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THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CAESAR
TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND,
BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.
1688
London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane
New York: 26 John Street
1860
And
Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
March 17, 1901
In Three Volumes:
VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Caesar To
The End Of The Reign Of James The Second............ By David Hume, Esq.
VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of
George II........................................... by Tobias Smollett.
VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year
of the Reign of Queen Victoria............... by E. Farr and E.H. Nolan.
VOLUME ONE
Part F.
From Charles II. to James II.
CHAPTER LXIII.
[Illustration: 1-756-charles2.jpg CHARLES II.]
CHARLES II.
{1660.} CHARLES II., when he ascended the throne of his ancestors, was
thirty years of age. He possessed a vigorous constitution, a fine shape,
a manly figure, a graceful air; and though his features were harsh,
yet was his countenance in the main lively and engaging. He was in that
period of life when there remains enough of youth to render the person
amiable, without preventing that authority and regard which attend the
years of experience and maturity. Tenderness was excited by the memory
of his recent adversities. His present prosperity was the object rather
of admiration than of envy. And as the sudden and surprising revolution
which restored him to his regal rights, had also restored the nation to
peace, law, order, and liberty, no prince ever obtained a crown in more
favorable circumstances, or was more blessed with the cordial affection
and attachment of his subjects.
This popularity the king, by his whole demeanor and behavior, was
well qualified to support and to increase. To a lively wit and quick
comprehension, he united a just understanding and a general observation
both of men and things. The easiest manners, the most unaffected
politeness, the most engaging gayety, accompanied his conversation and
address. Accustomed during his exile, to live among his courtiers rather
like a companion than a monarch, he retained, even while on the
throne, that open affability which was capable of reconciling the
most determined republicans to his royal dignity. Totally devoid of
resentment, as well from the natural lenity as carelessness of his
temper, he insured pardon to the most guilty of his enemies, and left
hopes of favor to his most violent opponents. From the whole tenor of
his actions and discourse, he seemed desirous of losing the memory of
past animosities, and of uniting every party in an affection for their
prince and their native country.
Into his council were admitted the most eminent men of the nation,
without regard to former distinctions: the Presbyterians, equally with
the royalists, shared this honor. Annesley was also created earl of
Anglesey; Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley; Denzil Hollis, Lord Hollis. The
earl of Manchester was appointed lord chamberlain, and Lord Say,
privy seal. Calamy and Baxter, Presbyterian clergymen, were even made
chaplains to the king.
Admiral Montague, created earl of Sandwich, was entitled from his recent
services to great favor; and he obtained it. Monk, created duke of
Albemarle, had performed such signal services, that, according to a
vulgar and malignant observation, he ought rather to have expected
hatred and ingratitude; yet was he ever treated by the king with great
marks of distinction. Charles's disposition, free from jealousy, and
the prudent behavior of the general, who never overrated his merits,
prevented all those disgusts which naturally arise in so delicate a
situation. The capacity, too, of Albemarle was not extensive, and his
parts were more solid than shining. Though he had distinguished himself
in inferior stations, he was imagined, upon familiar acquaintance, not
to be wholly equal to those great achievements which fortune, united
to prudence, had enabled him to perform; and he appeared unfit for the
court, a scene of life to which he had never been accustomed. Morrice,
his friend, was created secretary of state, and was supported more by
his patron's credit than by his own abilities or experience.
But the choice which the king at first made of his principal ministers
and favorites, was the circumstance which chiefly gave contentment to
the nation, and prognosticated future happiness and tranquillity.
Sir Edward Hyde, created earl of Clarendon, was chancellor and prime
minister; the marquis, created duke of Ormond, was steward of the
household, the earl of Southampton, high treasurer; Sir Edward Nicholas,
secretary of state. These men, united together in friendship, and
combining in the same laudable inclinations, supported each other's
credit, and pursued the interests of the public.
Agreeable to the present prosperity of public affairs was the universal
joy and festivity diffused throughout the nation. The melancholy
austerity of the fanatics fell into discredit together with their
principles. The royalists, who had ever affected a contrary disposition,
found in their recent success new motives for mirth and gayety; and it
now belonged to them to give repute and fashion to their manners. From
past experience it had sufficiently appeared, that gravity was very
distinct from wisdom, formality from virtue, and hypocrisy from
religion. The king himself, who bore a strong propensity to pleasure,
served, by his powerful and engaging example, to banish those sour
and malignant humors which had hitherto engendered such confusion. And
though the just bounds were undoubtedly passed, when men returned from
their former extreme, yet was the public happy in exchanging vices
pernicious to society, for disorders hurtful chiefly to the individuals
themselves who were guilty of them.
It required some time before the several parts of the state, disfigured
by war and faction, could recover their former arrangement; but the
parliament immediately fell into good correspondence with the king; and
they treated him with the same dutiful regard which had usually been
paid to his predecessors. Being summoned without the king's consent,
they received, at first, only the title of a convention; and it was not
till he passed an act for that purpose, that they were called by the
appellation of parliament. All judicial proceedings, transacted in the
name of the commonwealth or protector, were ratified by a new law. And
both houses, acknowledging the guilt of the former rebellion, gratefully
received, in their own name, and in that of all the subjects, his
majesty's gracious pardon and indemnity.
The king, before his restoration, being afraid of reducing any of his
enemies to despair, and at the same time unwilling that such enormous
crimes as had been committed should receive a total impunity, had
expressed himself very cautiously in his declaration of Breda, and had
promised an indemnity to all criminals, but such as should be excepted
by parliament. He now issued a proclamation declaring that such of the
late king's judges as did not yield themselves pris-* *-oners within
fourteen days, should receive no pardon. Nine teen surrendered
themselves; some were taken in their flight; others escaped beyond sea.
The commons seem to have been more inclined to lenity than the lords.
The upper house, inflamed by the ill usage which they had received, were
resolved, besides the late king's judges, to except every one who had
sitten in any high court of justice. Nay, the earl of Bristol moved,
that no pardon might be granted to those who had anywise contributed
to the king's death. So wide an exception, in which every one who had
served the parliament might be comprehended, gave a general alarm; and
men began to apprehend, that this motion was the effect of some court
artifice or intrigue. But the king soon dissipated these fears. He came
to the house of peers, and in the most earnest terms passed the act of
general indemnity. He urged both the necessity of the thing, and the
obligation of his former promise; a promise, he said which he would ever
regard as sacred; since to it he probably owed the satisfaction which at
present he enjoyed of meeting his people in parliament. This measure of
the king's was received with great applause and satisfaction.
After repeated solicitations, the act of indemnity passed both houses,
and soon received the royal assent. Those who had an immediate hand
in the late king's death, were there excepted: even Cromwell, Ireton,
Bradshaw, and others now dead, were attainted, and their estates
forfeited. Vane and Lambert, though none of the regicides, were also
excepted. St. John and seventeen persons more were deprived of all
benefit from this act, if they ever accepted any public employment. All
who had sitten in any illegal high court of justice were disabled from
bearing offices. These were all the severities which followed such
furious civil wars and convulsions.
The next business was the settlement of the king's revenue. In this
work, the parliament had regard to public freedom, as well as to the
support of the crown. The tenures of wards and liveries had long been
regarded as a grievous burden by the nobility and gentry: several
attempts had been made during the reign of James to purchase this
prerogative, together with that of purveyance: and two hundred thousand
pounds a year had been offered that prince in lieu of them; wardships
and purveyance had been utterly abolished by the republican parliament;
and even in the present parliament before the king arrived in England,
a bill had been introduced offering him a compensation for the emolument
of these prerogatives. A hundred thousand pounds a year was the sum
agreed to; and half of the excise was settled in perpetuity upon the
crown as the fund whence this revenue should be levied. Though that
impost yielded more profit, the bargain might be esteemed hard; and it
was chiefly the necessity of the king's situation which induced him to
consent to it. No request of the parliament, during the present joy,
could be refused them.
Tonnage and poundage and the other half of the excise, were granted to
the king during life. The parliament even proceeded so far as to vote,
that the settled revenue of the crown for all charges should be one
million two hundred thousand pounds a year; a sum greater than any
English monarch had ever before enjoyed. But as all the princes
of Europe were perpetually augmenting their military force, and
consequently their expense, it became requisite that England, from
motives both of honor and security, should bear some proportion to them,
and adapt its revenue to the new system of politics which prevailed.
According to the chancellor's computation, a charge of eight hundred
thousand pounds a year was at present requisite for the fleet and other
articles, which formerly cost the crown but eighty thousand.
Had the parliament, before restoring the king, insisted on any further
limitations than those which the constitution already imposed, besides
the danger of reviving former quarrels among parties, it would seem that
their precaution had been entirely superfluous. By reason of its slender
and precarious revenue, the crown in effect was still totally dependent.
Not a fourth part of this sum, which seemed requisite for public
expenses, could be levied without consent of parliament; and any
concessions, had they been thought necessary, might, even after the
restoration, be extorted by the commons from their necessitous prince.
This parliament showed no intention of employing at present that engine
to any such purposes; but they seemed still determined not to part
with it entirely, or to render the revenues of the crown fixed and
independent. Though they voted in general, that one million two hundred
thousand pounds a year should be settled on the king, they scarcely
assigned any funds which could yield two thirds of that sum. And
they left the care of fulfilling their engagements to the future
consideration of parliament. In all the temporary supplies which they
voted, they discovered the same cautious frugality. To disband the army,
so formidable in itself, and so much accustomed to rebellion and
changes of government, was necessary for the security both of king and
parliament; yet the commons showed great jealousy in granting the sums
requisite for that end. An assessment of seventy thousand pounds a month
was imposed; but it was at first voted to continue only three months;
and all the other sums which they levied for that purpose, by a
poll-bill and new assessments, were still granted by parcels, as if they
were not as yet well assured of the fidelity of the hand to which the
money was intrusted. Having proceeded so far in the settlement of the
nation, the parliament adjourned itself for some time.
During the recess of parliament, the object which chiefly interested
the public, was the trial and condemnation of the regicides. The general
indignation attending the enormous crime of which these men had been
guilty, made their sufferings the subject of joy to the people: but
in the peculiar circumstances of that action, in the prejudices of the
times, as well as in the behavior of the criminals, a mind seasoned with
humanity will find a plentiful source of compassion and indulgence. Can
any one, without concern for human blindness and ignorance, consider the
demeanor of General Harrison, who was first brought to his trial? With
great courage and elevation of sentiment, he told the court, that the
pretended crime of which he stood accused, was not a deed performed in
a corner; the sound of it had gone forth to most nations; and in
the singular and marvellous conduct of it, had chiefly appeared the
sovereign power of Heaven: that he himself, agitated by doubts, had
often, with passionate tears, offered up his addresses to the divine
Majesty, and earnestly sought for light and conviction: he had still
received assurance of a heavenly sanction, and returned from these
devout supplications with more serene tranquillity and satisfaction:
that all the nations of the earth were, in the eyes of their Creator,
less than a drop of water in the bucket; nor were their erroneous
judgments aught but darkness, compared with divine illuminations: that
these frequent relapses of the divine spirit he could not suspect to
be interested illusions; since he was conscious, that for no temporal
advantage would he offer injury to the poorest man or woman that trod
upon the earth: that all the allurements of ambition, all the terrors
of imprisonment, had not been able, during the usurpation of Cromwell,
to shake his steady resolution, or bend him to a compliance with that
deceitful tyrant: and that when invited by him to sit on the right hand
of the throne, when offered riches and splendor and dominion, he had
disdainfully rejected all temptations; and neglecting the tears of
his friends and family, had still, through every danger, held fast his
principles and his integrity.
Scot, who was more a republican than a fanatic, had said in the house
of commons, a little before the restoration, that he desired no other
epitaph to be inscribed on his tombstone than this: "Here lies Thomas
Scot, who adjudged the king to death." He supported the same spirit upon
his trial.
Carew, a Millenarian, submitted to his trial, "saving to our Lord Jesus
Christ his right to the government of these kingdoms." Some scrupled
to say, according to form, that they would be tried by God and their
country; because God was not visibly present to judge them. Others said,
that they would be tried by the word of God.
No more than six of the late king's judges, Harrison, Scot, Carew,
Clement, Jones, and Scrope, were executed; Scrope alone, of all those
who came in upon the king's proclamation. He was a gentleman of good
family and of a decent character: but it was proved, that he had a
little before, in conversation, expressed himself as if he were nowise
convinced of any guilt in condemning the king. Axtel, who had guarded
the high court of justice, Hacker, who commanded on the day of the
king's execution, Coke, the solicitor for the people of England, and
Hugh Peters, the fanatical preacher, who inflamed the army and impelled
them to regicide; all these were tried, and condemned, and suffered with
the king's judges. No saint or confessor ever went to martyrdom
with more assured confidence of heaven, than was expressed by those
criminals, even when the terrors of immediate death, joined to many
indignities, were set before them. The rest of the king's judges, by an
unexampled lenity, were reprieved; and they were dispersed into several
prisons.
This punishment of declared enemies interrupted not the rejoicings of
the court: but the death of the duke of Gloucester, a young prince of
promising hopes, threw a great cloud upon them. The king, by no incident
in his life, was ever so deeply affected. Gloucester was observed
to possess united the good qualities of both his brothers: the clear
judgment and penetration of the king; the industry and application
of the duke of York. He was also believed to be affectionate to the
religion and constitution of his country. He was but twenty years of
age, when the small-pox put an end to his life.
The princess of Orange, having come to England in order to partake of
the joy attending the restoration of her family, with whom she lived in
great friendship, soon after sickened and died. The queen mother paid
a visit to her son; and obtained his consent to the marriage of the
princess Henrietta with the duke of Orleans, brother to the French king.
After a recess of near two months, the parliament met, and proceeded
in the great work of the national settlement. They established the
post-office, wine-licenses, and some articles of the revenue. They
granted more assessments, and some arrears for paying and disbanding
the army. Business, being carried on with great unanimity, was soon
despatched; and after they had sitten near two months, the king, in a
speech full of the most gracious expressions, thought proper to dissolve
them.
This house of commons had been chosen during the reign of the old
parliamentary party; and though many royalists had crept in amongst
them, yet did it chiefly consist of Presbyterians, who had not yet
entirely laid aside their old jealousies and principles. Lenthal, a
member, having said, that those who first took arms against the king
were as guilty as those who afterwards brought him to the scaffold, was
severely reprimanded by order of the house; and the most violent
efforts of the long parliament, to secure the constitution, and bring
delinquents to justice, were in effect vindicated and applauded.[*] The
claim of the two houses to the militia, the first ground of the quarrel,
however exorbitant a usurpation, was never expressly resigned by this
parliament. They made all grants of money with a very sparing hand.
Great arrears being due, by the protectors, to the fleet, the army, the
navy office, and every branch of service, this whole debt they threw
upon the crown, without establishing funds sufficient for its payment.
Yet, notwithstanding this jealous care expressed by the parliament,
there prevails a story, that Popham, having sounded the disposition of
the members, undertook to the earl of Southampton to procure, during
the king's life, a grant of two millions a year, land tax; a sum which,
added to the customs and excise, would forever have rendered this prince
independent of his people.
* Journals, vol. viii. p. 24
Southampton, it is said, merely from his affection to the king, had
unwarily embraced the offer; and it was not till he communicated the
matter to the chancellor, that he was made sensible of its pernicious
tendency. It is nor improbable, that such an offer might have been made,
and been hearkened to; but it is nowise probable, that all the interest
of the court would ever with this house of commons, have been able
to make it effectual. Clarendon showed his prudence, no less than his
integrity, in entirely rejecting it.
The chancellor, from the same principles of conduct, hastened to disband
the army. When the king reviewed these veteran troops, he was struck
with their beauty, order, discipline, and martial appearance; and being
sensible, that regular forces are most necessary implements of royalty,
he expressed a desire of finding expedients still to retain them.
But his wise minister set before him the dangerous spirit by which
these troops were actuated, their enthusiastic genius, their habits of
rebellion and mutiny; and he convinced the king, that, till they were
disbanded, he never could esteem himself securely established on his
throne. No more troops were retained than a few guards and garrisons,
about one thousand horse and four thousand foot. This was the first
appearance, under the monarchy, of a regular standing army in this
island. Lord Mordaunt said, that the king, being possessed of that
force, might now look upon himself as the most considerable gentleman in
England.[*] The fortifications of Gloucester, Taunton, and other towns,
which had made resistance to the king during the civil wars, were
demolished.
* King James's Memoirs. This prince says, that Vernier's
insurrection furnished a reason or pretence for keeping up
the guards, which were intended at first to have been
disbanded with the rest of the army.
Clarendon not only behaved with wisdom and justice in the office of
chancellor; all the counsels which he gave the king tended equally to
promote the interest of prince and people. Charles, accustomed in his
exile to pay entire deference to the judgment of this faithful servant,
continued still to submit to his direction; and for some time no
minister was ever possessed of more absolute authority. He moderated the
forward zeal of the royalists, and tempered their appetite for revenge.
With the opposite party, he endeavored to preserve inviolate all the
king's engagements: he kept an exact register of the promises which had
been made for any service, he employed all his industry to fulfil
them. This good minister was now nearly allied to the royal family.
His daughter, Ann Hyde, a woman of spirit and fine accomplishments, had
hearkened, while abroad, to the addresses of the duke of York, and under
promise of marriage, had secretly admitted him to her bed. Her pregnancy
appeared soon after the restoration; and though many endeavored to
dissuade the king from consenting to so unequal an alliance, Charles,
in pity to his friend and minister, who had been ignorant of these
engagements, permitted his brother to marry her.[*] Clarendon expressed
great uneasiness at the honor which he had obtained; and said that, by
being elevated so much above his rank, he thence dreaded a more sudden
downfall.
* King James's Memoirs.
Most circumstances of Clarendon's administration have met with applause:
his maxims alone in the conduct of ecclesiastical politics have by
many been deemed the effect of prejudices narrow and bigoted. Had the
jealousy of royal power prevailed so far with the convention parliament
as to make them restore the king with strict limitations, there is no
question but the establishment of Presbyterian discipline had been
one of the conditions most rigidly insisted on. Not only that form of
ecclesiastical government is more favorable to liberty than to royal
power; it was likewise, on its own account, agreeable to the majority of
the house of commons, and suited their religious principles. But as
the impatience of the people, the danger of delay, the general disgust
towards faction, and the authority of Monk, had prevailed over that
jealous project of limitations, the full settlement of the hierarchy,
together with the monarchy, was a necessary and infallible consequence.
All the royalists were zealous for that mode of religion; the merits of
the Episcopal clergy towards the king, as well as their sufferings on
that account, had been great; the laws which established bishops and the
liturgy, were as yet unrepealed by legal authority; and any attempt of
the parliament, by new acts, to give the superiority to Presbyterianism,
had been sufficient to involve the nation again in blood and confusion.
Moved by these views, the commons had wisely postponed the examination
of all religious controversy, and had left the settlement of the church
to the king and to the ancient laws.
The king at first used great moderation in the execution of the laws.
Nine bishops still remained alive; and these were immediately restored
to their sees: all the ejected clergy recovered their livings: the
liturgy, a form of worship decent, and not without beauty, was again
admitted into the churches: but at the same time a declaration was
issued, in order to give contentment to the Presbyterians, and preserve
an air of moderation and neutrality.[*] In this declaration, the
king promised, that he would provide suffragan bishops for the larger
dioceses; that the prelates should, all of them, be regular and constant
preachers; that they should not confer ordination, or exercise any
jurisdiction, without the advice and assistance of presbyters chosen
by the diocese; that such alterations should be made in the liturgy as
would render it totally unexceptionable; that, in the mean time, the use
of that mode of worship should not be imposed on such as were unwilling
to receive it; and that the surplice, the cross in baptism, and
bowing at the name of Jesus, should not be rigidly insisted on. This
declaration was issued by the king as head of the church; and he plainly
assumed, in many parts of it, a legislative authority in ecclesiastical
matters. But the English government, though more exactly defined by
late contests, was not as yet reduced in every particular to the strict
limits of law. And if ever pre-rogative was justifiably employed, it
seemed to be on the present occasion; when all parts of the state were
torn with past convulsions, and required the moderating hand of the
chief magistrate to reduce them to their ancient order.
* Parl. Hist vol. xxiii. p. 173
But though these appearances of neutrality were maintained, and a
mitigated Episcopacy only seemed to be insisted on, it was far from
the intention of the ministry always to preserve like regard to the
Presbyterians. The madness of the Fifth Monarchy men afforded them a
pretence for departing from it. Venner, a desperate enthusiast, who
had often conspired against Cromwell, having, by his zealous lectures
inflamed his own imagination and that of his followers, issued forth
at their head into the streets of London. They were, to the number
of sixty, completely armed, believed themselves invulnerable and
invincible, and firmly expected the same success which had attended
Gideon and other heroes of the Old Testament Every one at first fled
before them. One unhappy man, who, being questioned, said, "he was
for God and King Charles," was instantly murdered by them. They went
triumphantly from street to street, every where proclaiming King Jesus,
who, they said, was their invisible leader. At length, the magistrates,
having assembled some train bands, made an attack upon them. They
defended themselves with order as well as valor; and after killing
many of the assailants they made a regular retreat into Cane Wood, near
Hampstead. Next morning, they were chased thence by a detachment of
the guards; but they ventured again to invade the city, which was
not prepared to receive them. After committing great disorder, and
traversing almost every street of that immense capital, they retired
into a house, which they were resolute to defend to the last extremity.
Being surrounded, and the house untiled, they were fired upon from every
side; and they still refused quarter. The people rushed in upon them,
and seized the few who were alive. These were tried, condemned, and
executed; and to the last they persisted in affirming, that, if they
were deceived, it was the Lord that had deceived them.
Clarendon and the ministry took occasion, from this insurrection,
to infer the dangerous spirit of the Presbyterians, and of all the
sectaries: but the madness of the attempt sufficiently proved, that
it had been undertaken by no concert, and never could have proved
dangerous. The well-known hatred, too, which prevailed between the
Presbyterians and the other sects, should have removed the former from
all suspicion of any concurrence in the enterprise. But as a pretence
was wanted, besides their old demerits, for justifying the intended
rigors against all of them, this reason, however slight, was greedily
laid hold of.
Affairs in Scotland hastened with still quicker steps then those in
England towards a settlement and a compliance with the king. It was
deliberated in the English council, whether that nation should be
restored to its liberty, or whether the forts erected by Cromwell should
not still be upheld, in order to curb the mutinous spirit by which the
Scots in all ages had been so much governed. Lauderdale, who, from the
battle of Worcester to the restoration, had been detained prisoner in
the Tower, had considerable influence with the king; and he strenuously
opposed this violent measure. He represented that it was the loyalty
of the Scottish nation which had engaged them in an opposition to the
English rebels; and to take advantage of the calamities into which,
on that account, they had fallen, would be regarded as the highest
injustice and ingratitude: that the spirit of that people was now fully
subdued by the servitude under which the usurpers had so long held them,
and would of itself yield to any reasonable compliance with their
legal sovereign, if, by this means, they recovered their liberty and
independence: that the attachment of the Scots towards their king, whom
they regarded as their native prince, was naturally much stronger than
that of the English; and would afford him a sure resource, in case of
any rebellion among the latter: that republican principles had long
been, and still were, very prevalent with his southern subjects, and
might again menace the throne with new tumults and resistance: that
the time would probably come, when the king, instead of desiring to see
English garrisons in Scotland, would be better pleased to have Scottish
garrisons in England; who, supported by English pay, would be fond to
curb the seditious genius of that opulent nation: and that a people,
such as the Scots, governed by a few nobility, would more easily be
reduced to submission under monarchy, than one like the English, who
breathed nothing but the spirit of democratical equality.
{1661.} These views induced the king to disband all the forces in
Scotland, and to raze all the forts which had been erected. General
Middleton, created earl of that name, was sent commissioner to the
parliament, which was summoned. A very compliant spirit was there
discovered in all orders of men. The commissioner had even sufficient
influence to obtain an act, annulling at once all laws which had passed
since the year 1633; on pretext of the violence which, during that time,
had been employed against the king and his father, in order to procure
their assent to these statutes. This was a very large, if not an
unexampled concession; and, together with many dangerous limitations,
overthrew some useful barriers which had been erected to the
constitution. But the tide was now running strongly towards monarchy;
and the Scottish nation plainly discovered, that their past resistance
had proceeded more from the turbulence of their aristocracy, and the
bigotry of their ecclesiastics, than from any fixed passion towards
civil liberty. The lords of articles were restored, with some other
branches of prerogative; and royal authority fortified with more
plausible claims and pretences, was, in its full extent, reestablished
in that kingdom.
The prelacy likewise, by the abrogating of every statute enacted
in favor of Presbytery, was thereby tacitly restored; and the king
deliberated what use he should make of this concession. Lauderdale,
who at bottom was a passionate zealot against Episcopacy, endeavored
to persuade him, that the Scots, if gratified in this favorite point
of ecclesiastical government, would, in every other demand, be entirely
compliant with the king. Charles, though he had not so much attachment
to prelacy as had influenced his father and grandfather, had suffered
such indignities from the Scottish Presbyterians, that he ever
after bore them a hearty aversion. He said to Lauderdale, that
Presbyterianism, he thought, was not a religion for a gentleman; and he
could not consent to its further continuance in Scotland. Middleton too
and his other ministers persuaded him, that the nation in general was so
disgusted with the violence and tyranny of the ecclesiastics, that
any alteration of church government would be universally grateful. And
Clarendon, as well as Ormond, dreading that the Presbyterian sect, if
legally established in Scotland, would acquire authority in England and
Ireland, seconded the application of these ministers. The resolution was
therefore taken to restore prelacy; a measure afterwards attended with
many and great inconveniencies: but whether in this resolution Charles
chose not the lesser evil, it is very difficult to determine. Sharp, who
had been commissioned by the Presbyterians in Scotland to manage their
interests with the king, was persuaded to abandon that party; and, as
a reward for his compliance, was created archbishop of St. Andrews. The
conduct of ecclesiastical affairs was chiefly intrusted to him; and as
he was esteemed a traitor and a renegade by his old friends, he became
on that account, as well as from the violence of his conduct, extremely
obnoxious to them.
Charles had not promised to Scotland any such indemnity as he had
insured to England by the declaration of Breda: and it was deemed more
political for him to hold over men's heads, for some time, the terror
of punishment, till they should have made the requisite compliances
with the new government. Though neither the king's temper nor plan of
administration led him to severity, some examples, after such a bloody
and triumphant rebellion, seemed necessary; and the marquis of Argyle
and one Guthry were pitched on as the victims. Two acts of indemnity,
one passed by the late king in 1641, another by the present in 1651,
formed, it was thought, invincible obstacles to the punishment of
Argyle, and barred all inquiry into that part of his conduct which might
justly be regarded as the most exceptionable. Nothing remained but to
try him for his compliance with the usurpation; a crime common to him
with the whole nation, and such a one as the most loyal and affectionate
subject might frequently by violence be obliged to commit. To make this
compliance appear the more voluntary and hearty, there were produced
in court letters which he had written to Albemarle, while that general
commanded in Scotland, and which contained expressions of the most
cordial attachment to the established government. But besides the
general indignation excited by Albemarle's discovery of this private
correspondence, men thought, that even the highest demonstrations of
affection might, during jealous times, be exacted as a necessary mark of
compliance from a person of such distinction as Argyle, and could
not, by any equitable construction, imply the crime of treason. The
parliament, however, scrupled not to pass sentence upon him; and he died
with great constancy and courage. As he was universally known to have
been the chief instrument of the past disorders and civil wars, the
irregularity of his sentence, and several iniquitous circumstances in
the method of conducting his trial, seemed on that account to admit
of some apology. Lord Lorne, son of Argyle, having ever preserved his
loyalty, obtained a gift of the forfeiture. Guthry was a seditious
preacher, and had personally affronted the king: his punishment gave
surprise to nobody. Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston was attainted
and fled; but was seized in France about two years after, brought over,
and executed. He had been very active during all the late disorders;
and was even suspected of a secret correspondence with the English
regicides.
Besides these instances of compliance in the Scottish parliament, they
voted an additional revenue to the king of forty thousand pounds a
year, to be levied by way of excise. A small force was purposed to be
maintained by this revenue, in order to prevent like confusions with
those to which the kingdom had been hitherto exposed. An act was also
passed, declaring the covenant unlawful, and its obligation void and
null.
In England, the civil distinctions seemed to be abolished by the lenity
and equality of Charles's administration. Cavalier and roundhead were
heard of no more: all men seemed to concur in submitting to the king's
lawful prerogatives, and in cherishing he just privileges of the people
and of parliament. Theological controversy alone still subsisted, and
kept alive some sparks of that flame which had thrown the nation into
combustion. While Catholics, Independents, and other sectaries were
content with entertaining some prospect of toleration, Prelacy and
Presbytery struggled for the superiority, and the hopes and fears of
both parties kept them in agitation. A conference was held in the
Savoy between twelve bishops and twelve leaders among the Presbyterian
ministers, with an intention, at least on pretence, of bringing about an
accommodation between the parties. The surplice, the cross in baptism,
the kneeling at the sacrament, the bowing at the name of Jesus, were
anew canvassed; and the ignorant multitude were in hopes, that so
many men of gravity and learning could not fail, after deliberate
argumentation, to agree in all points of controversy: they were
surprised to see them separate more inflamed than ever, and more
confirmed in their several prejudices. To enter into particulars would
be superfluous. Disputes concerning religious forms are, in themselves,
the most frivolous of any; and merit attention only so far as they have
influence on the peace and order of civil society.
The king's declaration had promised, that some endeavors should be
used to effect a comprehension of both parties; and Charles's own
indifference with regard to all such questions seemed a favorable
circumstance for the execution of that project. The partisans of a
comprehension said, that the Presbyterians, as well as the Prelatists,
having felt by experience the fatal effects of obstinacy and violence,
were now well disposed towards an amicable agreement: that the bishops,
by relinquishing some part of their authority, and dispensing with the
most exceptionable ceremonies, would so gratify their adversaries as to
obtain their cordial and affectionate compliance, and unite the whole
nation in one faith and one worship: that by obstinately insisting on
forms, in themselves insignificant, an air of importance was bestowed
on them, and men were taught to continue equally obstinate in rejecting
them: that the Presbyterian clergy would go every reasonable length,
rather than, by parting with their livings, expose themselves to a
state of beggary, at best of dependence: and that if their pride were
flattered by some seeming alterations, and a pretence given them for
affirming that they had not abandoned their former principles, nothing
further was wanting to produce a thorough union between those two
parties, which comprehended the bulk of the nation.
It was alleged, on the other hand, that the difference between religious
sects was founded, not on principle, but on passion; and till the
irregular affections of men could be corrected, it was in vain to
expect, by compliances, to obtain a perfect unanimity and comprehension:
that the more insignificant the objects of dispute appeared, with the
more certainty might it be inferred, that the real ground of dissension
was different from that which was universally pretended: that the
love of novelty, the pride of argumentation, the pleasure of making
proselytes, and the obstinacy of contradiction, would forever give
rise to sects and disputes; nor was it possible that such a source of
dissension could ever, by any concessions, be entirely exhausted: that
the church, by departing from ancient practices and principles, would
tacitly acknowledge herself guilty of error, and lose that reverence,
so requisite for preserving the attachment of the multitude; and that
if the present concessions (which was more than probable) should prove
ineffectual, greater must still be made; and in the issue discipline
would be despoiled of all its authority, and worship of all its decency,
without obtaining that end which had been so fondly sought for by these
dangerous indulgences.
The ministry were inclined to give the preference to the latter
arguments; and were the more confirmed in that intention by the
disposition which appeared in the parliament lately assembled. The
royalists and zealous churchmen were at present the popular party in the
nation, and, seconded by the efforts of the court, had prevailed in most
elections. Not more than fifty-six members of the Presbyterian party had
obtained seats in the lower house; [*] and these were not able either to
oppose or retard the measures of the majority. Monarchy, therefore, and
Episcopacy, were now exalted to as great power and splendor as they
had lately suffered misery and depression. Sir Edward Turner was chosen
speaker.
[*] Carte's Answer to the Bystander, p. 79.
An act was passed for the security of the king's person and government.
To intend or devise the king's imprisonment, or bodily harm, or
deposition, or levying war against him, was declared, during the
lifetime of his present majesty, to be high treason. To affirm him to be
a Papist or heretic, or to endeavor by speech or writing to alienate his
subjects' affections from him; these offences were made sufficient to
incapacitate the person guilty from holding any employment in church or
state. To maintain that the long parliament is not dissolved, or that
either or both houses, without the king, are possessed of legislative
authority, or that the covenant is binding, was made punishable by the
penalty of premunire.
The covenant itself, together with the act for erecting the high court
of justice, that for subscribing the engagement, and that for declaring
England a commonwealth, were ordered to be burnt by the hands of the
hangman. The people assisted with great alacrity on this occasion.
The abuses of petitioning in the preceding reign had been attended with
the worst consequences; and to prevent such irregular practices for the
future, it was enacted that no more than twenty hands should be fixed to
any petition, unless with the sanction of three justices, or the major
part of the grand jury, and that no petition should be presented to
the king or either house by above ten persons. The penalty annexed to
a transgression of this law was a fine of a hundred pounds and three
months' imprisonment.
The bishops, though restored to their spiritual authority, were still
excluded from parliament, by the law which the late king had passed
immediately before the commencement of the civil disorders. Great
violence, both against the king and the house of peers, had been
employed in passing this law; and on that account alone the partisans
of the church were provided with a plausible pretence for repealing it.
Charles expressed much satisfaction when he gave his assent to the act
for that purpose. It is certain that the authority of the crown, as well
as that of the church, was interested in restoring the prelates to their
former dignity. But those who deemed every acquisition of the prince
a detriment to the people, were apt to complain of this instance of
complaisance in the parliament.
After an adjournment of some months, the parliament was again assembled,
and proceeded in the same spirit as before. They discovered no design
of restoring, in its full extent, the ancient prerogative of the crown:
they were only anxious to repair all those breaches which had been made,
not by the love of liberty, but by the fury of faction and civil war.
The power of the sword had in all ages been allowed to be vested in the
crown; and though no law conferred this prerogative every parliament,
till the last of the preceding reign, had willingly submitted to an
authority more ancient, and therefore more sacred, than that of any
positive statute. It was now thought proper solemnly to relinquish the
violent pretensions of that parliament, and to acknowledge that neither
one house nor both houses, independent of the king, were possessed of
any military authority. The preamble to this statute went so far as to
renounce all right even of defensive arms against the king; and much
observation has been made with regard to a concession esteemed so
singular. Were these terms taken in their full literal sense, they imply
a total renunciation of limitations to monarchy, and of all privileges
in the subject, independent of the will of the sovereign. For as no
rights can subsist without some remedy, still less rights exposed to
so much invasion from tyranny, or even from ambition; if subjects must
never resist, it follows that every prince, without any effort, policy,
or violence, is at once rendered absolute and uncontrollable; the
sovereign needs only issue an edict abolishing every authority but his
own; and all liberty from that moment is in effect annihilated. But this
meaning it were absurd to impute to the present parliament, who, though
zealous royalists, showed in their measures that they had not cast off
all regard to national privileges. They were probably sensible, that
to suppose in the sovereign any such invasion of public liberty, is
entirely unconstitutional; and that therefore expressly to reserve, upon
that event, any right of resistance in the subject, must be liable to
the same objection. They had seen that the long parliament, under color
of defence, had begun a violent attack upon kingly power; and after
involving the kingdom in blood, had finally lost that liberty for which
they had so imprudently contended. They thought, perhaps erroneously,
that it was no longer possible, after such public and such exorbitant
pretensions, to persevere in that prudent silence hitherto maintained
by the laws; and that it was necessary, by some positive declaration, to
bar the return of like inconveniencies. When they excluded, therefore,
the right of defence, they supposed that the constitution, remaining
firm upon its basis, there never really could be an attack made by the
sovereign. If such an attack was at any time made, the necessity was
then extreme; and the case of extreme and violent necessity, no laws,
they thought, could comprehend; because to such a necessity no laws
could beforehand point out a proper remedy.
The other measures of this parliament still discovered a more anxious
care to guard against rebellion in the subject than encroachments in
the crown; the recent evils of civil war and usurpation had naturally
increased the spirit of submission to the monarch, and had thrown the
nation into that dangerous extreme. During the violent and jealous
government of the parliament and of the protectors, all magistrates
liable to suspicion had been expelled the corporations; and none had
been admitted who gave not proofs of affection to the ruling powers, or
who refused to subscribe the covenant. To leave all authority in such
hands seemed dangerous; and the parliament therefore empowered the king
to appoint commissioners for regulating the corporations, and expelling
such magistrates as either intruded themselves by violence, or professed
principles dangerous to the constitution, civil and ecclesiastical. It
was also enacted, that all magistrates should disclaim the obligation
of the covenant, and should declare both their belief that it was not
lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to resist the king, and their
abhorrence of the traitorous position of taking arms by the king's
authority against his person, or against those who were commissioned by
him.
{1662.} The care of the church was no less attended to by this
parliament than that of monarchy; and the bill of uniformity was a
pledge of their sincere attachment to the Episcopal hierarchy, and
of their antipathy to Presbyterianism, Different parties, however,
concurred in promoting this bill, which contained many severe clauses.
The Independents and other sectaries, enraged to find all their schemes
subverted by the Presbyterians, who had once been their associates,
exerted themselves to disappoint that party of the favor and indulgence
to which, from their recent merits in promoting the restoration, they
thought themselves justly entitled. By the Presbyterians, said they, the
war was raised; by them was the populace first incited to tumults; by
their zeal, interest, and riches, were the armies supported; by their
force was the king subdued; and if, in the sequel, they protested
against those extreme violences committed on his person by the military
leaders, their opposition came too late, after having supplied these
usurpers with the power and the pretences by which they maintained their
sanguinary measures. They had indeed concurred with the royalists in
recalling the king; but ought they to be esteemed, on that account, more
affectionate to the royal cause? Rage and animosity, from disappointed
ambition, were plainly their sole motives; and if the king should now
be so imprudent as to distinguish them by any particular indulgences, he
would soon experience from them the same hatred and opposition which had
proved so fatal to his father.
The Catholics, though they had little interest in the nation, were a
considerable party at court; and from their services and sufferings
during the civil wars, it seemed but just to bear them some favor
and regard. These religionists dreaded an entire union among the
Protestants. Were they the sole nonconformists in the nation, the
severe execution of penal laws upon their sect seemed an infallible
consequence; and they used, therefore, all their interest to push
matters to extremity against the Presbyterians, who had formerly been
their most severe oppressors, and whom they now expected for their
companions in affliction. The earl of Bristol, who, from conviction, or
interest, or levity, or complaisance for the company with whom he lived,
had changed his religion during the king's exile, was regarded as the
head of this party.
The church party had, during so many years, suffered such injuries
and indignities from the sectaries of every denomination, that no
moderation, much less deference, was on this occasion to be expected in
the ecclesiastics. Even the laity of that communion seemed now disposed
to retaliate upon their enemies, according to the usual measures of
party justice. This sect or faction (for it partook of both) encouraged
the rumors of plots and conspiracies against the government; crimes
which, without any apparent reason, they imputed to their adversaries.
And instead of enlarging the terms of communion, in order to comprehend
the Presbyterians, they gladly laid hold of the prejudices which
prevailed among that sect, in order to eject them from their livings. By
the bill of uniformity, it was required, that every clergyman should be
reordained, if he had not before received Episcopal ordination; should
declare his assent to every thing contained in the Book of Common
Prayer; should take the oath of canonical obedience; should abjure the
solemn league, and covenant; and should renounce the principle of taking
arms on any pretence whatsoever against the king.
This bill reinstated the church in the same condition in which it stood
before the commencement of the civil wars; and as the old persecuting
laws of Elizabeth still subsisted in their full rigor, and new clauses
of a like nature were now enacted, all the king's promises of toleration
and of indulgence to tender consciences were thereby eluded and broken.
It is true, Charles, in his declaration from Breda, had expressed his
intention of regulating that indulgence by the advice and authority of
parliament; but this limitation could never reasonably be extended to
a total infringement and violation of his engagements. However, it
is agreed that the king did not voluntarily concur with this violent
measure; and that the zeal of Clarendon and of the church party among
the commons, seconded by the intrigues of the Catholics, was the chief
cause which extorted his consent.
The royalists, who now predominated, were very ready to signalize their
victory, by establishing those high principles of monarchy which their
antagonists had controverted: but when any real power or revenue was
demanded for the crown, they were neither so forward nor so liberal
in their concessions as the king would gladly have wished. Though the
parliament passed laws for regulating the navy, they took no notice
of the army, and declined giving their sanction to this dangerous
innovation. The king's debts were become intolerable; and the commons
were at last constrained to vote him an extraordinary supply of one
million two hundred thousand pounds, to be levied by eighteen monthly
assessments. But besides that this supply was much inferior to the
occasion, the king was obliged earnestly to solicit the commons, before
he could obtain it; and, in order to convince the house of its absolute
necessity, he desired them to examine strictly into all his receipts
and disbursements. Finding, likewise, upon inquiry, that the several
branches of revenue fell much short of the sums expected, they at
last, after much delay, voted a new imposition of two shillings on each
hearth; and this tax they settled on the king during life. The
whole established revenue, however, did not for many years exceed a
million;[*] a sum confessedly too narrow for the public expenses. A very
rigid frugality at least, which the king seems to have wanted, would
have been requisite to make it suffice for the dignity and security
of government. After all business was despatched, the parliament was
prorogued.
* D'Estrades, July 25, 1661. Mr. Ralph's History, vol. i. p.
176.
Before the parliament rose, the court was employed in making
preparations for the reception of the new queen, Catharine of Portugal,
to whom the king was betrothed, and who had just landed at Portsmouth.
During the time that the protector carried on the war with Spain, he was
naturally led to support the Portuguese in their revolt; and he engaged
himself by treaty to supply them with ten thousand men for their defence
against the Spaniards. On the king's restoration, advances were made
by Portugal for the renewal of the alliance; and in order to bind the
friendship closer, an offer was made of the Portuguese princess, and a
portion of five hundred thousand pounds, together with two fortresses,
Tangiers in Africa, and Bombay in the East Indies. Spain, who, after the
peace of the Pyrenees, bent all her force to recover Portugal, now in
appearance abandoned by France, took the alarm, and endeavored to fix
Charles in an opposite interest The Catholic king offered to adopt any
other princess as a daughter of Spain, either the princess of Parma, or,
what he thought more popular, some Protestant princess, the daughter of
Denmark, Saxony, or Orange; and on any of these he promised to confer
a dowry equal to that which was offered by Portugal. But many reasons
inclined Charles rather to accept of the Portuguese proposals. The great
disorders in the government and finances of Spain made the execution of
her promises be much doubted; and the king's urgent necessities demanded
some immediate supply of money. The interest of the English commerce
likewise seemed to require that the independency of Portugal should be
supported, lest the union of that crown with Spain should put the whole
treasures of America into the hands of one potentate. The claims, too,
of Spain upon Dunkirk and Jamaica, rendered it impossible, without
further concessions, to obtain the cordial friendship of that power; and
on the other hand, the offer, made by Portugal, of two such considerable
fortresses, promised a great accession to the naval force of England.
Above all, the proposal of a Protestant princess was no allurement to
Charles, whose inclinations led him strongly to give the preference to
a Catholic alliance. According to the most probable accounts,[*] the
resolution of marrying ihe daughter of Portugal was taken by the king,
unknown to all his ministers, and no remonstrances could prevail with
him to alter his intentions.
* Carte's Ormond, vol. ii. p. 254. This account seems better
supported than that in Ablancourt's Memoirs, that the
chancellor chiefly pushed the Portuguese alliance. The
secret transactions of the court of England could not be
supposed to be much known to a French resident at Lisbon:
and whatever opposition the chancellor might make, he would
certainly endeavor to conceal it from the queen and all her
family; and even in the parliament and council would support
the resolution already taken. Clarendon himself says, in his
Memoirs, that he never either opposed or promoted the
Portuguese match.
When the matter was laid before the council, all voices concurred
in approving the resolution; and the parliament expressed the same
complaisance. And thus was concluded, seemingly with universal consent,
the inauspicious marriage with Catharine, a princess of virtue, but who
was never able, either by the graces of her person or humor, to make
herself agreeable to the king. The report, however, of her natural
incapacity to have children, seems to have been groundless, since she
was twice declared to be pregnant.[*]
* Lord Lansdowne's Defence of General Monk. Temple vol. ii
p. 154
The festivity of these espousals was clouded by the trial and execution
of criminals. Berkstead, Cobbet, and Okey, three regicides, had escaped
beyond sea; and after wandering some time concealed in Germany, came
privately to Delft, having appointed their families to meet them in that
place. They were discovered by Downing, the king's resident in Holland,
who had formerly served the protector and commonwealth in the same
station, and who once had even been chaplain to Okey's regiment. He
applied for a warrant to arrest them. It had been usual for the states
to grant these warrants; though at the same time, they had ever been
careful secretly to advertise the persons, that they might be enabled
to make their escape. This precaution was eluded by the vigilance and
despatch of Downing. He quickly seized the criminals, hurried them on
board a frigate which lay off the coast, and sent them to England. These
three men behaved with more moderation and submission than any of the
other regicides who had suffered. Okey in particular, at the place of
execution, prayed for the king, and expressed his intention, had he
lived, of submitting peaceably to the established government. He had
risen, during the wars, from being a chandler in London, to a high rank
in the army; and in all his conduct appeared to be a man of humanity
and honor. In consideration of his good character and of his dutiful
behavior, his body was given to his friends to be buried.
