No More Learning

In one debate he lost his temper,
forgot the decorum which in general he strictly observed, and narrowly
escaped being committed to the custody of the Black Rod, [607] After
much wrangling, the Whigs carried their point by a majority of seven,
[608] Many peers signed a strong protest written by Nottingham. In
this protest the bill, which was indeed open to verbal criticism, was
impolitely described as being neither good English nor good sense. The
majority passed a resolution that the protest should be expunged; and
against this resolution Nottingham and his followers again protested,
[609] The King was displeased by the pertinacity of his Secretary of
State; so much displeased indeed that Nottingham declared his intention
of resigning the Seals; but the dispute was soon accommodated. William
was too wise not to know the value of an honest man in a dishonest age.
The very scrupulosity which made Nottingham a mutineer was a security
that he would never be a traitor, [610]

The bill went down to the Lower House; and it was full expected that the
contest there would be long and fierce; but a single speech settled the
question. Somers, with a force and eloquence which surprised even an
audience accustomed to hear him with pleasure, exposed the absurdity of
the doctrine held by the high Tories. "If the Convention,"--it was thus
that he argued,--"was not a Parliament, how can we be a Parliament? An
Act of Elizabeth provides that no person shall sit or vote in this House
till he has taken the old oath of supremacy. Not one of us has taken
that oath. Instead of it, we have all taken the new oath of supremacy
which the late Parliament substituted for the old oath. It is therefore
a contradiction to say that the Acts of the late Parliament are not now
valid, and yet to ask us to enact that they shall henceforth be valid.
For either they already are so, or we never can make them so. " This
reasoning, which was in truth as unanswerable as that of Euclid,
brought the debate to a speedy close. The bill passed the Commons within
forty-eight hours after it had been read the first time, [611]

This was the only victory won by the Whigs during the whole session.
They complained loudly in the Lower House of the change which had been
made in the military government of the city of London. The Tories,
conscious of their strength, and heated by resentment, not only refused
to censure what had been done, but determined to express publicly and
formally their gratitude to the King for having brought in so many
churchmen and turned out so many schismatics. An address of thanks was
moved by Clarges, member for Westminster, who was known to be attached
to Caermarthen. "The alterations which have been made in the City," said
Clarges, "show that His Majesty has a tender care of us. I hope that
he will make similar alterations in every county of the realm. " The
minority struggled hard. "Will you thank the King," they said, "for
putting the sword into the hands of his most dangerous enemies? Some of
those whom he has been advised to entrust with military command have not
yet been able to bring themselves to take the oath of allegiance to him.
Others were well known, in the evil days, as stanch jurymen, who were
sure to find an Exclusionist guilty on any evidence or no evidence. "
Nor did the Whig orators refrain from using those topics on which all
factions are eloquent in the hour of distress, and which all factions
are but too ready to treat lightly in the hour of prosperity. "Let us
not," they said, "pass a vote which conveys a reflection on a large body
of our countrymen, good subjects, good Protestants. The King ought to be
the head of his whole people. Let us not make him the head of a party. "
This was excellent doctrine; but it scarcely became the lips of men who,
a few weeks before, had opposed the Indemnity Bill and voted for the
Sacheverell Clause. The address was carried by a hundred and eighty-five
votes to a hundred and thirty-six, [612]

As soon as the numbers had been announced, the minority, smarting
from their defeat, brought forward a motion which caused no little
embarrassment to the Tory placemen. The oath of allegiance, the Whigs
said, was drawn in terms far too lax. It might exclude from public
employment a few honest Jacobites who were generally too dull to be
mischievous; but it was altogether inefficient as a means of binding the
supple and slippery consciences of cunning priests, who, while affecting
to hold the Jesuits in abhorrence, were proficients in that immoral
casuistry which was the worst part of Jesuitism. Some grave divines had
openly said, others had even dared to write, that they had sworn fealty
to William in a sense altogether different from that in which they had
sworn fealty to James. To James they had plighted the entire faith which
a loyal subject owes to a rightful sovereign; but, when they promised
to bear true allegiance to William, they meant only that they would not,
whilst he was able to hang them for rebelling or conspiring against him,
run any risk of being hanged. None could wonder that the precepts and
example of the malecontent clergy should have corrupted the malecontent
laity. When Prebendaries and Rectors were not ashamed to avow that they
had equivocated, in the very act of kissing the New Testament, it was
hardly to be expected that attorneys and taxgatherers would be more
scrupulous. The consequence was that every department swarmed with
traitors; that men who ate the King's bread, men who were entrusted with
the duty of collecting and disbursing his revenues, of victualling his
ships, of clothing his soldiers, of making his artillery ready for the
field, were in the habit of calling him an usurper, and of drinking to
his speedy downfall. Could any government be safe which was hated and
betrayed by its own servants? And was not the English government exposed
to the dangers which, even if all its servants were true, might well
excite serious apprehensions? A disputed succession, war with France,
war in Scotland, war in Ireland, was not all this enough without
treachery in every arsenal and in every custom house? There must be an
oath drawn in language too precise to be explained away, in language
which no Jacobite could repeat without the consciousness that he was
perjuring himself. Though the zealots of indefeasible hereditary right
had in general no objection to swear allegiance to William, they would
probably not choose to abjure James. On such grounds as these, an
Abjuration Bill of extreme severity was brought into the House of
Commons. It was proposed to enact that every person who held any office,
civil, military, or spiritual, should, on pain of deprivation, solemnly
abjure the exiled King; that the oath of abjuration might be tendered by
any justice of the peace to any subject of their Majesties; and that, if
it were refused, the recusant should be sent to prison, and should lie
there as long as he continued obstinate.

