No More Learning

It at length drew to itself
the chief executive power, and has now been regarded, during several
generations as an essential part of our polity. Yet, strange to say, it
still continues to be altogether unknown to the law: the names of the
noblemen and gentlemen who compose it are never officially announced to
the public: no record is kept of its meetings and resolutions; nor has
its existence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliament.

During some years the word Cabal was popularly used as synonymous with
Cabinet. But it happened by a whimsical coincidence that, in 1671, the
Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial letters of whose names
made up the word Cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and
Lauderdale. These ministers were therefore emphatically called the
Cabal; and they soon made that appellation so infamous that it has never
since their time been used except as a term of reproach.

Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treasury, and had greatly
distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the
Cabal he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery and imperious
temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and
honour.

Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had since he came
to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had learned that
cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions which is often
observable in persons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy.
If there was any form of government which he liked it was that of
France. If there was any Church for which he felt a preference, it was
that of Rome. He had some talent for conversation, and some talent also
for transacting the ordinary business of office. He had learned, during
a life passed in travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating
his language and deportment to the society in which he found himself.
His vivacity in the closet amused the King: his gravity in debates and
conferences imposed on the public; and he had succeeded in attaching to
himself, partly by services and partly by hopes, a considerable number
of personal retainers.

Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in whom the immorality which
was epidemic among the politicians of that age appeared in its most
malignant type, but variously modified by greet diversities of temper
and understanding. Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had
turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself
with architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for
the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret
negotiation and a Dutch war. He had already, rather from fickleness
and love of novelty than from any deep design, been faithless to every
party. At one time he had ranked among the Cavaliers. At another
time warrants had been out against him for maintaining a treasonable
correspondence with the remains of the Republican party in the city. He
was now again a courtier, and was eager to win the favour of the King
by services from which the most illustrious of those who had fought and
suffered for the royal house would have recoiled with horror.

Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far fiercer and more
earnest ambition, had been equally versatile. But Ashley's versatility
was the effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had
served and betrayed a succession of governments. But he had timed all
his treacheries so well that through all revolutions, his fortunes
had constantly been rising. The multitude, struck with admiration by
a prosperity which, while everything else was constantly changing,
remained unchangeable, attributed to him a prescience almost miraculous,
and likened him to the Hebrew statesman of whom it is written that his
counsel was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God.

Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, was, perhaps, under
the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the
whole Cabal. He had made himself conspicuous among the Scotch insurgents
of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was accused of having been
deeply concerned in the sale of Charles the First to the English
Parliament, and was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a
traitor, if possible, of a worse description than those who had sate in
the High Court of Justice. He often talked with a noisy jocularity
of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief
instrument employed by the court in the work of forcing episcopacy
on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that cause shrink from the
unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew
him knew that thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments,
that he still hated the memory of Charles the First, and that he still
preferred the Presbyterian form of church government to every other.

Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were, it was not
thought safe to intrust to them the King's intention of declaring
himself a Roman Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article
concerning religion was omitted, was shown to them. The names and seals
of Clifford and Arlington are affixed to the genuine treaty. Both these
statesmen had a partiality for the old Church, a partiality which the
brave and vehement Clifford in no long time manfully avowed, but which
the colder and meaner Arlington concealed, till the near approach of
death scared him into sincerity. The three other cabinet ministers,
however, were not men to be kept easily in the dark, and probably
suspected more than was distinctly avowed to them. They were certainly
privy to all the political engagements contracted with France, and were
not ashamed to receive large gratifications from Lewis.

The first object of Charles was to obtain from the Commons supplies
which might be employed in executing the secret treaty. The Cabal,
holding power at a time when our government was in a state of
transition, united in itself two different kinds of vices belonging
to two different ages and to two different systems. As those five evil
counsellors were among the last English statesmen who seriously thought
of destroying the Parliament, so they were the first English statesmen
who attempted extensively to corrupt it. We find in their policy at once
the latest trace of the Thorough of Strafford, and the earliest trace of
that methodical bribery which was afterwards practiced by Walpole. They
soon perceived, however, that, though the House of Commons was chiefly
composed of Cavaliers, and though places and French gold had been
lavished on the members, there was no chance that even the least odious
parts of the scheme arranged at Dover would be supported by a majority.
It was necessary to have recourse to fraud. The King professed great
zeal for the principles of the Triple Alliance, and pretended that, in
order to hold the ambition of France in check, it would be necessary to
augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the snare, and voted a grant of
eight hundred thousand pounds. The Parliament was instantly prorogued;
and the court, thus emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution
of the great design.