The attention of the public was much engaged by the trial of two
distinguished criminals, Lambert and Vane. These men, though none of the
late king's judges, had been excepted from the general indemnity,
and committed to prison. The convention parliament, however, was so
favorable to them, as to petition the king, if they should be found
guilty, to suspend their execution: but this new parliament, more
zealous for monarchy, applied for their trial and condemnation. Not to
revive disputes which were better buried in oblivion, the indictment of
Vane did not comprehend any of his actions during the war between the
king and parliament: it extended only to his behavior after the late
king's death, as member of the council of state, and secretary of the
navy, where fidelity to the trust reposed in him required his opposition
to monarchy.
Vane wanted neither courage nor capacity to avail himself of this
advantage. He urged that, if a compliance with the government at that
time established in England, and the acknowledging of its authority,
were to be regarded as criminal, the whole nation had incurred equal
guilt, and none would remain whose innocence could entitle them to try
or condemn him for his pretended treasons: that, according to these
maxims, wherever an illegal authority was established by force, a total
and universal destruction must ensue; while the usurpers proscribed
one part of the nation for disobedience, the lawful prince punished the
other for compliance: that the legislature of England, foreseeing
this violent situation, had provided for public security by the famous
statute of Henry VII.; in which it was enacted that no man, in case of
any revolution, should ever be questioned for his obedience to the king
in being: that whether the established government were a monarchy or a
commonwealth, the reason of the thing was still the same; nor ought the
expelled prince to think himself entitled to allegiance, so long as he
could not afford protection: that it belonged not to private persons,
possessed of no power, to discuss the title of their governors;
and every usurpation, even the most flagrant, would equally require
obedience with the most legal establishment: that the controversy
between the late king and his parliament was of the most delicate
nature; and men of the greatest probity had been divided in their choice
of the party which they should embrace; that the parliament, being
rendered indissoluble but by its own consent, was become a kind of
cooerdinate power with the king; and as the case was thus entirely new
and unknown to the constitution, it ought not to be tried rigidly by the
letter of the ancient laws: that for his part, all the violences which
had been put upon the parliament, and upon the person of the sovereign,
he had ever condemned; nor had he once in the house for some time before
and after the execution of the king: that, finding the whole government
thrown into disorder, he was still resolved, in every revolution,
to adhere to the commons, the root, the foundation, of all lawful
authority: that in prosecution of this principle, he had cheerfully
under gone all the violence of Cromwell's tyranny; and would now with
equal alacrity, expose himself to the rigors of perverted law and
justice: that though it was in his power, on the king's restoration, to
have escaped from his enemies, he was determined, in imitation of the
most illustrious names of antiquity, to perish in defence of liberty,
and to give testimony with his blood for that honorable cause in which
he had been enlisted; and that, besides the ties by which God and nature
had bound him to his native country, he was voluntarily engaged by the
most sacred covenant, whose obligation no earthly power should ever be
able to make him relinquish.
All the defence which Vane could make was fruitless. The court,
considering more the general opinion of his active guilt in the
beginning and prosecution of the civil wars, than the articles of
treason charged against him, took advantage of the letter of the
law, and brought him in guilty. His courage deserted him not upon his
condemnation. Though timid by nature, the persuasion of a just cause
supported him against the terrors of death, while his enthusiasm,
excited by the prospect of glory, embellished the conclusion of a life,
which through the whole course of it, had been so much disfigured by the
prevalence of that principle. Lest pity for a courageous sufferer
should make impression on the populace, drummers were placed under the
scaffold, whose noise, as he began to launch out in reflections on the
government, drowned his voice, and admonished him to temper the ardor of
his zeal. He was not astonished at this unexpected incident. In all
his behavior there appeared a firm and animated intrepidity; and he
considered death but as a passage to that eternal felicity which he
believed to be prepared for him.
This man, so celebrated for his parliamentary talents, and for his
capacity in business, has left some writings behind him: they treat, all
of them, of religious subjects, and are absolutely unintelligible: no
traces of eloquence, or even of common sense, appear in them. A strange
paradox! did we not know, that men of the greatest genius, where they
relinquish by principle the use of their reason, are only enabled,
by their vigor of mind, to work themselves the deeper into error and
absurdity. It was remarkable, that as Vane, by being the chief
instrument of Strafford's death, had first opened the way for that
destruction which overwhelmed the nation, so by his death he closed the
scene of blood. He was the last that suffered on account of the civil
wars. Lambert, though condemned, was reprieved at the bar; and the
judges declared, that if Vane's behavior had been equally dutiful and
submissive, he would have experienced like lenity in the king. Lambert
survived his condemnation near thirty years. He was confined to the Isle
of Guernsey, where he lived contented, forgetting all his past schemes
of greatness, and entirely forgotten by the nation. He died a Roman
Catholic.
However odious Vane and Lambert were to the Presbyterians, that
party had no leisure to rejoice at their condemnation. The fatal St.
Bartholomew approached; the day when the clergy were obliged, by the
late law, either to relinquish their livings, or to sign the articles
required of them. A combination had been entered into by the more
zealous of the Presbyterian ecclesiastics to refuse the subscription,
in hopes that the bishops would not venture at once to expel so great a
number of the most popular preachers. The Catholic party at court, who
desired a great rent among the Protestants, encouraged them in this
obstinacy, and gave them hopes that the king would protect them in
their refusal. The king himself, by his irresolute conduct, contributed,
either from design or accident, to increase this opinion. Above all,
the terms of subscription had been made strict and rigid, on purpose
to disgust all the zealous and scrupulous among the Presbyterians, and
deprive them of their livings. About two thousand of the clergy, in one
day, relinquished their cures; and, to the astonishment of the court,
sacrificed their interest to their religious tenets. Fortified
by society in their sufferings, they were resolved to undergo any
hardships, rather than openly renounce those principles, which, on other
occasions, they were so apt, from interest, to warp or elude. The church
enjoyed the pleasure of retaliation; and even pushed, as usual,
the vengeance farther than the offence. During the dominion of the
parliamentary party, a fifth of each living had been left to the ejected
clergyman; but this indulgence, though at first insisted on by the house
of peers, was now refused to the Presbyterians. However difficult to
conciliate peace among theologians, it was hoped by many, that some
relaxation in the terms of communion might have kept the Presbyterians
united to the church, and have cured those ecclesiastical factions which
had been so fatal, and were still so dangerous. Bishoprics were offered
to Calamy, Baxter, and Reynolds, leaders among the Presbyterians:
the last only could be prevailed on to accept. Deaneries and other
preferments were refused by many.
The next measure of the king has not had the good fortune to be
justified by any party, but is often considered, on what grounds I shall
not determine, as one of the greatest mistakes, if not blemishes, of his
reign. It is the sale of Dunkirk to the French. The parsimonious maxims
of the parliament, and the liberal, or rather careless disposition of
Charles, were ill suited to each other; and notwithstanding the supplies
voted him, his treasury was still very empty and very much indebted. He
had secretly received the sum of two hundred thousand crowns from France
for the support of Portugal, but the forces sent over to that country,
and the fleets maintained in order to defend it, had already cost the
king that sum, and, together with it, near double the money which had
been paid as the queen's portion.[*] The time fixed for payment of his
sister's portion to the duke of Orleans was approaching. Tangiers, a
fortress from which great benefit was expected, was become an additional
burden to the crown; and Rutherford, who now commanded in Dunkirk, had
increased the charge of that garrison to a hundred and twenty thousand
pounds a year. These considerations had such influence, not only on the
king, but even on Clarendon, that this uncorrupt minister was the most
forward to advise accepting a sum of money in lieu of a place which, he
thought, the king, from the narrow state of his revenue, was no longer
able to retain. By the treaty with Portugal, it was stipulated that
Dunkirk should never be yielded to the Spaniards; France was therefore
the only purchaser that remained. D'Estrades was invited over by a
letter from the chancellor himself, in order to conclude the bargain.
Nine hundred thousand pounds were demanded: one hundred thousand were
offered. The English by degrees lowered their demand; the French raised
their offer: and the bargain was concluded at four hundred thousand
pounds. The artillery and stores were valued at a fifth of the sum.[**]
* D'Estrades, 17th of August, 1662. There was above half of
five hundred thousand pounds really paid as the queen's
portion.
* D'Estrades, 21st of August, 12th of September, 1662.
The importance of this sale was not, at this time, sufficiently known,
either abroad or at home.[*] The French monarch himself, so fond of
acquisitions, and so good a judge of his own interests, thought that he
had made a hard bargain;[**] and this sum, in appearance so small, was
the utmost which he would allow his ambassador to offer.
* It appears, however, from many of D'Estrades's letters,
particularly that of the 21st of August, 1661, that the king
might have transferred Dunkirk to the parliament, who would
not have refused to bear the charges of it, but were
unwilling to give money to the king for that purpose. The
king, on the other hand, was jealous lest the parliament
should acquire any separate dominion or authority in a
branch of administration which seemed so little to belong to
them; a proof that the government was not yet settled into
that composure and mutual confidence which is absolutely
requisite for conducting it.
* D'Estrades, 3d of October, 1662. The chief importance,
indeed, of Dunkirk to the English was, that it was able to
distress their trade when in the hands of the French: but it
was Lewis XIV. who first made it a good seaport. If ever
England have occasion to transport armies to the continent,
it must be in support of some ally whose towns serve to the
same purpose as Dunkirk would, if in the hands of the
English.
A new incident discovered such a glimpse of the king's character and
principles as, at first, the nation was somewhat at a loss how
to interpret, but such as subsequent events, by degrees, rendered
sufficiently plain and manifest. He issued a declaration on pretence
of mitigating the rigors contained in the act of uniformity. After
expressing his firm resolution to observe the general indemnity, and to
trust entirely to the affections of his subjects, not to any military
power, for the support of his throne, he mentioned the promises of
liberty of conscience contained in his declaration of Breda. And he
subjoined, that, "as in the first place he had been zealous to settle
the uniformity of the church of England, in discipline, ceremony, and
government, and shall ever constantly maintain it, so, as for what
concerns the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not conform
themselves thereunto, through scruple and tenderness of misguided
conscience, but modestly and without scandal perform their devotions in
their own way, he should make it his special care, so far as in him lay,
without invading the freedom of parliament, to incline their wisdom,
next approaching sessions, to concur with him in making some such act
for that purpose, as may enable him to exercise, with a more universal
satisfaction, that power of dispensing, which he conceived to be
inherent in him."[*] Here a most important prerogative was exercised
by the king; but under such artful reserves and limitations as might
prevent the full discussion of the claim, and obviate a breach between
him and his parliament. The foundation of this measure lay much deeper,
and was of the utmost consequence.
The king, during his exile, had imbibed strong prejudices a favor of
the Catholic religion; and, according to the most probable accounts,
had already been secretly reconciled in form to the church of Rome. The
great zeal expressed by the parliamentary party against all Papists,
had always, from a spirit of opposition, inclined the court and all the
royalists to adopt more favorable sentiments towards that sect, which,
through the whole course of the civil wars, had strenuously supported
the rights of the sovereign. The rigor, too, which the king, during his
abode in Scotland, had experienced from the Presbyterians, disposed him
to run into the other extreme, and to bear a kindness to the party
most opposite in its genius to the severity of those religionists. The
solicitations and importunities of the queen mother, the contagion of
the company which he frequented, the view of a more splendid and courtly
mode of worship, the hopes of indulgence in pleasure, all these causes
operated powerfully on a young prince, whose careless and dissolute
temper made him incapable of adhering closely to the principles of his
early education. But if the thoughtless humor of Charles rendered him
an easy convert to Popery, the same disposition ever prevented the
theological tenets of that sect from taking any fast hold of him. During
his vigorous state of health, while his blood was warm and his spirits
high, a contempt and disregard to all religion held possession of his
mind; and he might more properly be denominated a deist than a Catholic.
But in those revolutions of temper, when the love of raillery gave place
to reflection, and his penetrating, but negligent understanding was
clouded with fears and apprehensions, he had starts of mere sincere
conviction; and a sect which always possessed his inclination, was then
master of his judgment and opinion.[**]
* Kennet's Register, p. 850.
* The author confesses, that the king's zeal for Popery was
apt at intervals to go further than is here supposed, as
appears from many passages in James II.'s Memoirs.
But though the king thus fluctuated, during his whole reign, between
irreligion, which he more openly professed, and Popery, to which
he retained a secret propensity, his brother the duke of York, had
zealously adopted all the principles of that theological party. His
eager temper and narrow understanding made him a thorough convert,
without any reserve from interest, or doubts from reasoning and inquiry.
By his application to business, he had acquired a great ascendant over
the king; who, though possessed of more discernment, was glad to
throw the burden of affairs on the duke, of whom he entertained little
jealousy. On pretence of easing the Protestant dissenters, they agreed
upon a plan for introducing a general toleration, and giving the
Catholics the free exercise of their religion; at least the exercise of
it in private houses. The two brothers saw with pleasure so numerous and
popular a body of the clergy refuse conformity; and it was hoped that,
under shelter of their name, the small and hated sect of the Catholics
might meet with favor and protection.
{1663.} But while the king pleaded his early promises of toleration,
and insisted on many other plausible topics, the parliament, who sat a
little after the declaration was issued, could by no means be satisfied
with this measure. The declared intention of easing the dissenters, and
the secret purpose of favoring the Catholics, were equally disagreeable
to them and in these prepossessions they were encouraged by the king's
ministers themselves, particularly the chancellor. The house of commons
represented to the king, that his declaration of Breda contained
no promise to the Presbyterians and other dissenters, but only an
expression of his intentions, upon supposition of the concurrence of
parliament: that even if the nonconformists had been entitled to plead
a promise, they had intrusted this claim, as all their other rights and
privileges, to the house of commons, who were their representatives,
and who now freed the king from that obligation: that it was not to
be supposed, that his majesty and the houses were so bound by that
declaration, as to be incapacitated from making any laws which might be
contrary to it: that even at the king's restoration, there were laws
of uniformity in force, which could not be dispensed with but by act of
parliament: and that the indulgence intended would prove most pernicious
both to church and state, would open the door to schism, encourage
faction, disturb the public peace, and discredit the wisdom of the
legislature. The king did not think proper, after this remonstrance, to
insist any further at present on the project of indulgence.
In order to deprive the Catholics of all hopes, the two houses concurred
in a remonstrance against them. The king gave a gracious answer;
though he scrupled not to profess his gratitude towards many of that
persuasion, on account of their faithful services in his father's cause
and in his own. A proclamation, for form's sake, was soon after issued
against Jesuits and Romish priests: but care was taken, by the very
terms of it, to render it ineffectual. The parliament had allowed, that
all foreign priests, belonging to the two queens, should be excepted,
and that a permission for them to remain in England should still be
granted. In the proclamation, the word foreign was purposely omitted;
and the queens were thereby authorized to give protection to as many
English priests as they should think proper.
That the king might reap some advantage from his compliances, however
fallacious, he engaged the commons anew into an examination of his
revenue, which, chiefly by the negligence in levying it, had proved, he
said, much inferior to the public charges. Notwithstanding the price of
Dunkirk, his debts, he complained, amounted to a considerable sum; and
to satisfy the commons that the money formerly granted him had not been
prodigally expended, he offered to lay before them the whole account of
his disbursements. It is, however, agreed on all hands, that the king,
though during his banishment he had managed his small and precarious
income with great order and economy, had now much abated of these
virtues, and was unable to make his royal revenues suffice for his
expenses. The commons, without entering into too nice a disquisition,
voted him four subsidies; and this was the last time that taxes were
levied in that manner.
Several laws were made this session with regard to trade. The militia
also came under consideration, and some rules were established for
ordering and arming it. It was enacted, that the king should have no
power of keeping the militia under arms above fourteen days in the year.
The situation of this island, together with its great naval power, has
always occasioned other means of security, however requisite, to be much
neglected among us: and the parliament showed here a very superfluous
jealousy of the king's strictness in disciplining the militia. The
principles of liberty rather require a contrary jealousy.
The earl of Bristol's friendship with Clarendon, which had subsisted,
with great intimacy, during their exile and the distresses of the royal
party, had been considerably impaired, since the restoration, by the
chancellor's refusing his assent to some grants which Bristol had
applied for to a court lady: and a little after, the latter nobleman,
agreeably to the impetuosity and indiscretion of his temper, broke out
against the minister in the most outrageous manner. He even entered
a charge of treason against him before the house of peers; but had
concerted his measures so imprudently, that the judges, when consulted,
declared, that neither for its matter nor its form could the charge
be legally received. The articles indeed resemble more the incoherent
altercations of a passionate enemy, than a serious accusation, fit to be
discussed by a court of judicature; and Bristol himself was so
ashamed of his conduct and defeat, that he absconded during some time.
Notwithstanding his fine talents, his eloquence, his spirit, and his
courage, he could never regain the character which he lost by this hasty
and precipitate measure.
But though Clarendon was able to elude this rash assault, his credit
at court was sensibly declining; and in proportion as the king found
himself established on the throne, he began to alienate himself from
a minister whose character was so little suited to his own. Charles's
favor for the Catholics was always opposed by Clarendon, public liberty
was secured against all attempts of the over-zealous royalists, prodigal
grants of the king were checked or refused, and the dignity of his own
character was so much consulted by the chancellor, that he made it an
inviolable rule, as did also his friend Southampton, never to enter into
any connection with the royal mistresses. The king's favorite was Mrs.
Palmer, afterwards created duchess of Cleveland; a woman prodigal,
rapacious, dissolute, violent, revengeful. She failed not in her turn
to undermine Clarendon's credit with his master; and her success was
at this time made apparent to the whole world. Secretary Nicholas, the
chancellor's great friend, was removed from his place; and Sir Harry
Bennet, his avowed enemy, was advanced to that office. Bennet was soon
after created Lord Arlington.
Though the king's conduct had hitherto, since his restoration, been
in the main laudable, men of penetration began to observe, that those
virtues by which he had at first so much dazzled and enchanted the
nation, had great show, but not equal solidity. His good understanding
lost much of its influence by his want of application his bounty was
more the result of a facility of disposition than any generosity of
character; his social humor led him frequently to neglect his dignity;
his love of pleasure was not attended with proper sentiment and decency;
and while he seemed to bear a good will to every one that approached
him, he had a heart not very capable of friendship, and he had secretly
entertained a very bad opinion and distrust of mankind. But above all,
what sullied his character in the eyes of good judges, was his negligent
ingratitude towards the unfortunate cavaliers, whose zeal and sufferings
in the royal cause had known no bounds. This conduct, however, in the
king may, from the circumstances of his situation and temper, admit of
some excuse; at least, of some alleviation. As he had been restored more
by the efforts of his reconciled enemies than of his ancient friends,
the former pretended a title to share his favor; and being from practice
acquainted with public business, they were better qualified to execute
any trust committed to them. The king's revenues were far from being
large, or even equal to his necessary expenses; and his mistresses, and
the companions of his mirth and pleasures, gained by solicitation every
request from his easy temper. The very poverty to which the more zealous
royalists had reduced themselves, by rendering them insignificant, made
them unfit to support the king's measures, and caused him to deem them
a useless encumbrance. And as many false and ridiculous claims of merit
were offered, his natural indolence, averse to a strict discussion
or inquiry, led him to treat them all with equal indifference. The
parliament took some notice of the poor cavaliers. Sixty thousand
pounds were at one time distributed among them; Mrs. Lane also and the
Penderells had handsome presents and pensions from the king. But the
greater part of the royalists still remained in poverty and distress,
aggravated by the cruel disappointment in their sanguine hopes, and by
seeing favor and preferment bestowed upon their most inveterate foes.
With regard to the act of indemnity and oblivion, they universally said,
that it was an act of indemnity to the king's enemies and of oblivion to
his friends.
CHAPTER LXIV.
CHARLES II.
{1664.} The next session of parliament discovered a continuance of the
same principles which had prevailed in all the foregoing. Monarchy and
the church were still the objects of regard and affection. During no
period of the present reign did this spirit more evidently pass the
bounds of reason and moderation.
The king, in his speech to the parliament, had ventured openly to demand
a repeal of the triennial act; and he even went so far as to declare
that, notwithstanding the law, he never would allow any parliament to
be assembled by the methods prescribed in that statute. The parliament,
without taking offence at this declaration, repealed the law; and in
lieu of all the securities formerly provided, satisfied themselves with
a general clause, "that parliament should not be interrupted above three
years at the most." As the English parliament had now raised itself to
be a regular check and control upon royal power, it is evident that they
ought still to have preserved a regular security for their meeting,
and not have trusted entirely to the good will of the king, who, if
ambitious or enterprising, had so little reason to be pleased with these
assemblies. Before the end of Charles's reign, the nation had occasion
to feel very sensibly the effects of this repeal.
By the act of uniformity, every clergyman who should officiate without
being properly qualified, was punishable by fine and imprisonment: but
this security was not thought sufficient for the church. It was now
enacted, that, wherever five persons above those of the same household
should assemble in a religious congregation, every one of them was
liable, for the first offence, to be imprisoned three months, or pay
five pounds; for the second, to be imprisoned six months, or pay ten
pounds; and for the third, to be transported seven years, or pay a
hundred pounds. The parliament had only in their eye the malignity of
the sectaries; they should have carried their attention further, to the
chief cause of that malignity, the restraint under which they labored.
The commons likewise passed a vote, that the wrongs, dishonors, and
indignities offered to the English by the subjects of the United
Provinces, were the greatest obstructions to all foreign trade: and they
promised to assist the king with their lives and fortunes in asserting
the rights of his crown against all opposition whatsoever. This was
the first open step towards a Dutch war. We must explain the causes and
motives of this measure.
That close union and confederacy which, during a course of near seventy
years, has subsisted, almost without interruption or jealousy, between
England and Holland, is not so much founded on the natural, unalterable
interests of these states, as on their terror of the growing power of
the French monarch, who, without their combination, it is apprehended,
would soon extend his dominion over Europe. In the first years of
Charles's reign, when the ambitious genius of Lewis had not as yet
displayed itself, and when the great force of his people was in some
measure unknown even to themselves, the rival-ship of commerce, not
checked by any other jealousy or apprehension, had in England begotten a
violent enmity against the neighboring republic.
Trade was beginning among the English to be a matter of general concern;
but notwithstanding all their efforts and advantages, their commerce
seemed hitherto to stand upon a footing which was somewhat precarious.
The Dutch, who by industry and frugality were enabled to undersell them
in every market, retained possession of the most lucrative branches of
commerce; and the English merchants had the mortification to find, that
all attempts to extend their trade were still turned, by the vigilance
of their rivals, to their loss and dishonor. Their indignation
increased, when they considered the superior naval power of England;
the bravery of her officers and seamen; her favorable situation, which
enabled her to intercept the whole Dutch commerce. By the prospect of
these advantages, they were strongly prompted, from motives less just
and political, to make war upon the states; and at once to ravish from
them by force what they could not obtain, or could obtain but slowly, by
superior skill and industry.
The careless, unambitious temper of Charles rendered him little capable
of forming so vast a project as that of engrossing the commerce and
naval power of Europe; yet could he not remain altogether insensible
to such obvious and such tempting prospects. His genius, happily turned
towards mechanics, had inclined him to study naval affairs, which, of
all branches of business, he both loved the most and understood the
best. Though the Dutch, during his exile, had expressed towards him
more civility and friendship than he had received from any other foreign
power, the Louvestein or aristocratic faction, which at this time ruled
the commonwealth, had fallen into close union with France; and could
that party be subdued, he might hope that his nephew, the young prince
of Orange, would be reinstated in the authority possessed by his
ancestors, and would bring the states to a dependence under England. His
narrow revenues made it still requisite for him to study the humors
of his people, which now ran violently towards war; and it has been
suspected, though the suspicion was not justified by the event, that
the hopes of diverting some of the supplies to his private use were not
overlooked by this necessitous monarch.
The duke of York, more active and enterprising, pushed more eagerly the
war with Holland. He desired an opportunity of distinguishing himself:
he loved to cultivate commerce: he was at the head of a new African
company, whose trade was extremely checked by the settlements of the
Dutch: and perhaps the religious prejudices by which that prince was
always so much governed, began, even so early, to instil into him
an antipathy against a Protestant commonwealth, the bulwark of the
reformation. Clarendon and Southampton, observing that the nation was
not supported by any foreign alliance, were averse to hostilities; but
their credit was now on the decline.
By these concurring motives, the court and parliament were both of them
inclined to a Dutch war. The parliament was prorogued without voting
supplies: but as they had been induced, without any open application
from the crown, to pass that vote above mentioned against the Dutch
encroachments, it was reasonably considered as sufficient sanction for
the rigorous measures which were resolved on.
Downing, the English minister at the Hague, a man of an insolent,
impetuous temper, presented a memorial to the states, containing a list
of those depredations of which the English complained. It is remarkable,
that all the pretended depreciations preceded the year 1662, when a
treaty of league and alliance had been renewed with the Dutch; and these
complaints were then thought either so ill grounded or so frivolous,
that they had not been mentioned in the treaty. Two ships alone, the
Bonaventure and the Good Hope, had been claimed by the English; and it
was agreed that the claim should be prosecuted by the ordinary course
of justice. The states had consigned a sum of money, in case the cause
should be decided against them; but the matter was still in dependence.
Cary who was intrusted by the proprietors with the management of the
lawsuit for the Bonaventure, had resolved to accept of thirty thousand
pounds, which were offered him; but was hindered by Downing, who told
him that the claim was a matter of state between the two nations, not a
concern of private persons.[*] These circumstances give us no favorable
idea of the justice of the English pretensions.
* Temple, vol. ii, p. 42.
Charles confined not himself to memorials and remonstrances. Sir Robert
Holmes was secretly despatched with a squadron of twenty-two ships to
the coast of Africa. He not only expelled the Dutch from Cape Corse,
to which the English had some pretensions; he likewise seized the Dutch
settlements of Cape Verde and the Isle of Goree, together with several
ships trading on that coast. And having sailed to America, he possessed
himself of Nova Belgia, since called New York; a territory which James
I. had given by patent to the earl of Stirling, but which had never
been planted but by the Hollanders. When the states complained of these
hostile measures, the king, unwilling to avow what he could not well
justify, pretended to be totally ignorant of Holmes's enterprise.
He likewise confined that admiral to the Tower; but some time after
released him.
The Dutch, finding that their applications for redress were likely to be
eluded, and that a ground of quarrel was industriously sought for by
the English, began to arm with diligence. They even exerted, with some
precipitation, an act of vigor which hastened on the rupture. Sir John
Lawson and De Ruyter had been sent with combined squadrons into the
Mediterranean, in order to chastise the piratical states on the coast
of Barbary; and the time of their separation and return was now
approaching. The states secretly despatched orders to De Ruyter, that
he should take in provisions at Cadiz; and sailing towards the coast of
Guinea, should retaliate on the English, and put the Dutch in possession
of those settlements whence Holmes had expelled them. De Ruyter, having
a considerable force on board, met with no opposition in Guinea.
All the new acquisitions of the English, except Cape Corse were
recovered from them. They were even dispossessed of some old
settlements. Such of their ships as fell into his hands were seized by
De Ruyter. That admiral sailed next to America. He attacked Barbadoes,
but was repulsed. He afterwards committed hostilities on Long Island.
Meanwhile the English preparations for war were advancing with vigor and
industry. The king had received no supplies from parliament; but by his
own funds and credit he was enabled to equip a fleet: the city of London
lent him one hundred thousand pounds: the spirit of the nation seconded
his armaments: he himself went from port to port, inspecting with great
diligence, and encouraging the work; and in a little time the English
navy was put in a formidable condition. Eight hundred thousand pounds
are said to have been expended on this armament. When Lawson arrived,
and communicated his suspicion of De Ruyter's enterprise, orders were
issued for seizing all Dutch ships; and one hundred and thirty-five
fell into the hands of the English. These were not declared prizes till
afterwards, when war was proclaimed.
The parliament, when it met, granted a supply, the largest by far that
had ever been given to a king of England, yet scarcely sufficient for
the present undertaking. Near two millions and a half were voted, to
be levied by quarterly payments in three years. The avidity of the
merchants, together with the great prospect of success, had animated the
whole nation against the Dutch.
A great alteration was made this session in the method of taxing the
clergy. In almost all the other monarchies of Europe, the assemblies,
whose consent was formerly requisite to the enacting of laws, were
composed of three estates, the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty,
which formed so many members of the political body, of which the king
was considered as the head. In England too, the parliament was always
represented as consisting of three estates; but their separation was
never so distinct as in other kingdoms. A convocation, however, had
usually sitten at the same time with the parliament; though they
possessed not a negative voice in the passing of laws, and assumed
no other temporal power than that of imposing taxes on the clergy. By
reason of ecclesiastical preferments, which he could bestow, the king's
influence over the church was more considerable than over the laity; so
that the subsidies granted by the convocation were commonly greater than
those which were voted by parliament. The church, therefore, was not
displeased to depart tacitly from the right of taxing herself, and allow
the commons to lay impositions on ecclesiastical revenues, as on the
rest of the kingdom. In recompense, two subsidies, which the convocation
had formerly granted, were remitted, and the parochial clergy were
allowed to vote at elections. Thus the church of England made a barter
of power for profit. Their convocations, having become insignificant to
the crown, have been much disused of late years.
The Dutch saw, with the utmost regret, a war approaching, whence they
might dread the most fatal consequences, but which afforded no prospect
of advantage. They tried every art of negotiation, before they would
come to extremities. Their measures were at that time directed by John
de Wit, a minister equally eminent for greatness of mind, for capacity,
and for integrity. Though moderate in his private deportment, he knew
how to adopt in his public counsels that magnanimity which suits the
minister of a great state. It was ever his maxim, that no independent
government should yield to another any evident point of reason or
equity; and that all such concessions, so far from preventing war,
served to no other purpose than to provoke fresh claims and insults.
By his management a spirit of union was preserved in all the provinces;
great sums were levied; and a navy was equipped, composed of larger
ships than the Dutch had ever built before, and able to cope with the
fleet of England.
{1665.} As soon as certain intelligence arrived of De Ruyter's
enterprises, Charles declared war against the states. His fleet,
consisting of one hundred and fourteen sail, besides fireships and
ketches, was commanded by the duke of York, and under him by Prince
Rupert and the earl of Sandwich. It had about twenty-two thousand men on
board. Obdam, who was admiral of the Dutch navy, of nearly equal force,
declined not the combat. In the heat of action, when engaged in close
fight with the duke of York, Obdam's ship blew up. This accident much
discouraged the Dutch, who fled towards their own coast. Tromp alone,
son of the famous admiral killed during the former war, bravely
sustained with his squadron the efforts of the English, and protected
the rear of his countrymen. The vanquished had nineteen ships sunk and
taken. The victors lost only one. Sir John Lawson died soon after of
his wounds. It is affirmed, and with an appearance of reason, that this
victory might have been rendered more complete, had not orders been
issued to slacken sail by Brounker, one of the duke's bed-chamber, who
pretended authority from his master. The duke disclaimed the orders;
but Brounker never was sufficiently punished for his temerity.[*] It is
allowed, however, that the duke behaved with great bravery during the
action. He was long in the thickest of the fire. The earl of Falmouth,
Lord Muskerry, and Mr. Boyle, were killed by one shot at his side, and
covered him all over with their brains and gore. And it is not likely,
that, in a pursuit, where even persons of inferior station, and of the
most cowardly disposition, acquire courage, a commander should feel his
spirits to flag ana should turn from the back of an enemy, whose face he
had not been afraid to encounter.
* King James, in his Memoirs, gives an account of
this affair different from what we meet with in any
historian. He says, that, while he was asleep, Brounker
brought orders to Sir John Harman, captain of the ship, to
slacken sail. Sir John remonstrated, but obeyed. After some
time, finding that his falling back was likely to produce
confusion in the fleet, he hoisted the sail as before; so
that the prince, coming soon after on the quarter deck, and
finding all things as he left them, knew nothing of what had
passed during his repose. Nobody gave him the least
intimation of it. It was long after that he heard of it, by
a kind of accident; and he intended to have punished
Brounker by martial law; but just about that time, the house
of commons took up the question, and impeached him, which
made it impossible for the duke to punish him otherwise than
by dismissing him his service. Brounker, before the house,
never pretended that he had received any orders from the
duke.
This disaster threw the Dutch into consternation, and determined De Wit,
who was the soul of their councils, to exert his military capacity, in
order to support the declining courage of his countrymen. He went on
board the fleet, which he took under his command; and he soon remedied
all those disorders which had been occasioned by the late misfortune.
The genius of this man was of the most extensive nature. He quickly
became as much master of naval affairs, as if he had from his infancy
been educated in them; and he even made improvements in some parts of
pilotage and sailing, beyond what men expert in those arts had ever been
able to attain.
The misfortunes of the Dutch determined their allies to act for their
assistance and support. The king of France was engaged in a defensive
alliance with the states; but as his naval force was yet in its infancy,
he was extremely averse, at that time, from entering into a war with so
formidable a power as England. He long tried to mediate a peace between
the states, and for that purpose sent an embassy to London, which
returned without effecting any thing. Lord Hollis, the English
ambassador at Paris, endeavored to draw over Lewis to the side of
England; and, in his master's name, made him the most tempting offers.
Charles was content to abandon all the Spanish Low Countries to the
French, without pretending to a foot of ground for himself, provided
Lewis would allow him to pursue his advantages against the Dutch.[*]
But the French monarch, though the conquest of that valuable territory
was the chief object of his ambition, rejected the offer as contrary to
his interests: he thought, that if the English had once established an
uncontrollable dominion over the sea and over commerce, they would
soon be able to render his acquisitions a dear purchase to him. When De
Lionne, the French secretary, assured Van Beuninghen, ambassador of
the states, that this offer had been pressed on his master during six
months, "I can readily believe it," replied the Dutchman; "I am sensible
that it is the interest of England."[**]
* D'Estrades, December 19, 1664.
** D'Estrades, August 14, 1665.
Such were the established maxims at that time with regard to the
interests of princes. It must, however, be allowed, that the politics of
Charles, in making this offer, were not a little hazardous. The extreme
weakness of Spain would have rendered the French conquests easy and
infallible; but the vigor of the Dutch, it might be foreseen, would make
the success of the English much more precarious. And even were the
naval force of Holland totally annihilated, the acquisition of the Dutch
commerce to England could not be relied on as a certain consequence; nor
is trade a constant attendant of power, but depends on many other, and
some of them very delicate, circumstances.
Though the king of France was resolved to support the Hollanders in
that unequal contest in which they were engaged, he yet protracted his
declaration, and employed the time in naval preparations, both in
the ocean and the Mediterranean. The king of Denmark, meanwhile, was
resolved not to remain an idle spectator of the contest between the
maritime powers. The part which he acted was the most extraordinary: he
made a secret agreement with Charles to seize all the Dutch ships in his
harbors, and to share the spoils with the English, provided they would
assist him in executing this measure. In order to increase his prey,
he perfidiously invited the Dutch to take shelter in his ports; and
accordingly the East India fleet, very richly laden, had put into
Bergen. Sandwich, who now commanded the English navy, (the duke having
gone ashore,) despatched Sir Thomas Tiddiman with a squadron to attack
them; but whether from the king of Denmark's delay in sending orders to
the governor, or, what is more probable, from his avidity in endeavoring
to engross the whole booty, the English admiral, though he behaved with
great bravery, failed of his purpose. The Danish governor fired upon
him; and the Dutch, having had leisure to fortify themselves, made a
gallant resistance.
The king of Denmark, seemingly ashamed of his conduct, concluded with
Sir Gilbert Talbot, the English envoy, an offensive alliance against
the states; and at the very same time, his resident at the Hague, by his
orders, concluded an offensive alliance against England. To this latter
alliance he adhered, probably from jealousy of the increasing naval
power of England; and he seized and confiscated all the English ships in
his harbors. This was a sensible check to the advantages which Charles
had obtained over the Dutch. Not only a blow was given to the English
commerce; the king of Denmark's naval force was also considerable, and
threatened every moment a conjunction with the Hollanders. That prince
stipulated to assist his ally with a fleet of thirty sail; and he
received in return a yearly subsidy of one million five hundred thousand
crowns, of which three hundred thousand were paid by France.
The king endeavored to counterbalance these confederacies by acquiring
new friends and allies. He had despatched Sir Richard Fanshaw into
Spain, who met with a very cold reception. That monarchy was sunk into
a state of weakness, and was menaced with an invasion from France;
yet could not any motive prevail with Philip to enter into cordial
friendship with England. Charles's alliance with Portugal, the detention
of Jamaica and Tangiers, the sale of Dunkirk to the French, all these
offences sunk so deep in the mind of the Spanish monarch, that no motive
of interest was sufficient to outweigh them.
The bishop of Munster was the only ally that Charles could acquire. This
prelate, a man of restless enterprise and ambition, had entertained a
violent animosity against the states and he was easily engaged, by
the promise of subsidies from England, to make an incursion on that
republic. With a tumultuary army of near twenty thousand men, he invaded
her territories, and met with weak resistance. The land forces of the
states were as feeble and ill governed, as their fleets were gallant
and formidable. But after his committing great ravages in several of the
provinces, a stop was put to the progress of this warlike prelate.
He had not military skill sufficient to improve the advantages which
fortune had put into his hands: the king of France sent a body of six
thousand men to oppose him: subsidies were not regularly remitted him
from England; and many of his troops deserted for want of pay: the
elector of Brandenburgh threatened him with an invasion in his own
state; and on the whole, he was glad to conclude a peace under the
mediation of France. On the first surmise of his intentions, Sir
William Temple was sent from London with money to fix him in his former
alliance; but found that he arrived too late.
The Dutch, encouraged by all these favorable circumstances, continued
resolute to exert themselves to the utmost in their own defence. De
Ruyter, their great admiral, was arrived from his expedition to Guinea:
their Indian fleet was come home in safety: their harbors were crowded
with merchant ships: faction at home was appeased: the young prince of
Orange had put himself under the tuition of the states of Holland,
and of De Wit, their pensionary, who executed his trust with honor and
fidelity; and the animosity which the Hollanders entertained against
the attack of the English, so unprovoked, as they thought it, made
them thirst for revenge, and hope for better success in their next
enterprise. Such vigor was exerted in the common cause, that, in order
to man the fleet, all merchant ships were prohibited to sail, and even
the fisheries were suspended.[*]
* Tromp's Life. D'Estrades February 5, 1665.
The English likewise continued in the same disposition, though another
more grievous calamity had joined itself to that of war. The plague had
broken out in London; and that with such violence as to cut off, in a
year, near ninety thousand inhabitants. The king was obliged to summon
the Parliament at Oxford.
A good agreement still subsisted between the king and parliament. They,
on their part, unanimously voted him the supply demanded, twelve
hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to be levied in two years by monthly
assessments. And he, to gratify them, passed the five-mile act, which
has given occasion to grievous and not unjust complaints. The church,
under pretence of guarding monarchy against its inveterate enemies,
persevered in the project of wreaking her own enmity against the
nonconformists. It was enacted, that no dissenting teacher, who took not
the nonresistance oath above mentioned, should, except upon the road,
come within five miles of any corporation, or of any place, where he
had preached after the act of oblivion. The penalty was a fine of fifty
pounds, and six months' imprisonment. By ejecting the nonconforming
clergy from their churches, and prohibiting all separate congregations,
they had been rendered incapable of gaining any livelihood by their
spiritual profession. And now, under color of removing them from places
where their influence might be dangerous, an expedient was fallen upon
to deprive them of all means of subsistence. Had not the spirit of the
nation undergone a change, these violences were preludes to the most
furious persecution.
However prevalent the hierarchy, this law did not pass without
opposition. Besides several peers, attached to the old parliamentary
party, Southampton himself, though Clarendon's great friend, expressed
his disapprobation of these measures. But the church party, not
discouraged with this opposition, introduced into the house of commons a
bill for imposing the oath of nonresistance on the whole nation. It was
rejected only by three voices. The parliament, after a short session,
was prorogued.
{1666.} After France had declared war, England was evidently overmatched
in force. Yet she possessed this advantage by her situation, that she
lay between the fleets of her enemies, and might be able, by speedy and
well-concerted operations, to prevent their junction. But such was the
unhappy conduct of her commanders, or such the want of intelligence in
her ministers, that this circumstance turned rather to her prejudice.
Lewis had given orders to the duke of Beaufort, his admiral, to sail
from Toulon; and the French squadron under his command, consisting
of above forty sail,[*] was now commonly supposed to be entering the
Channel.
* D'Estrades, May 21, 1666.
The Dutch fleet, to the number of seventy-six sail, was at sea, under
the command of De Ruyter and Tromp, in order to join him. The duke of
Albemarle and Prince Rupert commanded the English fleet, which exceeded
not seventy-four sail. Albemarle, who, from his successes under the
protector, had too much learned to despise the enemy, proposed to
detach Prince Rupert with twenty ships, in order to oppose the duke
of Beaufort. Sir George Ayscue, well acquainted with the bravery and
conduct of De Ruyter, protested against the temerity of this resolution:
but Albemarle's authority prevailed. The remainder of the English set
sail to give battle to the Dutch; who, seeing the enemy advance quickly
upon them, cut their cables, and prepared for the combat. The battle
that ensued is one of the most memorable that we read of in story;
whether we consider its long duration, or the desperate courage with
which it was fought. Albemarle made here some atonement by his valor for
the rashness of the attempt. No youth, animated by glory and ambitious
hopes, could exert himself more than did this man, who was now in the
decline of life, and who had reached the summit of honors. We shall not
enter minutely into particulars. It will be sufficient to mention the
chief events of each day's engagement.
In the first day, Sir William Berkeley, vice-admiral, leading the van,
fell into the thickest of the enemy, was overpowered, and his ship
taken. He himself was found dead in his cabin, all covered with blood.
The English had the weather-gage of the enemy; but as the wind blew so
hard that they could not use their lower tier, they derived but small
advantage from this circumstance. The Dutch shot, however, fell chiefly
on their sails and rigging; and few ships were sunk or much damaged.
Chain-shot was at that time a new invention; commonly attributed to De
Wit. Sir John Harman exerted himself extremely on this day. The Dutch
admiral, Evertz, was killed in engaging him. Darkness parted the
combatants.
The second day, the wind was somewhat fallen, and the combat became more
steady and more terrible. The English now found, that the greatest valor
cannot compensate the superiority of numbers, against an enemy who is
well conducted, and who is not defective in courage. De Ruyter and Van
Tromp, rivals in glory and enemies from faction, exerted themselves in
emulation of each other; and De Ruyter had the advantage of disengaging
and saving his antagonist, who had been surrounded by the English, and
was in the most imminent danger. Sixteen fresh ships joined the Dutch
fleet during the action: and the English were so shattered, that their
fighting ships were reduced to twenty-eight, and they found themselves
obliged to retreat towards their own coast. The Dutch followed them,
and were on the point of renewing the combat; when a calm, which came a
little before night, prevented the engagement.
Next morning, the English were obliged to continue their retreat; and a
proper disposition was made for that purpose. The shattered ships were
ordered to stretch ahead; and sixteen of the most entire followed them
in good order, and kept the enemy in awe. Albemarle himself closed the
rear, and presented an undaunted countenance to his victorious foes.
The earl of Ossory, son of Ormond, a gallant youth, who sought honor
and experience in every action throughout Europe, was then on board the
admiral. Albemarle confessed to him his intention rather to blow up his
ship and perish gloriously, than yield to the enemy. Ossory applauded
this desperate resolution.
About two o'clock, the Dutch had come up with their enemy, and were
ready to renew the fight; when a new fleet was descried from the
south, crowding all their sail to reach the scene of action. The Dutch
flattered themselves that Beaufort was arrived to cut off the retreat of
the vanquished: the English hoped, that Prince Rupert had come, to turn
the scale of action. Albemarle, who had received intelligence of the
prince's approach, bent his course towards him. Unhappily, Sir George
Ayscue, in a ship of a hundred guns, the largest in the fleet, struck
on the Galloper sands, and could receive no assistance from his friends,
who were hastening to join the reenforcement. He could not even reap
the consolation of perishing with honor, and revenging his death on his
enemies. They were preparing fireships to attack him, and he was obliged
to strike. The English sailors, seeing the necessity, with the utmost
indignation surrendered themselves prisoners.
