No More Learning

He had a succession of fits so alarming
that his Privy Councillors, who were assembled in a neighbouring room,
were apprehensive for his reason and his life. The Duke of Leeds, at the
request of his colleagues, ventured to assume the friendly guardianship
of which minds deranged by sorrow stand in need. A few minutes before
the Queen expired, William was removed, almost insensible, from the sick
room.

Mary died in peace with Anne. Before the physicians had pronounced the
case hopeless, the Princess, who was then in very delicate health, had
sent a kind message; and Mary had returned a kind answer. The Princess
had then proposed to come herself; but William had, in very gracious
terms, declined the offer. The excitement of an interview, he said,
would be too much for both sisters. If a favourable turn took place, Her
Royal Highness should be most welcome to Kensington. A few hours later
all was over. [551]

The public sorrow was great and general. For Mary's blameless life, her
large charities and her winning manners had conquered the hearts of
her people. When the Commons next met they sate for a time in profound
silence. At length it was moved and resolved that an Address of
Condolence should be presented to the King; and then the House broke
up without proceeding to other business. The Dutch envoy informed the
States General that many of the members had handkerchiefs at their
eyes. The number of sad faces in the street struck every observer. The
mourning was more general than even the mourning for Charles the Second
had been. On the Sunday which followed the Queen's death her virtues
were celebrated in almost every parish church of the Capital, and in
almost every great meeting of nonconformists. [552]

The most estimable Jacobites respected the sorrow of William and the
memory of Mary. But to the fiercer zealots of the party neither the
house of mourning nor the grave was sacred. At Bristol the adherents of
Sir John Knight rang the bells as if for a victory. [553] It has often
been repeated, and is not at all improbable, that a nonjuring divine, in
the midst of the general lamentation, preached on the text, "Go; see
now this cursed woman and bury her; for she is a King's daughter. " It is
certain that some of the ejected priests pursued her to the grave with
invectives. Her death, they said, was evidently a judgment for her
crime. God had, from the top of Sinai, in thunder and lightning,
promised length of days to children who should honour their parents; and
in this promise was plainly implied a menace. What father had ever been
worse treated by his daughters than James by Mary and Anne? Mary was
gone, cut off in the prime of life, in the glow of beauty, in the
height of prosperity; and Anne would do well to profit by the warning.
Wagstaffe went further, and dwelt much on certain wonderful coincidences
of time. James had been driven from his palace and country in Christmas
week. Mary had died in Christmas week. There could be no doubt that, if
the secrets of Providence were disclosed to us, we should find that the
turns of the daughter's complaint in December 1694 bore an exact
analogy to the turns of the father's fortune in December 1688. It was
at midnight that the father ran away from Rochester; it was at midnight
that the daughter expired. Such was the profundity and such the
ingenuity of a writer whom the Jacobite schismatics justly regarded as
one of their ablest chiefs. [554]

The Whigs soon had an opportunity of retaliating. They triumphantly
related that a scrivener in the Borough, a stanch friend of hereditary
right, while exulting in the judgment which had overtaken the Queen, had
himself fallen down dead in a fit. [555]

The funeral was long remembered as the saddest and most august that
Westminster had ever seen. While the Queen's remains lay in state at
Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from sunrise
to sunset, by crowds which made all traffic impossible. The two Houses
with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet and
ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding Sovereign had
ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament; for, till then, the
Parliament had always expired with the Sovereign. A paper had indeed
been circulated, in which the logic of a small sharp pettifogger was
employed to prove that writs, issued in the joint names of William and
Mary, ceased to be of force as soon as William reigned alone. But this
paltry cavil had completely failed. It had not even been mentioned
in the Lower House, and had been mentioned in the Upper only to be
contemptuously overruled. The whole Magistracy of the City swelled the
procession. The banners of England and France, Scotland and Ireland,
were carried by great nobles before the corpse. The pall was borne
by the chiefs of the illustrious houses of Howard, Seymour, Grey, and
Stanley. On the gorgeous coffin of purple and gold were laid the crown
and sceptre of the realm. The day was well suited to such a ceremony.
The sky was dark and troubled; and a few ghastly flakes of snow fell on
the black plumes of the funeral car. Within the Abbey, nave, choir
and transept were in a blaze with innumerable waxlights. The body was
deposited under a magnificent canopy in the centre of the church while
the Primate preached. The earlier part of his discourse was deformed by
pedantic divisions and subdivisions; but towards the close he told what
he had himself seen and heard with a simplicity and earnestness more
affecting than the most skilful rhetoric. Through the whole ceremony the
distant booming of cannon was heard every minute from the batteries of
the Tower. The gentle Queen sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the
southern aisle of the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. [556]

The affection with which her husband cherished her memory was soon
attested by a monument the most superb that was ever erected to any
sovereign. No scheme had been so much her own, none had been so near her
heart, as that of converting the palace at Greenwich into a retreat
for seamen. It had occurred to her when she had found it difficult to
provide good shelter and good attendance for the thousands of brave men
who had come back to England wounded after the battle of La Hogue. While
she lived scarcely any step was taken towards the accomplishing of her
favourite design. But it should seem that, as soon as her husband had
lost her, he began to reproach himself for having neglected her wishes.
No time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice,
surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Lewis had provided for
his soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. Whoever reads the
inscription which runs round the frieze of the hall will observe that
William claims no part of the merit of the design, and that the praise
is ascribed to Mary alone. Had the King's life been prolonged till the
works were completed, a statue of her who was the real foundress of
the institution would have had a conspicuous place in that court which
presents two lofty domes and two graceful colonnades to the multitudes
who are perpetually passing up and down the imperial river. But that
part of the plan was never carried into effect; and few of those who
now gaze on the noblest of European hospitals are aware that it is a
memorial of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow
of William, and of the great victory of La Hogue.




