Free Ebooks - The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

Volume II

(Chapters VI-X)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

CHAPTER VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII

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

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

He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and in
mind he was older than other men of the same age. Indeed it might
be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is
almost as well known to us as to his own captains and
counsellors. Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their
utmost skill in the work of transmitting his features to
posterity; and his features were such as no artist could fail to
seize, and such as, once seen, could never be forgotten. His name
at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty
and ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an
eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a
thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish
mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by
care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have
belonged to a happy or a goodhumoured man. But it indicates in a
manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the most arduous
enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or
dangers.

Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great
ruler; and education had developed those qualities in no common
degree. With strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he
found himself, when first his mind began to open, a fatherless
and motherless child, the chief of a great but depressed and
disheartened party, and the heir to vast and indefinite
pretensions, which excited the dread and aversion of the
oligarchy then supreme in the United Provinces. The common
people, fondly attached during a century to his house, indicated,
whenever they saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they
regarded him as their rightful head. The able and experienced
ministers of the republic, mortal enemies of his name, came every
day to pay their feigned civilities to him, and to observe the
progress of his mind. The first movements of his ambition were
carefully watched: every unguarded word uttered by him was noted
down; nor had he near him any adviser on whose judgment reliance
could be placed. He was scarcely fifteen years old when all the
domestics who were attached to his interest, or who enjoyed any
share of his confidence, were removed from under his roof by the
jealous government. He remonstrated with energy beyond his years,
but in vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more than once rise
in the eyes of the young state prisoner. His health, naturally
delicate, sank for a time under the emotions which his desolate
situation had produced. Such situations bewilder and unnerve the
weak, but call forth all the strength of the strong. Surrounded
by snares in which an ordinary youth would have perished, William
learned to tread at once warily and firmly. Long before he
reached manhood he knew how to keep secrets, how to baffle
curiosity by dry and guarded answers, how to conceal all passions
under the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile he made
little proficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments.
The manners of the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace
which was found in the highest perfection among the gentlemen of
France, and which, in an inferior degree, embellished the Court
of England; and his manners were altogether Dutch. Even his
countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners he often seemed
churlish. In his intercourse with the world in general he
appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the
value of a favour and take away the sting of a refusal. He was
little interested in letters or science. The discoveries of
Newton and Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were
unknown to him. Dramatic performances tired him; and he was glad
to turn away from the stage and to talk about public affairs,
while Orestes was raving, or while Tartuffe was pressing Elmira's
hand. He had indeed some talent for sarcasm, and not seldom
employed, quite unconsciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint,
indeed, but vigorous and original. He did not, however, in the
least affect the character of a wit or of an orator. His
attention had been confined to those studies which form strenuous
and sagacious men of business. From a child he listened with
interest when high questions of alliance, finance, and war were
discussed. Of geometry he learned as much as was necessary for
the construction of a ravelin or a hornwork. Of languages, by the
help of a memory singularly powerful, he learned as much as was
necessary to enable him to comprehend and answer without
assistance everything that was said to him, and every letter
which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. He understood
Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote French, English,
and German, inelegantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently
and intelligibly. No qualification could be more important to a
man whose life was to be passed in organizing great alliances,
and in commanding armies assembled from different countries.

One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his
attention by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more
than might have been expected from his general character. Among
the Protestants of the United Provinces, as among the Protestants
of our island, there were two great religious parties which
almost exactly coincided with two great political parties. The
chiefs of the municipal oligarchy were Arminians, and were
commonly regarded by the multitude as little better than Papists.
The princes of Orange had generally been the patrons of the
Calvinistic divinity, and owed no small part of their popularity
to their zeal for the doctrines of election and final
perseverance, a zeal not always enlightened by knowledge or
tempered by humanity. William had been carefully instructed from
a child in the theological system to which his family was
attached, and regarded that system with even more than the
partiality which men generally feel for a hereditary faith. He
had ruminated on the great enigmas which had been discussed in
the Synod of Dort, and had found in the austere and inflexible
logic of the Genevese school something which suited his intellect
and his temper. That example of intolerance indeed which some of
his predecessors had set he never imitated. For all persecution
he felt a fixed aversion, which he avowed, not only where the
avowal was obviously politic, but on occasions where it seemed
that his interest would have been promoted by dissimulation or by
silence. His theological opinions, however, were even more
decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet of predestination
was the keystone of his religion. He often declared that, if he
were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all belief in
a superintending Providence, and must become a mere Epicurean.
Except in this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind
was early drawn away from the speculative to the practical. The
faculties which are necessary for the conduct of important
business ripened in him at a time of life when they have scarcely
begun to blossom in ordinary men. Since Octavius the world had
seen no such instance of precocious statesmanship. Skilful
diplomatists were surprised to hear the weighty observations
which at seventeen the Prince made on public affairs, and still
more surprised to see a lad, in situations in which he might have
been expected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as
imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers
of the commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest
among them. At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was
placed at the head of the administration. At twenty-three be was
renowned throughout Europe as a soldier and a politician. He had
put domestic factions under his feet: he was the soul of a mighty
coalition; and he had contended with honour in the field against
some of the greatest generals of the age.

His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a
statesman: but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silent prince
who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher
place among statesmen than among warriors. The event of battles,
indeed, is not an unfailing test of the abilities of a commander;
and it would be peculiarly unjust to apply this test to William:
for it was his fortune to be almost always opposed to captains
who were consummate masters of their art, and to troops far
superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is reason to believe
that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to some
who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he
trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frankness
of a man who had done great things, and who could well afford to
acknowledge some deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an
apprenticeship to the military profession. He had been placed,
while still a boy, at the head of an army. Among his officers
there had been none competent to instruct him. His own blunders
and their consequences had been his only lessons. "I would give,"
he once exclaimed, "a good part of my estates to have served a
few campaigns under the Prince of Conde before I had to command
against him." It is not improbable that the circumstance which
prevented William from attaining any eminent dexterity in
strategy may have been favourable to the general vigour of his
intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tactician,
they entitled him to be called a great man. No disaster could for
one moment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire
possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired with
such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te
Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse
fortune ever deprive him of the respect and confidence of his
soldiers. That respect and confidence he owed in no small measure
to his personal courage. Courage, in the degree which is
necessary to carry a soldier without disgrace through a campaign,
is possessed, or might, under proper training, be acquired, by
the great majority of men. But courage like that of William is
rare indeed. He was proved by every test; by war, by wounds, by
painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the imminent
and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very
strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even the adamantine
fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could ever discover what that
thing was which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could
with difficulty induce him to take any precaution against the
pistols and daggers of conspirators.209 Old sailors were amazed
at the composure which he preserved amidst roaring breakers on a
perilous coast. In battle his bravery made him conspicuous even
among tens of thousands of brave warriors, drew forth the
generous applause of hostile armies, and was never questioned
even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his first
campaigns he exposed himself like a man who sought for death, was
always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought,
sword in hand, in the thickest press, and, with a musket ball in
his arm and the blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his
ground and waved his hat under the hottest fire. His friends
adjured him to take more care of a life invaluable to his
country; and his most illustrious antagonist, the great Conde,
remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff that the Prince of
Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general,
except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied
that he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of
duty and on a cool calculation of what the public interest
required that he was always at the post of danger. The troops
which he commanded had been little used to war, and shrank from a
close encounter with the veteran soldiery of France. It was
necessary that their leader should show them how battles were to
be won. And in truth more than one day which had seemed
hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he
rallied his broken battalions and cut down with his own hand the
cowards who set the example of flight. Sometimes, however, it
seemed that he had a strange pleasure in venturing his person. It
was remarked that his spirits were never so high and his manners
never so gracious and easy as amidst the tumult and carnage of a
battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the excitement of danger.
Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure. The chase was
his favourite recreation; and he loved it most when it was most
hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest
companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have
thought the most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to
have pined in the Great Park of Windsor for the game which he had
been used to drive to bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and
wild boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers.210

The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his
physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had
been weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had
been aggravated by a severe attack of small pox. He was asthmatic
and consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant
hoarse cough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by
several pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but
the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion
soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of
his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were
anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his
broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was
one long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any
great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body.

He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: but
the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From
the multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and his
resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made him
pass for the most coldblooded of mankind. Those who brought him
good news could seldom detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw
him after a defeat looked in vain for any trace of vexation. He
praised and reprimanded, rewarded and punished, with the stern
tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who knew him well and
saw him near were aware that under all this ice a fierce fire was
constantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived him of
power over himself. But when he was really enraged the first
outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe
to approach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he
regained his self command, he made such ample reparation to those
whom he had wronged as tempted them to wish that he would go into
a fury again. His affection was as impetuous as his wrath. Where
he loved, he loved with the whole energy of his strong mind. When
death separated him from what he loved, the few who witnessed his
agonies trembled for his reason and his life. To a very small
circle of intimate friends, on whose fidelity and secrecy he
could absolutely depend, he was a different man from the reserved
and stoical William whom the multitude supposed to be destitute
of human feelings. He was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and
jocose, would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full
share in festive conversation. Highest in his favour stood a
gentleman of his household named Bentinck, sprung from a noble
Batavian race, and destined to be the founder of one of the great
patrician houses of England. The fidelity of Bentinck had been
tried by no common test. It was while the United Provinces were
struggling for existence against the French power that the young
Prince on whom all their hopes were fixed was seized by the small
pox. That disease had been fatal to many members of his family,
and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malignant aspect.
The public consternation was great. The streets of the Hague were
crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously asking how
his Highness was. At length his complaint took a favourable turn.
His escape was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity,
and partly to the intrepid and indefatigable friendship of
Bentinck. From the hands of Bentinck alone William took food and
medicine. By Bentinck alone William was lifted from his bed and
laid down in it. "Whether Bentinck slept or not while I was ill,"
said William to Temple, with great tenderness, "I know not. But
this I know, that, through sixteen days and nights, I never once
called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side."
Before the faithful servant had entirely performed his task, he
had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up
against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced
convalescent. Then, at length, Bentinck asked leave to go home.
It was time: for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in
great danger, but recovered, and, as soon as he left his bed,
hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, he was
ever found, as he had been in peril of a different kind, close to
William's side.

Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that
ancient or modern history records. The descendants of Bentinck
still preserve many letters written by William to their ancestor:
and it is not too much to say that no person who has not studied
those letters can form a correct notion of the Prince's
character. He whom even his admirers generally accounted the most
distant and frigid of men here forgets all distinctions of rank,
and pours out all his thoughts with the ingenuousness of a
schoolboy. He imparts without reserve secrets of the highest
moment. He explains with perfect simplicity vast designs
affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his
communications on such subjects are other communications of a
very different, but perhaps not of a less interesting kind. All
his adventures, all his personal feelings, his long runs after
enormous stags, his carousals on St. Hubert's day, the growth of
his plantations, the failure of his melons, the state of his
stud, his wish to procure an easy pad nag for his wife, his
vexation at learning that one of his household, after ruining a
girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of sea
sickness, his coughs, his headaches, his devotional moods, his
gratitude for the divine protection after a great escape, his
struggles to submit himself to the divine will after a disaster,
are described with an amiable garrulity hardly to have been
expected from the most discreet and sedate statesman of the age.
Still more remarkable is the careless effusion of his tenderness,
and the brotherly interest which he takes in his friend's
domestic felicity. When an heir is born to Bentinck, "he will
live, I hope," says William, "to be as good a fellow as you are;
and, if I should have a son, our children will love each other, I
hope, as we have done."211 Through life he continues to regard
the little Bentincks with paternal kindness. He calls them by
endearing diminutives: he takes charge of them in their father's
absence, and, though vexed at being forced to refuse them any
pleasure, will not suffer them to go on a hunting party, where
there would be risk of a push from a stag's horn, or to sit up
late at a riotous supper.212 When their mother is taken ill
during her husband's absence, William, in the midst of business
of the highest moment, finds time to send off several expresses
in one day with short notes containing intelligence of her
state.213 On one occasion, when she is pronounced out of danger
after a severe attack, the Prince breaks forth into fervent
expressions of gratitude to God. "I write," he says, "with tears
of joy in my eyes."214 There is a singular charm in such letters,
penned by a man whose irresistible energy and inflexible firmness
extorted the respect of his enemies, whose cold and ungracious
demeanour repelled the attachment of almost all his partisans,
and whose mind was occupied by gigantic schemes which have
changed the face of the world.

His kindness was not misplaced. Bentinck was early pronounced by
Temple to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the
good fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that
honourable character. The friends were indeed made for each
other. William wanted neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a
firm and just reliance on his own judgment, he was not partial to
counsellors who dealt much in suggestions and objections. At the
same time he had too much discernment, and too much elevation of
mind, to be gratified by sycophancy. The confidant of such a
prince ought to be a man, not of inventive genius or commanding
spirit, but brave and faithful, capable of executing orders
punctually, of keeping secrets inviolably, of observing facts
vigilantly, and of reporting them truly; and such a man was
Bentinck.

William was not less fortunate in marriage than in friendship.
Yet his marriage had not at first promised much domestic
happiness. His choice had been determined chiefly by political
considerations: nor did it seem likely that any strong affection
would grow up between a handsome girl of sixteen, well disposed
indeed, and naturally intelligent, but ignorant and simple, and a
bridegroom who, though he had not completed his twenty-eighth
year, was in constitution older than her father, whose manner was
chilling, and whose head was constantly occupied by public
business or by field sports. For a time William was a negligent
husband. He was indeed drawn away from his wife by other women,
particularly by one of her ladies, Elizabeth Villiers, who,
though destitute of personal attractions, and disfigured by a
hideous squint, possessed talents which well fitted her to
partake his cares.215 He was indeed ashamed of his errors, and
spared no pains to conceal them: but, in spite of all his
precautions, Mary well knew that he was not strictly faithful to
her. Spies and talebearers, encouraged by her father, did their
best to inflame her resentment. A man of a very different
character, the excellent Ken, who was her chaplain at the Hague
during some months, was so much incensed by her wrongs that he,
with more zeal than discretion, threatened to reprimand her
husband severely.216 She, however, bore her injuries with a
meekness and patience which deserved, and gradually obtained,
William's esteem and gratitude. Yet there still remained one
cause of estrangement. A time would probably come when the
Princess, who had been educated only to work embroidery, to play
on the spinet, and to read the Bible and the Whole Duty of Man,
would be the chief of a great monarchy, and would hold the
balance of Europe, while her lord, ambitious, versed in affairs,
and bent on great enterprises, would find in the British
government no place marked out for him, and would hold power only
from her bounty and during her pleasure. It is not strange that a
man so fond of authority as William, and so conscious of a genius
for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which,
during a few hours of royalty, put dissension between Guildford
Dudley and the Lady Jane, and which produced a rupture still more
tragical between Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of
Orange had not the faintest suspicion of her husband's feelings.
Her preceptor, Bishop Compton, had instructed her carefully in
religion, and had especially guarded her mind against the arts of
Roman Catholic divines, but had left her profoundly ignorant of
the English constitution and of her own position. She knew that
her marriage vow bound her to obey her husband; and it had never
occurred to her that the relation in which they stood to each
other might one day be inverted. She had been nine years married
before she discovered the cause of William's discontent; nor
would she ever have learned it from himself. In general his
temper inclined him rather to brood over his griefs than to give
utterance to them; and in this particular case his lips were
sealed by a very natural delicacy. At length a complete
explanation and reconciliation were brought about by the agency
of Gilbert Burnet.

The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice and
pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still
carried on with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more
than a century and a quarter in his grave. He is indeed as fair a
mark as factious animosity and petulant wit could desire. The
faults of his understanding and temper lie on the surface, and
cannot be missed. They were not the faults which are ordinarily
considered as belonging to his country. Alone among the many
Scotchmen who have raised themselves to distinction and
prosperity in England, he had that character which satirists,
novelists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish
adventurers. His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his
undissembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his provoking
indiscretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible
subjects of ridicule to the Tories. Nor did his enemies omit to
compliment him, sometimes with more pleasantry than delicacy, on
the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and
his success in matrimonial projects on amorous and opulent
widows. Yet Burnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and
even to serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were
quick, his industry unwearied, his reading various and most
extensive. He was at once a historian, an antiquary, a
theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and an active
political leader; and in every one of these characters made
himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many spirited
tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only to the
curious: but his History of his own Times, his History of the
Reformation, his Exposition of the Articles, his Discourse of
Pastoral Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of Wilmot, are still
reprinted, nor is any good private library without them. Against
such a fact as this all the efforts of detractors are vain. A
writer, whose voluminous works, in several branches of
literature, find numerous readers a hundred and thirty years
after his death, may have had great faults, but must also have
had great merits: and Burnet had great merits, a fertile and
vigorous mind, and a style, far indeed removed from faultless
purity, but always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to
solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his
discourses, which were delivered without any note, was heightened
by a noble figure and by pathetic action. He was often
interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after
preaching out the hour glass, which in those days was part of the
furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the
congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand
had run off once more.217 In his moral character, as in his
intellect, great blemishes were more than compensated by great
excellence. Though often misled by prejudice and passion, he was
emphatically an honest man. Though he was not secure from the
seductions of vanity, his spirit was raised high above the
influence either of cupidity or of fear. His nature was kind,
generous, grateful, forgiving.218 His religious zeal, though
steady and ardent, was in general restrained by humanity, and by
a respect for the rights of conscience. Strongly attached to what
he regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked with
indifference on rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity,
and was by no means disposed to be severe even on infidels and
heretics whose lives were pure, and whose errors appeared to be
the effect rather of some perversion of the understanding than of
the depravity of the heart. But, like many other good men of that
age, he regarded the case of the Church of Rome as an exception
to all ordinary rules.

Burnet had during some years had an European reputation. His
History of the Reformation had been received with loud applause
by all Protestants, and had been felt by the Roman Catholics as a
severe blow. The greatest Doctor that the Church of Rome has
produced since the schism of the sixteenth century, Bossuet,
Bishop of Meaux, was engaged in framing an elaborate reply.
Burnet had been honoured by a vote of thanks from one of the
zealous Parliaments which had sate during the excitement of the
Popish plot, and had been exhorted, in the name of the Commons of
England, to continue his historical researches. He had been
admitted to familiar conversation both with Charles and James,
had lived on terms of close intimacy with several distinguished
statesmen, particularly with Halifax, and had been the spiritual
guide of some persons of the highest note. He had reclaimed from
atheism and from licentiousness one of the most brilliant
libertines of the age, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Lord
Stafford, the victim of Oates, had, though a Roman Catholic, been
edified in his last hours by Burnet's exhortations touching those
points on which all Christians agree. A few years later a more
illustrious sufferer, Lord Russell, had been accompanied by
Burnet from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The court had neglected no means of gaining so active and able a
divine. Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable
preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though infected in early
youth by those servile doctrines which were commonly held by the
clergy of that age, had become on conviction a Whig; and he
firmly adhered through all vicissitudes to his principles. He
had, however, no part in that conspiracy which brought so much
disgrace and calamity on the Whig party, and not only abhorred
the murderous designs of Goodenough and Ferguson, but was of
opinion that even his beloved and honoured friend Russell, had
gone to unjustifiable lengths against the government. A time at
length arrived when innocence was not a sufficient protection.
Burnet, though not guilty of any legal offence, was pursued by
the vengeance of the court. He retired to the Continent, and,
after passing about a year in those wanderings through
Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, of which he has left us an
agreeable narrative, reached the Hague in the summer of 1686, and
was received there with kindness and respect. He had many free
conversations with the Princess on politics and religion, and
soon became her spiritual director and confidential adviser.
William proved a much more gracious host than could have been
expected. For of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were
the most offensive to him: and Burnet was allowed even by friends
and admirers to be the most officious and indiscreet of mankind.
But the sagacious Prince perceived that this pushing, talkative
divine, who was always blabbing secrets, asking impertinent
questions, obtruding unasked advice, was nevertheless an upright,
courageous and able man, well acquainted with the temper and the
views of British sects and factions. The fame of Burnet's
eloquence and erudition was also widely spread. William was not
himself a reading man. But he had now been many years at the head
of the Dutch administration, in an age when the Dutch press was
one of the most formidable engines by which the public mind of
Europe was moved, and, though he had no taste for literary
pleasures, was far too wise and too observant to be ignorant of
the value of literary assistance. He was aware that a popular
pamphlet might sometimes be of as much service as a victory in
the field. He also felt the importance of having always near him
some person well informed as to the civil and ecclesiastical
polity of our island: and Burnet was eminently qualified to be of
use as a living dictionary of British affairs. For his knowledge,
though not always accurate, was of immense extent and there were
in England and Scotland few eminent men of any political or
religious party with whom he had not conversed. He was therefore
admitted to as large a share of favour and confidence as was
granted to any but those who composed the very small inmost knot
of the Prince's private friends. When the Doctor took liberties,
which was not seldom the case, his patron became more than
usually cold and sullen, and sometimes uttered a short dry
sarcasm which would have struck dumb any person of ordinary
assurance. In spite of such occurrences, however, the amity
between this singular pair continued, with some temporary
interruptions, till it was dissolved by death. Indeed, it was not
easy to wound Burnet's feelings. His selfcomplacency, his animal
spirits, and his want of tact, were such that, though he
frequently gave offence, he never took it.

