a mood to
make nice distinctions. The name of Spain had long been
associated in the public mind with the Inquisition and the
Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots against
Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among the
common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the
necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked
without mercy; and a noble library, which he had collected,
perished in the flames. His only comfort was that the host in his
chapel was rescued from the same fate.578

The morning of the twelfth of December rose on a ghastly sight.
The capital in many places presented the aspect of a city taken
by storm. The Lords met at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to
restore tranquillity. The trainbands were ordered under arms. A
body of cavalry was kept in readiness to disperse tumultuous
assemblages. Such atonement as was at that moment possible was
made for the gross insults which had been offered to foreign
governments. A reward was promised for the discovery of the
property taken from Wild House; and Ronquillo, who had not a bed
or an ounce of plate left, was splendidly lodged in the deserted
palace of the Kings of England. A sumptuous table was kept for
him; and the yeomen of the guard were ordered to wait in his 
antechamber with the same observance which they were in the habit
of paying to the Sovereign. These marks of respect soothed even
the punctilious pride of the Spanish court, and averted all
danger of a rupture.579

In spite, however, of the well meant efforts of the provisional
government, the agitation grew hourly more formidable. It was
heightened by an event which, even at this distance of time, can
hardly be related without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. A
scrivener who lived at Wapping, and whose trade was to furnish
the seafaring men there with money at high interest, had some
time before lent a sum on bottomry. The debtor applied to equity
for relief against his own bond; and the case came before
Jeffreys. The counsel for the borrower, having little else to
say, said that the lender was a Trimmer. The Chancellor instantly
fired. "A Trimmer! where is he? Let me see him. I have heard of
that kind of monster. What is it made like?" The unfortunate
creditor was forced to stand forth. The Chancellor glared
fiercely on him, stormed at him, and sent him away half dead with
fright. "While I live," the poor man said, as he tottered out of
the court, "I shall never forget that terrible countenance." And
now the day of retribution had arrived. The Trimmer was walking
through Wapping, when he saw a well known face looking out of the
window of an alehouse. He could not be deceived. The eyebrows,
indeed, had been shaved away. The dress was that of a common
sailor from Newcastle, and was black with coal dust: but there
was no mistaking the savage eye and mouth of Jeffreys. The alarm
was given. In a moment the house was surrounded by hundreds of
people shaking bludgeons and bellowing curses. The fugitive's
life was saved by a company of the trainbands; and he was carried
before the Lord Mayor. The Mayor was a simple man who had passed
his whole life in obscurity, and was bewildered by finding
himself an important actor in a mighty revolution. The events of
the last twenty-four hours, and the perilous state of the city
which was under his charge, had disordered his mind and his body.
When the great man, at whose frown, a few days before, the whole
kingdom had trembled, was, dragged into the justice room begrimed
with ashes, half dead with fright, and followed by a raging
multitude, the agitation of the unfortunate Mayor rose to the
height. He fell into fits, and was carried to his bed, whence he
never rose. Meanwhile the throng without was constantly becoming
more numerous and more savage. Jeffreys begged to be sent to
prison. An order to that effect was procured from the Lords who
were sitting at Whitehall; and he was conveyed in a carriage to
the Tower. Two regiments of militia were drawn out to escort him,
and found the duty a difficult one. It was repeatedly necessary
for them to form, as if for the purpose of repelling a charge of
cavalry, and to present a forest of pikes to the mob. The
thousands who were disappointed of their revenge pursued the
coach, with howls of rage, to the gate of the Tower, brandishing
cudgels, and holding up halters full in the prisoner's view. The
wretched man meantime was in convulsions of terror. He wrung his
hands; he looked wildly out, sometimes at one window, sometimes
at the other, and was heard even above the tumult, crying "Keep
them off, gentlemen! For God's sake keep them off!" At length,
having suffered far more than the bitterness of death, he was
safely lodged in the fortress where some of his most illustrious
victims had passed their last days, and where his own life was
destined to close in unspeakable ignominy and horror.580

All this time an active search was making after Roman Catholic
priests. Many were arrested. Two Bishops, Ellis and Leyburn, were
sent to Newgate. The Nuncio, who had little reason to expect that
either his spiritual or his political character would be
respected by the multitude, made his escape disguised as a
lacquey in the train of the minister of the Duke of Savoy.581

Another day of agitation and terror closed, and was followed by a
night the strangest and most terrible that England had ever seen.
Early in the evening an attack was made by the rabble on a
stately house which had been built a few months before for Lord
Powis, which in the reign of George the Second was the residence
of the Duke of Newcastle, and which is still conspicuous at the
northwestern angle of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Some troops were sent
thither: the mob was dispersed, tranquillity seemed to be
restored, and the citizens were retiring quietly to their beds.
Just at this time arose a whisper which swelled fast into a
fearful clamour, passed in an hour from Piccadilly to
Whitechapel, and spread into every street and alley of the
capital. It was' said that the Irish whom Feversham had let loose
were marching on London and massacring every man, woman, and
child on the road. At one in the morning the drums of the militia
beat to arms. Everywhere terrified women were weeping and
wringing their hands, while their fathers and husbands were
equipping themselves for fight. Before two the capital wore a
face of stern preparedness which might well have daunted a real
enemy, if such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were
blazing at all the windows. The public places were as bright as
at noonday. All the great avenues were barricaded. More than
twenty thousand pikes and muskets lined the streets. The late
daybreak of the winter solstice found the whole City still in
arms. During many years the Londoners retained a vivid
recollection of what they called the Irish Night. When it was
known that there had been no cause of alarm, attempts were made
to discover the origin of the rumour which had produced so much
agitation. It appeared that some persons who had the look and
dress of clowns just arrived from the country had first spread
the report in the suburbs a little before midnight: but whence
these men came, and by whom they were employed, remained a
mystery. And soon news arrived from many quarters which
bewildered the public mind still more. The panic had not been
confined to London. The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers were
coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant ingenuity,
been raised at once in many places widely distant from each
other. Great numbers of letters, skilfully framed for the purpose
of frightening ignorant people, had been sent by stage coaches,
by waggons, and by the post, to various parts of England. All
these letters came to hand almost at the same time. In a hundred
towns at once the populace was possessed with the belief that
armed barbarians were at hand, bent on perpetrating crimes as
foul as those which had disgraced the rebellion of Ulster. No
Protestant would find mercy. Children would be compelled by
torture to murder their parents. Babes would be stuck on pikes,
or flung into the blazing ruins of what had lately been happy
dwellings. Great multitudes assembled with weapons: the people in
some places began to pull down bridges, and to throw up
barricades: but soon the excitement went down. In many districts
those who had been so foully imposed upon learned with delight,
alloyed by shame, that there was not a single Popish soldier
within a week's march. There were places, indeed, where some
straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded
food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they
did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that
they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less
numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed
by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or
provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt
towards them as men feel towards a drove of wolves. Of all the
subjects of James none had more reason to execrate him than these
unfortunate members of his church and defenders of his throne.582

It is honourable to the English character that, notwithstanding
the aversion with which the Roman Catholic religion and the Irish
race were then regarded, notwithstanding the anarchy which was
the effect of the flight of James, notwithstanding the artful
machinations which were employed to scare the multitude into
cruelty, no atrocious crime was perpetrated at this conjuncture.
Much property, indeed, was destroyed and carried away. The houses
of many Roman Catholic gentlemen were attacked. Parks were 
ravaged. Deer were slain and stolen. Some venerable specimens of
the domestic architecture of the middle ages bear to this day the
marks of popular violence. The roads were in many places made
impassable by a selfappointed police, which stopped every
traveller till he proved that he was not a Papist. The Thames was
infested by a set of pirates who, under pretence of searching for
arms or delinquents, rummaged every boat that passed. Obnoxious
persons were insulted and hustled. Many persons who were not
obnoxious were glad to ransom their persons and effects by
bestowing some guineas on the zealous Protestants who had,
without any legal authority, assumed the office of inquisitors.
But in all this confusion, which lasted several days and extended
over many counties, not a single Roman Catholic lost his life.
The mob showed no inclination to blood, except in the case of
Jeffreys; and the hatred which that bad man inspired had more
affinity with humanity than with cruelty.583

Many years later Hugh Speke affirmed that the Irish Night was his
work, that he had prompted the rustics who raised London, and
that he was the author of the letters which had spread dismay
through the country. His assertion is not intrinsically
improbable: but it rests on no evidence except his own word. He
was a man quite capable of committing such a villany, and quite
capable also of falsely boasting that he had committed it.584

At London William was impatiently expected: for it was not
doubted that his vigour and ability would speedily restore order
and security. There was however some delay for which the Prince
cannot justly be blamed. His original intention had been to
proceed from Hungerford to Oxford, where he was assured of an 
honourable and affectionate reception: but the arrival of the
deputation from Guildhall induced him to change his intention and
to hasten directly towards the capital. On the way he learned
that Feversham, in pursuance of the King's orders, had dismissed
the royal army, and that thousands of soldiers, freed from
restraint and destitute of necessaries, were scattered over the
counties through which the road to London lay. It was therefore
impossible for William to proceed slenderly attended without
great danger, not only to his own person, about which he was not
much in the habit of being solicitous, but also to the great
interests which were under his care. It was necessary that he
should regulate his own movements by the movements of his troops;
and troops could then move but slowly over the highways of
England in midwinter. He was, on this occasion, a little moved
from his ordinary composure. "I am not to be thus dealt with," he
exclaimed with bitterness; "and that my Lord Feversham shall
find." Prompt and judicious measures were taken to remedy the
evils which James had caused. Churchill and Grafton were
entrusted with the task of reassembling the dispersed army and
bringing it into order. The English soldiers were invited to
resume their military character. The Irish were commanded to
deliver up their arms on pain of being treated as banditti, but
were assured that, if they would submit quietly, they should be
supplied with necessaries.585

The Prince's orders were carried into effect with scarcely any
opposition, except from the Irish soldiers who had been in
garrison at Tilbury. One of these men snapped a pistol at
Grafton. It missed fire, and the assassin was instantly shot dead
by an Englishman. About two hundred of the unfortunate strangers
made a gallant attempt to return to their own country. They
seized a richly laden East Indiaman which had just arrived in the
Thames, and tried to procure pilots by force at Gravesend. No
pilot, however was to be found; and they were under the necessity
of trusting to their own skill in navigation. They soon ran their
ship aground, and, after some bloodshed, were compelled to lay
down their arms.586

William had now been five weeks on English ground; and during the
whole of that time his good fortune had been uninterrupted. His
own prudence and firmness had been conspicuously displayed, and
yet had done less for him than the folly and pusillanimity of
others. And now, at the moment when it seemed that his plans were
about to be crowned with entire success, they were disconcerted
by one of those strange incidents which so often confound the
most exquisite devices of human policy.

On the morning of the thirteenth of December the people of
London, not yet fully recovered from the agitation of the Irish
Night, were surprised by a rumour that the King had been
detained, and was still in the island. The report gathered
strength during the day, and was fully confirmed before the
evening.

James had travelled with relays of coach horses along the
southern shore of the Thames, and on the morning of the twelfth
had reached Emley Ferry near the island of Sheppey. There lay the
hoy in which he was to sail. He went on board: but the wind blew
fresh; and the master would not venture to put to sea without
more ballast. A tide was thus lost. Midnight was approaching
before the vessel began to float. By that time the news that the
King had disappeared, that the country was without a government,
and that London was in confusion, had travelled fast down the
Thames, and wherever it spread had produced outrage and misrule.
The rude fishermen of the Kentish coast eyed the hoy with
suspicion and with cupidity. It was whispered that some persons
in the garb of gentlemen had gone on board of her in great haste.
Perhaps they were Jesuits: perhaps they were rich. Fifty or sixty
boatmen, animated at once by hatred of Popery and by love of
plunder, boarded the hoy just as she was about to make sail. The
passengers were told that they must go on shore and be examined
by a magistrate. The King's appearance excited suspicion. "It is
Father Petre," cried one ruffian; "I know him by his lean jaws."
"Search the hatchet faced old Jesuit," became the general cry. He
was rudely pulled and pushed about. His money and watch were
taken from him. He had about him his coronation ring, and some
other trinkets of great value: but these escaped the search of
the robbers, who indeed were so ignorant of jewellery that they
took his diamond buckles for bits of glass.

At length the prisoners were put on shore and carried to an inn.
A crowd had assembled there to see them; and James, though
disguised by a wig of different shape and colour from that which
he usually wore, was at once recognised. For a moment the rabble
seemed to be overawed: but the exhortations of their chiefs
revived their courage; and the sight of Hales, whom they well
knew and bitterly hated, inflamed their fury. His park was in the
neighbourhood; and at that very moment a band of rioters was
employed in pillaging his house and shooting his deer. The
multitude assured the King that they would not hurt him: but they
refused to let him depart. It chanced that the Earl of
Winchelsea, a Protestant, but a zealous royalist, head of the
Finch family, and a near kinsman of Nottingham, was then at
Canterbury. As soon as he learned what had happened he hastened
to the coast, accompanied by some Kentish gentlemen. By their
intervention the King was removed to a more convenient lodging:
but he was still a prisoner. The mob kept constant watch round
the house to which he had been carried; and some of the
ringleaders lay at the door of his bedroom. His demeanour
meantime was that of a man, all the nerves of whose mind had been
broken by the load of misfortunes. Sometimes he spoke so
haughtily that the rustics who had charge of him were provoked
into making insolent replies. Then he betook himself to
supplication. "Let me go," he cried; "get me a boat. The Prince
of Orange is hunting for my life. If you do not let me fly now,
it will be too late. My blood will be on your heads. He that is
not with me is against me." On this last text he preached a
sermon half an hour long. He harangued on a strange variety of
subjects, on the disobedience of the fellows of Magdalene
College, on the miracles wrought by Saint Winifred's well, on the
disloyalty of the black coats, and on the virtues of a piece of
the true cross which he had unfortunately lost. "What have I
done?" he demanded of the Kentish squires who attended him. "Tell
me the truth. What error have I committed?" Those to whom he put
these questions were too humane to return the answer which must
have risen to their lips, and listened to his wild talk in
pitying silence.587

When the news that he had been stopped, insulted, roughly
handled, and plundered, and that he was still a prisoner in the
hands of rude churls, reached the capital, many passions were
roused. Rigid Churchmen, who had, a few hours before, begun to
think that they were freed from their allegiance to him, now felt
misgivings. He had not quitted his kingdom. He had not
consummated his abdication. If he should resume his regal office,
could they, on their principles, refuse to pay him obedience?
Enlightened statesmen foresaw with concern that all the disputes
which his flight had for a moment set at rest would be revived
and exasperated by his return. Some of the common people, though
still smarting from recent wrongs, were touched with compassion
for a great prince outraged by ruffians, and were willing to
entertain a hope, more honourable to their good nature than to
their discernment, that he might even now repent of the errors
which had brought on him so terrible a punishment.