Albemarle and Prince Rupert were now determined to face the enemy; and
next morning, the battle began afresh, with more equal force than ever,
and with equal valor. After long cannonading, the fleets came to a close
combat; which was continued with great violence, till parted by a mist.
The English retired first into their harbors.
Though the English, by their obstinate courage, reaped the chief honor
in this engagement it is somewhat uncertain who obtained the victory.
The Hollanders took a few ships; and having some appearances of
advantage, expressed their satisfaction by all the signs of triumph and
rejoicing. But as the English fleet was repaired in a little time, and
put to sea more formidable than ever, together with many of those ships
which the Dutch had boasted to have burned or destroyed, all Europe saw,
that those two brave nations were engaged in a contest which was not
likely, on either side, to prove decisive.
It was the conjunction alone of the French, that could give a decisive
superiority to the Dutch. In order to facilitate this conjunction, De
Ruyter, having repaired his fleet, posted himself at the mouth of the
Thames. The English, under Prince Rupert and Albemarle, were not long in
coming to the attack. The numbers of each fleet amounted to about eighty
sail; and the valor and experience of the commanders, as well as of the
seamen, rendered the engagement fierce and obstinate. Sir Thomas Allen,
who commanded the white squadron of the English, attacked the Dutch van,
which he entirely routed; and he killed the three admirals who commanded
it. Van Tromp engaged Sir Jeremy Smith; and during the heat of action,
he was separated from De Ruyter and the main body, whether by accident
or design was never certainly known. De Ruyter, with conduct and valor,
maintained the combat against the main body of the English; and,
though overpowered by numbers, kept his station, till night ended the
engagement. Next day, finding the Dutch fleet scattered and discouraged,
his high spirit submitted to a retreat, which yet he conducted with
such skill, as to render it equally honorable to himself as the greatest
victory. Full of indignation, however, at yielding the superiority to
the enemy, he frequently exclaimed, "My God! what a wretch am I! Among
so many thousand bullets, is there not one to put an end to my miserable
life?" One De Witte, his son-in-law, who stood near, exhorted him, since
he sought death, to turn upon the English, and render his life a dear
purchase to the victors. But De Ruyter esteemed it more worthy a brave
man to persevere to the uttermost, and, as long as possible, to render
service to his country. All that night and next day, the English pressed
upon the rear of the Dutch; and it was chiefly by the redoubled efforts
of De Ruyter, that the latter saved themselves in their harbors.
The loss sustained by the Hollanders in this action was not very
considerable; but as violent animosities had broken out
between the two admirals, who engaged all the officers on one side or
other, the consternation which took place was great among the provinces.
Tromp's commission was at last taken from him; but though several
captains had misbehaved, they were so effectually protected by their
friends in the magistracy of the towns, that most of them escaped
punishment, and many were still continued in their commands.
The English now rode incontestable masters of the sea, and insulted the
Dutch in their harbors. A detachment under Holmes was sent into the road
of Vlie, and burned a hundred and forty merchantmen, two men-of-war,
together with Brandaris, a large and rich village on the coast. The
Dutch merchants, who lost by this enterprise, uniting themselves to
the Orange faction, exclaimed against an administration which, they
pretended, had brought such disgrace and ruin on their country. None but
the firm and intrepid mind of De Wit could have supported itself under
such a complication of calamities.
The king of France, apprehensive that the Dutch would sink under their
misfortunes, at least that De Wit, his friend, might be dispossessed of
the administration, hastened the advance of the duke of Beaufort. The
Dutch fleet likewise was again equipped; and under the command of
De Ruyter, cruised near the Straits of Dover. Prince Rupert with the
English navy, now stronger than ever, came full sail upon them. The
Dutch admiral thought proper to decline the combat, and retired into St.
John's road, near Bulloigne. Here he sheltered himself, both from the
English, and from a furious storm which arose. Prince Rupert, too, was
obliged to retire into St. Helens; where he staid some time, in order
to repair the damages which he had sustained. Meanwhile the duke
of Beaufort proceeded up the Channel, and passed the English fleet
unperceived; but he did not find the Dutch, as he expected. De Ruyter
had been seized with a fever: many of the chief officers had fallen into
sickness: a contagious distemper was spread through the fleet: and the
states thought it necessary to recall them into their harbors, before
the enemy should be refitted. The French king, anxious for his navy,
which with so much care and industry he had so lately built, despatched
orders to Beaufort, to make the best of his way to Brest. That admiral
had again the good fortune to pass the English. One ship alone, the
Ruby, fell into the hands of the enemy.
While the war continued without any decisive success on either side,
a calamity happened in London which threw the people into great
consternation. Fire, breaking out in a baker's house near the bridge,
spread itself on all sides with such rapidity, that no efforts could
extinguish it, till it laid in ashes a considerable part of the city.
The inhabitants, without being able to provide effectually for their
relief, were reduced to be spectators of their own ruin; and were
pursued from street to street by the flames, which unexpectedly gathered
round them. Three days and nights did the fire advance; and it was only
by the blowing up of houses that it was at last extinguished. The king
and duke used their utmost endeavors to stop the progress of the flames;
but all their industry was unsuccessful. About four hundred streets and
thirteen thousand houses were reduced to ashes.
The causes of this calamity were evident. The narrow streets of London,
the houses built entirely of wood, the dry season, and a violent east
wind which blew; these were so many concurring circumstances, which
rendered it easy to assign the reason of the destruction that ensued.
But the people were not satisfied with this obvious account. Prompted
by blind rage, some ascribed the guilt to the republicans, others to the
Catholics; though it is not easy to conceive how the burning of London
could serve the purposes of either party. As the Papists were the chief
objects of public detestation, the rumor which threw the guilt on them
was more favorably received by the people. No proof, however, or even
presumption, after the strictest inquiry by a committee of parliament,
ever appeared to authorize such a calumny; yet, in order to give
countenance to the popular prejudice, the inscription, engraved by
authority on the monument, ascribed this calamity to that hated sect.
This clause was erased by order of King James, when he came to the
throne; but after the revolution it was replaced: so credulous, as well
as obstinate, are the people in believing every thing which flatters
their prevailing passion.
The fire of London, though at that time a great calamity, has proved
in the issue beneficial both to the city and the kingdom. The city was
rebuilt in a very little time; and care was taken to make the streets
wider and more regular than before. A discretionary power was assumed
by the king to regulate the distribution of the buildings, and to forbid
the use of lath and timber, the materials of which the houses were
formerly composed. The necessity was so urgent, and the occasion so
extraordinary that no exceptions were taken at an exercise of authority
which otherwise might have been deemed illegal. Had the king been
enabled to carry his power still further, and made the houses be
rebuilt with perfect regularity, and entirely upon one plan, he had much
contributed to the convenience, as well as embellishment of the city.
Great advantages, however, have resulted from the alterations though not
carried to the full length. London became much more healthy after the
fire. The plague, which used to break out with great fury twice or
thrice every century, and indeed was always lurking in some corner or
other of the city, has scarcely ever appeared since that calamity.
The parliament met soon after, and gave the sanction of law to those
regulations made by royal authority; as well as appointed commissioners
for deciding all such questions of property as might arise from the
fire. They likewise voted a supply of one million eight hundred thousand
pounds, to be levied, partly by a poll-bill, partly by assessments.
Though their inquiry brought out no proofs which could fix on the
Papists the burning of London, the general aversion against that
sect still prevailed; and complaints were made, probably without much
foundation, of its dangerous increase. Charles, at the desire of the
commons, issued a proclamation for the banishment of all priests and
Jesuits; but the bad execution of this, as well as of former edicts,
destroyed all confidence in his sincerity, whenever he pretended an
aversion towards the Catholic religion. Whether suspicions of this
nature had diminished the king's popularity, is uncertain; but it
appears that the supply was voted much later than Charles expected, or
even than the public necessities seemed to require. The intrigues of
the duke of Buckingham, a man who wanted only steadiness to render him
extremely dangerous, had somewhat embarrassed the measures of the court:
and this was the first time that the king found any considerable reason
to complain of a failure of confidence in this house of commons. The
rising symptoms of ill humor tended, no doubt, to quicken the steps
which were already making towards a peace with foreign enemies.
Charles began to be sensible, that all the ends for which the war had
been undertaken were likely to prove entirely abortive. The Dutch, even
when single, had defended themselves with vigor, and were every day
improving in their military skill and preparations.
{1667.} Though their trade had suffered extremely, their extensive
credit enabled them to levy great sums; and while the seamen of England
loudly complained of want of pay, the Dutch navy was regularly supplied
with money and every thing requisite for its subsistence. As two
powerful kings now supported them, every place, from the extremity of
Norway to the coasts of Bayonne, was become hostile to the English. And
Charles, neither fond of action, nor stimulated by any violent ambition,
earnestly sought for means of restoring tranquillity to his people,
disgusted with a war, which, being joined with the plague and fire, had
proved so fruitless and destructive.
The first advances towards an accommodation were made by England. When
the king sent for the body of Sir William Berkeley, he insinuated to
the states his desire of peace on reasonable terms; and their answer
corresponded in the same amicable intentions. Charles, however, to
maintain the appearance of superiority, still insisted that the states
should treat at London; and they agreed to make him this compliment
so far as concerned themselves: but being engaged in alliance with two
crowned heads, they could not, they said, prevail with these to depart
in that respect from their dignity. On a sudden, the king went so far on
the other side as to offer the sending of ambassadors to the Hague; but
this proposal, which seemed honorable to the Dutch, was meant only to
divide and distract them, by affording the English an opportunity to
carry on cabals with the disaffected party. The offer was therefore
rejected; and conferences were secretly held in the queen mother's
apartments at Paris, where the pretensions of both parties were
discussed. The Dutch made equitable proposals; either that all things
should be restored to the same condition in which they stood before the
war, or that both parties should continue in possession of their present
acquisitions. Charles accepted of the latter proposal; and almost every
thing was adjusted, except the disputes with regard to the Isle of
Polerone. This island lies in the East Indies, and was formerly valuable
for its produce of spices. The English had been masters of it, but were
dispossessed at the time when the violences were committed against
them at Amboyna. Cromwell had stipulated to have it restored; and
the Hollanders, having first entirely destroyed all the spice trees,
maintained that they had executed the treaty, but that the English had
been anew expelled during the course of the war. Charles renewed his
pretensions to this island; and as the reasons on both sides began to
multiply, and seemed to require a long discussion, it was agreed to
transfer the treaty to some other place; and Charles made choice of
Breda.
Lord Hollis and Henry Coventry were the English ambassadors. They
immediately desired that a suspension of arms should be agreed to, till
the several claims should be adjusted; but this proposal, seemingly
so natural, was rejected by the credit of De Wit. That penetrating and
active minister, thoroughly acquainted with the characters of princes
and the situation of affairs, had discovered an opportunity of striking
a blow, which might at once restore to the Dutch the honor lost during
the war, and severely revenge those injuries which he ascribed to the
wanton ambition and injustice of the English.
Whatever projects might have been formed by Charles for secreting
the money granted him by parliament, he had hitherto failed in his
intention. The expenses of such vast armaments had exhausted all the
supplies,[*] and even a great debt was contracted to the seamen. The
king, therefore, was resolved to save, as far as possible, the last
supply of one million eight hundred thousand pounds; and to employ it
for payment of his debts, as well those which had been occasioned by the
war, as those which he had formerly contracted. He observed, that the
Dutch had been with great reluctance forced into the war, and that the
events of it were not such as to inspire them with great desire of its
continuance. The French, he knew, had been engaged into hostilities by
no other motive than that of supporting their ally; and were now more
desirous than ever of putting an end to the quarrel. The differences
between the parties were so inconsiderable, that the conclusion of peace
appeared infallible; and nothing but forms, at least some vain points of
honor, seemed to remain for the ambassadors at Breda to discuss. In
this situation, Charles, moved by an ill-timed frugality, remitted his
preparations, and exposed England to one of the greatest affronts which
it has ever received. Two small squadrons alone were equipped, and
during a war with such potent and martial enemies, every thing was
left almost in the same situation as in times of the most profound
tranquillity.
* The Dutch had spent on the war near forty millions of
livres a year, about three millions sterling; a much greater
sum than had been granted by the English parliament.
D'Estrades, December 24 1665. January 1, 1666. Temple, vol.
i. p. 71. It was probably the want of money which engaged
the king to pay the seamen with tickets; a contrivance which
proved so much to their loss.
De Wit protracted the negotiations at Breda, and hastened the naval
preparations. The Dutch fleet appeared in the Thames, under the command
of De Ruyter, and threw the English into the utmost consternation. A
chain had been drawn across the River Medway; some fortifications had
been added to Sheerness and Upnore Castle; but all these preparations
were unequal to the present necessity. Sheerness was soon taken; nor
could it be saved by the valor of Sir Edward Sprague, who defended it.
Having the advantage of a spring tide and an easterly wind, the Dutch
pressed on, and broke the chain, though fortified by some ships, which
had been there sunk by orders of the duke of Albemarle. They burned the
three ships which lay to guard the chain--the Matthias, the Unity, and
the Charles V. After damaging several vessels, and possessing themselves
of the hull of the Royal Charles, which the English had burned, they
advanced with six men-of-war and five fireships as far as Upnore Castle,
where they burned the Royal Oak, the Loyal London, and the Great James.
Captain Douglas, who commanded on board the Royal Oak, perished in the
flames, though he had an easy opportunity of escaping. "Never was it
known," he said, "that a Douglas had left his post without orders."[*]
The Hollanders fell down the Medway without receiving any considerable
damage; and it was apprehended, that they might next tide sail up the
Thames, and extend their hostilities even to the bridge of London. Nine
ships were sunk at Woolwich, four at Blackwall: platforms were raised in
many places, furnished with artillery; the train bands were called out,
and every place was in a violent agitation. The Dutch sailed next to
Portsmouth, where they made a fruitless attempt: they met with no better
success at Plymouth: they insulted Harwich: they sailed again up the
Thames as far as Tilbury, where they were repulsed. The whole coast was
in alarm; and had the French thought proper at this time to join the
Dutch fleet, and to invade England, consequences the most fatal might
justly have been apprehended. But Lewis had no intention to push the
victory to such extremities. His interest required that a balance
should be kept between the two maritime powers; not that an uncontrolled
superiority should be given to either.
* Temple, vol. ii. p. 41.
Great indignation prevailed amongst the English, to see an enemy, whom
they regarded as inferior, whom they had expected totally to subdue,
and over whom they had gained many honorable advantages, now of a sudden
ride undisputed masters of the ocean, burn their ships in their very
harbors, fill every place with confusion, and strike a terror into the
capital itself. But though the cause of all these disasters could be
ascribed neither to bad fortune, to the misconduct of admirals, nor to
the ill behavior of seamen, but solely to the avarice, at least to the
improvidence, of the government, no dangerous symptoms of discontent
appeared, and no attempt for an insurrection was made by any of those
numerous sectaries who had been so openly branded for their rebellious
principles, and who, upon that supposition, had been treated with such
severity.[*]
* Some nonconformists, however, both in Scotland and
England, had kept a correspondence with the states, and had
entertained projects for insurrections; but they were too
weak even to attempt the execution of them. D'Estrades,
October 13, 1665.
In the present distress, two expedients were embraced: an army of twelve
thousand men was suddenly levied; and the parliament, though it lay
under prorogation, was summoned to meet. The houses were very thin; and
the only vote which the commons passed, was an address for breaking the
army; which was complied with. This expression of jealousy showed the
court what they might expect from that assembly; and it was thought more
prudent to prorogue them till next winter.
But the signing of the treaty at Breda extricated the king from his
present difficulties. The English ambassadors received orders to recede
from those demands, which, how ever frivolous in themselves, could not
now be relinquished without acknowledging a superiority in the enemy.
Polerone remained with the Dutch; satisfaction for the ships Bonaventure
and Good Hope, the pretended grounds of the quarrel, was no longer
insisted on; Acadie was yielded to the French. The acquisition of
New York, a settlement so important by its situation, was the chief
advantage which the English reaped from a war, in which the national
character of bravery had shone out with lustre, but where the misconduct
of the government, especially in the conclusion, had been no less
apparent.
To appease the people by some sacrifice seemed requisite before the
meeting of parliament; and the prejudices of the nation pointed out the
victim. The chancellor was at this time much exposed to the hatred
of the public, and of every party which divided the nation. All the
numerous sectaries regarded him as their determined enemy; and ascribed
to his advice and influence those persecuting laws to which they had
lately been exposed. The Catholics knew, that while he retained any
authority, all their credit with the king and the duke would be entirely
useless to them, nor must they ever expect any favor or indulgence. Even
the royalists, disappointed in their sanguine hopes of preferment, threw
a great load of envy on Clarendon, into whose hands the king seemed
at first to have resigned the whole power of government. The sale of
Dunkirk, the bad payment of the seamen, the disgrace at Chatham, the
unsuccessful conclusion of the war all these misfortunes were charged on
the chancellor, who though he had ever opposed the rupture with Holland,
thought it still his duty to justify what he could not prevent. A
building, likewise, of more expense and magnificence than his slender
fortune could afford, being unwarily undertaken by him, much exposed him
to public reproach, as if he had acquired great riches by corruption.
The populace gave it commonly the appellation of Dunkirk House.
[Illustration: 1-781-chatham.jpg CHATHAM]
The king himself, who had always more revered than loved the chancellor,
was now totally estranged from him. Amidst the dissolute manners of the
court, that minister still maintained an inflexible dignity, and would
not submit to any condescensions which he deemed unworthy of his age and
character. Buckingham, a man of profligate morals, happy in his talent
for ridicule, but exposed in his own conduct to all the ridicule which
he threw on others, still made him the object of his raillery, and
gradually lessened in the king that regard which he bore to his
minister. When any difficulties arose, either for want of power or
money, the blame was still thrown on him, who, it was believed, had
carefully at the restoration checked all lavish concessions to the king.
And what, perhaps, touched Charles more nearly, he found in Clarendon,
it is said, obstacles to his pleasures, as well as to his ambition.
The king, disgusted with the homely person of his consort, and desirous
of having children, had hearkened to proposals of obtaining a divorce,
on pretence either of her being pre-engaged to another, or having made
a vow of chastity before her marriage. He was further stimulated by his
passion for Mrs. Stuart, daughter of a Scotch gentleman; a lady of
great beauty, and whose virtue he had hitherto found impregnable: but
Clarendon, apprehensive of the consequences attending a disputed title,
and perhaps anxious for the succession of his own grandchildren, engaged
the duke of Richmond to marry Mrs. Stuart, and thereby put an end to
the king's hopes. It is pretended that Charles never forgave this
disappointment.
When politics, therefore, and inclination both concurred to make the
king sacrifice Clarendon to popular prejudices, the memory of his past
services was not able any longer to delay his fall. The great seal was
taken from him, and given to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, by the title of lord
keeper. Southampton, the treasurer, was now dead, who had persevered
to the utmost in his attachments to the chancellor. The last time he
appeared at the council table, he exerted his friendship with a vigor
which neither age nor infirmities could abate. "This man," said he,
speaking of Clarendon, "is a true Protestant, and an honest Englishman;
and while he enjoys power, we are secure of our laws, liberties, and
religion. I dread the consequences of his removal."
But the fall of the chancellor was not sufficient to gratify the malice
of his enemies: his total ruin was resolved on. The duke of York in vain
exerted his interest in behalf of his father-in-law. Both prince and
people united in promoting that violent measure; and no means were
thought so proper for ingratiating the court with a parliament, which
had so long been governed by that very minister who was now to be the
victim of their prejudices.
Some popular acts paved the way for the session; and the parliament,
in their first address, gave the king thanks for these instances of his
goodness; and, among the rest, they took care to mention his dismission
of Clarendon. The king, in reply, assured the houses, that he would
never again employ that nobleman in any public office whatsoever.
Immediately the charge against him was opened in the house of commons by
Mr. Seymour, afterwards Sir Edward, and consisted of seventeen articles.
The house, without examining particulars, further than hearing
general affirmations that all would be proved, immediately voted his
impeachment. Many of the articles[*] [1] we know to be either false
or frivolous; and such of them as we are less acquainted with, we
may fairly presume to be no better grounded. His advising the sale of
Dunkirk seems the heaviest and truest part of the charge; but a mistake
in judgment, allowing it to be such, where there appear no symptoms of
corruption or bad intentions, it would be very hard to impute as a crime
to any minister. The king's necessities, which occasioned that measure,
cannot with any appearance of reason be charged on Clarendon; and
chiefly proceeded from the over frugal maxims of the parliament itself,
in not granting the proper supplies to the crown.
* See note A, at the end of the volume.
When the impeachment was carried up to the peers, as it contained an
accusation of treason in general, without specifying any particulars, it
seemed not a sufficient ground for committing Clarendon to custody. The
precedents of Strafford and Laud were not, by reason of the violence of
the times, deemed a proper authority; but as the commons still insisted
upon his commitment, it was necessary to appoint a free conference
between the houses. The lords persevered in their resolution; and the
commons voted this conduct to be an obstruction to public justice, and a
precedent of evil and dangerous tendency. They also chose a committee to
draw up a vindication of their own proceedings.
Clarendon, finding that the popular torrent, united to the violence of
power, ran with impetuosity against him, and that a defence offered to
such prejudiced ears would be entirely ineffectual, thought proper to
withdraw. At Calais he wrote a paper addressed to the house of lords.
He there said, that his fortune, which was but moderate, had been
gained entirely by the lawful, avowed profits of his office, and by the
voluntary bounty of the king; that, during the first years after
the restoration, he had always concurred in opinion with the other
counsellors, men of such reputation that no one could entertain
suspicions of their wisdom or integrity: that his credit soon declined;
and however he might disapprove of some measures, he found it vain to
oppose them; that his repugnance to the Dutch war, the source of all
the public grievances, was always generally known, as well as his
disapprobation of many unhappy steps taken in conducting it: and that,
whatever pretence might be made of public offences, his real crime, that
which had exasperated his powerful enemies, was his frequent opposition
to exorbitant grants, which the importunity of suitors had extorted from
his majesty.
The lords transmitted this paper to the commons, under the appellation
of a libel; and by a vote of both houses it was condemned to be burned
by the hands of the hangman. The parliament next proceeded to exert
their legislative power against Clarendon, and passed a bill of
banishment and incapacity, which received the royal assent. He retired
into France, where he lived in a private manner. He survived his
banishment six years; and he employed his leisure chiefly in reducing
into order the History of the Civil Wars, for which he had before
collected materials. The performance does honor to his memory; and,
except Whitlocke's Memorials, is the most candid account of those times
composed by any contemporary author.
Clarendon was always a friend to the liberty and constitution of his
country. At the commencement of the civil wars, he had entered into the
late king's service, and was honored with a great share in the esteem
and friendship of that monarch: he was pursued with unrelenting
animosity by the long parliament: he had shared all the fortunes and
directed all the counsels of the present king during his exile: he had
been advanced to the highest trust and offices after the restoration:
yet all these circumstances, which might naturally operate with such
force, either on resentment, gratitude, or ambition, had no influence
on his uncorrupted mind. It is said, that when he first engaged in the
study of the law, his father exhorted him with great earnestness to shun
the practice, too common in that profession, of straining every point
in favor of prerogative, and perverting so useful a science to the
oppression of liberty; and in the midst of these rational and virtuous
counsels, which he reiterated, he was suddenly seized with an apoplexy,
and expired in his son's presence. This circumstance gave additional
weight to the principles which he inculcated.
The combination of king and subject to oppress so good a minister,
affords to men of opposite dispositions an equal occasion of inveighing
against the ingratitude of princes, or ignorance of the people. Charles
seems never to have mitigated his resentment against Clarendon; and the
national prejudices pursued him to his retreat in France. A company of
English soldiers, being quartered near him, assaulted his house, broke
open the doors, gave him a dangerous wound on the head, and would have
proceeded to the last extremities, had not their officers, hearing of
the violence, happily interposed.
{1668.} The next expedient which the king embraced in order to acquire
popularity, is more deserving of praise; and, had it been steadily
pursued, would probably have rendered his reign happy, certainly his
memory respected. It is the triple alliance of which I speak; a measure
which gave entire satisfaction to the public.
The glory of France, which had long been eclipsed, either by domestic
factions, or by the superior force of the Spanish monarchy, began now
to break out with great lustre, and to engage the attention of the
neighboring nations. The independent power and mutinous spirit of
the nobility were subdued; the popular pretensions of the parliament
restrained; the Hugonot party reduced to subjection: that extensive and
fertile country, enjoying every advantage both of climate and situation,
was fully peopled with ingenious and industrious inhabitants: and while
the spirit of the nation discovered all the vigor and bravery requisite
for great enterprises, it was tamed to an entire submission under the
will of the sovereign.
The sovereign who now filled the throne was well adapted, by his
personal character, both to increase and to avail himself of these
advantages. Lewis XIV., endowed with every quality which could enchant
the people, possessed many which merit the approbation of the wise. The
masculine beauty of his person was embellished with a noble air: the
dignity of his behavior was tempered with affability and politeness:
elegant without effeminacy, addicted to pleasure without neglecting
business, decent in his very vices, and beloved in the midst of
arbitrary power, he surpassed all contemporary monarchs, as in grandeur,
so likewise in fame and glory.
His ambition, regulated by prudence, not by justice, had carefully
provided every means of conquest; and before he put himself in motion,
he seemed to have absolutely insured success. His finances were brought
into order; a naval power created; his armies increased and disciplined;
magazines and military stores provided; and though the magnificence of
his court was supported beyond all former example; so regular was the
economy observed, and so willingly did the people, now enriched by arts
and commerce, submit to multiplied taxes, that his military force
much exceeded what in any preceding age had ever been employed by any
European monarch.
The sudden decline, and almost total fall of the Spanish monarchy,
opened an inviting field to so enterprising a prince, and seemed to
promise him easy and extensive conquests*[**missing period] The other
nations of Europe, feeble or ill governed, were astonished at the
greatness of his rising empire; and all of them cast their eyes towards
England, as the only power which could save them from that subjection
with which they seemed to be so nearly threatened.
The animosity which had anciently subsisted between the English and
French nations, and which had been suspended for above a century by the
jealousy of Spanish greatness, began to revive and to exert itself. The
glory of preserving the balance of Europe, a glory so much founded on
justice and humanity, flattered the ambition of England; and the people
were eager to provide for their own future security, by opposing the
progress of so hated a rival. The prospect of embracing such measures
had contributed, among other reasons, to render the peace of Breda so
universally acceptable to the nation. By the death of Philip IV., king
of Spain, an inviting opportunity, and some very slender pretences, had
been afforded to call forth the ambition of Lewis.
At the treaty of the Pyrenees, when Lewis espoused the Spanish princess,
he had renounced every title of succession to every part of the Spanish
monarchy; and this renunciation had been couched in the most accurate
and most precise terms that language could afford. But on the death of
his father-in-law, he retracted his renunciation, and pretended
that natural rights, depending on blood and succession, could not be
annihilated by any extorted deed or contract. Philip had left a son,
Charles II. of Spain; but as the queen of France was of a former
marriage, she laid claim to a considerable province of the Spanish
monarchy, even to the exclusion of her brother. By the customs of some
parts of Brabant, a female of a first marriage was preferred to a male
of a second, in the succession to private inheritances; and Lewis thence
inferred, that his queen had acquired a right to the dominion of that
important duchy.
A claim of this nature was more properly supported by military force
than by argument and reasoning. Lewis appeared on the frontiers of the
Netherlands with an army of forty thousand men, commanded by the best
generals of the age, and provided with every thing necessary for action.
The Spaniards, though they might have foreseen this measure, were
totally unprepared. Their towns, without magazines, fortifications
or garrisons, fell into the hands of the French king, as soon as he
presented himself before them. Athe, Lisle, Tournay, Oudenarde,
Courtray, Charleroi, Binche, were immediately taken: and it was visible,
that no force in the Low Countries was able to stop or retard the
progress of the French arms.
This measure, executed with such celerity and success, gave great alarm
to almost every court in Europe. It had been observed with what dignity,
or even haughtiness, Lewis, from the time he began to govern, had
ever supported all his rights and pretensions. D'Estrades, the French
ambassador, and Watteville, the Spanish, having quarrelled in London,
on Account of their claims for precedency, the French monarch was not
satisfied, till Spain sent to Paris a solemn embassy, and promised never
more to revive such contests. Crequi, his ambassador at Rome, had met
with an affront from the pope's guards: the pope, Alexander VII., had
been constrained to break his guards, to send his nephew to ask pardon,
and to allow a pillar to be erected in Rome itself, as a monument of his
own humiliation. The king of England too had experienced the high spirit
and unsubmitting temper of Lewis. A pretension to superiority in the
English flag having been advanced, the French monarch remonstrated
with such vigor, and prepared himself to resist with such courage, that
Charles found it more prudent to desist from his vain and antiquated
claims. "The king of England," said Lewis to his ambassador D'Estrades,
"may know my force, but he knows not the sentiments of my heart: every
thing appears to me contemptible in comparison of glory."[*] These
measures of conduct had given strong indications of his character: but
the invasion of Flanders discovered an ambition, which, being supported
by such overgrown power, menaced the general liberties of Europe.
* January 25, 1662
As no state lay nearer the danger, none was seized with more terror than
the United Provinces. They were still engaged, together with France, in
a war against England; and Lewis had promised them, that he would take
no step against Spain without previously informing them: but, contrary
to this assurance, he kept a total silence, till on the very point of
entering upon action. If the renunciation made at the treaty of the
Pyrenees was not valid, it was foreseen, that upon the death of the king
of Spain, a sickly infant, the whole monarchy would be claimed by
Lewis; after which it would be vainly expected to set bounds to his
pretensions. Charles acquainted with these well-grounded apprehensions
of the Dutch, had been the more obstinate in insisting on his own
conditions at Breda; and by delaying to sign the treaty, had imprudently
exposed himself to the signal disgrace which he received at Chatham. De
Wit, sensible that a few weeks' delay would be of no consequence in the
Low Countries, took this opportunity of striking an important blow, and
of finishing the war with honor to himself and to his country.
Negotiations meanwhile commenced for the saving of Flanders; but no
resistance was made to the French arms. The Spanish ministers exclaimed
every where against the flagrant injustice of Lewis's pretensions, and
represented it to be the interest of every power in Europe, even more
than of Spain itself, to prevent his conquest of the Low Countries.
The emperor and the German princes discovered evident symptoms of
discontent; but their motions were slow and backward. The states,
though terrified at the prospect of having their frontier exposed to so
formidable a foe, saw no resource, no means of safety. England indeed
seemed disposed to make opposition to the French; but the variable and
impolitic conduct of Charles kept that republic from making him any
open advances, by which she might lose the friendship of France, without
acquiring any new ally. And though Lewis, dreading a combination of all
Europe, had offered terms of accommodation, the Dutch apprehended lest
these, either from the obstinacy of the Spaniards, or the ambition of
the French, would never be carried into execution.
Charles resolved with great prudence to take the first step towards
a confederacy. Sir William Temple, his resident at Brussels, received
orders to go secretly to the Hague, and to concert with the states the
means of saving the Netherlands. This man, whom philosophy had taught to
despise the world, without rendering him unfit for it, was frank,
open, sincere, superior to the little tricks of vulgar politicians;
and meeting in De Wit with a man of the same generous and enlarged
sentiments, he immediately opened his master's intentions, and pressed a
speedy conclusion. A treaty was from the first negotiated between
these two statesmen with the same cordiality as if it were a private
transaction between intimate companions. Deeming the interests of their
country the same, they gave full scope to that sympathy of character,
which disposed them to an entire reliance on each other's professions
and engagements. And though jealousy against the house of Orange might
inspire De Wit with an aversion to a strict union with England, he
generously resolved to sacrifice all private considerations to the
public service.
Temple insisted on an offensive league between England and Holland, in
order to oblige France to relinquish all her conquests: but De Wit told
him, that this measure was too bold and precipitate to be agreed to by
the states. He said that the French were the old and constant allies of
the republic; and till matters came to extremities, she never would
deem it prudent to abandon a friendship so well established, and rely
entirely on a treaty with England, which had lately waged so cruel a war
against her: that ever since the reign of Elizabeth, there had been such
a fluctuation in the English councils, that it was not possible, for two
years together, to take any sure or certain measures with that
kingdom: that though the present ministry, having entered into views
so conformable to national interest, promised greater firmness and
constancy, it might still be unsafe, in a business of such consequence,
to put entire confidence in them: that the French monarch was young,
haughty, and powerful; and if treated in so imperious a manner, would
expose himself to the greatest extremities rather than submit: that it
was sufficient, if he could be constrained to adhere to the offers which
he himself had already made, and if the remaining provinces of the Low
Countries could be thereby saved from the danger with which they were at
present threatened: and that the other powers in Germany and the north,
whose assistance they might expect, would be satisfied with putting a
stop to the French conquests, without pretending to recover the places
already lost.
The English minister was content to accept of the terms proposed by the
pensionary. Lewis had offered to relinquish all the queen's rights,
on condition either of keeping the conquests which he had made last
campaign, or of receiving, in lieu of them, Franche Compte, together
with Cambray, Aire, and St. Omers. De Wit and Temple founded their
treaty upon this proposal. They agreed to offer their mediation to the
contending powers, and oblige France to adhere to this alternative, and
Spain to accept of it. If Spain refused, they agreed that France should
not prosecute her claim by arms, but leave it entirely to England
and Holland to employ force for making the terms effectual. And the
remainder of the Low Countries they thenceforth guarantied to Spain. A
defensive alliance was likewise concluded between Holland and England.
The articles of this confederacy were soon adjusted by such candid and
able negotiators: but the greatest difficulty still remained. By the
constitution of the republic, all the towns in all the provinces must
give their consent to every alliance; and besides that this formality
could not be despatched in less than two months, it was justly to be
dreaded that the influence of France would obstruct the passing of the
treaty in some of the smaller cities. D'Estrades, the French ambassador,
a man of abilities, hearing of the league which was on the carpet,
treated it lightly. "Six weeks hence," said he, "we shall speak to it."
To obviate this difficulty, De Wit had the courage, for the public
good, to break through the laws in so fundamental an article; and by
his authority, he prevailed with the states general at once to sign and
ratify the league: though they acknowledged that, if that measure
should displease their constituents, they risked their heads by this
irregularity. After sealing, all parties embraced with great cordiality.
Temple cried out, "At Breda, as friends: here, as brothers." And De Wit
added, that now the matter was finished, it looked like a miracle.
Room had been left in the treaty for the accession of Sweden, which
was soon after obtained; and thus was concluded in five days the triple
league; an event received with equal surprise and approbation by the
world. Notwithstanding the unfortunate conclusion of the last war,
England now appeared in her proper station, and, by this wise conduct,
had recovered all her influence and credit in Europe. Temple likewise
received great applause; but to all the compliments made him on the
occasion, he modestly replied, that to remove things from their centre,
or proper element, required force and labor; but that of themselves they
easily returned to it.
The French monarch was extremely displeased with this measure. Not only
bounds were at present set to his ambition; such a barrier was also
raised as seemed forever impregnable. And though his own offer was made
the foundation of the treaty, he had prescribed so short a time for the
acceptance of it that he still expected, from the delays and reluctance
of Spain, to find some opportunity of eluding it. The court of Madrid
showed equal displeasure. To relinquish any part of the Spanish
provinces, in lieu of claims so apparently unjust, and these urged with
such violence and haughtiness, inspired the highest disgust. Often did
the Spaniards threaten to abandon entirely the Low Countries, rather
than submit to so cruel a mortification; and they endeavored, by this
menace, to terrify the mediating powers into more vigorous measures for
their support. But Temple and De Wit were better acquainted with the
views and interests of Spain. They knew that she must still retain the
Low Countries, as a bond of connection with the other European powers,
who alone, if her young monarch should happen to die without issue,
could insure her independency against the pretensions of France. They
still urged, therefore, the terms of the triple league, and threatened
Spain with war in case of refusal. The plenipotentiaries of all the
powers met at Aix-la-Chapelle. Temple was minister for England; Van
Beuninghen for Holland; D'Ohna for Sweden.
Spain at last, pressed on all hands, accepted of the alternative
offered; but in her very compliance, she gave strong symptoms of ill
humor and discontent. It had been apparent that the Hollanders, entirely
neglecting the honor of the Spanish monarchy, had been anxious only for
their own security; and, provided they could remove Lewis to a distance
from their frontier, were more indifferent what progress he made
in other places. Sensible of these views, the queen regent of Spain
resolved still to keep them in an anxiety, which might for the future
be the foundation of a union more intimate than they were willing at
present to enter into Franche Compte, by a vigorous and well-concerted
plan of the French king, had been conquered in fifteen days, during
a rigorous season, and in the midst of winter. She chose therefore
to recover this province, and to abandon all the towns conquered in
Flanders during the last campaign. By this means Lewis extended his
garrisons into the heart of the Low Countries; and a very feeble barrier
remained to the Spanish provinces.
But notwithstanding the advantages of his situation, the French monarch
could entertain small hopes of ever extending his conquests on that
quarter, which lay the most exposed to his ambition, and where his
acquisitions were of most importance. The triple league guarantied the
remaining provinces to Spain; and the emperor and other powers of
Germany, whose interest seemed to be intimately concerned, were invited
to enter into the same confederacy. Spain herself, having about this
time, under the mediation of Charles, made peace on equal terms with
Portugal, might be expected to exert more vigor and opposition to
her haughty and triumphant rival. The great satisfaction expressed in
England on account of the counsels now embraced by the court, promised
the hearty concurrence of parliament in every measure which could be
proposed for opposition to the grandeur of France. And thus all Europe
seemed to repose herself with security under the wings of that powerful
confederacy which had been so happily formed for her protection. It is
now time to give some account of the state of affairs in Scotland and in
Ireland.
The Scottish nation, though they had never been subject to the arbitrary
power of their prince, had but very imperfect notions of law and
liberty; and scarcely in any age had they ever enjoyed an administration
which had confined itself within the proper boundaries. By their final
union alone with England, their once hated adversary, they have happily
attained the experience of a government perfectly regular, and exempt
from all violence and injustice. Charles, from his aversion to business,
had intrusted the affairs of that country to his ministers, particularly
Middleton; and these could not forbear making very extraordinary
stretches of authority.
There had been intercepted a letter, written by Lord Lorne to Lord
Duffus, in which, a little too plainly, but very truly, he complained,
that his enemies had endeavored by falsehood to prepossess the king
against him. But he said, that he had now discovered them, had defeated
them, and had gained the person, meaning the earl of Clarendon, upon
whom the chief of them depended. This letter was produced before the
parliament; and Lorne was tried upon an old, tyrannical, absurd law
against leasing-making; by which it was rendered criminal to belie the
subjects to the king, or create in him an ill opinion of them. He was
condemned to die: but Charles was much displeased with the sentence, and
granted him a pardon.[*]
* Burnet, p. 149.
It was carried in parliament, that twelve persons, without crime,
witness, trial, or accuser, should be declared incapable of all trust or
office; and to render this injustice more egregious, it was agreed,
that these persons should be named by ballot; a method of voting which
several republics had adopted at elections, in order to prevent faction
and intrigue; but which could serve only as a cover to malice and
iniquity in the inflicting of punishments. Lauderdale, Crawford, and
Sir Robert Murray, among others, were incapacitated: but the king, who
disapproved of this injustice, refused his assent.[*]
An act was passed against all persons who should move the king for
restoring the children of those who were attainted by parliament; an
unheard-of restraint on applications for grace and mercy. No penalty
was affixed; but the act was but the more violent and tyrannical on
that account. The court lawyers had established it as a maxim, that the
assigning of a punishment was a limitation of the crown; whereas a
law forbidding any thing, though without a penalty, made the offenders
criminal. And in that case, they determined that the punishment
was arbitrary; only that it could not extend to life. Middleton, as
commissioner, passed this act; though he had no instructions for that
purpose.
An act of indemnity passed; but at the same time it was voted, that all
those who had offended during the late disorders, should be subjected
to fines; and a committee of parliament was appointed for imposing them.
These proceeded without any regard to some equitable rules which the
king had prescribed to them.[*] The most obnoxious compounded secretly.
* Burnet, p. 152.
** Burnet, p. 147.
No consideration was had, either of men's riches, or of the degrees
of their guilt: no proofs were produced: inquiries were not so much as
made: but as fast as information was given in against any man, he was
marked down for a particular fine: and all was transacted in a secret
committee. When the list was read in parliament, exceptions were made
to several: some had been under age during the civil wars; some had been
abroad. But it was still replied, that a proper time would come when
every man should be heard in his own defence. The only intention, it was
said, of setting the fines was, that such persons should have no benefit
by the act of indemnity, unless they paid the sum demanded: every one
that chose to stand upon his innocence, and renounce the benefit of
the indemnity, might do it at his peril. It was well known, that no one
would dare so far to set at defiance so arbitrary an administration.
The king wrote to the council, ordering them to supersede the levying of
those fines: but Middleton found means, during some time, to elude these
orders.[*] And at last, the king obliged his ministers to compound for
half the sums which had been imposed. In all these transactions, and
in most others which passed during the present reign, we still find the
moderating hand of the king interposed to protect the Scots from the
oppressions which their own countrymen, employed in the ministry, were
desirous of exercising over them.
* Burnet, p. 201.
But the chief circumstance whence were derived all the subsequent
tyranny and disorders in Scotland, was the execution of the laws for the
establishment of Episcopacy; a mode of government to which a great part
of the nation had entertained an unsurmountable aversion. The rights
of patrons had for some years been abolished; and the power of electing
ministers had been vested in the kirk session and lay elders. It was
now enacted, that all incumbents who had been admitted upon this title,
should receive a presentation from the patron, and should be instituted
anew by the bishop, under the penalty of deprivation. The more
rigid Presbyterians concerted measures among themselves, and refused
obedience: they imagined that their number would protect them. Three
hundred and fifty parishes, above a third of the kingdom, were at once
declared vacant. The western counties chiefly were obstinate in this
particular. New ministers were sought for all over the kingdom; and no
one was so ignorant or vicious as to be rejected. The people, who loved
extremely and respected their former teachers; men remarkable for the
severity of their manners, and their fervor in preaching; were inflamed
against these intruders, who had obtained their livings under such
invidious circumstances, and who took no care, by the regularity of
their manners, to soften the prejudices entertained against them. Even
most of those who retained their livings by compliance, fell under the
imputation of hypocrisy, either by their showing a disgust to the new
model of ecclesiastical government which they had acknowledged; or, on
the other hand, by declaring, that their former adherence to Presbytery
and the covenant had been the result of violence and necessity. And as
Middleton and the new ministry indulged themselves in great riot and
disorder, to which the nation had been little accustomed, an opinion
universally prevailed, that any form of religion, offered by such hands,
must be profane and impious.
The people, notwithstanding their discontents, were resolved to give
no handle against them, by the least symptom of mutiny or sedition: but
this submissive disposition, instead of procuring a mitigation of the
rigors, was made use of as an argument for continuing the same measures,
which, by their vigor, it was pretended, had produced so prompt an
obedience. The king, however, was disgusted with the violence of
Middleton;[*] and he made Rothes commissioner in his place. This
nobleman was already president of the council; and soon after was made
lord keeper and treasurer. Lauderdale still continued secretary of
state, and commonly resided at London.
Affairs remained in a peaceable state, till the severe law was made in
England against conventicles.[**] The Scottish parliament imitated that
violence, by passing a like act. A kind of high commission court was
appointed by the privy council, for executing this rigorous law, and for
the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. But even this court, illegal
as it might be deemed, was much preferable to the method next adopted.
Military force was let loose by the council. Wherever the people had
generally forsaken their churches, the guards were quartered throughout
the country. Sir James Turner commanded them, a man whose natural
ferocity of temper was often inflamed by the use of strong liquors. He
went about, and received from the clergy lists of those who absented
themselves from church, or were supposed to frequent conventicles.
Without any proof or legal conviction, he demanded a fine from them,
and quartered soldiers on the supposed delinquents, till he received
payment. As an insurrection was dreaded during the Dutch war, new forces
were levied, and intrusted to the command, of Dalziel and Drummond;
two officers who had served the king during the civil wars, and had
afterwards engaged in the service of Russia, where they had increased
the native cruelty of their disposition. A full career was given to
their tyranny by the Scottish ministry. Representations were made to the
king against these enormities. He seemed touched with the state of the
country; and besides giving orders that the ecclesiastical commission
should be discontinued, he signified his opinion, that another way of
proceeding was necessary for his service.[***]
* Burnet, p 202.