All the peculiarities of his character fitted him to be the
peacemaker between William and Mary. When persons who ought to
esteem and love each other are kept asunder, as often happens, by
some cause which three words of frank explanation would remove,
they are fortunate if they possess an indiscreet friend who
blurts out the whole truth. Burnet plainly told the Princess what
the feeling was which preyed upon her husband's mind. She learned
for the first time, with no small astonishment, that, when she
became Queen of England, William would not share her throne. She
warmly declared that there was no proof of conjugal submission
and affection which she was not ready to give. Burnet, with many
apologies and with solemn protestations that no human being had
put words into his mouth, informed her that the remedy was in her
own hands. She might easily, when the crown devolved on her,
induce her Parliament not only to give the regal title to her
husband, but even to transfer to him by a legislative act the
administration of the government. "But," he added, "your Royal
Highness ought to consider well before you announce any such
resolution. For it is a resolution which, having once been
announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted." "I want no time
for consideration," answered Mary. "It is enough that I have an
opportunity of showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him what I
say; and bring him to me that he may hear it from my own lips."
Burnet went in quest of William; but William was many miles off
after a stag. It was not till the next day that the decisive
interview took place. "I did not know till yesterday," said Mary,
"that there was such a difference between the laws of England and
the laws of God. But I now promise you that you shall always bear
rule: and, in return, I ask only this, that, as I shall observe
the precept which enjoins wives to obey their husbands, you will
observe that which enjoins husbands to love their wives." Her
generous affection completely gained the heart of William. From
that time till the sad day when he was carried away in fits from
her dying bed, there was entire friendship and confidence between
them. Many of her letters to him are extant; and they contain
abundant evidence that this man, unamiable as he was in the eyes
of the multitude, had succeeded in inspiring a beautiful and
virtuous woman, born his superior, with a passion fond even to
idolatry.

The service which Burnet had rendered to his country was of high
moment. A time had arrived at which it was important to the
public safety that there should be entire concord between the
Prince and Princess.

Till after the suppression of the Western insurrection grave
causes of dissension had separated William both from Whigs and
Tories. He had seen with displeasure the attempts of the Whigs to
strip the executive government of some powers which he thought
necessary to its efficiency and dignity. He had seen with still
deeper displeasure the countenance given by a large section of
that party to the pretensions of Monmouth. The opposition, it
seemed, wished first to make the crown of England not worth the
wearing, and then to place it on the head of a bastard and
impostor. At the same time the Prince's religious system differed
widely from that which was the badge of the Tories. They were
Arminians and Prelatists. They looked down on the Protestant
Churches of the Continent, and regarded every line of their own
liturgy and rubric as scarcely less sacred than the gospels. His
opinions touching the metaphysics of theology were Calvinistic.
His opinions respecting ecclesiastical polity and modes of
worship were latitudinarian. He owned that episcopacy was a
lawful and convenient form of church government; but he spoke
with sharpness and scorn of the bigotry of those who thought
episcopal ordination essential to a Christian society. He had no
scruple about the vestments and gestures prescribed by the Book
of Common Prayer. But he avowed that he should like the rites of
the Church of England better if they reminded him less of the
rites of the Church of Rome. He had been heard to utter an
ominous growl when first he saw, in his wife's private chapel, an
altar decked after the Anglican fashion, and had not seemed well
pleased at finding her with Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity in her
hands.219

He therefore long observed the contest between the English
factions attentively, but without feeling a strong predilection
for either side. Nor in truth did he ever, to the end of his
life, become either a Whig or a Tory. He wanted that which is the
common groundwork of both characters; for he never became an
Englishman. He saved England, it is true; but he never loved her,
and he never obtained her love. To him she was always a land of
exile, visited with reluctance and quitted with delight. Even
when he rendered to her those services of which, at this day, we
feel the happy effects, her welfare was not his chief object.
Whatever patriotic feeling he had was for Holland. There was the
stately tomb where slept the great politician whose blood, whose
name, whose temperament, and whose genius he had inherited. There
the very sound of his title was a spell which had, through three
generations, called forth the affectionate enthusiasm of boors
and artisans. The Dutch language was the language of his nursery.
Among the Dutch gentry he had chosen his early friends. The
amusements, the architecture, the landscape of his native
country, had taken hold on his heart. To her he turned with
constant fondness from a prouder and fairer rival. In the gallery
of Whitehall he pined for the familiar House in the Wood at the
Hague, and never was so happy as when he could quit the
magnificence of Windsor for his far humbler seat at Loo. During
his splendid banishment it was his consolation to create round
him, by building, planting, and digging, a scene which might
remind him of the formal piles of red brick, of the long canals,
and of the symmetrical flower beds amidst which his early life
had been passed. Yet even his affection for the land of his birth
was subordinate to another feeling which early became supreme in
his soul, which mixed itself with all his passions, which
impelled him to marvellous enterprises, which supported him when
sinking under mortification, pain, sickness, and sorrow, which,
towards the close of his career, seemed during a short time to
languish, but which soon broke forth again fiercer than ever, and
continued to animate him even while the prayer for the departing
was read at his bedside. That feeling was enmity to France, and
to the magnificent King who, in more than one sense, represented
France, and who to virtues and accomplishments eminently French
joined in large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous, and
vainglorious ambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the
resentment of Europe.

It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentiment which
gradually possessed itself of William's whole soul. When he was
little more than a boy his country had been attacked by Lewis in
ostentatious defiance of justice and public law, had been
overrun, had been desolated, had been given up to every excess of
rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. The Dutch had in dismay
humbled themselves before the conqueror, and had implored mercy.
They had been told in reply that, if they desired peace, they
must resign their independence and do annual homage to the House
of Bourbon. The injured nation, driven to despair, had opened its
dykes and had called in the sea as an ally against the French
tyranny. It was in the agony of that conflict, when peasants were
flying in terror before the invaders, when hundreds of fair
gardens and pleasure houses were buried beneath the waves, when
the deliberations of the States were interrupted by the fainting
and the loud weeping of ancient senators who could not bear the
thought of surviving the freedom and glory of their native land,
that William had been called to the head of affairs. For a time
it seemed to him that resistance was hopeless. He looked round
for succour, and looked in vain. Spain was unnerved, Germany
distracted, England corrupted. Nothing seemed left to the young
Stadtholder but to perish sword in hand, or to be the Aeneas of a
great emigration, and to create another Holland in countries
beyond the reach of the tyranny of France. No obstacle would then
remain to check the progress of the House of Bourbon. A few
years, and that House might add to its dominions Loraine and
Flanders, Castile and Aragon, Naples and Milan, Mexico and Peru.
Lewis might wear the imperial crown, might place a prince of his
family on the throne of Poland, might be sole master of Europe
from the Scythian deserts to the Atlantic Ocean, and of America
from regions north of the Tropic of Cancer to regions south of
the Tropic of Capricorn. Such was the prospect which lay before
William when first he entered on public life, and which never
ceased to haunt him till his latest day. The French monarchy was
to him what the Roman republic was to Hannibal, what the Ottoman
power was to Scanderbeg, what the southern domination was to
Wallace. Religion gave her sanction to that intense and
unquenchable animosity. Hundreds of Calvinistic preachers
proclaimed that the same power which had set apart Samson from
the womb to be the scourge of the Philistine, and which had
called Gideon from the threshing floor to smite the Midianite,
had raised up William of Orange to be the champion of all free
nations and of all pure Churches; nor was this notion without
influence on his own mind. To the confidence which the heroic
fatalist placed in his high destiny and in his sacred cause is to
be partly attributed his singular indifference to danger. He had
a great work to do; and till it was done nothing could harm him.
Therefore it was that, in spite of the prognostications of
physicians, he recovered from maladies which seemed hopeless,
that bands of assassins conspired in vain against his life, that
the open skiff to which he trusted himself on a starless night,
on a raging ocean, and near a treacherous shore, brought him safe
to land, and that, on twenty fields of battle, the cannon balls
passed him by to right and left. The ardour and perseverance with
which he devoted himself to his mission have scarcely any
parallel in history. In comparison with his great object he held
the lives of other men as cheap as his own. It was but too much
the habit, even of the most humane and generous soldiers of that
age, to think very lightly of the bloodshed and devastation
inseparable from great martial exploits; and the heart of William
was steeled, not only by professional insensibility, but by that
sterner insensibility which is the effect of a sense of duty.
Three great coalitions, three long and bloody wars in which all
Europe from the Vistula to the Western Ocean was in arms, are to
be ascribed to his unconquerable energy. When in 1678 the States
General, exhausted and disheartened, were desirious of repose,
his voice was still against sheathing the sword. If peace was
made, it was made only because he could not breathe into other
men a spirit as fierce and determined as his own. At the very
last moment, in the hope of breaking off the negotiation which he
knew to be all but concluded, he fought one of the most bloody
and obstinate battles of that age. From the day on which the
treaty of Nimeguen was signed, he began to meditate a second
coalition. His contest with Lewis, transferred from the field to
the cabinet, was soon exasperated by a private feud. In talents,
temper, manners and opinions, the rivals were diametrically
opposed to each other. Lewis, polite and dignified, profuse and
voluptuous, fond of display and averse from danger, a munificent
patron of arts and letters, and a cruel persecutor of Calvinists,
presented a remarkable contrast to William, simple in tastes,
ungracious in demeanour, indefatigable and intrepid in war,
regardless of all the ornamental branches of knowledge, and
firmly attached to the theology of Geneva. The enemies did not
long observe those courtesies which men of their rank, even when
opposed to each other at the head of armies, seldom neglect.
William, indeed, went through the form of tendering his best
services to Lewis. But this civility was rated at its true value,
and requited with a dry reprimand. The great King affected
contempt for the petty Prince who was the servant of a
confederacy of trading towns; and to every mark of contempt the
dauntless Stadtholder replied by a fresh defiance. William took
his title, a title which the events of the preceding century had
made one of the most illustrious in Europe, from a city which
lies on the banks of the Rhone not far from Avignon, and which,
like Avignon, though inclosed on every side by the French
territory, was properly a fief not of the French but of the
Imperial Crown. Lewis, with that ostentatious contempt of public
law which was characteristic of him, occupied Orange, dismantled
the fortifications, and confiscated the revenues. William
declared aloud at his table before many persons that he would
make the most Christian King repent the outrage, and, when
questioned about these words by the Count of Avaux, positively
refused either to retract them or to explain them away. The
quarrel was carried so far that the French minister could not
venture to present himself at the drawing room of the Princess
for fear of receiving some affront.220

The feeling with which William regarded France explains the whole
of his policy towards England. His public spirit was an European
public spirit. The chief object of his care was not our island,
not even his native Holland, but the great community of nations
threatened with subjugation by one too powerful member. Those who
commit the error of considering him as an English statesman must
necessarily see his whole life in a false light, and will be
unable to discover any principle, good or bad, Whig or Tory, to
which his most important acts can be referred. But, when we
consider him as a man whose especial task was to join a crowd of
feeble, divided and dispirited states in firm and energetic union
against a common enemy, when we consider him as a man in whose
eyes England was important chiefly because, without her, the
great coalition which he projected must be incomplete, we shall
be forced to admit that no long career recorded in history has
been more uniform from the beginning to the close than that of
this great Prince.221