The severity of this last provision was generally and most justly
blamed. To turn every ignorant meddling magistrate into a state
inquisitor, to insist that a plain man, who lived peaceably, who obeyed
the laws, who paid his taxes, who had never held and who did not expect
ever to hold any office, and who had never troubled his head about
problems of political philosophy, should declare, under the sanction
of an oath, a decided opinion on a point about which the most learned
Doctors of the age had written whole libraries of controversial books,
and to send him to rot in a gaol if he could not bring himself to swear,
would surely have been the height of tyranny. The clause which required
public functionaries to abjure the deposed King was not open to the same
objections. Yet even against this clause some weighty arguments
were urged. A man, it was said, who has an honest heart and a sound
understanding is sufficiently bound by the present oath. Every such
man, when he swears to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to King
William, does, by necessary implication, abjure King James. There
may doubtless be among the servants of the State, and even among the
ministers of the Church, some persons who have no sense of honour or
religion, and who are ready to forswear themselves for lucre. There may
be others who have contracted the pernicious habit of quibbling away the
most sacred obligations of morality, and who have convinced themselves
that they can innocently make, with a mental reservation, a promise
which it would be sinful to make without such a reservation. Against
these two classes of Jacobites it is true that the present test affords
no security. But will the new test, will any test, be more efficacious?
Will a person who has no conscience, or a person whose conscience can be
set at rest by immoral sophistry, hesitate to repeat any phrase that you
can dictate? The former will kiss the book without any scruple at all.
The scruples of the latter will be very easily removed. He now swears
allegiance to one King with a mental reservation. He will then abjure
the other King with a mental reservation. Do not flatter yourselves that
the ingenuity of lawgivers will ever devise an oath which the ingenuity
of casuists will not evade. What indeed is the value of any oath in
such a matter? Among the many lessons which the troubles of the last
generation have left us none is more plain than this, that no form of
words, however precise, no imprecation, however awful, ever saved, or
ever will save, a government from destruction, Was not the Solemn League
and Covenant burned by the common hangman amidst the huzzas of tens
of thousands who had themselves subscribed it? Among the statesmen and
warriors who bore the chief part in restoring Charles the Second, how
many were there who had not repeatedly abjured him? Nay, is it not well
known that some of those persons boastfully affirmed that, if they had
not abjured him, they never could have restored him?

The debates were sharp; and the issue during a short time seemed
doubtful; for some of the Tories who were in office were unwilling to
give a vote which might be thought to indicate that they were lukewarm
in the cause of the King whom they served. William, however, took care
to let it be understood that he had no wish to impose a new test on his
subjects. A few words from him decided the event of the conflict. The
bill was rejected thirty-six hours after it had been brought in by a
hundred and ninety-two votes to a hundred and sixty-five, [613]

Even after this defeat the Whigs pertinaciously returned to the attack.
Having failed in one House they renewed the battle in the other. Five
days after the Abjuration Bill had been thrown out in the Commons,
another Abjuration Bill, somewhat milder, but still very severe, was
laid on the table of the Lords, [614] What was now proposed was that
no person should sit in either House of Parliament or hold any office,
civil, military, or judicial, without making a declaration that he would
stand by William and Mary against James and James's adherents. Every
male in the kingdom who had attained the age of sixteen was to make the
same declaration before a certain day. If he failed to do so he was
to pay double taxes and to be incapable of exercising the elective
franchise.

On the day fixed for the second reading, the King came down to the House
of Peers. He gave his assent in form to several laws, unrobed, took his
seat on a chair of state which had been placed for him, and listened
with much interest to the debate. To the general surprise, two noblemen
who had been eminently zealous for the Revolution spoke against the
proposed test. Lord Wharton, a Puritan who had fought for the Long
Parliament, said, with amusing simplicity, that he was a very old man,
that he had lived through troubled times, that he had taken a great many
oaths in his day, and that he was afraid that he had not kept them all.
He prayed that the sin might not be laid to his charge; and he declared
that he could not consent to lay any more snares for his own soul and
for the souls of his neighbours. The Earl of Macclesfield, the captain
of the English volunteers who had accompanied William from Helvoetsluys
to Torbay, declared that he was much in the same case with Lord Wharton.
Marlborough supported the bill. He wondered, he said, that it should
be opposed by Macclesfield, who had borne so preeminent a part in the
Revolution. Macclesfield, irritated by the charge of inconsistency,
retorted with terrible severity: "The noble Earl," he said, "exaggerates
the share which I had in the deliverance of our country. I was ready,
indeed, and always shall be ready, to venture my life in defence of her
laws and liberties. But there are lengths to which, even for the sake of
her laws and liberties, I could never go. I only rebelled against a bad
King; there were those who did much more. "

Marlborough, though not easily discomposed, could not but feel the edge
of this sarcasm; William looked displeased; and the aspect of the whole
House was troubled and gloomy. It was resolved by fifty-one votes to
forty that the bill should be committed; and it was committed, but
never reported. After many hard struggles between the Whigs headed
by Shrewsbury and the Tories headed by Caermarthen, it was so much
mutilated that it retained little more than its name, and did not seem
to those who had introduced it to be worth any further contest, [615]

The discomfiture of the Whigs was completed by a communication from the
King. Caermarthen appeared in the House of Lords bearing in his hand
a parchment signed by William. It was an Act of Grace for political
offences.

Between an Act of Grace originating with the Sovereign and an Act of
Indemnity originating with the Estates of the Realm there are some
remarkable distinctions. An Act of Indemnity passes through all the
stages through which other laws pass, and may, during its progress, be
amended by either House. An Act of Grace is received with peculiar marks
of respect, is read only once by the Lords and once by the Commons,
and must be either rejected altogether or accepted as it stands,
[616] William had not ventured to submit such an Act to the preceding
Parliament. But in the new Parliament he was certain of a majority.
The minority gave no trouble. The stubborn spirit which had, during two
sessions, obstructed the progress of the Bill of Indemnity had been
at length broken by defeats and humiliations. Both Houses stood up
uncovered while the Act of Grace was read, and gave their sanction to it
without one dissentient voice.