CHAPTER XXI

Effect of Mary's Death on the Continent--Death of Luxemburg--Distress of
William--Parliamentary Proceedings; Emancipation of the Press--Death
of Halifax--Parliamentary Inquiries into the Corruption of the Public
Offices--Vote of Censure on the Speaker--Foley elected Speaker; Inquiry
into the Accounts of the East India Company--Suspicious Dealings of
Seymour--Bill against Sir Thomas Cook--Inquiry by a joint Committee
of Lords and Commons--Impeachment of Leeds--Disgrace of Leeds--Lords
Justices appointed; Reconciliation between William and the
Princess Anne--Jacobite Plots against William's Person--Charnock;
Porter--Goodman; Parkyns--Fenwick--Session of the Scottish Parliament;
Inquiry into the Slaughter of Glencoe--War in the Netherlands; Marshal
Villeroy--The Duke of Maine--Jacobite Plots against the Government
during William's Absence--Siege of Namur--Surrender of the Town of
Namur--Surrender of the Castle of Namur--Arrest of Boufflers--Effect
of the Emancipation of the English Press--Return of William to England;
Dissolution of the Parliament--William makes a Progress through the
Country--The Elections--Alarming State of the Currency--Meeting of the
Parliament; Loyalty of the House of Commons--Controversy touching the
Currency--Parliamentary Proceedings touching the Currency--Passing
of the Act regulating Trials in Cases of High Treason--Parliamentary
Proceedings touching the Grant of Crown Lands in Wales to Portland--Two
Jacobite Plots formed--Berwick's Plot; the Assassination Plot;
Sir George Barclay--Failure of Berwick's Plot--Detection of the
Assassination Plot--Parliamentary Proceedings touching the
Assassination Plot--State of Public Feeling--Trial of Charnock, King and
Keyes--Execution of Charnock, King and Keyes--Trial of Friend--Trial of
Parkyns--Execution of Friend and Parkyns--Trials of Rookwood, Cranburne
and Lowick--The Association--Bill for the Regulation of Elections--Act
establishing a Land Bank

ON the Continent the news of Mary's death excited various emotions. The
Huguenots, in every part of Europe to which they had wandered, bewailed
the Elect Lady, who had retrenched from her own royal state in order to
furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. [557] In the
United Provinces, where she was well known and had always been
popular, she was tenderly lamented. Matthew Prior, whose parts and
accomplishments had obtained for him the patronage of the magnificent
Dorset, and who was now attached to the Embassy at the Hague, wrote
that the coldest and most passionless of nations was touched. The very
marble, he said, wept. [558] The lamentations of Cambridge and Oxford
were echoed by Leyden and Utrecht. The States General put on mourning.
The bells of all the steeples of Holland tolled dolefully day after
day. [559] James, meanwhile, strictly prohibited all mourning at Saint
Germains, and prevailed on Lewis to issue a similar prohibition at
Versailles. Some of the most illustrious nobles of France, and among
them the Dukes of Bouillon and of Duras, were related to the House of
Nassau, and had always, when death visited that House, punctiliously
observed the decent ceremonial of sorrow. They were now forbidden to
wear black; and they submitted; but it was beyond the power of the great
King to prevent his highbred and sharpwitted courtiers from whispering
to each other that there was something pitiful in this revenge taken by
the living on the dead, by a parent on a child. [560]

The hopes of James and of his companions in exile were now higher than
they had been since the day of La Hogue. Indeed the general opinion of
politicians, both here and on the Continent was that William would find
it impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would
not, it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his
wife. Her affability had conciliated many who had been repelled by his
freezing looks and short answers. Her English tones, sentiments and
tastes had charmed many who were disgusted by his Dutch accent and Dutch
habits. Though she did not belong to the High Church party, she loved
that ritual to which she had been accustomed from infancy, and complied
willingly and reverently with some ceremonies which he considered, not
indeed as sinful, but as childish, and in which he could hardly bring
himself to take part. While the war lasted, it would be necessary that
he should pass nearly half the year out of England. Hitherto she had,
when he was absent, supplied his place, and had supplied it well.
Who was to supply it now? In what vicegerent could he place equal
confidence? To what vicegerent would the nation look up with equal
respect? All the statesmen of Europe therefore agreed in thinking that
his position, difficult and dangerous at best, had been made far more
difficult and more dangerous by the death of the Queen. But all the
statesmen of Europe were deceived; and, strange to say, his reign was
decidedly more prosperous and more tranquil after the decease of Mary
than during her life.