The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with Holland
could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary revenue was not
more than sufficient to support the government in time of peace. The
eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the Commons had just been
tricked would not defray the naval and military charge of a single year
of hostilities. After the terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament,
even the Cabal did not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney.
In this perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of
public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers in the
precious metals, but also bankers, and were in the habit of advancing
large sums of money to the government. In return for these advances they
received assignments on the revenue, and were repaid with interest as
the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred thousand pounds had been
in this way intrusted to the honour of the state. On a sudden it was
announced that it was not convenient to pay the principal, and that the
lenders must content themselves with interest. They were consequently
unable to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar:
several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay and distress
spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides were made towards
despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of Parliament, or
enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully enjoin, appeared in rapid
succession. Of these edicts the most important was the Declaration of
Indulgence. By this instrument the penal laws against Roman Catholics
were set aside; and, that the real object of the measure might not
be perceived, the laws against Protestant Nonconformists were also
suspended.

A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence, war
was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch maintained
the struggle with honour; but on land they were at first borne down by
irresistible force. A great French army passed the Rhine. Fortress
after fortress opened its gates. Three of the seven provinces of the
federation were occupied by the invaders. The fires of the hostile camp
were seen from the top of the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic,
thus fiercely assailed from without, was torn at the same time by
internal dissensions. The government was in the hands of a close
oligarchy of powerful burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town
Councils, each of which exercised within its own sphere, many of the
rights of sovereignty. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial
States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the States
General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential part of this
polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile of great men, had
gradually obtained a large and somewhat indefinite authority. William,
first of the name, Prince of Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland,
had headed the memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had
been Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent
abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel
actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had bequeathed
a great part of that power to his family. The influence of the
Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy to the municipal
oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of citizens which was
excluded from all share in the government, looked on the Burgomasters
and Deputies with a dislike resembling the dislike with which the
legions and the common people of Rome regarded the Senate, and were as
zealous for the House of Orange as the legions and the common people of
Rome for the House of Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of
the commonwealth, disposed of all military commands, had a large share
of the civil patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal.

Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the oligarchical
party. His life had terminated in the year 1650, amidst great civil
troubles. He died childless: the adherents of his house were left for
a short time without a head; and the powers which he had exercised were
divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial States, and the States
General.

But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter of
Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son, destined
to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau to the highest
point, to save the United Provinces from slavery, to curb the power
of France, and to establish the English constitution on a lasting
foundation.

This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object of
serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of loyal
attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high consideration
as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the chief of one of the most
illustrious houses in Europe, as a Magnate of the German empire, as a
prince of the blood royal of England, and, above all, as the descendant
of the founders of Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once
been considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance; and
the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should never
be another Stadtholder. The want of a first magistrate was, to a great
extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the Province of Holland,
John De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and integrity had raised him to
unrivalled authority in the councils of the municipal oligarchy.

The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and
terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their madness
they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest statesmen of the
distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by the rabble. De Witt
was torn in pieces before the gate of the palace of the States General
at the Hague. The Prince of Orange, who had no share in the guilt of
the murder, but who, on this occasion, as on another lamentable occasion
twenty years later, extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an
indulgence which has left a stain on his glory, became chief of
the government without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and
unconquerable spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon
roused the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both
his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to seduce him
from the cause of the Republic. To the States General he spoke a high
and inspiriting language. He even ventured to suggest a scheme which has
an aspect of antique heroism, and which, if it had been accomplished,
would have been the noblest subject for epic song that is to be found in
the whole compass of modern history. He told the deputies that, even if
their natal soil and the marvels with which human industry had covered
it were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders might
survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by tyrants and
bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest isles of Asia. The
shipping in the ports of the republic would suffice to carry two
hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian Archipelago. There the Dutch
commonwealth might commence a new and more glorious existence, and might
rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees,
the Exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned
Leyden. The national spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered
by the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole
country was turned into one great lake from which the cities, with their
ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders were forced to
save themselves from destruction by a precipitate retreat. Lewis, who,
though he sometimes thought it necessary to appear at the head of his
troops, greatly preferred a palace to a camp, had already returned
to enjoy the adulation of poets and the smiles of ladies in the newly
planted alleys of Versailles.

And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had been
doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a respite; and a
respite, though short, was of infinite importance. Alarmed by the vast
designs of Lewis, both the branches of the great House of Austria sprang
to arms. Spain and Holland, divided by the memory of ancient wrongs and
humiliations, were reconciled by the nearness of the common danger.
From every part of Germany troops poured towards the Rhine. The English
government had already expended all the funds which had been obtained by
pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the City.
An attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have at once
produced a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain a contest
against half Europe, was in no condition to furnish the means of
coercing the people of England. It was necessary to convoke the
Parliament.