The clue of which we are now possessed will enable us to track
without difficulty the course, in reality consistent, though in
appearance sometimes tortuous, which he pursued towards our
domestic factions. He clearly saw what had not escaped persons
far inferior to him in sagacity, that the enterprise on which his
whole soul was intent would probably be successful if England
were on his side, would be of uncertain issue if England were
neutral, and would be hopeless if England acted as she had acted
in the days of the Cabal. He saw not less clearly that between
the foreign policy and the domestic policy of the English
government there was a close connection; that the sovereign of
this country, acting in harmony with the legislature, must always
have a great sway in the affairs of Christendom, and must also
have an obvious interest in opposing the undue aggrandisement of
any continental potentate; that, on the other hand, the
sovereign, distrusted and thwarted by the legislature, could be
of little weight in European politics, and that the whole of that
little weight would be thrown into the wrong scale. The Prince's first wish
therefore was that there
should be concord between the throne and the Parliament. How that
concord should be established, and on which side concessions
should be made, were, in his view, questions of secondary
importance. He would have been best pleased, no doubt, to see a
complete reconciliation effected without the sacrifice of one
tittle of the prerogative. For in the integrity of that
prerogative he had a reversionary interest; and he was, by
nature, at least as covetous of power and as impatient of
restraint as any of the Stuarts. But there was no flower of the
crown which he was not prepared to sacrifice, even after the
crown had been placed on his own head, if he could only be
convinced that such a sacrifice was indispensably necessary to
his great design. In the days of the Popish plot, therefore,
though he disapproved of the violence with which the opposition
attacked the royal authority, he exhorted the government to give
way. The conduct of the Commons, he said, as respected domestic
affairs, was most unreasonable but while the Commons were
discontented the liberties of Europe could never be safe; and to
that paramount consideration every other consideration ought to
yield. On these principles he acted when the Exclusion Bill had
thrown the nation into convulsions. There is no reason to believe
that he encouraged the opposition to bring forward that bill or
to reject the offers of compromise which were repeatedly made
from the throne. But when it became clear that, unless that bill
were carried, there would be a serious breach between the Commons
and the court, he indicated very intelligibly, though with
decorous reserve, his opinion that the representatives of the
people ought to be conciliated at any price. When a violent and
rapid reflux of public feeling had left the Whig party for a time
utterly helpless, he attempted to attain his grand object by a
new road perhaps more agreeable to his temper than that which he
had previously tried. In the altered temper of the nation there
was little chance that any Parliament disposed to cross the
wishes of the sovereign would be elected. Charles was for a time
master. To gain Charles, therefore, was the Prince's first wish.
In the summer of 1683, almost at the moment at which the
detection of the Rye House Plot made the discomfiture of the
Whigs and the triumph of the King complete, events took place
elsewhere which William could not behold without extreme anxiety
and alarm. The Turkish armies advanced to the suburbs of Vienna.
The great Austrian monarchy, on the support of which the Prince
had reckoned, seemed to be on the point of destruction. Bentinck
was therefore sent in haste from the Hague to London, was charged
to omit nothing which might be necessary to conciliate the
English court, and was particularly instructed to express in the
strongest terms the horror with which his master regarded the
Whig conspiracy.

During the eighteen months which followed, there was some hope
that the influence of Halifax would prevail, and that the court
of Whitehall would return to the policy of the Triple Alliance.
To that hope William fondly clung. He spared no effort to
propitiate Charles. The hospitality which Monmouth found at the
Hague is chiefly to be ascribed to the Prince's anxiety to
gratify the real wishes of Monmouth's father. As soon as Charles
died, William, still adhering unchangeably to his object, again
changed his course. He had sheltered Monmouth to please the late
King. That the present King might have no reason to complain
Monmouth was dismissed. We have seen that, when the Western
insurrection broke out, the British regiments in the Dutch
service were, by the active exertions of the Prince, sent over to
their own country on the first requisition. Indeed William even
offered to command in person against the rebels; and that the
offer was made in perfect sincerity cannot be doubted by those
who have perused his confidential letters to Bentinck.222

The Prince was evidently at this time inclined to hope that the
great plan to which in his mind everything else was subordinate
might obtain the approbation and support of his father in law.
The high tone which James was then holding towards France, the
readiness with which he consented to a defensive alliance with
the United Provinces, the inclination which he showed to connect
himself with the House of Austria, encouraged this expectation.
But in a short time the prospect was darkened. The disgrace of
Halifax, the breach between James and the Parliament, the
prorogation: the announcement distinctly made by the King to the
foreign ministers that continental politics should no longer
divert his attention from internal measures tending to strengthen
his prerogative and to promote the interest of his Church, put an
end to the delusion. It was plain that, when the European crisis
came, England would, if James were her master, either remain
inactive or act in conjunction with France. And the European
crisis was drawing near. The House of Austria had, by a
succession of victories, been secured from danger on the side of
Turkey, and was no longer under the necessity of submitting
patiently to the encroachments and insults of Lewis. Accordingly,
in July 1686, a treaty was signed at Augsburg by which the
Princes of the Empire bound themselves closely together for the
purpose of mutual defence. The Kings of Spain and Sweden were
parties to this compact, the King of Spain as sovereign of the
provinces contained in the circle of Burgundy, and the King of
Sweden as Duke of Pomerania. The confederates declared that they
had no intention to attack and no wish to offend any power, but
that they were determined to tolerate no infraction of those
rights which the Germanic body held under the sanction of public
law and public faith. They pledged themselves to stand by each
other in case of need, and fixed the amount of force which each
member of the league was to furnish if it should be necessary to
repel aggression.223 The name of William did not appear in this
instrument: but all men knew that it was his work, and foresaw
that he would in no long time be again the captain of a coalition
against France. Between him and the vassal of France there could,
in such circumstances, be no cordial good will. There was no open
rupture, no interchange of menaces or reproaches. But the father
in law and the son in law were separated completely and for ever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the first agitation produced by the publication of the
Indulgence had subsided, it appeared that a breach had taken
place in the Puritan party. The minority, headed by a few busy
men whose judgment was defective or was biassed by interest,
supported the King. Henry Care, who had long been the bitterest
and most active pamphleteer among the Nonconformists, and who
had, in the days of the Popish plot, assailed James with the
utmost fury in a weekly journal entitled the Packet of Advice
from Rome, was now as loud in adulation, as he had formerly been
in calumny and insult.247 The chief agent who was employed by the
government to manage the Presbyterians was Vincent Alsop, a
divine of some note both as a preacher and as a writer. His son,
who had incurred the penalties of treason, received a pardon; and
the whole influence of the father was thus engaged on the side of
the Court.248 With Alsop was joined Thomas Rosewell. Rosewell
had, during that persecution of the Dissenters which followed the
detection of the Rye House Plot, been falsely accused of
preaching against the government, had been tried for his life by
Jeffreys, and had, in defiance of the clearest evidence, been
convicted by a packed jury. The injustice of the verdict was so
gross that the very courtiers cried shame. One Tory gentleman who
had heard the trial went instantly to Charles, and declared that
the neck of the most loyal subject in England would not be safe
if Rosewell suffered. The jurymen themselves were stung by
remorse when they thought over what they had done, and exerted
themselves to save the life of the prisoner. At length a pardon
was granted; but Rosewell remained bound under heavy
recognisances to good behaviour during life, and to periodical
appearance in the Court of King's Bench. His recognisances were
now discharged by the royal command; and in this way his services
were secured.249

The business of gaining the Independents was principally
intrusted to one of their ministers named Stephen Lobb. Lobb was
a weak, violent, and ambitious man. He had gone such lengths in
opposition to the government, that he had been by name proscribed
in several proclamations. He now made his peace, and went as far
in servility as he had ever done in faction. He joined the
Jesuitical cabal, and eagerly recommended measures from which the
wisest and most honest Roman Catholics recoiled. It was remarked
that he was constantly at the palace and frequently in the
closet, that he lived with a splendour to which the Puritan
divines were little accustomed, and that he was perpetually
surrounded by suitors imploring his interest to procure them
offices or pardons.250

With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never been
a strongheaded man: the life which he had been leading during two
years had not a little impaired his moral sensibility; and, if
his conscience ever reproached him, he comforted himself by
repeating that he had a good and noble end in view, and that he
was not paid for his services in money.

By the influence of these men, and of others less conspicuous,
addresses of thanks to the King were procured from several bodies
of Dissenters. Tory writers have with justice remarked that the
language of these compositions was as fulsomely servile as
anything that could be found in the most florid eulogies
pronounced by Bishops on the Stuarts. But, on close inquiry, it
will appear that the disgrace belongs to but a small part of the
Puritan party. There was scarcely a market town in England
without at least a knot of separatists. No exertion was spared to
induce them to express their gratitude for the Indulgence.
Circular letters, imploring them to sign, were sent to every
corner of the kingdom in such numbers that the mail bags, it was
sportively said, were too heavy for the posthorses. Yet all the
addresses which could be obtained from all the Presbyterians,
Independents, and Baptists scattered over England did not in six
months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to believe that
these addresses were numerously signed.251

The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly attached to
civil liberty, and distrusting the promises of the King and of
the Jesuits, steadily refused to return thanks for a favour
which, it might well be suspected, concealed a snare. This was
the temper of all the most illustrious chiefs of the party. One
of these was Baxter. He had, as we have seen, been brought to
trial soon after the accession of James, had been brutally
insulted by Jeffreys, and had been convicted by a jury, such as
the courtly Sheriffs of those times were in the habit of
selecting. Baxter had been about a year and a half in prison when
the court began to think seriously of gaining the Nonconformists.
He was not only set at liberty, but was informed that, if he
chose to reside in London, he might do so without fearing that
the Five Mile Act would be enforced against him. The government
probably hoped that the recollection of past sufferings and the
sense of present ease would produce the same effect on him as on
Rosewell and Lobb. The hope was disappointed. Baxter was neither
to be corrupted nor to be deceived. He refused to join in an
address of thanks for the Indulgence, and exerted all his
influence to promote good feeling between the Church and the
Presbyterians.252

If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation of the
Protestant Dissenters, that man was John Howe. Howe had, like
Baxter, been personally a gainer by the recent change of policy.
The same tyranny which had flung Baxter into gaol had driven Howe
into banishment; and, soon after Baxter had been let out of the
King's Bench prison, Howe returned from Utrecht to England. It
was expected at Whitehall that Howe would exert in favour of the
court all the authority which he possessed over his brethren. The
King himself condescended to ask the help of the subject whom he
had oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the influence
of the Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy,
kept him steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of
Presbyterian ministers was held at his house, to consider the
state of affairs, and to determine on the course to be adopted.
There was great anxiety at the palace to know the result. Two
royal messengers were in attendance during the discussion. They
carried back the unwelcome news that Howe had declared himself
decidedly adverse to the dispensing power, and that he had, after
long debate, carried with him the majority of the assembly.253