From the moment when it was known that the King was still in
England, Sancroft, who had hitherto acted as chief of the
provisional government, absented himself from the sittings of the
Peers. Halifax, who had just returned from the Dutch head
quarters, was placed in the chair. His sentiments had undergone a
great change in a few hours. Both public and private feelings now
impelled him to join the Whigs. Those who candidly examine the
evidence which has come down to us will be of opinion that he
accepted the office of royal Commissioner in the sincere hope of
effecting an accommodation between the King and the Prince on
fair terms. The negotiation had commenced prosperously: the
Prince had offered terms which the King could not but acknowledge
to be fair: the eloquent and ingenious Trimmer might flatter
himself that he should be able to mediate between infuriated
factions, to dictate a compromise between extreme opinions, to
secure the liberties and religion of his country, without
exposing her to the risks inseparable from a change of dynasty
and a disputed succession. While he was pleasing himself with
thoughts so agreeable to his temper, he learned that he had been
deceived, and had been used as an instrument for deceiving the
nation. His mission to Hungerford had been a fool's errand. The
King had never meant to abide by the terms which he had
instructed his Commissioners to propose. He had charged them to
declare that he was willing to submit all the questions in
dispute to the Parliament which he had summoned; and, while they
were delivering his message, he had burned the writs, made away
with the seal, let loose the army, suspended the administration
of justice, dissolved the government, and fled from the capital.
Halifax saw that an amicable arrangement was no longer possible.
He also felt, it may be suspected, the vexation natural to a man
widely renowned for wisdom, who finds that he has been duped by
an understanding immeasurably inferior to his own, and the
vexation natural to a great master of ridicule, who finds himself
placed in a ridiculous situation. His judgment and his resentment
alike induced him to relinquish the schemes of reconciliation on
which he had hitherto been intent, and to place himself at the
head of those who were bent on raising William to the throne.588

A journal of what passed in the Council of Lords while Halifax
presided is still extant in his own handwriting.589 No
precaution, which seemed necessary for the prevention of outrage
and robbery, was omitted. The Peers took on themselves the
responsibility of giving orders that, if the rabble rose again,
the soldiers should fire with bullets. Jeffreys was brought to
Whitehall and interrogated as to what had become of the Great
Seal and the writs. At his own earnest request he was remanded to
the Tower, as the only place where his life could be safe; and he
retired thanking and blessing those who had given him the
protection of a prison. A Whig nobleman moved that Oates should
be set at liberty: but this motion was overruled.590

The business of the day was nearly over, and Halifax was about to
rise, when he was informed that a messenger from Sheerness was in
attendance. No occurrence could be more perplexing or annoying.
To do anything, to do nothing, was to incur a grave
responsibility. Halifax, wishing probably to obtain time for
communication with the Prince, would have adjourned the meeting;
but Mulgrave begged the Lords to keep their seats, and introduced
the messenger. The man told his story with many tears, and
produced a letter written in the King's hand, and addressed to no
particular person, but imploring the aid of all good
Englishmen.591

Such an appeal it was hardly possible to disregard. The Lords
ordered Feversham to hasten with a troop of the Life Guards to
the place where the King was detained, and to set his Majesty at
liberty.

Already Middleton and a few other adherents of the royal cause
had set out to assist and comfort their unhappy master. They
found him strictly confined, and were not suffered to enter his
presence till they had delivered up their swords. The concourse
of people about him was by this time immense. Some Whig gentlemen
of the neighbourhood had brought a large body of militia to guard
him. They had imagined most erroneously that by detaining him
they were ingratiating themselves with his enemies, and were
greatly disturbed when they learned that the treatment which the
King had undergone was disapproved by the Provisional Government
in London, and that a body of cavalry was on the road to release
him. Feversham soon arrived. He had left his troop at
Sittingbourne; but there was no occasion to use force. The King
was suffered to depart without opposition, and was removed by his
friends to Rochester, where he took some rest, which he greatly
needed. He was in a pitiable state. Not only was his
understanding, which had never been very clear, altogether
bewildered: but the personal courage which, when a young man, he
had shown in several battles, both by sea and by land, had
forsaken him. The rough corporal usage which he had now, for the
first time, undergone, seems to have discomposed him more than
any other event of his chequered life. The desertion of his army,
of his favourites, of his family, affected him less than the
indignities which he suffered when his hoy was boarded. The
remembrance of those indignities continued long to rankle in his
heart, and on one occasion showed itself in a way which moved all
Europe to contemptuous mirth. In the fourth year of his exile he
attempted to lure back his subjects by offering them an amnesty.
The amnesty was accompanied by a long list of exceptions; and in
this list the poor fishermen who had searched his pockets rudely
appeared side by side with Churchill and Danby. From this
circumstance we may judge how keenly he must have felt the
outrage while it was still recent.592

Yet, had he possessed an ordinary measure of good sense, he would
have seen that those who had detained him had unintentionally
done him a great service. The events which had taken place during
his absence from his capital ought to have convinced him that, if
he had succeeded in escaping, he never would have returned. In
his own despite he had been saved from ruin. He had another
chance, a last chance. Great as his offences had been, to
dethrone him, while he remained in his kingdom and offered to
assent to such conditions as a free Parliament might impose,
would have been almost impossible.

During a short time he seemed disposed to remain. He sent
Feversham from Rochester with a letter to William. The substance
of the letter was that His Majesty was on his way back to
Whitehall, that he wished to have a personal conference with the
Prince, and that Saint James's Palace should be fitted up for his
Highness.593

William was now at Windsor. He had learned with deep
mortification the events which had taken place on the coast of
Kent. Just before the news arrived, those who approached him
observed that his spirits were unusually high. He had, indeed,
reason to rejoice. A vacant throne was before him. All parties,
it seemed, would, with one voice, invite him to mount it. On a
sudden his prospects were overcast. The abdication, it appeared,
had not been completed. A large proportion of his own followers
would have scruples about deposing a King who remained among
them, who invited them to represent their grievances in a
parliamentary way, and who promised full redress. It was
necessary that the Prince should examine his new position, and
determine on a new line of action. No course was open to him
which was altogether free from objections, no course which would
place him in a situation so advantageous as that which he had
occupied a few hours before. Yet something might be done. The
King's first attempt to escape had failed. What was now most to
be desired was that he should make a second attempt with better
success. He must be at once frightened and enticed. The
liberality with which he had been treated in the negotiation at
Hungerford, and which he had requited by a breach of faith, would
now be out of season. No terms of accommodation must be proposed
to him. If he should propose terms he must be coldly answered. No
violence must be used towards him, or even threatened. Yet it
might not be impossible, without either using or threatening
violence, to make so weak a man uneasy about his personal safety.
He would soon be eager to fly. All facilities for flight must
then be placed within his reach; and care must be taken that he
should not again be stopped by any officious blunderer.

Such was William's plan: and the ability and determination with
which he carried it into effect present a strange contrast to the
folly and cowardice with which he had to deal. He soon had an
excellent opportunity of commencing his system of intimidation.
Feversham arrived at Windsor with James's letter. The messenger
had not been very judiciously selected. It was he who had
disbanded the royal army. To him primarily were to be imputed the
confusion and terror of the Irish Night. His conduct was loudly
blamed by the public. William had been provoked into muttering a
few words of menace: and a few words of menace from William's
lips generally meant something. Feversham was asked for his safe
conduct. He had none. By coming without one into the midst of a
hostile camp, he had, according to the laws of war, made himself
liable to be treated with the utmost severity. William refused to
see him, and ordered him to be put under arrest.594 Zulestein was
instantly despatched to inform James that the Prince declined the
proposed conference, and desired that His Majesty would remain at
Rochester.

But it was too late. James was already in London. He had
hesitated about the journey, and had, at one time, determined 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.595 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 themselves from
the rage of the multitude in vaults and cocklofts, now came forth
from their lurking places, and demanded possession 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.596

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 Feversham had been put under
arrest.597 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 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, he
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 but flight: and yet, he said, he knew that there was
nothing which his enemies so much desired as that he would
fly.598

While be was in this state of trepidation, 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 for 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.599

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 be 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.600

The resolution of the Lords appeared to be unanimous. But there
were in the assembly those who by no means approved of the
decision in which they affected to concur, and 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 to 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 could not be. 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 could say what effect such severity as
Clarendon recommended might produce on the public mind of
England? Was it impossible 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.601

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; but time had not tamed his spirit.602

It was past ten o'clock when he was informed that three
battalions of the Prince's foot, mingled with some troops of
horse, were pouring down the long avenue of St. James's Park,
with matches lighted, and in full readiness for action. Count
Solmes, who commanded the foreigners, said 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 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.603

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.604

On the morning of the eighteenth of December, a rainy and stormy
morning, the royal barge was early at Whitehall 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 soothe 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 Hungerford was doubtless still rankling in his
mind.605

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.606

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.607 While Westminster was in
this state of excitement, the Common Council was preparing at
Guildhall an address of thanks and congratulation. The Lord Major
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 had 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 clearheaded 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."608

But, though the addresses were numerous and full of eulogy,
though the acclamations were loud, though the illuminations 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 crown at
once as his own by right of conquest, and then, as King, to send
out, under his Great Seal, writs calling a Parliament. This
course was strongly recommended by some 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 office in the province of Babylon.
Daniel was minister successively of the Assyrian who subjugated
Judah, and of the Persian who subjugated Assyria. Nay, Jesus
himself, who was, according to the flesh, a prince of the house
of David, had, by commanding his countrymen to pay tribute to
Caesar, 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.609

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 and 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 campaign, their part had not been
brilliant. Captains and privates were alike impatient to prove
that they had not given way 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.610 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 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 nullifies, 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 he would not,
without some semblance of parliamentary authority, take upon
himself even to convoke the Estates of the Realm, or to direct
the executive administration during the elections. Authority
strictly parliamentary there was none in the state: but it was
possible to bring together, in a few 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.611

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 purpose of giving advice on
legal points. It was resolved that on the Monday the state of the
kingdom should be taken into consideration.612

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 be 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
strenuously 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.613

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 that there was no ground for such an apprehension, that
common sense, if not principle, would restrain the Prince of
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.614

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.
Barillon was most desirous to remain a few days longer in London,
and for that end omitted no art which could conciliate the 
victorious party. In the streets he quieted the populace, who
looked angrily 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 be regarded as a spy. Before that day closed Barillon was
informed that he must leave England within twenty-four hours. He
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.615

On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen to preside. The
Primate was absent, the Royalists sad and gloomy, the Whigs eager
and in high spirits. It was known 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. Godolphin, 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 Lordships
any satisfaction." In truth it contained no expression of regret
for pass 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 blindness of a
nation deluded by the specious names of religion 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 Edgehill, "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.616

The Lords presented their addresses to the Prince 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.617

The commoners who had been summoned met in Saint Stephen's
Chapel, and formed a numerous assembly. They placed in the chair
Henry Powle, who had represented Cirencester in several
Parliaments, and had been eminent among the supporters of the
Exclusion Bill.

Addresses were proposed and adopted similar to those which the
Lords had already presented. No difference of 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.618

The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to the Prince.
He forthwith announced his determination to comply 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.619

He had undertaken no light task. The whole machine of government
was disordered. The Justices of the Peace had abandoned their
functions. The officers of the revenue 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. Large arrears of pay were due to
the civil and military servants 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.620 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 Tryconnel. 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.621

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 kingdom
wore again its accustomed aspect. There was a general sense of
security. Even the classes which were most 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 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.622

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.623 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 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.624 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 raised so high above
the mass of 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 animals, of a famished redbreast or of
an overdriven posthorse. The devastation of the Palatinate and
the persecution of the Huguenots had therefore given him no
uneasiness which pride and bigotry could not effectually soothe.
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 Poitiers.

As soon as the news that the Queen of England was on the French
coast had been brought to Versailles, a palace was prepared for
her reception. Carriages and troops of guards 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 host, "it is but a melancholy
service that I am rendering you 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 apartment.
She opened the casket, and found in it six thousand pistoles.

On the following day James arrived at Saint Germains. Lewis was
already there to welcome him. The unfortunate exile bowed so low
that it seemed as if he was about to embrace 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 let him have the pleasure of showing them his
buildings, 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
soothe 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 freely, and from
expressing what they thought, in private circles, with the keen
and delicate wit characteristic of their 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.625

In the United Provinces the excitement produced by the tidings
from England was even greater than in France. This was the moment
at which the Batavian federation reached the highest point of
power and glory. From the day on which the 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.626 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, 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 today, and will, perhaps, be Crucify him tomorrow."627

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 choice of representatives. There was scarcely a county in
which the gentry and yeomanry had not, many months before, 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.628 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 now
extended. Scotland had risen on her tyrants. All the 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 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 Holyrood, 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
Jesuit. The general voice of the kingdom, however, effectually
drowned the growl of this hateful faction.629

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 of Kirkaldy. 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.630

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.631

The decisive moment approached; and the agitation of the public
mind rose to the height. Knots of politicians were everywhere
whispering and consulting. The coffeehouses 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 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 subdivisions, 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 the Rye House butchery and headed the Western rebellion.
That beloved Church, too, for whose 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 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 Latitudinarian. 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.632 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 James, and that
he should be invited to return to Whitehall on such conditions as
might fully secure the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of
the realm.633 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 be 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 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 ruin by imaginary grievances.634 The effect
of his folly and 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 Sancroft 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 who was raving, would justly incur the penalties of
rebellion. Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition, such was
the 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.635

The 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.636

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 the
Princess of Orange, by her husband, and would have been
instituted if the parties who were accused of fraud had not 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 the Princess 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 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 be 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.637

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 obstinate 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, and the
stage; 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 be to interrupt
the course of descent. Under sovereigns who would consider it as
little short of high treason to preach nonresistance 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.638 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
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.639 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.640 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 beyond the
Ganges and the Mississippi with reverence exceeding that which is
paid to the memory of the greatest warriors and rulers. Among the
crowd of silent members appeared the majestic 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.

The first act of the Commons was to choose a Speaker; 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.641 The
mace was then laid on the table; the list of members was called
over; and the names of the defaulters were noted.

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.642

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 time, allied
himself closely with 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.643

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 Roundheads, 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 to whom he had hired himself out for
work 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 Fanshaw,
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
majority 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 subjects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class
desired to rid the country of one bad prince, without
promulgating any doctrine 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
framed which gave general satisfaction. It was moved that King
James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the 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. It they fail of attaining their end, they are
absurd, though they carry demonstration with them. Logic admits
of no compromise. The essense of politics is 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 throne vacant; 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.644

On the following morning the Lords assembled early. The benches
both of the spiritual and of the temporal peers were crowded.
Hampden appeared at the bar, and put the resolution of the
Commons into the hands of Halifax. The Upper House then resolved
itself into a committee; and Danby took the chair. 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
be subjected to a head who regards her as schismatical and
heretical.645

After this short interlude the Lords again went into committee.
The Tories insisted that their plan should be discussed before
the vote of the Commons which declared the throne 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.646 The
plan of Regency was his 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, he 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 case; 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 been separated from his
person.647 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 he had discovered
between the case of a wrongheaded 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,
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 he 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 magistrate, 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 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 be
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 be 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 be, 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 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.648

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 brothers 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.649

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 nonresistance 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.650

While the Commons were discussing Sharp's sermon, the Lords had
again gone into a committee on the state of the 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.651

Up to this moment the small body of peers which was under the
guidance of Danby had acted in firm union with Halifax and the
Whigs. The effect of this union had been that the plan of Regency
had been rejected, and the doctrine of the original contract
affirmed. The proposition that James 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 was 
immortal. The man might abdicate; but the magistrate was
irremoveable. If, these politicians said, we once admit 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 wonderful 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 provision for the very rare cases in
which his power terminated 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, and was earnestly pressed by the Peers to
give them some information. 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.652

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.653 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 and the streets silent, an event
had taken place which threw a damp on the public joy.

The Peers had repaired from the Abbey to their house, and had
resumed the discussion on the state of the nation. The last words
of the resolution of the Commons were taken into consideration;
and it soon became clear that the majority was not disposed to
assent to those words. To near fifty 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 fifty-two votes to forty-seven. The question was
then put whether the throne was vacant. The contents were only
forty-one: the noncontents fifty-five. Of the minority thirty-six
protested.654

During the two following days London was in an unquiet and
anxious state. The Tories began to hope that they might 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 that he was charged with a petition requesting them
instantly 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.655 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.