A few hours after he had lost the most tender and beloved of all his
friends, he was delivered from the most formidable of all his enemies.
Death had been busy at Paris as well as in London. While Tenison was
praying by the bed of Mary, Bourdaloue was administering the last
unction to Luxemburg. The great French general had never been a
favourite at the French Court; but when it was known that his feeble
frame, exhausted by war and pleasure, was sinking under a dangerous
disease, the value of his services was, for the first time, fully
appreciated; the royal physicians were sent to prescribe for him; the
sisters of Saint Cyr were ordered to pray for him; but prayers and
prescriptions were vain. "How glad the Prince of Orange will be," said
Lewis, "when the news of our loss reaches him. " He was mistaken. That
news found William unable to think of any loss but his own. [561]

During the month which followed the death of Mary the King was incapable
of exertion. Even to the addresses of the two Houses of Parliament he
replied only by a few inarticulate sounds. The answers which appear in
the journals were not uttered by him, but were delivered in writing.
Such business as could not be deferred was transacted by the
intervention of Portland, who was himself oppressed with sorrow. During
some weeks the important and confidential correspondence between the
King and Heinsius was suspended. At length William forced himself to
resume that correspondence: but his first letter was the letter of a
heartbroken man. Even his martial ardour had been tamed by misery. "I
tell you in confidence," he wrote, "that I feel myself to be no longer
fit for military command. Yet I will try to do my duty; and I hope that
God will strengthen me. " So despondingly did he look forward to the most
brilliant and successful of his many campaigns. [562]

There was no interruption of parliamentary business. While the Abbey was
hanging with black for the funeral of the Queen, the Commons came to a
vote, which at the time attracted little attention, which produced no
excitement, which has been left unnoticed by voluminous annalists, and
of which the history can be but imperfectly traced in the archives of
Parliament, but which has done more for liberty and for civilisation
than the Great Charter or the Bill of Rights. Early in the session a
select committee had been appointed to ascertain what temporary statutes
were about to expire, and to consider which of those statutes it
might be expedient to continue. The report was made; and all the
recommendations contained in that report were adopted, with one
exception. Among the laws which the committee advised the House to renew
was the law which subjected the press to a censorship. The question was
put, "that the House do agree with the committee in the resolution that
the Act entitled an Act for preventing Abuses in printing seditious,
treasonable and unlicensed Pamphlets, and for regulating of Printing and
Printing Presses, be continued. " The Speaker pronounced that the Noes
had it; and the Ayes did not think fit to divide.

A bill for continuing all the other temporary Acts, which, in the
opinion of the Committee, could not properly be suffered to expire, was
brought in, passed and sent to the Lords. In a short time this bill came
back with an important amendment. The Lords had inserted in the list of
Acts to be continued the Act which placed the press under the control of
licensers. The Commons resolved not to agree to the amendment, demanded
a conference, and appointed a committee of managers. The leading
manager was Edward Clarke, a stanch Whig, who represented Taunton, the
stronghold, during fifty troubled years, of civil and religious freedom.

Clarke delivered to the Lords in the Painted Chamber a paper containing
the reasons which had determined the Lower House not to renew the
Licensing Act. This paper completely vindicates the resolution to which
the Commons had come. But it proves at the same time that they knew not
what they were doing, what a revolution they were making, what a power
they were calling into existence. They pointed out concisely, clearly,
forcibly, and sometimes with a grave irony which is not unbecoming, the
absurdities and iniquities of the statute which was about to expire. But
all their objections will be found to relate to matters of detail. On
the great question of principle, on the question whether the liberty of
unlicensed printing be, on the whole, a blessing or a curse to society,
not a word is said. The Licensing Act is condemned, not as a thing
essentially evil, but on account of the petty grievances, the exactions,
the jobs, the commercial restrictions, the domiciliary visits which were
incidental to it. It is pronounced mischievous because it enables
the Company of Stationers to extort money from publishers, because
it empowers the agents of the government to search houses under the
authority of general warrants, because it confines the foreign book
trade to the port of London; because it detains valuable packages of
books at the Custom House till the pages are mildewed. The Commons
complain that the amount of the fee which the licenser may demand is not
fixed. They complain that it is made penal in an officer of the Customs
to open a box of books from abroad, except in the presence of one of the
censors of the press. How, it is very sensibly asked, is the officer to
know that there are books in the box till he has opened it? Such were
the arguments which did what Milton's Areopagitica had failed to do.

The Lords yielded without a contest. They probably expected that some
less objectionable bill for the regulation of the press would soon be
sent up to them; and in fact such a bill was brought into the House of
Commons, read twice, and referred to a select committee. But the session
closed before the committee had reported; and English literature
was emancipated, and emancipated for ever, from the control of the
government. [563] This great event passed almost unnoticed. Evelyn and
Luttrell did not think it worth mentioning in their diaries. The
Dutch minister did not think it worth mentioning in his despatches.
No allusion to it is to be found in the Monthly Mercuries. The public
attention was occupied by other and far more exciting subjects.

One of those subjects was the death of the most accomplished, the most
enlightened, and, in spite of great faults, the most estimable of the
statesmen who were formed in the corrupt and licentious Whitehall of
the Restoration. About a month after the splendid obsequies of Mary, a
funeral procession of almost ostentatious simplicity passed round the
shrine of Edward the Confessor to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh.
There, at the distance of a few feet from her coffin, lies the coffin of
George Savile, Marquess of Halifax.

Halifax and Nottingham had long been friends; and Lord Eland, now
Halifax's only son, had been affianced to the Lady Mary Finch,
Nottingham's daughter. The day of the nuptials was fixed; a joyous
company assembled at Burley on the Hill, the mansion of the bride's
father, which, from one of the noblest terraces in the island, looks
down on magnificent woods of beech and oak, on the rich valley of
Catmos, and on the spire of Oakham. The father of the bridegroom was
detained to London by indisposition, which was not supposed to be
dangerous. On a sudden his malady took an alarming form. He was told
that he had but a few hours to live. He received the intimation with
tranquil fortitude. It was proposed to send off an express to summon his
son to town. But Halifax, good natured to the last, would not disturb
the felicity of the wedding day. He gave strict orders that his
interment should be private, prepared himself for the great change by
devotions which astonished those who had called him an atheist, and died
with the serenity of a philosopher and of a Christian, while his friends
and kindred, not suspecting his danger, were tasting the sack posset and
drawing the curtain. [564] His legitimate male posterity and his titles
soon became extinct. No small portion, however, of his wit and eloquence
descended to his daughter's son, Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl
of Chesterfield. But it is perhaps not generally known that some
adventurers, who, without advantages of fortune or position, made
themselves conspicuous by the mere force of ability, inherited the blood
of Halifax. He left a natural son, Henry Carey, whose dramas once drew
crowded audiences to the theatres, and some of whose gay and spirited
verses still live in the memory of hundreds of thousands. From Henry
Carey descended that Edmund Kean, who, in our time, transformed himself
so marvellously into Shylock, Iago and Othello.