There would not have been this unanimity had not a few great criminals
been excluded from the benefits of the amnesty. Foremost among them
stood the surviving members of the High Court of Justice which had
sate on Charles the First. With these ancient men were joined the two
nameless executioners who had done their office, with masked faces, on
the scaffold before the Banqueting House. None knew who they were, or
of what rank. It was probable that they had been long dead. Yet it
was thought necessary to declare that, if even now, after the lapse of
forty-one years, they should be discovered, they would still be liable
to the punishment of their great crime. Perhaps it would hardly have
been thought necessary to mention these men, if the animosities of the
preceding generation had not been rekindled by the recent appearance of
Ludlow in England. About thirty of the agents of the tyranny of James
were left to the law. With these exceptions, all political offences,
committed before the day on which the royal signature was affixed to the
Act, were covered with a general oblivion, [617] Even the criminals who
were by name excluded had little to fear. Many of them were in foreign
countries; and those who were in England were well assured that, unless
they committed some new fault, they would not be molested.

The Act of Grace the nation owed to William alone; and it is one of his
noblest and purest titles to renown. From the commencement of the
civil troubles of the seventeenth century down to the Revolution,
every victory gained by either party had been followed by a sanguinary
proscription. When the Roundheads triumphed over the Cavaliers, when the
Cavaliers triumphed over the Roundheads, when the fable of the Popish
plot gave the ascendency to the Whigs, when the detection of the Rye
House Plot transferred the ascendency to the Tories, blood, and more
blood, and still more blood had flowed. Every great explosion and every
great recoil of public feeling had been accompanied by severities which,
at the time, the predominant faction loudly applauded, but which, on a
calm review, history and posterity have condemned. No wise and humane
man, whatever may be his political opinions, now mentions without
reprehension the death either of Laud or of Vane, either of Stafford or
of Russell. Of the alternate butcheries the last and the worst is that
which is inseparably associated with the names of James and Jeffreys.
But it assuredly would not have been the last, perhaps it might not
have been the worst, if William had not had the virtue and the firmness
resolutely to withstand the importunity of his most zealous adherents.
These men were bent on exacting a terrible retribution for all they had
undergone during seven disastrous years. The scaffold of Sidney, the
gibbet of Cornish, the stake at which Elizabeth Gaunt had perished in
the flames for the crime of harbouring a fugitive, the porches of the
Somersetshire churches surmounted by the skulls and quarters of murdered
peasants, the holds of those Jamaica ships from which every day the
carcass of some prisoner dead of thirst and foul air had been flung to
the sharks, all these things were fresh in the memory of the party which
the Revolution had made, for a time, dominant in the State. Some chiefs
of that party had redeemed their necks by paying heavy ransom. Others
had languished long in Newgate. Others had starved and shivered, winter
after winter, in the garrets of Amsterdam. It was natural that in the
day of their power and prosperity they should wish to inflict some part
of what they had suffered. During a whole year they pursued their scheme
of revenge. They succeeded in defeating Indemnity Bill after Indemnity
Bill. Nothing stood between them and their victims, but William's
immutable resolution that the glory of the great deliverance which he
had wrought should not be sullied by cruelty. His clemency was peculiar
to himself. It was not the clemency of an ostentatious man, or of
a sentimental man, or of an easy tempered man. It was cold,
unconciliating, inflexible. It produced no fine stage effects. It drew
on him the savage invectives of those whose malevolent passions he
refused to satisfy. It won for him no gratitude from those who owed to
him fortune, liberty and life. While the violent Whigs railed at his
lenity, the agents of the fallen government, as soon as they found
themselves safe, instead of acknowledging their obligations to him,
reproached him in insulting language with the mercy which he had
extended to them. His Act of Grace, they said, had completely refuted
his Declaration. Was it possible to believe that, if there had been any
truth in the charges which he had brought against the late government,
he would have granted impunity to the guilty? It was now acknowledged
by himself, under his own hand, that the stories by which he and his
friends had deluded the nation and driven away the royal family were
mere calumnies devised to serve a turn. The turn had been served; and
the accusations by which he had inflamed the public mind to madness were
coolly withdrawn, [618] But none of these things moved him. He had done
well. He had risked his popularity with men who had been his warmest
admirers, in order to give repose and security to men by whom his name
was never mentioned without a curse. Nor had he conferred a less benefit
on those whom he had disappointed of their revenge than on those whom he
had protected. If he had saved one faction from a proscription, he
had saved the other from the reaction which such a proscription would
inevitably have produced. If his people did not justly appreciate his
policy, so much the worse for them. He had discharged his duty by them.
He feared no obloquy; and he wanted no thanks.

On the twentieth of May the Act of Grace was passed. The King then
informed the Houses that his visit to Ireland could no longer be
delayed, that he had therefore determined to prorogue them, and that,
unless some unexpected emergency made their advice and assistance
necessary to him, he should not call them again from their homes till
the next winter. "Then," he said, "I hope, by the blessing of God, we
shall have a happy meeting. "

The Parliament had passed an Act providing that, whenever he should
go out of England, it should be lawful for Mary to administer the
government of the kingdom in his name and her own. It was added that he
should nevertheless, during his absence, retain all his authority. Some
objections were made to this arrangement. Here, it was said, were
two supreme Powers in one State. A public functionary might receive
diametrically opposite orders from the King and the Queen, and might not
know which to obey. The objection was, beyond all doubt, speculatively
just; but there was such perfect confidence and affection, between the
royal pair that no practical inconvenience was to be apprehended, [619]

As far as Ireland was concerned, the prospects of William were much
more cheering than they had been a few months earlier. The activity
with which he had personally urged forward the preparations for the
next campaign had produced an extraordinary effect. The nerves of
the government were new strung. In every department of the military
administration the influence of a vigorous mind was perceptible.
Abundant supplies of food, clothing and medicine, very different in
quality from those which Shales had furnished, were sent across Saint
George's Channel. A thousand baggage waggons had been made or collected
with great expedition; and, during some weeks, the road between London
and Chester was covered with them. Great numbers of recruits were sent
to fill the chasms which pestilence had made in the English ranks. Fresh
regiments from Scotland, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland had landed
in the Bay of Belfast. The uniforms and arms of the new corners clearly
indicated the potent influence of the master's eye. With the British
battalions were interspersed several hardy bands of German and
Scandinavian mercenaries. Before the end of May. the English force in
Ulster amounted to thirty thousand fighting men. A few more troops and
an immense quantity of military stores were on board of a fleet which
lay in the estuary of the Dee, and which was ready to weigh anchor as
soon as the King was on board, [620]