To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man
far below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in
virtue their equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan.
Bunyan had been bred a tinker, and had served as a private
soldier in the parliamentary army. Early in his life he had been
fearfully tortured by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of
which seem, however, to have been such as the world thinks
venial. His keen sensibility and his powerful imagination made
his internal conflicts singularly terrible. He fancied that he
was under sentence of reprobation, that he had committed
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that
he was actually possessed by a demon. Sometimes loud voices from
heaven cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious
suggestions in his ear. He saw visions of distant mountain tops,
on which the sun shone brightly, hut from which he was separated
by a waste of snow. He felt the Devil behind him pulling his
clothes. He thought that the brand of Cain had been set upon him.
He feared that he was about to burst asunder like Judas. His
mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook like a man
in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It
is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense,
and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the
depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene
felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to
others the blessing of which he was himself possessed.254 He
joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His
education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but
the English, as it was spoken by the common people. He had
studied no great model of composition, with the exception, an
important exception undoubtedly, of our noble translation of the
Bible. His spelling was bad. He frequently transgressed the rules
of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental
knowledge of all the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy,
amply supplied in him the want of learning. His rude oratory
roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the
laboured discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His works
were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of them,
the Pilgrim's Progress, was, in his own lifetime, translated into
several foreign languages. It was, however, scarcely known to the
learned and polite, and had been, during near a century, the
delight of pious cottagers and artisans before it was publicly
commended by any man of high literary eminence. At length
critics condescended to inquire where the secret of so wide and
so durable a popularity lay. They were compelled to own that the
ignorant multitude had judged more correctly than the learned,
and that the despised little book was really a masterpiece.
Bunyan is indeed as decidedly the first of allegorists, as
Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakspeare the first of
dramatists. Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity but no
other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to
make abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love.255

It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered more
severely under the penal laws than John Bunyan. Of the twenty-
seven years which had elapsed since the Restoration, he had
passed twelve in confinement. He still persisted in preaching;
but, that he might preach, he was under the necessity of
disguising himself like a carter. He was often introduced into
meetings through back doors, with a smock frock on his back, and
a whip in his hand. If he had thought only of his own ease and
safety, he would have hailed the Indulgence with delight. He was
now, at length, free to pray and exhort in open day. His
congregation rapidly increased, thousands hung upon his words; and
at Bedford, where he ordinarily resided, money was plentifully
contributed to build a meeting house for him. His influence among
the common people was such that the government would willingly
have bestowed on him some municipal office: but his vigorous
understanding and his stout English heart were proof against all
delusion and all temptation. He felt assured that the proffered
toleration was merely a bait intended to lure the Puritan party
to destruction; nor would he, by accepting a place for which he
was not legally qualified, recognise the validity of the
dispensing power. One of the last acts of his virtuous life was
to decline an interview to which he was invited by an agent of
the government.256

Great as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, that of
William Kiffin was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among
them in wealth and station. He was in the habit of exercising his
spiritual gifts at their meetings: but he did not live by
preaching. He traded largely; his credit on the Exchange of
London stood high; and he had accumulated an ample fortune.
Perhaps no man could, at that conjuncture, have rendered more
valuable services to the Court. But between him and the Court was
interposed the remembrance of one terrible event. He was the
grandfather of the two Hewlings, those gallant youths who, of all
the victims of the Bloody Assizes, had been the most generally
lamented. For the sad fate of one of them James was in a peculiar
manner responsible. Jeffreys had respited the younger brother.
The poor lad's sister had been ushered by Churchill into the
royal presence, and had begged for mercy; but the King's heart
had been obdurate. The misery of the whole family had been great:
but Kiffin was most to be pitied. He was seventy years old when
he was left desolate, the survivor of those who should have
survived him. The heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall,
judging by themselves, thought that the old man would be easily
propitiated by an Alderman's gown, and by some compensation in
money for the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn
was employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose. The
King determined to try what effect his own civilities would
produce. Kiffin was ordered to attend at the palace. He found a
brilliant circle of noblemen and gentlemen assembled. James
immediately came to him, spoke to him very graciously, and
concluded by saying, "I have put you down, Mr. Kiffin, for an
Alderman of London." The old man looked fixedly at the King,
burst into tears, and made answer, "Sir, I am worn out: I am unfit
to serve your Majesty or the City. And, sir, the death of my poor
boys broke my heart. That wound is as fresh as ever. I shall
carry it to my grave." The King stood silent for a minute in some
confusion, and then said, "Mr. Kiffin, I will find a balsam for
that sore." Assuredly James did not mean to say anything cruel or
insolent: on the contrary, he seems to have been in an unusually
gentle mood. Yet no speech that is recorded of him gives so
unfavourable a notion of his character as these few words. They
are the words of a hardhearted and lowminded man, unable to
conceive any laceration of the affections for which a place or a
pension would not be a full compensation.257

That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the
King's new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon
began to diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long
time that their spiritual privileges had been abridged rather
than extended by the Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the
Puritan was abhorrence of the peculiarities of the Church of
Rome. He had quitted the Church of England only because he
conceived that she too much resembled her superb and voluptuous
sister, the sorceress of the golden cup and of the scarlet robe.
He now found that one of the implied conditions of that alliance
which some of his pastors had formed with the Court was that the
religion of the Court should be respectfully and tenderly
treated. He soon began to regret the days of persecution. While
the penal laws were enforced, he had heard the words of life in
secret and at his peril: but still he had heard them. When the
brethren were assembled in the inner chamber, when the sentinels
had been posted, when the doors had been locked, when the
preacher, in the garb of a butcher or a drayman, had come in over
the tiles, then at least God was truly worshipped. No portion of
divine truth was suppressed or softened down for any worldly
object. All the distinctive doctrines of the Puritan theology
were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the Church of Rome
no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin,
the mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were the phrases
ordinarily employed to describe that august and fascinating
superstition. Such had been once the style of Alsop, of Lobb, of
Rosewell, and of other ministers who had of late been well
received at the palace: but such was now their style no longer.
Divines who aspired to a high place in the King's favour and
confidence could not venture to speak with asperity of the King's
religion. Congregations therefore complained loudly that, since
the appearance of the Declaration which purported to give them
entire freedom of conscience, they had never once heard the
Gospel boldly and faithfully preached. Formerly they had been
forced to snatch their spiritual nutriment by stealth; but, when
they had snatched it, they had found it seasoned exactly to their
taste. They were now at liberty to feed: but their food had lost
all its savour. They met by daylight, and in commodious edifices:
but they heard discourses far less to their taste than they would
have heard from the rector. At the parish church the will worship
and idolatry of Rome were every Sunday attacked with energy: but,
at the meeting house, the pastor, who had a few months before
reviled the established clergy as little better than Papists, now
carefully abstained from censuring Popery, or conveyed his
censures in language too delicate to shock even the ears of
Father Petre. Nor was it possible to assign any creditable reason
for this change. The Roman Catholic doctrines had undergone no
alteration. Within living memory never had Roman Catholic priests
been so active in the work of making proselytes: never had so
many Roman Catholic publications issued from the press; never had
the attention of all who cared about religion been so closely
fixed on the dispute between the Roman Catholics and the
Protestants. What could be thought of the sincerity of
theologians who had never been weary of railing at Popery when
Popery was comparatively harmless and helpless, and who now, when
a time of real danger to the reformed faith had arrived,
studiously avoided tittering one word which could give offence to
a Jesuit? Their conduct was indeed easily explained. It was known
that some of them had obtained pardons. It was suspected that
others had obtained money. Their prototype might be found in that
weak apostle who from fear denied the Master to whom he had
boastfully professed the firmest attachment, or in that baser
apostle who sold his Lord for a handful of silver.258

Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court
were rapidly losing the influence which they had once possessed
over their brethren. On the other hand, the sectaries found
themselves attracted by a strong religious sympathy towards those
prelates and priests of the Church of England who, spite of royal
mandates, of threats, and of promises, were waging vigorous war
with the Church of Rome. The Anglican body and the Puritan body,
so long separated by a mortal enmity, were daily drawing nearer
to each other, and every step which they made towards union
increased the influence of him who was their common head. William
was in all things fitted to be a mediator between these two great
sections of the English nation. He could not be said to be a
member of either. Yet neither, when in a reasonable mood, could
refuse to regard him as a friend. His system of theology agreed
with that of the Puritans. At the same time, he regarded
episcopacy not indeed as a divine institution, but as a perfectly
lawful and an eminently useful form of church government.
Questions respecting postures, robes, festivals and liturgies,
he considered as of no vital importance. A simple worship, such
as that to which he had been early accustomed, would have been
most to his personal taste. But he was prepared to conform to any
ritual which might be acceptable to the nation, and insisted only
that he should not be required to persecute his brother
Protestants whose consciences did not permit them to follow his
example. Two years earlier he would have been pronounced by
numerous bigots on both sides a mere Laodicean, neither cold nor
hot, and fit only to be spewed out. But the zeal which had
inflamed Churchmen against Dissenters and Dissenters against
Churchmen had been so tempered by common adversity and danger
that the lukewarmness which had once been imputed to him as a crime was now
reckoned among his chief virtues.

All men were anxious to know what he thought of the Declaration
of Indulgence. For a time hopes were entertained at Whitehall
that his known respect for the rights of conscience would at
least prevent him from publicly expressing disapprobation of a
policy which had a specious show of liberality. Penn sent copious
disquisitions to the Hague, and even went thither, in the hope
that his eloquence, of which he had a high opinion, would prove
irresistible. But, though he harangued on his favourite theme
with a copiousness which tired his hearers out, and though he
assured them that the approach of a golden age of religious
liberty had been revealed to him by a man who was permitted to
converse with angels, no impression was made on the Prince.259
"You ask me," said William to one of the King's agents, "to
countenance an attack on my own religion. I cannot with a safe
conscience do it, and I will not, no, not for the crown of
England, nor for the empire of the world." These words were
reported to the King and disturbed him greatly.260 He wrote
urgent letters with his own hand. Sometimes he took the tone of
an injured man. He was the head of the royal family, he was as
such entitled to expect the obedience of the younger branches and
it was very hard that he was to be crossed in a matter on which
his heart was set. At other times a bait which was thought
irresistible was offered. If William would but give way on this
one point, the English government would, in return, cooperate
with him strenuously against France. He was not to be so deluded.
He knew that James, without the support of a Parliament, would,
even if not unwilling, be unable to render effectual service to
the common cause of Europe; and there could be no doubt that, if
a Parliament were assembled, the first demand of both Houses
would be that the Declaration should he cancelled.