But, though the Whigs were fully determined to maintain order and
to respect the freedom of debate, they were equally 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 from such a quarter should be read. The contents, however,
were well known to all the town. His Majesty exhorted the 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 he did not name. How was it possible to
do any thing for a prince who, vanquished, deserted, banished,
living on alms, told those who were the arbiters of his fate
that, if they would set him on his throne again, he would hang
only a few of them?656

The contest between the two branches of the legislature 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.657 On the following day the Tories determined to try
their strength in the Lower 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 the
Lords.658

At the same time strenuous efforts were making without the walls
of Parliament to bring the dispute between the two branches of
the legislature to a close. Burnet thought that 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 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.659 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.660 In
the House of Lords he had done all in his power to prevent a
settlement. He now exerted, for the same end, all his influence
over the 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.661

And now William thought that the time had come when he ought to
explain himself. He accordingly sent for Halifax, 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 arrrangement 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 the Princess as
much as it was possible for man to esteem woman: but not even
from her would he accept a subordinate and a precarious place in
the government. He was so made that he could not submit to be
tied to the apron strings even of the best of wives. He 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.662

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. His blood boiled at the wrong done to his kind
patroness. He expostulated vehemently with Bentinck, and begged
to be 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.663

And now the time arrived for the free conference between the
Houses. The managers for the Lords, in their robes, took their
seats along one side of the table in the Painted 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.664

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
vindicated the use of the word abdication by quotations from
Grotius 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.665 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 would vote for the
settling of the government, his conduct in the Ecclesiastical
Commission should not be remembered 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 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.666

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.667

It was now known to whom the crown would be given. On what
conditions it should be given, still remained to be decided. The
Commons had appointed a committee to consider 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.668 This report recommended, first, that those great
principles of the constitution which had been violated by the
dethroned King 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 be made more
efficient, and that the law of Mandamus should be revised. One
gentleman fell on the chimneymen, another on the excisemen; and
the House resolved 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.669

The House was greatly perplexed. Some orators vehemently said
that too much time had already been lost, and 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.670 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 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 that the low born young barrister
was appointed to so honourable and important a post in a
Parliament filled with able and 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.671

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 of Parliaments to freedom of debate, the right of the
nation to a pure 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.

By this time the wind had ceased to blow from the west. 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.672 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 path of duty, been deeply
dejected. To him, as to her spiritual 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 be 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 selfdevotion of which man seems to
be incapable, but which is sometimes found in woman.673

On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, the
court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets were filled
with gazers. The magnificent Banqueting House, the masterpiece of
Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of Rubens, had 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, and Powle on 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, the Declaration 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 of the nation.
"We thankfully accept," he said, "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.674 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.675

Thus was 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 character was so peculiar is
sufficiently obvious, and yet seems not to have been always
understood either by eulogists 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. Not
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 Rome. 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 shipmoney, transferred 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 hearts of Englishmen during four hundred
years. That, without the consent of the representatives of the
nation, no 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,
but that the rule which called the princes of the blood royal to
the 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 reverence for the
past. The Estates of the Realm deliberated in the old halls and
according to the old rules. Powle was 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 or
Timoleon, 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 sobriety, and
with such minute attention to prescriptive etiquette, 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 and De 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
henceforth 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 abolished the sacramental test, of the
law 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, be
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 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 houses, 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.

FN 1 Avaux Neg., Aug. 6/16 1685; Despatch of Citters and his
colleagues, enclosing the treaty, Aug. Lewis to Barillon, Aug.
14/24.

FN 2 Instructions headed, "For my son the Prince of Wales, 1692,"
in the Stuart Papers.

FN 3 "The Habeas Corpus," said Johnson, the most bigoted of
Tories, to Boswell, "is the single advantage which our government
has over that of other countries;" and T. B. Macaulay is the most
bigoted of Whigs in his own country, but left his whiggism at
home when he went to India.

FN 4 See the Historical Records of Regiments, published under the
supervision of the Adjutant General.

FN 5 Barillon, Dec. 3/13 1685. He had studied the subject much.
"C'est un detail," he says, "dont j'ai connoissance." it appears
from the Treasury Warrant Book that the charge of the army for
the year 1687 was first of January at 623,104l. 9s. 11d.

FN 6 Burnet, i. 447.

FN 7 Tillotson's Sermon, preached before the House of Commons,
Nov. 5. 1678.

FN 8 Locke, First Letter on Toleration.

FN 9 Council Book. The erasure is dated Oct. 21. 1685. Halifax to
Chesterfield; Barillon, Oct. 19/29.

FN 10 Barillon, Oct. 26/Nov. 5. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 27
/ Nov. 6. Nov. 6/16.

FN 11 There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of
the symptoms of discontent among the Tories in a letter of
Halifax to Chesterfield, written in October, 1685. Burnet, i.
684.

FN 12 The contemporary tracts in various languages on the subject
of this persecution are innumerable. An eminently clear, terse,
and spirited summary will be found in Voltaire's Siecle de Louis
XIV.

FN 13 "Misionarios embotados," says Ronquillo. "Apostoli armati,"
says Innocent. There is, in the Mackintosh Collection, a
remarkable letter on this subject from Ronquillo, dated March
26./April 5. 1686 See Venier, Relatione di Francia, 1689, quoted
by Professor Ranke in his Romische Papste, book viii.

FN 14 "Mi dicono che tutti questi parlamentarii no hanno voluto
copia, il che assolutamente avra causate pessime impressioni."--
Adda, Nov. 9/13. 1685. See Evelyn's Diary, Nov. 3.

FN 15 Lords' Journals, Nov. 9. 1685. "Vengo assicurato," says
Adda, "che S. M. stessa abbia composto il discorso."--Despatch of
Nov. 16/26 1685.

FN 16 Commons' Journals; Bramston's Memoirs; James von Leeuwen to
the States General, Nov. 10/20 1685. Leeuwen was secretary of the
Dutch embassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of
Citters. As to Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98.

FN 17 Barillon, Nov. 16/26. 1685.

FN 18 Dodd's Church History, Leeuwen, Nov. 17/27 1685; Barillon,
Dec. 24. 1685. Barillon says of Adda, "On l'avoit fait prevenir
que la surete et l'avantage des Catholiques consistoient dans une
reunion entiere de sa Majeste Britannique et de son parlement."
Letters of Innocent to James, dated July 27/Aug. 8 and Sept. 23 /
Oct. 3. 1685; Despatches of Adda, Nov. 9/19. and Nov.  1685. The
very interesting correspondence of Adda, copied from the Papal
archives, is in the British Museum; Additional MSS. No. 15395.

FN 19 The most remarkable despatch bears date the 9/19th of
November 1685, and will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's
History.

FN 20 Commons' Journals, Nov. 12. 1685; Leeuwen, Nov.; Barillon,
Nov. 16/26.; Sir John Bramston's Memoirs. The best report of the
debates of the Commons in November, 1685, is one of which the
history is somewhat curious. There are two manuscript copies of
it in the British Museum, Harl. 7187.; Lans. 253. In these copies
the names of the speakers are given at length. The author of the
Life of James published in 1702 transcribed this report, but gave
only the initials, of the speakers. The editors of Chandler's
Debates and of the Parliamentary History guessed from these
initials at the names, and sometimes guessed wrong. They ascribe
to Wailer a very remarkable speech, which will hereafter be
mentioned, and which was really made by Windham, member for
Salisbury. It was with some concern that I found myself forced to
give up the belief that the last words uttered in public by
Waller were so honourable to him.

FN 21 Commons' Journals, Nov. 13. 1685; Bramston's Memoirs;
Reresby's Memoirs; Barillon, Nov. 16/26.; Leeuwen, Nov. 13/23.;
Memoirs of Sir Stephen Fox, 1717; The Case of the Church of
England fairly stated; Burnet, i. 666. and Speaker Onslow's note.

FN 22 Commons' Journals, Nov. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS.

FN 23 The conflict of testimony on this subject is most
extraordinary; and, after long consideration, I must own that the
balance seems to me to be exactly poised. In the Life of James
(1702), the motion is represented as a court motion. This account
is confirmed by a remarkable passage in the Stuart Papers, which
was corrected by the Pretender himself. (Clarke's Life of James
the Second, ii. 55.) On the other hand, Reresby, who was present,
and Barillon, who ought to have been well informed, represent the
motion as an opposition motion. The Harleian and Lansdowne
manuscripts differ in the single word on which the whole depends.
Unfortunately Bramston was not at the House that day. James Van
Leeuwen mentions the motion and the division, but does not add a
word which can throw the smallest light on the state of parties.
I must own myself unable to draw with confidence any inference
from the names of the tellers, Sir Joseph Williamson and Sir
Francis Russell for the majority, and Lord Ancram and Sir Henry
Goodricke for the minority. I should have thought Lord Ancram
likely to go with the court, and Sir Henry Goodricke likely to go
with the opposition.

FN 24 Commons' Journals, Nov. 16. 1685 Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS.
235.

FN 25 Commons' Journals, Nov. 17, 18. 1685.

FN 26 Commons' Journals, Nov. 18. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans.
MS. 253.; Burnet, i. 667.

FN 27 Lonsdale's Memoirs. Burnet tells us (i. 667.) that a sharp
debate about elections took place in the House of Commons after
Coke's committal. It	must therefore have been on the 19th of
November; for Coke was committed late on the 18th, and the
Parliament was prorogued on the 20th. Burnet's narrative is
confirmed by the Journals, from which it appears that several
elections were under discussion on the 19th.

FN 28 Burnet, i. 560.; Funeral Sermon of the Duke of Devonshire,
preached by Kennet, 1708; Travels of Cosmo III. in England.

FN 29 Bramston's Memoirs. Burnet is incorrect both as to the time
when the remark was made and as to the person who made it. In
Halifax's Letter to a Dissenter will be found a remarkable
allusion to this discussion.

FN 30 Wood, Ath. Ox.; Gooch's Funeral Sermon on Bishop Compton.

FN 31 Teonge's Diary.

FN 32 Barillon has given the best account of this debate. I will
extract his report of Mordaunt's speech. "Milord Mordaunt,
quoique jeune, parla avec eloquence et force. Il dit que la
question n'etoit pas reduite, comme la Chambre des Communes le
pretendoit, a guerir des jalousies et defiances, qui avoient lieu
dans les choses incertaines; mais que ce qui ce passoit ne
l'etoit pas, qu'il y avoit une armee sur pied qui subsistoit, et
qui etoit remplie d'officiers Catholiques, qui ne pouvoit etre
conservee que pour le renversement des loix, et que la
subsistance de l'armee, quand il n'y a aucune guerre ni au dedans
ni au dehors, etoit l'etablissement du gouvernement arbitraire,
pour lequel les Anglois ont une aversion si bien fondee."

FN 33 He was very easily moved to tears. "He could not," says the
author of the Panegyric, "refrain from weeping on bold affronts."
And again "They talk of his hectoring and proud carriage; what
could be more humble than for a man in his great post to cry and
sob?" In the answer to the Panegyric it is said that "his having
no command of his tears spoiled him for a hypocrite."

FN 34 Lords' Journals, Nov. 19. 1685; Barillon, Nov. 23 / Dec. 3.
Dutch Despatch, Nov. 20/30.; Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 19.; Burnet,
i. 665. The closing speeds of Halifax is mentioned by the Nuncio
in his despatch of Nov. 16/26. Adda, about a month later, hears
strong testimony to Halifax's powers,

"Da questo uomo che ha gran credito nel parlamento, e grande
eloquenza, non si possono attendere che fiere contradizioni, e
nel parlito Regio non vi e un uomo da contrapporsi." Dec. 21/31.

FN 35 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Nov. 20. 1685.

FN 36 Lords' Journals, Nov. 11. 17, 18. 1685.

FN 37 Burnet i, 646.

FN 38 Bramston's Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary.

FN 39 The trial in the Collection of State Trials; Bramston's
Memoirs Burnet, 1. 647.; Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689.

FN 40 Lords' Journals, Nov. 9, to. 16. 1685.

FN 41 Speech on the Corruption of the Judges in Lord Delamere's
works, 1694.

FN 42 Fu una funzione piena di gravita, di ordine, e di gran
speciosita. Adda, Jan. 15/25. 1686.

FN 43 The Trial is in the Collection of State Trials. Leeuwen,
Jan. 15/25. 19/29. 1686.

FN 44 Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 15. 1686.

FN 45 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 10/20 1685/6.

FN 46 Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 2. 1685.

FN 47 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 9., Orig. Mem.

FN 48 Leeuwen, Jan. 1/11 and 12/22 1686. Her letter, though very
long and very absurd, was thought worth sending to the States
General as a sign of the times.

FN 49 See his trial in the Collection of State Trials, and his
curious manifesto, printed in 1681.

FN 50 Memoires de Grammont; Pepys's Diary, Aug. 19. 1662.
Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Feb. 1/11 1686.

FN 51 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Feb. 1/11. 1686.

FN 52 Memoires de Grammont; Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon;
Correspondence of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, passim, particularly
the letter dated Dec. 29. 1685; Sheridan MS. among the Stuart
Papers; Ellis Correspondence, Jan. 12. 1686.

FN 53 See his later correspondence, passim; St. Evremond, passim;
Madame de Sevigne's Letters in the beginning of 1689. See also
the instructions to Tallard after the peace of Ryswick, in the
French Archives.

FN 54 St. Simon, Memoires, 1697, 1719; St. Evremond; La Fontaine;
Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Jan. 28/Feb. 6, Feb. 8/18. 1686.

FN 55 Adda, Nov. 16/26, Dec. 7/17. and Dec. 21/31. 1685. In these
despatches Adda gives strong reasons for compromising matters by
abolishing the penal laws and leaving the test. He calls the
quarrel with the Parliament a "gran disgrazia." He repeatedly
hints that the King might, by a constitutional policy, have
obtained much for the Roman Catholics, and that the attempt to
relieve them illegally is likely to bring great calamities on
them.

FN 56 Fra Paulo, tib. vii.; Pallavicino, lib. xviii. cap. 15.

FN 57 This was the practice of his daughter Anne; and Marlborough
said that she had learned it from her father--Vindication of the
Duchess of Marlborough.

FN 58 Down to the time of the trial of the Bishops, James went on
telling Adda that all the calamities of Charles the First were
"per la troppa indulgenza."--Despatch of 1688.

FN 59 Barillon, Nov. 16/26. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, Nov. 28/Dec.
6. 26. In a highly curious paper which was written in 1687,
almost certainly by Bonrepaux, and which is now in the French
archives, Sunderland is described thus-"La passion qu'il a pour
le jeu, et les pertes considerables quil y fait, incommodent fort
ses affaires. Il n'aime pas le vin; et il hait les femmes."

FN 60 It appears from the Council Book that he took his place as
president on the 4th of December, 1685.

FN 61 Bonrepaux was not so easily deceived as James. "En son
particulier il (Sunderland) n'en professe aucune (religion), et
en parle fort librement. Ces sortes de discours seroient en
execration en France. Ici ils sont ordinaires parmi un certain
nombre de gens du pais."--Bonrepaux to Seignelay, May 25/June 4
1687.

FN 62 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii, 74. 77. Orig. Mem.;
Sheridan MS.; Barillon, March 19/29 1686.

FN 63 Reresby's Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 2. 1685/6
Barillon, Feb. Jan. 25/Feb 4.

FN 64 Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 621. In a contemporary
satire it is remarked that Godolphin

"Beats time with politic head, and all approves,
Pleased with the charge of the Queen's muff and gloves."

FN 65 Pepys, Oct. 4. 1664.

FN 66 Pepys, July 1. 1663.

FN 67 See Dorset's satirical lines on her.

FN 68 The chief materials for the history of this intrigue are
the despatches of  Barillon and Bonrepaux at the beginning of the
year 1686. See Barillon, Jan 25./Feb 4. Feb. 1/11. Feb. 8/18.
Feb. 19/29. and Bonrepaux under the first four Dates; Evelyn's
Diary, Jan. 29.; Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet, i. 682.; Sheridan
MS.; Chaillot MS.; Adda's Despatches, Jan 22/Feb 1. and Jan
29/Feb 8 1686. Adda writes like a pious, but weak and ignorant
man. He appears to have known nothing of James's past life.

FN 69 The meditation hears date 1685/6. Bonrepaux, in his
despatch of the same day, says, "L'intrigue avoit ete conduite
par Milord Rochester et sa femme. . . . Leur projet etoit de
faire gouverner le Roy d'Angleterre par la nouvelle comtesse. Ils
s'etoient assures d'elle." While Bonrepaux was writing thus,
Rochester was writing as follows: "Oh God, teach me so to number
my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number
the days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me
to number those that I have spent in sin and wickedness. Oh God,
teach me to number the days of my affliction too, and to give
thanks for all that is come to me from thy hand. Teach me
likewise to number the days of this world's greatness, of which I
have so great a share; and teach me to look upon them as vanity
and vexation of spirit."