James ought to have made an equally good use of the time during which
his army had been in winter quarters. Strict discipline and regular
drilling might, in the interval between November and May, have turned
the athletic and enthusiastic peasants who were assembled under his
standard into good soldiers. But the opportunity was lost. The Court of
Dublin was, during that season of inaction, busied with dice and claret,
love letters and challenges. The aspect of the capital was indeed not
very brilliant. The whole number of coaches which could be mustered
there, those of the King and of the French Legation included, did not
amount to forty, [621] But though there was little splendour there was
much dissoluteness. Grave Roman Catholics shook their heads and said
that the Castle did not look like the palace of a King who gloried in
being the champion of the Church, [622] The military administration was
as deplorable as ever. The cavalry indeed was, by the exertions of some
gallant officers, kept in a high state of efficiency. But a regiment of
infantry differed in nothing but name from a large gang of Rapparees.
Indeed a gang of Rapparees gave less annoyance to peaceable citizens,
and more annoyance to the enemy, than a regiment of infantry. Avaux
strongly represented, in a memorial which he delivered to James, the
abuses which made the Irish foot a curse and a scandal to Ireland. Whole
companies, said the ambassador, quit their colours on the line of march
and wander to right and left pillaging and destroying; the soldier takes
no care of his arms; the officer never troubles himself to ascertain
whether the arms are in good order; the consequence is that one man in
every three has lost his musket, and that another man in every three
has a musket that will not go off. Avaux adjured the King to prohibit
marauding, to give orders that the troops should be regularly exercised,
and to punish every officer who suffered his men to neglect their
weapons and accoutrements. If these things were done, His Majesty might
hope to have, in the approaching spring, an army with which the enemy
would be unable to contend. This was good advice; but James was so far
from taking it that he would hardly listen to it with patience. Before
he had heard eight lines read he flew into a passion and accused the
ambassador of exaggeration. "This paper, Sir," said Avaux, "is
not written to be published. It is meant solely for Your Majesty's
information; and, in a paper meant solely for Your Majesty's
information, flattery and disguise would be out of place; but I will not
persist in reading what is so disagreeable. " "Go on," said James very
angrily; "I will hear the whole. " He gradually became calmer, took
the memorial, and promised to adopt some of the suggestions which it
contained. But his promise was soon forgotten, [623]

His financial administration was of a piece with his military
administration. His one fiscal resource was robbery, direct or indirect.
Every Protestant who had remained in any part of the three southern
provinces of Ireland was robbed directly, by the simple process of
taking money out of his strong box, drink out of his cellars, fuel from
his turf stack, and clothes from his wardrobe. He was robbed indirectly
by a new issue of counters, smaller in size and baser in material than
any which had yet borne the image and superscription of James. Even
brass had begun to be scarce at Dublin; and it was necessary to ask
assistance from Lewis, who charitably bestowed on his ally an old
cracked piece of cannon to be coined into crowns and shillings, [624]

But the French king had determined to send over succours of a very
different kind. He proposed to take into his own service, and to form by
the best discipline then known in the world, four Irish regiments. They
were to be commanded by Macarthy, who had been severely wounded and
taken prisoner at Newton Butler. His wounds had been healed; and he had
regained his liberty by violating his parole. This disgraceful breach
of faith he had made more disgraceful by paltry tricks and sophistical
excuses which would have become a Jesuit better than a gentleman and a
soldier. Lewis was willing that the Irish regiments should be sent to
him in rags and unarmed, and insisted only that the men should be stout,
and that the officers should not be bankrupt traders and discarded
lacqueys, but, if possible, men of good family who had seen service. In
return for these troops, who were in number not quite four thousand, he
undertook to send to Ireland between seven and eight thousand excellent
French infantry, who were likely in a day of battle to be of more use
than all the kernes of Leinster, Munster and Connaught together, [625]

One great error he committed. The army which he was sending to assist
James, though small indeed when compared with the army of Flanders or
with the army of the Rhine, was destined for a service on which the fate
of Europe might depend, and ought therefore to have been commanded by a
general of eminent abilities. There was no want of such generals in
the French service. But James and his Queen begged hard for Lauzun, and
carried this point against the strong representations of Avaux, against
the advice of Louvois, and against the judgment of Lewis himself.

When Lauzun went to the cabinet of Louvois to receive instructions, the
wise minister held language which showed how little confidence he felt
in the vain and eccentric knight errant. "Do not, for God's sake, suffer
yourself to be hurried away by your desire of fighting. Put all your
glory in tiring the English out; and, above all things, maintain strict
discipline. " [626]

Not only was the appointment of Lauzun in itself a bad appointment: but,
in order that one man might fill a post for which he was unfit, it was
necessary to remove two men from posts for which they were eminently
fit. Immoral and hardhearted as Rosen and Avaux were, Rosen was a
skilful captain, and Avaux was a skilful politician. Though it is not
probable that they would have been able to avert the doom of Ireland, it
is probable that they might have been able to protract the contest; and
it was evidently for the interest of France that the contest should be
protracted. But it would have been an affront to the old general to put
him under the orders of Lauzun; and between the ambassador and Lauzun
there was such an enmity that they could not be expected to act
cordially together.
Both Rosen and Avaux, therefore, were, with many
soothing assurances of royal approbation and favour, recalled to
France. They sailed from Cork early in the spring by the fleet which had
conveyed Lauzun thither, [627] Lauzun had no sooner landed than he found
that, though he had been long expected, nothing had been prepared for
his reception. No lodgings had been provided for his men, no place of
security for his stores, no horses, no carriages, [628] His troops had
to undergo the hardships of a long march through a desert before
they arrived at Dublin. At Dublin, indeed, they found tolerable
accommodation. They were billeted on Protestants, lived at free
quarter, had plenty of bread, and threepence a day. Lauzun was appointed
Commander in Chief of the Irish army, and took up his residence in the
Castle, [629] His salary was the same with that of the Lord Lieutenant,
eight thousand Jacobuses, equivalent to ten thousand pounds sterling, a
year. This sum James offered to pay, not in the brass which bore his own
effigy, but in French gold. But Lauzun, among whose faults avarice had
no place, refused to fill his own coffers from an almost empty treasury,
[630]

