No More Learning

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, but 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 be enforced or not would depend on his subsequent
conduct. If he would support the dispensing power nothing would be
exacted from him. If he was bent on popularity he must pay thirty
thousand pounds for it. He refused, during some time, to consent to
these terms; but confinement was insupportable to him. He signed the
bond, and was let out of prison: but, though he consented to lay this
heavy burden on his estate, nothing could induce him to promise that he
would abandon his principles and his party. He was still entrusted with
all the secrets of the opposition: but during some months his political
friends thought it best for himself and for the cause that 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.