** 1664.
*** Burnet, p. 213
This lenity of the king's came too late to remedy the disorders. The
people, inflamed with bigotry, and irritated by ill usage, rose in
arms. They were instigated by Guthry, Semple, and other preachers. They
surprised Turner in Dumfries, and resolved to have put him to death; but
finding that his orders, which fell into their hands, were more violent
than his execution of them, they spared his life. At Laneric, after many
prayers, they renewed the covenant, and published their manifesto; in
which they professed all submission to the king: they desired only the
reestablishment of Presbytery, and of their former ministers. As many
gentlemen of their party had been confined on suspicion, Wallace
and Learmont, two officers who had served, but in no high rank, were
intrusted by the populace with the command. Their force never exceeded
two thousand men; and though the country in general bore them favor,
men's spirits were so subdued, that the rebels could expect no further
accession of numbers. Dalziel took the field to oppose their progress.
Their number was now diminished to eight hundred; and these, having
advanced near Edinburgh, attempted to find their way back into the west
by Pentland Hills. They were attacked by the king's forces.[*] Finding
that they could not escape, they stopped their march. Their clergy
endeavored to infuse courage into them. After singing some psalms, the
rebels turned on the enemy; and being assisted by the advantage of the
ground, they received the first charge very resolutely. But that was
all the action: immediately they fell into disorder, and fled for their
lives. About forty were killed on the spot, and a hundred and thirty
taken prisoners. The rest, favored by the night, and by the weariness,
and even by the pity of the king's troops, made their escape.
* November 28, 1666.
The oppressions which these people had suffered, the delusions
under which they labored, and their inoffensive behavior during the
insurrection, made them the objects of compassion: yet were the king's
ministers, particularly Sharpe, resolved to take severe vengeance. Ten
were hanged on one gibbet at Edinburgh; thirty-five before their own
doors in different places. These criminals might all have saved their
lives, if they would have renounced the covenant. The executions were
going on, when the king put a stop to them. He said, that blood enough
had already been shed; and he wrote a letter to the privy council, in
which he ordered, that such of the prisoners as should simply promise
to obey the laws for the future, should be set at liberty, and that
the incorrigible should be sent to the plantations.[*] This letter was
brought by Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow; but not being immediately
delivered to the council by Sharpe, the president,[**] one Maccail had
in the interval been put to the torture, under which he expired. He
seemed to die in an ecstasy of joy. "Farewell, sun, moon, and stars;
farewell, world and time; farewell, weak and frail body: welcome,
eternity; welcome, angels and saints; welcome, Savior of the world; and
welcome, God, the Judge of all!" Such were his last words: and these
animated speeches he uttered with an accent and manner which struck all
the bystanders with astonishment.
* Burnet, p 237.
* Wodrow's History, vol. i. p. 255.
The settlement of Ireland, after the restoration, was a work of greater
difficulty than that of England, or even of Scotland. Not only the
power, during the former usurpations, had there been vested in the
king's enemies; the whole property, in a manner, of the kingdom had also
been changed: and it became necessary to redress, but with as little
violence as possible, many grievous hardships and iniquities which were
there complained of.
The Irish Catholics had in 1648 concluded a treaty with Ormond, the
king's lieutenant; in which they had stipulated pardon for their past
rebellion, and had engaged, under certain conditions, to assist the
royal cause: and though the violence of the priests and the bigotry
of the people had prevented, in a great measure, the execution of this
treaty, yet were there many, who, having strictly, at the hazard of
their lives, adhered to it, seemed on that account well entitled to
reap the fruits of their loyalty. Cromwell, having without distinction
expelled all the native Irish from the three provinces of Munster,
Leinster, and Ulster, had confined them to Connaught and the county
of Clare; and among those who had thus been forfeited, were many whose
innocence was altogether unquestionable. Several Protestants likewise,
and Ormond among the rest, had all along opposed the Irish rebellion;
yet having afterwards embraced the king's cause against the parliament,
they were all of them attainted by Cromwell. And there were many
officers who had from the commencement of the insurrection served in
Ireland, and who, because they would not desert the king, had been
refused all their arrears by the English commonwealth.
To all these unhappy sufferers some justice seemed to be due: but the
difficulty was, to find the means of redressing such great and extensive
iniquities. Almost all the valuable parts of Ireland had been measured
out and divided, either to the adventurers, who had lent money to
the parliament for the suppression of the Irish rebellion, or to the
soldiers, who had received land in lieu of their arrears. These could
not be dispossessed, because they were the most powerful and only armed
part of Ireland; because it was requisite to favor them, in order to
support the Protestant and English interest in that kingdom; and because
they had generally, with a seeming zeal and alacrity, concurred in the
king's restoration. The king, therefore, issued a proclamation, in which
he promised to maintain their settlement, and at the same time engaged
to give redress to the innocent sufferers. There was a quantity of land
as yet undivided in Ireland; and from this and some other funds, it was
thought possible for the king to fulfil both these engagements.
A court of claims was erected, consisting altogether of English
commissioners, who had no connection with any of the parties into which
Ireland was divided. Before these were laid four thousand claims of
persons craving restitution on account of their innocence; and the
commissioners had found leisure to examine only six hundred. It already
appeared, that if all these were to be restored, the funds, whence the
adventurers and soldiers must get reprisals, would fall short of giving
them any tolerable satisfaction. A great alarm and anxiety seized all
ranks of men: the hopes and fears of every party were excited: these
eagerly grasped at recovering their paternal inheritance; those were
resolute to maintain their new acquisitions.
The duke of Ormond was created lord lieutenant; being the only person
whose prudence and equity could compose such jarring interests. A
parliament was assembled at Dublin; and as the lower house was almost
entirely chosen by the soldiers and adventurers, who still kept
possession, it was extremely favorable to that interest. The house of
peers showed greater impartiality.
An insurrection was projected, together with a surprisal of the Castle
of Dublin, by some of the disbanded soldiers; but this design was
happily defeated by the vigilance of Ormond. Some of the criminals were
punished. Blood, the most desperate of them, escaped into England.
But affairs could not long remain in the confusion and uncertainty into
which they had fallen. All parties seemed willing to abate somewhat
of their pretensions, in order to attain some stability; and Ormond
interposed his authority for that purpose. The soldiers and adventurers
agreed to relinquish a third of their possessions; and as they had
purchased their lands at very low prices, they had reason to think
themselves favored by this composition. All those who had been attainted
on account of their adhering to the king, were restored; and some of the
innocent Irish. It was a hard situation that a man was obliged to prove
himself innocent, in order to recover possession of the estate which he
and his ancestors had ever enjoyed: but the hardship was augmented by
the difficult conditions annexed to this proof. If the person had ever
lived in the quarters of the rebels, he was not admitted to plead his
innocence; and he was, for that reason alone, supposed to have been a
rebel. The heinous guilt of the Irish nation made men the more readily
overlook any iniquity which might fall on individuals; and it
was considered that, though it be always the interest of all good
governments to prevent injustice, it is not always possible to remedy
it, after it has had a long course, and has been attended with great
successes.
Ireland began to attain a state of some composure, when it was disturbed
by a violent act passed by the English parliament, which prohibited the
importation of Irish cattle into England.[*]
* In 1666.
Ormond remonstrated strongly against this law. He said, that the present
trade carried on between England and Ireland was extremely to the
advantage of the former kingdom, which received only provisions or rude
materials in return for every species of manufacture: that if the cattle
of Ireland were prohibited, the inhabitants of that island had no other
commodity by which they could pay England for their importations, and
must have recourse to other nations for a supply: that the industrious
inhabitants of England, if deprived of Irish provisions, which made
living cheap, would be obliged to augment the price of labor, and
thereby render their manufactures too dear to be exported to foreign
markets: that the indolent inhabitants of Ireland, finding provisions
fall almost to nothing, would never be induced to labor, but would
perpetuate to all generations their native sloth and barbarism: that
by cutting off almost entirely the trade between the kingdoms, all the
natural bands of union were dissolved, and nothing remained to keep the
Irish in their duty but force and violence: and that by reducing that
kingdom to extreme poverty, it would be even rendered incapable of
maintaining that military power, by which, during its well-grounded
discontents, it must necessarily be retained in subjection.
The king was so much convinced of the justness of these reasons, that he
used all his interest to oppose the bill; and he openly declared, that
he could not give his assent to it with a safe conscience. But the
commons were resolute in their purpose. Some of the rents of England
had fallen of late years, which had been ascribed entirely to the
importation of Irish cattle: several intrigues had contributed to
inflame that prejudice, particularly those of Buckingham and Ashley, who
were desirous of giving Ormond disturbance in his government: and the
spirit of tyranny, of which nations are as susceptible as individuals,
had extremely animated the English to exert their superiority over their
dependent state. No affair could be conducted with greater violence than
this was by the commons. They even went so far, in the preamble of the
bill, as to declare the importation of Irish cattle to be a nuisance. By
this expression they gave scope to their passion, and at the same time
barred the king's prerogative, by which he might think himself entitled
to dispense with a law so full of injustice and bad policy. The lords
expunged the word; but as the king was sensible that no supply would be
given by the commons, unless they were gratified in their prejudices,
he was obliged both to employ his interest with the peers for making the
bill pass, and to give the royal assent to it. He could not, however,
forbear expressing his displeasure at the jealousy entertained against
him, and at the intention which the commons discovered of retrenching
his prerogative.
This law brought great distress for some time upon the Irish; but it has
occasioned their applying with greater industry to manufactures, and has
proved in the issue beneficial to that kingdom.
CHAPTER LXV.
[Illustration: 1-802-hyde-park.jpg HYDE PARK]
CHARLES II.
{1668.} Since the restoration, England had attained a situation which
had never been experienced in any former period of her government,
and which seemed the only one that could fully insure, at once, her
tranquillity and her liberty: the king was in continual want of supply
from the parliament, and he seemed willing to accommodate himself
to that dependent situation. Instead of reviving those claims of
prerogative, so strenuously insisted on by his predecessors, Charles had
strictly confined himself within the limits of law, and had courted,
by every art of popularity, the affections of his subjects. Even
the severities, however blamable, which he had exercised against
nonconformists, are to be considered as expedients by which he strove to
ingratiate himself with that party which predominated in parliament.
But notwithstanding these promising appearances, there were many
circumstances which kept the government from resting steadily on that
bottom on which it was placed. The crown, having lost almost all its
ancient demesnes, relied entirely on voluntary grants of the people; and
the commons, not fully accustomed to this new situation, were not yet
disposed to supply, with sufficient liberality, the necessities of the
crown. They imitated too strictly the example of their predecessors in a
rigid frugality of public money; and neither sufficiently considered
the indigent condition of their prince, nor the general state of Europe,
where every nation, by its increase both of magnificence and force, had
made great additions to all public expenses. Some considerable sums,
indeed, were bestowed on Charles; and the patriots of that age,
tenacious of ancient maxims, loudly upbraided the commons with
prodigality; but if we may judge by the example of a later period, when
the government has become more regular, and the harmony of its parts has
been more happily adjusted, the parliaments of this reign seem rather to
have merited a contrary reproach.
The natural consequence of the poverty of the crown was besides feeble,
irregular transactions in foreign affairs, a continual uncertainty in
its domestic administration. No one could answer with any tolerable
assurance for the measures of the house of commons. Few of the members
were attached to the court by any other band than that of inclination.
Royalists indeed in their principles, but unexperienced in business,
they lay exposed to every rumor or insinuation; and were driven by
momentary gusts or currents, no less than the populace themselves. Even
the attempts made to gain an ascendant over them by offices, and, as
it is believed, by bribes and pensions, were apt to operate in a manner
contrary to what was intended by the ministers. The novelty of the
practice conveyed a general, and indeed a just alarm; while, at the same
time, the poverty of the crown rendered this influence very limited and
precarious.
The character of Charles was ill fitted to remedy those defects in the
constitution. He acted in the administration of public affairs, as if
government were a pastime, rather than a serious occupation; and, by
the uncertainty of his conduct he lost that authority which could alone
bestow constancy on the fluctuating resolutions of the parliament. His
expenses, too, which sometimes, perhaps, exceeded the proper bounds,
were directed more by inclination than by policy; and while they
increased his dependence on the parliament, they were not calculated
fully to satisfy either the interested or disinterested part of that
assembly.
The parliament met after a long adjournment, and the king promised
himself every thing from the attachment of the commons. All his late
measures had been calculated to acquire the good will of his people;
and, above all, the triple league, it was hoped, would be able to efface
all the disagreeable impressions left by the unhappy conclusion of the
Dutch war. But a new attempt made by the court, and a laudable one, too,
lost him for a time the effect of all these endeavors. Buckingham, who
was in great favor with the king, and carried on many intrigues among
the commons, had also endeavored to support connections with the
nonconformists; and he now formed a scheme, in concert with the lord
keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and the chief justice, Sir Matthew Hale,
two worthy patriots, to put an end to those severities under which
these religionists had so long labored. It was proposed to reconcile
the Presbyterians by a comprehension, and to grant a toleration to the
Independents and other sectaries Favor seems not, by this scheme, as
by others embraced during the present reign, to have been intended the
Catholics: yet were the zealous commons so disgusted, that they could
not be prevailed on even to give the king thanks for the triple
league, however laudable that measure was then, and has ever since been
esteemed. They immediately voted an address for a proclamation against
conventicles. Their request was complied with; but as the king still
dropped some hints of his desire to reconcile his Protestant subjects,
the commons passed a very unusual vote, that no man should bring into
the house any bill of that nature. The king in vain reiterated his
solicitations for supply; represented the necessity of equipping a
fleet; and even offered, that the money which they should grant should
be collected and issued for that purpose by commissioners appointed by
the house. Instead of complying, the commons voted an inquiry into all
the miscarriages during the late war; the slackening of sail after the
duke's victory from false orders delivered by Brounker the miscarriage
at Bergen, the division of the fleet under Prince Rupert and Albemarle,
the disgrace at Chatham. Brounker was expelled the house, and ordered to
be impeached. Commissioner Pet, who had neglected orders issued for the
security of Chatham, met with the same fate. These impeachments were
never prosecuted. The house at length, having been indulged in all their
prejudices, were prevailed with to vote the king three hundred and ten
thousand pounds, by an imposition on wine and other liquors; after which
they were adjourned.
Public business, besides being retarded by the disgust of the commons
against the tolerating maxims of the court, met with obstructions this
session from a quarrel between the two houses. Skinner, a rich merchant
in London, having suffered some injuries from the East India Company,
laid the matter by petition before the house of lords, by whom he was
relieved in costs and damages to the amount of five thousand pounds.
The commons voted, that the lords, in taking cognizance of this affair,
originally, without any appeal from inferior courts, had acted in a
manner not agreeable to the laws of the land, and tending to deprive the
subject of the right, ease, and benefit due to him by these laws; and
that Skinner, in prosecuting the suit after this manner, had infringed
the privileges of the commons; for which offence they ordered him to be
taken into custody. Some conferences ensued between the houses where the
lords were tenacious of their right of judicature, and maintained, that
the method in which they had exercised it was quite regular. The commons
rose into a great ferment; and went so far as to vote, that "whoever
should be aiding or assisting in putting in execution the order or
sentence of the house of lords, in the case of Skinner against the East
India Company, should be deemed a betrayer of the rights and liberties
of the commons of England, and an infringer of the privileges of the
house of commons." They rightly judged, that it would not be easy, after
this vote, to find any one who would venture to incur their indignation.
The proceedings indeed of the lords seem in this case to have been
unusual and without precedent.
{1669.} The king's necessities obliged him again to assemble the
parliament, who showed some disposition to relieve him. The price,
however, which he must pay for this indulgence, was his yielding to
new laws against conventicles. His complaisance in this particular
contributed more to gain the commons, than all the pompous pretences
of supporting the triple alliance, that popular measure by which he
expected to make such advantage. The quarrel between the two houses was
revived; and as the commons had voted only four hundred thousand pounds,
with which the king was not satisfied, he thought proper, before they
had carried their vote into a law, to prorogue them. The only business
finished this short session, was the receiving of the report of the
committee appointed for examining the public accounts. On the first
inspection of this report, there appears a great sum, no less than a
million and a half, unaccounted for; and the natural inference is, that
the king had much abused the trust reposed in him by parliament But a
more accurate inspection of particulars serves, in a great measure,
to remove this imputation. The king indeed went so far as to tell the
parliament from the throne, "that he had fully informed himself of that
matter, and did affirm, that no part of those moneys which they had
given him had been diverted to other uses; but, on the contrary, besides
all those supplies, a very great sum had been raised out of his standing
revenue and credit, and a very great debt contracted; and all for the
war." Though artificial pretences have often been employed by kings
in their speeches to parliament, and by none more than Charles, it is
somewhat difficult to suspect him of a direct lie and falsehood. He
must have had some reasons, and perhaps not unplausible ones, for this
affirmation, of which all his hearers, as they had the accounts lying
before them, were at that time competent judges.[*] [2]
* See note B, at the end of the volume.
The method which all parliaments had hitherto followed, was to vote
a particular sum for the supply, without any distinction, or any
appropriation to particular services. So long as the demands of the
crown were small and casual, no great inconveniencies arose from this
practice. But as all the measures of government were now changed, it
must be confessed that, if the king made a just application of public
money, this inaccurate method of proceeding, by exposing him to
suspicion, was prejudicial to him. If he were inclined to act otherwise,
it was equally hurtful to the people. For these reasons, a contrary
practice, during all the late reigns, has constantly been followed by
the commons.
{1670.} When the parliament met after the prorogation, they entered anew
upon the business of supply, and granted the king an additional duty,
during eight years, of twelve pounds on each tun of Spanish wine
imported, eight on each tun of French. A law also passed, empowering him
to sell the fee-farm rents; the last remains of the demesnes, by which
the ancient kings of England had been supported. By this expedient, he
obtained some supply for his present necessities, but left the crown,
if possible, still more dependent than before. How much money might be
raised by these sales is uncertain; but it could not be near one million
eight hundred thousand pounds, the sum assigned by some writers.[*]
* Mr. Carte, in his vindication of the Answer to the
Bystander, (p 99,) says, that the sale of the fee-farm rents
would not yield above one hundred thousand pounds; and his
reasons appear well founded with regard to the
interpretation of any part of the act.
The act against conventicles passed, and received the royal assent. It
bears the appearance of mitigating the former persecuting laws; but if
we may judge by the spirit which had broken out almost every session
during this parliament, it was not intended as any favor to the
nonconformists. Experience probably had taught, that laws over rigid and
severe could not be executed. By this act, the hearer in a conventicle
(that is, in a dissenting assembly, where more than five were present,
besides the family) was fined five shillings for the first offence, ten
for the second; the preacher, twenty pounds for the first offence,
forty for the second. The person in whose house the conventicle met, was
amerced a like sum with the preacher. One clause is remarkable; that if
any dispute should arise the judges should always explain the doubt in
the sense least favorable to conventicles, it being the intention of
parliament entirely to suppress them. Such was the zeal of the commons,
that they violated the plainest and most established maxims of civil
policy, which require that in all criminal prosecutions favor should
always be given to the prisoner.
The affair of Skinner still remained a ground of quarrel between the two
houses; but the king prevailed with the peers to accept of the expedient
proposed by the commons, that a general razure should be made of all the
transactions with regard to that disputed question.
Some attempts were made by the king to effect a union between England
and Scotland; though they were too feeble to remove all the difficulties
which obstructed that useful and important undertaking. Commissioners
were appointed to meet, in order to regulate the conditions: but the
design, chiefly by the intrigues of Lauderdale, soon after came to
nothing.
The king about this time began frequently to attend the debates of the
house of peers. He said, that they amused him, and that he found them no
less entertaining than a play. But deeper designs were suspected. As he
seemed to interest himself extremely in the cause of Lord Roos, who
had obtained a divorce from his wife on the accusation of adultery, and
applied to parliament for leave to marry again, people imagined that
Charles intended to make a precedent of the case, and that some other
pretence would be found for getting rid of the queen. Many proposals to
this purpose, it is said, were made him by Buckingham; but the king, how
little scrupulous soever in some respects, was incapable of any action
harsh or barbarous; and he always rejected every scheme of this nature.
A suspicion, however, of such intentions, it was observed, had at this
time begotten a coldness between the two royal brothers.
We now come to a period when the king's counsels, which had hitherto
in the main been good, though negligent and fluctuating, became, during
some time, remarkably bad, or even criminal; and breeding incurable
jealousies in all men, were followed by such consequences as had almost
terminated in the ruin both of prince and people. Happily, the same
negligence still attended him; and, as it had lessened the influence
of the good, it also diminished the effect of the bad measures which he
embraced.
It was remarked, that the committee of council established for foreign
affairs was entirely changed; and that Prince Rupert the duke of Ormond,
Sectary Trevor, and Lord Keeper Bridgeman, men in whose honor the nation
had great confidence, were never called to any deliberations. The whole
secret was intrusted to five persons, Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham,
Arlington, and Lauderdale. These men were known by the appellation of
the "cabal," a word which the initial letters of their names happened to
compose. Never was there a more dangerous ministry in England, nor one
more noted for pernicious counsels.
Lord Ashley, soon after known by the name of earl of Shaftesbury, was
one of the most remarkable characters of the age, and the chief spring
of all the succeeding movements. During his early youth, he had engaged
in the late king's party; but being disgusted with some measures of
Prince Maurice, he soon deserted to the parliament. He insinuated
himself into the confidence of Cromwell; and as he had great influence
with the Presbyterians, he was serviceable in supporting, with his
party, the authority of that usurper. He employed the same credit
in promoting the restoration; and on that account both deserved and
acquired favor with the king. In all his changes, he still maintained
the character of never betraying those friends whom he deserted; and
whichever party he joined, his great capacity and singular talents soon
gained him their confidence, and enabled him to take the lead
among them. No station could satisfy his ambition, no fatigues were
insuperable to his industry. Well acquainted with the blind attachment
of faction, he surmounted all sense of shame; and relying on the
subtilty of his contrivances, he was not startled with enterprises the
most hazardous and most criminal. His talents, both of public speaking
and private insinuation, shone out in an eminent degree; and amidst all
his furious passions, he possessed a sound judgment of business, and
still more of men. Though fitted by nature for beginning and pushing
the greatest undertakings, he was never able to conduct any to a happy
period; and his eminent abilities, by reason of his insatiable desires,
were equally dangerous to himself, to the prince, and to the people.
The duke of Buckingham possessed all the advantages which a graceful
person, a high rank, a splendid fortune, and a lively wit could bestow;
but by his wild conduct, unrestrained either by prudence or principle,
he found means to render himself in the end odious, and even
insignificant. The least interest could make him abandon his honor; the
smallest pleasure could seduce him from his interest; the most frivolous
caprice was sufficient to counterbalance his pleasure*[**missing period]
By his want of secrecy and constancy, he destroyed his character in
public life; by his contempt of order and economy, he dissipated his
private fortune; by riot and debauchery, he ruined his health; and he
remained at last as incapable of doing hurt, as he had ever been little
desirous of doing good to mankind.
The earl, soon after created duke of Lauderdale, was not defective in
natural, and still less in acquired talents; but neither was his address
graceful, nor his understanding just. His principles, or, more properly
speaking, his prejudices, were obstinate, but unable to restrain his
ambition: his ambition was still less dangerous than the tyranny and
violence of his temper. An implacable enemy, but a lukewarm friend;
insolent to his inferiors, but abject to his superiors; though in his
whole character and deportment he was almost diametrically opposite to
the king, he had the fortune, beyond any other minister, to maintain,
during the greater part of his reign, an ascendant over him.
The talents of parliamentary eloquence and intrigue had raised Sir
Thomas Clifford; and his daring, impetuous spirit gave him weight in the
king's councils. Of the whole cabal, Arlington was the least dangerous,
either by his vices or his talents. His judgment was sound, though
his capacity was but moderate; and his intentions were good, though he
wanted courage and integrity to persevere in them. Together with Temple
and Bridgeman, he had been a great promoter of the triple league; but he
threw himself with equal alacrity into opposite measures, when he found
them agreeable to his master. Clifford and he were secretly Catholics:
Shaftesbury, though addicted to astrology, was reckoned a deist:
Buckingham had too little reflection to embrace any steady principles:
Lauderdale had long been a bigoted and furious Presbyterian; and the
opinions of that sect still kept possession of his mind, how little
soever they appeared in his conduct.
The dark counsels of the cabal, though from the first they gave anxiety
to all men of reflection, were not thoroughly known but by the event.
Such seem to have been the views which they, in concurrence with some
Catholic courtiers who had the ear of their sovereign, suggested to the
king and the duke, and which these princes too greedily embraced. They
said, that the parliament, though the spirit of party, for the present,
attached them to the crown, were still more attached to those powers and
privileges which their predecessors had usurped from the sovereign: that
after the first flow of kindness was spent, they had discovered evident
symptoms of discontent; and would be sure to turn against the king all
the authority which they yet retained, and still more those pretensions
which it was easy for them in a moment to revive: that they not only
kept the king in dependence by means of his precarious revenue, but had
never discovered a suitable generosity, even in those temporary supplies
which they granted him: that it was high time for the prince to rouse
himself from his lethargy, and to recover that authority which his
predecessors, during so many ages, had peaceably enjoyed; that the great
error or misfortune of his father was, the not having formed any
close connection with foreign princes, who, on the breaking out of the
rebellion, might have found their interest in supporting him: that the
present alliances, being entered into with so many weaker potentates,
who themselves stood in need of the king's protection, could never serve
to maintain much less augment, the royal authority: that the French
monarch alone, so generous a prince, and by blood so nearly allied to
the king, would be found both able and willing, if gratified in his
ambition, to defend the common cause of kings against usurping subjects:
that a war undertaken against Holland by the united force of two such
mighty potentates, would prove an easy enterprise, and would serve all
the purposes which were aimed at: that, under pretence of that war, it
would not be difficult to levy a military force, without which, during
the prevalence of republican principles among his subjects, the king
would vainly expect to defend his prerogative; that his naval power
might be maintained, partly by the supplies which on other pretences
would previously be obtained from parliament; partly by subsidies from
France; partly by captures, which might easily be made on that opulent
republic: that, in such a situation, attempts to recover the lost
authority of the crown would be attended with success; nor would
any malecontents dare to resist a prince fortified by so powerful an
alliance; or, if they did, they would only draw more certain ruin on
themselves and on their cause; and that by subduing the states, a great
step would be made towards a reformation of the government; since it was
apparent, that that republic, by its fame and grandeur, fortified in
his factious subjects their attachment to what they vainly termed their
civil and religious liberties.
These suggestions happened fatally to concur with all the inclinations
and prejudices of the king; his desire of more extensive authority, his
propensity to the Catholic religion, his avidity for money. He seems,
likewise, from the very beginning of his reign, to have entertained
great jealousy of his own subjects, and, on that account, a desire of
fortifying himself by an intimate alliance with France. So early as
1664, he had offered the French monarch to allow him without opposition
to conquer Flanders, provided that prince would engage to furnish him
with ten thousand infantry, and a suitable number of cavalry, in case
of any rebellion in England.[*] As no dangerous symptoms at that time
appeared, we are left to conjecture, from this incident, what opinion
Charles had conceived of the factious disposition of his people.
Even during the time when the triple alliance was the most zealously
cultivated, the king never seems to have been entirely cordial in those
salutary measures, but still to have cast a longing eye towards
the French alliance. Clifford, who had much of his confidence, said
imprudently, "Notwithstanding all this joy, we must have a second war
with Holland." The accession of the emperor to that alliance had been
refused by England on frivolous pretences. And many unfriendly cavils
were raised against the states with regard to Surinam and the conduct
of the East India Company.[**] [3] But about April, 1669 the strongest
symptoms appeared of those fatal measure which were afterwards more
openly pursued.
* D'Estrades, July 21, 1667.
** See note C, at the end of the volume.
De Wit at that time came to Temple, and told him, that he paid him a
visit as a friend, not as a minister. The occasion was, to acquaint him
with a conversation which he had lately had with Puffendorf, the Swedish
agent, who had passed by the Hague in the way from Paris to his own
country. The French ministers, Puffendorf said, had taken much pains to
persuade him, that the Swedes would very ill find their account in those
measures which they had lately embraced: that Spain would fail them
in all her promises of subsidies; nor would Holland alone be able to
support them: that England would certainly fail them, and had already
adopted counsels directly opposite to those which by the triple league
she had bound herself to pursue: and that the resolution was not the
less fixed and certain, because the secret was as yet communicated to
very few either in the French or English court. When Puffendorf seemed
incredulous, Turenne showed him a letter from Colbert de Crossy, the
French minister at London; in which after mentioning the success of
his negotiations, and the favorable disposition of the chief ministers
there, he added, "And I have at last made them sensible of the full
extent of his majesty's bounty."[*] From this incident it appears,
that the infamous practice of selling themselves to foreign princes,
a practice which, notwithstanding the malignity of the vulgar, is
certainly rare among men in high office, had not been scrupled by
Charles's ministers, who even obtained their master's consent to this
dishonorable corruption.
* Temple, vol. ii. p. 179.
But while all men of penetration, both abroad and at home were alarmed
with these incidents, the visit which the king received from his sister,
the duchess of Orleans, was the foundation of still stronger suspicions.
Lewis, knowing the address and insinuation of that amiable princess, and
the great influence which she had gained over her brother, had engaged
her to employ all her good offices in order to detach Charles from the
triple league, which, he knew, had fixed such unsurmountable barriers
to his ambition; and he now sent her to put the last hand to the plan
of their conjunct operations. That he might the better cover this
negotiation, he pretended to visit his frontiers, particularly the great
works which he had undertaken at Dunkirk: and he carried the queen and
the whole court along with him. While he remained on the opposite shore,
the duchess of Orleans went over to England; and Charles met her at
Dover, where they passed ten days together in great mirth and festivity.
By her artifices and caresses, she prevailed on Charles to relinquish
the most settled maxims of honor and policy, and to finish his
engagements with Lewis for the destruction of Holland, as well as for
the subsequent change of religion in England.
But Lewis well knew Charles's character, and the usual fluctuations of
his counsels. In order to fix him in the French interests, he resolved
to bind him by the ties of pleasure, the only ones which with him were
irresistible; and he made him a present of a French mistress, by whose
means he hoped for the future to govern him. The duchess of Orleans
brought with her a young lady of the name of Querouaille, whom the king
carried to London, and soon after created duchess of Portsmouth. He was
extremely attached to her during the whole course of his life; and
she proved a great means of supporting his connections with her native
country.
The satisfaction which Charles reaped from his new alliance received
a great check by the death of his sister, and still more by those
melancholy circumstances which attended it. Her death was sudden, after
a few days' illness; and she was seized with the malady upon drinking a
glass of succory water. Strong suspicions of poison arose in the court
of France, and were spread all over Europe; and as her husband had
discovered many symptoms of jealousy and discontent on account of her
conduct, he was universally believed to be the author of the crime.
Charles himself, during some time, was entirely convinced of his guilt;
but upon receiving the attestation of physicians, who, on opening her
body, found no foundation for the general rumor, he was, or pretended
to be, satisfied. The duke of Orleans indeed did never, in any other
circumstance of his life, betray such dispositions as might lead him to
so criminal an action; and a lady, it is said, drank the remains of
the same glass, without feeling any inconvenience. The sudden death
of princes is commonly accompanied with these dismal surmises; and
therefore less weight is in this case to be laid on the suspicions of
the public.
Charles, instead of breaking with France upon this incident, took
advantage of it to send over Buckingham, under pretence of condoling
with the duke of Orleans, but in reality to concert further measures for
the projected war. Never ambassador received greater caresses. The more
destructive the present measures were to the interests of England, the
more natural was it for Lewis to load with civilities, and even with
favors, those whom he could engage to promote them.
The journey of Buckingham augmented the suspicions in Holland, which
every circumstance tended still further to confirm. Lewis made a sudden
irruption into Lorraine; and though he missed seizing the duke himself,
who had no surmise of the danger, and who narrowly escaped, he was soon
able, without resistance, to make himself master of the whole country.
The French monarch was so far unhappy, that, though the most tempting
opportunities offered themselves, he had not commonly so much as the
pretence of equity and justice to cover his ambitious measures. This
acquisition of Lorraine ought to have excited the jealousy of the
contracting powers in the triple league, as much as an invasion of
Flanders itself; yet did Charles turn a deaf ear to all remonstrances
made him upon that subject.
But what tended chiefly to open the eyes of De Wit and the states with
regard to the measures of England, was the sudden recall of Sir William
Temple. This minister had so firmly established his character of honor
and integrity, that he was believed incapable even of obeying his
master's commands in promoting measures which he esteemed pernicious to
his country; and so long as he remained in employment, De Wit thought
himself assured of the fidelity of England. Charles was so sensible of
this prepossession, that he ordered Temple to leave his family at the
Hague, and pretended that that minister would immediately return, after
having conferred with the king about some business where his negotiation
had met with obstructions. De Wit made the Dutch resident inform the
English court, that he should consider the recall of Temple as an
express declaration of a change of measures in England; and should even
know what interpretation to put upon any delay of his return.
While these measures were secretly in agitation, the parliament met,
according to adjournment. The king made a short speech, and left the
business to be enlarged upon by the keeper. That minister much insisted
on the king's great want of supply; the mighty increase of the naval
power of France, now triple to what it was before the last war with
Holland; the decay of the English navy; the necessity of fitting out
next year a fleet of fifty sail; the obligations which the king lay
under by several treaties to exert himself for the common good of
Christendom. Among other treaties, he mentioned the triple alliance, and
the defensive league with the states.
The artifice succeeded. The house of commons, entirely satisfied with
the king's measures, voted him considerable supplies. A laud tax for
a year was imposed of a shilling a pound; two shillings a pound on two
thirds of the salaries of offices; fifteen shillings on every hundred
pounds of bankers' money and stock; an additional excise upon beer for
six years, and certain impositions upon law proceedings for nine years.
The parliament had never before been in a more liberal humor; and
never surely was it less merited by the counsels of the king and of his
ministers.[*]
* This year, on the 3d of January, died George Monk, duke of
Albemarle, at Newhall, in Essex, after a languishing
illness, and in the sixty-third year of his age. He left a
great estate of fifteen thousand pounds a year in land, and
sixty thousand pounds in money, acquired by the bounty of
the king, and increased by his own frugality in his later
years. Bishop Burnet, who, agreeably to his own factious
spirit, treats this illustrious personage with great
malignity, reproaches him with avarice; but as he appears
not to have been in the least tainted with rapacity, his
frugal conduct may more candidly be imputed to the habits
acquired in early life, while he was possessed of a very
narrow fortune. It is indeed a singular proof of the strange
power of faction, that any malignity should pursue the
memory of a nobleman, the tenor of whose life was so
unexceptionable, and who, by restoring the ancient, and
legal, and free government to three kingdoms plunged in the
most destructive anarchy, may safely be said to be the
subject, in these islands, who, since the beginning of time,
rendered the most durable and most essential services to his
native country. The means also by which he achieved his
great undertakings, were almost entirely unexceptionable.
His temporary dissimulation, being absolutely necessary,
could scarcely be blamable. He had received no trust from
that mongrel, pretended, usurping parliament whom he
dethroned; therefore could betray none; he even refused to
carry his dissimulation so far as to take the oath of
abjuration against the king. I confess, however, that the
Reverend Dr. Douglas has shown me, from the Clarendon
papers, an original letter of his to Sir Arthur Hazelrig,
containing very earnest, and certainly false protestations
of his zeal for a commonwealth. It is to be lamented, that
so worthy a man, and of such plain manners, should ever have
found it necessary to carry his dissimulation to such a
height. His family ended with his son. There was a private
affair, which, during this session, disgusted the house of
commons, and required some pains to accommodate it. The
usual method of those who opposed the court in the money
bills, was, if they failed in the main vote, as to the
extent of the supply, to levy the money upon such funds as
they expected would be unacceptable, or would prove
deficient. It was proposed to lay an imposition upon
playhouses: the courtiers objected, that the players were
the king's servants, and a part of his pleasure. Sir John
Coventry, a gentleman of the country party, asked, "whether
the king's pleasure lay among the male or the female
players." This stroke of satire was aimed at Charles, who,
besides his mistresses of higher quality, entertained at
that time two actresses, Davis and Nell Gwin. The king
received not the raillery with the good humor which might
have been expected. It was said that this being the first
time that respect to majesty had been publicly violated, it
was necessary, by some severe chastisement, to make Coventry
an example to all who might incline to tread in his
footsteps. Sands, Obrian, and some other officers of the
guards, were ordered to waylay him, and to set a mark upon
him. He defended himself with bravery, and after wounding
several of the assailants, was disarmed with some
difficulty. They cut his nose to the bone, in order, as they
said, to teach him what respect he owed to the king. The
commons were inflamed by this indignity offered to one of
their members, on account of words spoken in the house. They
passed a law which made it capital to maim any person; and
they enacted, that those criminals, who had assaulted
Coventry, should be incapable of receiving a pardon from the
crown.
The commons passed another bill, for laying a duty on tobacco, Scotch
salt, glasses, and some other commodities. Against this bill the
merchants of London appeared by petition before the house of lords. The
lords entered into their reasons, and began to make amendments on the
bill sent up by the commons. This attempt was highly resented by the
lower house as an encroachment on the right, which they pretended to
possess alone, of granting money to the crown. Many remonstrances passed
between the two houses; and by their altercations the king was obliged
to prorogue the parliament; and he thereby lost the money which was
intended him.
{1671.} This is the last time that the peers have revived any
pretensions of that nature. Ever since, the privilege of the commons,
in all other places except in the house of peers, has passed for
uncontroverted.
There was another private affair transacted about this time, by which
the king was as much exposed to the imputation of a capricious lenity,
as he was here blamed for unnecessary severity. Blood, a disbanded
officer of the protector's, had been engaged in the conspiracy for
raising an insurrection in Ireland; and on account of this crime,
he himself had been attainted, and some of his accomplices capitally
punished. The daring villain meditated revenge upon Ormond, the lord
lieutenant. Having by artifice drawn off the duke's footmen, he attacked
his coach in the night time, as it drove along St. James's Street in
London; and he made himself master of his person. He might here have
finished the crime, had he not meditated refinements in his vengeance:
he was resolved to hang the duke of Tyburn and for that purpose bound
him and mounted him on horseback behind one of his companions. They were
advanced a good way into the fields, when the duke, making efforts for
his liberty, threw himself to the ground, and brought down with him the
assassin to whom he was fastened. They were struggling together in the
mire, when Ormond's servants, whom the alarm had reached, came and saved
him. Blood and his companions, firing their pistols in a hurry at the
duke, rode off, and saved themselves by means of the darkness.
Buckingham was at first, with some appearances of reason, suspected to
be the author of this attempt. His profligate character, and his enmity
against Ormond, exposed him to that imputation; Ossory soon after came
to court, and seeing Buckingham stand by the king, his color rose, and
he could not forbear expressing himself to this purpose: "My lord,
I know well that you are at the bottom of this late attempt upon my
father: but I give you warning; if by any means he come to a violent
end, I shall not be at a loss to know the author: I shall consider you
as the assassin: I shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you, I
shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell
it you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall not
fail of performance."[*] If there was here any indecorum, it was easily
excused in a generous youth, when his father's life was exposed to
danger.
* Carte's Ormond, vol. ii. p. 225.
A little after, Blood formed a design of carrying off the crown and
regalia from the Tower; a design to which he was prompted, as well by
the surprising boldness of the enterprise, as by the views of profit. He
was near succeeding. He had bound and wounded Edwards, the keeper of
the jewel-office, and had gotten out of the Tower with his prey; but was
overtaken and seized, with some of his associates. One of them was
known to have been concerned in the attempt upon Ormond; and Blood was
immediately concluded to be the ring-leader. When questioned, he frankly
avowed the enterprise; but refused to tell his accomplices. "The fear
of death," he said, "should never engage him either to deny a guilt or
betray a friend." All these extraordinary circumstances made him the
general subject of conversation; and the king was moved by an idle
curiosity to see and speak with a person so noted for his courage and
his crimes. Blood might now esteem himself secure of pardon; and he
wanted not address to improve the opportunity. He told Charles, that he
had been engaged, with others, in a design to kill him with a carabine
above Battersea, where his majesty often went to bathe: that the cause
of this resolution was the severity exercised over the consciences of
the godly, in restraining the liberty of their religious assemblies:
that when he had taken his stand among the reeds, full of these bloody
resolutions, he found his heart checked with an awe of majesty; and
he not only relented himself, but diverted his associates from their
purpose: that he had long ago brought himself to an entire indifference
about life, which he now gave for lost; yet could he not forbear warning
the king of the danger which might attend his execution: that his
associates had bound themselves by the strictest oaths to revenge the
death of any of the confederacy; and that no precaution or power could
secure any one from the effects of their desperate resolutions.
Whether these considerations excited fear or admiration in the king,
they confirmed his resolution of granting a pardon to Blood; but he
thought it a point of decency first to obtain the duke of Ormond's
consent. Arlington came to Ormond in the king's name, and desired that
he would not prosecute Blood, for reasons which he was commanded to give
him. The duke replied, that his majesty's commands were the only reason
that could be given, and being sufficient, he might therefore spare the
rest. Charles carried his kindness to Blood still further: he granted
him an estate of five hundred pounds a year in Ireland; he encouraged
his attendance about his person; he showed him great countenance; and
many applied to him for promoting their pretensions at court. And while
old Edwards, who had bravely ventured his life, and had been wounded, in
defending the crown and regalia, was forgotten and neglected, this man,
who deserved only to be stared at and detested as a monster, became a
kind of favorite.
Errors of this nature in private life have often as bad an influence as
miscarriages in which the public is more immediately concerned. Another
incident happened this year, which infused a general displeasure, and
still greater apprehensions, into all men. The duchess of York died; and
in her last sickness, she made open profession of the Romish religion,
and finished her life in that communion. This put an end to that thin
disguise which the duke had hitherto worn and he now openly declared his
conversion to the church of Rome. Unaccountable terrors of Popery, ever
since the accession of the house of Stuart, had prevailed throughout the
nation; but these had formerly been found so groundless, and had been
employed to so many bad purposes, that surmises of this nature were
likely to meet with the less credit among all men of sense; and nothing
but the duke's imprudent bigotry could have convinced the whole nation
of his change of religion. Popery, which had hitherto been only a
hideous spectre, was now become a real ground of terror being openly
and zealously embraced by the heir to the crown a prince of industry
and enterprise; while the king himself was not entirely free from like
suspicions.
It is probable that the new alliance with France inspired the duke with
the courage to make open profession of his religion, and rendered him
more careless of the affections and esteem of the English. This alliance
became every day more apparent. Temple was declared to be no longer
ambassador to the states, and Downing, whom the Dutch regarded as the
inveterate enemy of their republic, was sent over in his stead. A ground
of quarrel was sought by means of a yacht, despatched for Lady Temple.
The captain sailed through the Dutch fleet, which lay on their own
coasts; and he had orders to make them strike, to fire on them, and
to persevere till they should return his fire. The Dutch admiral, Van
Ghent, surprised at this bravado, came on board the yacht, and expressed
his willingness to pay respect to the British flag, according to former
practice: but that a fleet on their own coasts should strike to a single
vessel, and that not a ship of war, was, he said, such an innovation,
that he durst not without express orders agree to it. The captain,
thinking it dangerous, as well as absurd, to renew firing in the midst
of the Dutch fleet, continued his course; and for that neglect of orders
was committed to the Tower.
This incident, however, furnished Downing with a new article to increase
those vain pretences on which it was purposed to ground the intended
rupture. The English court delayed several months before they
complained; lest, if they had demanded satisfaction more early, the
Dutch might have had time to grant it. Even when Downing delivered
his memorial, he was bound by his instructions not to accept of any
satisfaction after a certain number of days: a very imperious manner
of negotiating, and impracticable in Holland, where the forms of the
republic render delays absolutely unavoidable. An answer, however,
though refused by Downing, was sent over to London; with an ambassador
extraordinary, who had orders to use every expedient that might give
satisfaction to the court of England. That court replied, that the
answer of the Hollanders was ambiguous and obscure; but they would not
specify the articles or expressions which were liable to that objection.
The Dutch ambassador desired the English ministry to draw the answer in
what terms they pleased; and he engaged to sign it: the English ministry
replied, that it was not their business to draw papers for the Dutch.
The ambassador brought them the draught of an article, and asked them
whether it were satisfactory: the English answered, that when he had
signed and delivered it, they would tell him their mind concerning it.
The Dutchman resolved to sign it at a venture; and on his demanding
a new audience, an hour was appointed for that purpose: but when he
attended, the English refused to enter upon business, and told him that
the season for negotiating was now past.[*]
* England's Appeal, p. 22. This year, on the 12th of
November, died, in his retreat, and in the sixtieth year of
his age, Thomas Lord Fairfax, who performed many great
actions without being a memorable personage, and allowed
himself to be carried into many criminal enterprises with
the best and most upright intentions. His daughter and heir
was married to George Villiers, duke of Buckingham.