On him and on the Frenchmen who accompanied him the misery of the Irish
people and the imbecility of the Irish government produced an effect
which they found it difficult to describe. Lauzun wrote to Louvois that
the Court and the whole kingdom were in a state not to be imagined by a
person who had always lived in well governed countries. It was, he
said, a chaos, such as he had read of in the book of Genesis. The whole
business of all the public functionaries was to quarrel with each other,
and to plunder the government and the people. After he had been about
a month at the Castle, he declared that he would not go through such
another month for all the world. His ablest officers confirmed his
testimony, [631] One of them, indeed, was so unjust as to represent the
people of Ireland not merely as ignorant and idle, which they were, but
as hopelessly stupid and unfeeling, which they assuredly were not. The
English policy, he said, had so completely brutalised them, that they
could hardly be called human beings. They were insensible to praise and
blame, to promises and threats. And yet it was pity of them; for they
were physically the finest race of men in the world, [632]

By this time Schomberg had opened the campaign auspiciously. He had with
little difficulty taken Charlemont, the last important fastness which
the Irish occupied in Ulster. But the great work of reconquering the
three southern provinces of the island he deferred till William should
arrive. William meanwhile was busied in making arrangements for the
government and defence of England during his absence. He well knew that
the Jacobites were on the alert. They had not till very lately been an
united and organized faction. There had been, to use Melfort's phrase,
numerous gangs, which were all in communication with James at Dublin
Castle, or with Mary of Modena at Saint Germains, but which had no
connection with each other and were unwilling to trust each other, [633]
But since it had been known that the usurper was about to cross the sea,
and that his sceptre would be left in a female hand, these gangs
had been drawing close together, and had begun to form one extensive
confederacy. Clarendon, who had refused the oaths, and, Aylesbury, who
had dishonestly taken them, were among the chief traitors. Dartmouth,
though he had sworn allegiance to the sovereigns who were in possession,
was one of their most active enemies, and undertook what may be called
the maritime department of the plot. His mind was constantly occupied
by schemes, disgraceful to an English seaman, for the destruction of
the English fleets and arsenals. He was in close communication with some
naval officers, who, though they served the new government, served
it sullenly and with half a heart; and he flattered himself that by
promising these men ample rewards, and by artfully inflaming the jealous
animosity with which they regarded the Dutch flag, he should prevail on
them to desert and to carry their ships into some French or Irish port,
[634]

The conduct of Penn was scarcely less scandalous. He was a zealous and
busy Jacobite; and his new way of life was even more unfavourable than
his late way of life had been to moral purity. It was hardly possible
to be at once a consistent Quaker and a courtier: but it was utterly
impossible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a conspirator. It
is melancholy to relate that Penn, while professing to consider even
defensive war as sinful, did every thing in his power to bring a foreign
army into the heart of his own country. He wrote to inform James that
the adherents of the Prince of Orange dreaded nothing so much as an
appeal to the sword, and that, if England were now invaded from France
or from Ireland, the number of Royalists would appear to be greater than
ever. Avaux thought this letter so important, that he sent a translation
of it to Lewis, [635] A good effect, the shrewd ambassador wrote, had
been produced, by this and similar communications, on the mind of King
James. His Majesty was at last convinced that he could recover his
dominions only sword in hand. It is a curious fact that it should have
been reserved for the great preacher of peace to produce this conviction
in the mind of the old tyrant, [636] Penn's proceedings had not escaped
the observation of the government. Warrants had been out against him;
and he had been taken into custody; but the evidence against him had not
been such as would support a charge of high treason: he had, as with
all his faults he deserved to have, many friends in every party; he
therefore soon regained his liberty, and returned to his plots, [637]

But the chief conspirator was Richard Graham, Viscount Preston, who had,
in the late reign, been Secretary of State. Though a peer in Scotland,
he was only a baronet in England. He had, indeed, received from Saint
Germains an English patent of nobility; but the patent bore a date
posterior to that flight which the Convention had pronounced an
abdication. The Lords had, therefore, not only refused to admit him to
a share of their privileges, but had sent him to prison for presuming to
call himself one of their order. He had, however, by humbling himself,
and by withdrawing his claim, obtained his liberty, [638] Though the
submissive language which he had condescended to use on this occasion
did not indicate a spirit prepared for martyrdom, he was regarded by his
party, and by the world in general, as a man of courage and honour. He
still retained the seals of his office, and was still considered by
the adherents of indefeasible hereditary right as the real Secretary of
State. He was in high favour with Lewis, at whose court he had formerly
resided, and had, since the Revolution, been intrusted by the French
government with considerable sums of money for political purposes, [639]

While Preston was consulting in the capital with the other heads of the
faction, the rustic Jacobites were laying in arms, holding musters, and
forming themselves into companies, troops, and regiments. There were
alarming symptoms in Worcestershire. In Lancashire many gentlemen had
received commissions signed by James, called themselves colonels and
captains, and made out long lists of noncommissioned officers and
privates. Letters from Yorkshire brought news that large bodies of men,
who seemed to have met for no good purpose, had been seen on the moors
near Knaresborough. Letters from Newcastle gave an account of a great
match at football which had been played in Northumberland, and was
suspected to have been a pretext for a gathering of the disaffected. In
the crowd, it was said, were a hundred and fifty horsemen well mounted
and armed, of whom many were Papists, [640]

Meantime packets of letters full of treason were constantly passing and
repassing between Kent and Picardy, and between Wales and Ireland.
Some of the messengers were honest fanatics; but others were mere
mercenaries, and trafficked in the secrets of which they were the
bearers.