More than one historian has been charged with partiality to Halifax. The
truth is that the memory of Halifax is entitled in an especial manner
to the protection of history. For what distinguishes him from all other
English statesmen is this, that, through a long public life, and through
frequent and violent revolutions of public feeling, he almost invariably
took that view of the great questions of his time which history has
finally adopted. He was called inconstant, because the relative position
in which he stood to the contending factions was perpetually varying. As
well might the pole star be called inconstant because it is sometimes to
the east and sometimes to the west of the pointers. To have defended the
ancient and legal constitution of the realm against a seditious populace
at one conjuncture and against a tyrannical government at another; to
have been the foremost defender of order in the turbulent Parliament of
1680 and the foremost defender of liberty in the servile Parliament of
1685; to have been just and merciful to Roman Catholics in the days of
the Popish plot and to Exclusionists in the days of the Rye House Plot;
to have done all in his power to save both the head of Stafford and
the head of Russell; this was a course which contemporaries, heated
by passion and deluded by names and badges, might not unnaturally call
fickle, but which deserves a very different name from the late justice
of posterity.

There is one and only one deep stain on the memory of this eminent man.
It is melancholy to think that he, who had acted so great a part in the
Convention, could have afterwards stooped to hold communication with
Saint Germains. The fact cannot be disputed; yet for him there are
excuses which cannot be pleaded for others who were guilty of the same
crime. He did not, like Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin and Shrewsbury,
betray a master by whom he was trusted, and with whose benefits he was
loaded. It was by the ingratitude and malice of the Whigs that he was
driven to take shelter for a moment among the Jacobites. It may be added
that he soon repented of the error into which he had been hurried by
passion, that, though never reconciled to the Court, he distinguished
himself by his zeal for the vigorous prosecution of the war, and
that his last work was a tract in which he exhorted his countrymen to
remember that the public burdens, heavy as they might seem, were light
when compared with the yoke of France and of Rome. [565]

About a fortnight after the death of Halifax, a fate far more cruel than
death befell his old rival and enemy, the Lord President. That able,
ambitious and daring statesman was again hurled down from power. In his
first fall, terrible as it was, there had been something of dignity; and
he had, by availing himself with rare skill of an extraordinary crisis
in public affairs, risen once more to the most elevated position among
English subjects. The second ruin was indeed less violent than the
first; but it was ignominious and irretrievable.

The peculation and venality by which the official men of that age were
in the habit of enriching themselves had excited in the public mind
a feeling such as could not but vent itself, sooner or later, in
some formidable explosion. But the gains were immediate; the day of
retribution was uncertain; and the plunderers of the public were as
greedy and as audacious as ever, when the vengeance, long threatened
and long delayed, suddenly overtook the proudest and most powerful among
them.

The first mutterings of the coming storm did not at all indicate the
direction which it would take, or the fury with which it would burst.
An infantry regiment, which was quartered at Royston, had levied
contributions on the people of that town and of the neighbourhood. The
sum exacted was not large. In France or Brabant the moderation of the
demand would have been thought wonderful. But to English shopkeepers
and farmers military extortion was happily quite new and quite
insupportable. A petition was sent up to the Commons. The Commons
summoned the accusers and the accused to the bar. It soon appeared that
a grave offence had been committed, but that the offenders were not
altogether without excuse. The public money which had been issued
from the Exchequer for their pay and subsistence had been fraudulently
detained by their colonel and by his agent. It was not strange that
men who had arms and who had not necessaries should trouble themselves
little about the Petition of Right and the Declaration of Right. But it
was monstrous that, while the citizen was heavily taxed for the purpose
of paying to the soldier the largest military stipend known in Europe,
the soldier should be driven by absolute want to plunder the citizen.
This was strongly set forth in a representation which the Commons laid
before William. William, who had been long struggling against abuses
which grievously impaired the efficiency of his army, was glad to have
his hands thus strengthened. He promised ample redress, cashiered the
offending colonel, gave strict orders that the troops should receive
their due regularly, and established a military board for the purpose of
detecting and punishing such malpractices as had taken place at Royston.
[566]

But the whole administration was in such a state that it was hardly
possible to track one offender without discovering ten others. In the
course of the inquiry into the conduct of the troops at Royston, it
was discovered that a bribe of two hundred guineas had been received
by Henry Guy, member of Parliament for Heydon and Secretary of the
Treasury. Guy was instantly sent to the Tower, not without much
exultation on the part of the Whigs; for he was one of those tools who
had passed, together with the buildings and furniture of the public
offices, from James to William; he affected the character of a High
Churchman; and he was known to be closely connected with some of the
heads of the Tory party, and especially with Trevor. [567]