The Princess assented to all that was suggested by her husband.
Their joint opinion was conveyed to the King in firm but
temperate terms. They declared that they deeply regretted the
course which His Majesty had adopted. They were convinced that he
had usurped a prerogative which did not by law belong to him.
Against that usurpation they protested, not only as friends to
civil liberty, but as members of the royal house, who had a deep
interest in maintaining the rights of that crown which they might
one day wear. For experience had shown that in England arbitrary
government could not fail to produce a reaction even more
pernicious than itself; and it might reasonably be feared that
the nation, alarmed and incensed by the prospect of despotism,
might conceive a disgust even for constitutional monarchy. The
advice, therefore, which they tendered to the King was that he
would in all things govern according to law. They readily
admitted that the law might with advantage be altered by
competent authority, and that some part of his Declaration well
deserved to be embodied in an Act of Parliament. They were not
persecutors. They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as
well as Protestant Dissenters relieved in a proper manner from
all penal statutes. They should with pleasure see Protestant
Dissenters admitted in a proper manner to civil office. At that
point their Highnesses must stop. They could not but entertain
grave apprehensions that, if Roman Catholics were made capable of
public trust, great evil would ensue; and it was intimated not
obscurely that these apprehensions arose chiefly from the conduct
of James.261

The opinion expressed by the Prince and Princess respecting the
disabilities to which the Roman Catholics were subject was that
of almost all the statesmen and philosophers who were then
zealous for political and religious freedom. In our age, on the
contrary, enlightened men have often pronounced, with regret,
that, on this one point, William appears to disadvantage when
compared with his father in law. The truth is that some
considerations which are necessary to the forming of a correct
judgment seem to have escaped the notice of many writers of the
nineteenth century.

There are two opposite errors into which those who study the
annals of our country are in constant danger of falling, the
error of judging the present by the past, and the error of
judging the past by the present. The former is the error of minds
prone to reverence whatever is old, the latter of minds readily
attracted by whatever is new. The former error may perpetually be
observed in the reasonings of conservative politicians on the
questions of their own day. The latter error perpetually infects
the speculations of writers of the liberal school when they
discuss the transactions of an earlier age. The former error is
the more pernicious in a statesman, and the latter in a
historian.

It is not easy for any person who, in our time, undertakes to
treat of the revolution which overthrew the Stuarts, to preserve
with steadiness the happy mean between these two extremes. The
question whether members of the Roman Catholic Church could be
safely admitted to Parliament and to office convulsed our country
during the reign of James the Second, was set at rest by his
downfall, and, having slept during more than a century, was
revived by that great stirring of the human mind which followed,
the meeting of the National Assembly of France. During thirty
years the contest went on in both Houses of Parliament, in every
constituent body, in every social circle. It destroyed
administrations, broke up parties, made all government in one
part of the empire impossible, and at length brought us to the
verge of civil war. Even when the struggle had terminated, the
passions to which it had given birth still continued to rage. It
was scarcely possible for any man whose mind was under the
influence of those passions to see the events of the years 1687
and 1688 in a perfectly correct light.

One class of politicians, starting from the true proposition that
the Revolution had been a great blessing to our country, arrived
at the false conclusion that no test which the statesmen of the
Revolution had thought necessary for the protection of our
religion and our freedom could be safely abolished. Another
class, starting from the true proposition that the disabilities
imposed on the Roman Catholics had long been productive of
nothing but mischief, arrived at the false conclusion that there
never could have been a time when those disabilities could have
been useful and necessary. The former fallacy pervaded the
speeches of the acute and learned Eldon. The latter was not
altogether without influence even on an intellect so calm and
philosophical as that of Mackintosh.

Perhaps, however, it will be found on examination that we may
vindicate the course which was unanimously approved by all the
great English statesmen of the seventeenth century, without
questioning the wisdom of the course which was as unanimously
approved by all the great English statesmen of our own time.

Undoubtedly it is an evil that any citizen should be excluded
from civil employment on account of his religious opinions: but a
choice between evils is sometimes all that is left to human
wisdom. A nation may be placed in such a situation that the
majority must either impose disabilities or submit to them, and
that what would, under ordinary circumstances, be justly
condemned as persecution, may fall within the bounds of
legitimate selfdefence: and such was in the year 1687 the
situation of England.

According to the constitution of the realm, James possessed the
right of naming almost all public functionaries, political,
judicial, ecclesiastical, military, and naval. In the exercise of
this right he was not, as our sovereigns now are, under the
necessity of acting in conformity with the advice of ministers
approved by the House of Commons. It was evident therefore that,
unless he were strictly bound by law to bestow office on none but
Protestants, it would be in his power to bestow office on none
but Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics were few in number; and
among them was not a single man whose services could be seriously
missed by the commonwealth. The proportion which they bore to the
population of England was very much smaller than at present. For
at present a constant stream of emigration runs from Ireland to
our great towns: but in the seventeenth century there was not
even in London an Irish colony. Forty-nine fiftieths of the
inhabitants of the kingdom, forty-nine fiftieths of the property
of the kingdom, almost all the political, legal, and military
ability and knowledge to be found in the kingdom, were
Protestant. Nevertheless the King, under a strong infatuation,
had determined to use his vast patronage as a means of making
proselytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of
all qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was a
positive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in language
which has been applauded by some credulous friends of religious
liberty, the monstrous injustice of that test which excluded a
small minority of the nation from public trust: but he was at the
same time instituting a test which excluded the majority. He
thought it hard that a man who was a good financier and a loyal
subject should be excluded from the post of Lord Treasurer merely
for being a Papist. But he had himself turned out a Lord
Treasurer whom he admitted to be a good financier and a loyal
subject merely for being a Protestant. He had repeatedly and
distinctly declared his resolution never to put the white staff
in the hands of any heretic. With many other great offices of
state he had dealt in the same way. Already the Lord President,
the Lord Privy
Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, the Groom of the Stole, the First
Lord of the Treasury, a Secretary of State, the Lord High
Commissioner of Scotland, the Chancellor of Scotland, the
Secretary of Scotland, were, or pretended to be, Roman Catholics.
Most of these functionaries had been bred Churchmen, and had been
guilty of apostasy, open or secret, in order to obtain or to keep
their high places. Every Protestant who still held an important
post in the government held it in constant uncertainty and fear.
It would be endless to recount the situations of a lower rank
which were filled by the favoured class. Roman Catholics already
swarmed in every department of the public service. They were
Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, judges, justices of the
Peace, Commissioners of the Customs, Envoys to foreign courts,
Colonels of regiments, Governors of fortresses. The share which
in a few months they had obtained of the temporal patronage of
the crown was much more than ten times as great as they would
have had under an impartial system. Yet this was not the worst.
They were made rulers of the Church of England. Men who had
assured the King that they held his faith sate in the High
Commission, and exercised supreme jurisdiction in spiritual
things over all the prelates and priests of the established
religion. Ecclesiastical benefices of great dignity had been
bestowed, some on avowed Papists, and some on half concealed
Papists. And all this had been done while the laws against Popery
were still unrepealed, and while James had still a strong
interest in affecting respect for the rights of conscience. What
then was his conduct likely to be, if his subjects consented to
free him, by a legislative act, from even the shadow of
restraint? Is it possible to doubt that Protestants would have
been as effectually excluded from employment, by a strictly legal
use of the royal prerogative, as ever Roman Catholics had been by
Act of Parliament?

How obstinately James was determined to bestow on the members of
his own Church a share of patronage altogether out of proportion
to their numbers and importance is proved by the instructions
which, in exile and old age, he drew up for the guidance of his
son. It is impossible to read without mingled pity and derision
those effusions of a mind on which all the discipline of
experience and adversity had been exhausted in vain. The
Pretender is advised if ever he should reign in England, to
make a partition of offices, and carefully to reserve for the
members of the Church of Rome a portion which might have sufficed
for them if they had been one half instead of one fiftieth part
of the nation. One Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the
Treasury, the Secretary at War, the majority of the great
dignitaries of the household, the majority of the officers of the
army, are always to be Catholics. Such were the designs of James
after his perverse bigotry had drawn on him a punishment which
had appalled the whole world. Is it then possible to doubt what
his conduct would have been if his people, deluded by the empty
name of religious liberty, had suffered him to proceed without
any check?

Even Penn, intemperate and undiscerning as was his zeal for the
Declaration, seems to have felt that the partiality with which
honours and emoluments were heaped on Roman Catholics, might not
unnaturally excite the jealousy of the nation. He owned that, if
the Test Act were repealed, the Protestants were entitled to an
equivalent, and went so far as to suggest several equivalents.
During some weeks the word equivalent, then lately imported from
France, was in the mouths of all the coffee-house orators, but at
length a few pages of keen logic and polished sarcasm written by
Halifax put an end to these idle projects. One of Penn's schemes
was that a law should be passed dividing the patronage of the
crown into three equal parts; and that to one only of those parts
members of the Church of Rome should be admitted. Even under such
an arrangement the members of the Church of Rome would have
obtained near twenty times their fair portion of official
appointments; and yet there is no reason to believe that even to
such an arrangement the King would have consented. But, had he
consented, what guarantee could he give that he would adhere to
his bargain? The dilemma propounded by Halifax was unanswerable.
If laws are binding on you, observe the law which now exists. If
laws are not binding on you, it is idle to offer us a law as a
security.262

It is clear, therefore, that the point at issue was not whether
secular offices should be thrown open to all sects
indifferently. While James was King it was inevitable that there
should be exclusion; and the only question was who should be
excluded, Papists or Protestants, the few or the many, a hundred
thousand Englishmen or five millions.

Such are the weighty arguments by which the conduct of the Prince
of Orange towards the English Roman Catholics may be reconciled
with the principles of religious liberty. These arguments, it
will be observed, have no reference to any part of the Roman
Catholic theology. It will also be observed that they ceased to
have any force when the crown had been settled on a race of
Protestant sovereigns, and when the power of the House of Commons
in the state had become so decidedly preponderant that no
sovereign, whatever might have been his opinions or his
inclinations, could have imitated the example of James. The
nation, however, after its terrors, its struggles, its narrow
escape, was in a suspicious and vindictive mood. Means of defence
therefore which necessity had once justified, and which necessity
alone could justify, were obstinately used long after the
necessity had ceased to exist, and were not abandoned till vulgar
prejudice had maintained a contest of many years against reason.
But in the time of James reason and vulgar prejudice were on the
same side. The fanatical and ignorant wished to exclude the Roman
Catholic from office because he worshipped stocks and stones,
because he had the mark of the Beast, because he had burned down
London, because he had strangled Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey; and the
most judicious and tolerant statesman, while smiling at the
delusions which imposed on the populace, was led, by a very
different road, to the same conclusion.

The great object of William now was to unite in one body the
numerous sections of the community which regarded him as their
common head. In this work he had several able and trusty
coadjutors, among whom two were preeminently useful, Burnet and
Dykvelt.