In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a recess
of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord Treasurer, and Ashley,
now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor, were the persons on whom
the King principally relied as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party
instantly began to attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made,
not in the way of storm, but by slow and scientific approaches. The
Commons at first held out hopes that they would give support to the
king's foreign policy, but insisted that he should purchase that support
by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their chief object
was to obtain the revocation of the Declaration of Indulgence. Of all
the many unpopular steps taken by the government the most unpopular was
the publishing of this Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had
been shocked by an act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All
the enemies of religious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom,
found themselves on the same side; and these two classes made up
nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman exclaimed
against the favour which had been shown both to the Papist and to the
Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice in the suspension of the
persecution by which he had been harassed, felt little gratitude for a
toleration which he was to share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who
valued liberty and law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the
prerogative had made into the province of the legislature.

It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question was then
not quite free from obscurity. Our ancient Kings had undoubtedly claimed
and exercised the right of suspending the operation of penal laws. The
tribunals had recognised that right. Parliaments had suffered it to pass
unchallenged. That some such right was inherent in the crown, few even
of the Country Party ventured, in the face of precedent and authority,
to deny. Yet it was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit,
the English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure
despotism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King and his
ministers. Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay within or without
the limit was the question; and neither party could succeed in tracing
any line which would bear examination. Some opponents of the government
complained that the Declaration suspended not less than forty statutes.
But why not forty as well as one? There was an orator who gave it as his
opinion that the King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but
not with good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless
to expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received
in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was confined to
secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted for the security
of the established religion. Yet, as the King was supreme head of the
Church, it should seem that, if he possessed the dispensing power at
all, he might well possess that power where the Church was concerned.
When the courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the bounds
of this prerogative, they were not more successful than the opposition
had been.

The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in politics.
It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of mixed
government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled themselves
little about theories. [19] It had not been very grossly abused in
practice. It had therefore been tolerated, and had gradually acquired a
kind of prescription. At length it was employed, after a long interval,
in an enlightened age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent
never before known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was
instantly subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,
venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they began
to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit of the
constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the English government
from a limited into an absolute monarchy.

Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the King's
right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but with penal
statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand
that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no supply for the
Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything
to hazard; but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity,
and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now employed in an
arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose
of suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs of
disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial
sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and that all things
were tending towards a crisis resembling that of 1640. He was determined
that such a crisis should not find him in the situation of Strafford.
He therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of
Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. The King, thus deserted by
his ally and by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and
solemnly promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.

Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content with
having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next extorted his
unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in force down
to the reign of George the Fourth. This law, known as the Test Act,
provided that all persons holding any office, civil or military, should
take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a declaration against
transubstantiation, and should publicly receive the sacrament according
to the rites of the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility
only to the Papists: but the enacting clauses were scarcely more
unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The Puritans,
however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court towards Popery,
and encouraged by some churchmen to hope that, as soon as the Roman
Catholics should have been effectually disarmed, relief would be
extended to Protestant Nonconformists, made little opposition; nor could
the King, who was in extreme want of money, venture to withhold his
sanction. The act was passed; and the Duke of York was consequently
under the necessity of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral.

Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But, when
the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out, relinquished
his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously on his foreign
policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham and Lauderdale from his
councils forever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of
impeaching Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford,
who, alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man,
refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and retired to
his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of Secretary of State for
a quiet and dignified employment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury
and Buckingham made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at
the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still
continued to be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the English
Parliament could not interfere.

And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland, and
expressly declared that no more supplies should be granted for the war,
unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately refused to consent
to reasonable terms. Charles found it necessary to postpone to a more
convenient season all thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to
cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple
Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived
in seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from his
hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was concluded with
the United Provinces; and he again became ambassador at the Hague, where
his presence was regarded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his
court.

The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne,
a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, shown eminent
talents for business and debate. Osborne became Lord Treasurer, and was
soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a man whose character, if tried
by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He
was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of
others. The Cabal had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments,
an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to
which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on
the plan of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators:
but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new
minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was
not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did
he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the
interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed,
to exalt the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt
it were widely different from those which had been contemplated by
Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary power, by
calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the kingdom to the
rank of a dependent principality, never entered into his mind. His plan
was to rally round the monarchy those classes which had been the firm
allies of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding generation,
and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the
court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the
country gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might,
he conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute
sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had
been.

Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing to the
Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political power both
executive and legislative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was
offered to the Lords which provided that no person should hold any
office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, without first
declaring on oath that he considered resistance to the kingly power as
in all cases criminal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the
government either in Church or State. During several weeks the debates,
divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a
state of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by
two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace with the
nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all precedent vehement
and pertinacious, and at length proved successful. The bill was not
indeed rejected, but was retarded, mutilated, and at length suffered to
drop.

So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domestic policy. His
opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour. They were in truth
directly opposed to those of the Cabal and differed little from those of
the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the degraded situation to which
England was reduced, and declared, with more energy than politeness,
that his dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper respect
for her.
So little did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet
where the most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church
were assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the confusion
of all who were against a war with France. He would indeed most gladly
have seen his country united with the powers which were then combined
against Lewis, and was for that end bent on placing Temple, the author
of the Triple Alliance, at the head of the department which directed
foreign affairs. But the power of the prime minister was limited. In
his most confidential letters he complained that the infatuation of his
master prevented England from taking her proper place among European
nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by no
means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day, be able
to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French arms; and for
both reasons he wished to maintain a good understanding with the court
of Versailles.

Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics,
and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither the
sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue any object
with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded to the importunity
of the other; and their jarring inclinations and mutual concessions gave
to the whole administration a strangely capricious character. Charles
sometimes, from levity and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which
Lewis resented as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather
than relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances which
caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to consent to a
marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and presumptive heiress
of the Duke of York and William of Orange, the deadly enemy of France
and the hereditary champion of the Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of
Ossory, son of Ormond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some British
troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war, signally
vindicated the national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer,
on the other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous
pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and the court
of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and ungraciously, an
agent in those transactions.

Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in two
opposite directions. The popular leaders were afraid of the greatness
of Lewis, who was not only making head against the whole strength of the
continental alliance, but was even gaining ground. Yet they were afraid
to entrust their own King with the means of curbing France, lest those
means should be used to destroy the liberties of England. The conflict
between these apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate,
made the policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that
of the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the King,
pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield,
and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw that the recruiting
had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave place to a nearer dread. They
began to fear that the new levies might be employed on a service in
which Charles took much more interest than in the defence of Flanders.
They therefore refused supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly
as they had just before clamoured for arming. Those historians who
have severely reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made
sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects who have
reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign and
hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him military resources
is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give him military resources
may be only to arm him against the state. In such circumstances
vacillation cannot be considered as a proof of dishonesty or even of
weakness.

These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He had
long kept England passive by promising to support the throne against the
Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the patriotic counsels
of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, began to inflame the
Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis and the Country Party there
was one thing, and one only in common, profound distrust of Charles.
Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign meant
only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him.
Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to
make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt
to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were
such that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing in
nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally
desirous to keep him poor and without an army. Communications were
opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English
politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the
greatest dread and dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of
the Country Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did
not scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for embarrassing
his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of Russell's offence. His
principles and his fortune alike raised him above all temptations of a
sordid kind: but there is too much reason to believe that some of his
associates were less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them
the extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the
contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny that
they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them
for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this degrading
charge was one man who is popularly considered as the personification
of public spirit, and who, in spite of some great moral and intellectual
faults, has a just claim to be called a hero, a philosopher, and a
patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a name in the list of
the pensioners of France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in
our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and
of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered the
virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney.

The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasionally
took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the continental
war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated by the treaty of
Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672 had seemed to be on the
verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous terms. This
narrow escape was generally ascribed to the ability and courage of the
young Stadtholder. His fame was great throughout Europe, and especially
among the English, who regarded him as one of their own princes, and
rejoiced to see him the husband of their future Queen. France retained
many important towns in the Low Countries and the great province of
Franche Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy
of Spain.

A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent came
a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things had
been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popularity, great
as it was, with which the King had commenced his administration,
had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound
disaffection. The public mind had now measured back again the space
over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the
state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met.

The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these
was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a
few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland
and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the
Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished; and it might have
been expected that she would have been at least as highly considered
in Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing
obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost
vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet
she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers,
sunk so low that any German or Italian principality which brought
five thousand men into the field was a more important member of the
commonwealth of nations.

With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for civil
liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more alarming by
reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court a deliberate design
against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It had even
been whispered that this design was to be carried into effect by the
intervention of foreign arms. The thought of Such intervention made the
blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always
professed the doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now
heard to mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a
foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would not
answer for their own patience.