Of these double traitors the most remarkable was William Fuller. This
man has himself told us that, when he was very young, he fell in with a
pamphlet which contained an account of the flagitious life and horrible
death of Dangerfield. The boy's imagination was set on fire; he devoured
the book; he almost got it by heart; and he was soon seized, and ever
after haunted, by a strange presentiment that his fate would resemble
that of the wretched adventurer whose history he had so eagerly read,
[641] It might have been supposed that the prospect of dying in Newgate,
with a back flayed and an eye knocked out, would not have seemed very
attractive. But experience proves that there are some distempered minds
for which notoriety, even when accompanied with pain and shame, has an
irresistible fascination. Animated by this loathsome ambition, Fuller
equalled, and perhaps surpassed, his model. He was bred a Roman
Catholic, and was page to Lady Melfort, when Lady Melfort shone at
Whitehall as one of the loveliest women in the train of Mary of Modena.
After the Revolution, he followed his mistress to France, was repeatedly
employed in delicate and perilous commissions, and was thought at Saint
Germains to be a devoted servant of the House of Stuart. In truth,
however, he had, in one of his journeys to London, sold himself to the
new government, and had abjured the faith in which he had been brought
up. The honour, if it is to be so called, of turning him from a
worthless Papist into a worthless Protestant he ascribed, with
characteristic impudence, to the lucid reasoning and blameless life of
Tillotson.

In the spring of 1690, Mary of Modena wished to send to her
correspondents in London some highly important despatches. As these
despatches were too bulky to be concealed in the clothes of a single
messenger, it was necessary to employ two confidential persons. Fuller
was one. The other was a zealous young Jacobite called Crone. Before
they set out, they received full instructions from the Queen herself.
Not a scrap of paper was to be detected about them by an ordinary
search: but their buttons contained letters written in invisible ink.

The pair proceeded to Calais. The governor of that town furnished them
with a boat, which, under cover of the night, set them on the low
marshy coast of Kent, near the lighthouse of Dungeness. They walked to
a farmhouse, procured horses, and took different roads to London. Fuller
hastened to the palace at Kensington, and delivered the documents
with which he was charged into the King's hand. The first letter which
William unrolled seemed to contain only florid compliments: but a pan
of charcoal was lighted: a liquor well known to the diplomatists of that
age was applied to the paper: an unsavoury steam filled the closet; and
lines full of grave meaning began to appear.

The first thing to be done was to secure Crone. He had unfortunately had
time to deliver his letters before he was caught: but a snare was laid
for him into which he easily fell. In truth the sincere Jacobites were
generally wretched plotters. There was among them an unusually large
proportion of sots, braggarts, and babblers; and Crone was one of these.
Had he been wise, he would have shunned places of public resort, kept
strict guard over his lips, and stinted himself to one bottle at a meal.
He was found by the messengers of the government at a tavern table in
Gracechurch Street, swallowing bumpers to the health of King James,
and ranting about the coming restoration, the French fleet, and the
thousands of honest Englishmen who were awaiting the signal to rise in
arms for their rightful Sovereign. He was carried to the Secretary's
office at Whitehall. He at first seemed to be confident and at his
ease: but when Fuller appeared among the bystanders at liberty, and in a
fashionable garb, with a sword, the prisoner's courage fell; and he was
scarcely able to articulate, [642]

The news that Fuller had turned king's evidence, that Crone had been
arrested, and that important letters from Saint Germains were in the
hands of William, flew fast through London, and spread dismay among all
who were conscious of guilt, [643] It was true that the testimony of one
witness, even if that witness had been more respectable than Fuller, was
not legally sufficient to convict any person of high treason. But Fuller
had so managed matters that several witnesses could be produced to
corroborate his evidence against Crone; and, if Crone, under the strong
terror of death, should imitate Fuller's example, the heads of all the
chiefs of the conspiracy would be at the mercy of the government. The
spirits of the Jacobites rose, however, when it was known that Crone,
though repeatedly interrogated by those who had him in their power, and
though assured that nothing but a frank confession could save his life,
had resolutely continued silent. What effect a verdict of Guilty and the
near prospect of the gallows might produce on him remained to be seen.
His accomplices were by no means willing that his fortitude should be
tried by so severe a test. They therefore employed numerous artifices,
legal and illegal, to avert a conviction. A woman named Clifford, with
whom he had lodged, and who was one of the most active and cunning
agents of the Jacobite faction, was entrusted with the duty of keeping
him steady to the cause, and of rendering to him services from which
scrupulous or timid agents might have shrunk. When the dreaded day
came, Fuller was too ill to appear in the witness box, and the trial
was consequently postponed. He asserted that his malady was not natural,
that a noxious drug had been administered to him in a dish of porridge,
that his nails were discoloured, that his hair came off, and that able
physicians pronounced him poisoned. But such stories, even when they
rest on authority much better than that of Fuller, ought to be received
with great distrust.

While Crone was awaiting his trial, another agent of the Court of
Saint Germains, named Tempest, was seized on the road between Dover and
London, and was found to be the bearer of numerous letters addressed to
malecontents in England, [644]

Every day it became more plain that the State was surrounded by dangers:
and yet it was absolutely necessary that, at this conjuncture, the able
and resolute Chief of the State should quit his post.

William, with painful anxiety, such as he alone was able to conceal
under an appearance of stoical serenity, prepared to take his departure.
Mary was in agonies of grief; and her distress affected him more than
was imagined by those who judged of his heart by his demeanour, [645] He
knew too that he was about to leave her surrounded by difficulties
with which her habits had not qualified her to contend. She would be in
constant need of wise and upright counsel; and where was such counsel to
be found? There were indeed among his servants many able men and a
few virtuous men. But, even when he was present, their political and
personal animosities had too often made both their abilities and their
virtues useless to him. What chance was there that the gentle Mary would
be able to restrain that party spirit and that emulation which had been
but very imperfectly kept in order by her resolute and politic lord?
If the interior cabinet which was to assist the Queen were composed
exclusively either of Whigs or of Tories, half the nation would be
disgusted. Yet, if Whigs and Tories were mixed, it was certain that
there would be constant dissension. Such was William's situation that he
had only a choice of evils.