The services of Burnet indeed it was necessary to employ with
some caution. The kindness with which he had been welcomed at the
Hague had excited the rage of James. Mary received from her
father two letters filled with invectives against the insolent
and seditious divine whom she protected. But these accusations
had so little effect on her that she sent back answers dictated
by Burnet himself. At length, in January 1687, the King had
recourse to stronger measures. Skelton, who had represented the
English government in the United Provinces, was removed to Paris,
and was succeeded by Albeville, the weakest and basest of all the
members of the Jesuitical cabal. Money was Albeville's one
object; and he took it from all who offered it. He was paid at
once by France and by Holland. Nay, he stooped below even the
miserable dignity of corruption, and accepted bribes so small
that they seemed better suited to a porter or a lacquey than to
an Envoy who had been honoured with an English baronetcy and a
foreign marquisate. On one occasion he pocketed very complacently
a gratuity of fifty pistoles as the price of a service which he
had rendered to the States General. This man had it in charge to
demand that Burnet should no longer be countenanced at the Hague.
William, who was not inclined to part with a valuable friend,
answered at first with his usual coldness; "I am not aware, sir,
that, since the Doctor has been here, he has done or said
anything of which His Majesty can justly complain." But James was
peremptory; the time for an open rupture had not arrived; and it
was necessary to give way. During more than eighteen months
Burnet never came into the presence of either the Prince or the
Princess: but he resided near them; he was fully informed of all
that was passing; his advice was constantly asked; his pen was
employed on all important occasions; and many of the sharpest and
most effective tracts which about that time appeared in London
were justly attributed to him.

The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than
sufficiently prone to the angry passions. But none of his
enemies, not even those who had conspired against his life, not
even those who had attempted by perjury to load him with the
guilt of treason and assassination, had ever been regarded by him
with such animosity as he now felt for Burnet. His Majesty railed
daily at the Doctor in unkingly language, and meditated plans of
unlawful revenge. Even blood would not slake that frantic hatred.
The insolent divine must be tortured before he was permitted to
die. Fortunately he was by birth a Scot; and in Scotland, before
he was gibbeted in the Grassmarket, his legs might be dislocated
in the boot. Proceedings were accordingly instituted against him
at Edinburgh: but he had been naturalised in Holland: he had
married a woman of fortune who was a native of that province: and
it was certain that his adopted country would not deliver him up.
It was therefore determined to kidnap him. Ruffians were hired
with great sums of money for this perilous and infamous service.
An order for three thousand pounds on this account was actually
drawn up for signature in the office of the Secretary of State.
Lewis was apprised of the design, and took a warm interest in it.
He would lend, he said, his best assistance to convey the villain
to England, and would undertake that the ministers of the
vengeance of James should find a secure asylum in France. Burnet
was well aware of his danger: but timidity was not among his
faults. He published a courageous answer to the charges which had
been brought against him at Edinburgh. He knew, he said, that it
was intended to execute him without a trial: but his trust was in
the King of Kings, to whom innocent blood would not cry in vain,
even against the mightiest princes of the earth. He gave a
farewell dinner to some friends, and, after the meal, took solemn
leave of them, as a man who was doomed to death, and with whom
they could no longer safely converse. Nevertheless he continued
to show himself in all the public places of the Hague so boldly
that his friends reproached him bitterly with his
foolhardiness.263

While Burnet was William's secretary for English affairs in
Holland, Dykvelt had been not less usefully employed in London.
Dykvelt was one of a remarkable class of public men who, having
been bred to politics in the noble school of John De Witt, had,
after the fall of that great minister, thought that they should
best discharge their duty to the commonwealth by rallying round
the Prince of Orange. Of the diplomatists in the service of the
United Provinces none was, in dexterity, temper, and manners,
superior to Dykvelt. In knowledge of English affairs none seems
to have been his equal. A pretence was found for despatching him,
early in the year 1687, to England on a special mission with
credentials from the States General. But in truth his embassy was
not to the government, but to the opposition; and his conduct was
guided by private instructions which had been drawn by Burnet,
and approved by William.264

Dykvelt reported that James was bitterly mortified by the conduct
of the Prince and Princess. "My nephew's duty," said the King,
"is to strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in
crossing me." Dykvelt answered that in matters of private concern
His Highness had shown, and was ready to show, the greatest
deference to the King's wishes; but that it was scarcely
reasonable to expect the aid of a Protestant prince against the
Protestant religion.265 The King was silenced, but not appeased.
He saw, with ill humour which he could not disguise, that Dykvelt
was mustering and drilling all the various divisions of the
opposition with a skill which would have been creditable to the
ablest English statesman, and which was marvellous in a
foreigner. The clergy were told that they would find the Prince a
friend to episcopacy and to the Book of Common Prayer. The
Nonconformists were encouraged to expect from him, not only
toleration, but also comprehension. Even the Roman Catholics were
conciliated; and some of the most respectable among them
declared, to the King's face, that they were satisfied with what
Dykvelt proposed, and that they would rather have a toleration,
secured by statute, than an illegal and precarious ascendency.266
The chiefs of all the important sections of the nation had
frequent conferences in the presence of the dexterous Envoy. At
these meetings the sense of the Tory party was chiefly spoken by
the Earls of Danby and Nottingham. Though more than eight years
had elapsed since Danby had fallen from power, his name was still
great among the old Cavaliers of England; and many even of those
Whigs who had formerly persecuted him were now disposed to admit
that he had suffered for faults not his own, and that his zeal
for the prerogative, though it had often misled him, had been
tempered by two feelings which did him honour, zeal for the
established religion, and zeal for the dignity and independence
of his country. He was also highly esteemed at the Hague, where
it was never forgotten that he was the person who, in spite of
the influence of France and of the Papists, had induced Charles
to bestow the hand of the Lady Mary on her cousin.

Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, a nobleman whose name will
frequently recur in the history of three eventful reigns, sprang
from a family of unrivalled forensic eminence. One of his kinsmen
had borne the seal of Charles the First, had prostituted eminent
parts and learning to evil purposes, and had been pursued by the
vengeance of the Commons of England with Falkland at their head.
A more honourable renown had in the succeeding generation been
obtained by Heneage Finch. He had immediately after the
Restoration been appointed Solicitor General. He had subsequently
risen to be Attorney General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor, Baron
Finch, and Earl of Nottingham. Through this prosperous career he
had always held the prerogative as high as he honestly or
decently could; but he had never been concerned in any
machinations against the fundamental laws of the realm. In the
midst of a corrupt court he had kept his personal integrity
unsullied. He had enjoyed high fame as an orator, though his
diction, formed on models anterior to the civil wars, was,
towards the close of his life, pronounced stiff and pedantic by
the wits of the rising generation. In Westminster Hall he is
still mentioned with respect as the man who first educed out of
the chaos anciently called by the name of equity a new system of
jurisprudence, as regular and complete as that which is
administered by the judges of the Common Law.267 A considerable
part of the moral and intellectual character of this great
magistrate had descended with the title of Nottingham to his
eldest son. This son, Earl Daniel, was an honourable and virtuous
man. Though enslaved by some absurd prejudices, and though liable
to strange fits of caprice, he cannot be accused of having
deviated from the path of right in search either of unlawful gain
or of unlawful pleasure. Like his father he was a distinguished
speaker, impressive, but prolix, and too monotonously solemn. The
person of the orator was in perfect harmony with his oratory. His
attitude was rigidly erect--his complexion so dark that he might
have passed for a native of a warmer climate than ours; and his
harsh features were composed to an expression resembling that of
a chief mourner at a funeral. It was commonly said that he looked
rather like a Spanish grandee than like an English gentleman. The
nicknames of Dismal, Don Dismallo, and Don Diego, were fastened
on him by jesters, and are not yet forgotten. He had paid much
attention to the science by which his family had been raised to
greatness, and was, for a man born to rank and wealth,
wonderfully well read in the laws of his country. He was a
devoted son of the Church, and showed his respect for her in two
ways not usual among those Lords who in his time boasted that
they were her especial friends, by writing tracts in defence of
her dogmas, and by shaping his private life according to her
precepts. Like other zealous churchmen, he had, till recently,
been a strenuous supporter of monarchical authority. But to the
policy which had been pursued since the suppression of the
Western insurrection he was bitterly hostile, and not the less
so because his younger brother Heneage had been turned out of the
office of Solicitor General for refusing to defend the King's
dispensing power.268

With these two great Tory Earls was now united Halifax, the
accomplished chief of the Trimmers. Over the mind of Nottingham
indeed Halifax appears to have had at this time a great
ascendency. Between Halifax and Danby there was an enmity which
began in the court of Charles, and which, at a later period,
disturbed the court of William, but which, like many other
enmities, remained suspended during the tyranny of James. The
foes frequently met in the councils held by Dykvelt, and agreed
in expressing dislike of the policy of the government and
reverence for the Prince of Orange. The different characters of
the two statesmen appeared strongly in their dealings with the
Dutch envoy. Halifax showed an admirable talent for disquisition,
but shrank from coming to any bold and irrevocable decision.
Danby far less subtle and eloquent, displayed more energy,
resolution, and practical sagacity.