{1672.} Long and frequent prorogations were made of the parliament;
lest the houses should declare themselves with vigor against counsels so
opposite to the inclination as well as interests of the public. Could we
suppose that Charles, in his alliance against Holland, really meant the
good of his people, that measure must pass for an extraordinary, nay,
a romantic strain of patriotism, which could lead him, in spite of all
difficulties, and even in spite of themselves, to seek the welfare of
the nation. But every step which he took in this affair became a proof
to all men of penetration, that the present war was intended against the
religion and liberties of his own subjects, even more than against the
Dutch themselves. He now acted in every thing as if he were already
an absolute monarch, and was never more to lie under the control of
national assemblies.
The long prorogations of parliament, if they freed the king from the
importunate remonstrances of that assembly, were, however, attended
with this inconvenience, that no money could be procured to carry on the
military preparations against Holland. Under pretence of maintaining the
triple league, which at that very time he had firmly resolved to break,
Charles had obtained a large supply from the commons; but this money was
soon exhausted by debts and expenses. France had stipulated to pay
two hundred thousand pounds a year during the war; but that supply was
inconsiderable, compared to the immense charge of the English navy. It
seemed as yet premature to venture on levying money without consent of
parliament; since the power of taxing themselves was the privilege of
which the English were with reason particularly jealous. Some other
resource must be fallen on. The king had declared, that the staff
of treasurer was ready for any one that could find an expedient for
supplying the present necessities. Shaftesbury dropped a hint to
Clifford, which the latter immediately seized, and carried to the king,
who granted him the promised reward, together with a peerage. This
expedient was the shutting up of the exchequer and the retaining of all
the payments which should be made into it.
It had been usual for the bankers to carry their money to the exchequer,
and to advance it upon security of the funds, by which they were
afterwards reimbursed when the money was levied on the public. The
bankers by this traffic got eight, sometimes ten per cent., for sums
which either had been consigned to them without interest, or which they
had borrowed at six per cent.; profits which they dearly paid for by
this egregious breach of public faith. The measure was so suddenly
taken, that none had warning of the danger. A general confusion
prevailed in the city, followed by the ruin of many. The bankers stopped
payment; the merchants could answer no bills; distrust took place
every where, with a stagnation of commerce, by which the public was
universally affected. And men, full of dismal apprehensions, asked each
other what must be the scope of those mysterious counsels, whence the
parliament and all men of honor were excluded, and which commenced
by the forfeiture of public credit, and an open violation of the most
solemn engagements, both foreign and domestic.
Another measure of the court contains something laudable, when
considered in itself; but if we reflect on the motive whence it
proceeded, as well as the time when it was embraced, it will furnish a
strong proof of the arbitrary and dangerous counsels pursued at present
by the king and his ministry. Charles resolved to make use of his
supreme power in ecclesiastical matters; a power, he said, which was not
only inherent in him, but which had been recognized by several acts
of parliament. By virtue of this authority, he issued a proclamation,
suspending the penal laws enacted against all nonconformists or
recusants whatsoever; and granting to the Protestant dissenters the
public exercise of their religion, to the Catholics the exercise of it
in private houses. A fruitless experiment of this kind, opposed by the
parliament, and retracted by the king, had already been made a few
years after the restoration; but Charles expected that the parliament,
whenever it should meet, would now be tamed to greater submission, and
would no longer dare to control his measures. Meanwhile the dissenters,
the most inveterate enemies of the court, were mollified by these
indulgent maxims: and the Catholics, under their shelter, enjoyed more
liberty than the laws had hitherto allowed them.
At the same time, the act of navigation was suspended by royal will
and pleasure; a measure which, though a stretch of prerogative, seemed
useful to commerce, while all the seamen were employed on board the
royal navy. A like suspension had been granted during the first Dutch
war, and was not much remarked; because men had at that time entertained
less jealousy of the crown. A proclamation was also issued, containing
rigorous clauses in favor of pressing; another full of menaces against
those who presumed to speak undutifully of his majesty's measures, and
even against those who heard such discourse, unless they informed in
due time against the offenders; another against importing or vending any
sort of painted earthenware, "except those of China, upon pain of being
grievously fined, and suffering the utmost punishment which might be
lawfully inflicted upon contemners of his majesty's royal authority."
An army had been levied; and it was found that discipline could not
be enforced without the exercise of martial law, which was therefore
established by order of council, though contrary to the petition
of right. All these acts of power, how little important soever in
themselves, savored strongly of arbitrary government; and were nowise
suitable to that legal administration which the parliament, after such
violent convulsions and civil wars, had hoped to have established in the
kingdom.
It may be worth remarking, that the lord keeper refused to affix the
great seal to the declaration for suspending the penal laws; and was for
that reason, though under other pretences removed from his office.
Shaftesbury was made chancellor in his place; and thus another member of
the cabal received the reward of his counsels.
Foreign transactions kept pace with these domestic occurrences. An
attempt, before the declaration of war, was made on the Dutch Smyrna
fleet by Sir Robert Holmes. This fleet consisted of seventy sail, valued
at a million and a half; and the hopes of seizing so rich a prey had
been a great motive for engaging Charles in the present war, and he
had considered that capture as a principal resource for supporting his
military enterprises. Holmes, with nine frigates and three yachts, had
orders to go on this command; and he passed Sprague in the Channel,
who was returning with a squadron from a cruize in the Mediterranean.
Sprague informed him of the near approach of the Hollanders; and had
not Holmes, from a desire of engrossing the honor and profit of the
enterprise, kept the secret of his orders, the conjunction of these
squadrons had rendered the success infallible. When Holmes approached
the Dutch, he put on an amicable appearance, and invited the admiral
Van Ness, who commanded the convoy, to come on board of him: one of his
captains gave a like insidious invitation to the rear-admiral. But these
officers were on their guard. They had received an intimation of the
hostile intentions of the English, and had already put all the ships of
war and merchantmen in an excellent posture of defence. Three times were
they valiantly assailed by the English; and as often did they valiantly
defend themselves. In the third attack, one of the Dutch ships of war
was taken; and three or four of their most inconsiderable merchantmen
fell into the enemies' hands. The rest, fighting with skill and courage,
continued their course; and, favored by a mist, got safe into their own
harbors. This attempt is denominated perfidious and piratical by the
Dutch writers, and even by many of the English. It merits at least the
appellation of irregular; and as it had been attended with bad success,
it brought double shame upon the contrivers. The English ministry
endeavored to apologize for the action, by pretending that it was a
casual rencounter, arising from the obstinacy of the Dutch in refusing
the honors of the flag: but the contrary was so well known, that even
Holmes himself had not the assurance to persist in this asseveration.
Till this incident, the states, notwithstanding all the menaces and
preparations of the English, never believed them thoroughly in
earnest; and had always expected, that the affair would terminate,
either in some demands of money, or in some proposals for the
advancement of the prince of Orange. The French themselves had never
much reckoned on assistance from England; and scarcely could believe
that their ambitious projects would, contrary to every maxim of honor
and policy, be forwarded by that power which was most interested and
most able to oppose them. But Charles was too far advanced to retreat.
He immediately issued a declaration of war against the Dutch; and
surely reasons more false and frivolous never were employed to justify a
flagrant violation of treaty. Some complaints are there made of injuries
done to the East India Company, which yet that company disavowed: the
detention of some English in Surinam is mentioned; though it appears
that these persons had voluntarily remained there: the refusal of a
Dutch fleet on their own coasts to strike to an English yacht, is much
aggravated: and to piece up all these pretensions, some abusive pictures
are mentioned, and represented as a ground of quarrel. The Dutch were
long at a loss what to make of this article, till it was discovered that
a portrait of Cornelius de Wit, brother to the pensionary, painted by
order of certain magistrates of Dort, and hung up in a chamber of the
town-house, had given occasion to the complaint. In the perspective of
this portrait, the painter had drawn some ships on fire in a harbor.
This was construed to be Chatham, where De Wit had really distinguished
himself, and had acquired honor; but little did he imagine that, while
the insult itself committed in open war, had so long been forgiven, the
picture of it should draw such severe vengeance upon his country.
The conclusion of this manifesto, where the king still professed his
resolution of adhering to the triple alliance, was of a piece with the
rest of it.
Lewis's declaration of war contained more dignity, if undisguised
violence and injustice could merit that appellation. He pretended only,
that the behavior of the Hollanders had been such, that it did not
consist with his glory any longer to bear.
That monarch's preparations were in great forwardness; and his ambition
was flattered with the most promising views of success. Sweden was
detached from the triple league; the bishop of Munster was engaged
by the payment of subsidies to take part with France; the elector of
Cologne had entered into the same alliance; and having consigned Bonne
and other towns into the hands of Lewis, magazines were there erected;
and it was from that quarter that France purposed to invade the United
Provinces. The standing force of that kingdom amounted to a hundred and
eighty thousand men; and with more than half of this great army was the
French king now approaching to the Dutch frontiers. The order, economy,
and industry of Colbert, equally subservient to the ambition of the
prince and happiness of the people, furnished unexhausted treasures:
these, employed by the unrelenting vigilance of Louvois, supplied every
military preparation, and facilitated all the enterprises of the army:
Conde, Turenne, seconded by Luxembourg, Crequi, and the most renowned
generals of the age, conducted this army, and by their conduct and
reputation inspired courage into every one. The monarch himself,
surrounded with a brave nobility, animated his troops by the prospect of
reward, or, what was more valued, by the hopes of his approbation. The
fatigues of war gave no interruption to gayety: its dangers furnished
matter for glory; and in no enterprise did the genius of that gallant
and polite people ever break out with more distinguished lustre.
Though De Wit's intelligence in foreign courts was not equal to the
vigilance of his domestic administration, he had long before received
many surmises of this fatal confederacy; but he prepared not for defence
so early, or with such industry, as the danger required. A union of
England with France was evidently, he saw, destructive to the interests
of the former kingdom; and therefore, overlooking or ignorant of the
humors and secret views of Charles, he concluded it impossible that such
pernicious projects could ever really be carried into execution. Secure
in this fallacious reasoning, he allowed the republic to remain too long
in that defenceless situation into which many concurring accidents had
conspired to throw her.
By a continued and successful application to commerce, the people
were become unwarlike, and confided entirely for their defence in that
mercenary army which they maintained. After the treaty of Westphalia,
the states, trusting to their peace with Spain, and their alliance with
France, had broken a great part of this army, and did not support with
sufficient vigilance the discipline of the troops which remained. When
the aristocratic party prevailed, it was thought prudent to dismiss
many of the old, experienced officers, who were devoted to the house of
Orange; and their place was supplied by raw youths, the sons or kinsmen
of burgomasters, by whose interest the party was supported. These new
officers, relying on the credit of their friends and family, neglected
their military duty; and some of them, it is said, were even allowed
to serve by deputies, to whom they assigned a small part of their pay.
During the war with England, all the forces of that nation had been
disbanded: Lewis's invasion of Flanders, followed by the triple league,
occasioned the dismission of the French regiments: and the place of
these troops, which had ever had a chief share in the honor and fortune
of all the wars in the Low Countries, had not been supplied by any new
levies.
De Wit, sensible of this dangerous situation, and alarmed by the reports
which came from all quarters, exerted himself to supply those defects
to which it was not easy of a sudden to provide a suitable remedy. But
every proposal which he could make met with opposition from the Orange
party, now become extremely formidable. The long and uncontrolled
administration of this statesman had begotten envy; the present
incidents roused up his enemies and opponents, who ascribed to his
misconduct alone the bad situation of the republic; and above all, the
popular affection to the young prince, which had so long been held in
violent constraint, and had thence acquired new accession of force,
began to display itself, and to threaten the commonwealth with
some great convulsion. William III., prince of Orange, was in the
twenty-second year of his age, and gave strong indications of those
great qualities by which his life was afterwards so much distinguished.
De Wit himself, by giving him an excellent education, and instructing
him in all the principles of government and sound policy, had generously
contributed to make his rival formidable. Dreading the precarious
situation of his own party, he was always resolved, he said, by
conveying to the prince the knowledge of affairs, to render him capable
of serving his country, if any future emergence should ever throw the
administration into his hands. The conduct of William had hitherto been
extremely laudable. Notwithstanding his powerful alliances with England
and Brandenburgh, he had expressed his resolution of depending entirely
on the states for his advancement; and the whole tenor of his behavior
suited extremely the genius of that people. Silent and thoughtful given
to hear and to inquire; of a sound and steady understanding; firm in
what he once resolved, or once denied; strongly intent on business,
little on pleasure; by these virtues he engaged the attention of all men
And the people, sensible that they owed their liberty and very existence
to his family, and remembering that his great-uncle Maurice had been
able, even in more early youth, to defend them against the exorbitant
power of Spain, were desirous of raising this prince to all the
authority of his ancestors; and hoped, from his valor and conduct alone,
to receive protection against those imminent dangers with which they
were at present threatened.
While these two powerful factions struggled for superiority, every
scheme for defence was opposed, every project retarded What was
determined with difficulty, was executed without vigor. Levies, indeed,
were made, and the army completed to seventy thousand men;[*] the prince
was appointed both general and admiral of the commonwealth, and the
whole military power was put into his hands. But new troops could not
of a sudden acquire discipline and experience: and the partisans of the
prince were still unsatisfied, as long as the perpetual edict (so it
was called) remained in force; by which he was excluded from the
stadtholdership, and from all share in the civil administration.
* Temple, vol. i. p. 75.
It had always been the maxim of De Wit's party to cultivate naval
affairs with extreme care, and to give the fleet a preference above the
army, which they represented as the object of an unreasonable partiality
la the princes of Orange. The two violent wars which had of late been
waged with England, had exercised the valor and improved the skill of
the sailors. And, above all, De Ruyter, the greatest sea commander of
the age, was closely connected with the Lovestein party; and every one
was disposed, with confidence and alacrity, to obey him. The equipment
of the fleet was therefore hastened by De Wit; in hopes that, by
striking at first a successful blow, he might inspire courage into the
dismayed states, and support his own declining authority. He seems to
have been, in a peculiar manner, incensed against the English; and
he resolved to take revenge on them for their conduct, of which, he
thought, he himself and his country had such reason to complain. By
ihe offer of a close alliance for mutual defence, they had seduced the
republic to quit the alliance of France; but no sooner had she embraced
these measures, than they formed leagues for her destruction, with that
very power which they had treacherously engaged her to offend. In the
midst of full peace, nay, during an intimate union, they attacked
her commerce, her only means of subsistence; and, moved by shameful
rapacity, had invaded that property which, from a reliance on their
faith, they had hoped to find unprotected and defenceless. Contrary
to their own manifest interest, as well as to their honor, they still
retained a malignant resentment for her successful conclusion of the
former war; a war which had at first sprung from their own wanton
insolence and ambition. To repress so dangerous an enemy would, De Wit
imagined, give peculiar pleasure, and contribute to the future security
of his country, whose prosperity was so much the object of general envy.
Actuated by like motives and views, De Ruyter put to sea with a
formidable fleet, consisting of ninety-one ships of war and forty-four
fireships. Cornelius De Wit was on board, as deputy from the states.
They sailed in quest of the English, who were under the command of the
duke of York, and who had already joined the French under Mareschal
D'Etrees. The combined fleets lay at Solebay in a very negligent
posture, and Sandwich, being an experienced officer, had given the
duke warning of the danger, but received, it is said, such an answer
as intimated that there was more of caution than of courage in his
apprehensions. Upon the appearance of the enemy, every one ran to
his post with precipitation; and many ships were obliged to cut their
cables, in order to be in readiness. Sandwich commanded the van; and
though determined to conquer or to perish, he so tempered his courage
with prudence, that the whole fleet was visibly indebted to him for its
safety. He hastened out of the bay, where it had been easy for De Ruyter
with his fireships to have destroyed the combined fleets, which were
crowded together; and by this wise measure, he gave time to the duke of
York, who commanded the main body, and to Mareschal D'Etrees, admiral
of the rear, to disengage themselves. He himself meanwhile rushed into
battle with the Hollanders; and by presenting himself to every danger,
had drawn upon him all the bravest of the enemy, He killed Van Ghent,
a Dutch admiral, and beat off his ship: he sunk another ship, which
ventured to lay him aboard: he sunk three fireships, which endeavored
to grapple with him: and though his vessel was torn in pieces with shot,
and of a thousand men she contained, near six hundred were laid dead
upon the deck, he continued still to thunder with all his artillery in
the midst of the enemy. But another fireship, more fortunate than the
preceding, having laid hold of his vessel, her destruction was now
inevitable. Warned by Sir Edward Haddock, his captain, he refused to
make his escape; and bravely embraced death, as a shelter from that
ignominy which a rash expression of the duke's, he thought, had thrown
upon him.
During this fierce engagement with Sandwich, De Ruyter remained not
inactive. He attacked the duke of York, and fought him with such fury
for above two hours, that of two and thirty actions in which that
admiral had been engaged, he declared this combat to be the most
obstinately disputed. The duke's ship was so shattered, that he was
obliged to leave her, and remove his flag to another. His squadron was
overpowered with numbers, till Sir Joseph Jordan, who had succeeded to
Sandwich's command, came to his assistance; and the fight, being more
equally balanced, was continued till night, when the Dutch retired, and
were not followed by the English. The loss sustained by the fleets of
the two maritime powers was nearly equal, if it did not rather fall more
heavy on the English. The French suffered very little, because they had
scarcely been engaged in the action; and as this backwardness is not
their national character, it was concluded, that they had received
secret orders to spare their ships, while the Dutch and English should
weaken each other by their mutual animosity. Almost all the other
actions during the present war tended to confirm this suspicion.
It might be deemed honorable for the Dutch to have fought with some
advantage the combined fleets of two such powerful nations; but nothing
less than a complete victory could serve the purpose of De Wit, or save
his country from those calamities which from every quarter threatened to
overwhelm her. He had expected, that the French would make their attack
on the side of Maestricht, which was well fortified, and provided with a
good garrison; but Lewis, taking advantage of his alliance with Cologne,
resolved to invade the enemy on that frontier, which he knew to be
more feeble and defenceless. The armies of that elector, and those of
Munster, appeared on the other side of the Rhine, and divided the force
and attention of the states. The Dutch troops, too weak to defend
so extensive a frontier, were scattered into so many towns, that no
considerable body remained in the field and a strong garrison was
scarcely to be found in any fortress Lewis passed the Meuse at Viset;
and laying siege to Orsoi, a town of the elector of Brandenburgh's, but
garrisoned by the Dutch, he carried it in three days. He divided his
army, and invested at once Burik, Wesel, Emerik, and Rhimberg, four
places regularly fortified, and not unprovided with troops: in a few
days, all these places were surrendered. A general astonishment had
seized the Hollanders, from the combination of such powerful princes
against the republic; and nowhere was resistance made suitable to the
ancient glory or present greatness of the state. Governors without
experience commanded troops without discipline; and despair had
universally extinguished that sense of honor, by which alone men in such
dangerous extremities can be animated to a valorous defence.
Lewis advanced to the banks of the Rhine, which he prepared to pass. To
all the other calamities of the Dutch was added the extreme drought of
the season, by which the greatest rivers were much diminished, and
in some places rendered fordable. The French cavalry, animated by the
presence of their prince, full of impetuous courage, but ranged in exact
order, flung themselves into the river: the infantry passed in boats:
a few regiments of Dutch appeared on the other side, who were unable to
make resistance. And thus was executed without danger, but not without
glory, the passage of the Rhine so much celebrated at that time by the
flattery of the French courtiers, and transmitted to posterity by the
more durable flattery of their poets.
Each success added courage to the conquerors, and struck the vanquished
with dismay. The prince of Orange, though prudent beyond his age, was
but newly advanced to the command, unacquainted with the army, unknown
to them; and all men, by reason of the violent factions which prevailed,
were uncertain of the authority on which they must depend. It was
expected that the fort of Skink, famous for the sieges which it had
formerly sustained, would make some resistance; but it yielded to
Turenne in a few days. The same general made himself master of Arnheim,
Knotzembourg, and Nimeguen, as soon as he appeared before them.
Doesbourg at the same time opened its gates to Lewis: soon after,
Harderwic, Amersfort, Campen, Rhenen, Viane, Elbe g, Zwol. Cuilemberg,
Wageninguen, Lochem, Woerden, fe into the enemy's hands. Groll and
Deventer surrendered to the mareschal Luxembourg, who commanded the
troops of Munster. And every hour brought to the states news of the
rapid progress of the French, and of the cowardly defence of their own
garrisons.
The prince of Orange, with his small and discouraged army, retired into
the province of Holland; where he expected, from the natural strength of
the country, since all human art and courage failed, to be able to make
some resistance. The town and province of Utrecht sent deputies, and
surrendered themselves to Lewis Naerden, a place within three leagues of
Amsterdam, was seized by the marquis of Rochfort; and had he pushed on
to Muyden, he had easily gotten possession of it. Fourteen stragglers of
his army having appeared before the gates of that town, the magistrates
sent them the keys; but a servant maid, who was alone in the castle,
having raised the drawbridge, kept them from taking possession of that
fortress. The magistrates afterwards, finding the party so weak, made
them drunk, and took the keys from them. Muyden is so near to Amsterdam,
thai its cannon may infest the ships which enter that city.
Lewis with a splendid court made a solemn entry into Utrecht, full of
glory, because every where attended with success; though more owing to
the cowardice and misconduct of his enemies, than to his own valor
or prudence. Three provinces were already in his hands, Guelderland,
Overyssel, and Utrecht; Groninghen was threatened; Friezeland was
exposed: the only difficulty lay in Holland and Zealand; and the monarch
deliberated concerning the proper measures for reducing them. Conde
and Turenne exhorted him to dismantle all the towns which he had taken,
except a few; and fortifying his main army by the garrisons, put himself
in a condition of pushing his conquests. Louvois, hoping that the other
provinces, weak and dismayed, would prove an easy prey, advised him to
keep possession of places which might afterwards serve to retain the
people in subjection. His counsel was followed though it was found, soon
after, to have been the most impolitic.
Meanwhile the people throughout the republic, instead of collecting a
noble indignation against the haughty conqueror discharged their rage
upon their own unhappy minister, on whose prudence and integrity every
one formerly bestowed the merited applause. The bad condition of the
armies was laid to his charge: the ill choice of governors was ascribed
to his partiality: as instances of cowardice multiplied, treachery was
suspected; and his former connections with France being remembered, the
populace believed, that he and his partisans had now combined to betray
them to their most mortal enemy. The prince of Orange, notwithstanding
his youth and inexperience, was looked on as the only savior of the
state; and men were violently driven by their fears into his party, to
which they had always been led by favor and inclination.
Amsterdam alone seemed to retain some courage; and by forming a regular
plan of defence, endeavored to infuse spirit into the other cities. The
magistrates obliged the burgesses to keep a strict watch: the populace,
whom want of employment might engage to mutiny, were maintained by
regular pay, and armed for the defence of the public. Some ships which
lay useless in the harbor, were refitted, and stationed to guard the
city; and the sluices being opened, the neighboring country, without
regard to the damage sustained, was laid under water. All the province
followed the example, and scrupled not, in this extremity, to restore to
the sea those fertile fields which with great art and expense had been
won from it.
The states were assembled to consider whether any means were left
to save the remains of their lately flourishing and now distressed
commonwealth. Though they were surrounded with waters, which barred all
access to the enemy, their deliberations were not conducted with that
tranquillity which could alone suggest measures proper to extricate
them from their present difficulties. The nobles gave their vote, that,
provided their religion, liberty, and sovereignty could be saved, every
thing else should without scruple be sacrificed to the conqueror.
Eleven towns concurred in the same sentiments. Amsterdam singly
declared against all treaty with insolent and triumphant enemies: but
notwithstanding that opposition, ambassadors were despatched to implore
the pity of the two combined monarchs. It was resolved to sacrifice
to Lewis, Maestricht and all the frontier towns which lay without
the bounds of the seven provinces; and to pay him a large sum for the
charges of the war.
Lewis deliberated with his ministers, Louvois and Pomponne, concerning
the measures which he should embrace in the present emergence; and
fortunately for Europe, he still preferred the violent counsels of
the former. He offered to evacuate his conquests, on condition that all
duties lately imposed on the commodities of France should be taken off:
that the public exercise of the Romish religion should be permitted in
the United Provinces; the churches shared with the Catholics; and
their priests maintained by appointments from the states: that all the
frontier towns of the republic should be yielded to him, together with
Nimeguen, Skink, Knotzembourg, and that part of Guelderland which lay
on the other side of the Rhine; as likewise the Isle of Bommel, that of
Voorn, the fortress of St. Andrew, those of Louvestein and Crevecoeur:
that the states should pay him the sum of twenty millions of livres for
the charges of the war: that they should every year send him a solemn
embassy, and present him with a golden medal, as an acknowledgment
that they owed to him the preservation of that liberty which, by the
assistance of his predecessors, they had formerly acquired: and that
they should give entire satisfaction to the king of England: and he
allowed them but ten days for the acceptance of these demands.
The ambassadors sent to London met with still worse reception: no
minister was allowed to treat with them; and they were retained in a
kind of confinement. But notwithstanding this rigorous conduct of the
court, the presence of the Dutch ambassadors excited the sentiments of
tender compassion, and even indignation, among the people in general,
especially among those who could foresee the aim and result of those
dangerous counsels. The two most powerful monarchs, they said, in
Europe, the one by land, the other by sea, have, contrary to the faith
of solemn treaties, combined to exterminate an illustrious republic:
what a dismal prospect does their success afford to the neighbors of
the one, and to the subjects of the other? Charles had formed the triple
league, in order to restrain the power of France; a sure proof that
he does not now err from ignorance. He had courted and obtained the
applauses of his people by that wise measure: as he now adopts contrary
counsels, he must surely expect by their means to render himself
independent of his people, whose sentiments are become so indifferent to
him. During the entire submission of the nation, and dutiful behavior of
the parliament, dangerous projects, without provocation, are formed to
reduce them to subjection; and all the foreign interests of the people
are sacrificed, in order the more surely to bereave them of their
domestic liberties. Lest any instance of freedom should remain within
their view, the United Province; the real barrier of England, must be
abandoned to the most dangerous enemy of England; and by a universal
combination of tyranny against laws and liberty, all mankind, who
have retained in any degree their precious, though hitherto precarious
birthrights, are forever to submit to slavery and injustice.
Though the fear of giving umbrage to his confederate had engaged Charles
to treat the Dutch ambassadors with such rigor, he was not altogether
without uneasiness on account of the rapid and unexpected progress of
the French arms. Were Holland entirely conquered, its whole commerce
and naval force, he perceived, must become an accession to France; the
Spanish Low Countries must soon follow; and Lewis, now independent of
his ally, would no longer think it his interest to support him against
his discontented subjects. Charles, though he never carried his
attention to very distant consequences, could not but foresee these
obvious events; and though incapable of envy or jealousy, he was touched
with anxiety, when he found every thing yield to the French arms, while
such vigorous resistance was made to his own. He soon dismissed the
Dutch ambassadors, lest they should cabal among his subjects, who bore
them great favor: but he sent over Buckingham and Arlington, and soon
after Lord Halifax, to negotiate anew with the French king, in the
present prosperous situation of that monarch's affairs.
These ministers passed through Holland; and as they were supposed to
bring peace to the distressed republic, they were every where received
with the loudest acclamations. "God bless the king of England! God bless
the prince of Orange! Confusion to the states!" This was every where the
cry of the populace. The ambassadors had several conferences with the
states and the prince of Orange; but made no reasonable advances towards
an accommodation. They went to Utrecht where they renewed the league
with Lewis, and agreed, that neither of the kings should make peace with
Holland but by common consent. They next gave in their pretensions, of
which the following are the principal articles: that the Dutch should
give up the honor of the flag, without the least reserve or limitation
nor should whole fleets, even on the coast of Holland, refuse to strike
or lower their topsails to the smallest ship carrying the British flag:
that all persons guilty of treason against the king, or of writing
seditious libels, should, on complaint, be banished forever the
dominions of the states; that the Dutch should pay the king a million
sterling towards the charges of the war, together with ten thousand
pounds a year, for permission to fish on the British seas: that they
should share the Indian trade with the English: that the prince of
Orange and his descendants should enjoy the sovereignty of the United
Provinces; at least, that they should be invested with the dignities of
stadtholder, admiral, and general, in as ample a manner as had ever been
enjoyed by any of his ancestors: and that the Isle of Walcheren, the
city and castle of Sluis, together with the isles of Cadsant, Goree, and
Vorne, should be put into the king's hands, as a security for the
performance of articles.
The terms proposed by Lewis bereaved the republic of all security
against any invasion by land from France: those demanded by Charles
exposed them equally to an invasion by sea from England; and when both
were united, they appeared absolutely intolerable, and reduced the
Hollanders, who saw no means of defence, to the utmost despair. What
extremely augmented their distress, were the violent factions with which
they continued to be every where agitated. De Wit, too pertinacious
in defence of his own system of liberty, while the very being of the
commonwealth was threatened, still persevered in opposing the repeal
of the perpetual edict, now become the object of horror to the Dutch
populace. Their rage at last broke all bounds, and bore every
thing before it. They rose in an insurrection at Dort, and by force
constrained their burgomasters to sign the repeal so much demanded. This
proved a signal of a general revolt throughout all the provinces.
At Amsterdam, the Hague, Middlebourg, Rotterdam, the people flew to
arms, and trampling under foot the authority of their magistrates,
obliged them to submit to the prince of Orange. They expelled from their
office such as displeased them: they required the prince to appoint
others in their place; and, agreeably to the proceedings of the
populace in all ages, provided they might wreak their vengeance on their
superiors, they expressed great indifference for the protection of their
civil liberties.
The superior talents and virtues of De Wit made him on this occasion
the chief object of envy, and exposed him to the utmost rage of popular
prejudice. Four assassins, actuated by no other motive than mistaken
zeal, had assaulted him in the streets; and after giving him many
wounds, had left him for dead. One of them was punished: the others were
never questioned for the crime. His brother Cornelius, who had behaved
with prudence and courage on board the fleet, was obliged by sickness
to come ashore; and he was now confined to his house at Dort. Some
assassins broke in upon him; and it was with the utmost difficulty that
his family and servants could repel their violence. At Amsterdam,
the house of the brave De Ruyter, the sole resource of the distressed
commonwealth, was surrounded by the enraged populace; and his wife and
children were for some time exposed to the most imminent danger.
One Tichelaer, a barber, a man noted for infamy, accused Cornelius de
Wit of endeavoring by bribes to engage him in the design of poisoning
the prince of Orange. The accusation, though attended with the most
improbable, and even absurd circumstances, was greedily received by
the credulous multitude; and Cornelius was cited before a court of
judicature. The judges, either blinded by the same prejudices, or
not daring to oppose the popular torrent, condemned him to suffer the
question. This man, who had bravely served his country in war, and who
had been invested with the highest dignities, was delivered into
the hands of the executioner, and torn in pieces by the most inhuman
torments. Amidst the severe agonies which he endured, he still made
protestations of his innocence, and frequently repeated an ode of
Horace, which contained sentiments suited to his deplorable condition:--
Justum et tenacem propositi virum, etc.[*]
* Which may be thus translated:--
The man whose mind, on virtue bent, Pursues some greatly
good intent, With undiverted aim, Serene beholds the angry
crowd; Nor can their clamors, fierce and loud, His stubborn
honor tame.
Not the proud tyrant's fiercest threat, Nor storms, that
from their dark retreat The lawless surges wake; Not Jove's
dread bolt, that shakes the pole, The firmer purpose of his
soul With all its power can shake.
Should nature's frame in ruins fall, And chaos o'er the
sinking ball Resume primeval sway, His courage chance and
fate defies, Nor feels the wreck of earth and skies Obstruct
its destined way--BLACKLOCKE
The judges, however, condemned him to lose his offices, and to be
banished the commonwealth. The pensionary, who had not been terrified
from performing the part of a kind brother and faithful friend during
this prosecution, resolved not to desert him on account of the unmerited
infamy which was endeavored to be thrown upon him. He came to his
brothers prison, determined to accompany him to the place of his exile.
The signal was given to the populace. They rose in arms: they broke
open the doors of the prison; they pulled out the two brothers; and a
thousand hands vied who should first be imbrued in their blood. Even
their death did not satiate the brutal rage of the multitude. They
exercised on the dead bodies of those virtuous citizens, indignities
too shocking to be recited; and till tired with their own fury, they
permitted not the friends of the deceased to approach, or to bestow on
them the honors of a funeral, silent and unattended.
The massacre of the De Wits put an end for the time to the remains of
their party; and all men, from fear, inclination, or prudence, concurred
in expressing the most implicit obedience to the prince of Orange. The
republic, though half subdued by foreign force, and as yet dismayed by
its misfortunes, was now firmly united under one leader, and began
to collect the remains of its pristine vigor. William, worthy of that
heroic family from which he sprang, adopted sentiments becoming the head
of a brave and free people. He bent all his efforts against the public
enemy: he sought not against his country any advantages which might be
dangerous to civil liberty. Those intolerable conditions demanded by
their insolent enemies, he exhorted the states to reject with scorn;
and by his advice they put an end to negotiations, which served only to
break the courage of their fellow-citizens, and delay the assistance of
their allies. He showed them, that the numbers and riches of the people,
aided by the advantages of situation, would still be sufficient, if they
abandoned not themselves to despair, to resist, at least retard, the
progress of their enemies, and preserve the remaining provinces, till
the other nations of Europe, sensible of the common danger, could come
to their relief. He represented that, as envy at their opulence and
liberty had produced this mighty combination against them they would
in vain expect by concessions to satisfy foes whose pretensions were as
little bounded by moderation as by justice He exhorted them to remember
the generous valor of their ancestors, who, yet in the infancy of the
state, preferred liberty to every human consideration; and rousing
their spirits to an obstinate defence, repelled all the power, riches,
and military discipline of Spain. And he professed himself willing to
tread in the steps of his illustrious predecessors, and hoped, that as
they had honored him with the same affection which their ancestors paid
to the former princes of Orange, they would second his efforts with the
same constancy and manly fortitude.
The spirit of the young prince infused itself into his hearers. Those
who lately entertained thoughts of yielding their necks to subjection,
were now bravely determined to resist the haughty victor, and to defend
those last remains of their native soil, of which neither the irruptions
of Lewis, nor the inundation of waters, had as yet bereaved them. Should
even the ground fail them on which they might combat, they were
still resolved not to yield the generous strife; but, flying to their
settlements in the Indies, erect a new empire in those remote regions,
and preserve alive, even in the climates of slavery, that liberty of
which Europe was become unworthy. Already they concerted measures for
executing this extraordinary resolution; and found that the vessels
contained in their harbors could transport above two hundred thousand
inhabitants to the East Indies.
The combined princes, finding at last some appearance of opposition,
bent all their efforts to seduce the prince of Orange, on whose
valor and conduct the fate of the commonwealth entirely depended.
The sovereignty of the province of Holland was offered him, and the
protection of England and France, to insure him, as well against the
invasion of foreign enemies, as the insurrection of his subjects.
All proposals were generously rejected; and the prince declared his
resolution to retire into Germany, and to pass his life in hunting on
his lands there, rather than abandon the liberty of his country, or
betray the trust reposed in him. When Buckingham urged the inevitable
destruction which hung over the United Provinces, and asked him whether
he did not see that the commonwealth was ruined, "There is one certain
means," replied the prince, "by which I can be sure never to see my
country's ruin: I will die in the last ditch."
The people in Holland had been much incited to espouse the prince's
party, by the hopes that the king of England pleased with his nephew's
elevation, would abandon those dangerous engagements into which he had
entered, and would afford his protection to the distressed republic.
But all these hopes were soon found to be fallacious. Charles still
persisted in his alliance with France; and the combined fleets
approached the coast of Holland with an English army on board, commanded
by Count Schomberg. It is pretended that an unusual tide carried them
off the coast; and that Providence thus interposed, in an extraordinary
manner, to save the republic from the imminent danger to which it was
exposed. Very tempestuous weather, it is certain, prevailed all the rest
of the season; and the combined fleets either were blown to a distance,
or durst not approach a coast which might prove fatal to them. Lewis,
finding that his enemies gathered courage behind their inundations, and
that no further success was likely for the present to attend his arms,
had retired to Versailles.
The other nations of Europe regarded the subjection of Holland as the
forerunner of their own slavery, and retained no hopes of defending
themselves, should such a mighty accession be made to the already
exorbitant power of France. The emperor, though he lay at a distance,
and was naturally slow in his undertakings, began to put himself in
motion; Brandenburgh showed a disposition to support the states; Spain
had sent some forces to their assistance; and by the present efforts of
the prince of Orange, and the prospect of relief from their allies, a
different face of affairs began already to appear. Groninghen was
the first place that stopped the progress of the enemy: the bishop of
Munster was repulsed from before that town, and obliged to raise the
siege with loss and dishonor. Naerden was attempted by the prince of
Orange; but Mareschal Luxembourg, breaking in upon his intrenchments
with a sudden irruption, obliged him to abandon the enterprise.
{1673.} There was no ally on whom the Dutch more relied for assistance,
than the parliament of England, which the king's necessities at last
obliged him to assemble. The eyes of all men, both abroad and at home,
were fixed on this session, which met after prorogations continued for
near two years. It was evident how much the king dreaded the assembling
of his parliament; and the discontents universally excited by the bold
measures entered into, both in foreign and domestic administration, had
given but too just foundation for his apprehensions.
The king, however, in his speech, addressed them with all the appearance
of cordiality and confidence. He said, that he would have assembled them
sooner, had he not been desirous to allow them leisure for attending
their private affairs, as well as to give his people respite from taxes
and impositions: that since their last meeting, he had been forced into
a war, not only just, but necessary; necessary both for the honor and
interest of the nation: that in order to have peace at home, while
he had war abroad, he had issued his declaration of indulgence to
dissenters, and had found many good effects to result from that measure:
that he heard of some exceptions which had been taken to this exercise
of power; but he would tell them plainly, that he was resolved to stick
to his declaration, and would be much offended at any contradiction: and
that though a rumor had been spread, as if the new-levied army had been
intended to control law and property, he regarded that jealousy as so
frivolous, that he was resolved to augment his forces next spring, and
did not doubt but they would consider the necessity of them in their
supplies. The rest of the business he left to the chancellor.
The chancellor enlarged on the same topics, and added many extraordinary
positions of his own. He told them, that the Hollanders were the common
enemies of all monarchies, especially that of England, their only
competitor for commerce and naval power, and the sole obstacle to their
views of attaining a universal empire, as extensive as that of ancient
Rome: that, even during their present distress and danger, they were so
intoxicated with these ambitious projects, as to slight all treaty, nay,
to refuse all cessation of hostilities: that the king, in entering on
this war, did no more than prosecute those maxims which had engaged the
parliament to advise and approve of the last; and he might therefore
safely say, that it was their war: that the states being the eternal
enemies of England, both by interest and inclination, the parliament had
wisely judged it necessary to extirpate them, and had laid it down as an
eternal maxim, that "delenda est Carthago," this hostile government by
all means is to be subverted: and that though the Dutch pretended to
have assurances that the parliament would furnish no supplies to the
king, he was confident that this hope, in which they extremely trusted,
would soon fail them.
Before the commons entered upon business, there lay before them an
affair, which discovered, beyond a possibility of doubt, the arbitrary
projects of the king; and the measures taken upon it, proved that the
house was not at present in a disposition to submit to them. It had been
the constant, undisputed practice, ever since the parliament in 1604,
for the house, in case of any vacancy, to issue out writs for new
elections; and the chancellor, who, before that time, had had some
precedents in his favor, had ever afterwards abstained from all exercise
of that authority. This indeed was one of the first steps which the
commons had taken in establishing and guarding their privileges; and
nothing could be more requisite than this precaution, in order to
prevent the clandestine issuing of writs, and to insure a fair and free
election. No one but so desperate a minister as Shaftesbury, who had
entered into a regular plan for reducing the people to subjection, could
have entertained thoughts of breaking in upon a practice so reasonable
and so well established, or could have hoped to succeed in so bold an
enterprise. Several members had taken their seats upon irregular writs
issued by the chancellor; but the house was no sooner assembled, and the
speaker placed in the chair, than a motion was made against them; and
the members themselves had the modesty to withdraw. Their election was
declared null; and new writs, in the usual form, were issued by the
speaker.
The next step taken by the commons had the appearance of some more
complaisance; but in reality proceeded from the same spirit of liberty
and independence. They entered a resolution, that, in order to supply
his majesty's extraordinary occasions, (for that was the expression
employed,) they would grant eighteen months' assessment, at the rate of
seventy thousand pounds a month, amounting in the whole to one million
two hundred and sixty thousand pounds. Though unwilling to come to
a violent breach with the king, they would not express the least
approbation of the war; and they gave him the prospect of this supply,
only that they might have permission to proceed peaceably in the redress
of the other grievances of which they had such reason to complain.
No grievance was more alarming, both on account of the secret views from
which it proceeded, and the consequences which might attend it, than the
declaration of indulgence. A remonstrance was immediately framed against
that exercise of prerogative. The king defended his measure. The commons
persisted in their opposition to it; and they represented, that such a
practice, if admitted, might tend to interrupt the free course of
the laws, and alter the legislative power, which had always been
acknowledged to reside in the king and the two houses. All men were in
expectation with regard to the issue of this extraordinary affair. The
king seemed engaged in honor to support his measure; and in order to
prevent all opposition, he had positively declared that he would support
it. The commons were obliged to persevere, not only because it was
dishonorable to be foiled, where they could plead such strong reasons,
but also because, if the king prevailed in his pretensions, an end
seemed to be put to all the legal limitations of the constitution.
It is evident, that Charles was now come to that delicate crisis which
he ought at first to have foreseen, when he embraced those desperate
counsels; and his resolutions, in such an event, ought long ago to have
been entirely fixed and determined. Besides his usual guards, he had an
army encamped at Blackheath, under the command of Mareschal Schomberg,
a foreigner; and many of the officers were of the Catholic religion.
His ally, the French king, he might expect, would second him, if
force became requisite for restraining his discontented subjects, and
supporting the measures which, by common consent, they had agreed to
pursue. But the king was startled when he approached so dangerous a
precipice as that which lay before him. Were violence once offered,
there could be no return, he saw, to mutual confidence and trust with
his people; the perils attending foreign succors, especially from so
mighty a prince, were sufficiently apparent; and the success which his
own arms had met with in the war, was not so great as to increase his
authority, or terrify the malecontents from opposition. The desire
of power, likewise, which had engaged Charles in these precipitate
measures, had less proceeded, we may observe, from ambition than from
love of ease. Strict limitations of the constitution rendered the
conduct of business complicated and troublesome; and it was impossible
for him, without much contrivance and intrigue, to procure the money
necessary for his pleasures, or even for the regular support of
government. When the prospect, therefore, of such dangerous opposition
presented itself, the same love of ease inclined him to retract what it
seemed so difficult to maintain; and his turn of mind, naturally pliant
and careless, made him find little objection to a measure which a more
haughty prince would have embraced with the utmost reluctance. That he
might yield with the better grace, he asked the opinion of the house of
peers, who advised him to comply with the commons. Accordingly the king
sent for the declaration, and with his own hands broke the seals. The
commons expressed the utmost satisfaction with this measure, and the
most entire duty to his majesty. Charles assured them, that he would
willingly pass any law offered him, which might tend to give them
satisfaction in all their just grievances.
Shaftesbury, when he found the king recede at once from so capital
a point, which he had publicly declared his resolution to maintain,
concluded, that all schemes for enlarging royal authority were vanished,
and that Charles was utterly incapable of pursuing such difficult and
such hazardous measures. The parliament, he foresaw, might push their
inquiries into those counsels which were so generally odious; and the
king, from the same facility of disposition, might abandon his ministers
to their vengeance. He resolved, therefore, to make his peace in time
with that party which was likely to predominate, and to atone for all
his violences in favor of monarchy by like violences in opposition to
it. Never turn was more sudden, or less calculated to save appearances.
Immediately he entered into all the cabals of the country party; and
discovered to them, perhaps magnified, the arbitrary designs of the
court, in which he himself had borne so deep a share. He was received
with open arms by that party, who stood in need of so able a leader; and
no questions were asked with regard to his late apostasy. The various
factions into which the nation had been divided, and the many sudden
revolutions to which the public had been exposed, had tended much to
debauch the minds of men, and to destroy the sense of honor and decorum
in their public conduct.
But the parliament, though satisfied with the king's compliance, had
not lost all those apprehensions to which the measures of the court had
given so much foundation. A law passed for imposing a test on all who
should enjoy any public office. Besides taking the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, and receiving the sacrament in the established
church, they were obliged to abjure all belief in the doctrine of
transubstantiation. As the dissenters had seconded the efforts of
the commons against the king's declaration of indulgence, and seemed
resolute to accept of no toleration in an illegal manner, they had
acquired great favor with the parliament; and a project was adopted to
unite the whole Protestant interest against the common enemy, who now
began to appear formidable. A bill passed the commons for the ease and
relief of the Protestant nonconformists; but met with some difficulties,
at least delays, in the house of peers.