FN 70 "Je vis Milord Rochester comme il sortoit de conseil fort
chagrin; et, sur la fin du souper, il lui en echappe quelque
chose." Bonrepaux, Feb. 18/28. 1656. See also Barillon, March
1/11, 4/14.

FN 71 Barillon March 22/April 1, April 12.22 1686.

FN 72 London Gazette, Feb. 11. 1685/6; Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 8;
Leeuwen, Feb. 9/19.; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 75.
Orig. Mem.

FN 73 Leeuwen, Feb 23/Mar 5. 1686.

FN 74 Barillon, April 26/May 6. May 3/13. i686; Citters, May
7/17; Evelyn's Diary, May 5.; Luttrell's Diary of the same date;
Privy Council Book, May 2.

FN 75 Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 22. 1686; Barillon,
Feb 22/Mar 4 1686. "Ce prince temoigne," says Barillon, "une
grande aversion pour eux, et aurait bien voulu se dispenser de la
collecte, qui est ordonnee en leur faveur: mais il n'a pas cru
que cela fut possible."

FN 76 Barillon, Feb 22/ Mar 4. 1686.

FN 77 Account of the commissioners, dated March 15. 1688.

FN 78 "Le Roi d'Angleterre connait bien que les gens mal
intentionnes pour lui sont les plus prompts et les plus disposes
a donner considerablement. . . . Sa Majeste Britannique connoit
bien qu'il auroit a propos de ne point ordonner de collecte, et
que les gens mal intentionnes contre la religion Catholique et
contre lui se servent de cette occasion pour temoigner leur
zele."--Barillon, April 19/29 1686.

FN 79 Barillon, Feb 15/25 Feb 22/Mar 4. April 19/29, Lewis to
Barillon Mar 5/15.

FN 80 Barillon, April 19/29. 1686; Lady Russell to Dr.
Fitzwilliam, April 14. "He sent away many," she says "with sad
hearts."

FN 81 London Gazette of May 13. 1686.

FN 82 Reresby's Memoirs; Eachard, iii. 797.; Kennet, iii. 451.

FN 83 London Gazette, April 22. and 29. i686; Barillon, April
19/29.; Evelyn's Diary, June 2.; Luttrell, June 8.; Dodd's Church
History.

FN 84 North's Life of Guildford, 288.

FN 85 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 86 See the account of the case in the Collection of State
Trials; Citters, May 4/14., June 22/July 2 1686; Evelyn's Diary,
June 27.; Luttrell's Diary, June 25. As to Street, see
Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 27. 1688.

FN 87 London Gazette, July 19. 1686.

FN 88 See the letters patent in Gutch's Collectanca Curiosa. The
date is the 3d of May, 1686. Sclater's Consensus Veterum; Gee's
reply, entitled Veteres Vindicati; Dr. Anthony Horneck's account
of Mr. Sclater's recantation of the errors of Popery on the 5th
of May, 1689; Dodd's Church History, part viii. book ii. art. 3.

FN 89 Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Dodd, viii. ii. 3.; Wood, Ath.
Ox.; Ellis Correspondence, Feb. 27. 1686; Commons' Journals, Oct.
26. 1689.

FN 90 Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Wood's Athenae Oxonienses;
Dialogue between a Churchman and a Dissenter, 1689.

FN 91 Adda, July 9/19 1686.

FN 92 Adda, July 30/Aug 9 1686.

FN 93 "Ce prince m'a dit que Dieu avoit permie que toutes les
loix qui ont ete faites pour etablir la religion Protestante, et
detruire la religion Catholique, servent presentement de
fondement ce qu'il veut faire pour l'etablissement de la vraie
religion, et le mettent en droit d'exercer un pouvoir encore plus
grand que celui qu'ont les role Catholiques sur les affaires
ecclesiastiques dans les autres pays."--Barillon, July 12/22.
1686. To Adda His Majesty said, a few days later, "Che l'autorita
concessale dal parlamento sopra l'Ecclesiastico senza alcun
limite con fine contrario fosse adesso per servire al vantaggio
de' medesimi Cattolici." July 23/Aug 2.

FN 94 The whole question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a
little contemporary tract, entitled "The King's Power in Matters
Ecclesiastical fairly stated." See also a concise but forcible
argument by Archbishop Sancroft. Doyly's Life of Sancroft, i.
229.

FN 95 Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18. 1685/6.

FN 96 The best account of these transactions is in the Life of
Sharp, by his son. Citters, June 29/July 9 1686.

FN 97 Barillon, July 21/Aug 1 1686. Citters, July 16/26; Privy
Council Book, July 17. ; Ellis Correspondence, July 17.; Evelyn's
Diary, July 14.; Luttrell's Diary, Aug. 5, 6.

FN 98 The device was a rose and crown. Before the device was the
initial letter of the Sovereign's name; after it the letter R.
Round the seal was this inscription, "Sigillum commissariorum
regiae majestatis ad causas ecclesiasticas."

FN 99 Appendix to Clarendon's Diary; Citters, Oct. 8/18 1686;
Barillon, Oct. 11/21; Doyly's Life of Sancroft.

FN 100 Burnet, i. 676.

FN 101 Burnet, i. 675. ii. 629.; Sprat's Letters to Dorset.

FN 102 Burnet, i. 677.; Barillon, Sept. 6/16. 1686. The public
proceedings are in the Collection of State Trials.

FN 103 27 Eliz. c. 2.; 2 Jac. I. c. 4; 3 Jac. I. c. 5.

FN 104 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 79, 80. Orig. Mem,

FN 105 De Augmentis i. vi. 4.

FN 106 Citters, May 14/24 1686.

FN 107 Citters. May 18/28 1686. Adda, May 19/29

FN 108 Ellis Correspondence, April 27. 1686; Barillon, April
19/29 Citters, April 20/30; Privy Council Book, March 26;
Luttrell's Diary; Adda Feb 26/Mar 8 March 26/April 5, April 2/12
April 23/May 3

FN 109 Burnet's Travels.

FN 110 Barillon, May 27/June 6 1686.

FN 111 Citters, May 23/June 1 1686.

FN 112 Ellis Correspondence, June 26. 1686; Citters, July 2/12
Luttrell's Diary, July 19.

FN 113 See the contemporary poems, entitled Hounslow Heath and
Caesar's Ghost; Evelyn's Diary, June 2. 1686. A ballad in the
Pepysian collection contains the following lines

"I liked the place beyond expressing,
I ne'er saw a camp so fine,
Not a maid in a plain dressing,
But might taste a glass of wine."

FN 114 Luttrell's Diary, June 18. 1686.

FN 115 See the memoirs of Johnson, prefixed to the folio edition
of his life, his Julian, and his answers to his opponents. See
also Hickes's Jovian.

FN 116 Life of Johnson, prefixed to his works; Secret History of
the happy Revolution, by Hugh Speke; State Trials; Citters, Nov
23/Dec 3 1686. Citters gives the best account of the trial. I
have seen a broadside which confirms his narrative.

FN 117 See the preface to Henry Wharton's Posthumous Sermons.

FN 118 This I can attest from my own researches. There is an
excellent collection in the British Museum. Birch tells us, in
his Life of Tillotson, that Archbishop Wake had not been able to
form even a perfect catalogue of all the tracts published in this
controversy.

FN 119 Cardinal Howard spoke strongly to Burnet at Rome on this
subject Burnet, i. 662. There is a curious passage to the same
effect in a despatch of Barillon but I have mislaid the
reference.

One of the Roman Catholic divines who engaged in this
controversy, a Jesuit named Andrew Patton, whom Mr. Oliver, in
his biography of the Order, pronounces to have been a man of
distinguished ability, very frankly owns his deficiencies. "A. P.
having been eighteen years out of his own country, pretends not
yet to any perfection of the English expression or orthography."
His orthography is indeed deplorable. In one of his letters
wright is put for write, woed for would. He challenged Tenison to
dispute with him in Latin, that they might be on equal terms. In
a contemporary satire, entitled The Advice, is the following
couplet

"Send Pulton to be lashed at Bushy's school,
That he in print no longer play the fool."

Another Roman Catholic, named William Clench, wrote a treatise on
the Pope's supremacy, and dedicated it to the Queen in Italian.
The following specimen of his style may suffice. "O del sagro
marito fortunata consorte! O dolce alleviamento d' affari alti! O
grato ristoro di pensieri noiosi, nel cui petto latteo, lucente
specchio d'illibata matronal pudicizia, nel cui seno odorato,
come in porto damor, si ritira il Giacomo! O beata regia coppia!
O felice inserto tra l'invincibil leoni e le candide aquile!"

Clench's English is of a piece with his Tuscan. For example,
"Peter signifies an inexpugnable rock, able to evacuate all the
plots of hell's divan, and naufragate all the lurid designs of
empoisoned heretics."

Another Roman Catholic treatise, entitled "The Church of England
truly represented," begins by informing us that "the ignis fatuus
of reformation, which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil
and rapine, had been ushered into England, purified of the filth
which it had contracted among the lakes of the Alps."

FN 120 Barillon, July 19/29 1686.

FN 121 Act Parl. Aug. 24. 1560; Dec. 15. 1567.

FN 122 Act Parl. May 8. 1685.

FN 123 Act Parl. Aug. 31 1681.

FN 124 Burnet, i. 584.

FN 125 Ibid. i. 652, 653.

FN 126 Ibid. i. 678.

FN 127 Burnet, i. 653.	

FN 128 Fountainhall, Jan. 28. 1685/6.

FN 129 Ibid. Jan.	11 1685/6.

FN 130 Fountainhall, Jan. 31. and Feb. 1. 1685/6.; Burnet, i.
678,; Trials of David Mowbray and Alexander Keith, in the
Collection of State Trials; Bonrepaux, Feb. 11/21

FN 131 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 18/28 1686.

FN 132 Fountainhall, Feb. 16.; Wodrow, book iii. chap. x. sec. 3.
"We require," His Majesty graciously wrote, "that you spare no
legal trial by torture or otherwise."

FN 133 Bonrepaux, Feb. 18/28 1686.

FN 134 Fountainhall, March 11. 1686; Adda, March 1/11

FN 135 This letter is dated March 4. 1686.

FN 136 Barillon, April 19/29 1686; Burnet, i. 370.

FN 137 The words are in a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun.

FN 138 Some words of Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They
would alone suffice to decide a question which ignorance and
party spirit have done much to perplex. "Cette liberte accordee
aux nonconformistes a faite une grande difficulte, et a ete
debattue pendant plusieurs jours. Le Roy d'Angleterre avoit fort
envie que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberte de l'exercice
de leur religion." April 19/29 1686.

FN 139 Barillon, April 19/29 1686 Citters, April 18/28 20/30 May
9/19

FN 140 Fountainhall, May 6. 1686.

FN 141 Ibid. June 15. 1686.

FN 142 Citters, May 11/21 1686. Citters informed the States that
he had his intelligence from a sure hand. I will transcribe part
of his narrative. It is an amusing specimen of the pyebald
dialect in which the Dutch diplomatists of that age corresponded.

"Des konigs missive, boven en behalven den Hoog Commissaris
aensprake, aen het parlement afgesonden, gelyck dat altoos
gebruyckelyck is, waerby Syne Majesteyt ny in genere versocht
hieft de mitigatie der rigoureuse ofte sanglante wetten von het
Ryck jegens het Pausdom, in het Generale Comitee des Articles
(soo men het daer naemt) na ordre gestelt en gelesen synde, in 't
voteren, den Hertog van Hamilton onder anderen klaer uyt seyde
dat hy daertoe niet soude verstaen, dat by anders genegen was den
konig in allen voorval getrouw te dienen volgens het dictamen
syner conscientie: 't gene reden gaf aen de Lord Cancelier de
Grave Perts te seggen dat het woort conscientie niets en beduyde,
en alleen een individuum vagum was, waerop der Chevalier Locqnard
dan verder gingh; wil man niet verstaen de betyckenis van het
woordt conscientie, soo sal ik in fortioribus seggen dat wy
meynen volgens de fondamentale wetten van het ryck."

There is, in the Hind Let Loose, a curious passage to which I
should have given no credit, but for this despatch of Citters.
"They cannot endure so much as to hear of the name of conscience.
One that was well acquaint with the Council's humour in this
point told a gentleman that was going before them, `I beseech
you, whatever you do, speak nothing of conscience before the
Lords, for they cannot abide to hear that word.'"

FN 143 Fountainhall, May 17. 1686.

FN 144 Wodrow, III. x. 3.

FN 145 Citters, May 28/June 7, June 1/11 June 4/14 1686
Fountainhall June 15;

FN  Luttrell's Diary, June 2. 16

FN 146 Fountainhall, June 21 1686.

FN 147 Ibid. September 16. 1686.

FN 148 Fountainhall, Sept. 16; Wodrow, III. x. 3.

FN 149 The provisions of the Irish Act of Supremacy, 2 Eliz.
chap. I., are substantially the same with those of the English
Act of Supremacy, I Eliz. chap. I. hut the English act was soon
found to he defective and the defect was supplied by a more
stringent act, 5 Eliz. chap. I No such supplementary law was made
in Ireland. That the construction mentioned in the text was put
on the Irish Act of Supremacy, we are told by Archbishop King:
State of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 9. He calls this construction
Jesuitical but I cannot see it in that light.

FN 150 Political Anatomy of Ireland.

FN 151 Political Anatomy of Ireland, 1672; Irish Hudibras, 1689;
John Dunton's Account of Ireland, 1699.

FN 152 Clarendon to Rochester, May 4. 1686.

FN 153 Bishop Malony's Letter to Bishop Tyrrel, March 5. 1689.

FN 154 Statute 10 & 11 Charles I. chap. 16; King's State of the
Protestants of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 8.

FN 155 King, chap. ii. sec. 8. Miss Edgeworth's King Corny
belongs to a later and much more civilised generation; but
whoever has studied that admirable portrait can form some notion
of what King Corny's great grandfather must have been.

FN 156 King, chap. iii. sec. 2.

FN 157 Sheridan MS.; Preface to the first volume of the Hibernia
Anglicana, 1690; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland,
1689.

FN 158 "There was a free liberty of conscience by connivance,
though not by the law."--King, chap. iii. sec. i.

FN 159 In a letter to James found among Bishop Tyrrel's papers,
and dated Aug. 14. 1686, are some remarkable expressions. "There
are few or none Protestants in that country but such as are
joined with the Whigs against the common enemy." And again:
"Those that passed for Tories here (that is in England) "publicly
espouse the Whig quarrel on the other side the water." Swift said
the same thing to King William a few years later "I remember when
I was last in England, I told the King that the highest Tories we
had with us would make tolerable Whigs there."--Letters
concerning the Sacramental Test.

FN 160 The wealth and negligence of the established clergy of
Ireland are mentioned in the strongest terms by the Lord
Lieutenant Clarendon, a most unexceptionable witness.

FN 161 Clarendon reminds the King of this in a letter dated March
14. "It certainly is," Clarendon adds, "a most true notion."

FN 162 Clarendon strongly recommended this course, and was of
opinion that the Irish Parliament would do its part. See his
letter to Ormond, Aug. 28. 1686.

FN 163 It was an O'Neill of great eminence who said that it did
not become him to writhe his mouth to chatter English. Preface to
the first volume of the Hibernia Anglicana.

FN 164 Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers. I ought to
acknowledge the courtesy with which Mr. Glover assisted me in my
search for this valuable manuscript. James appears, from the
instructions which he drew up for his son in 1692, to have
retained to the last the notion that Ireland could not without
danger be entrusted to an Irish Lord Lieutenant.

FN 165 Sheridan MS.

FN 166 Clarendon to Rochester, Jan. 19. 1685/6; Secret Consults
of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.

FN 167 Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 27. 1685/6.

FN 168 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, March 2. 1685/6;
and to Rochester, March 14.

FN 169 Clarendon to Sunderland, Feb. 26. 1685/6.

FN 170 Sunderland to Clarendon, March 11. 1685/6.

FN 171 Clarendon to Rochester, March 14. 1685/6.

FN 172 Clarendon to James, March 4. 1685/6.

FN 173 James to Clarendon, April 6. 1686.

FN 174 Sunderland to Clarendon, May 22. 1686; Clarendon to
Ormond, May 30.; Clarendon to Sunderland, July 6. 11.