Several eminent Whigs were in constant communication with
Dykvelt: but the heads of the great houses of Cavendish and
Russell could not take quite so active and prominent a part as
might have been expected from their station and their opinions,
The fame and fortunes of Devonshire were at that moment under a
cloud. He had an unfortunate quarrel with the court, arising, not
from a public and honourable cause, but from a private brawl in
which even his warmest friends could not pronounce him altogether
blameless. He had gone to Whitehall to pay his duty, and had
there been insulted by a man named Colepepper, one of a set of
bravoes who invested the perlieus of the court, and who attempted
to curry favour with the government by affronting members of the
opposition. The King himself expressed great indignation at the
manner in which one of his most distinguished peers had been
treated under the royal roof; and Devonshire was pacified by an
intimation that the offender should never again be admitted into
the palace. The interdict, however, was soon taken off. The
Earl's resentment revived. His servants took up his cause.
Hostilities such as seemed to belong to a ruder age disturbed the
streets of Westminster. The time of the Privy Council was
occupied by the criminations and recriminations of the adverse
parties. Colepepper's wife declared that she and her husband went
in danger of their lives, and that their house had been assaulted
by ruffians in the Cavendish livery. Devonshire replied that he
had been fired at from Colepepper's windows. This was vehemently
denied. A pistol, it was owned, loaded with gunpowder, had been
discharged. But this had been done in a moment of terror merely
for the purpose of alarming the Guards. While this feud was at
the height the Earl met Colepepper in the drawingroom at
Whitehall, and fancied that he saw triumph and defiance in the
bully's countenance. Nothing unseemly passed in the royal sight;
but, as soon as the enemies had left the presence chamber,
Devonshire proposed that they should instantly decide their
dispute with their swords. The challenge was refused. Then the
high spirited peer forgot the respect which he owed to the place
where he stood and to his own character, and struck Colepepper in
the face with a cane. All classes agreed in condemning this act
as most indiscreet and indecent; nor could Devonshire himself,
when he had cooled, think of it without vexation and shame. The
government, however, with its usual folly, treated him so
severely that in a short time the public sympathy was all on his
side. A criminal information was filed in the King's Bench. The
defendant took his stand on the privileges of the peerage but on
this point a decision was promptly given against him nor is it
possible to deny that the decision, whether it were or were not
according to the technical rules of English law, was in strict
conformity with the great principles on which all laws ought to
be framed. Nothing was then left to him but to plead guilty. The
tribunal had, by successive dismissions, been reduced to such
complete subjection, that the government which had instituted the
prosecution was allowed to prescribe the punishment. The judges
waited in a body on Jeffreys, who insisted that they should
impose a fine of not less than thirty thousand pounds. Thirty
thousand pounds, when compared with the revenues of the English
grandees of that age, may be considered as equivalent to a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the nineteenth century. In
the presence of the Chancellor not a word of disapprobation was
tittered: but, when the judges had retired, Sir John Powell, in
whom all the little honesty of the bench was concentrated,
muttered that the proposed penalty was enormous, and that one
tenth part would be amply sufficient. His brethren did not agree
with him; nor did he, on this occasion, show the courage by
which, on a memorable day some months later, he signally
retrieved his fame. The Earl was accordingly condemned to a fine
of thirty thousand pounds, and to imprisonment till payment
should be made. Such a sum could not then be raised at a day's
notice even by the greatest of the nobility. The sentence of
imprisonment, however, was more easily pronounced than executed.
Devonshire had retired to Chatsworth, where he was employed in
turning the old Gothic mansion of his family into an edifice
worthy of Palladio. The Peak was in those days almost as rude a
district as Connemara now is, and the Sheriff found, or
pretended, that it was difficult to arrest the lord of so wild a
region in the midst of a devoted household and tenantry. Some
days were thus gained: but at last both the Earl and the Sheriff
were lodged in prison. Meanwhile a crowd of intercessors exerted
their influence. The story ran that the Countess Dowager of
Devonshire had obtained admittance to the royal closet, that she
had reminded James how her brother in law, the gallant Charles
Cavendish, had fallen at Gainsborough fighting for the crown, and
that she had produced notes, written by Charles the First and
Charles the Second, in acknowledgment of great sums lent by her
Lord during the civil troubles. Those loans had never been
repaid, and, with the interest, amounted, it was said, to more
even than the immense fine which the Court of King's Bench had
imposed. There was another consideration which seems to have had
more weight with the King than the memory of former services. It
might be necessary to call a Parliament. Whenever that event took
place it was believed that Devonshire would bring a writ of
error. The point on which he meant to appeal from the judgment of
the King's Bench related to the privileges of peerage. The
tribunal before which the appeal must come was the House of
Peers. On such an occasion the court could not be certain of the
support even of the most courtly nobles. There was little doubt
that the sentence would be annulled, and that, by grasping at too
much, the government would lose all. James was therefore disposed
to a compromise. Devonshire was informed that, if he would give a
bond for the whole fine, and thus preclude himself from the
advantage which he might derive from a writ of error, he should
be set at liberty. Whether the bond should he enforced or not
would depend on his subsequent conduct. If he would support the
dispensing power nothing would be exacted from him. If he was
bent on popularity he must pay thirty thousand pounds for it. He
refused, during some time, to consent to these terms; but
confinement was insupportable to him. He signed the bond, and was
let out of prison: but, though he consented to lay this heavy
burden on his estate, nothing could induce him to promise that he
would abandon his principles and his party. He was still
entrusted with all the secrets of the opposition: but during some
months his political friends thought it best for himself and for
the cause that he should remain in the background.269

The Earl of Bedford had never recovered from the effects of the
great calamity which, four years before, had almost broken his
heart. From private as well as from public feelings he was
adverse to the court: but he was not active in concerting
measures against it. His place in the meetings of the
malecontents was supplied by his nephew. This was the celebrated
Edward Russell, a man of undoubted courage and capacity, but of
loose principles and turbulent temper. He was a sailor, had
distinguished himself in his profession, and had in the late
reign held an office in the palace. But all the ties which bound
him to the royal family had been sundered by the death of his
cousin William. The daring, unquiet, and vindictive seaman now
sate in the councils called by the Dutch envoy as the
representative of the boldest and most eager section of the
opposition, of those men who, under the names of Roundheads,
Exclusionists, and Whigs, had maintained with various fortune a
contest of five and forty years against three successive Kings.
This party, lately prostrate and almost extinct, but now again
full of life and rapidly rising to ascendency, was troubled by
none of the scruples which still impeded the movements of Tories
and Trimmers, and was prepared to draw the sword against the
tyrant on the first day on which the sword could be drawn with
reasonable hope of success.

Three men are yet to be mentioned with whom Dykvelt was in
confidential communication, and by whose help he hoped to secure
the good will of three great professions. Bishop Compton was the
agent employed to manage the clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook to
exert all his influence over the navy; and an interest was
established in the army by the instrumentality of Churchill.

The conduct of Compton and Herbert requires no explanation.
Having, in all things secular, served the crown with zeal and
fidelity, they had incurred the royal displeasure by refusing
to be employed as tools for the destruction of their own
religion. Both of them had learned by experience how soon James
forgot obligations, and how bitterly he remembered what it
pleased him to consider as wrongs. The Bishop had by an illegal
sentence been suspended from his episcopal functions. The Admiral
had in one hour been reduced from opulence to penury. The
situation of Churchill was widely different. He had been raised
by the royal bounty from obscurity to eminence, and from poverty
to wealth. Having started in life a needy ensign, he was now, in
his thirty-seventh year, a Major General, a peer of Scotland, a
peer of England: he commanded a troop of Life Guards: he had been
appointed to several honourable and lucrative offices; and as yet
there was no sign that he had lost any part of the favour to
which he owed so much. He was bound to James, not only by the
common obligations of allegiance, but by military honour, by
personal gratitude, and, as appeared to superficial observers, by
the strongest ties of interest. But Churchill himself was no
superficial observer. He knew exactly what his interest really
was. If his master were once at full liberty to employ Papists,
not a single Protestant would be employed. For a time a few
highly favoured servants of the crown might possibly be exempted
from the general proscription in the hope that they would be
induced to change their religion. But even these would, after a
short respite, fall one by one, as Rochester had already fallen.
Churchill might indeed secure himself from this danger, and might
raise himself still higher in the royal favour, by conforming to
the Church of Rome; and it might seem that one who was not less
distinguished by avarice and baseness than by capacity and valour
was not likely to be shocked at the thought of hearing amass. But
so inconsistent is human nature that there are tender spots even
in seared consciences. And thus this man, who had owed his rise
to his sister's dishonour, who had been kept by the most profuse,
imperious, and shameless of harlots, and whose public life, to
those who can look steadily through the dazzling blaze of genius
and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude, believed
implicitly in the religion which he had learned as a boy, and
shuddered at the thought of formally abjuring it. A terrible
alternative was before him. The earthly evil which he most
dreaded was poverty. The one crime from which his heart recoiled
was apostasy. And, if the designs of the court succeeded, he
could not doubt that between poverty and apostasy he must soon
make his choice. He therefore determined to cross those designs;
and it soon appeared that there was no guilt and no disgrace
which he was not ready to incur, in order to escape from the
necessity of parting either with his places or with his
religion.270

It was not only as a military commander, high in rank, and
distinguished by skill and courage, that Churchill was able to
render services to the opposition. It was, if not absolutely
essential, yet most important, to the success of William's plans
that his sister in law, who, in the order of succession to the
English throne, stood between his wife and himself, should act in
cordial union with him. All his difficulties would have been
greatly augmented if Anne had declared herself favourable to the
Indulgence. Which side she might take depended on the will of
others. For her understanding was sluggish; and, though there was
latent in her character a hereditary wilfulness and stubbornness
which, many years later, great power and great provocations
developed, she was as yet a willing slave to a nature far more
vivacious and imperious than her own. The person by whom she was
absolutely governed was the wife of Churchill, a woman who
afterwards exercised a great influence on the fate of England and
of Europe.

The name of this celebrated favourite was Sarah Jennings. Her
elder sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and
levity even among the crowd of beautiful faces and light
characters which adorned and disgraced Whitehall during the wild
carnival of the Restoration. On one occasion Frances dressed
herself like an orange girl and cried fruit about the streets.271
Sober people predicted that a girl of so little discretion and
delicacy would not easily find a husband. She was however twice
married, and was now the wife of Tyrconnel. Baron, less regularly
beautiful, was perhaps more attractive. Her face was expressive:
her form wanted no feminine charm; and the profusion of her fine
hair, not yet disguised by powder according to that barbarous
fashion which she lived to see introduced, was the delight of
numerous admirers. Among the gallants who sued for her favour,
Colonel Churchill, young, handsome, graceful, insinuating,
eloquent and brave, obtained the preference. He must have been
enamoured indeed. For he had little property except the annuity
which he had bought with the infamous wages bestowed on him by
the Duchess of Cleveland: he was insatiable of riches: Sarah was
poor; and a plain girl with a large fortune was proposed to him.
His love, after a struggle, prevailed over his avarice: marriage
only strengthened his passion; and, to the last hour of his life,
Sarah enjoyed the pleasure and distinction of being the one human
being who was able to mislead that farsighted and surefooted
judgment, who was fervently loved by that cold heart, and who was
servilely feared by that intrepid spirit.

In a worldly sense the fidelity of Churchill's love was amply
rewarded. His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her
a dowry which, judiciously employed, made him at length a Duke of
England, a Prince of the Empire, the captain general of a great
coalition, the arbiter between mighty princes, and, what he
valued more, the wealthiest subject in Europe. She had been
brought up from childhood with the Princess Anne; and a close
friendship had arisen between the girls. In character they
resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To
those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger
assumed was sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and
was attached even with bigotry to the rites and government of the
Church of England. Sarah was lively and voluble, domineered over
those whom she regarded with most kindness, and, when she was
offended, vented her rage in tears and tempestuous reproaches. To
sanctity she made no pretence, and, indeed, narrowly escaped the
imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what she became when
one class of vices had been fully developed in her by
prosperity, and another by adversity, when her brain had been
turned by success and flattery, when her heart had been ulcerated
by disasters and mortifications. She lived to be that most odious
and miserable of human beings, an ancient crone at war with her
whole kind, at war with her own children and grandchildren, great
indeed and rich, but valuing greatness and riches chiefly because
they enabled her to brave public opinion and to indulge without
restraint her hatred to the living and the dead. In the reign of
James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine highspirited
young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary, but
whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consideration of
her charms.

It is a common observation that differences of taste,
understanding, and disposition, are no impediments to friendship,
and that the closest intimacies often exist between minds each of
which supplies what is wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was
loved and even worshipped by Anne. The Princess could not live
apart from the object of her romantic fondness. She married, and
was a faithful and even an affectionate wife. But Prince George,
a dull man whose chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and
his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable to that
exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with
stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding
spirit by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the
royal pair: and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a
mother. But the tenderness which she felt for her offspring was
languid when compared with her devotion to the companion of her
early years. At length the Princess became impatient of the
restraint which etiquette imposed on her. She could not bear to
hear the words Madam and Royal Highness from the lips of one who
was more to her than a sister. Such words were indeed necessary
in the gallery or the drawingroom; but they were disused in the
closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley: Lady Churchill was Mrs. Freeman;
and under