The resolution for supply was carried into a law; as a recompense to
the king for his concessions. An act, likewise, of general pardon and
indemnity was passed, which screened the ministers from all further
inquiry. The parliament probably thought, that the best method of
reclaiming the criminals, was to show them that their case was not
desperate. Even the remonstrance which the commons voted of their
grievances, may be regarded as a proof that their anger was, for the
time, somewhat appeased. None of the capital points are there touched
on; the breach of the triple league, the French alliance, or the
shutting up of the exchequer. The sole grievances mentioned are, an
arbitrary imposition on coals for providing convoys, the exercise of
martial law, the quartering and pressing of soldiers: and they prayed
that, after the conclusion of the war, the whole army should be
disbanded. The king gave them a gracious, though an evasive answer. When
business was finished, the two houses adjourned themselves.
Though the king had receded from his declaration of indulgence, and
thereby had tacitly relinquished the dispensing power, he was still
resolved, notwithstanding his bad success both at home and abroad,
to persevere in his alliance with France, and in the Dutch war, and
consequently in all those secret views, whatever they were, which
depended on those fatal measures. The money granted by parliament
sufficed to equip a fleet, of which Prince Rupert was declared admiral;
for the duke was set aside by the test. Sir Edward Sprague and the earl
of Ossory commanded under the prince. A French squadron joined them,
commanded by d'Etrees. The combined fleets set sail towards the coast
of Holland, and found the enemy lying at anchor within the sands at
Schonvelt. There is a natural confusion attending sea fights, even
beyond other military transactions; derived from the precarious
operations of winds and tides, as well as from the smoke and darkness in
which every thing is there involved. No wonder, therefore, that accounts
of those battles are apt to contain uncertainties and contradictions;
especially when delivered by writers of the hostile nations, who
take pleasure in exalting the advantages of their own countrymen, and
depressing those of the enemy. All we can say with certainty of this
battle is, that both sides boasted of the victory; and we may thence
infer, that the event was not decisive. The Dutch, being near home,
retired into their harbors. In a week, they were refitted, and presented
themselves again to the combined fleets. A new action ensued, not more
decisive than the foregoing. It was not fought with great obstinacy on
either side; but whether the Dutch or the allies first retired, seems to
be a matter of uncertainty. The loss in the former cf these actions fell
chiefly on the French, whom the English, diffident of their intentions,
took care to place under their own squadrons; and they thereby exposed
them to all the fire of the enemy. There seems not to have been a ship
lost on either side in the second engagement.
It was sufficient glory to De Ruyter, that, with a fleet much inferior
to the combined squadrons of France and England, he could fight them
without any notable disadvantage; and it was sufficient victory, that
he could defeat the project of a descent in Zealand, which, had it taken
place, had endangered, in the present circumstances, the total overthrow
of the Dutch commonwealth. Prince Rupert was also suspected not to favor
the king's projects for subduing Holland, or enlarging his authority at
home; and from these motives he was thought not to have pressed so
hard on the enemy, as his well-known valer gave reason to expect. It is
indeed remarkable, that during this war, though the English with their
allies much overmatched the Hollanders, they were not able to gain any
advantage over them; while in the former war, though often overborne by
numbers, they still exerted themselves with the greatest courage, and
always acquired great renown, sometimes even signal victories. But they
were disgusted at the present measures, which they deemed pernicious to
their country; they were not satisfied in the justice of the quarrel;
and they entertained a perpetual jealousy of their confederates, whom,
had they been permitted, they would, with much more pleasure, have
destroyed than even the enemy themselves.
If Prince Rupert was not favorable to the designs of the court, he
enjoyed as little favor from the court, at least from the duke, who,
though he could no longer command the fleet still possessed the chief
authority in the admiralty. The prince complained of a total want of
every thing, powder shot, provisions, beer, and even water; and he went
into harbor, that he might refit his ships, and supply their numerous
necessities. After some weeks, he was refitted; and he again put to sea.
The hostile fleets met at the mouth of the Texel, and fought the last
battle, which, during the course of so many years, these neighboring
maritime powers have disputed with each other. De Ruyter, and under him
Tromp, commanded the Dutch in this action, as in the two former; for the
prince of Orange had reconciled these gallant rivals; and they retained
nothing of their former animosity, except that emulation which made them
exert themselves with more distinguished bravery against the enemies
of their country. Brankert was opposed to d'Etrees, De Ruyter to Prince
Rupert, Tromp to Sprague. It is to be remarked, that in all actions,
these brave admirals last mentioned had still selected each other as the
only antagonists worthy each other's valor; and no decisive advantage
had as yet been gained by either of them. They fought in this battle, as
if there were no mean between death and victory.
D'Etrees and all the French squadron, except Rear-Admiral Martel, kept
at a distance; and Brankert, instead of attacking them, bore down to the
assistance of De Ruyter, who was engaged in furious combat with Prince
Rupert. On no occasion did the prince acquire more deserved honor:
his conduct, as well as valor, shone out with signal lustre. Having
disengaged his squadron from the numerous enemies with whom he was every
where surrounded, and having joined Sir John Chichely, his rear-admiral,
who had been separated from him, he made haste to the relief of Sprague,
who was hard pressed by Tromp's squadron. The Royal Prince, in which
Sprague first engaged, was so disabled, that he was obliged to hoist his
flag on board the St. George; while Tromp was for a like reason obliged
to quit his ship, the Golden Lion, and go on board the Comet. The fight
was renewed with the utmost fury by these valorous rivals, and by the
rear-admirals, their seconds. Ossory, rear-admiral to Sprague, was
preparing to board Tromp, when he saw the St. George terribly torn, and
in a manner disabled. Sprague was leaving her, in order to hoist his
flag on board a third ship, and return to the charge, when a shot, which
had passed through the St. George, took his boat, and sunk her. The
admiral was drowned, to the regret of Tromp himself, who bestowed on his
valor the deserved praises.
Prince Rupert found affairs in this dangerous situation, and saw most
of the ships in Sprague's squadron disabled from fight. The engagement,
however, was renewed, and became very close and bloody. The prince
threw the enemy into disorder. To increase it, he sent among them two
fireships, and at the same time made a signal to the French to bear
down; which if they had done, a decisive victory must have ensued. But
the prince, when he saw that they neglected his signal, and observed
that most of his ships were in no condition to keep the sea long, wisely
provided for their safety by making easy sail towards the English coast.
The victory in this battle was as doubtful as in all the actions fought
during the present war.
The turn which the affairs of the Hollanders took by land was more
favorable. The prince of Orange besieged and took Naerden; and from
this success gave his country reason to hope for still more prosperous
enterprises. Montecuculi, who commanded the imperialists on the
Upper Rhine, deceived, by the most artful conduct, the vigilance and
penetration of Turenne, and making a sudden march, sat down before
Bonne. The prince of Orange's conduct was no less masterly; while he
eluded all the French generals, and leaving them behind him, joined his
army to that of the imperialists. Bonne was taken in a few days: several
other places in the electorate of Cologne fell into the hands of the
allies; and the communication being thus cut off between France and the
United Provinces, Lewis was obliged to recall his forces, and to abandon
all his conquests with greater rapidity than he had at first made them.
The taking of Maestricht was the only advantage which he gained this
campaign.
A congress was opened at Cologne under the mediation of Sweden; but with
small hopes of success. The demands of the two kings were such as must
have reduced the Hollanders to perpetual servitude. In proportion as
the affairs of the states rose, the kings sunk in their demands; but the
states still sunk lower in their offers; and it was found impossible for
the parties ever to agree on any conditions. After the French evacuated
Holland, the congress broke up; and the seizure of Prince William of
Furstenburg by the Imperialists, afforded the French and English a good
pretence for leaving Cologne. The Dutch ambassadors, in their memorials,
expressed all the haughtiness and disdain so natural to a free state,
which had met with such unmerited ill usage.
The parliament of England was now assembled, and discovered much greater
symptoms of ill humor than had appeared in the last session. They had
seen for some time a negotiation of marriage carried on between the
duke of York and the archduchess of Inspruc, a Catholic of the Austrian
family; and they had made no opposition. But when that negotiation
failed, and the duke applied to a princess of the house of Modena, then
in close alliance with France, this circumstance, joined to so many
other grounds of discontent, raised the commons into a flame; and they
remonstrated with the greatest zeal against the intended marriage. The
king told them, that their remonstrance came too late, and that the
marriage was already agreed on, and even celebrated by proxy. The
commons still insisted; and proceeding to the examination of the other
parts of government, they voted the standing army a grievance, and
declared, that they would grant no more supply unless it appeared that
the Dutch were so obstinate as to refuse all reasonable conditions of
peace. To cut short these disagreeable attacks, the king resolved to
prorogue the parliament; and with that intention he came unexpectedly
to the house of peers, and sent the usher to summon the commons. It
happened that the speaker and the usher nearly met at the door of the
house; but the speaker being within, some of the members suddenly shut
the door, and cried, "To the chair, to the chair;" while others cried,
"The black rod is at the door." The speaker was hurried to the chair;
and the following motions were instantly made: That the alliance with
France is a grievance; that the evil counsellors about the king are a
grievance; that the duke of Lauderdale is a grievance, and not fit to be
trusted or employed. There was a general cry, "To the question, to the
question;" but the usher knocking violently at the door, the speaker
leaped from the chair, and the house rose in great confusion.
During the interval, Shaftesbury, whose intrigues with the malecontent
party were now become notorious, was dismissed from the office of
chancellor; and the great seal was given to Sir Heneage Finch, by the
title of lord keeper. The test had incapacitated Clifford; and the white
staff was conferred on Sir Thomas Osborne, soon after created earl
of Danby, a minister of abilities, who had risen by his parliamentary
talents. Clifford retired into the country, and soon after died.
{1674.} The parliament had been prorogued, in order to give the duke
leisure to finish his marriage; but the king's necessities soon obliged
him again to assemble them; and by some popular acts he paved the way
for the session. But all his efforts were in vain. The disgust of the
commons was fixed in foundations too deep to be easily removed. They
began with applications for a general fast; by which they intimated that
the nation was in a very calamitous condition: they addressed against
the king's guards, which they represented as dangerous to liberty,
and even as illegal, since they never had yet received the sanction of
parliament: they took some steps towards establishing a new and more
rigorous test against Popery: and what chiefly alarmed the court, they
made an attack on the members of the cabal, to whose pernicious
counsels they imputed all their present grievances. Clifford was dead:
Shaftesbury had made his peace with the country party, and was become
their leader: Buckingham was endeavoring to imitate Shaftesbury; but his
intentions were as yet known to very few. A motion was therefore made in
the house of commons for his impeachment: he desired to be heard at the
bar, but expressed himself in so confused and ambiguous a manner, as
gave little satisfaction. He was required to answer precisely to certain
queries which they proposed to him. These regarded all the articles
of misconduct above mentioned; and among the rest, the following query
seems remarkable: "By whose advice was the army brought up to overawe
the debates and resolutions of the house of commons?" This shows to
what length the suspicions of the house were at that time carried.
Buckingham, in all his answers, endeavored to exculpate himself, and to
load Arlington. He succeeded not in the former intention: the commons
voted an address for his removal. But Arlington, who was on many
accounts obnoxious to the house, was attacked. Articles were drawn up
against him; though the impeachment was never prosecuted.
The king plainly saw, that he could expect no supply from the commons
for carrying on a war so odious to them. He resolved, therefore, to make
a separate peace with the Dutch on the terms which they had proposed
through the channel of the Spanish ambassador. With a cordiality which,
in the present disposition on both sides, was probably but affected, but
which was obliging, he asked advice of the parliament. The parliament
unanimously concurred, both in thanks for this gracious condescension,
and in their advice for peace. Peace was accordingly concluded. The
honor of the flag was yielded by the Dutch in the most extensive terms:
a regulation of trade was agreed to: all possessions were restored to
the same condition as before the war: the English planters in Surinam
were allowed to remove at pleasure: and the states agreed to pay to the
king the sum of eight hundred thousand patacoons, near three hundred
thousand pounds. Four days after the parliament was prorogued, the peace
was proclaimed in London, to the great joy of the people. Spain had
declared, that she could no longer remain neuter, if hostilities were
continued against Holland; and a sensible decay of trade was foreseen,
in case a rupture should ensue with that kingdom. The prospect of this
loss contributed very much to increase the national aversion to the
present war, and to enliven the joy for its conclusion.
There was in the French service a great body of English, to the number
of ten thousand men, who had acquired honor in every action, and had
greatly contributed to the successes of Lewis. These troops, Charles
said, he was bound by treaty not to recall; but he obliged himself to
the states by a secret article not to allow them to be recruited. His
partiality to France prevented a strict execution of this engagement.
CHAPTER LXVI
CHARLES II.
{1674.} IF we consider the projects of the famous cabal, it will appear
hard to determine, whether the end which those ministers pursued were
more blamable and pernicious, or the means by which they were to
effect it more impolitic and imprudent. Though they might talk only of
recovering or fixing the king's authority, their intention could be no
other than that of making him absolute; since it was not possible to
regain or maintain, in opposition to the people, any of those powers of
the crown abolished by late law or custom, without subduing the people,
and rendering the royal prerogative entirely uncontrollable. Against
such a scheme they might foresee that every part of the nation would
declare themselves; not only the old parliamentary faction, which,
though they kept not in a body, were still numerous, but even the
greatest royalists, who were indeed attached to monarchy, but desired to
see it limited and restrained by law. It had appeared, that the present
parliament, though elected during the greatest prevalence of the
royal party, was yet tenacious of popular privileges, and retained a
considerable jealousy of the crown, even before they had received any
just ground of suspicion. The guards, therefore, together with a small
army, new levied and undisciplined, and composed, too, of Englishmen,
were almost the only domestic resources which the king could depend on
in the prosecution of these dangerous counsels.
The assistance of the French king was no doubt deemed by the cabal a
considerable support in the schemes which they were forming; but it is
not easily conceived they could imagine themselves capable of directing
and employing an associate of so domineering a character. They ought
justly to have suspected, that it would be the sole intention of Lewis,
as it evidently was his interest, to raise incurable jealousies between
the king and his people; and that he saw how much a steady, uniform
government in this island, whether free or absolute, would form
invincible barriers to his ambition. Should his assistance be demanded,
if he sent a small supply, it would serve only to enrage the people, and
render the breach altogether irreparable; if he furnished a great force,
sufficient to subdue the nation, there was little reason to trust his
generosity with regard to the use which he would make of this advantage.
In all its other parts, the plan of the cabal, it must be confessed,
appears equally absurd and incongruous. If the war with Holland
were attended with great success, and involved the subjection of the
republic, such an accession of force must fall to Lewis, not to Charles:
and what hopes afterwards of resisting by the greatest unanimity so
mighty a monarch? How dangerous, or rather how ruinous, to depend upon
his assistance against domestic discontents! If the Dutch, by their own
vigor, and the assistance of allies, were able to defend themselves, and
could bring the war to an equality, the French arms would be so employed
abroad, that no considerable reenforcement could thence be expected to
second the king's enterprises in England. And might not the project
of overawing or subduing the people be esteemed of itself sufficiently
odious, without the aggravation of sacrificing that state which they
regarded as their best ally, and with which, on many accounts, they were
desirous of maintaining the greatest concord and strictest confederacy?
Whatever views likewise might be entertained of promoting by these
measures the Catholic religion, they could only tend to render all the
other schemes abortive, and make them fall with inevitable ruin upon the
projectors. The Catholic religion, indeed, where it is established, is
better fitted than the Protestant for supporting an absolute monarchy;
but would any man have bought of it as the means of acquiring arbitrary
authority in England, where it was more detested than even slavery
itself?
It must be allowed that the difficulties, and even inconsistencies,
attending the schemes of the cabal, are so numerous and obvious, that
one feels at first an inclination to deny the reality of those schemes,
and to suppose them entirely the chimeras of calumny and faction. But
the utter impossibility of accounting, by any other hypothesis, for
those strange measures embraced by the court, as well as for
the numerous circumstances which accompanied them, obliges us to
acknowledge, (though there remains no direct evidence of it,[*]) that
a formal plan was laid for changing the religion, and subverting the
constitution of England; and that the king and the ministry were in
reality conspirators against the people. What is most probable in human
affairs, is not always true and a very minute circumstance overlooked in
our speculations, serves often to explain events which may seem the most
surprising and unaccountable.
* Since the publication of this History, the author has had
occasion to see the most direct and positive evidence of
this conspiracy. From the urbanity and candor of the
principal of the Scotch college at Paris, he was admitted to
peruse James II.'s Memoirs, kept there. They amount to
several volumes of small folio, all writ with that prince's
own hand, and comprehending the remarkable incidents of his
life, from his early youth till near the time of his death.
His account of the French alliance is as follows: The
intention of the king and duke was chiefly to change the
religion of England, which they deemed an easy undertaking,
because of the great propensity, as they imagined, of the
cavaliers and church party to Popery: the treaty with Lewis
was concluded at Versailles in the end of 1669, or beginning
of 1670, by Lord Arundel of Wardour, whom no historian
mentions as having had any hand in these transactions. The
purport of it was, that Lewis was to give Charles two
hundred thousand pounds a year in quarterly payments, in
order to enable him to settle the Catholic religion in
England; and he was also to supply him with an army of six
thousand men, in case of any insurrection. When that work
was finished, England was to join with France in making war
upon Holland. In case of success, Lewis was to have the
inland provinces; the prince of Orange, Holland in
sovereignty; and Charles, Sluice, the Brille, Walkeren, with
the rest of the seaports as far as Mazeland Sluice. The
king's project was first to effect the change of religion in
England; but the duchess of Orleans, in the interview at
Dover, persuaded him to begin with the Dutch war, contrary
to the remonstrances of the duke of York, who insisted that
Lewis, after serving his own purpose, would no longer
trouble himself about England. The duke makes no mention of
any design to render the king absolute; but that was no
doubt implied in the other project, which was to be effected
entirely by royal authority. The king was so zealous a
Papist, that he wept for joy when he saw the prospect of
reuniting his kingdom to the Catholic church.
Sir John Dalrymple has since published some other curious particulars
with regard to this treaty. We find that it was concerted and signed
with the privity alone of four Popish counsellors of the king's;
Arlington, Arundel, Clifford, and Sir Richard-Bealing. The secret was
kept from Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. In order to engage them to
take part in it, a very refined and a very mean artifice was fallen upon
by the king. After the secret conclusion and signature of the treaty,
the king pretended to these three ministers that for smaller matters,[*]
and the ordinary occurrences of life nor had he application enough to
carry his view to distant consequences, or to digest and adjust any plan
of political operations.
* Duke of Buckingham's character of King Charles II.
As he scarcely ever thought twice on any one subject, every appearance
of advantage was apt to seduce him; and when he found his way obstructed
by unlooked-for difficulties, he readily turned aside into the first
path, where he expected more to gratify the natural indolence of his
disposition. To this versatility or pliancy of genius he himself was
inclined to trust; and he thought that, after trying an experiment for
enlarging his authority, and altering the national religion, he could
easily, if it failed, return into the ordinary channel of government.
But the suspicions of the people, though they burst not forth at once,
were by this attempt rendered altogether incurable; and the more they
reflected on the circumstances attending it, the more resentment and
jealousy were they apt to entertain. They observed, that the king never
had any favorite; that he was never governed by his ministers, scarcely
even by his mistresses; and that he himself was the chief spring of all
public counsels. Whatever appearance, therefore, of a change might be
assumed, they still suspected that the same project was secretly in
agitation; and they deemed no precaution too great to secure them
against the pernicious consequences of such measures.
He wished to have a treaty and alliance with France for mutual
supports and for a Dutch war; and when various pretended obstacles and
difficulties were surmounted, a sham treaty was concluded with their
consent and approbation, containing every article of the former real
treaty, except that of the king's change of religion. However, there
was virtually involved, even in this treaty, the assuming of absolute
government in England; for the support of French troops, and a war with
Holland, so contrary to the interests and inclinations of his people,
could mean nothing else. One cannot sufficiently admire the absolute
want of common sense which appears throughout the whole of this criminal
transaction. For if Popery was so much the object of national
horror, that even the king's three ministers, Buckingham, Ashley, and
Lauderdale, and such profligate ones, too, either would not or durst
not receive it, what hopes could he entertain of forcing the nation into
that communion? Considering the state of the kingdom, full of veteran
and zealous soldiers, bred during the civil wars, it is probable that
he had not kept the crown two months after a declaration so wild and
extravagant. This was probably the reason why the king of France and the
French minister always dissuaded him from taking off the mask, till
the successes of the Dutch war should render that measure prudent and
practicable.
The king, sensible of this jealousy, was inclined thenceforth not
to trust his people, of whom he had even before entertained a great
diffidence; and though obliged to make a separate peace, he still kept
up connections with the French monarch. He apologized for deserting his
ally, by representing to him all the real, undissembled difficulties
under which he labored; and Lewis, with the greatest complaisance and
good humor, admitted the validity of his excuses. The duke likewise,
conscious that his principles and conduct had rendered him still more
obnoxious to the people, maintained on his own account a separate
correspondence with the French court, and entered into particular
connections with Lewis, which these princes dignified with the name
of friendship. The duke had only in view to secure his succession, and
favor the Catholics, and it must be acknowledged to his praise, that
though his schemes were in some particulars dangerous to the people,
they gave the king no just ground of jealousy. A dutiful subject, and an
affectionate brother, he knew no other rule of conduct than obedience;
and the same unlimited submission which afterwards, when king, he
exacted of his people, he was ever willing, before he ascended the
throne, to pay to his sovereign.
As the king was at peace with all the world, and almost the only prince
in Europe placed in that agreeable situation, he thought proper to
offer his mediation to the contending powers, in order to compose their
differences. France, willing to negotiate under so favorable a mediator,
readily accepted of Charles's offer; but it was apprehended that, for a
like reason, the allies would be inclined to refuse it. In order
to give a sanction to his new measures, the king invited Temple from his
retreat, and appointed him ambassador to the states. That wise minister,
reflecting on the unhappy issue of his former undertakings, and the
fatal turn of counsels which had occasioned it, resolved, before he
embarked anew, to acquaint himself, as far as possible, with the real
intentions of the king, in those popular measures which he seemed again
to have adopted. After blaming the dangerous schemes of the cabal, which
Charles was desirous to excuse, he told his majesty very plainly, that
he would find it extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to
introduce into England the same system of government and religion which
was established in France: that the universal bent of the nation was
against both; and it required ages to change the genius and sentiments
of a people: that many, who were at bottom indifferent in matters of
religion, would yet oppose all alterations on that head because they
considered, that nothing but force of arms could subdue the reluctance
of the people against Popery; after which, they knew there could be no
security for civil liberty: that in France, every circumstance had
long been adjusted to that system of government, and tended to
its establishment and support: that the commonalty, being poor and
dispirited, were of no account; the nobility, engaged by the prospect
or possession of numerous offices, civil and military, were entirely
attached to the court; the ecclesiastics, retained by like motives,
added the sanction of religion to the principles of civil policy: that
in England, a great part of the landed property belonged either to the
yeomanry or middling gentry; the king had few offices to bestow; and
could not himself even subsist, much less maintain an army, except by
the voluntary supplies of his parliament: that if he had an army on
foot, yet, if composed of Englishmen, they would never be prevailed
on to promote ends which the people so much feared and hated: that the
Roman Catholics in England were not the hundredth part of the nation,
and in Scotland not the two hundredth; and it seemed against all common
sense to hope, by one part, to govern ninety-nine, who were of contrary
sentiments and dispositions: and that foreign troops, if few, would tend
only to inflame hatred and discontent; and how to raise and bring over
at once, or to maintain many, it was very difficult to imagine. To these
reasonings Temple added the authority of Gourville, a Frenchman,
for whom he knew the king had entertained a great esteem. "A king of
England," said Gourville, "who will be the man of his people, is the
greatest king in the world; but if he will be any thing more, he is
nothing at all." The king heard at first this discourse with some
impatience; but being a dexterous dissembler, he seemed moved at last,
and laying his hand on Temple's, said, with an appearing cordiality,
"And I will be the man of my people."
Temple, when he went abroad, soon found that the scheme of mediating a
peace was likely to prove abortive. The allies, besides their jealousy
of the king's mediation, expressed a great ardor for the continuance
of war. Holland had stipulated with Spain never to come to an
accommodation, till all things in Flanders were restored to the
condition in which they had been left by the Pyrenean treaty. The
emperor had high pretensions in Alsace; and as the greater part of
the empire joined in the alliance, it was hoped that France, so much
overmatched in force, would soon be obliged to submit to the terms
demanded of her. The Dutch, indeed, oppressed by heavy taxes, as well
as checked in their commerce, were desirous of peace; and had few or no
claims of their own to retard it: but they could not in gratitude, or
even in good policy, abandon allies to whose protection they had so
lately been indebted for their safety. The prince of Orange likewise,
who had great influence in their councils, was all on fire for military
fame, and was well pleased to be at the head of armies, from which such
mighty successes were expected. Under various pretences, he eluded,
during the whole campaign, the meeting with Temple; and after the troops
were sent into winter quarters, he told that minister, in his first
audience, that till greater impression were made on France, reasonable
terms could not be hoped for; and it were therefore vain to negotiate.
The success of the campaign had not answered expectation. The prince of
Orange, with a superior army, was opposed in Flanders to the prince of
Conde, and had hoped to penetrate into France by that quarter, where the
frontier was then very feeble. After long endeavoring, though in vain,
to bring Conde to a battle, he rashly exposed at Seneffe a wing of his
army; and that active prince failed not at once to see and to seize
the advantage. But this imprudence of the prince of Orange was amply
compensated by his behavior in that obstinate and bloody action which
ensued. He rallied his dismayed troops; he led them to the charge; he
pushed the veteran and martial troops of France; and he obliged the
prince of Conde, notwithstanding his age and character, to exert greater
efforts, and to risk his person more, than in any action where, even
during the heat of youth, he had ever commanded. After sunset, the
action was continued by the light of the moon; and it was darkness
at last, not the weariness of the combatants, which put an end to the
contest, and left the victory undecided. "The prince of Orange," said
Conde, with candor and generosity, "has acted in every thing like an old
captain, except venturing his life too like a young soldier." Oudenarde
was afterwards invested by the prince of Orange but he was obliged by
the imperial and Spanish generals to raise the siege on the approach of
the enemy. He afterwards besieged and took Grave; and at the beginning
of winter the allied armies broke up, with great discontents and
complaints on all sides.
The allies were not more successful in other places. Lewis in a few
weeks reconquered Franche Gompte. In Alsace, Turenne displayed, against
a much superior enemy, all that military skill which had long rendered
him the most renowned captain of his age and nation. By a sudden and
forced march, he attacked and beat at Sintzheim the duke of Lorraine and
Caprara, general of the imperialists. Seventy thousand Germans poured
into Alsace, and took up their quarters in that province. Turenne, who
had retired into Lorraine, returned unexpectedly upon them. He attacked
and defeated a body of the enemy at Mulhausen. He chased from Colmar
the elector of Brandenburgh, who commanded the German troops*[**missing
period] He gained a new advantage at Turkheim. And having dislodged all
the allies, he obliged them to repass the Rhine, full of shame for their
multiplied defeats, and still more, of anger and complaints against each
other.
In England, all these events were considered by the people with great
anxiety and concern; though the king and his ministers affected great
indifference with regard to them. Considerable alterations were about
this time made in the English ministry. Buckingham was dismissed, who
had long, by his wit and entertaining humor, possessed the king's favor.
Arlington, now chamberlain, and Danby, the treasurer, possessed chiefly
the king's confidence. Great hatred and jealousy took place between
these ministers; and public affairs were somewhat disturbed by their
quarrels. But Danby daily gained ground with his master; and Arlington
declined in the same proportion. Danby was a frugal minister; and by his
application and industry he brought the revenue into tolerable order. He
endeavored so to conduct himself as to give offence to no party; and
the consequence was, that he was able entirely to please none. He was
a declared enemy to the French alliance; but never possessed authority
enough to overcome the prepossessions which the king and the duke
retained towards it*[**missing period] It must be ascribed to the
prevalence of that interest, aided by money remitted from Paris, that
the parliament was assembled so late this year, lest they should
attempt to engage the king in measures against France during the ensuing
campaign. They met not till the approach of summer.[*]
* This year, on the twenty-fifth of March, died Henry
Cromwell, second son of the protector, in the forty-seventh
year of his age. He had lived unmolested in a private
station, ever since the king's restoration, which he rather
favored than opposed.
{1675.} Every step taken by the commons discovered that ill humor and
jealousy to which the late open measures of the king, and his present
secret attachments, gave but too just foundation. They drew up a new
bill against Popery, and resolved to insert in it many severe clauses
for the detection and prosecution of priests: they presented addresses
a second time against Lauderdale; and when the king's answer was
not satisfactory, they seemed still determined to persevere in their
applications: an accusation was moved against Danby; but upon examining
the several articles, it was not found to contain any just reasons of
a prosecution, and was therefore dropped: they applied to the king for
recalling his troops from the French service; and as he only promised
that they should not be recruited, they appeared to be much dissatisfied
with the answer: a bill was brought in, making it treason to levy money
without authority of parliament; another vacating the seats of such
members as accepted of offices; another to secure the personal liberty
of the subject, and to prevent sending any person prisoner beyond sea.
That the court party might not be idle during these attacks, a bill
for a new test was introduced into the house of peers by the earl of
Lindesey. All members of either house, and all who possessed any office,
were by this bill required to swear mat it was not lawful, upon any
pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; that they abhorred
the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his
person, or against those who were commissioned by him; and that they
will not at any time endeavor the alteration of the Protestant religion,
or of the established government either in church or state.
Great opposition was made to this bill, as might be expected from the
present disposition of the nation. During seventeen days, the debates
were carried on with much zeal; and all the reason and learning of
both parties were displayed on the occasion. The question, indeed, with
regard to resistance, was a point which entered into the controversies
of the old parties, cavalier and roundhead; as it made an essential
part of the present disputes between court and country. Few neuters
were found in the nation: but among such as could maintain a calm
indifference, there prevailed sentiments wide of those which were
adopted by either party. Such persons thought, that all general
speculative declarations of the legislature, either for or against
resistance, were equally impolitic and could serve to no other purpose
than to signalize in their turn the triumph of one faction over another:
that the simplicity retained in the ancient laws of England, as well as
in the laws of every other country, ought still to be preserved, and
was best calculated to prevent the extremes on either side: that the
absolute exclusion of resistance, in all possible cases, was founded on
false principles; its express admission might be attended with dangerous
consequences; and there was no necessity for exposing the public to
either inconvenience: that if a choice must necessarily be made in the
case, the preference of utility to truth in public institutions was
apparent; nor could the supposition of resistance, beforehand and in
general terms, be safely admitted in any government: that even in mixed
monarchies, where that supposition seemed most requisite, it was yet
entirely superfluous; since no man, on the approach of extraordinary
necessity, could be at a loss, though not directed by legal
declarations, to find the proper remedy: that even those who might at a
distance, and by scholastic reasoning, exclude all resistance, would yet
hearken to the voice of nature, when evident ruin, both to themselves
and to the public, must attend a strict adherence to their pretended
principles: that the question, as it ought thus to be entirely excluded
from all determinations of the legislature, was, even among private
reasoners, somewhat frivolous, and little better than a dispute of
words: that the one party could not pretend that resistance ought ever
to become a familiar practice; the other would surely have recourse to
it in great extremities; and thus the difference could only turn on
the degrees of danger or oppression which would warrant this irregular
remedy; a difference which, in a general question, it was impossible by
any language precisely to fix or determine.
There were many other absurdities in this test, particularly that of
binding men by oath not to alter the government either in church or
state; since all human institutions are liable to abuse, and require
continual amendments, which are in reality so many alterations. It is
not indeed possible to make a law which does not innovate, more or less,
in the government. These difficulties produced such obstructions to the
bill, that it was carried only by two voices in the house of peers. All
the Popish lords, headed by the earl cf Bristol, voted against it. It
was sent down to the house of commons, where it was likely to undergo a
scrutiny still more severe.
But a quarrel which ensued between the two houses, prevented the passing
of every bill projected during the present session. One Dr. Shirley,
being cast in a lawsuit before chancery against Sir John Fag, a member
of the house of commons, preferred a petition of appeal to the house of
peers. The lords received it, and summoned Fag to appear before them.
He complained to the lower house, who espoused his cause. They not only
maintained, that no member of their house could be summoned before the
peers; they also asserted, that the upper house could receive no appeals
from any court of equity; a pretension which extremely retrenched the
jurisdiction of the peers, and which was contrary to the practice that
had prevailed during this whole century. The commons send Shirley to
prison; the lords assert their powers. Conferences are tried; but no
accommodation ensues. Four lawyers are sent to the Tower by the commons,
for transgressing the orders of the house, and pleading in this cause
before the peers. The peers denominate this arbitrary commitment a
breach of the Great Charter, and order the lieutenant of the Tower to
release the prisoners: he declines obedience: they apply to the king,
and desire him to punish the lieutenant for his contempt. The king
summons both houses; exhorts them to unanimity; and informs them, that
the present quarrel had arisen from the contrivance of his and their
enemies, who expected by that means to force a dissolution of the
parliament. His advice has no effect: the commons continue as violent as
ever; and the king, finding that no business could be finished, at last
prorogued the parliament.
When the parliament was again assembled, there appeared not in any
respect a change in the dispositions of either house. The king
desired supplies, as well for the building of ships, as for taking off
anticipations which lay upon his revenue, He even confessed, that he had
not been altogether so frugal as he might have been, and as he
resolved to be for the future; though he asserted that, to his great
satisfaction, he had found his expenses by no means so exorbitant as
some had represented them. The commons took into consideration the
subject of supply. They voted three hundred thousand pounds for the
building of ships; but they appropriated the sum by very strict clauses.
They passed a resolution not to grant any supply for taking off the
anticipations of the revenue.[*] This vote was carried in a full house,
by a majority of four only: so nearly were the parties balanced. The
quarrel was revived, to which Dr. Shirley's cause had given occasion.
The proceedings of the commons discovered the same violence as during
the last session. A motion was made in the house of peers, but rejected,
for addressing the king to dissolve the present parliament. The king
contented himself with proroguing them to a very long term. Whether
these quarrels between the houses arose from contrivance or accident,
was not certainly known. Each party might, according to their different
views, esteem themselves either gainers or losers by them. The court
might desire to obstruct all attacks from the commons, by giving them
other employment. The country party might desire the dissolution of a
parliament, which, notwithstanding all disgusts, still contained too
many royalists ever to serve all the purposes of the malecontents.
* Several historians have affirmed, that the commons found
this session, upon inquiry, that the king's revenue was one
million six hundred thousand pounds a year, and that the
necessary expense was out seven hundred thousand pounds; and
have appealed to the journals for a proof. But there is not
the least appearance of this in the journals; and the fact
is impossible.
Soon after the prorogation, there passed an incident, which in itself
is trivial, but tends strongly to mark the genius of the English
government, and of Charles's administration during this period. The
liberty of the constitution, and the variety as well as violence of the
parties, had begotten a propensity for political conversation; and as
the coffee-houses in particular were the scenes where the conduct of the
king and the ministry was canvassed with great freedom, a proclamation
was issued to suppress these places of rendezvous. Such an act of
power, during former reigns, would have been grounded entirely on the
prerogative; and before the accession of the house of Stuart, no scruple
would have been entertained with regard to that exercise of authority.
But Charles, finding doubts to arise upon his proclamation, had recourse
to the judges, who supplied him with a chicane, and that too a frivolous
one, by which he might justify his proceedings. The law which settled
the excise enacted, that licenses for retailing liquors might be refused
to such as could not find security for payment of the duties. But coffee
was not a liquor subjected to excise; and even this power of refusing
licenses was very limited, and could not reasonably be extended beyond
the intention of the act. The king, therefore, observing the people
to be much dissatisfied, yielded to a petition of the coffee-men, who
promised for the future to restrain all seditious discourse in their
houses; and the proclamation was recalled.
This campaign proved more fortunate to the confederates than any other
during the whole war. The French took the field in Flanders with a
numerous army; and Lewis himself served as a volunteer under the prince
of Conde. But notwithstanding his great preparations, he could gain
no advantages but the taking of Huy and Limbourg, places of small
consequence. The prince of Orange with a considerable army opposed him
in all his motions; and neither side was willing, without a visible
advantage, to hazard a general action, which might be attended either
with the entire loss of Flanders on the one hand, or the invasion of
France on the other. Lewis, tired of so inactive a campaign, returned to
Versailles; and the whole summer passed in the Low Countries without any
memorable event.
Turenne commanded on the Upper Rhine, in opposition to his great rival,
Montecuculi, general of the imperialists. The object of the latter was
to pass the Rhine, to penetrate into Alsace, Lorraine, or Burgundy, and
to fix his quarters in these provinces: the aim of the former was to
guard the French frontiers, and to disappoint all the schemes of his
enemy. The most consummate skill was displayed on both sides; and if any
superiority appeared in Turenne's conduct, it was chiefly ascribed to
his greater vigor of body, by which he was enabled to inspect all the
posts in person, and could on the spot take the justest measures for the
execution of his designs. By posting himself on the German side of the
Rhine, he not only kept Montecuculi from passing that river: he had also
laid his plan in so masterly a manner, that in a few days he must have
obliged the Germans to decamp, and have gained a considerable advantage
over them; when a period was put to his life by a random shot, which
struck him on the breast as he was taking a view of the enemy. The
consternation of his army was inexpressible. The French troops, who
a moment before were assured of victory, now considered themselves
as entirely vanquished; and the Germans, who would have been glad to
compound for a safe retreat, expected no less than the total destruction
of their enemy. But De Lorges, nephew to Turenne, succeeded him in the
command, and possessed a great share of the genius and capacity of
his predecessor. By his skilful operations, the French were enabled to
repass the Rhine, without considerable loss; and this retreat was deemed
equally glorious with the greatest victory. The valor of the English
troops, who were placed in the rear, greatly contributed to save the
French army. They had been seized with the same passion as the native
troops of France for their brave general, and fought with ardor to
revenge his death on the Germans. The duke of Marlborough, then Captain
Churchill, here learned the rudiments of that art which he afterwards
practised with such fatal success against France.
The prince of Conde left the army in Flanders under the command
of Luxembourg; and carrying with him a considerable reenforcement,
succeeded to Turenne's command. He defended Alsace from the Germans, who
had passed the Rhine, and invaded that province. He obliged them first
to raise the siege of Hagenau, then that of Saberne. He eluded all their
attempts to bring him to a battle. And having dexterously prevented them
from establishing themselves in Alsace, he forced them, notwithstanding
their superiority of numbers, to repass the Rhine, and to take up winter
quarters in their own country.
After the death of Turenne, a detachment of the German army was sent
to the siege of Treves; an enterprise in which the imperialists, the
Spaniards, the palatine, the duke of Lorraine, and many other princes,
passionately concurred. The project was well concerted, and executed
with vigor. Mareschal Crequi, on the other hand, collected an army, and
advanced with a view of forcing the Germans to raise the siege. They
left a detachment to guard their lines, and, under the command of
the dukes of Zell and Osnaburgh, marched in quest of the enemy. At
Consarbric they fell unexpectedly, and with superior numbers, on Crequi,
and put him to rout. He escaped with four attendants only; and throwing
himself into Treves, resolved, by a vigorous defence, to make atonement
for his former error or misfortune. The garrison was brave, but not
abandoned to that total despair by which their governor was actuated.
They mutinied against his obstinacy; capitulated for themselves; and
because he refused to sign the capitulation, they delivered him a
prisoner into the hands of the enemy.
It is remarkable, that this defeat, given to Crequi, is almost the only
one which the French received at land, from Rocroi to Blenheim, during
the course of above sixty years; and these, too, full of bloody wars
against potent and martial enemies: their victories almost equal the
number of years during that period. Such was the vigor and good conduct
of that monarchy! and such, too, were the resources and refined policy
of the other European nations, by which they were enabled to repair
their losses, and still to confine that mighty power nearly within its
ancient limits! A fifth part of these victories would have sufficed, in
another period, to have given to France the empire of Europe.
The Swedes had been engaged, by the payment of large subsidies, to
take part with Lewis, and invade the territories of the elector of
Brandenburgh in Pomerania. That elector joined by some imperialists from
Silesia, fell upon them with bravery and success. He soon obliged them
to evacuate his part of that country, and he pursued them into their
own. He had an interview with the king of Denmark, who had now joined
the confederates, and resolved to declare war against Sweden. These
princes concerted measures for pushing the victory.
To all these misfortunes against foreign enemies were added some
domestic insurrections of the common people in Guienne and Brittany.
Though soon suppressed, they divided the force and attention of Lewis.
The only advantage gained by the French was at sea. Messina in Sicily
had revolted; and a fleet under the duke de Vivonne was despatched
to support the rebels. The Dutch had sent a squadron to assist the
Spaniards. A battle ensued, where De Ruyter was killed. This event alone
was thought equivalent to a victory.
The French, who twelve years before had scarcely a ship of war in any
of their harbors, had raised themselves, by means of perseverance and
policy, to be, in their present force, though not in their resources,
the first maritime power in Europe. The Dutch, while in alliance with
them against England, had supplied them with several vessels, and had
taught them the rudiments of the difficult art of ship-building. The
English next, when in alliance with them against Holland, instructed
them in the method of fighting their ships, and of preserving order
in naval engagements. Lewis availed him self of every opportunity to
aggrandize his people, while Charles, sunk in indolence and pleasure,
neglected all the noble arts of government; or if at any time he roused
himself from his lethargy, that industry, by reason of the unhappy
projects which he embraced, was often more pernicious to the public than
his inactivity itself. He was as anxious to promote the naval power of
France as if the safety of his crown had depended on it; and many of the
plans executed in that kingdom were first, it is said,[*] digested and
corrected by him.
* Welwood, Burnet, Coke.
{1676.} The successes of the allies had been considerable the last
campaign; but the Spaniards and imperialists well knew that France was
not yet sufficiently broken, nor willing to submit to the terms which
they resolved to impose upon her. Though they could not refuse the
king's mediation, and Nimeguen, after many difficulties, was at last
fixed on as the place of congress, yet, under one pretence or other,
they still delayed sending their ambassadors, and no progress was made
in the negotiation. Lord Berkeley, Sir William Temple, and Sir Lionel
Jenkins were the English ministers at Nimeguen. The Dutch, who were
impatient for peace, soon appeared: Lewis, who hoped to divide the
allies, and who knew that he himself could neither be seduced nor forced
into a disadvantageous peace, sent ambassadors: the Swedes, who hoped
to recover by treaty what they had lost by arms, were also forward to
negotiate. But as these powers could not proceed of themselves to settle
terms, the congress, hitherto, served merely as an amusement to the
public.
It was by the events of the campaign, not the conferences among the
negotiators, that the articles of peace were to be determined. The
Spanish towns, ill fortified and worse defended, made but a feeble
resistance to Lewis; who, by laying up magazines during the winter, was
able to take the field early in the spring, before the forage could
be found in the open country. In the month of April, he laid siege
to Conde, and took it by storm in four days. Having sent the duke of
Orleans to besiege Bouchaine, a small but important fortress, he
posted himself so advantageously with his main army, as to hinder the
confederates from relieving it, or fighting without disadvantage. The
prince of Orange, in spite of the difficulties of the season and the
want of provisions, came in sight of the French army; but his industry
served to no other purpose than to render him spectator of the surrender
of Bouchaine. Both armies stood in awe of each other, and were unwilling
to hazard an action which might be attended with the most important
consequences. Lewis, though he wanted not personal courage, was little
enterprising in the field; and being resolved this campaign to rest
contented with the advantages which he had so early obtained, he thought
proper to intrust his army to Mareschal Schomberg, and retired himself
to Versailles. After his departure, the prince of Orange laid siege to
Maestricht; but meeting with an obstinate resistance, he was obliged, on
the approach of Schomberg, who in the mean time had taken Aire, to raise
the siege. He was incapable of yielding to adversity, or bending under
misfortunes: but he began to foresee that, by the negligence and
errors of his allies, the war in Flanders must necessarily have a very
unfortunate issue.
On the Upper Rhine, Philipsbourg was taken by the imperialists. In
Pomerania, the Swedes were so unsuccessful against the Danes and
Brandenburghers, that they seemed to be losing apace all those
possessions which, with so much valor and good fortune, they had
acquired in Germany.
About the beginning of winter, the congress of Nimeguen was pretty full;
and the plenipotentiaries of the emperor and Spain, two powers strictly
conjoined by blood and alliance, at last appeared. The Dutch had
threatened, if they absented themselves any longer, to proceed to a
separate treaty with France. In the conferences and negotiations, the
dispositions of the parties became every day more apparent.
