No More Learning

---- George was evidently
an adventurer of a very low class. All that we learn about him from the
papers of the Pinney family is that he was employed in the purchase of a
pardon for the younger son of a dissenting minister. The whole sum
which appears to have passed through George's hands on this occasion was
sixty-five pounds. His commission on the transaction must therefore have
been small. The only other information which we have about him, is that
he, some time later, applied to the government for a favour which was
very far from being an honour. In England the Groom Porter of the Palace
had a jurisdiction over games of chance, and made some very dirty gain
by issuing lottery tickets and licensing hazard tables. George appears
to have petitioned for a similar privilege in the American colonies. ----
William Penn was, during the reign of James the Second, the most active
and powerful solicitor about the Court. I will quote the words of his
admirer Crose. "Quum autem Pennus tanta gratia plurinum apud regem
valeret, et per id perplures sibi amicos acquireret, illum omnes,
etiam qui modo aliqua notitia erant conjuncti, quoties aliquid a rege
postulandum agendumve apud regem esset, adire, ambire, orare, ut eos
apud regem adjuvaret. " He was overwhelmed by business of this kind,
"obrutus negotiationibus curationibusque. " His house and the approaches
to it were every day blocked up by crowds of persons who came to request
his good offices; "domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium et
suppliccantium. " From the Fountainhall papers it appears that his
influence was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from
himself that, at this time, he was always toiling for others, that he
was a daily suitor at Whitehall, and that, if he had chosen to sell his
influence, he could, in little more than three, years, have put twenty
thousand pounds into his pocket, and obtained a hundred thousand more
for the improvement of the colony of which he was proprietor. ---- Such
was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, was the more
likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunderland's letter
related? Was it George or William, an agent of the lowest or of the
highest class? The persons interested were ladies of rank and fashion,
resident at the palace. where George would hardly have been admitted
into an outer room, but where William was every day in the presence
chamber and was frequently called into the closet. The greatest nobles
in the kingdom were zealous and active in the cause of their fair
friends, nobles with whom William lived in habits of familiar
intercourse, but who would hardly have thought George fit company for
their grooms. The sum in question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not
large when compared with the masses of wealth with which William had
constantly to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only
ransom which is known to have passed through the hands of George.
These considerations would suffice to raise a strong presumption that
Sunderland's letter was addressed to William, and not to George: but
there is a still stronger argument behind. ---- It is most important to
observe that the person to whom this letter was addressed was not the
first person whom the Maids of Honour had requested to act for them.
They applied to him because another person to whom they had previously
applied, had, after some correspondence, declined the office. From
their first application we learn with certainty what sort of person
they wished to employ. If their first application had been made to
some obscure pettifogger or needy gambler, we should be warranted in
believing that the Penne to whom their second application was made was
George. If, on the other hand, their first application was made to a
gentleman of the highest consideration, we can hardly be wrong in saying
that the Penne to whom their second application was made must have been
William. To whom, then, was their first application made? It was to Sir
Francis Warre of Hestercombe, a Baronet and a Member of Parliament. The
letters are still extant in which the Duke of Somerset, the proud Duke,
not a man very likely to have corresponded with George Penne, pressed
Sir Francis to undertake the commission. The latest of those letters
is dated about three weeks before Sunderland's letter to Mr. Penne.
Somerset tells Sir Francis that the town clerk of Bridgewater, whose
name, I may remark in passing, is spelt sometimes Bird and sometimes
Birde, had offered his services, but that those services had been
declined. It is clear, therefore, that the Maids of Honour were desirous
to have an agent of high station and character. And they were right. For
the sum which they demanded was so large that no ordinary jobber could
safely be entrusted with the care of their interests. ---- As Sir Francis
Warre excused himself from undertaking the negotiation, it became
necessary for the Maids of Honour and their advisers to choose somebody
who might supply his place; and they chose Penne. Which of the two
Pennes, then, must have been their choice, George, a petty broker to
whom a percentage on sixty-five pounds was an object, and whose highest
ambition was to derive an infamous livelihood from cards and dice, or
William, not inferior in social position to any commoner in the kingdom?
Is it possible to believe that the ladies, who, in January, employed the
Duke of Somerset to procure for them an agent in the first rank of the
English gentry, and who did not think an attorney, though occupying a
respectable post in a respectable corporation, good enough for their
purpose, would, in February, have resolved to trust everything to a
fellow who was as much below Bird as Bird was below Warre? ---- But, it
is said, Sunderland's letter is dry and distant; and he never would have
written in such a style to William Penn with whom he was on friendly
terms. Can it be necessary for me to reply that the official
communications which a Minister of State makes to his dearest friends
and nearest relations are as cold and formal as those which he makes to
strangers? Will it be contended that the General Wellesley to whom the
Marquis Wellesley, when Governor of India, addressed so many letters
beginning with "Sir," and ending with "I have the honour to be your
obedient servant,'' cannot possibly have been his Lordship's brother
Arthur? ---- But, it is said, Oldmixon tells a different story. According
to him, a Popish lawyer named Brent, and a subordinate jobber, named
Crane, were the agents in the matter of the Taunton girls. Now it is
notorious that of all our historians Oldmixon is the least trustworthy.
His most positive assertion would be of no value when opposed to such
evidence as is furnished by Sunderland's letter, But Oldmixon asserts
nothing positively. Not only does he not assert positively that Brent
and Crane acted for the Maids of Honour; but he does not even assert
positively that the Maids of Honour were at all concerned. He goes
no further than "It was said," and "It was reported. " It is plain,
therefore, that he was very imperfectly informed. I do not think it
impossible, however, that there may have been some foundation for the
rumour which he mentions. We have seen that one busy lawyer, named Bird,
volunteered to look after the interest of the Maids of Honour, and that
they were forced to tell him that they did not want his services. Other
persons, and among them the two whom Oldmixon names, may have tried to
thrust themselves into so lucrative a job, and may, by pretending to
interest at Court, have succeeded in obtaining a little money from
terrified families. But nothing can be more clear than that the
authorised agent of the Maids of Honour was the Mr. Penne, to whom the
Secretary of State wrote; and I firmly believe that Mr. Penne to have
been William the Quaker---- If it be said that it is incredible that
so good a man would have been concerned in so bad an affair, I can only
answer that this affair was very far indeed from being the worst in
which he was concerned. ---- For those reasons I leave the text, and
shall leave it exactly as it originally stood. (1857. )]