All these difficulties were increased by the conduct of Shrewsbury. The
character of this man is a curious study. He seemed to be the petted
favourite both of nature and of fortune. Illustrious birth, exalted
rank, ample possessions, fine parts, extensive acquirements, an
agreeable person, manners singularly graceful and engaging, combined
to make him an object of admiration and envy. But, with all these
advantages, he had some moral and intellectual peculiarities which made
him a torment to himself and to all connected with him. His conduct
at the time of the Revolution had given the world a high opinion, not
merely of his patriotism, but of his courage, energy and decision. It
should seem, however, that youthful enthusiasm and the exhilaration
produced by public sympathy and applause had, on that occasion, raised
him above himself. Scarcely any other part of his life was of a piece
with that splendid commencement. He had hardly become Secretary of State
when it appeared that his nerves were too weak for such a post. The
daily toil, the heavy responsibility, the failures, the mortifications,
the obloquy, which are inseparable from power, broke his spirit,
soured his temper, and impaired his health. To such natures as his the
sustaining power of high religious principle seems to be peculiarly
necessary; and unfortunately Shrewsbury had, in the act of shaking off
the yoke of that superstition in which he had been brought up, liberated
himself also from more salutary bands which might perhaps have braced
his too delicately constituted mind into stedfastness and uprightness.
Destitute of such support, he was, with great abilities, a weak man,
and, though endowed with many amiable and attractive qualities, could
not be called an honest man. For his own happiness, he should either
have been much better or much worse. As it was, he never knew either
that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude, or that
abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and insensibility. Few
people who have had so little power to resist temptation have suffered
so cruelly from remorse and shame.

To a man of this temper the situation of a minister of state during the
year which followed the Revolution must have been constant torture.
The difficulties by which the government was beset on all sides, the
malignity of its enemies, the unreasonableness of its friends, the
virulence with which the hostile factions fell on each other and on
every mediator who attempted to part them, might indeed have discouraged
a more resolute spirit. Before Shrewsbury had been six months in office,
he had completely lost heart and head. He began to address to William
letters which it is difficult to imagine that a prince so strongminded
can have read without mingled compassion and contempt. "I am
sensible,"--such was the constant burden of these epistles,--"that I am
unfit for my place. I cannot exert myself. I am not the same man that I
was half a year ago. My health is giving way. My mind is on the rack.
My memory is failing. Nothing but quiet and retirement can restore me. "
William returned friendly and soothing answers; and, for a time, these
answers calmed the troubled mind of his minister, [646] But at length
the dissolution, the general election, the change in the Commissions
of Peace and Lieutenancy, and finally the debates on the two Abjuration
Bills, threw Shrewsbury into a state bordering on distraction. He was
angry with the Whigs for using the King ill, and yet was still more
angry with the King for showing favour to the Tories. At what moment and
by what influence, the unhappy man was induced to commit a treason, the
consciousness of which threw a dark shade over all his remaining years,
is not accurately known. But it is highly probable that his mother, who,
though the most abandoned of women, had great power over him, took a
fatal advantage of some unguarded hour when he was irritated by finding
his advice slighted, and that of Danby and Nottingham preferred. She was
still a member of that Church which her son had quitted, and may have
thought that, by reclaiming him from rebellion, she might make some
atonement for the violation of her marriage vow and the murder of her
lord, [647] What is certain is that, before the end of the spring of
1690, Shrewsbury had offered his services to James, and that James had
accepted them. One proof of the sincerity of the convert was demanded.
He must resign the seals which he had taken from the hand of the
usurper, [648] It is probable that Shrewsbury had scarcely committed his
fault when he began to repent of it. But he had not strength of mind to
stop short in the path of evil. Loathing his own baseness, dreading
a detection which must be fatal to his honour, afraid to go forward,
afraid to go back, he underwent tortures of which it is impossible to
think without commiseration. The true cause of his distress was as yet
a profound secret; but his mental struggles and changes of purpose were
generally known, and furnished the town, during some weeks, with topics
of conversation. One night, when he was actually setting out in a state
of great excitement for the palace, with the seals in his hand, he was
induced by Burnet to defer his resignation for a few hours. Some days
later, the eloquence of Tillotson was employed for the same purpose,
[649] Three or four times the Earl laid the ensigns of his office on the
table of the royal closet, and was three or four times induced, by
the kind expostulations of the master whom he was conscious of having
wronged, to take them up and carry them away. Thus the resignation was
deferred till the eve of the King's departure. By that time agitation
had thrown Shrewsbury into a low fever. Bentinck, who made a last effort
to persuade him to retain office, found him in bed and too ill for
conversation, [650] The resignation so often tendered was at length
accepted; and during some months Nottingham was the only Secretary of
State.

It was no small addition to William's troubles that, at such a moment,
his government should be weakened by this defection. He tried, however,
to do his best with the materials which remained to him, and finally
selected nine privy councillors, by whose advice he enjoined Mary to be
guided. Four of these, Devonshire, Dorset, Monmouth, and Edward
Russell, were Whigs. The other five, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham,
Marlborough, and Lowther, were Tories, [651]

William ordered the Nine to attend him at the office of the Secretary of
State. When they were assembled, he came leading in the Queen, desired
them to be seated, and addressed to them a few earnest and weighty
words. "She wants experience," he said; "but I hope that, by choosing
you to be her counsellors, I have supplied that defect. I put my kingdom
into your hands. Nothing foreign or domestic shall be kept secret from
you. I implore you to be diligent and to be united. " [652] In private
he told his wife what he thought of the characters of the Nine; and it
should seem, from her letters to him, that there were few of the number
for whom he expressed any high esteem. Marlborough was to be her guide
in military affairs, and was to command the troops in England. Russell,
who was Admiral of the Blue, and had been rewarded for the service which
he had done at the time of the Revolution with the lucrative place
of Treasurer of the Navy, was well fitted to be her adviser on all
questions relating to the fleet. But Caermarthen was designated as the
person on whom, in case of any difference of opinion in the council,
she ought chiefly to rely. Caermarthen's sagacity and experience were
unquestionable; his principles, indeed, were lax; but, if there was any
person in existence to whom he was likely to be true, that person was
Mary. He had long been in a peculiar manner her friend and servant: he
had gained a high place in her favour by bringing about her marriage;
and he had, in the Convention, carried his zeal for her interests to a
length which she had herself blamed as excessive. There was, therefore,
every reason to hope that he would serve her at this critical
conjuncture with sincere good will, [653]