FN 175 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, June 1. 1686; to
Rochester, June 12. King's State of the Protestants of Ireland,
chap. ii. sec. 6, 7. Apology for the Protestants of Ireland,
1689.

FN 176 Clarendon to Rochester, May 15 1686.

FN 177 Ibid. May 11. 1686.

FN 178 Ibid. June 8. 1686.

FN 179 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland.

FN 180 Clarendon to Rochester, June 26. and July 4. 1686; Apology
for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.

FN 181 Clarendon to Rochester, July 4. 22. 1686; to Sunderland,
July 6; to the King, Aug. 14.

FN 182 Clarendon to Rochester, June 19. 1686.

FN 183 Ibid. June 22. 1686.

FN 184 Sheridan MS. King's State of the Protestants of Ireland,
chap. iii. sec. 3. sec. 8. There is a most striking instance of
Tyrconnel's impudent mendacity in Clarendon's letter to
Rochester, July 22. 1686.

FN 185 Clarendon to Rochester, June 8. 1686.

FN 186 Clarendon to Rochester, Sept. 23. and Oct. 2. 1686 Secret
Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.

FN 187 Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 6. 1686.

FN 188 Clarendon to the King and to Rochester, Oct. 23. 1686.

FN 189 Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 29, 30. 1686.

FN 190 Ibid. Nov. 27. 1686.

FN 191 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 1686; Clarke's Life of James the
Second, ii. 99.

FN 192 Sheridan MS.

FN 193 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 100.

FN 194 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 i686; Bonrepaux, June 4. I687.

FN 195 Barillon, Dec. 2/12 1686; Burnet, i. 684.; Clarke's Life
of James the Second, ii. 100.; Dodd's Church History. I have
tried to frame a fair narrative out of these conflicting
materials. It seems clear to me, from Rochester's own papers that
he was on this occasion by no means so stubborn as he has been
represented by Burnet and by the biographer of James.

FN 196 From Rochester's Minutes, dated Dec. 3. 1686.

FN 197 From Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 4. 1686.

FN 198 Barillon, Dec. 20/30 1686.

FN 199 Burnet, i. 684.

FN 200 Bonrepaux, Mar 25/June 4 1687.

FN 201 Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 19 1686; Barillon, Dec 30 / Jan
9 1686/7; Burnet, i. 685. Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii.
102.; Treasury Warrant Book, Dec. 29. 1686.

FN 202 Bishop Malony in a letter to Bishop Tyrrel says, "Never a
Catholic or other English will ever think or make a step, nor
suffer the King to make a step for your restauration, but leave
you as you were hitherto, and leave your enemies over your heads:
nor is there any Englishman, Catholic or other, of what quality
or degree soever alive, that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland
for to save the least interest of his own in England, and would
as willingly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of
whatsoever religion as by the Irish."

FN 203 The best account of these transactions is in the Sheridan
MS.

FN 204 Sheridan MS.; Oldmixon's Memoirs of Ireland; King's State
of the Protestants of Ireland, particularly chapter iii.; Apology
for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.

FN 205 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.

FN 206 London Gazette, Jan. 6. and March 14. 1686/7; Evelyn's
Diary, March 10 Etherege's letter to Dover is in the British
Museum.

FN 207 "Pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre
per il popolo, desser cacciato il detto ministro per non essere
Cattolico, percio tirarsi al esterminio de' Protestanti."--Adda,
1687.

FN 208 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 of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George Downing's Letters to
Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar's voluminous History, in
Van Kamper's Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, and,
above all, in William's own confidential correspondence, of which
the Duke of Portland permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a
copy.

FN 209 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'etoit au desous de moy." May 2/12
1698. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called.

FN 210 From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador at
Paris. "Jay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les
chains du Pr. de Denm. et ay fait on assez jolie chasse, autant
que ce vilain paiis le permest. March 20/April 1 1698. The
spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon's. William wrote in
better humour from Loo. "Nous avons pris deux gros cerfs, le
premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus gros que je sache
avoir jamais pris. Il porte seize." Oct 25/Nov 4 1697.

FN 211 March 3. 1679.

FN 212 "Voila en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. Et
j'ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc" (Bentinck's eldest son) "n'a point
este a la chasse, bien moin au soupe, quoyqu'il fut icy. Vous
pouvez pourtant croire que de n'avoir pas chasse l'a on peu
mortifie, mais je ne l'ay pas ause prendre sur moy, puisque vous
m'aviez dit que vous ne le souhaitiez pas." From Loo, Nov. 4.
1697.

FN 213 On the 15th of June, 1688.

FN 214 Sept. 6. 1679.

FN 215 See Swift's account of her in the Journal to Stella.

FN 216 Henry Sidney's Journal of March 31. 1680, in Mr.
Blencowe's interesting collection.

FN 217 Speaker Onslow's note on Burnet, i. 596.; Johnson's Life
of Sprat.

FN 218 No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with
more asperity than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmouth wrote, "I do not
think he designedly published anything he believed to he 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 retraction 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 censure Burnet as a singularly inaccurate
historian; hut I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. He
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
Reresby'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.

FN 219 Dr. Hooper's MS. narrative, published in the Appendix to
Lord Dungannon's Life of William.

FN 220 Avaux Negotiations, Aug. 10/20 Sept. 14/24 Sept 28/Oct 8
Dec. 7/17 1682.

FN 221 I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting Massillon's
unfriendly, yet discriminating and noble, character of William.
"Un prince profond dans ses vues; habile a former des ligues et a
reunir les esprits; plus heureux a exciter les guerres qu'a
combatire; plus a craindre encore dans le secret du cabinet, qu'a
la tete des armees; un ennemi que la haine du nom Francais avoit
rendu capable d'imaginer de grandes choses et de les executer; un
de ces genies qui semblent etre nes pour mouvoir a leur gre les
peuples et les souverains; un grand homme, s'il n'avoit jamais
voulu etre roi."--Oraison funebre de M. le Dauphin.

FN 222 For example, "Je crois M. Feversham un tres brave et
honeste homme. Mais je doute s'il a assez d'experience diriger
une si grande affaire qu'il a sur le bras. Dieu lui donne un
succes prompt et heureux. Mais je ne suis pas hors d'inquietude."
July 7/17 1685. Again, after he had received the news of the
battle of Sedgemoor, "Dieu soit loue du bon succes que les
troupes du Roy ont eu contre les rebelles. Je ne doute pas que
cette affaire ne soit entierement assoupie, et que le regne du
Roy sera heureux, Ce que Dieu veuille." July 10/20

FN 223 The treaty will be found in the Recueil des Traites, iv.
No. 209.

FN 224 Burnet, i. 762.

FN 225 Temple's Memoirs.

FN 226 See the poems entitled The Converts and The Delusion.

FN 227 The lines are in the Collection of State Poems.

FN 228 Our information about Wycherly is very scanty; but two
things are certain, that in his later years he called himself a
Papist, and that he received money from James. I have very little
doubt that he was a hired convert.

FN 229 See the article on him in the Biographia Britannica.

FN 230 See James Quin's account of Haines in Davies's
Miscellanies; Tom Brown's Works; Lives of Sharpers; Dryden's
Epilogue to the Secular Masque.

FN 231 This fact, which escaped the minute researches of Malone,
appears from the Treasury Letter Book of 1685.

FN 232 Leeuwen, Dec 25/Jan 4 1685/6

FN 233 Barillon, - Jan 31/Feb 10 1686/7. "Je crois que, dans le
fond, si on ne pouvoit laisser que la religion Anglicane et la
Catholique etablies par les loix, le Roy d'Angleterre en seroit
bien plus content."

FN 234 It will be round in Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. No. 129.

FN 235 Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. No. 128. 129. 132.

FN 236 Barillon Feb 20/March 10 1686/7; Citters, Feb. 16/23;
Reresby's Memoirs Bonrepaux, May 25/June 4 1687.

FN 237 Barillon, March 14/24 1687; Lady Russell to Dr.
Fitzwilliam, April 1.; Burnet, i. 671. 762. The conversation is
somewhat differently related in Clarke's Life of James, ii. 204.
But that passage is not part of the King's own memoirs.

FN 238 London Gazette, March 21. 1686/7.

FN 239 Ibid. April 7. 1687.

FN 240 Warrant Book of the Treasury. See particularly the
instructions dated March 8, 1687/8 Burnet, i. 715. Reflections on
his Majesty's Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland; Letters
containing some Reflections on his Majesty's Declaration for
Liberty of Conscience; Apology for the Church of England with a
relation to the spirit of Persecution for which she is accused,
1687/8. But it is impossible for me to cite all the pamphlets
from which I have formed my notion of the state of parties at
this time.

FN 241 Letter to a Dissenter.

FN 242 Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. Nos. 132. 134.

FN 243 London Gazette, April 21. 1687 Animadversions on a late
paper entituled A Letter to a Dissenter, by H C. (Henry Care),
1687.

FN 244 Lestrange's Answer to a Letter to a Dissenter; Care's
Animadversions on A letter to a Dissenter; Dialogue between Harry
and Roger; that is to say, Harry Care and Roger Lestrange.

FN 245 The letter was signed T. W. Care says, in his
Animadversions, "This Sir Politic T. W., or W. T. for some
critics think that the truer reading."

FN 246 Ellis Correspondence, March 15. July 27. 1686 Barillon,
Feb 28/Mar 10; March 3/13. March 6/16. 1687 Ronquillo, March
9/19. 1687, in the Mackintosh Collection.

FN 247 Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; Observator; Heraclitus Ridens,
passim. But Care's own writings furnish the best materials for an
estimate of his character.

FN 248 Calamy's Account of the Ministers ejected or silenced
after the Restoration, Northamptonshire; Wood's Athenae
Oxonienses; Biographia Britannica.

FN 249 State Trials; Samuel Rosewell's Life of Thomas Rosewell,
1718; Calamy's Account.

FN 250 London Gazette, March 15 1685/6; Nichols's Defence of the
Church of England; Pierce's Vindication of the Dissenters.

FN 251 The Addresses will be found in the London Gazettes.

FN 252 Calamy's Life of Baxter.

FN 253 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.

FN 254 Bunyan's Grace Abounding.

FN 255 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 Giantkiller. Late in the eighteenth
century Cowper did not venture to do more than allude to the
great allegorist

"I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame."

FN 256 The continuation of Bunyan's life appended to his Grace
Abounding.

FN 257 Kiffin's Memoirs; Luson's Letter to Brooke, May 11. 1773,
in the Hughes Correspondence.

FN 258 See, among other contemporary pamphlets, one entitled a
Representation of the threatening Dangers impending over
Protestants.

FN 259 Burnet, i. 694.

FN 260 Le Prince d'Orange, qui avoit elude jusqu'alors de faire
une reponse positive, dit qu'il ne consentira jamais a la
suppression du ces loix qui avoient ete etablies pour le maintien
et la surete de la religion Protestante, et que sa conscience ne
le lui permettoit point non seulement pour la succession du
royaume d'Angleterre, mais meme pour l'empire du monde; en sorte
que le roi d'Angleterre est plus aigri contre lui qu'il n'a
jamais ete"--Bonrepaux, June 11/21 1687.

FN 261 Burnet, i. 710. Bonrepaux, May 24/June 4. 1687

FN 262 Johnstone, Jan. 13. 1688; Halifax's Anatomy of an
Equivalent.

FN 263 Burnet, i. 726-73 1.; Answer to the Criminal Letters
issued out against Dr. Burnet; Avaux Neg., July 7/17 14/24, July
28/Aug 7 Jan 19/29 1688; Lewis to Barillon, Dec 30 1687/Jan 9
1688; Johnstone of Waristoun, Feb. 21. 1688; Lady Russell to Dr.
Fitzwilliam, 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 l'enlever en Hollande trouvera
non seulement une retraite assuree et une entiere protection dans
mes etats, mais aussi toute l'assistance qu'il pourra desirer
pour faire conduire surement ce scelerat 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 takes 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)."

FN 264 Burnet, a. 708.; Avaux Neg., Jan. 3/13 Feb. 6/16. 1687;
Van Kampen, Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis.

FN 265 Burnet, i 711. Dykvelt'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.

FN 266 Bonrepaux, Sept. 12/22 1687.

FN 267 See Lord Campbell's Life of him.

FN 268 Johnstone's Correspondence; Mackay's Memoirs; Arbuthnot's
John Bull; Swift's writings from 1710 to 1714, passim; Whiston's
Letter to the Earl of Nottingham, and the Earl's answer.

FN 269 Kennet's funeral sermon on the Duke of Devonshire, and
Memoirs of the family of Cavendish; State Trials; Privy Council
Book, March 5. 1685/6; Barillon, June 30/July 10 1687; Johnstone,
Dec. 8/18. 1687; Lords' journals, May 6. 1689. "Ses amis et ses
proches," says Barillon, "lui conseillent de prendre le bon
parti, mais il persiste jusqu'a prasent a ne se point soumettre.
S'il vouloit se bien conduire et renoncer a etre populaire, il ne
payeroit pas l'amende, mais s'il opiniatre, il lui en coutera
trente mille pieces et il demeurera prisonnier jusqu'a l'actuel
payement."

FN 270 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."

FN 271 Grammont's Memoirs; Pepys's Diary, Feb. 21. 1684/5.

FN 272 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.

FN 273 The formal epistle which Dykvelt carried back to the
States is in the Archives at the Hague. The other letters
mentioned in this paragraph are given by Dalrymple. App. to Book
V.

FN 274 Sunderland to William, Aug. 24. 1686; William to
Sunderland, Sept. 2/12 1686; Barillon, May 6/16 May 26/June 5
Oct. 3/13 Nov 28/Dec 8. 1687; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 14/24 1687:
Memorial of Albeville, Dec. 15/25. 1687; James to William, Jan.
17. Feb. 16. March 2. 13. 1688; Avaux Neg., March 1/11 6/16 8/18
March 22/April 1 1688.

FN 275 Adda, Nov. 9/19. 1685.

FN 276 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:

Rogerion de akepsomenos lamproio thriambon,
oka mal eissen kai theen ochlos apas
thaumazousa de ten pompen pagkhrusea t' auton
armata tous thippous toiade Rome ethe.

The Latin verses are a little better. Nahum Tate responded in
English

"His glorious train and passing pomp to view,
A pomp that even to Rome itself was new,
Each age, each sex, the Latian turrets filled,
Each age and sex in tears of joy distilled."

FN 277 Correspondence of James and Innocent, in the British
Museum; Burnet, i 703- 705.; Welwood's Memoirs; Commons'
Journals, Oct. 28. 1689; An Account of his Excellency Roger Earl
of Castelmaine's Embassy, by Michael Wright, chief steward of his
Excellency's house at Rome, 1688.

FN 278 Barillon, May 2/12 1687.

FN 279 Memoirs of the Duke of Somerset; Citters, July 5/15. 1687;
Eachard's History of the Revolution; Clarke's Life of James the
Second, ii. 116, 117, 118.; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs.

FN 280 London Gazette, July 7. 1687; Citters, July 7/17 Account
of the ceremony reprinted among the Somers Tracts.

FN 281 London Gazette, July 4. 1687.

FN 282 See the statutes 18 Henry 6. C. 19.; 2 & 3 Ed. 6. C. 2.;
Eachard's History of the Revolution; Kennet, iii. 468.; North's
Life of Guildford, 247.; London Gazette, April 18. May 23. 1687;
Vindication of the E. of R, (Earl of Rochester).

FN 283 Dryden's Prologues and Cibber's Memoirs contain abundant
proofs of the estimation in which the taste of the Oxonians was
held by the most admired poets and actors.

FN 284 See the poem called Advice to the Painter upon the Defeat
of the Rebels in the West. See also another poem, a most
detestable one, on the same subject, by Stepney, who was then
studying at Trinity College.

FN 285 Mackay's character of Sheffield, with Swift's note; the
Satire on the Deponents, 1688; Life of John, Duke of
Buckinghamshire, 1729; Barillon, Aug. 30. 1687. I have a
manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1690. It is not destitute
of spirit. The most remarkable lines are these:

Peters (Petre) today and Burnet tomorrow,
Knaves of all sides and religions he'll woo.