But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so
great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Catholic
religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the
community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those
who were Protestants from conviction. The cruelties of Mary's reign,
cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite
just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related
in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and
above all the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep
and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations, prayers,
bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which
were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy
and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of
Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices; the landed
gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign
of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree
given place to hatred of Puritanism; but, during the eighteen years
which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had
abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations of the
treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but some hints had
got abroad. The general impression was that a great blow was about to
be aimed at the Protestant religion. The King was suspected by many of a
leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir presumptive was known to be
a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman
Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House
of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman
Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to
fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession
of princes, hostile to the established faith, might sit on the English
throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of
protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the
policy of England had, during many years, been chiefly governed, was not
only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under
such circumstances it is not strange that the common people should have
been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called
Bloody Mary.

Thus the nation was in such a temper that the smallest spark might raise
a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the
vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole was in a
blaze.

The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, artfully
contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, by the
instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless man who
had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of
Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an application
made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles for a sum of
money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was,
in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on account of his
delinquencies, but on account of his merits; not because he had been
an accomplice in a criminal transaction, but because he had been a most
unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the circumstances, which
have, in the judgment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his
contemporaries were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had
sold England to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an
end, and doubtful whether his head could be saved.

Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when compared with
the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad that a great Popish
plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a clergyman of the Church of
England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on
himself the censure of his spiritual superiors, had been compelled to
quit his benefice, and had ever since led an infamous and vagrant life.
He had once professed himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time
on the Continent in English colleges of the order of Jesus. In those
seminaries he had heard much wild talk about the best means of
bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he
constructed a hideous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man
than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope,
he said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The
Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed
Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest
offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once.
They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning
a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping in the Thames. They were
to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neighbours. A
French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading
statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four
schemes had been formed for assassinating the King. He was to be
stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine He was to be shot with
silver bullets. The public mind was so sore and excitable that these
lies readily found credit with the vulgar; and two events which speedily
took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though
evidently distorted and exaggerated, might have some foundation.

Edward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Catholic
intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was made for his
papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the greater part of
them. But a few which had escaped contained some passages such as,
to minds strongly prepossessed, might seem to confirm the evidence of
Oates. Those passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to
express little more than the hopes which the posture of affairs, the
predilections of Charles, the still stronger predilections of James,
and the relations existing between the French and English courts, might
naturally excite in the mind of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to
the interests of his Church. But the country was not then inclined to
construe the letters of Papists candidly; and it was urged, with
some show of reason, that, if papers which had been passed over as
unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery
of iniquity must have been contained in those documents which had been
carefully committed to the flames.

A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent
justice of the peace who had taken the depositions of Oates against
Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made; and Godfrey's corpse was
found in a field near London. It was clear that he had died by violence.
It was equally clear that he had not been set upon by robbers. His fate
is to this day a secret. Some think that he perished by his own
hand; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. The most improbable
supposition is that he was murdered by the party hostile to the court,
in order to give colour to the story of the plot. The most probable
supposition seems, on the whole, to be that some hotheaded Roman
Catholic, driven to frenzy by the lies of Oates and by the insults
of the multitude, and not nicely distinguishing between the perjured
accuser and the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which the
history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this
were so, the assassin must have afterwards bitterly execrated his own
wickedness and folly. The capital and the whole nation went mad with
hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of
their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were busied in
searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with
Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The
trainbands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for
barricading the great thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the
streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself
safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to
brain the Popish assassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was
exhibited during several days to the gaze of great multitudes, and was
then committed to the grave with strange and terrible ceremonies,
which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance shall sorrow or
religious hope. The Houses insisted that a guard should be placed in the
vaults over which they sate, in order to secure them against a second
Gunpowder Plot. All their proceedings were of a piece with this demand.
Ever since the reign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy had been exacted
from members of the House of Commons. Some Roman Catholics, however,
had contrived so to interpret this oath that they could take it without
scruple. A more stringent test was now added: every member of Parliament
was required to make the Declaration against Transubstantiation; and
thus the Roman Catholic Lords were for the first time excluded from
their seats. Strong resolutions were adopted against the Queen. The
Commons threw one of the Secretaries of State into prison for having
countersigned commissions directed to gentlemen who were not good
Protestants. They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay,
they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil war
was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even attempted
to wrest the command of the militia out of the King's hands. To such
a temper had eighteen years of misgovernment brought the most loyal
Parliament that had ever met in England.