One of her nearest kinsmen, on the other hand, was one of her bitterest
enemies. The evidence which was in the possession of the government
proved beyond dispute that Clarendon was deeply concerned in the
Jacobite schemes of insurrection. But the Queen was most unwilling that
her kindred should be harshly treated; and William, remembering through
what ties she had broken, and what reproaches she had incurred, for his
sake, readily gave her uncle's life and liberty to her intercession.
But, before the King set out for Ireland, he spoke seriously to
Rochester. "Your brother has been plotting against me. I am sure of it.
I have the proofs under his own hand. I was urged to leave him out of
the Act of Grace; but I would not do what would have given so much pain
to the Queen. For her sake I forgive the past; but my Lord Clarendon
will do well to be cautious for the future. If not, he will find that
these are no jesting matters. " Rochester communicated the admonition to
Clarendon. Clarendon, who was in constant correspondence with Dublin and
Saint Germains, protested that his only wish was to be quiet, and that,
though he had a scruple about the oaths, the existing government had not
a more obedient subject than he purposed to be, [654]

Among the letters which the government had intercepted was one from
James to Penn. That letter, indeed, was not legal evidence to prove that
the person to whom it was addressed had been guilty of high treason; but
it raised suspicions which are now known to have been well founded. Penn
was brought before the Privy Council, and interrogated. He said very
truly that he could not prevent people from writing to him, and that he
was not accountable for what they might write to him. He acknowledged
that he was bound to the late King by ties of gratitude and affection
which no change of fortune could dissolve. "I should be glad to do
him any service in his private affairs: but I owe a sacred duty to
my country; and therefore I was never so wicked as even to think of
endeavouring to bring him back. " This was a falsehood; and William was
probably aware that it was so. He was unwilling however to deal harshly
with a man who had many titles to respect, and who was not likely to be
a very formidable plotter. He therefore declared himself satisfied,
and proposed to discharge the prisoner. Some of the Privy Councillors,
however, remonstrated; and Penn was required to give bail, [655]

On the day before William's departure, he called Burnet into his closet,
and, in firm but mournful language, spoke of the dangers which on every
side menaced the realm, of the fury or the contending factions, and of
the evil spirit which seemed to possess too many of the clergy. "But my
trust is in God. I will go through with my work or perish in it. Only
I cannot help feeling for the poor Queen;" and twice he repeated with
unwonted tenderness, "the poor Queen. " "If you love me," he added, "wait
on her often, and give her what help you can. As for me, but for one
thing, I should enjoy the prospect of being on horseback and under
canvass again. For I am sure I am fitter to direct a campaign than to
manage your House of Lords and Commons. But, though I know that I am in
the path of duty, it is hard on my wife that her father and I must be
opposed to each other in the field. God send that no harm may happen to
him. Let me have your prayers, Doctor. " Burnet retired greatly moved,
and doubtless put up, with no common fervour, those prayers for which
his master had asked, [656]

On the following day, the fourth of June, the King set out for Ireland.
Prince George had offered his services, had equipped himself at great
charge, and fully expected to be complimented with a seat in the royal
coach. But William, who promised himself little pleasure or advantage
from His Royal Highness's conversation, and who seldom stood on
ceremony, took Portland for a travelling companion, and never once,
during the whole of that eventful campaign, seemed to be aware of the
Prince's existence, [657] George, if left to himself, would hardly have
noticed the affront. But, though he was too dull to feel, his wife felt
for him; and her resentment was studiously kept alive by mischiefmakers
of no common dexterity. On this, as on many other occasions, the
infirmities of William's temper proved seriously detrimental to the
great interests of which he was the guardian. His reign would have been
far more prosperous if, with his own courage, capacity and elevation of
mind, he had had a little of the easy good humour and politeness of his
uncle Charles.

In four days the King arrived at Chester, where a fleet of transports
was awaiting the signal for sailing. He embarked on the eleventh of
June, and was convoyed across Saint George's Channel by a squadron of
men of war under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, [658]

The month which followed William's departure from London was one of the
most eventful and anxious months in the whole history of England. A
few hours after he had set out, Crone was brought to the bar of the Old
Bailey. A great array of judges was on the Bench. Fuller had recovered
sufficiently to make his appearance in court; and the trial proceeded.
The Jacobites had been indefatigable in their efforts to ascertain the
political opinions of the persons whose names were on the jury list.
So many were challenged that there was some difficulty in making up the
number of twelve; and among the twelve was one on whom the malecontents
thought that they could depend. Nor were they altogether mistaken; for
this man held out against his eleven companions all night and half the
next day; and he would probably have starved them into submission had
not Mrs. Clifford, who was in league with him, been caught throwing
sweetmeats to him through the window. His supplies having been cut off,
he yielded; and a verdict of Guilty, which, it was said, cost two of the
jurymen their lives, was returned. A motion in arrest of judgment was
instantly made, on the ground that a Latin word indorsed on the back
of the indictment was incorrectly spelt. The objection was undoubtedly
frivolous. Jeffreys would have at once overruled it with a torrent of
curses, and would have proceeded to the most agreeable part of his duty,
that of describing to the prisoner the whole process of half hanging,
disembowelling, mutilating, and quartering. But Holt and his brethren
remembered that they were now for the first time since the Revolution
trying a culprit on a charge of high treason. It was therefore desirable
to show, in a manner not to be misunderstood, that a new era had
commenced, and that the tribunals would in future rather err on the side
of humanity than imitate the cruel haste and levity with which Cornish
had, when pleading for his life, been silenced by servile judges. The
passing of the sentence was therefore deferred: a day was appointed
for considering the point raised by Crone; and counsel were assigned to
argue in his behalf.