FN 286 See the proceedings against the University of Cambridge in
the collection of State Trials.

FN 287 Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; Apology for the Life of Colley
Cibber; Citters,

FN March 2/12 1686.

FN 288 Burnet, i. 697.; Letter of Lord Ailesbury printed in the
European Magazine for April 1795.

FN 289 This gateway is now closed.

FN 290 Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; Walker's Sufferings of the
Clergy.

FN 291 Burnet, i. 697.; Tanner's Notitia Monastica. At the
visitation in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the Eighth it
appeared that the annual revenue of King's College was 751l.; of
New College, 487l.; of Magdalene, 1076l.

FN 292 A Relation of the Proceedings at the Charterhouse, 1689.

FN 293 See the London Gazette, from August 18 to September 1.
1687 Barillon, September 19/29

FN 294 "Penn, chef des Quakers, qu'on sait etre dans les interets
du Roi d'Angleterre, est si fort decrie parmi ceux de son parti
qu'ils n'ont plus aucune confiance en lui."--Bonrepaux to
Seignelay, Sept. 12/22 1687. The evidence of Gerard Croese is to
the same effect. "Etiam Quakeri Pennum iron amplius, ut ante, ita
amabant ac magnifaciebant, quidam aversabantur ac fugiebant."--
Historia Quakeriana, lib, ii. 1695.

FN 295 Cartwright's Diary, August 30. 1687. Clarkson's Life of
William Penn.

FN 296 London Gazette, Sept. 5.; Sheridan MS.; Barillon, Sept.
1687. "Le Roi son maitre," says Barillon, "a temoigne une grande
satisfaction des mesures qu'il a prises, et a autorise ce qu'il a
fait en faveur des Catholiques. Il les etablit dans les emplois
et les charges, en sorte que l'autorite se trouvera bientot entre
leurs mains. Il reste encore beaucoup de choses a faire en ce
pays la pour retirer les biens injustement otes aux Catholiques.
Mais cela ne peut s'executer qu'avec le tems et dans l'assemblee
d'un parlement en Irlande."

FN 297 London Gazette of Sept. 5. and Sept. 8. 1687

FN 298 Proceedings against Magdalene College, in Oxon, for not
electing Anthony Farmer president of the said College, in the
Collection of State Trials, Howell's edition; Luttrell's Diary,
June 15. 17., Oct. 24., Dec. 10. 1687; Smith's Narrative; Letter
of Dr. Richard Rawlinson, dated Oct. 31. 1687; Reresby's Memoirs;
Burnet, i. 699.; Cartwright's Diary; Citters, Oct 25/Nov 4, Oct
28/Nov 7  Nov 8/18 Nov 18/28 1687.

FN 299 "Quand on connoit le dedans de cette cour aussi intimement
que je la connois, on peut croire que sa Majeste Britannique
donnera volontiers dans ces sortes de projets."--Bonrepaux to
Seignelay, March 18/28 1686.

FN 300 "Que, quand pour etablir la religion Catholique et pour la
confirmer icy, il (James) devroit se rendre en quelque facon
dependant de la France, et mettre la decision de la succession a
la couronne entre les mains de ce monarque la, qu'il seroit
oblige de le faire, parcequ'il vaudroit mieux pour ses sujets
qu'ils devinssent vassaux du Roy de France, etant Catholiques,
que de demeurer comme esclaves du Diable." This paper is in the
archives of both France and Holland.

FN 301 Citters, Aug. 6/16 17/27 1686. Barillon, Aug. 19/29

FN 302 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 1686. "La succession est une matiere
fort delicate a traiter. Je sais pourtant qu'on en parle au Roy
d'Angleterre, et qu'on ne desespere pas avec le temps de trouver
des moyens pour faire passer la couronne sur la tete d'un
heritier Catholique."

FN 303 Bonrepaux, July 11/21. 1687.

FN 304 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Aug 25/Sept 4 1687. I will quote a
few words from this most remarkable despatch: "je scay bien
certainement que l'intention du Roy d'Angleterre est de faire
perdre ce royaume (Ireland) a son successeur, et de le fortifier
en sorte que tous ses sujets Catholiques y puissent avoir un
asile assure. Son projet est de mettre les choses en cet estat
dans le cours de cinq annees." 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."

FN 305 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7, Nov 22/Dec 2 1687; the Princess
Anne to the Princess of Orange, March 14. and 20. 1687/8;
Barillon, Dec. 1/11 1687; Revolution
Politics; the song "Two Toms and a Nat;" Johnstone, April 4.
1688; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.

FN 306 The king's uneasiness on this subject is strongly
described by Ronquillo, Dec. 12/22 1687 "Un Principe de Vales y
un Duque de York y otro di
Lochaosterna (Lancaster, I suppose,) no bastan a reducir la
gente; porque el Rey tiene 54 anos, y vendra a morir, dejando los
hijos pequenos, y que entonces el reyno se apoderara dellos, y
los nombrara tutor, y los educara en la religion protestante,
contra la disposicion que dejare el Rey, y la autoridad de la
Reyna."

FN 307 Three lists framed at this time 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.

FN 308 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."

FN 309 Barillon, Aug 29/Sep 8 1687.

FN 310 Told by Lord Bradford, who was present, to Dartmouth; note
on Burnet, i. 755.

FN 311 London Gazette, Dec. 12. 1687.

FN 312 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Nov. 14/24.; Citters, Nov. 15/25.;
Lords' Journals,

FN Dec. 20. 1689.

FN 313 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7 1687.

FN 314 Halstead's Succinct Genealogy of the Family of Vere, 1685;
Collins's Historical Collections. See in the Lords' Journals, and
in Jones's Reports, the proceedings respecting the earldom of
Oxford, in March and April 1625/6. The exordium of the speech of
Lord Chief Justice Crew is among the finest specimens of the
ancient English eloquence. Citters, Feb. 7/17 1688.

FN 315 Coxe's Shrewsbury Correspondence; Mackay's Memoirs; Life
of Charles Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718; Burnet, i. 762.; 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.

FN 316 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.
263.; and Pepys's Diary, Oct. 26. 1667.

FN 317 Pepys's Diary; Prior's dedication of his poems to the Duke
of 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
Etherege in his letters from Ratisbon, Dec. 9/19 1687, and Jan.
16/26 1688; 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."

FN 318 Barillon, Jan. 9/19 1688; Citters, Jan 31/Feb 10

FN 319 Adda, Feb. 3/13 10/20 1688.

FN 320 Barillon,. Dec. 5/15 8/18. 12/22 1687; Citters, Nov 29/Dec
9 Dec 2/12

FN 321 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7 1687; Lonsdale's Memoirs.

FN 322 Citters, Nov 22/Dec 2 1687.	

FN 323 Ibid. Dec 27/Jan 6 1687/8.

FN 324 Ibid,

FN 325 Rochester's offensive warmth on this occasion is twice
noticed by Johnstone, Nov. 25. and Dec. 8. 1687. His failure is
mentioned by Citters, Dec. 6/16.

FN 326 Citters, Dec. 6/16. 1687

FN 327 Ibid. Dec. 20/30. 1687.

FN 328 Ibid March 30/April 9 1687.

FN 329 Ibid Nov 22/Dec 2 1687.

FN 330 Ibid. Nov. 15/25. 1687.

FN 331 Citters, April 10/20 1688.

FN 332 The anxiety about Lancashire is mentioned by Citters, in a
despatch dated Nov. 18/28. 1687; the result in a despatch dated
four days later.

FN 333 Bonrepaux, July 11/21 1687.

FN 334 Citters, Feb. 3/13 1688.

FN 335 Ibid. April 5/15 1688.

FN 336 London Gazette, Dec. 5. 1687; Citters, Dec. 6/16

FN 337 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
Corte, o in opera di maestrato, vive, e gode il piu dell' anno
alla campagna, ne' suoi palagi e poderi, dove son liberi e
padroni; e cio tanto piu sollecitamente I Cattolici quanto piu
utilmente, si come meno osservati cola."--L'lnghilterra descritta
dal P. Daniello Bartoli. Roma, 1667.

"Many of the Popish Sheriffs," Johnstone wrote, "have estates,
and declare that whoever expects false returns from them will be
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 Catolicos que fueron nombrados
per sherifes se han excusado," Jan. 9/19. 1688. He 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.
"Estoy informado," he says, "que los Catolicos de las provincias
no lo reprueban, pues no pretendiendo oficios, y siendo solo
algunos de la Corte los provechosos, les parece que mejoran su
estado, quedando seguros ellos y sus descendientes en la
religion, en la quietud, y en la seguridad de sus haciendas."
July 23/Aug 2 1688.

FN 338 Privy Council Book, Sept. 25. 1687; Feb. 21. 1687/8

FN 339 Records of the Corporation, quoted in Brand's History of
Newcastle. Johnstone, Feb. 21. 1687/8

FN 340 Johnstone, Feb. 21 1687/8

FN 341 Citters, Feb. 14/24 1688.

FN 342 Ibid. May 1/11. 1688.

FN 343 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.

FN 344 Johnstone, May 23. 1688.

FN 345 Ibid. Feb. 21. 1688.

FN 346 Johnstone, Feb. 21. 1688.

FN 347 Citters, March 20/30 1688.

FN 348 Ibid. May 1/11 1688.

FN 349 Citters, May 22/June 1 1688.

FN 350 Ibid. May 1/11 1688.

FN 351 Ibid. May 18/28 1688.

FN 352 Ibid. April 6 1688; Treasury Letter Book, March 14. 1687;
Ronquillo, April 16/26.

FN 353 Citters, May 18/28 1688.

FN 354 Citters, May 18/28 1688.

FN 355 London Gazette, Dec. 15. 1687. See the proceedings against
Williams in the Collection of State Trials. "Ha hecho," says
Ronquillo, "grande susto el haber nombrado el abogado Williams,
que fue el orador y el mas arrabiado de toda la casa de los
comunes en los ultimos terribles parlamentos del Rey difunto. Nov
27/Dec 7 1687.

FN 356 London Gazette, April 30. 1688; Barillon, April 26/May 6

FN 357 Citters, May 1/11. 1688.

FN 358 London Gazette, May 7. 1688.

FN 359 Johnstone May 27. 1688.

FN 360 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, I 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
ferocity which nothing can justify, but which the birth and
breeding of the honest tinker in some degree excuse.

FN 361 Johnstone, May 23. 1688. There is a satirical poem on this
meeting entitled the Clerical Cabal.

FN 362 Clarendon's Diary, May 22. 1688.

FN 363 Extracts from Tanner MS. in Howell's State Trials; Life of
Prideaux; Clarendon's Diary, May 16. 1688.

FN 364 Clarendon's Diary, May 16 and 17. 1688.

FN 365 Sancroft's Narrative printed from the Tanner MS.; Citters,
May 22/June 1 1688.

FN 366 Burnet, i. 741; Revolution Politics; Higgins's Short View.

FN 367 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 155.

FN 368 Citters, May 22/June 1688 . Burnet, i. 740.; and Lord
Dartmouth's note; Southey's Life of Wesley.

FN 369 Citters, May 22/June 1 1688

FN 370 Ibid. May 29/June 8 1688.

FN 371 Ibid.

FN 372 Barillon, May 24/June 3 May 31/June 10 1688; Citters,
July, 1/11 Adda, May 25/June 4, May 30/June 9, June 1/11 Clarke s
Life of James the Second, ii. 158.

FN 373 Burnet, i. 740.; Life of Prideaux; Citters, June 12/22
15/25 1688. Tanner MS.; Life and Correspondence of Pepys.

FN 374 Sancroft's Narrative, printed from the Tanner MS.

FN 375 Burnet, i. 741.; Citters, June 8/18 12/22. 1688;
Luttrell's Diary, June 8.; Evelyn's Diary; Letter of Dr. Nalson
to his wife, dated June 14., and printed from the Tanner MS.;
Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 376 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 377 Correspondence between Anne and Mary, in Dalrymple;
Clarendon's Diary, Oct. 31. 1688.

FN 378 This is clear from Clarendon's Diary, Oct. 31. 1688.

FN 379 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 159, 160.

FN 380 Clarendon's Diary, June 10. 1688.

FN 381 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.

FN 382 Ronquillo, July 26/Aug 5. Ronquillo adds, that what
Zulestein said of the state of public opinion was strictly true.

FN 383 Citters, June 12/22 1688; Luttrell's Diary, June 18.

FN 384 For the events of this day see the State Trials;
Clarendon's Diary Luttrell's Diary; Citters. June 15/25
Johnstone, June 18; Revolution Politics.

FN 385 Johnstone, June 18. 1688; Evelyn's Diary, June 29.

FN 386 Tanner MS.

FN 387 This fact was communicated to me in the most obliging
manner by the Reverend R. S. Hawker of Morwenstow in Cornwall.

FN 388 Johnstone, June 18. 1688.

FN 389 Adda, June 29/July 9 1688

FN 390 Sunderland's own narrative is, of course, not to be
implicitly trusted, but he vouched Godolphin as a witness of what
took place respecting the Irish Act of Settlement.

FN 391 Barillon June 21/June 28 June 28/July 8 1688; Adda, June
29/July 9 Citters June 26/July 6; Johnstone, July  2. 1688; The
Converts, a poem.

FN 392 Clarendon's Diary, June 21. 1688.

FN 393 Citters, June 26/ July 6. 1688.

FN 394 Johnstone, July 2. 1688.	

FN 395 Ibid.

FN 396 Johnstone, July 2. 1688. The editor of Levinz's reports
expresses great wonder that, after the Revolution, Levinz was not
replaced on the bench. The facts related by Johnstone may perhaps
explain the seeming injustice.

FN 397 I draw this inference from a letter of Compton to
Sancroft, dated the 12th of June.

FN 398 Revolution Politics.

FN 399 This is the expression of an eye witness. It is in a
newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection.

FN 400 See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials. I
have taken some touches from Johnstone, and some from Van
Citters.

FN 401 Johnstone, July 2. 1688; Letter from Mr. Ince to the
Archbishop, dated at six o'clock in the morning; Tanner MS.;
Revolution Politics.

FN 402 Johnstone, July 2. 1688.

FN 403 State Trials; Oldmixon, 739.; Clarendon's Diary, June 25,
1688; Johnstone, July 2.; Citters, July 3/13 Adda, July 6/16;
Luttrell's Diary; Barillon, July 2/12

FN 404 Citters, July 3/13 The gravity with which he tells the
story has a comic effect. "Den Bisschop van Chester, wie seer de
partie van het hof houdt, 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 by synde een beer
van hooge stature en vollyvig, spotsgewyse alomme 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 aansigt
seyden, by den Paus in syn buyck hadde."

FN 405 Luttrell; Citters, July 3/13. 1688. "Soo syn in tegendeel
gedagte jurys met de uyterste acclamatie en alle teyckenen van
genegenheyt en danckbaarheyt in het door passeren van de gemeente
ontvangen. Honderden vielen haar om den hals met alle
bedenckelycke wewensch van segen en geluck over hare persoonen en
familien, om dat sy haar so heusch en eerlyck buyten verwagtinge
als het ware in desen gedragen hadden. Veele van de grooten en
kleynen adel wierpen in het wegryden handen vol gelt onder tie
armen luyden, om op de gesontheyt van den Coning, der Heeren
Prelaten, en de Jurys te drincken."

FN 406 "Mi trovava con Milord Sunderland la stessa mattina,
quando venne l'Avvocato Generale a rendergli conto del successo,
e disse, che mai piu a memoria d'huomini si era sentito un
applauso, mescolato di voci e lagrime di giubilo, egual a quello
che veniva egli di vedere in quest' occasione." Adda, July 6/16.
1688.

FN 407 Burnet, i. 744.; Citters, July 3/13 1688.

FN 408 See a very curious narrative published among other papers,
in 1710, 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 Dryden.

FN 409 Reresby's Memoirs; Citters, 3/13 July 17. 1688; Adda 6/16
July; Barillon, July 2/12 Luttrell's Diary; Newsletter of July
4.; Oldmixon, 739.; Ellis Correspondence.