Another name, which was afterwards but too widely celebrated, first
became known to the public at this time. James Craggs had begun life as
a barber. He had then been a footman of the Duchess of Cleveland. His
abilities, eminently vigorous though not improved by education, had
raised him in the world; and he was now entering on a career which
was destined to end, after a quarter of a century of prosperity, in
unutterable misery and despair. He had become an army clothier. He was
examined as to his dealings with the colonels of regiments; and, as
he obstinately refused to produce his books, he was sent to keep Guy
company in the Tower. [568]

A few hours after Craggs had been thrown into prison, a committee, which
had been appointed to inquire into the truth of a petition signed by
some of the hackney coachmen of London, laid on the table of the House a
report which excited universal disgust and indignation. It appeared that
these poor hardworking men had been cruelly wronged by the board under
the authority of which an Act of the preceding session had placed them.
They had been pillaged and insulted, not only by the commissioners, but
by one commissioner's lacquey and by another commissioner's harlot. The
Commons addressed the King; and the King turned the delinquents out of
their places. [569]

But by this time delinquents far higher in power and rank were beginning
to be uneasy. At every new detection, the excitement, both within and
without the walls of Parliament, became more intense. The frightful
prevalence of bribery, corruption and extortion was every where the
subject of conversation.
A contemporary pamphleteer compares the state
of the political world at this conjuncture to the state of a city in
which the plague has just been discovered, and in which the terrible
words, "Lord have mercy on us," are already seen on some doors. [570]
Whispers, which at another time would have speedily died away and been
forgotten, now swelled, first into murmurs, and then into clamours. A
rumour rose and spread that the funds of the two wealthiest corporations
in the kingdom, the City of London and the East India Company, had been
largely employed for the purpose of corrupting great men; and the names
of Trevor, Seymour and Leeds were mentioned.

The mention of these names produced a stir in the Whig ranks. Trevor,
Seymour and Leeds were all three Tories, and had, in different ways,
greater influence than perhaps any other three Tories in the kingdom.
If they could all be driven at once from public life with blasted
characters, the Whigs would be completely predominant both in the
Parliament and in the Cabinet.

Wharton was not the man to let such an opportunity escape him. At
White's, no doubt, among those lads of quality who were his pupils in
politics and in debauchery, he would have laughed heartily at the fury
with which the nation had on a sudden begun to persecute men for doing
what every body had always done and was always trying to do. But if
people would be fools, it was the business of a politician to make use
of their folly. The cant of political purity was not so familiar to the
lips of Wharton as blasphemy and ribaldry; but his abilities were so
versatile, and his impudence so consummate, that he ventured to appear
before the world as an austere patriot mourning over the venality and
perfidy of a degenerate age. While he, animated by that fierce party
spirit which in honest men would be thought a vice, but which in him
was almost a virtue, was eagerly stirring up his friends to demand an
inquiry into the truth of the evil reports which were in circulation,
the subject was suddenly and strangely forced forward. It chanced that,
while a bill of little interest was under discussion in the Commons,
the postman arrived with numerous letters directed to members; and the
distribution took place at the bar with a buzz of conversation which
drowned the voices of the orators. Seymour, whose imperious temper
always prompted him to dictate and to chide, lectured the talkers on the
scandalous irregularity of their conduct, and called on the Speaker to
reprimand them. An angry discussion followed; and one of the offenders
was provoked into making an allusion to the stories which were current
about both Seymour and the Speaker. "It is undoubtedly improper to talk
while a bill is under discussion; but it is much worse to take money
for getting a bill passed. If we are extreme to mark a slight breach of
form, how severely ought we to deal with that corruption which is eating
away the very substance of our institutions! " That was enough; the
spark had fallen; the train was ready; the explosion was immediate and
terrible. After a tumultuous debate in which the cry of "the Tower" was
repeatedly heard, Wharton managed to carry his point. Before the House
rose a committee was appointed to examine the books of the City of
London and of the East India Company. [571]

Foley was placed in the chair of the committee. Within a week he
reported that the Speaker, Sir John Trevor, had in the preceding session
received from the City a thousand guineas for expediting a local bill.
This discovery gave great satisfaction to the Whigs, who had always
hated Trevor, and was not unpleasing to many of the Tories. During six
busy sessions his sordid rapacity had made him an object of general
aversion. The legitimate emoluments of his post amounted to about four
thousand a year; but it was believed that he had made at least ten
thousand a year. [572] His profligacy and insolence united had been
too much even for the angelic temper of Tillotson. It was said that the
gentle Archbishop had been heard to mutter something about a knave as
the Speaker passed by him. [573] Yet, great as were the offences of this
bad man, his punishment was fully proportioned to them. As soon as the
report of the committee had been read, it was moved that he had been
guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. He had to stand up and to put
the question. There was a loud cry of Aye. He called on the Noes; and
scarcely a voice was heard. He was forced to declare that the Ayes
had it. A man of spirit would have given up the ghost with remorse and
shame; and the unutterable ignominy of that moment left its mark even on
the callous heart and brazen forehead of Trevor. Had he returned to the
House on the following day, he would have had to put the question on
a motion for his own expulsion. He therefore pleaded illness, and shut
himself up in his bedroom. Wharton soon brought down a royal message
authorising the Commons to elect another Speaker.