{1677.} The Hollanders, loaded with debts and harassed with taxes, were
desirous of putting an end to a war, in which, besides the disadvantages
attending all leagues, the weakness of the Spaniards, the divisions
and delays of the Germans, prognosticated nothing but disgrace and
misfortune. Their commerce languished; and, what gave them still
greater anxiety, the commerce of England, by reason of her neutrality,
flourished extremely; and they were apprehensive, lest advantages, once
lost, would never thoroughly be regained. They had themselves no
further motive for continuing the war, than to secure a good frontier
to Flanders; but gratitude to their allies still engaged them to try,
whether another campaign might procure a peace which would give general
satisfaction. The prince of Orange, urged by motives of honor, of
ambition, and of animosity against France, endeavored to keep them
steady to this resolution.
The Spaniards, not to mention the other incurable weaknesses into which
their monarchy was fallen, were distracted with domestic dissensions
between the parties of the queen regent and Don John, natural brother to
their young sovereign. Though unable of themselves to defend Flanders,
they were resolute not to conclude a peace which would leave it exposed
to every assault or inroad; and while they made the most magnificent
promises to the states, their real trust was in the protection of
England. They saw that, if that small but important territory were once
subdued by France, the Hollanders, exposed to so terrible a power, would
fall into dependence, and would endeavor, by submissions, to ward
off that destruction to which a war in the heart of their state must
necessarily expose them. They believed that Lewis, sensible how much
greater advantages he might reap from the alliance than from the
subjection of the republic, which must scatter its people and depress
its commerce, would be satisfied with very moderate conditions, and
would turn his enterprises against his other neighbors. They thought it
impossible but the people and parliament of England, foreseeing these
obvious consequences, must at last force the king to take part in
the affairs of the continent, in which their interests were so deeply
concerned. And they trusted, that even the king himself, on the approach
of so great a danger, must open his eyes, and sacrifice his prejudices
in favor of France to the safety of his own dominions.
But Charles here found himself entangled in such opposite motives and
engagements, as he had not resolution enough to break, or patience to
unravel. On the one hand, he always regarded his alliance with France
as a sure resource in case of any commotions among his own subjects; and
whatever schemes he might still retain for enlarging his authority, or
altering the established religion, it was from that quarter alone he
could expect assistance. He had actually in secret sold his neutrality
to France, and he received remittances of a million of livres a year,
which was afterwards increased to two millions; a considerable supply
in the present embarrassed state of his revenue. And he dreaded lest the
parliament should treat him as they had formerly done his father;
and after they had engaged him in a war on the continent, should
take advantage of his necessities, and make him purchase supplies by
sacrificing his prerogative, and abandoning his ministers.
On the other hand, the cries of his people and parliament, seconded by
Danby, Arlington, and most of his ministers, incited him to take part
with the allies, and to correct the unequal balance of power in Europe.
He might apprehend danger from opposing such earnest desires: he
might hope for large supplies if he concurred with them: and however
inglorious and indolent his disposition, the renown of acting as arbiter
of Europe would probably at intervals rouse him from his lethargy, and
move him to support the high character with which he stood invested.
It is worthy of observation, that, during this period, the king was, by
every one, abroad and at home, by France and by the allies, allowed
to be the undisputed arbiter of Europe; and no terms of peace which he
would have prescribed, could have been refused by either party. Though
France afterwards found means to resist the same alliance, joined with
England, yet was she then obliged to make such violent efforts as quite
exhausted her; and it was the utmost necessity which pushed her to find
resources far surpassing her own expectations. Charles was sensible,
that, so long as the war continued abroad, he should never enjoy ease at
home, from the impatience and importunity of his subjects; yet could
he not resolve to impose a peace by openly joining himself with either
party. Terms advantageous to the allies must lose him the friendship of
France: the contrary would enrage his parliament. Between these views,
he perpetually fluctuated; and from his conduct, it is observable, that
a careless, remiss disposition, agitated by opposite motives, is
capable of as great inconsistencies as are incident even to the greatest
imbecility and folly.
The parliament was assembled; and the king made them a plausible speech,
in which he warned them against all differences among themselves;
expressed a resolution to do his part for bringing their consultations
to a happy issue; and offered his consent to any laws for the further
security of their religion, liberty, and property. He then told them of
the decayed condition of the navy, and asked money for repairing it. He
informed them, that part of his revenue, the additional excise, was soon
to expire; and he added these words; "You may at any time see the yearly
established expense of the government, by which it will appear, that
the constant and unavoidable charge being paid, there will remain no
overplus towards answering those contingencies which may happen in all
kingdoms, and which have been a considerable burden on me this last
year."
Before the parliament entered upon business, they were stopped by a
doubt concerning the legality of their meeting It had been enacted, by
an old law of Edward III., "That parliament should be held once every
year, or oftener, if need be." The last prorogation had been longer than
a year; and being supposed on that account illegal, it was pretended to
be equivalent to a dissolution. The consequence seems by no means just;
and besides, a later act, that which repealed the triennial law, had
determined, that it was necessary to hold parliaments only once in three
years. Such weight, however was put on this cavil, that Buckingham,
Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, insisted strenuously in the house
of peers on the invalidity of the parliament, and the nullity of all its
future acts. For such dangerous positions they were sent to the Tower,
there to remain during the pleasure of his majesty and the house.
Buckingham, Salisbury, and Wharton made submissions, and were soon after
released. But Shaftesbury, more obstinate in his temper, and desirous of
distinguishing himself by his adherence to liberty, sought the remedy
of law; and being rejected by the judges, he was at last, after a
twelvemonth's imprisonment, obliged to make the same submissions; upon
which he was also released.
The commons at first seemed to proceed with temper. They granted the
sum of five hundred and eighty-six thousand pounds, for building thirty
ships; though they strictly appropriated the money to that service.
Estimates were given in of the expense; but it was afterwards found
that they fell short near one hundred thousand pounds. They also voted,
agreeably to the king's request, the continuance of the additional
excise for three years. This excise had been granted for nine years in
1668. Every thing seemed to promise a peaceable and an easy session.
But the parliament was roused from this tranquillity by the news
received from abroad. The French king had taken the field in the middle
of February, and laid siege to Valenciennes, which he carried in a few
days by storm. He next invested both Cambray and St. Omers. The prince
of Orange, alarmed with his progress, hastily assembled an army, and
marched to the relief of St. Omers. He was encountered by the French,
under the duke of Orleans and Mareschal Luxembourg. The prince possessed
great talents for war; courage, activity, vigilance, patience; but still
he was inferior in genius to those consummate generals opposed to him by
Lewis and though he always found means to repair his losses, and to make
head in a little time against the victors, he was during his whole
life, unsuccessful. By a masterly movement of Luxembourg, he was here
defeated, and obliged to retreat to Ypres. Cambray and St. Omers were
soon after surrendered to Lewis.
This success, derived from such great power and such wise conduct,
infused a just terror into the English parliament. They addressed the
king, representing the danger to which the kingdom was exposed from the
greatness of France; and praying that his majesty, by such alliances as
he should think fit, would both secure his own dominions and the Spanish
Netherlands, and thereby quiet the fears of his people. The king,
desirous of eluding this application, which he considered as a kind of
attack on his measures, replied in general terms, that he would use all
means for the preservation of Flanders, consistent with the peace and
safety of his kingdoms. This answer was an evasion, or rather a denial.
The commons, therefore, thought proper to be more explicit. They
entreated him not to defer the entering into such alliances as might
attain that great end; and in case war with the French king should be
the result of his measures, they promised to grant him all the aids and
supplies, which would enable him to support the honor and interest of
the nation. The king was also more explicit in his reply. He told them,
that the only way to prevent danger, was to put him in a condition to
make preparations for their security. This message was understood to
be a demand of money. The parliament accordingly empowered the king to
borrow on the additional excise two hundred thousand pounds at seven per
cent.; a very small sum indeed; but which they deemed sufficient, with
the ordinary revenue, to equip a good squadron, and thereby put the
nation in security, till further resolutions should be taken.
But this concession fell far short of the king's expectations. He
therefore informed them, that, unless they granted him the sum of six
hundred thousand pounds upon new funds, it would not be possible for
him, without exposing the nation to manifest danger, to speak or act
those things which would answer the end of their several addresses. The
house took this message into consideration: but before they came to any
resolution, the king sent for them to Whitehall, where he told them,
upon the word of a king, that they should not repent any trust which
they would repose in him for the safety of his kingdom; that he would
not for any consideration break credit with them, or employ their money
to other uses than those for which they intended it; but that he would
not hazard either his own safety or theirs, by taking any vigorous
measures, or forming new alliances, till he were in a better condition
both to defend his subjects and offend his enemies. This speech brought
affairs to a short issue. The king required them to trust him with a
large sum; he pawned his royal word for their security: they must either
run the risk of losing their money, or fail of those alliances which
they had projected, and at the same time declare to all the world the
highest distrust of their sovereign.
But there were many reasons which determined the house of commons to put
no trust in the king. They considered, that the pretence of danger was
obviously groundless, while the French were opposed by such powerful
alliances on the continent, while the king was master of a good fleet at
sea, and while all his subjects were so heartily united in opposition
to foreign enemies: that the only justifiable reason, therefore, of
Charles's backwardness, was not the apprehension of danger from
abroad, but a diffidence which he might perhaps have entertained of his
parliament; lest, after engaging him in foreign alliances for carrying
on war, they should take advantage of his necessities, and extort from
him concessions dangerous to his royal dignity: that this parliament,
by their past conduct, had given no foundation for such suspicions,
and were so far from pursuing any sinister ends, that they had granted
supplies for the first Dutch war; for maintaining the triple league,
though concluded without their advice; even for carrying on the second
Dutch war, which was entered into contrary to their opinion, and
contrary to the manifest interests of the nation: that, on the other
hand, the king had, by former measures, excited very reasonable
jealousies in his people, and did with a bad grace require at present
their trust and confidence. That he had not scrupled to demand supplies
for maintaining the triple league, at the very moment he was concerting
measures for breaking it; and had accordingly employed, to that purpose,
the supplies which he had obtained by those delusive pretences: that
his union with France, during the war against Holland, must have been
founded on projects the most dangerous to his people; and as the same
union was still secretly maintained, it might justly be feared that
the same projects were not yet entirely abandoned, that he could not
seriously intend to prosecute vigorous measures against France; since he
had so long remained entirely unconcerned during such obvious dangers;
and, till prompted by his parliament, whose proper business it was not
to take the lead in those parts of administration, had suspended all his
activity: that if he really meant to enter into a cordial union with
his people, he would have taken the first step, and have endeavored, by
putting trust in them, to restore that confidence, which he himself,
by his rash conduct, had first violated: that it was in vain to ask
so small a sum as six hundred thousand pounds, in order to secure him
against the future attempts of the parliament; since that sum must soon
be exhausted by a war with France, and he must again fall into
that dependence, which was become in some degree essential to the
constitution: that if he would form the necessary alliances, that sum,
or a greater, would instantly be voted; nor could there be any reason
to dread, that the parliament would immediately desert measures in which
they were engaged by their honor, their inclination, and the public
interest: that the real ground, therefore, of the king's refusal was
neither apprehension of danger from foreign enemies, nor jealousy of
parliamentary encroachments; but a desire of obtaining the money,
which he intended, notwithstanding his royal word, to employ to other
purposes; and that, by using such dishonorable means to so ignoble
an end, he rendered himself still more unworthy the confidence of his
people.
The house of commons was now regularly divided into two parties, the
court and the country. Some were enlisted in the court party by offices,
nay, a few by bribes secretly given them; a practice first begun by
Clifford, a dangerous minister: but great numbers were attached merely
by inclination; so far as they esteemed the measures of the court
agreeable to the interests of the nation. Private views and faction had
likewise drawn several into the country party: but there were also
many of that party, who had no other object than the public good. These
disinterested members on both sides fluctuated between the factions;
and gave the superiority sometimes to the court, sometimes to the
opposition.[A] In the present emergence, a general distrust of the king
prevailed; and the parliament resolved not to hazard their money in
expectation of alliances, which, they believed, were never intended
to be formed. Instead of granting the supply, they voted an address,
wherein they "besought his majesty to enter into a league, offensive and
defensive, with the states general of the United Provinces, against the
growth and power of the French king, and for the preservation of
the Spanish Netherlands; and to make such other alliances with the
confederates as should appear fit and useful to that end." They
supported their advice with reasons; and promised speedy and effectual
supplies, for preserving his majesty's honor and insuring the safety of
the public. The king pretended the highest anger at this address, which
he represented as a dangerous encroachment upon his prerogative. He
reproved the commons in severe terms, and ordered them immediately to be
adjourned.
It is certain, that this was the critical moment, when the king both
might with ease have preserved the balance of power in Europe, which
it has since cost this island a great expense of blood and treasure
to restore, and might by perseverance have at last regained, in some
tolerable measure, after all past errors, the confidence of his people.
This opportunity being neglected, the wound became incurable; and
notwithstanding his momentary appearances of vigor against France and
Popery, and their momentary inclinations to rely on his faith, he was
still believed to be at bottom engaged in the same interests, and they
soon relapsed into distrust and jealousy. The secret memoirs of this
reign, which have since been published,[*] prove beyond a doubt, that
the king had at this time concerted measures with France, and had no
intention to enter into a war in favor of the allies. He had entertained
no view, therefore, even when he pawned his royal word to his people,
than to procure a grant of money; and he trusted that, while he
eluded their expectations, he could not afterwards want pretences for
palliating his conduct.
* Such as the letters which passed betwixt Danby and
Montague, the king's ambassador at Paris; Temple's Memoirs,
and his Letters. In these last, we see that the king never
made any proposals of terms but what were advantageous to
France; and the prince of Orange believed them to have
always been concerted with the French ambassador. Vol. i. p.
439.
In Sir John Dalrymple's Appendix, (p. 103,) it appears, that
the king had signed himself, without the participation of
his ministers, a secret treaty with France, and had obtained
a pension on the promise of his neutrality; a tact which
renders his royal word, solemnly given to his subjects, one
of the most dishonorable and most scandalous acts that ever
proceeded from a throne.
Negotiations meanwhile were carried on between France and Holland, and
an eventual treaty was concluded; that is all their differences were
adjusted, provided they could after wards satisfy their allies on both
sides. This work, though in appearance difficult, seemed to be extremely
forwarded, by further bad successes on the part of the confederates, and
by the great impatience of the Hollanders; when a new event happened,
which promised a more prosperous issue to the quarrel with France, and
revived the hopes of all the English who understood the interests of
their country.
The king saw with regret the violent discontents which prevailed in the
nation, and which seemed every day to augment upon him. Desirous by his
natural temper to be easy himself, and to make every body else easy,
he sought expedients to appease those murmurs, which, as they were
very disagreeable for the present, might in their consequences prove
extremely dangerous. He knew that, during the late war with Holland, the
malecontents at home had made applications to the prince of Orange; and
if he continued still to neglect the prince's interests, and to thwart
the inclinations of his own people, he apprehended lest their common
complaints should cement a lasting union between them. He saw that the
religion of the duke inspired the nation with dismal apprehensions; and
though he had obliged his brother to allow the young princesses to be
educated in the Protestant faith, something further, he thought, was
necessary, in order to satisfy the nation. He entertained, therefore,
proposals for marrying the prince of Orange to the lady Mary, the elder
princess, and heir apparent to the crown, (for the duke had no male
issue;) and he hoped, by so tempting an offer, to engage him entirely
in his interests. A peace he purposed to make; such as would satisfy
France, and still preserve his connections with that crown; and he
intended to sanctify it by the approbation of the prince, whom he found
to be extremely revered in England, and respected throughout Europe.
All the reasons for this alliance were seconded by the solicitations of
Danby, and also of Temple, who was at that time in England; and Charles
at last granted permission to the prince, when the campaign should be
over, to pay him a visit.
The king very graciously received his nephew at Newmarket. He would have
entered immediately upon business but the prince desired first to be
acquainted with the lady Mary; and he declared, that, contrary to the
usual sentiments of persons of his rank, he placed a great part of
happiness in domestic satisfaction, and would not, upon any
consideration of interest or politics, match himself with a person
disagreeable to him. He was introduced to the princess, whom he found in
the bloom of youth, and extremely amiable both in her person and her
behavior. The king now thought that he had a double tie upon him, and
might safely expect his compliance with every proposal: he was surprised
to find the prince decline all discourse of business, and refuse to
concert any terms for the general peace, till his marriage should be
finished. He foresaw, he said, from the situation of affairs that his
allies were likely to have hard terms; and he never would expose himself
to the reproach of having sacrificed their interests to promote his own
purposes. Charles still believed, notwithstanding the cold, severe
manner of the prince, that he would abate of this rigid punctilio of
honor; and he protracted the time, hoping, by his own insinuation and
address, as well as by the allurements of love and ambition, to win him
to compliance. One day, Temple found the prince in very bad humor,
repenting that he had ever come to England, and resolute in a few days
to leave it: but before he went, the king, he said, must choose the
terms on which they should hereafter live together: he was sure it must
be like the greatest friends or the greatest enemies: and he desired
Temple to inform his master next morning of these intentions. Charles
was struck with this menace, and foresaw how the prince's departure
would be interpreted by the people. He resolved, therefore, immediately
to yield with a good grace; and having paid a compliment to his nephew's
honesty, he told Temple that the marriage was concluded, and desired him
to inform the duke of it, as of an affair already resolved on. The duke
seemed surprised; but yielded a prompt obedience: which, he said, was
his constant maxim to whatever he found to be the king's pleasure. No
measure during this reign gave such general satisfaction. All parties
strove who should most applaud it. And even Arlington, who had been kept
out of the secret, told the prince, "that some things, good in
themselves, were spoiled by the manner of doing them, as some things bad
were mended by it; but he would confess, that this was a thing so good
in itself, that the manner of doing it could not spoil it."
This marriage was a great surprise to Lewis, who, accustomed to govern
every thing in the English court, now found so important a step taken,
not only without his consent, but without his knowledge or
participation. A conjunction of England with the allies, and a vigorous
war in opposition to French ambition, were the consequences immediately
expected, both abroad and at home: but to check these sanguine hopes,
the king, a few days after the marriage, prolonged the adjournment of
the parliament from the third of December to the fourth of April. This
term was too late for granting supplies, or making preparations for war;
and could be chosen by the king for no other reason, than as an
atonement to France for his consent to the marriage. It appears also,
that Charles secretly received from Lewis the sum of two millions of
livres on account of this important service.[*]
* Sir John Dalrymple's Appendix, p. 112.
The king, however, entered into consultations with the prince, together
with Danby and Temple, concerning the terms which it would be proper to
require of France. After some debate, it was agreed, that France should
restore Lorraine to the duke; with Tournay, Valenciennes, Conde, Aeth,
Charleroi, Courtray, Oudenarde, and Binche to Spain, in order to form
a good frontier for the Low Countries. The prince insisted that Franche
Compte should likewise be restored and Charles thought that, because he
had patrimonial estates of great value in that province, and deemed his
property more secure in the hands of Spain, he was engaged by such views
to be obstinate in that point: but the prince declared, that to procure
but one good town to the Spaniards in Flanders, he would willingly
relinquish all those possessions. As the king still insisted on the
impossibility of wresting Franche Compte from Lewis, the prince was
obliged to acquiesce.
Notwithstanding this concession to France, the projected peace was
favorable to the allies, and it was a sufficient indication of vigor in
the king, that he had given his assent to it. He further agreed to send
over a minister instantly to Paris, in order to propose these terms.
This minister was to enter into no treaty: he was to allow but two
days for the acceptance or refusal of the terms: upon the expiration
of these, he was presently to return: and in case of refusal, the
king promised to enter immediately into the confederacy. To carry so
imperious a message, and so little expected from the English court,
Temple was the person pitched on, whose declared aversion to the French
interest was not likely to make him fail of vigor and promptitude in the
execution of his commission.
But Charles next day felt a relenting in this assumed vigor. Instead of
Temple, he despatched the earl of Feversham, a creature of the duke's,
and a Frenchman by birth; and he said, that the message being harsh in
itself, it was needless to aggravate it by a disagreeable messenger. The
prince left London; and the king, at his departure, assured him, that he
never would abate in the least point of the scheme concerted, and would
enter into war with Lewis if he rejected it.
Lewis received the message with seeming gentleness and complacency. He
told Feversham, that the king of England well knew that he might always
be master of the peace; but some of the towns in Flanders it seemed
very hard to demand, especially Tournay, upon whose fortifications such
immense sums had been expended: he would therefore take some short time
to consider of an answer. Feversham said, that he was limited to two
days' stay: but when that time was elapsed, he was prevailed on to
remain some few days longer; and he came away at last without any
positive answer. Lewis said, that he hoped his brother would not break
with him for one or two towns: and with regard to them too, he would
send orders to his ambassador at London to treat with the king himself.
Charles was softened by the softness of France; and the blow was thus
artfully eluded. The French ambassador, Barillon, owned at last, that
he had orders to yield all except Tournay, and even to treat about some
equivalent for that fortress, if the king absolutely insisted upon it.
The prince was gone who had given spirit to the English court; and the
negotiation began to draw out into messages and returns from Paris.
By intervals, however, the king could rouse himself, and show still some
firmness and resolution. Finding that affairs were not likely to come
to any conclusion with France, he summoned, notwithstanding the long
adjournment, the parliament on the fifteenth of January; an unusual
measure, and capable of giving alarm to the French court. Temple was
sent for to the council; and the king told him, that he intended he
should go to Holland, in order to form a treaty of alliance with the
states; and that the purpose of it should be, like the triple league, to
force both France and Spain to accept of the terms proposed. Temple was
sorry to find this act of vigor qualified by such a regard to France,
and by such an appearance of indifference and neutrality between the
parties. He told the king, that the resolution agreed on, was to begin
the war in conjunction with all the confederates, in case of no direct
and immediate answer from France: that this measure would satisfy the
prince, the allies, and the people of England; advantages which could
not be expected from such an alliance with Holland alone: that France
would be disobliged, and Spain likewise; nor would the Dutch be
satisfied with such a faint imitation of the triple league, a measure
concerted when they were equally at peace with both parties. For these
reasons, Temple declined the employment; and Lawrence Hyde, second son
of Chancellor Clarendon, was sent in his place.
{1678.} The prince of Orange could not regard without contempt such
symptoms of weakness and vigor conjoined in the English counsels. He
was resolved, however, to make the best of a measure which he did not
approve; and as Spain secretly consented that her ally should form a
league, which was seemingly directed against her as well as France, but
which was to fall only on the latter, the states concluded the treaty in
the terms proposed by the king.
Meanwhile the English parliament met, after some new adjournments: and
the king was astonished that, notwithstanding the resolute measures
which he thought he had taken, great distrust, and jealousy, and
discontent were apt, at intervals, still to prevail among the members.
Though in his speech he had allowed that a good peace could no longer
be expected from negotiation, and assured them, that he was resolved to
enter into a war for that purpose, the commons did not forbear to insert
in their reply several harsh and even unreasonable clauses. Upon his
reproving them, they seemed penitent; and voted, that they would assist
his majesty in the prosecution of the war. A fleet of ninety sail, an
army of thirty thousand men, and a million of money were also voted.
Great difficulties were made by the commons with regard to the army,
which the house, judging by past measures, believed to be intended more
against the liberties of England than against the progress of the French
monarch. To this perilous situation had the king reduced both himself
and the nation. In all debates, severe speeches were made, and were
received with seeming approbation: the duke and the treasurer began
to be apprehensive of impeachments: many motions against the king's
ministers were lost by a small majority: the commons appointed a day to
consider the state of the kingdom with regard to Popery; and they even
went so far as to vote that, how urgent soever the occasion, they would
lay no further charge on the people, till secured against the prevalence
of the Catholic party. In short, the parliament was impatient for war
whenever the king seemed averse to it; but grew suspicious of some
sinister design as soon as he complied with their requests, and seemed
to enter into their measures.
The king was enraged at this last vote: he reproached Temple with his
popular notions, as he termed them; and asked him how he thought the
house of commons could be trusted for carrying on the war, should it be
entered on, when in the very commencement they made such declarations.
The uncertainties indeed of Charles's conduct were so multiplied,
and the jealousies on both sides so incurable, that even those who
approached nearest the scene of action, could not determine, whether the
king ever seriously meant to enter into a war; or whether, if he did,
the house of commons would not have taken advantage of his necessities,
and made him purchase supplies by a great sacrifice of his authority.[A]
The king of France knew how to avail himself of all the advantages which
these distractions afforded him. By his emissaries, he represented
to the Dutch the imprudence of their depending on England; where an
indolent king, averse to all war, especially with France, and irresolute
in his measures, was actuated only by the uncertain breath of a factious
parliament. To the aristocratical party he remarked the danger of the
prince's alliance with the royal family of England, and revived their
apprehensions, lest, in imitation of his father, who had been honored
with the same alliance, he should violently attempt to enlarge his
authority, and enslave his native country. In order to enforce these
motives with further terrors, he himself took the field very early
in the spring; and after threatening Luxembourg, Mons, and Namur he
suddenly sat down before Ghent and Ypres, and in a few weeks made
himself master of both places. This success gave great alarm to the
Hollanders, who were nowise satisfied with the conduct of England, or
with the ambiguous treaty lately concluded; and it quickened all their
advances towards an accommodation.
Immediately after the parliament had voted the supply, the king began
to enlist forces; and such was the ardor of the English for a war with
France, that an army of above twenty thousand men, to the astonishment
of Europe, was completed in a few weeks. Three thousand men, under the
duke of Monmouth, were sent over to secure Ostend: some regiments were
recalled from the French service: a fleet was fitted out with great
diligence: and a quadruple alliance was projected between England,
Holland, Spain, and the emperor.
But these vigorous measures received a sudden damp from a passionate
address of the lower house; in which they justified all their past
proceedings that had given disgust to the king; desired to be acquainted
with the measures taken by him; prayed him to dismiss evil counsellors;
and named in particular the duke of Lauderdale, on whose removal they
strenuously insisted. The king told them, that their address was so
extravagant, that he was not willing speedily to give it the answer
which it deserved. And he began again to lend an ear to the proposals
of Lewis, who offered him great sums of money, if he would consent to
France's making an advantageous peace with the allies.
Temple, though pressed by the king, refused to have any concern in so
dishonorable a negotiation: but he informs us, that the king said, there
was one article proposed which so incensed him that as long as he lived
he should never forget it. Sir William goes no further; but the editor
of his works, the famous Dr. Swift, says, that the French, before they
would agree to any payment, required as a preliminary, that the king
should engage never to keep above eight thousand regular troops in Great
Britain.[*] Charles broke into a passion. "Cod's-fish," said he, (his
usual oath,) "does my brother of France think to serve me thus? Are all
his promises to make me absolute master of my people come to this? Or
does he think that a thing to be done with eight thousand men?"
* To wit, three thousand men for Scotland, and
the usual guards and garrisons in England, amounting to near
five thousand men. Sir J. Dalrymple's App p. 161.
Van Beverning was the Dutch ambassador at Nimeguen, a man of great
authority with the states. He was eager for peace, and was persuaded,
that the reluctance of the king and the jealousies of the parliament
would forever disappoint the allies in their hopes of succor from
England. Orders were sent him by the states to go to the French king at
Ghent, and to concert the terms of a general treaty, as well as procure
a present truce for six weeks. The terms agreed on were much worse for
the Spaniards than those which had been planned by the King and the
prince of Orange. Six towns, some of them of no great importance, were
to be restored to them, but Ypres, Conde, Valenciennes, and Tournay,
in which consisted the chief strength of their frontier, were to remain
with France.
Great murmurs arose in England when it was known that Flanders was to be
left in so defenceless a condition. The chief complaints were levelled
against the king, who, by his concurrence at first, by his favor
afterwards, and by his delays at last, had raised the power of France
to such an enormous height, that it threatened the general liberties
of Europe. Charles, uneasy under these imputations, dreading the
consequence of losing the affections of his subjects, and perhaps
disgusted with the secret article proposed by France, began to wish
heartily for war, which, he hoped, would have restored him to his
ancient popularity.
An opportunity unexpectedly offered itself for his displaying these new
dispositions. While the ministers at Nimeguen were concerting the terms
of a general treaty, the marquis de Balbaces, the Spanish ambassador,
asked the ambassadors of France at what time France intended to restore
the six towns in Flanders. They made no difficulty in declaring, that
the king, their master, being obliged to see an entire restitution made
to the Swedes of all they had lost in the war, could not evacuate these
towns till that crown had received satisfaction; and that this detention
of places was the only means to induce the powers of the north to accept
of the peace.
The states immediately gave the king intelligence of a pretension which
might be attended with such dangerous consequences. The king was both
surprised and angry. He immediately despatched Temple to concert with
the states vigorous measures for opposing France. Temple in six days
concluded a treaty, by which Lewis was obliged to declare, within
sixteen days after the date, that he would presently evacuate the towns:
and in case of his refusal, Holland was bound to continue the war, and
England to declare immediately against France, in conjunction with the
whole confederacy.
All these warlike measures were so ill seconded by the parliament, where
even the French ministers were suspected, with reason,[*] of carrying on
some intrigues, that the commons renewed their former jealousies against
the king, and voted the army immediately to be disbanded.
* Sir John Dalrymple, in his Appendix, has given us, from
Barilton's despatches in the secretary's office at Paris, a
more particular detail of these intrigues. They were carried
on with Lord Russel, Lord Hollis, Lord Berkshire, the duke of
Buckingham, Algernon Sydney, Montague, Bulstrode, Colonel
Titus, Sir Edward Harley, Sir John Baber, Sir Roger Hill,
Boscawen, Littleton, Powle, Harbord, Hambden, Sir Thomas
Armstrong, Hotham, Herbert, and some others of less note. Of
these Lord Russel and Lord Hollis alone refused to touch any
French money: all the others received presents or bribes
from Barillon. But we are to remark, that the party views of
these men, and their well-founded jealousies of the king and
duke, engaged them, independently of the money, into the
same measures that were suggested to them by the French
ambassador. The intrigues of France, therefore, with the
parliament, were a mighty small engine in the political
machine. Those with the king, which have always been known,
were of infinitely greater consequence. The sums distributed
to all these men, excepting Montague, did not exceed sixteen
thousand pounds in three years; and therefore could have
little weight in the two houses, especially when opposed to
the influence of the crown. Accordingly we find, in all
Barillon's despatches, a great anxiety that the parliament
should never be assembled. The conduct of these English
patriots was more mean than criminal; and Monsieur Courten
says, that two hundred thousand livres employed by the
Spaniards and Germans, would have more influence than two
millions distributed by France. See Sir J. Dalrymple's App.
p. 111. It is amusing to observe the general, and I may say
national, rage excited by the late discovery of this secret
negotiation; chiefly on account of Algernon Sydney, whom the
blind prejudices of party had exalted into a hero. His
ingratitude and breach of faith, in applying for the king's
pardon, and immediately on his return entering into cabals
for rebellion, form a conduct much more criminal than the
taking of French gold: yet the former circumstance was
always known, and always disregarded. But every thing
connected with France is supposed, in England, to be
polluted beyond all possibility of expiation. Even Lord
Russel, whose conduct in this negotiation was only factious,
and that in an ordinary degree, is imagined to be dishonored
by the same discovery.
The king by a message represented the danger of disarming before peace
were finally concluded; and he recommended to their consideration,
whether he could honorably recall his forces from those towns in
Flanders which were put under his protection, and which had at present
no other means of defence. The commons agreed to prolong the term
with regard to these forces. Every thing, indeed, in Europe bore the
appearance of war. France had positively declared, that she would not
evacuate the six towns before the requisite cession was made to Sweden
and her honor seemed now engaged to support that declaration. Spain and
the empire, disgusted with the terms of peace imposed by Holland,
saw with pleasure the prospect of a powerful support from the new
resolutions of Charles. Holland itself, encouraged by the prince of
Orange and his party, was not displeased to find that the war would
be renewed on more equal terms. The allied army under that prince was
approaching towards Mons, then blockaded by France. A considerable body
of English, under the duke of Monmouth, was ready to join him.
Charles usually passed a great part of his time in the women's
apartments, particularly those of the duchess of Portsmouth; where,
among other gay company, he often met with Barillon, the French
ambassador, a man of polite conversation, who was admitted into all the
amusements of that inglorious but agreeable monarch. It was the charms
of this sauntering, easy life, which, during his later years, attached
Charles to his mistresses. By the insinuations of Barillon and the
duchess of Portsmouth, an order was, in an unguarded hour, procured,
which instantly changed the face of affairs in Europe. One Du Cros, a
French fugitive monk, was sent to Temple, directing him to apply to the
Swedish ambassador, and persuade him not to insist on the conditions
required by France, but to sacrifice to general peace those interests of
Sweden. Du Cros, who had secretly received instructions from Barillon,
published every where in Holland the commission with which he was
intrusted; and all men took the alarm. It was concluded that Charles's
sudden alacrity for war was as suddenly extinguished, and that no steady
measures could ever be taken with England. The king afterwards, when
he saw Temple, treated this important matter in raillery; and said,
laughing, that the rogue Du Cros had outwitted them all.
The negotiations, however, at Nimeguen still continued; and the French
ambassadors spun out the time till the morning of the critical day,
which, by the late treaty between England and Holland, was to determine
whether a sudden peace or a long war were to have place in Christendom.
The French ambassadors came then to Van Beverning, and told him that
they had received orders to consent to the evacuation of the towns, and
immediately to conclude and sign the peace. Van Boverning might have
refused compliance, because it was now impossible to procure the consent
and concurrence of Spain; but he had entertained so just an idea of the
fluctuations in the English counsels, and was so much alarmed by the
late commission given to Du Cros, that he deemed it fortunate for the
republic to finish on any terms a dangerous war, where they were likely
to be very ill supported. The papers were instantly drawn, and signed by
the ministers of France and Holland between eleven and twelve o'clock at
night. By this treaty, France secured the possession of Franche Compte,
together with Cambray, Aire, St. Omers, Valenciennes, Tournay, Ypres,
Bouchaine, Cassel, etc., and restored to Spain only Charleroi, Courtrai,
Oudenard, Aeth, Ghent, and Limbourg.
Next day, Temple received an express from England, which brought the
ratifications of the treaty lately concluded with the states, together
with orders immediately to proceed to the exchange of them. Charles was
now returned to his former inclinations for war with France.
Van Beverning was loudly exclaimed against by the ambassadors of the
allies at Nimeguen, especially those of Brandenburg and Denmark, whose
masters were obliged by the treaty to restore all their acquisitions.
The ministers of Spain and the emperor were sullen and disgusted; and
all men hoped that the states, importuned and encouraged by continual
solicitations from England, would disavow their ambassador, and renew
the war. The prince of Orange even took an extraordinary step, in order
to engage them to that measure; or perhaps to give vent to his own
spleen and resentment. The day after signing the peace at Nimeguen,
he attacked the French army at St. Dennis, near Mons; and gained some
advantage over Luxembourg, who rested secure on the faith of the treaty,
and concluded the war to be finished. The prince knew, at least had
reason to believe, that the peace was signed, though it had not been
formally notified to him; and he here sacrificed wantonly, without a
proper motive, the lives of many brave men on both sides, who fell in
this sharp and well-contested action.
Hyde was sent over with a view of persuading the states to disavow Van
Beverning; and the king promised that England, if she might depend on
Holland, would immediately declare war, and would pursue it, till France
were reduced to reasonable conditions. Charles at present went further
than words. He hurried on the embarkation of his army for Flanders and
all his preparations wore a hostile appearance. But the states had been
too often deceived to trust him any longer. They ratified the treaty
signed at Nimeguen; and all the other powers of Europe were at last,
after much clamor and many disgusts, obliged to accept of the terms
prescribed to them.
Lewis had now reached the height of that glory which ambition can
afford. His ministers and negotiators appeared as much superior to
those of all Europe in the cabinet, as his generals and armies had been
experienced in the field. A successful war had been carried on against
an alliance, composed of the greatest potentates in Europe. Considerable
conquests had been made, and his territories enlarged on every side. An
advantageous peace was at last concluded, where he had given the law.
The allies were so enraged against each other, that they were not likely
to cement soon in any new confederacy. And thus he had, during some
years a real prospect of attaining the monarchy of Europe, and of
exceeding the empire of Charlemagne, perhaps equalling that of ancient
Rome. Had England continued much longer in the same condition, and
under the same government, it is not easy to conceive that he could have
failed of his purpose.
In proportion as these circumstances exalted the French, they excited
indignation among the English, whose animosity, roused by terror,
mounted to a great height against that rival nation. Instead of taking
the lead in the affairs of Europe, Charles, they thought, had, contrary
to his own honor and interest, acted a part entirely subservient to the
common enemy; and in all his measures had either no project at all, or
such as was highly criminal and dangerous. While Spain, Holland, the
emperor, the princes of Germany, called aloud on England to lead them
to victory and to liberty, and conspired to raise her to a station
more glorious than she had ever before attained, her king, from mean,
pecuniary motives, had secretly sold his alliance to Lewis, and was
bribed into an interest contrary to that of his people. His active
schemes in conjunction with France were highly pernicious; his
neutrality was equally ignominious; and the jealous, refractory behavior
of the parliament, though in itself dangerous, was the only remedy for
so many greater ills, with which the public, from the misguided counsels
of the king, was so nearly threatened. Such, were the dispositions
of men's minds at the conclusion of the peace of Nimeguen: and these
dispositions naturally prepared the way for the events which followed.
We must now return to the affairs of Scotland, which we left in some
disorder, after the suppression of the insurrection in 1666. The king,
who at that time endeavored to render himself popular in England,
adopted like measures in Scot-* land, and he intrusted the government
into the hands chiefly of Tweddale and Sir Robert Murray, men of
prudence and moderation. These ministers made it their principal object
to compose the religious differences, which ran so high, and for which
scarcely any modern nation but the Dutch had as yet found the proper
remedy. As rigor and restraint had failed of success in Scotland, a
scheme of comprehension was tried; by which it was intended to diminish
greatly the authority of bishops, to abolish their negative voice in the
ecclesiastical courts, and to leave them little more than the right
of precedency among the Presbyters. But the Presbyterian zealots
entertained great jealousy against this scheme. They remembered that, by
such gradual steps, King James had endeavored to introduce Episcopacy.
Should the ears and eyes of men be once reconciled to the name and habit
of bishops, the whole power of the function, they dreaded, would
soon follow: the least communication with unlawful and anti-Christian
institutions they esteemed dangerous and criminal. "Touch not, taste
not, handle not;" this cry went out amongst them: and the king's
ministers at last perceived, that they should prostitute the dignity
of government, by making advances, to which the malecontents were
determined not to correspond.
The next project adopted was that of indulgence. In prosecution of this
scheme, the most popular of the expelled preachers, without requiring
any terms of submission to the established religion, were settled in
vacant churches; and small salaries of about twenty pounds a year were
offered to the rest, till they should otherwise be provided for. These
last refused the king's bounty, which they considered as the wages of
a criminal silence. Even the former soon repented their compliance.
The people, who had been accustomed to hear them rail against their
superiors, and preach to the times, as they termed it, deemed their
sermons languid and spiritless when deprived of these ornaments.
Their usual gifts, they thought, had left them, on account of their
submission, which was stigmatized as Erastianism. They gave them the
appellation, not of ministers of Christ, but of the king's curates,
as the clergy of the established church were commonly denominated the
bishop's curates. The preachers themselves returned in a little time
to their former practices, by which they hoped to regain their former
dominion over the minds of men. The conventicles multiplied daily in the
west; the clergy of the established church were insulted; the laws were
neglected; the Covenanters even met daily in arms at their places of
worship; and though they usually dispersed themselves after divine
service, yet the government took a just alarm at seeing men, who were so
entirely governed by their seditious teachers, dare to set authority
at defiance, and during a time of full peace to put themselves in a
military posture.
There was here, it is apparent, in the political body, a disease
dangerous and inveterate; and the government had tried every remedy but
the true one to allay and correct it. An unlimited toleration, after
sects have diffused themselves and are strongly rooted, is the only
expedient which can allay their fervor, and make the civil union acquire
a superiority above religious distinctions. But as the operations of
this regimen are commonly gradual, and at first imperceptible, vulgar
politicians are apt, for that reason, to have recourse to more hasty and
more dangerous remedies. It is observable too, that these nonconformists
in Scotland neither offered nor demanded toleration; but laid claim
to an entire superiority, and to the exercise of extreme rigor against
their adversaries. The covenant, which they idolized, was a persecuting,
as well as a seditious band of confederacy; and the government, instead
of treating them like madmen, who should be soothed, and flattered,
and deceived into tranquillity, thought themselves entitled to a rigid
obedience, and were too apt, from a mistaken policy, to retaliate upon
the dissenters, who had erred from the spirit of enthusiasm.
Amidst these disturbances, a new parliament was assembled at
Edinburgh;[*] and Lauderdale was sent down commissioner. The zealous
Presbyterians, who were the chief patrons of liberty, were too obnoxious
to resist, with any success, the measures of government; and in
parliament the tide still ran strongly in favor of monarchy.
* October 19, 1669.
The commissioner had such influence as to get two acts passed, which
were of great consequence to the ecclesiastical and civil liberties of
the kingdom. By the one it was declared, that the settling of all things
with regard to the external government of the church, was a right of the
crown: that whatever related to ecclesiastical meetings, matters, and
persons, was to be ordered according to such directions as the king
should send to his privy council: and that these, being published by
them should have the force of laws. The other act regarded the militia,
which the king by his own authority had two years before established,
instead of the army which was disbanded. By this act, the militia
was settled, to the number of twenty-two thousand men, who were to be
constantly armed and regularly disciplined. And it was further enacted,
that these troops should be held in readiness to march into England,
Ireland, or any part of the king's dominions, for any cause in which
his majesty's authority, power, or greatness was concerned; on receiving
orders, not from the king himself, but from the privy council of
Scotland.
Lauderdale boasted extremely of his services in procuring these two
laws. The king by the former was rendered absolute master of the church,
and might legally, by his edict, reestablish, if he thought proper, the
Catholic religion in Scotland. By the latter, he saw a powerful force
ready at his call: he had even the advantage of being able to disguise
his orders under the name of the privy council; and in case of failure
in his enterprises, could by such a pretence apologize for his conduct
to the parliament of England. But in proportion as these laws were
agreeable to the king, they gave alarm to the English commons, and
were the chief cause of the redoubled attacks which they made upon
Lauderdale. These attacks, however, served only to fortify him in his
interest with the king; and though it is probable that the militia of
Scotland, during the divided state of that kingdom, would, if matters
had come to extremities, have been of little service against England,
yet did Charles regard the credit of it as a considerable support to his
authority: and Lauderdale, by degrees, became the prime, or rather sole,
minister for Scotland. The natural indolence of the king disposed him
to place entire confidence in a man who had so far extended the
royal prerogative, and who was still disposed to render it absolutely
uncontrollable.
In a subsequent session of the same parliament,[*] a severe law was
enacted against conventicles.
* July 28, 1670.
Ruinous fines were imposed both on the preachers and hearers, even if
the meetings had been in houses; but field conventicles were subjected
to the penalty of death and confiscation of goods: four hundred marks
Scotch were offered as a reward to those who should seize the criminals;
and they were indemnified for any slaughter which they might commit in
the execution of such an undertaking. And as it was found difficult
to get evidence against these conventicles, however numerous, it was
enacted by another law, that whoever, being required by the council,
refused to give information upon oath, should be punished by arbitrary
fines, by imprisonment, or by banishment to the plantations; Thus all
persecution naturally, or rather necessarily, adopts the iniquities,
as well as rigors, of the inquisition. What a considerable part of the
society consider as their duty and honor, and even many of the opposite
party are apt to regard with compassion and indulgence, can by no
other expedient be subjected to such severe penalties as the natural
sentiments of mankind appropriate only to the greatest crimes.
Though Lauderdale found this ready compliance in the parliament, a
party was formed against him, of which Duke Hamilton was the head. This
nobleman, with Tweddale and others, went to London, and applied to
the king, who, during the present depression and insignificance of
parliament, was alone able to correct the abuses of Lauderdale's
administration. But even their complaints to him might be dangerous; and
all approaches of truth to the throne were barred by the ridiculous law
against leasing-making; a law which seems to have been extorted by the
ancient nobles, in order to protect their own tyranny, oppression,
and injustice. Great precautions, therefore, were used by the Scottish
malecontents in their representations to the king; but no redress was
obtained. Charles loaded them with caresses, and continued Lauderdale in
his authority.
A very bad, at least a severe use was made of this authority. The privy
council dispossessed twelve gentlemen or noblemen of their houses;[*]
which were converted into so many garrisons, established for the
suppression of conventicles. The nation, it was pretended, was really,
on account of these religious assemblies, in a state of war; and by the
ancient law, the king, in such an emergence, was empowered to place a
garrison in any house where he should judge it expedient.
* In 1675.
It were endless to recount every act of violence and arbitrary authority
exercised during Lauderdale's administration.