FN 410 The Fur Praedestinatus.

FN 411 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 curaturos ut ecelesia sordibus
et corruptelis penitus exueretur; ut sectariis reformatis reditus
in ecclesiae sinum exoptati occasio ac ratio concederetur, si qui
sobrii et pii essent; ut pertinacibus interim jugum le aretur,
extinctis penitus legibus mulciatoriis."--Excerpta ex Vita H.
Wharton.

FN 412 This change in the opinion of a section of the Tory party
is well 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."

FN 413 "Aut nunc, aut nunquam."--Witsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar,
book lx.

FN 414 Burnet, i. 763.

FN 415 Sidney's Diary and Correspondence, edited by Mr. Blencowe;
Mackay's Memoirs with Swift's note; Burnet, i. 763.

FN 416 Burnet, i. 764.; Letter in cipher to William, dated June
18. 1688, in Dalrymple.

FN 417 Burnet, i. 764.; Letter in cipher to William, dated June
18 1688.

FN 418 As to Montaigne, see Halifax's Letter to Cotton. I am not
sure 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.

FN 419 See Danby's Introduction to the papers which he published
in 1710; Burnet, i. 764.

FN 420 Burnet, i. 764.; Sidney to the Prince of Orange, June 30.
1688, in Dalrymple.

FN 421 Burnet, i. 763.; Lumley to William, May 31. 1688, in
Dalrymple.

FN 422 See the invitation at length in Dalrymple.

FN 423 Sidney's Letter to William, June 30. 1688; Avaux Neg.,
July 10/20 12/22

FN 424 Bonrepaux, July 18/28 1687.

FN 425 Birch's Extracts, in the British Museum.

FN 426 Avaux Neg., Oct 29/Nov 9 1683

FN 427 As to the relation in which the Stadtholder and the city
of Amsterdam stood towards each other, see Avaux, passim.

FN 428 Adda, July 6/16 1688.

FN 429 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 430 Barillon, July 2/12 1688.

FN 431 London Gazette of July 16. 1688. The order bears date July
12.

FN 432 Barillon's own phrase, July 6/16 1688.

FN 433 In one of the numerous ballads of that time are the
following lines:
"Both our Britons are fooled,
Who the laws overruled,
And next parliament each will he plaguily schooled."

The two Britons are Jeffreys and Williams, who were both natives
of Wales.

FN 434 London Gazette, July 9. 1688.

FN 435 Ellis Correspondence, July 10. 1688; Clarendon's Diary,
Aug. 3. 1688.

FN 436 London Gazette, July 9. 1688; Adda, July 13/23 Evelyn's
Diary, July 12. Johnstone, Dec. 8/18 1687, Feb. 6/16 1688.

FN 437 Sprat's Letters to the Earl of Dorset; London Gazette,
Aug. 23. 1688.

FN 438 London Gazette, July 26. 1688; Adda, Ju1y 27/Aug 6.;
Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection, July 25. Ellis
Correspondence, July 28. 31; Wood's Fasti Oxonienses.

FN 439 Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; Luttrell's Diary, Aug. 23.
1688.

FN 440 Ronquillo, Sept. 17/27 1688; Luttrell's Diary, Sept. 6.

FN 441 Ellis Correspondence, August 4. 7. 1688; Bishop Sprat's
relation of the Conference of Nov. 6. 1688.

FN 442 Luttrell's Diary, Aug. 8. 1688.

FN 443 This is told us by three writers who could well remember
that time, Kennet, Eachard, and Oldmixon. See also the Caveat
against the Whigs.

FN 444 Barillon, Aug 24/Sept 1 1688; Sept. 3/13 6/16 8/18

FN 445 Luttrell's Diary, Aug. 27. 1688.

FN 446 King's State of the Protestants of Ireland; Secret
Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland.

FN 447 Secret Consults of he Romish Party in Ireland.

FN 448 History of the Desertion, 1689; compare the first and
second editions; Barillon, Sept. 8/18 1688; Citters of the same
date; Clarke's Life 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 his sense would have urged the members of a council
of war to inflict a punishment which was notoriously beyond their
competence.

FN 449 The song of Lillibullero is among the State Poems, to
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 1712 Wharton is mentioned as the
author.

FN 450 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: 1685,
Sept. 20, Sept. 24, Oct. 5, Dec. 20; 1686, Jan. 3, Nov. 22; 1687,
Oct. 2, Nov. 6, Nov. 19 1688, 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.

FN 451 Professor Von Ranke, Die Romischen Papste, book viii.;
Burnet, i. 759.

FN 452 Burnet, i. 758.; Lewis paper bears date Aug 27/Sept 6
1688. It will be found in the Recueil des Traites, vol. iv. no.
219.

FN 453 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 publicus ille preado haud aliud aperte proponat
nisi ut Galici imperii exuberans amputetur potesias, veruntamen
sibi et suis ex haeretica faece complicibus, ut pro comperto
habemus, longe aliud promittit, nempe ut, exciso vel enervato
Francorum regno, ubi Catholicarum partium summum jam robur situm
est, haeretica ipsorum pravitas per orbem Christisnum universum
praevaleat."--Letter of James to the Pope; evidently written in
1689.

FN 454 Avaux Neg., Aug. 2/12 10/20 11/21 14/24 16/26 17/27 Aug
23/Sept 2 1688.

FN 455 Ibid., Sept. 4/14 1688.

FN 456 Burnet, i. 765.; Churchill's letter bears date Aug. 4.
1688.

FN 457 William to Bentinck, Aug. 17/27 i688.

FN 458 Memoirs of the Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718.

FN 459 London Gazette, April 25. 28. 1687.

FN 460 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. This
account is strongly confirmed by what Bonrepaux wrote to
Seignelay, Sept. 12/22 1687. "Il (Sunderland) amassera beaucoup
d'argent, le roi son maitre lui donnant la plus grande partie de
celui qui provient des confiscations on des accommodemens que
ceux qui ont encouru des peines font pour obtenir leur grace."

FN 461 Adda says that Sunderland's terror was visible. Oct 26/Nov
5 1688.

FN 462 Compare Evelyn's account of her with what the Princess of
Denmark wrote about her to the Hague, and with her own letters to
Henry Sidney.

FN 463 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, July 11/21 1688.

FN 464 See her letters in the Sidney Diary and Correspondence
lately 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.

FN 465 Aug 19/29 1688

FN 466 Sept 4/14 1688

FN 467 Avaux, July 19/29 July 31/Aug 10 Aug.11/21 1688; Lewis to
Barillon, Aug. 2/12, 16/26.

FN 468 Barillon, Aug. 20/30 Aug 23/Sept 2 1688 Adda, Aug 24/Sept
3; Clarke's Life of James, ii. 177. Orig. Mem.

FN 469 Lewis to Barillon, Sept. 3/13 8/18 11/21 1688.

FN 470 Avaux, Aug 23/Sept 2, Aug 30/Sept 9 1688.

FN 471 "Che l'adulazione e la vanita gli avevano tornato il
capo"--Adda, Aug 31/Sept 10 1688.

FN 472 Citters, Sept. 11/21 1688 Avaux, Sept. 17/27 Sept 27/Oct 7
Oct. 3 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.

FN 473 Lewis to Barillon, Sept. 20/30 1688.

FN 474 Avaux, Sept 27/Oct 7 27. Oct. 4/14 1688.

FN 475 Madame de Sevigne, Oct 24/Nov 3 1688.

FN 476 Witsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs;
Avaux, Oct. 4/14 5/15 1688. The formal declaration of the States
General, dated Oct. 18/28 will be found in the Recueil des
Traites, vol. iv. no. 225.

FN 477 Abrege de la Vie de Frederic Duc de Schomberg, 1690;
Sidney to William, June 30. 1688; Burnet, i. 677.

FN 478 Burnet, i. 584.; Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 479 Burnet, i. 775. 780.

FN 480 Eachard's History of the Revolution, ii. 2.

FN 481 Pepys's Memoirs relating to the Royal Navy, 1690. Clarke's
Life of James the Second, ii. 186 Orig. Mem.; Adda, Sept 21/Oct 1
Citters, Sept 21/Oct 1

FN 482 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 186. Orig. Mem.;
Adda, Sept 14/Oct 2 Citters, Sept 21/Oct 1

FN 483 Adda, Sept 28/Oct. 8. 1688. This despatch describes
strongly James's dread of an universal defection of his subjects.

FN 484 All the scanty light which we have respecting this
negotiation is derived from Reresby. His informant was a lady
whom he does not name, and who certainly was not to be implicitly
trusted.

FN 485 London Gazette, Sept. 24. 27., Oct. 1., 1688.

FN 486 Tanner MSS.; Burnet, i. 784. Burnet has, I think,
confounded this audience with an audience which took place a few
weeks later.

FN 487 London Gazette, Oct. 8. 1688.

FN 488 Ibid.

FN 489 Ibid. Oct. 15. 1688; Adda, Oct. 12/22 The Nuncio, though
generally an enemy to violent courses, seems to have opposed the
restoration of Hough, probably from regard for the interests of
Giffard and the other Roman Catholics who were quartered in
Magdalene College. Leyburn declared himself "nel sentimento che
fosse stato non spoglio, e che il possesso in cui si trovano ora
li Cattolici fosse violento ed illegale, onde non era privar
questi di no dritto acquisto, ma rendere agli altri quello che
era stato levato con violenza."

FN 490 London Gazette, Oct. 18. 1688.

FN 491 "Vento Papista." says Adda Oct 24/Nov 3 1688. 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. See the first part of
Lillibullero.

FN 492 All the evidence on this point is collected in Howell's
edition of the State Trials.

FN 493 It will be found with much illustrative matter in Howell's
edition of the State Trials.

FN 494 Barillon, Oct. 8/18 16/26 18/28 Oct 25/Nov 4 Oct.27/Nov 6
Oct 29/Nov 8 1688; Adda, Oct 26/Nov 5

FN 495 London Gazette, Oct. 29. 1688.

FN 496 Register of the Proceedings of the States of Holland and
West Friesland; Burnet, i. 782.

FN 497 London Gazette, Oct. 29. 1688; Burnet, i. 782.; Bentinck
to his wife, Oct. 21/31 Oct. 22/Nov 1 Oct 24/Nov 3 Oct. 27/Nov 6
1688.

FN 498 Citters. Nov. 2/12 1688: Adda, Nov. 2/12

FN 499 Ronquillo, Nov. 12/22 i688. "Estas respuestas," says
Ronquillo, "son ciertas, aunque mas las encubrian en la corte."

FN 500 London Gazette, Nov. 5 1688. The Proclamation is dated
Nov. 2.

FN 501 Tanner MSS.

FN 502 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.

FN 503 Avaux, July 12/22 Aug. 14/24 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 Bentinck, dated Sept. 6/16 1688, William insists strongly on
the importance of avoiding an action, and begs Bentinck to
represent this to Herbert. "Ce n'est pas le tems de faire voir sa
bravoure, ni de se battre si l'on le peut eviter. Je luy l'ai
deja dit: mais il sera necessaire que vous le repetiez et que
vous le luy fassiez bien comprendre."

FN 504 Rapin's History; Whittle's Exact Diary. I have seen a
contemporary Dutch chart of the order in which the fleet sailed.

FN 505 Adda, Nov. 1688; Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection;
Citters Nov 6/16

FN 506 Burnet, i. 788.; Extracts from the Legge Papers in the
Mackintosh Collection.

FN 507 I think that nobody who compares Burnet's account of this
conversation with Dartmouth's can doubt that I have correctly
represented what passed.

FN 508 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.

FN 509 Burnet, i. 789.; Legge Papers.

FN 510 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.
207. Orig. Mem,

FN 511 Burnet, i. 790.

FN 512 See Whittle's Diary, the Expedition of his Highness, and
the Letter from Exon published at the time. 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 in the court? Your 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?
Thy tallest sparks wilt be mere toys
To Brandenburgh and Swedish boys,
Coraggio! Coraggio!
Addison alludes, in the Freeholder, to the extraordinary effect
which these romantic stories produced.

FN 513 Expedition of the Prince of Orange; Oldmixon, 755.;
Whittle's Diary; Eachard, iii. 911.; London Gazette, Nov. 15.
1688.

FN 514 London Gazette, Nov. 15 1688; Expedition of the Prince of
Orange.

FN 515 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 210. Orig. Mem.; Sprat's
Narrative, Citters, Nov 6/16 1688

FN 516 Luttrell's Diary; Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection;
Adda, Nov 16/26 1688

FN 517 Johnstone, Feb. 27. 1688 Citters of the same date.

FN 518 Lysons, Magna Britannia Berkshire.

FN 519 London Gazette, Nov. 15 1688; Luttrell's Diary.

FN 520 Burnet, i. 790. Life of William, 1703.

FN 521 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 215.; Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i.
790. Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 15 1688; London Gazette, Nov. 17.

FN 522 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 218.; Clarendon's Diary, Nov.
15. 1688 Citters, Nov. 16/26

FN 523 Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 15, i6, i7. 20. 1688.

FN 524 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 219. Orig. Mem.

FN 525 Clarendon's Diary, from Nov. 8. to Nov. 17. 1688.

FN 526 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 212. Orig. Mem.; Clarendon's
Diary, Nov. 17.1688; Citters, Nov 20/30; Burnet, i. 79i.; Some
Reflections 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.

FN 527 Adda, Nov. 12/22 1688.

FN 528 Clarke's Life of James, 220, 221.

FN 529 Eachard's History of the Revolution.

FN 530 Seymour's reply to William is related by many writers. It
much resembles a story which is told of the Manriquez family.
They, it is said, took for their device the words, "Nos no
descendemos de los Reyes, sino los Reyes descienden de nos."--
Carpentariana.

FN 531 Fourth Collection of Papers, 1688 Letter from Exon;
Burner, i. 792.

FN 532 Burnet, i. 792.; History of the Desertion; Second
Collection of Papers, 1688.

FN 533 Letter of Bath to the Prince of Orange, Nov. 18. 1688;
Dalrymple.

FN 534 First Collection of Papers, 1688; London Gazette, Nov. 22.

FN 535 Reresby's Memoirs; Clarke's. Life of James, ii. 231. Orig.
Mem.

FN 536 Cibber's Apology History of the Desertion; Luttrell's
Diary; Second Collection of Papers, 1688.

FN 537 Whittle's Diary; History of the Desertion; Luttrell's
Diary.

FN 538 Clarke's Life of James, i. 222. Orig. Mem; Barillon, Nov
21/Dec 1 1688; Sheridan MS.

FN 539 First Collection of Papers, 1688.

FN 540 Letter from Middleton to Preston dated Salisbury, Nov. 25.
"Villany upon villany," says Middleton, "the last still greater
than the former. Clarke's Life of James, ii. 224, 225. Orig. Mem.

FN 541 History of the Desertion; Luttrell's Diary.

FN 542 Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 643.

FN 543 Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 26.; Clarke's Life of James, ii.
224.; Prince George's letter to the King has often been printed.

FN 544 The letter, dated Nov. 18, will be found in Dalrymple.

FN 545 Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 25, 26. 1688; Citters, Nov 26/Dec
6; Ellis Correspondence, Dec. 19.; Duchess of Marlborough's
Vindication; Burnet, i. 792; Compton to the Prince of Orange,
Dec. 2. 1688, in Dalrymple. The Bishop's military costume is
mentioned in innumerable pamphlets and lampoons.

FN 546 Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 792.; Citters Nov 26/Dec 6
1688; Clarke's Life of James, i. 226. Orig. Mem.; Clarendon's
Diary, Nov. 26; Revolution Politics.