[Footnote 462: Burnet, i. 646, and Speaker Onslow's note; Clarendon to
Rochester, May 8, 1686. ]

[Footnote 463: Burnet, i. 634. ]

[Footnote 464: Calamy's Memoirs; Commons' Journals, December 26,1690;
Sunderland to Jeffreys, September 14, 1685; Privy Council Book, February
26, 1685-6. ]

[Footnote 465: Lansdowne MS. 1152; Harl. MS. 6845; London Gazette, July
20, 1685. ]

[Footnote 466: Many writers have asserted, without the slightest
foundation, that a pardon was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have
been so absurd as to cite this imaginary pardon, which, if it were
real would prove only that Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the
magnanimity and benignity of the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and
burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not specially pardoned,
but was excluded by name from the general pardon published in the
following spring. (London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6. ) If, as the public
suspected and as seems probable, indulgence was shown to him; it was
indulgence of which James was, not without reason, ashamed, and which
was, as far as possible, kept secret. The reports which were current in
London at the time are mentioned in the Observator, Aug. 1,1685. ---- Sir
John Reresby, who ought to have been well informed, positively affirms
that Ferguson was taken three days after the battle of Sedgemoor. But
Sir John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore have
been wrong as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from
Goodenough's confession (Lansdowne MS. 1152), it is clear that, a
fortnight after the battle, Ferguson had not been caught, and was
supposed to be still lurking in England. ]

[Footnote 467: Granger's Biographical History. ]

[Footnote 468: Burnet, i. 648; James to the Prince of Orange, Sept. 10,
and 24, 1685; Lord Lonadale's Memoirs; London Gazette, Oct. 1, 1685. ]

[Footnote 469: Trial of Cornish in the Collection of State Trials,
Sir J. Hawles's Remarks on Mr. Cornish's Trial; Burnet, i. 651; Bloody
Assizes; Stat. 1 Gul. and Mar. ]