The Whig chiefs wished to place Littleton in the chair; but they were
unable to accomplish their object. Foley was chosen, presented and
approved. Though he had of late generally voted with the Tories, he
still called himself a Whig, and was not unacceptable to many of the
Whigs. He had both the abilities and the knowledge which were necessary
to enable him to preside over the debates with dignity; but what, in the
peculiar circumstances in which the House then found itself placed, was
not unnaturally considered as his principal recommendation, was
that implacable hatred of jobbery and corruption which he somewhat
ostentatiously professed, and doubtless sincerely felt. On the day after
he entered on his functions, his predecessor was expelled. [574]

The indiscretion of Trevor had been equal to his baseness; and his guilt
had been apparent on the first inspection of the accounts of the City.
The accounts of the East India Company were more obscure. The committee
reported that they had sate in Leadenhall Street, had examined
documents, had interrogated directors and clerks, but had been unable
to arrive at the bottom of the mystery of iniquity. Some most suspicious
entries had been discovered, under the head of special service. The
expenditure on this account had, in the year 1693, exceeded eighty
thousand pounds. It was proved that, as to the outlay of this money,
the directors had placed implicit confidence in the governor, Sir Thomas
Cook. He had merely told them in general terms that he had been at a
charge of twenty-three thousand, of twenty-five thousand, of thirty
thousand pounds, in the matter of the Charter; and the Court had,
without calling on him for any detailed explanation, thanked him for
his care, and ordered warrants for these great sums to be instantly
made out. It appeared that a few mutinous directors had murmured at this
immense outlay, and had called for a detailed statement. But the only
answer which they had been able to extract from Cook was that there were
some great persons whom it was necessary to gratify.

The committee also reported that they had lighted on an agreement by
which the Company had covenanted to furnish a person named Colston with
two hundred tons of saltpetre. At the first glance, this transaction
seemed merchantlike and fair. But it was soon discovered that Colston
was merely an agent for Seymour. Suspicion was excited. The complicated
terms of the bargain were severely examined, and were found to be framed
in such a manner that, in every possible event, Seymour must be a gainer
and the Company a loser to the extent of ten or twelve thousand pounds.
The opinion of all who understood the matter was that the compact was
merely a disguise intended to cover a bribe. But the disguise was so
skilfully managed that the country gentlemen were perplexed, and that
the lawyers doubted whether there were such evidence of corruption as
would be held sufficient by a court of justice. Seymour escaped without
even a vote of censure, and still continued to take a leading part in
the debates of the Commons. [575] But the authority which he had long
exercised in the House and in the western counties of England, though
not destroyed, was visibly diminished; and, to the end of his life,
his traffic in saltpetre was a favourite theme of Whig pamphleteers and
poets. [576]

The escape of Seymour only inflamed the ardour of Wharton and of
Wharton's confederates. They were determined to discover what had been
done with the eighty or ninety thousand pounds of secret service money
which had been entrusted to Cook by the East India Company. Cook, who
was member for Colchester, was questioned in his place; he refused to
answer; he was sent to the Tower; and a bill was brought in providing
that if, before a certain day, he should not acknowledge the whole
truth, he should be incapable of ever holding any office, should refund
to the Company the whole of the immense sum which had been confided to
him, and should pay a fine of twenty thousand pounds to the Crown. Rich
as he was, these penalties would have reduced him to penury. The
Commons were in such a temper that they passed the bill without a single
division. [577] Seymour, indeed, though his saltpetre contract was the
talk of the whole town, came forward with unabashed forehead to plead
for his accomplice; but his effrontery only injured the cause which
he defended. [578] In the Upper House the bill was condemned in the
strongest terms by the Duke of Leeds. Pressing his hand on his heart, he
declared, on his faith, on his honour, that he had no personal interest
in the question, and that he was actuated by no motive but a pure love
of justice. His eloquence was powerfully seconded by the tears and
lamentations of Cook, who, from the bar, implored the Peers not to
subject him to a species of torture unknown to the mild laws of England.
"Instead of this cruel bill," he said, "pass a bill of indemnity; and
I will tell you all. " The Lords thought his request not altogether
unreasonable. After some communication with the Commons, it was
determined that a joint committee of the two Houses should be appointed
to inquire into the manner in which the secret service money of the East
India Company had been expended; and an Act was rapidly passed providing
that, if Cook would make to this committee a true and full discovery, he
should be indemnified for the crimes which he might confess; and that,
till he made such a discovery, he should remain in the Tower. To this
arrangement Leeds gave in public all the opposition that he could with
decency give. In private those who were conscious of guilt employed
numerous artifices for the purpose of averting inquiry. It was whispered
that things might come out which every good Englishman would wish to
hide, and that the greater part of the enormous sums which had passed
through Cook's hands had been paid to Portland for His Majesty's use.
But the Parliament and the nation were determined to know the truth,
whoever might suffer by the disclosure. [579]

As soon as the Bill of Indemnity had received the royal assent, the
joint committee, consisting of twelve lords and twenty-four members of
the House of Commons, met in the Exchequer Chamber. Wharton was placed
in the chair; and in a few hours great discoveries were made.