FN 547 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 236. Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i.
794.: Luttrell's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 27. 1688;
Citters, Nov 27/Dec 7 and Nov 30/Dec 10

Citters 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, "Dat het by na voor
hem unmogelyck was to pardoneren persoonen wie so hoog in syn
reguarde schuldig stonden, vooral seer uytvarende jegens den Lord
Churchill, wien hy hadde groot gemaakt, en nogtans meynde de
eenigste oorsake van alle dese desertie en van de retraite van
hare Coninglycke Hoogheden te wesen." One of the lords, probably
Halifax or Nottingham, "seer hadde geurgeert op de securiteyt van
de lords die nu met syn Hoogheyt geengageert staan. Soo hoor
ick," says Citters, "dat syn Majesteyt onder anderen soude gesegt
hebben; 'Men spreekt al voor de securiteyt voor andere, en niet
voor de myne.' Waar op een der Pairs resolut dan met groot
respect soude geantwoordt hebben dat, soo syne Majesteyt's
wapenen in staat warm om hem te connen mainteneren, dat dan sulk
syne securiteyte koude wesen; soo niet, en soo de difficulteyt
dan nog to surmonteren was, dat het den moeste geschieden door de
meeste condescendance, en hoe meer die was, en hy genegen om aan
de natie contentement te geven, dat syne securiteyt ook des to
grooter soude wesen."

FN 548 Letter of the Bishop of St. Asaph to the Prince of Orange,
Dec. 17, 1688.

FN 549 London Gazette, Nov, 29. Dec.3. 1688; Clarendon's Diary,
Nov. 29, 30.

FN 550 Barillon, December 1/11 1688.

FN 551 James to Dartmouth, Nov. 25. 1688. The letters are in
Dalrymple.

FN 552 James to Dartmouth, Dec. 1. 1688.

FN 553 Luttrell's Diary.

FN 554 Second Collection of Papers, 1688; Dartmouth's Letter,
dated December 3. 1688, 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 the nation.

FN 555 Luttrell's Diary.

FN 556 Adda, Dec. 17. 1688.

FN 557 The Nuncio says, "Se lo avesse fatto prima di ora, per il
Re ne sarebbe stato meglio."

FN 558 See the Secret History of the Revolution, by Hugh Speke,
1715. In the London Library is a copy of this rare work with a
manuscript note which seems to be in Speke's own hand.

FN 559 Brand's History of Newcastle; Tickell's History of Hull.

FN 560 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.

FN 561 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 233.; MS. Memoir of the Harley
family in the Mackintosh Collection.

FN 562 Citters, Dec. 9/19 1688. Letter of the Bishop of Bristol
to the Prince of Orange, Dec 5. 1688, in Dalrymple.

FN 563 Citters, Nov 27/Dec 7 1688; Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 11.;
Song on Lord Lovelace's entry into Oxford, 1688; Burnet, i. 793.

FN 564 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 2, 3, 4, 5. 1688.

FN 565 Whittles Exact Diary; Eachard's History of the Revelation.

FN 566 Citters, Nov. 20/30 Dec. 9/19 1688.

FN 567 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 6, 7. 1688.

FN 568 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 7. 1688.

FN 569 History of the Desertion; Citters, Dec. 9/19 1688; Exact
Diary; Oldmixon, 760.

FN 570 See a very interesting note on the fifth canto of Sir
Walter Scott's Rokeby.

FN 571 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. 9/19

FN 572 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.

FN 573 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 246.; Pere d'Orleans,
Revolutions d'Angleterre, xi.; Madame de Sevigne, Dec. 14/24.
1688; Dangeau, Memoires, Dec. 13/23. As to Lauzun, see the
Memoirs of Mademoiselle and of the Duke of St. Simon, and the
Characters of Labruyere.

FN 574 History of the Desertion; Clarke's Life Of James. ii. 251.
Orig. Mem.; Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution; Burnet, i. 795

FN 575 History of the Desertion; Mulgrave's Account of the
Revolution; Fachard's History of the Revolution.

FN 576 London Gazette, Dec. 13. 1688.

FN 577 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 259.; Mulgrave's Account of
the Revolution; Legge Papers in the Mackintosh Collection.

FN 578 London Gazette, Dec. 13 1688; Barillon, Dec. 14/24.;
Citters, same date; Luttrell's Diary; Clarke's Life of James, ii.
256. Orig. Mem; Ellis Correspondence, Dec. 13.; Consultation of
the Spanish Council of State, Jan. 19/29, 1689. It appears that
Ronquillo complained bitterly to his government of his losses;
"Sirviendole solo de consuelo el haber tenido prevencion de poder
consumir El Santisimo."

FN 579 London Gazette, Dec. 13 1688; Luttrell's Diary; Mulgrave's
Account of the Revolution; Consultation of the Spanish Council of
State, Jan. 19/29 1689. Something was said about reprisals: but
the Spanish council treated the suggestion with contempt.
"Habiendo sido este hecho por un furor de pueblo, sin
consentimiento del gobierno y antes contra su voluntad, como lo
ha mostrado la satisfaccion que le han dado y le han prometido,
parece que no hay juicio humano que puede aconsejar que se pase a
semejante remedio."

FN 580 North's Life of Guildford, 220.; Jeffreys' Elegy;
Luttrell's Diary; Oldmixon, 762. Oldmixon was in the crowd, and
was, I doubt not, one of the most furious there. He tells the
story well. Ellis Correspondence; Barnet, i. 797. and Onslow's
note.

FN 581 Adda, Dec. 9/19; Citters, Dec. 18/28

FN 582 Citters, Dec. 14/24. 1688; Luttrell's Diary; Ellis
Correspondence; Oldmixon, 761.; Speke's Secret History of the
Revolution; Clarke's Life of James, ii. 257.; Eachard's History
of the Revolution; History of the Desertion.

FN 583 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 258.

FN 584 Secret History of the Revolution.

FN 585 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 13. 1688; Citters, Dec 14/24;
Eachard's History of the Revolution.

FN 586 Citters, Dec. 14/24 688; Luttrell's Diary.

FN 587 Clarke's Life of James ii. 251. Orig. Mem.; Letter printed
in Tindal's Continuation of Rapin. This curious letter is in the
Harl. MSS. 6852.

FN 588 Reresby was told, by a lady whom he does not name, that
the King had no intention of withdrawing till he received a
letter from Halifax, who was then at Hungerford. The letter, she
said, informed His Majesty that, if he staid, his life would be
in danger. This is certainly a mere romance. The King, before the
Commissioners left London, had told Barillon that their embassy
was a mere feint, and had expressed a full resolution to leave
the country. It is clear from Reresby's own narrative that
Halifax thought himself shamefully used.

FN 589 Harl. MS. 255.

FN 590 Halifax MS.; Citters, Dec. 18/28. 1688.

FN 591 Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution.

FN 592 See his proclamation, dated from St. Germains, April 20.
1692.

FN 593 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 261. Orig. Mem.

FN 594 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 16. 1688; Barnet, i. 800.

FN 595 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 262. Orig. Mem.; Barnet, 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 Oldmixon'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. 17/27 1688.

FN 596 London Gazette, Dec. 16. 1688; Mulgrave's Account of the
Revolution; History of the Desertion; Burnet, i. 799.; Evelyn's
Diary, Dec. 13. 17. 1688.

FN 597 Clarke's History of James, ii. 262. Orig. Mem.

FN 598 Barillon, Dec. 17/27 1681; Clarke's Life of James, ii.
271.

FN 599 Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution; Clarendon's Diary,
Dec. 16. 1688.

FN 600 Burnet i. 800.; Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 17 1688; Citters,
Dec. 18/28. 1688.

FN 601 Burnet, i. 800.; Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough;
Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution. Clarendon says nothing of
this under the proper date; but see his Diary, August 19. 1689.

FN 602 Harte's Life of Gustavus Adolphus.

FN 603 Clarke's Life of James ii. 264. mostly from Orig. Mem.;
Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution; Rapin de Thoyras. It must
be remembered that in these events Rapin was himself an actor.

FN 604 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 265. Orig. Mem.; Mulgrave's
Account of the Revolution; Burnet, i, 801.; Citters, Dec. 18/28.
1688.

FN 605 Citters, Dec. 18/28. 1688; Evelyn's Diary, same date;
Clarke's Life of James, ii. 266, 267. Orig. Mem.

FN 606 Citters Dec. 18/28 1688,

FN 607 Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, Dec.
18. 1688; Revolution Politics.

FN 608 Fourth Collection of papers relating to the present
juncture of affairs in England, 1688; Burnet, i. 802, 803.;
Calamy's Life and Times of Baxter, chap. xiv.

FN 609 Burnet, i. 803.

FN 610 Gazette de France, Jan 26/ Feb 5 1689.

FN 611 History of the Desertion; Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 21.
1688; Burnet, i. 803. and Onslow's note.

FN 612 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 21. 1688; Citters, same date.

FN 613 Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 21, 22. 1688; Clarke's Life of
James, ii. 268. 270. Orig. Mem.

FN 614 Clarendon, Dec. 23, 1688; Clarke's Life of James, ii. 271.
273. 275. Orig. Mem.

FN 615 Citters, Jan. 1/11. 1689; Witsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar,
book lx.

FN 616 Halifax's notes; Lansdowne MS. 255.; Clarendon's Diary,
Dec. 24. 1688; London Gazette, Dec. 31.

FN 617 Citters, Dec 28/Jan 4 1688.

FN 618 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.

FN 619 History of the Desertion; Life of William, 1703; Citters,
Dec 28/Jan  7 1688/9

FN 620 London Gazette, Jan. 3. 7. 1688/9.

FN 621 London Gazette, Jan. 10 17. 1688/9; Luttrell's Diary;
Legge Papers; Citters, 1/11 4/14 11/21. 1689; Ronquillo, Jan.
15/25 Feb 23/Mar 5; Consultation of the Spanish Council of State.
March 26/April 5

FN 622 Burnet, i,. 802; Ronquillo, Jan. 2/12 Feb. 8/18. 1689. The
originals of these despatches were entrusted to me by the
kindness of the late Lady Holland and of the present Lord
Holland. Prom the latter despatch I will quote a very few words:
"La tema de S. M. Britanica a seguir imprudentes consejos perdio
a los Catolicos aquella quietud en que les dexo Carlos segundo.
V. E. asegure a su Santidad que mas sacare del Principe para los
Catolicos que pudiera sacar del Rey."

FN 623 On December 13/23. 1688, the Admiral of Castile gave his
opinion thus: "Esta materia es de calidad que no puede dexar de
padecer nuestra sagrada religion o el servicio de V. M.; porque,
si e1 Principe de Orange tiene buenos succesos, nos aseguraremos
de Franceses, pero peligrara la religion." The Council was much
pleased on February 16/26 by a letter of the Prince, in which he
promised "que los Catolicos que se portaren con prudencia no sean
molestados, y gocen libertad de conciencia, por ser contra su
dictamen el forzar ni castigar por esta razon a nadie."

FN 624 In the chapter of La Bruyere, 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.

FN 625 My account of the reception of James and his wife in
France is taken chiefly from the letters of Madame de Sevigne and
the Memoirs of Dangeau.

FN 626 Albeville to Preston, Nov 23/Dec 3 1688, in the Mackintosh
Collection.

FN 627 "'Tis hier nu Hosanna: maar 't zal, veelligt, haast Kruist
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. 8/18. 1689;
Citters, same date.

FN 628 London Gazette, Jan. 7. 1688/9.

FN 629 The Sixth Collection of Papers, 1689; Wodrow, III. xii. 4.
App. 150, 151; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Burnet, i. 804.

FN 630 Perth to Lady Errol, Dec. 29. 1688; to Melfort, Dec. 21.
1688; Sixth Collection of Papers, 1689.

FN 631 Burnet, i. 805.; Sixth Collection of Papers, 1689.

FN 632 Albeville, Nov. 9/19. 1688.

FN 633 See the pamphlet entitled Letter to a Member of the
Convention, and the answer, 1689; Burnet, i. 809.

FN 634 Letter to the Lords of the Council, Jan. 4/14. 1688/9;
Clarendon's Diary, Jan 9/19

FN 635 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. either 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 Kings 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. It was not
altogether without reason that the creatures of James made
themselves merry with the good Archbishop's English.

FN 636 Evelyn, Jan. 15. 1688/9.

FN 637 Clarendon's Diary, Dee. 24 1688; Burnet, i. 819.;
Proposals humbly offered in behalf of the Princess of Orange,
Jan. 28. 1688/9.

FN 638 Burnet, i. 389., and the notes of Speaker Onslow.

FN 639 Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 26. 1672, Oct. 12. 1679, July 13.
1700; Seymour's Survey of London.

FN 640 Burnet, i. 388.; and Speaker Onslow's note.

FN 641 Citters, Jan 22/Feb 1 1689; Grey's Debates.

FN 642 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Jan. 22. 1688; Citters and
Clarendon's Diary of the same date.

FN 643 Lords' Journals, Jan. 25. 1683; Clarendon's Diary, Jan.
23. 25.

FN 644 Commons' Journals, Jan. 28. 1688/9; Grey's Debates,
Citters Jan 29/Feb 8 If the report in Grey's Debates be correct,
Citters must have been misinformed as to Sawyer's speech.

FN 645 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Jan. 29. 1688/9

FN 646 Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 21. 1688/9; Burnet, i. 810;
Doyly's Life of Sancroft;

FN 647 See the Act of Uniformity.

FN 648 Stat. 2 Hen. 7. c. I.: Lord Coke's Institutes, part iii.
chap i.; Trial of Cook for high treason, in the Collection of
State Trials; Burnet, i. 873. and Swift's note.

FN 649 Lords Journals Jan. 29. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary;
Evelyn's Diary; Citters; Eachard's History of the Revolution;
Barnet, i. 813.; History of the Reestablishment of the
Government, 1689. 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 took the
trouble to make out lists of the majority and minority.

FN 650 Grey's Debates; Evelyn's Diary; Life of Archbishop Sharp,
by his son; Apology for the New Separation, in a letter to Dr.
John Sharp, Archbishop of York, 1691.

FN 651 Lords' Journals, Jan. 30. 1689/8; Clarendon's Diary.

FN 652 Dartmouth's note on Burnet i. 393. 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 1688, when
William was at Salisbury and James at Whitehall. The real person
was, I suppose, Dykvelt, Bentinck, or Zulestein, most probably
Dykvelt.

FN 653 Both the service and Burnet's sermon are still to be found
in our great libraries, and will repay the trouble of perusal.

FN 654 Lords' Journals, Jan. 31. 1688/9.

FN 655 Citters, Feb. 5/15. 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. Greys Debates.

FN 656 The letter of James, dated Jan 24/Feb 3 1689, will be
found in Kennet. It 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. 1688/9.

FN 657 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. 1688/9. Evelyn, a few days before, wrote Derby,
by mistake, for Danby. Diary, Jan. 29. 1688/9

FN 658 Commons' Journals, Feb. 5. 1688/9

FN 659 Burnet, i. 819.

FN 660 Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
1688/9; Burnet, i. 807.

FN 661 Clarendon's Diary, Feb, 5. 168/9; Duchess of Marlborough's
Vindication; Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution.

FN 662 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 31st of
January, and Wednesday the 6th of February.

FN 663 Mulgrave'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

FN 664 Commons' Journals, Feb. 6. 1688/9

FN 665 See the Lords' and Commons' Journals of Feb. 6. 1688/9 and
the Report of the Conference.

FN 666 Lords' Journals, Feb. 6. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary;
Burnet, i. 822. and Dartmouth's note; Citters, Feb. 8/18,. I have
followed Clarendon as to the numbers. Some writers make the
majority smaller and some larger.

FN 667 Lords Journals, Feb. 6, 7. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary.

FN 668 Commons Journals, Jan. 29., Feb. 2. 1688/9.

FN 669 Commons' Journal's, Feb, 2. 1683.

FN 670 Grey's Debates; Burnet, i. 822.

FN 671 Commons' Journals, Feb. 4. 8. 11, 12.; Lords' Journals,
Feb. 9. 11. 12, 1688/9

FN 672 London Gazette, Feb. 14. 1688/9; Citters, Feb. 12/22.

FN 673 Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Review of the
Vindication; Burnet, i. 781. 825. and Dartmouth's note; Evelyn's
Diary, Feb. 21. 1688/9.

FN 674 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Feb. 14 1688/9; Citters,
Feb. 15/25. 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.

FN 675 London Gazette, Feb. 14. 1688/9; Lords' and Commons'
Journals, Feb. 13.; Citters, Feb 15/25; Evelyn, Feb. 21.





End of The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 2