[Footnote 470: Trials of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt, in the Collection
of State Trials Burnet, i. 649; Bloody Assizes; Sir J. Bramston's
Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary, Oct. 23, 1685. ]

[Footnote 471: Bateman's Trial in the Collection of State Trials;
Sir John Hawles's Remarks. It is worth while to compare Thomas Lee's
evidence on this occasion with his confession previously published by
authority. ]

[Footnote 472: Van Citters, Oct. 13-23, 1685. ]

[Footnote 473: Neal's History of the Puritans, Calamy's Account of the
ejected Ministers and the Nonconformists' Memorial contain abundant
proofs of the severity of this persecution. Howe's farewell letter to
his flock will be found in the interesting life of that great man, by
Mr. Rogers. Howe complains that he could not venture to show himself in
the streets of London, and that his health had suffered from want of
air and exercise. But the most vivid picture of the distress of the
Nonconformists is furnished by their deadly enemy, Lestrange, in the
Observators of September and October, 1685. ]



The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of England from the Accession
of James II. , by Thomas Babington Macaulay

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Title: The History of England from the Accession of James II.
Volume 2 (of 5)

Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay

Posting Date: June 23, 2008 [EBook #2439]
Release Date: December, 2000

Language: English


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Produced by Martin Adamson





THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES THE SECOND

VOLUME II,

(Chapters VI-X)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay




CONTENTS:

CHAPTER VI

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




CHAPTER VII

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




CHAPTER VIII

Consecration of the Nuncio at Saint James's Palace; his public Reception
The Duke of Somerset
Dissolution of the Parliament; Military Offences illegally punished
Proceedings of the High Commission; the Universities
Proceedings against the University of Cambridge
The Earl of Mulgrave
State of Oxford
Magdalene College, Oxford
Anthony Farmer recommended by the King for President
Election of the President
The Fellows of Magdalene cited before the High Commission
Parker recommended as President; the Charterhouse
The Royal Progress
The King at Oxford; he reprimands the Fellows of Magdalene
Penn attempts to mediate
Special Ecclesiastical Commissioners sent to Oxford
Protest of Hough
Parker
Ejection of the Fellows
Magdalene College turned into a Popish Seminary
Resentment of the Clergy
Schemes of the Jesuitical Cabal respecting the Succession
Scheme of James and Tyrconnel for preventing the Princess of Orange
from succeeding to the Kingdom of Ireland
The Queen pregnant; general Incredulity
Feeling of the Constituent Bodies, and of the Peers
James determines to pack a Parliament
The Board of Regulators
Many Lords Lieutenants dismissed; the Earl of Oxford
The Earl of Shrewsbury
The Earl of Dorset
Questions put to the Magistrates
Their Answers; Failure of the King's Plans
List of Sheriffs
Character of the Roman Catholic Country Gentlemen
Feeling of the Dissenters; Regulation of Corporations
Inquisition in all the Public Departments
Dismission of Sawyer
Williams Solicitor General
Second Declaration of Indulgence; the Clergy ordered to read it
They hesitate; Patriotism of the Protestant Nonconformists of London
Consultation of the London Clergy
Consultation at Lambeth Palace
Petition of the Seven Bishops presented to the King
The London Clergy disobey the Royal Order
Hesitation of the Government
It is determined to prosecute the Bishops for a Libel
They are examined by the Privy Council
They are committed to the Tower
Birth of the Pretender
He is generally believed to be supposititious
The Bishops brought before the King's Bench and bailed
Agitation of the public Mind
Uneasiness of Sunderland
He professes himself a Roman Catholic
Trial of the Bishops
The Verdict; Joy of the People
Peculiar State of Public Feeling at this Time