All the lawyers were put from the bar, nay, banished by the King's order
twelve miles from the capital, and by that means the whole justice of
the kingdom was suspended for a year; till these lawyers were brought
to declare it as their opinion, that all appeals to parliament were
illegal. A letter was procured from the king, for expelling twelve of
the chief magistrates of Edinburgh, and declaring them incapable of all
public office; though their only crime had been their want of compliance
with Lauderdale. The boroughs of Scotland have a privilege of meeting
once a year by their deputies, in order to consider the state of trade,
and make by-laws for its regulation: in this convention a petition was
voted, complaining of some late acts which obstructed commerce; and
praying the king, that he would empower his commissioner, in the next
session of parliament, to give his assent for repealing them. For this
presumption, as it was called, several of the members were fined and
imprisoned. One More, a member of parliament, having moved in the house,
that, in imitation of the English parliament, no bill should pass except
after three readings, he was, for this pretended offence, immediately
sent to prison by the commissioner.
The private deportment of Lauderdale was as insolent and provoking as
his public administration was violent and tyrannical. Justice, likewise,
was universally perverted by faction and interest: and from the great
rapacity of that duke, and still more of his duchess, all offices and
favors were openly put to sale. No one was allowed to approach the
throne who was not dependent on him; and no remedy could be hoped for
or obtained against his manifold oppressions. The case of Mitchel shows,
that this minister was as much destitute of truth and honor as of lenity
and justice.
Mitchel was a desperate fanatic, and had entertained a resolution of
assassinating Sharpe, archbishop of St. Andrews, who, by his former
apostasy and subsequent rigor, had rendered himself extremely odious
to the Covenanters. In the year 1668, Mitchel fired a pistol at the
primate, as he was sitting in his coach; but the bishop of Orkney,
stepping into the coach, happened to stretch out his arm, which
intercepted the ball, and was much shattered by it. This happened in the
principal street of the city; but so generally was the archbishop hated,
that the assassin was allowed peaceably to walk off; and having turned a
street or two, and thrown off a wig which disguised him, he immediately
appeared in public, and remained altogether unsuspected. Some years
after, Sharpe remarked one who seemed to eye him very eagerly; and being
still anxious lest an attempt of assassination should be renewed, he
ordered the man to be seized and examined. Two loaded pistols were found
upon him; and as he was now concluded to be the author of the former
attempt, Sharpe promised that if he would confess his guilt, he should
be dismissed without any punishment. Mitchel (for the conjecture was
just) was so credulous as to believe him; but was immediately produced
before the council by the faithless primate. The council, having no
proof against him, but hoping to involve the whole body of Covenanters
in this odious crime, solemnly renewed the promise of pardon, if he
would make a full discovery; and it was a great disappointment to them,
when they found, upon his confession, that only one person, who was
now dead, had been acquainted with his bloody purpose. Mitchel was
then carried before a court of judicature, and required to renew his
confession; but being apprehensive, lest, though a pardon for life had
been promised him, other corporal punishment might still be inflicted,
he refused compliance; and was sent back to prison. He was next examined
before the council, under pretence of his being concerned in the
insurrection at Pentland; and though no proof appeared against him, he
was put to the question, and, contrary to the most obvious principles
of equity, was urged to accuse himself. He endured the torture with
singular resolution, and continued obstinate in the denial of a crime,
of which, it is believed, he really was not guilty. Instead of obtaining
his liberty, he was sent to the Bass, a very high rock surrounded by the
sea; at this time converted into a state prison, and full of the unhappy
Covenanters, He there remained in great misery, loaded with irons, till
the year 1677, when it was resolved, by some new examples, to strike
a fresh terror into the persecuted but still obstinate enthusiasts.
Mitchel was then brought before a court of judicature, and put upon
his trial for an attempt to assassinate an archbishop and a privy
counsellor. His former confession was pleaded against him, and was
proved by the testimony of the duke of Lauderdale, lord commissioner,
Lord Hatton his brother, the earl of Rothes, and the primate himself.
Mitchel, besides maintaining that the privy council was no court of
judicature, and that a confession before them was not judicial, asserted
that he had been engaged to make that confession by a solemn promise
of pardon. The four privy counsellors denied upon with that any such
promise had ever been given. The prisoner then desired that the council
books might be produced in court, and even offered a copy of that day's
proceedings to be read; but the privy counsellors maintained, that,
after they had made oath, no further proof could be admitted, and that
the books of council contained the king's secrets, which were on no
account to be divulged. They were not probably aware, when they swore,
that the clerk having engrossed the promise of pardon in the narrative
of Mitchel's confession, the whole minute had been signed by the
chancellor, and that the proofs of their perjury were by that means
committed to record. Though the prisoner was condemned, Lauderdale was
still inclined to pardon him; but the unrelenting primate rigorously
insisted upon his execution, and said, that if assassins remained
unpunished, his life must be exposed to perpetual danger. Mitchel was
accordingly executed at Edinburgh, in January, 1678. Such a complication
of cruelty and treachery shows the character of those ministers to whom
the king at this time intrusted the government of Scotland.
Lauderdale's administration, besides the iniquities arising from the
violence of his temper, and the still greater iniquities inseparable
from all projects of persecution, was attended with other circumstances
which engaged him in severe and arbitrary measures. An absolute
government was to be introduced, which on its commencement is often most
rigorous; and tyranny was still obliged, for want of military power, to
cover itself under an appearance of law; a situation which rendered it
extremely awkward in its motions, and, by provoking opposition, extended
the violence of its oppressions.
The rigors exercised against conventicles, instead of breaking the
spirit of the fanatics, had tended only, as is usual, to render them
more obstinate, to increase the fervor of then zeal, to link them more
closely together, and to inflame them against the established hierarchy.
The commonalty, almost every where in the south, particularly in the
western counties frequented conventicles without reserve; and the gentry
though they themselves commonly abstained from these illegal places of
worship, connived at this irregularity in their inferiors. In order to
interest the former on the side of the persecutors, a bond or contract
was, by order of the privy council, tendered to the landlords in the
west, by which they were to engage for the good behavior of their
tenants; and in case any tenant frequented a conventicle, the landlord
was to subject himself to the same fine as could by law be exacted from
the delinquent. It was ridiculous to give sanction to laws by voluntary
contracts: it was iniquitous to make one man answerable for the conduct
of another: it was illegal to impose such hard conditions upon men who
had nowise offended. For these reasons, the greater part of the gentry
refused to sign these bonds; and Lauderdale, enraged at this opposition,
endeavored to break their spirit by expedients which were still more
unusual and more arbitrary.
The law enacted against conventicles had called them seminaries
of rebellion. This expression, which was nothing but a flourish of
rhetoric, Lauderdale and the privy council were willing to understand
in a literal sense; and because the western counties abounded in
conventicles, though otherwise in profound peace, they pretended that
these counties were in a state of actual war and rebellion. They made
therefore an agreement with some highland chieftains to call out their
clans, to the number of eight thousand men: to these they joined the
guards, and the militia of Angus; and they sent the whole to live at
free quarters upon the lands of such as had refused the bonds illegally
required of them. The obnoxious counties were the most populous and
most industrious in Scotland. The Highlanders were the people the most
disorderly and the least civilized. It is easy to imagine the havoc and
destruction which ensued. A multitude, not accustomed to discipline,
averse to the restraint of laws, trained up in rapine and violence, were
let loose amidst those whom they were taught to regard as enemies to
their prince and to their religion. Nothing escaped their ravenous
hands: by menaces, by violence, and sometimes by tortures, men were
obliged to discover their concealed wealth. Neither age, nor sex, nor
innocence afforded protection; and the gentry, finding that even those
who had been most compliant, and who had subscribed the bonds,
were equally exposed to the rapacity of those barbarians, confirmed
themselves still more in the resolution of refusing them. The voice
of the nation was raised against this enormous outrage; and after two
months' free quarter, the highlanders were sent back to their hills,
loaded with the spoils and execrations of the west.
Those who had been engaged to subscribe the bonds, could find no
security but by turning out such tenants as they suspected of an
inclination to conventicles, and thereby depopulating their estates. To
increase the misery of these unhappy farmers, the council enacted, that
none should be received any where, or allowed a habitation, who brought
not a certificate of his conformity from the parish minister. That the
obstinate and refractory might not escape further persecution, a new
device was fallen upon. By the law of Scotland, any man who should go
before a magistrate, and swear that he thought himself in danger from
another, might obtain a writ of law-burrows, as it is called; by which
the latter was bound, under the penalty of imprisonment and outlawry, to
find security for his good behavior. Lauderdale entertained the absurd
notion of making the king sue out writs of law-burrows against his
subjects. On this pretence, the refusers of the bonds were summoned to
appear before the council, and were required to bind themselves,
under the penalty of two years' rent, neither to frequent conventicles
themselves, nor allow their family and tenants to be present at those
unlawful assemblies. Thus chicanery was joined to tyranny; and
the majesty of the king, instead of being exalted, was in reality
prostituted; as if he were obliged to seek the same security which one
neighbor might require of another.
It was an old law, but seldom executed, that a man who was accused of
any crime, and did not appear in order to stand his trial, might be
intercommuned, that is, he might be publicly outlawed; and whoever
afterwards, either on account of business, relation, nay, charity, had
the least intercourse with him, was subjected to the same penalties
as could by law be inflicted on the criminal himself. Several writs
of intercommuning were now issued against the hearers and preachers in
conventicles; and by this severe and even absurd law, crimes and guilt
went on multiplying in a geometrical proportion. Where laws themselves
are so violent, it is no wonder that an administration should be
tyrannical.
Lest the cry of an oppressed people should reach the throne, the council
forbade, under severe penalties, all noblemen or gentlemen of landed
property to leave the kingdom, a severe edict, especially where the
sovereign himself resided in a foreign country. Notwithstanding this act
of council, Cassilis first, afterwards Hamilton and Tweddale, went
to London, and laid their complaints before the king. These violent
proceedings of Lauderdale were opposite to the natural temper of Charles
and he immediately issued orders for discontinuing the bonds and the
writs of law-burrows. But as he was commonly little touched with what
lay at a distance, he entertained not the proper indignation against
those who had abused his authority: even while he retracted these
oppressive measures, he was prevailed with to avow and praise them in
a letter which he wrote to the privy council. This proof of confidence
might fortify the hands of the ministry; but the king ran a manifest
risk of losing the affections of his subjects, by not permitting even
those who were desirous of it to distinguish between him and their
oppressors.
It is reported[*] that Charles, after a full hearing of the debates
concerning Scottish affairs, said, "I perceive that Lauderdale has been
guilty of many bad things against the people of Scotland; but I cannot
find that he has acted any thing contrary to my interest;" a sentiment
unworthy of a sovereign.
* Burnet.
During the absence of Hamilton and the other discontented lords, the
king allowed Lauderdale to summon a convention of estates at Edinburgh.
This assembly, besides granting some money, bestowed applause on
all Lauderdale's administration, and in their addresses to the king,
expressed the highest contentment and satisfaction. But these instances
of complaisance had the contrary effect in England from what was
expected by the contrivers of them. All men there concluded, that in
Scotland the very voice of liberty was totally suppressed; and that,
by the prevalence of tyranny, grievances were so rivetted, that it was
become dangerous even to mention them, or complain to the prince, who
alone was able to redress them. From the slavery of the neighboring
kingdom, they inferred the arbitrary disposition of the king; and
from the violence with which sovereign power was there exercised, they
apprehended the miseries which might ensue to themselves upon their loss
of liberty. If persecution, it was asked, by a Protestant church could
be carried to such extremes, what might be dreaded from the prevalence
of Popery, which had ever, in all ages, made open profession of
exterminating by fire and sword every opposite sect or communion? And if
the first approaches towards unlimited authority were so tyrannical, how
dismal its final establishment; when all dread of opposition should at
last be removed by mercenary armies, and all sense of shame by long and
inveterate habit!
CHAPTER LXVII.
Charles II.
{1678.} THE English nation, ever since the fatal league with France,
had entertained violent jealousies against the court; and the subsequent
measures adopted by the king had tended more to increase than cure the
general prejudices. Some mysterious design was still suspected in every
enterprise and profession: arbitrary power and Popery were apprehended
as the scope of all projects: each breath or rumor made the people start
with anxiety: their enemies, they thought, were in their very bosom,
and had gotten possession of their sovereign's confidence. While in this
timorous, jealous disposition, the cry of a plot all on a sudden
struck their ears: they were wakened from their slumber: and like men
affrightened and in the dark, took every figure for a spectre. The
terror of each man became the source of terror to another. And a
universal panic being diffused, reason and argument, and common sense
and common humanity, lost all influence over them. From this disposition
of men's minds we are to account for the progress of the Popish plot,
and the credit given to it; an event which would otherwise appear
prodigious and altogether inexplicable.
On the twelfth of August, one Kirby, a chemist, accosted the king as he
was walking in the park. "Sir," said he, "keep within the company: your
enemies have a design upon your life; and you may be shot in this very
walk." Being asked the reason of these strange speeches, he said, that
two men, called Grove and Pickering, had engaged to shoot the king,
and Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, to poison him. This
intelligence, he added, had been communicated to him by Dr. Tongue,
whom, if permitted, he would introduce to his majesty. Tongue was
a divine of the church of England; a man active, restless, full of
projects, void of understanding. He brought papers to the king, which
contained information of a plot, and were digested into forty-three
articles. The king, not having leisure to peruse them, sent them to
the treasurer, Danby, and ordered the two informers to lay the business
before that minister. Tongue confessed to Danby, that he himself had not
drawn the papers; that they had been secretly thrust under his door; and
that, though he suspected, he did not certainly know who was the
author. After a few days, he returned, and told the treasurer, that
his suspicions, he found, were just; and that the author of the
intelligence, whom he had met twice or thrice in the street, had
acknowledged the whole matter, and had given him a more particular
account of the conspiracy, but desired that his name might be concealed,
being apprehensive lest the Papists should murder him.
The information was renewed with regard to Grove's and Pickering's
intentions of shooting the king; and Tongue even pretended, that, at a
particular time, they were to set out for Windsor with that intention.
Orders were given for arresting them, as soon as they should appear
in that place: but though this alarm was more than once renewed, some
frivolous reasons were still found by Tongue for their having delayed
the journey. And the king concluded, both from these evasions, and from
the mysterious, artificial manner of communicating the intelligence,
that the whole was an imposture.
Tongue came next to the treasurer, and told him, that a packet of
letters, written by Jesuits concerned in the plot, was that night to be
put into the post-house for Windsor, directed to Bennifield, a Jesuit,
confessor to the duke. When this intelligence was conveyed to the
king, he replied, that the packet mentioned had a few hours before been
brought to the duke by Bennifield, who said, that he suspected some
bad design upon him; that the letters seemed to contain matters of a
dangerous import, and that he knew them not to be the handwriting of the
persons whose names were subscribed to them. This incident still further
confirmed the king in his incredulity.
The matter had probably slept forever, had it not been for the anxiety
of the duke; who, hearing that priests and Jesuits, and even his own
confessor, had been accused, was desirous that a thorough inquiry should
be made by the council into the pretended conspiracy. Kirby and Tongue
were inquired after, and were now found to be living in close connection
with Titus Oates, the person who was said to have conveyed the first
intelligence to Tongue. Oates affirmed, that he had fallen under
suspicion with the Jesuits; that he had received three blows with
a stick and a box on the ear from the provincial of that order, for
revealing their conspiracy; and that, overhearing them speak of their
intentions to punish him more severely, he had withdrawn, and concealed
himself. This man, in whose breast was lodged a secret involving the
fate of kings and kingdoms, was allowed to remain in such necessity,
that Kirby was obliged to supply him with daily bread; and it was a
joyful surprise to him, when he heard that the council was at last
disposed to take some notice of his intelligence. But as he expected
more encouragement from the public than from the king or his ministers,
he thought proper, before he was presented to the council, to go with
his two companions to Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, a noted and active
justice of peace, and to give evidence before him of all the articles of
the conspiracy.
The wonderful intelligence which Oates conveyed both to Godfrey and the
council, and afterwards to the parliament, was to this purpose.[*]
* Oates's Narrative.
The pope, he said, on examining the matter in the congregation de
propaganda, had found himself entitled to the possession of England
and Ireland on account of the heresy of prince and people, and had
accordingly assumed the sovereignty of these kingdoms. This supreme
power he had thought proper to delegate to the society of Jesuits; and
De Oliva, general of that order, in consequence of the papal grant, had
exerted every act of regal authority, and particularly had supplied, by
commissions under the seal of the society, all the chief offices, both
civil and military. Lord Arundel was created chancellor, Lord Powis
treasurer, Sir William Godolphin privy seal, Coleman secretary of state,
Langhorne attorney-general, Lord Bellasis general of the papal army,
Lord Peters lieutenant-general, Lord Stafford paymaster; and inferior
commissions, signed by the provincial of the Jesuits, were distributed
all over England. All the dignities too of the church were filled, and
many of them with Spaniards and other foreigners. The provincial had
held a consult of the Jesuits under his authority; where the king, whom
they opprobriously called the Black Bastard, was solemnly tried and
condemned as a heretic, and a resolution taken to put him to death.
Father Le Shee (for so this great plotter and informer called Father La
Chaise, the noted confessor of the French king) had consigned in London
ten thousand pounds, to be paid to any man who should merit it by this
assassination. A Spanish provincial had expressed like liberality: the
prior of the Benedictines was willing to go the length of six thousand.
The Dominicans approved of the action, but pleaded poverty. Ten thousand
pounds had been offered to Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician,
who demanded fifteen thousand, as a reward for so great a service: his
demand was complied with; and five thousand had been paid him by
advance. Lest his means should fail, four Irish ruffians had been hired
by the Jesuits, at the rate of twenty guineas apiece, to stab the king
at Windsor; and Coleman, secretary to the late duchess of York, had
given the messenger, who carried them orders, a guinea to quicken his
diligence. Grove and Pickering were also employed to shoot the king with
silver bullets: the former was to receive the sum of fifteen hundred
pounds; the latter, being a pious man, was to be rewarded with thirty
thousand masses, which, estimating masses at a shilling apiece, amounted
to a like value. Pickering would have executed his purpose, had not the
flint at one time dropped out of his pistol, at another time the
priming. Coniers, the Jesuit, had bought a knife at the price of ten
shillings, which he thought was not dear, considering the purpose for
which he intended it, to wit, stabbing the king. Letters of subscription
were circulated among the Catholics all over England, to raise a sum for
the same purpose. No less than fifty Jesuits had met, in May last, at
the White Horse Tavern, where it was unanimously agreed to put the king
to death. This synod did afterwards, for more convenience, divide
themselves into many lesser cabals or companies; and Oates was employed
to carry notes and letters from one to another, all tending to the same
end, of murdering the king. He even carried, from one company to
another, a paper, in which they formally expressed their resolution of
executing that deed; and it was regularly subscribed by all of them. A
wager of a hundred pounds was laid, and stakes made, that the king
should eat no more Christmas pies. In short, it was determined, to use
the expression of a Jesuit, that if he would not become R. C., (Roman
Catholic,) he should no longer be C. R., (Charles Rex.) The great fire
of London had been the work of the Jesuits, who had employed eighty or
eighty-six persons for that purpose, and had expended seven hundred
fire-balls; but they had a good return for their money, for they had
been able to pilfer goods from the fire to the amount of fourteen
thousand pounds: the Jesuits had also raised another fire on St.
Margaret's Hill, whence they had stolen goods to the value of two
thousand pounds; another at Southwark: and it was determined in like
manner to burn all the chief cities in England. A paper model was
already framed for the firing London; the stations were regularly marked
out, where the several fires were to commence; and the whole plan of
operations were so concerted, that precautions were taken by the Jesuits
to vary their measures, according to the variation of the wind.
Fire-balls were familiarly called among them Teuxbury mustard pills; and
were said to contain a notable biting sauce. In the great fire, it had
been determined to murder the king; but he had displayed such diligence
and humanity in extinguishing the flames, that even the Jesuits
relented, and spared his life. Besides these assassinations and fires,
insurrections, rebellions, and massacres were projected by that
religious order in all the three kingdoms. There were twenty thousand
Catholics in London, who would rise in four and twenty hours, or less;
and Jennison, a Jesuit, said, that they might easily cut the throats of
a hundred thousand Protestants. Eight thousand Catholics had agreed to
take arms in Scotland. Ormond was to be murdered by four Jesuits; a
general massacre of the Irish Protestants was concerted; and forty
thousand black bills were already provided for that purpose. Coleman had
remitted two hundred thousand pounds to promote the rebellion in
Ireland; and the French king was to land a great army in that island.
Poole, who wrote the Synopsis, was particularly marked out for
assassination; as was also Dr. Stillingfleet, a controversial writer
against the Papists. Burnet tells us, that Oates paid him the same
compliment. After all this havoc, the crown was to be offered to the
duke, but on the following conditions: that he receive it as a gift from
the pope; that he confirm all the papal commissions for offices and
employments; that he ratify all past transactions, by pardoning the
incendiaries, and the murderers of his brother and of the people; and
that he consent to the utter extirpation of the Protestant religion. If
he refuse these conditions, he himself was immediately to be poisoned or
assassinated. "To pot James must go," according to the expression
ascribed by Oates to the Jesuits.
Oates, the informer of this dreadful plot, was himself the most infamous
of mankind. He was the son of an Anabaptist preacher, chaplain to
Colonel Pride; but having taken orders in the church, he had been
settled in a small living by the duke of Norfolk. He had been indicted
for perjury, and by some means had escaped. He was afterwards a chaplain
on board the fleet; whence he had been dismissed on complaint of some
unnatural practices not fit to be named. He then became a convert to
the Catholics; but he afterwards boasted, that his conversion was a mere
pretence, in order to get into their secrets and to betray them.[*] He
was sent over to the Jesuits' college at St. Omers, and though above
thirty years of age, he there lived some time among the students. He
was despatched on an errand to Spain; and thence returned to St. Omers;
where the Jesuits, heartily tired of their convert, at last dismissed
him from their seminary. It is likely that, from resentment of
this usage, as well as from want and indigence, he was induced, in
combination with Tongue, to contrive that plot of which he accused the
Catholics.
This abandoned man, when examined before the council, betrayed his
impostures in such a manner, as would have utterly discredited the most
consistent story, and the most reputable evidence. While in Spain, he
had been carried, he said, to Don John, who promised great assistance to
the execution of the Catholic designs. The king asked him what sort of
a man Don John was: he answered, a tall, lean man; directly contrary to
truth, as the king well knew.[**] He totally mistook the situation of
the Jesuits' college at Paris.[***] Though he pretended great intimacies
with Coleman, he knew him not, when placed very near him; and had no
other excuse than that his sight was bad in candle light.[****] He fell
into like mistakes with regard to Wakeman.
* Burnet Echard, North, L'Estrange, etc.
** Burnet North.
*** North.
**** Burnet, North, Trials.
Notwithstanding these objections, great attention was paid to Oates's
evidence, and the plot became very soon the subject of conversation, and
even the object of terror to the people. The violent animosity which had
been excited against the Catholics in general, made the public swallow
the grossest absurdities, when they accompanied an accusation of those
religionists: and the more diabolical any contrivance appeared, the
better it suited the tremendous idea entertained of a Jesuit. Danby,
likewise, who stood in opposition to the French and Catholic interest
at court, was willing to encourage every story which might serve to
discredit that party. By his suggestion, when a warrant was signed for
arresting Coleman, there was inserted a clause for seizing his papers; a
circumstance attended with the most important consequences.
Coleman, partly on his own account, partly by orders from the duke, had
been engaged in a correspondence with Father La Chaise, with the pope's
nuncio at Brussels, and with other Catholics abroad; and being himself
a fiery zealot, busy and sanguine, the expressions in his letters often
betrayed great violence and indiscretion. His correspondence, during
the years 1674, 1675, and part of 1676, was seized, and contained many
extraordinary passages. In particular, he said to La Chaise, "We have
here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three
kingdoms, and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy,
which has a long time domineered over a great part of this northern
world. There were never such hopes of success since the days of Queen
Mary, as now in our days. God has given us a prince," meaning the duke,
"who is become (may I say a miracle) zealous of being the author and
instrument of so glorious a work; but the opposition we are sure to meet
with is also like to be great: so that it imports us to get all the aid
and assistance we can." In another letter he said, "I can scarce believe
myself awake, or the thing real, when I think of a prince in such an age
as we live in, converted to such a degree of zeal and piety, as not to
regard any thing in the world in comparison of God Almighty's glory, the
salvation of his own soul, and the conversion of our poor kingdom."
In other passages, the interests of the crown of England, those of
the French king, and those of the Catholic religion, are spoken of
as inseparable. The duke is also said to have connected his interests
unalterably with those of Lewis. The king himself, he affirms, is always
inclined to favor the Catholics, when he may do it without hazard.
"Money," Coleman adds, "cannot fail of persuading the king to any thing.
There is nothing it cannot make him do, were it ever so much to his
prejudice. It has such an absolute power over him that he cannot resist
it. Logic, built upon money, has in our court more powerful charms than
any other sort of argument." For these reasons, he proposed to Father
La Chaise, that the French king should remit the sum of three hundred
thousand pounds, on condition that the parliament be dissolved; a
measure to which, he affirmed, the king was of himself sufficiently
inclined, were it not for his hopes of obtaining money from that
assembly. The parliament, he said, had already constrained the king
to make peace with Holland, contrary to the interests of the Catholic
religion, and of his most Christian majesty: and if they should meet
again, they would surely engage him further, even to the making of
war against France. It appears also from the same letters, that the
assembling of the parliament so late as April in the year 1675, had been
procured by the intrigues of the Catholic and French party, who thereby
intended to show the Dutch and their confederates that they could expect
no assistance from England.
When the contents of these letters were publicly known, they diffused
the panic with which the nation began already to be seized on account of
the Popish plot. Men reasoned more from their fears and their passions,
than from the evidence before them. It is certain, that the restless and
enterprising spirit of the Catholic church, particularly of the Jesuits,
merits attention, and is in some degree dangerous to every other
communion. Such zeal of proselytism actuates that sect, that its
missionaries have penetrated into every nation of the globe; and, in
one sense, there is a Popish plot perpetually carrying on against all
states, Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan. It is likewise very probable,
that the conversion of the duke, and the favor of the king, had inspired
the Catholic priests with new hopes of recovering in these islands their
lost dominion, and gave fresh vigor to that intemperate zeal by which
they are commonly actuated. Their first aim was to obtain a toleration;
and such was the evidence, they believed, of their theological tenets,
that, could they but procure entire liberty, they must infallibly in
time open the eyes of the people. After they had converted considerable
numbers, they might be enabled, they hoped, to reinstate themselves
in full authority, and entirely to suppress that heresy with which
the kingdom had so long been infected. Though these dangers to the
Protestant religion were distant, it was justly the object of great
concern to find, that the heir of the crown was so blinded with bigotry,
and so deeply engaged in foreign interests; and that the king himself
had been prevailed on, from low Interests, b hearken to his dangerous
insinuations. Very bad consequences might ensue from such perverse
habits and attachments; nor could the nation and parliament guard
against them with too anxious a precaution. But that the Roman pontiff
could hope to assume the sovereignty of these kingdoms; a project which,
even during the darkness of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, would
have appeared chimerical: that he should delegate this authority to the
Jesuits, that order in the Romish church which was the most hated: that
a massacre could be attempted of the Protestants, who surpassed the
Catholics a hundred fold, and were invested with the whole authority of
the state: that the king himself was to be assassinated, and even the
duke, the only support of their party: these were such absurdities as no
human testimony was sufficient to prove; much less the evidence of one
man, who was noted for infamy, and who could not keep himself, every
moment, from falling into the grossest inconsistencies. Did such
intelligence deserve even so much attention as to be refuted, it would
appear, that Coleman's letters were sufficient alone to destroy all its
credit. For how could so long a train of correspondence be carried on by
a man so much trusted by the party, and yet no traces of insurrections,
if really intended, of fires, massacres, assassinations, invasions, be
ever discovered in any single passage of these letters? But all such
reflections, and many more equally obvious, were vainly employed against
that general prepossession with which the nation was seized. Oates's
plot and Coleman's were universally confounded together: and the
evidence of the latter being unquestionable, the belief of the former,
aided by the passions of hatred and of terror, took possession of the
whole people.
There was danger, however, lest time might open the eyes of the public;
when the murder of Godfrey completed the general delusion, and rendered
the prejudices of the nation absolutely incurable. This magistrate had
been missing some days; and after much search, and many surmises,
his body was found lying in a ditch at Primrose Hill: the marks of
strangling were thought to appear about his neck, and some contusions
on his breast: his own sword was sticking in the body; but as no
considerable quantity of blood ensued on drawing it out, it was
concluded, that it had been thrust in after his death, and that he had
not killed himself: he had rings on his fingers and money in his pocket;
it was therefore inferred that he had not fallen into the hands of
robbers. Without further reasoning, the cry rose, that he had been
assassinated by the Papists, on account of his taking Oates's evidence.
This clamor was quickly propagated, and met with universal belief. The
panic spread itself on every side with infinite rapidity; and all men,
astonished with fear, and animated with rage, saw in Godfrey's fate all
the horrible designs ascribed to the Catholics: and no further doubt
remained of Oates's veracity. The voice of the nation united against
that hated sect; and notwithstanding that the bloody conspiracy was
supposed to be now detected, men could scarcely be persuaded that their
lives were yet in safety. Each hour teemed with new rumors and surmises.
Invasions from abroad, insurrections at home, even private murders and
poisonings, were apprehended. To deny the reality of the plot was to be
an accomplice: to hesitate was criminal: royalist, republican;
churchman, sectary; courtier, patriot; all parties concurred in the
illusion. The city prepared for its defence as if the enemy were at its
gates: the chains and posts were put up: and it was a noted saying at
that time of Sir Thomas Player, the chamberlain, that, were it not for
these precautions, all the citizens might rise next morning with their
throats cut.[*]
In order to propagate the popular frenzy, several artifices were
employed. The dead body of Godfrey was carried into the city, attended
by vast multitudes. It was publicly exposed in the streets, and viewed
by all ranks of men; and every one who saw it went away inflamed, as
well by the mutual contagion of sentiments, as by the dismal spectacle
itself. The funeral pomp was celebrated with great parade. The corpse
was conducted through the chief streets of the city: seventy-two
clergymen marched before: above a thousand persons of distinction
followed after: and at the funeral sermon, two able-bodied divines
mounted the pulpit, and stood on each side o. the preacher, lest in
paying the last duties to this unhappy magistrate, he should, before the
whole people, be murdered by the Papists,[**]
* North, p. 206.
**North p. 205.
In this disposition of the nation, reason could no more be heard than
a whisper in the midst of the most violent hurricane. Even at present,
Godfrey's murder can scarcely, upon any system, be rationally
accounted for. That he was assassinated by the Catholics, seems utterly
improbable. These religionists could not be engaged to commit that crime
from policy, in order to deter other magistrates from acting against
them. Godfrey's fate was nowise capable of producing that effect,
unless it were publicly known that the Catholics were his murderers;
an opinion which, it was easy to foresee, must prove the ruin of their
party. Besides, how many magistrates, during more than a century, had
acted in the most violent manner against the Catholics, without its
being ever suspected that any one had been cut off by assassination?
Such jealous times as the present were surely ill fitted for beginning
these dangerous experiments. Shall we therefore say, that the Catholics
were pushed on, not by policy, but by blind revenge, against Godfrey?
But Godfrey had given them little or no occasion of offence in taking
Oates's evidence. His part was merely an act of form belonging to his
office; nor could he, or any man in his station, possibly refuse it. In
the rest of his conduct, he lived on good terms with the Catholics, and
was far from distinguishing himself by his severity against that sect.
It is even certain, that he had contracted an intimacy with Coleman,
and took care to inform his friend of the danger to which, by reason of
Oates's evidence, he was at present exposed.
There are some writers who, finding it impossible to account for
Godfrey's murder by the machinations of the Catholics, have recourse
to the opposite supposition. They lay hold of that obvious presumption,
that those commit the crime who reap advantage by it; and they
affirm, that it was Shaftesbury and the heads of the popular party who
perpetrated that deed, in order to throw the odium of it on the Papists.
If this supposition be received, it must also be admitted, that the
whole plot was the contrivance of these politicians; and that Oates
acted altogether under their direction. But it appears that Oates,
dreading probably the opposition of powerful enemies, had very anxiously
acquitted the duke, Danby, Ormond, and all the ministry; persons who
were certainly the most obnoxious to the popular leaders. Besides,
the whole texture of the plot contains such low absurdity, that it is
impossible to have been the invention of any man of sense or education.
It is true the more monstrous and horrible the conspiracy, the better
was it fitted to terrify, and thence to convince, the populace: but this
effect, we may safely say, no one could beforehand have expected; and
a fool was in this case more likely to succeed than a wise man. Had
Shaftesbury laid the plan of a Popish conspiracy, he had probably
rendered it moderate consistent, credible; and on that very account
had never met with the prodigious success with which Oates's tremendous
fictions were attended.
We must, therefore, be contented to remain forever ignorant of the
actors in Godfrey's murder; and only pronounce in general, that that
event in all likelihood, had no connection, one way or other, with the
Popish plot. Any man, especially so active a magistrate as Godfrey,
might, in such a city as London, have many enemies, of whom his friends
and family had no suspicion. He was a melancholy man; and there is some
reason, notwithstanding the pretended appearances to the contrary, to
suspect that he fell by his own hands. The affair was never examined
with tranquillity, or even with common sense, during the time; and it is
impossible for us, at this distance, certainly to account for it.
No one doubted but the Papists had assassinated Godfrey; but still the
particular actors were unknown. A proclamation was issued by the king,
offering a pardon and a reward of five hundred pounds to any one who
should discover them. As it was afterwards surmised, that the terror
of a like assassination would prevent discovery, a new proclamation was
issued, promising absolute protection to any one who should reveal the
secret. Thus were indemnity, money, and security offered to the fairest
bidder: and no one needed to fear, during the present fury of the
people, that his evidence would undergo too severe a scrutiny.
While the nation was in this ferment, the parliament was assembled. In
his speech, the king told them, that, though they had given money for
disbanding the army,[*] he had found Flanders so exposed, that he had
thought it necessary still to keep them on foot, and doubted not but
this measure would meet with their approbation. He informed them, that
his revenue lay under great anticipations, and at best was never equal
to the constant and necessary expense of government; as would appear
from the state of it, which he intended to lay before them. He also
mentioned the plot formed against his life by Jesuits; but said that he
would forbear delivering any opinion of the matter, lest he should seem
to say too much or too little; and that he would leave the scrutiny of
it entirely to the law.
* They had granted him six hundred thousand pounds for
disbanding the army, for reimbursing the charges of his
naval armament and for paying the princess of Orange's
portion.
The king was anxious to keep the question of the Popish plot from the
parliament; where, he suspected, many designing people would very much
abuse the present credulity of the nation, but Danby, who hated the
Catholics, and courted popularity, and perhaps hoped that the king,
if his life were believed in danger from the Jesuits, would be more
cordially loved by the nation, had entertained opposite designs; and
the very first day of the session, he opened the matter in the house of
peers. The king was extremely displeased with this temerity, and told
his minister, "Though you do not believe it, you will find, that you
have given the parliament a handle to ruin yourself, as well as to
disturb all my affairs; and you will surely live to repent it." Danby
had afterwards sufficient reason to applaud the sagacity of his master.
The cry of the plot was immediately echoed from one house to the other.
The authority of parliament gave sanction to that fury with which the
people were already agitated. An address was voted for a solemn fast: a
form of prayer was contrived for that solemnity; and because the Popish
plot had been omitted in the first draught, it was carefully ordered to
be inserted; lest omniscience should want intelligence, to use the words
of an historian.[*]
* North, p. 207.
In order to continue and propagate the alarm, addresses were voted
for laying before the house such papers as might discover the horrible
conspiracy; for the removal of Popish recusants from London; for
administering every where the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; for
denying access at court to all unknown or suspicious persons; and for
appointing the train bands of London and Westminster to be in readiness.
The lords Powis, Stafford, Arundel, Peters, and Bellasis were committed
to the Tower, and were soon after impeached for high treason. And both
houses, after hearing Oates's evidence, voted, "That the lords and
commons are of opinion, that there hath been, and still is, a damnable
and hellish plot, contrived and carried on by the Popish recusants, for
assassinating the king, for subverting the government, and for rooting
out and destroying the Protestant religion."
So vehement were the houses, that they sat every day, forenoon and
afternoon, on the subject of the plot: for no other business could be
attended to. A committee of lords was appointed to examine prisoners and
witnesses: blank warrants were put into their hands, for the commitment
of such as should be accused or suspected. Oates, who, though his
evidence were true, must, by his own account, be regarded as an infamous
villain, was by every one applauded, caressed and called the savior of
the nation. He was recommended by the parliament to the king. He was
lodged in Whitehall, protected by guards, and encouraged by a pension of
one thousand two hundred pounds a year.
It was not long before such bountiful encouragement brought forth new
witnesses. William Bedloe, a man, if possible, more infamous than Gates,
appeared next upon the stage. He was of very low birth, had been noted
for several cheats, and even thefts; had travelled over many parts of
Europe under borrowed names, and frequently passed himself for a man of
quality; and had endeavored, by a variety of lies and contrivances, to
prey upon the ignorant and unwary. When he appeared before the council,
he gave intelligence of Godfrey's murder only, which, he said, had been
perpetrated in Somerset House, where the queen lived, by Papists, some
of them servants in her family. He was questioned about the plot; but
utterly denied all knowledge of it, and also asserted, that he had no
acquaintance with Oates. Next day, when examined before the committee
of lords, he bethought himself better, and was ready to give an ample
account of the plot, which he found so anxiously inquired into. This
narrative he made to tally, as well as he could, with that of Oates,
which had been published: but that he might make himself acceptable
by new matter, he added some other circumstances, and these still more
tremendous and extraordinary. He said, that ten thousand men were to be
landed from Flanders in Burlington Bay, and immediately to seize Hull:
that Jersey and Guernsey were to be surprised by forces from Brest; and
that a French fleet was all last summer hovering in the Channel for
that purpose: that the lords Powis and Peters were to form an army
in Radnorshire, to be joined by another army, consisting of twenty or
thirty thousand religious men and pilgrims, who were to land at Milford
Haven from St. Iago in Spain: that there were forty thousand men ready
in London; besides those who would, on the alarm, be posted at every
alehouse door, in order to kill the soldiers as they came out of their
quarters: that Lord Stafford, Coleman, and Father Ireland had money
sufficient to defray the expenses of all these armaments: that he
himself was to receive four thousand pounds, as one that could murder a
man; as also a commission from Lord Bellasis, and a benediction from the
pope that the king was to be assassinated; all the Protestants massacred
who would not seriously be converted; the government offered to ONE, if
he would consent to hold it of the church; but if he should refuse that
condition, as was suspected, the supreme authority would be given
to certain lords under the nomination of the pope. In a subsequent
examination before the commons, Bedloe added, (for these men always
brought out their intelligence successively and by piecemeal,) that Lord
Carrington was also in the conspiracy for raising men and money against
the government; as was likewise Loro Brudenel. These noblemen, with all
the other persons mentioned by Bedloe, were immediately committed to
custody by the parliament.
It is remarkable, that the only resource of Spain, in her present
decayed condition, lay in the assistance of England: and, so far from
being in a situation to transport ten thousand men for the invasion of
that kingdom, she had solicited and obtained English forces to be sent
into the garrisons of Flanders, which were not otherwise able to defend
themselves against the French. The French too, we may observe, were
at that very time in open war with Spain, and yet are supposed to be
engaged in the same design against England; as if religious motives were
become the sole actuating principle among sovereigns. But none of these
circumstances, however obvious, were able, when set in opposition to
multiplied horrors, antipathies, and prejudices, to engage the least
attention of the populace: for such the whole nation were at this time
become. The Popish plot passed for incontestable: and had not men soon
expected with certainty the legal punishment of these criminals, the
Catholics had been exposed to the hazard of a universal massacre.
The torrent, indeed, of national prejudices ran so high, that no one,
without the most imminent danger, durst venture openly to oppose it;
nay, scarcely any one, without great force of judgment, could even
secretly entertain an opinion contrary to the prevailing sentiments.
The loud and unanimous voice of a great nation has mighty authority over
weak minds; and even later historians are so swayed by the concurring
judgment of such multitudes, that some of them have esteemed themselves
sufficiently moderate, when they affirmed, that many circumstances of
the plot were true, though some were added, and others much magnified.
But it is an obvious principle, that a witness who perjures himself in
one circumstance is credible in none and the authority of the plot, even
to the end of the prosecutions, stood entirely upon witnesses. Though
the Catholics had seen suddenly and unexpectedly detected, at the very
moment when their conspiracy, it is said, was ripe for execution, no
arms, no ammunition, no money, no commissions, no papers, no letters,
after the most rigorous search, ever were discovered, to confirm
the evidence of Oates and Bedloe. Yet still the nation, though often
frustrated, went on in the eager pursuit and confident belief of the
conspiracy: and even the manifold inconsistencies and absurdities
contained in the narratives, instead of discouraging them, served only
as further incentives to discover the bottom of the plot, and were
considered as slight objections, which a more complete information would
fully remove. In all history, it will be difficult to find such another
instance of popular frenzy and bigoted delusion.
In order to support the panic among the people, especially among
the citizens of London, a pamphlet was published with this title: "A
narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid Popish plot, carried on
for burning and destroying the cities of London and Westminster,
with their suburbs: setting forth the several consults, orders, and
resolutions of the Jesuits concerning the same: by Captain William
Bedloe, lately engaged in that horrid design, and one of the Popish
committee for carrying on such fires." Every fire which had happened
for several years past, is there ascribed to the machinations of the
Jesuits, who purposed, as Bedloe said, by such attempts, to find an
opportunity for the general massacre of the Protestants; and, in the
mean time, were well pleased to enrich themselves by pilfering goods
from the fire.
The king, though he scrupled not, wherever he could speak freely, to
throw the highest ridicule on the plot, and on all who believed it, yet
found it necessary to adopt the popular opinion before the parliament.
The torrent, he saw, ran too strong to be controlled; and he could only
hope, by a seeming compliance, to be able, after some time, to guide and
direct and elude its fury. He made, therefore, a speech to both houses;
in which he told them, that he would take the utmost care of his person
during these times of danger; that he was as ready as their hearts could
wish, to join with them in all means for establishing the Protestant
religion, not only during his own time, but for all future ages; and
that, provided the right of succession were preserved, he would consent
to any laws for restraining a Popish successor: and, in conclusion, he
exhorted them to think of effectual means for the conviction of Popish
recusants; and he highly praised the duty and loyalty of all his
subjects, who had discovered such anxious concern for his safety.
These gracious expressions abated nothing of the vehemence of
parliamentary proceedings. A bill was introduced for a new test, in
which Popery was denominated idolatry; and all members, who refused
this test, were excluded from both houses. The bill passed the commons
without much opposition; but in the upper house the duke moved, that an
exception might be admitted in his favor. With great earnestness,
and even with tears in his eyes, he told them that he was now to cast
himself on their kindness, in the greatest concern which he could have
in the world; and he protested, that, whatever his religion might be, it
should only be a private thing between God and his own soul, and never
should appear in his public conduct. Notwithstanding this strong effort,
in so important a point, he prevailed only by two voices: a sufficient
indication of the general disposition of the people. "I would not have,"
said a noble peer, in the debate on this bill, "so much as a Popish
man or a Popish woman to remain here; not so much as a Popish dog or a
Popish bitch; not so much as a Popish cat to pur or mew about the king."
What is more extraordinary, this speech met with praise and approbation.
Encouraged by this general fury, the witnesses went still a step
farther in their accusations; and though both Oates and Bedloe had often
declared, that there was no other person of distinction whom they knew
to be concerned in the plot, they were now so audacious as to accuse
the queen herself of entering into the design against the life of her
husband. The commons, in an address to the king, gave countenance to
this scandalous accusation; but the lords would not be prevailed with to
join in the address. It is here, if any where, that we may suspect the
suggestions of the popular leaders to have had place. The king, it was
well known, bore no great affection to his consort; and now, more than
ever, when his brother and heir was so much hated, had reason to be
desirous of issue which might quiet the jealous fears of his people.
This very hatred, which prevailed against the duke, would much
facilitate, he knew, any expedient that could be devised for the
exclusion of that prince; and nothing further seemed requisite for the
king, than to give way in this particular to the rage and fury of the
nation. But Charles, notwithstanding all allurements of pleasure, or
interest, or safety, had the generosity to protect his injured consort.
"They think," said he, "I have a mind to a new wife; but for all that, I
will not see an innocent woman abused."[*] He immediately ordered Oates
to be strictly confined, seized his papers, and dismissed his servants;
and this daring informer was obliged to make applications to parliament,
in order to recover his liberty.
During this agitation of men's minds, the parliament gave new attention
to the militia; a circumstance which, even during times of greatest
tranquillity, can never prudently be neglected. They passed a bill,
by which it was |