The King and Portland came out of the inquiry with unblemished honour.
Not only had not the King taken any part of the secret service money
dispensed by Cook; but he had not, during some years, received even the
ordinary present which the Company had, in former reigns, laid annually
at the foot of the throne. It appeared that not less than fifty thousand
pounds had been offered to Portland, and rejected. The money lay during
a whole year ready to be paid to him if he should change his mind. He
at length told those who pressed this immense bribe on him, that if
they persisted in insulting him by such an offer, they would make him
an enemy of their Company. Many people wondered at the probity which
he showed on this occasion, for he was generally thought interested and
grasping. The truth seems to be that he loved money, but that he was a
man of strict integrity and honour. He took, without scruple, whatever
he thought that he could honestly take, but was incapable of stooping
to an act of baseness. Indeed, he resented as affronts the compliments
which were paid him on this occasion. [580] The integrity of Nottingham
could excite no surprise. Ten thousand pounds had been offered to him,
and had been refused. The number of cases in which bribery was fully
made out was small. A large part of the sum which Cook had drawn from
the Company's treasury had probably been embezzled by the brokers whom
he had employed in the work of corruption; and what had become of the
rest it was not easy to learn from the reluctant witnesses who were
brought before the committee. One glimpse of light however was caught;
it was followed; and it led to a discovery of the highest moment. A
large sum was traced from Cook to an agent named Firebrace, and from
Firebrace to another agent named Bates, who was well known to be closely
connected with the High Church party and especially with Leeds. Bates
was summoned, but absconded; messengers were sent in pursuit of him;
he was caught, brought into the Exchequer Chamber and sworn. The story
which he told showed that he was distracted between the fear of losing
his ears and the fear of injuring his patron. He owned that he had
undertaken to bribe Leeds, had been for that purpose furnished with five
thousand five hundred guineas, had offered those guineas to His Grace,
and had, by His Grace's permission, left them at His Grace's house in
the care of a Swiss named Robart, who was His Grace's confidential
man of business. It should seem that these facts admitted of only one
interpretation. Bates however swore that the Duke had refused to
accept a farthing. "Why then," it was asked, "was the gold left, by
his consent, at his house and in the hands of his servant? " "Because,"
answered Bates, "I am bad at telling coin. I therefore begged His Grace
to let me leave the pieces, in order that Robart might count them for
me; and His Grace was so good as to give leave. " It was evident that,
if this strange story had been true, the guineas would, in a few hours,
have been taken-away. But Bates was forced to confess that they had
remained half a year where he had left them. The money had indeed at
last,--and this was one of the most suspicious circumstances in the
case,--been paid back by Robart on the very morning on which the
committee first met in the Exchequer Chamber. Who could believe that, if
the transaction had been free from all taint of corruption, the guineas
would have been detained as long as Cook was able to remain silent, and
would have been refunded on the very first day on which he was under the
necessity of speaking out? [581]

A few hours after the examination of Bates, Wharton reported to the
Commons what had passed in the Exchequer Chamber. The indignation
was general and vehement. "You now understand," said Wharton, "why
obstructions have been thrown in our way at every step, why we have
had to wring out truth drop by drop, why His Majesty's name has been
artfully used to prevent us from going into an inquiry which has brought
nothing to light but what is to His Majesty's honour. Can we think it
strange that our difficulties should have been great, when we consider
the power, the dexterity, the experience of him who was secretly
thwarting us? It is time for us to prove signally to the world that it
is impossible for any criminal to double so cunningly that we cannot
track him, or to climb so high that we cannot reach him. Never was there
a more flagitious instance of corruption. Never was there an offender
who had less claim to indulgence. The obligations which the Duke of
Leeds has to his country are of no common kind. One great debt we
generously cancelled; but the manner in which our generosity has been
requited forces us to remember that he was long ago impeached for
receiving money from France. How can we be safe while a man proved to be
venal has access to the royal ear? Our best laid enterprises have been
defeated. Our inmost counsels have been betrayed. And what wonder is
it? Can we doubt that, together with this home trade in charters, a
profitable foreign trade in secrets is carried on? Can we doubt that he
who sells us to one another will, for a good price, sell us all to
the common enemy? " Wharton concluded by moving that Leeds should be
impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours. [582]

Leeds had many friends and dependents in the House of Commons; but they
could say little. Wharton's motion was carried without a division; and
he was ordered to go to the bar of the Lords, and there, in the name
of the Commons of England, to impeach the Duke. But, before this order
could be obeyed, it was announced that His Grace was at the door and
requested an audience.

While Wharton had been making his report to the Commons, Leeds had been
haranguing the Lords. He denied with the most solemn asseverations that
he had taken any money for himself. But he acknowledged, and indeed
almost boasted, that he had abetted Bates in getting money from the
Company, and seemed to think that this was a service which any man
in power might be reasonably expected to render to a friend. Too
many persons, indeed, in that age made a most absurd and pernicious
distinction between a minister who used his influence to obtain presents
for himself and a minister who used his influence to obtain presents
for his dependents. The former was corrupt; the latter was merely
goodnatured. Leeds proceeded to tell with great complacency a story
about himself, which would, in our days, drive a public man, not
only out of office, but out of the society of gentlemen. "When I was
Treasurer, in King Charles's time, my Lords, the excise was to be
farmed. There were several bidders. Harry Savile, for whom I had a great
value, informed me that they had asked for his interest with me, and
begged me to tell them that he had done his best for them. 'What! ' said
I; 'tell them all so, when only one can have the farm? ' 'No matter;'
said Harry: 'tell them all so; and the one who gets the farm will think
that he owes it to me. ' The gentlemen came. I said to every one of them
separately, 'Sir, you are much obliged to Mr. Savile;' 'Sir, Mr. Savile
has been much your friend. ' In the end Harry got a handsome present; and
I wished him good luck with it. I was his shadow then. I am Mr. Bates's
shadow now. "

The Duke had hardly related this anecdote, so strikingly illustrative
of the state of political morality in that generation, when it was
whispered to him that a motion to impeach him had been made in the House
of Commons. He hastened thither; but, before he arrived, the question
had been put and carried. Nevertheless he pressed for admittance; and
he was admitted. A chair, according to ancient usage, was placed for
him within the bar; and he was informed that the House was ready to hear
him.