CHAPTER IX

Change in the Opinion of the Tories concerning the Lawfulness
of Resistance
Russell proposes to the Prince of Orange a Descent on England
Henry Sidney
Devonshire; Shrewsbury; Halifax
Danby
Bishop Compton
Nottingham; Lumley
Invitation to William despatched
Conduct of Mary
Difficulties of William's Enterprise
Conduct of James after the Trial of the Bishops
Dismissions and Promotions
Proceedings of the High Commission; Sprat resigns his Seat
Discontent of the Clergy; Transactions at Oxford
Discontent of the Gentry
Discontent of the Army
Irish Troops brought over; Public Indignation
Lillibullero
Politics of the United Provinces; Errors of the French King
His Quarrel with the Pope concerning Franchises
The Archbishopric of Cologne
Skilful Management of William
His Military and Naval Preparations
He receives numerous Assurances of Support from England
Sunderland
Anxiety of William
Warnings conveyed to James
Exertions of Lewis to save James
James frustrates them
The French Armies invade Germany
William obtains the Sanction of the States General to his Expedition
Schomberg
British Adventurers at the Hague
William's Declaration
James roused to a Sense of his Danger; his Naval Means
His Military Means
He attempts to conciliate his Subjects
He gives Audience to the Bishops
His Concessions ill received
Proofs of the Birth of the Prince of Wales submitted to the
Privy Council
Disgrace of Sunderland
William takes leave of the States of Holland
He embarks and sails; he is driven back by a Storm
His Declaration arrives in England; James questions the Lords
William sets sail the second Time
He passes the Straits
He lands at Torbay
He enters Exeter
Conversation of the King with the Bishops
Disturbances in London
Men of Rank begin to repair to the Prince
Lovelace
Colchester; Abingdon
Desertion of Cornbury
Petition of the Lords for a Parliament
The King goes to Salisbury
Seymour; Court of William at Exeter
Northern Insurrection
Skirmish at Wincanton
Desertion of Churchill and Grafton
Retreat of the Royal Army from Salisbury
Desertion of Prince George and Ormond
Flight of the Princess Anne
Council of Lords held by James
He appoints Commissioners to treat with William
The Negotiation a Feint
Dartmouth refuses to send the Prince of Wales into France
Agitation of London
Forged Proclamation
Risings in various Parts of the Country
Clarendon joins the Prince at Salisbury; Dissension in the Prince's Camp
The Prince reaches Hungerford; Skirmish at Reading; the King's
Commissioners arrive at Hungerford
Negotiation
The Queen and the Prince of Wales sent to France; Lauzun
The King's Preparations for Flight
His Flight



CHAPTER X

The Flight of James known; great Agitation
The Lords meet at Guildhall
Riots in London
The Spanish Ambassador's House sacked
Arrest of Jeffreys
The Irish Night
The King detained near Sheerness
The Lords order him to be set at Liberty
William's Embarrassment
Arrest of Feversham
Arrival of James in London
Consultation at Windsor
The Dutch Troops occupy Whitehall
Message from the Prince delivered to James
James sets out for Rochester; Arrival of William at Saint James's
He is advised to assume the Crown by Right of Conquest
He calls together the Lords and the Members of the Parliaments
of Charles II.
Flight of James from Rochester
Debates and Resolutions of the Lords
Debates and Resolutions of the Commoners summoned by the Prince
Convention called; Exertions of the Prince to restore Order
His tolerant Policy
Satisfaction of Roman Catholic Powers; State of Feeling in France
Reception of the Queen of England in France
Arrival of James at Saint Germains
State of Feeling in the United Provinces
Election of Members to serve in the Convention
Affairs of Scotland
State of Parties in England
Sherlock's Plan
Sancroft's Plan
Danby's Plan
The Whig Plan
Meeting of the Convention; leading Members of the House of Commons
Choice of a Speaker
Debate on the State of the Nation
Resolution declaring the Throne vacant
It is sent up to the Lords; Debate in the Lords on the Plan of Regency
Schism between the Whigs and the Followers of Danby
Meeting at the Earl of Devonshire's
Debate in the Lords on the Question whether the Throne was vacant
Majority for the Negative; Agitation in London
Letter of James to the Convention
Debates; Negotiations; Letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby
The Princess Anne acquiesces in the Whig Plan
William explains his views
The Conference between the houses
The Lords yield
New Laws proposed for the Security of Liberty
Disputes and Compromise
The Declaration of Right
Arrival of Mary
Tender and Acceptance of the Crown
William and Mary proclaimed; peculiar Character of the English Revolution





CHAPTER VI


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the morrow the contention was renewed. The language of the country
party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preceding day.