Yet it may seem strange that, even in that extremity, the King should
have ventured to appeal to the people; for the people were more excited
than their representatives. The Lower House, discontented as it was,
contained a larger number of Cavaliers than were likely to find seats
again. But it was thought that a dissolution would put a stop to the
prosecution of the Lord Treasurer, a prosecution which might probably
bring to light all the guilty mysteries of the French alliance, and
might thus cause extreme personal annoyance and embarrassment to
Charles. Accordingly, in January, 1679, the Parliament, which had been
in existence ever since the beginning of the year 1661, was dissolved;
and writs were issued for a general election.

During some weeks the contention over the whole country was fierce and
obstinate beyond example. Unprecedented sums were expended. New tactics
were employed. It was remarked by the pamphleteers of that time as
something extraordinary that horses were hired at a great charge for
the conveyance of electors. The practice of splitting freeholds for
the purpose of multiplying votes dates from this memorable struggle.
Dissenting preachers, who had long hidden themselves in quiet nooks from
persecution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode from village to
village, for the purpose of rekindling the zeal of the scattered people
of God. The tide ran strong against the government. Most of the new
members came up to Westminster in a mood little differing from that of
their predecessors who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower.

Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst of
political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of every
party, were disgraced by wilder passions and fouler corruptions than
were to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Oates, though it had
sufficed to convulse the whole realm, would not, unless confirmed by
other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those whom he had
accused. For, by the old law of England, two witnesses are necessary
to establish a charge of treason. But the success of the first impostor
produced its natural consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised
from penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made him the dread
of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad
minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors
and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in
Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against
the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon
from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London,
false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics.
One came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to
muster in the disguise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to sail thence to
Wales. Another had been promised canonisation and five hundred pounds
to murder the King. A third had stepped into an eating house in Covent
Garden, and had there heard a great Roman Catholic banker vow, in the
hearing of all the guests and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant.
Oates, that he might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added
a large supplement to his original narrative. He had the portentous
impudence to affirm, among other things, that he had once stood behind a
door which was ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she
had resolved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband.
The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe,
even such fictions as these. The chief judges of the realm were corrupt,
cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encouraged the
prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, indeed, were
themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part of the evidence
of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless
perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance which
served their turn; and to their seared consciences the death of an
innocent man gave no more uneasiness than the death of a partridge. The
juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation,
and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those feelings without
restraint. The multitude applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted
and pelted the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and
shouted with joy when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in
vain that the sufferers appealed to the respectability of their past
lives: for the public mind was possessed with a belief that the more
conscientious a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a
Protestant government. It was in vain that, just before the cart passed
from under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence: for the
general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were
serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious.

While innocent blood was shedding under the forms of justice, the new
Parliament met; and such was the violence of the predominant party
that even men whose youth had been passed amidst revolutions men who
remembered the attainder of Strafford, the attempt on the five members,
the abolition of the House of Lords, the execution of the King, stood
aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The impeachment of Danby was
resumed. He pleaded the royal pardon. But the Commons treated the
plea with contempt, and insisted that the trial should proceed. Danby,
however, was not their chief object. They were convinced that the only
effectual way of securing the liberties and religion of the nation was
to exclude the Duke of York from the throne.

The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that his brother, the
sight of whom inflamed the populace to madness, should retire for a
time to Brussels: but this concession did not seem to have produced any
favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now decidedly preponderant.
Towards that party leaned millions who had, at the time of the
Restoration, leaned towards the side of prerogative. Of the old
Cavaliers many participated in the prevailing fear of Popery, and many,
bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince for whom they had
sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as carelessly as he had
looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, mortified and alarmed by the
apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to
join cordially in the outcry against the Roman Catholics.

The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir William Temple. Of all
the official men of that age Temple had preserved the fairest character.
The Triple Alliance had been his work. He had refused to take any
part in the politics of the Cabal, and had, while that administration
directed affairs, lived in strict privacy. He had quitted his retreat at
the call of Danby, had made peace between England and Holland, and had
borne a chief part in bringing about the marriage of the Lady Mary to
her cousin the Prince of Orange. Thus he had the credit of every one
of the few good things which had been done by the government since the
Restoration. Of the numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen
years none could be imputed to him. His private life, though not
austere, was decorous: his manners were popular; and he was not to be
corrupted either by titles or by money. Something, however, was wanting
to the character of this respectable statesman. The temperature of his
patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his personal dignity
too much, and shrank from responsibility with a pusillanimous fear. Nor
indeed had his habits fitted him to bear a part in the conflicts of our
domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth year without having sate
in the English Parliament; and his official experience had been almost
entirely acquired at foreign courts.