He spoke, but with less tact and judgment than usual. He magnified his
own public services. But for him, he said, there would have been
no House of Commons to impeach him; a boast so extravagant that it
naturally made his hearers unwilling to allow him the praise which his
conduct at the time of the Revolution really deserved. As to the charge
against him he said little more than that he was innocent, that there
had long been a malicious design to ruin him, that he would not go
into particulars, that the facts which had been proved would bear two
constructions, and that of the two constructions the most favourable
ought in candour to be adopted. He withdrew, after praying the House to
reconsider the vote which had just been passed, or, if that could not
be, to let him have speedy justice.

His friends felt that his speech was no defence, and did not attempt to
rescind the resolution which had been carried just before he was heard.
Wharton, with a large following, went up to the Lords, and informed
them that the Commons had resolved to impeach the Duke. A committee
of managers was appointed to draw up the articles and to prepare the
evidence. [583]

The articles were speedily drawn; but to the chain of evidence one
link appeared to be wanting. That link Robart, if he had been severely
examined and confronted with other witnesses, would in all probability
have been forced to supply. He was summoned to the bar of the Commons.
A messenger went with the summons to the house of the Duke of Leeds, and
was there informed that the Swiss was not within, that he had been three
days absent, and that where he was the porter could not tell. The Lords
immediately presented an address to the King, requesting him to give
orders that the ports might be stopped and the fugitive arrested. But
Robart was already in Holland on his way to his native mountains.

The flight of this man made it impossible for the Commons to proceed.
They vehemently accused Leeds of having sent away the witness who alone
could furnish legal proof of that which was already established by
moral proof. Leeds, now at ease as to the event of the impeachment, gave
himself the airs of an injured man. "My Lords," he said, "the conduct of
the Commons is without precedent. They impeach me of a high crime; they
promise to prove it; then they find that they have not the means of
proving it; and they revile me for not supplying them with the means.
Surely they ought not to have brought a charge like this, without well
considering whether they had or had not evidence sufficient to support
it. If Robart's testimony be, as they now say, indispensable, why did
they not send for him and hear his story before they made up their
minds? They may thank their own intemperance, their own precipitancy,
for his disappearance. He is a foreigner; he is timid; he hears that a
transaction in which he has been concerned has been pronounced by the
House of Commons to be highly criminal, that his master is impeached,
that his friend Bates is in prison, that his own turn is coming. He
naturally takes fright; he escapes to his own country; and, from what
I know of him, I will venture to predict that it will be long before he
trusts himself again within reach of the Speaker's warrant. But what is
that to me? Am I to lie all my life under the stigma of an accusation
like this, merely because the violence of my accusers has scared their
own witness out of England? I demand an immediate trial. I move your
Lordships to resolve that, unless the Commons shall proceed before the
end of the session, the impeachment shall be dismissed. " A few friendly
voices cried out "Well moved. " But the Peers were generally unwilling to
take a step which would have been in the highest degree offensive to the
Lower House, and to the great body of those whom that House represented.
The Duke's motion fell to the ground; and a few hours later the
Parliament was prorogued. [584]

The impeachment was never revived. The evidence which would warrant a
formal verdict of guilty was not forthcoming; and a formal verdict of
guilty would hardly have answered Wharton's purpose better than
the informal verdict of guilty which the whole nation had already
pronounced. The work was done. The Whigs were dominant. Leeds was no
longer chief minister, was indeed no longer a minister at all. William,
from respect probably for the memory of the beloved wife whom he had
lately lost, and to whom Leeds had shown peculiar attachment, avoided
every thing that could look like harshness. The fallen statesman
was suffered to retain during a considerable time the title of Lord
President, and to walk on public occasions between the Great Seal
and the Privy Seal. But he was told that he would do well not to
show himself at Council; the business and the patronage even of the
department of which he was the nominal head passed into other hands; and
the place which he ostensibly filled was considered in political circles
as really vacant. [585]

He hastened into the country, and hid himself there, during some months,
from the public eye. When the Parliament met again, however, he emerged
from his retreat. Though he was well stricken in years and cruelly
tortured by disease, his ambition was still as ardent as ever. With
indefatigable energy he began a third time to climb, as he flattered
himself, towards that dizzy pinnacle which he had twice reached, and
from which he had twice fallen. He took a prominent part in debate; but,
though his eloquence and knowledge always secured to him the attention
of his hearers, he was never again, even when the Tory party was in
power, admitted to the smallest share in the direction of affairs.

There was one great humiliation which he could not be spared. William
was about to take the command of the army in the Netherlands; and it
was necessary that, before he sailed, he should determine by whom the
government should be administered during his absence. Hitherto Mary had
acted as his vicegerent when he was out of England; but she was gone.
He therefore delegated his authority to seven Lords Justices, Tenison,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Somers, Keeper of the Great Seal, Pembroke,
Keeper of the Privy Seal, Devonshire, Lord Steward, Dorset, Lord
Chamberlain, Shrewsbury, Secretary of State, and Godolphin, First
Commissioner of the Treasury. It is easy to judge from this list of
names which way the balance of power was now leaning. Godolphin alone
of the seven was a Tory. The Lord President, still second in rank, and
a few days before first in power, of the great lay dignitaries of the
realm, was passed over; and the omission was universally regarded as an
official announcement of his disgrace. [586]

There were some who wondered that the Princess of Denmark was not
appointed Regent. The reconciliation, which had been begun while
Mary was dying, had since her death been, in external show at least,
completed. This was one of those occasions on which Sunderland was
peculiarly qualified to be useful.