The
estimate
which all parties had formed of his character,
added weight to every word that fell from him.
added weight to every word that fell from him.
Macaulay
So high did political animosities run that the
presence of some Whig physicians was regarded as an extraordinary
circumstance. [217] One Roman Catholic, whose skill was then widely
renowned, Doctor Thomas Short, was in attendance. Several of the
prescriptions have been preserved. One of them is signed by fourteen
Doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied to his head.
A loathsome volatile salt, extracted from human skulls, was forced into
his mouth. He recovered his senses; but he was evidently in a situation
of extreme danger.
The Queen was for a time assiduous in her attendance. The Duke of York
scarcely left his brother's bedside. The Primate and four other bishops
were then in London. They remained at Whitehall all day, and took it
by turns to sit up at night in the King's room. The news of his illness
filled the capital with sorrow and dismay. For his easy temper and
affable manners had won the affection of a large part of the nation;
and those who most disliked him preferred his unprincipled levity to the
stern and earnest bigotry of his brother.
On the morning of Thursday the fifth of February, the London Gazette
announced that His Majesty was going on well, and was thought by the
physicians to be out of danger. The bells of all the churches rang
merrily; and preparations for bonfires were made in the streets. But in
the evening it was known that a relapse had taken place, and that the
medical attendants had given up all hope. The public mind was greatly
disturbed; but there was no disposition to tumult. The Duke of York, who
had already taken on himself to give orders, ascertained that the City
was perfectly quiet, and that he might without difficulty be proclaimed
as soon as his brother should expire.
The King was in great pain, and complained that he felt as if a fire
was burning within him. Yet he bore up against his sufferings with a
fortitude which did not seem to belong to his soft and luxurious nature.
The sight of his misery affected his wife so much that she fainted, and
was carried senseless to her chamber. The prelates who were in waiting
had from the first exhorted him to prepare for his end. They now thought
it their duty to address him in a still more urgent manner. William
Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, an honest and pious, though
narrowminded, man, used great freedom. "It is time," he said, "to
speak out; for, Sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no
respecter of persons. " The King answered not a word.
Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then tried his powers of
persuasion. He was a man of parts and learning, of quick sensibility and
stainless virtue. His elaborate works have long been forgotten; but
his morning and evening hymns are still repeated daily in thousands of
dwellings. Though, like most of his order, zealous for monarchy, he was
no sycophant. Before he became a Bishop, he had maintained the honour of
his gown by refusing, when the court was at Winchester, to let Eleanor
Gwynn lodge in the house which he occupied there as a prebendary. [218]
The King had sense enough to respect so manly a spirit. Of all the
prelates he liked Ken the best. It was to no purpose, however, that the
good Bishop now put forth all his eloquence. His solemn and pathetic
exhortation awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree that some
among them believed him to be filled with the same spirit which, in the
old time, had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes
to repentance. Charles however was unmoved. He made no objection indeed
when the service for the visitation of the sick was read. In reply to
the pressing questions of the divines, he said that he was sorry for
what he had done amiss; and he suffered the absolution to be pronounced
over him according to the forms of the Church of England: but, when he
was urged to declare that he died in the communion of that Church, he
seemed not to hear what was said; and nothing could induce him to take
the Eucharist from the hands of the Bishops. A table with bread and wine
was brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he said that there
was no hurry, and sometimes that he was too weak.
Many attributed this apathy to contempt for divine things, and many to
the stupor which often precedes death. But there were in the palace a
few persons who knew better. Charles had never been a sincere member of
the Established Church. His mind had long oscillated between Hobbism and
Popery. When his health was good and his spirits high he was a scoffer.
In his few serious moments he was a Roman Catholic. The Duke of York
was aware of this, but was entirely occupied with the care of his own
interests. He had ordered the outports to be closed. He had posted
detachments of the Guards in different parts of the city. He had also
procured the feeble signature of the dying King to an instrument by
which some duties, granted only till the demise of the Crown, were let
to farm for a term of three years. These things occupied the attention
of James to such a degree that, though, on ordinary occasions, he was
indiscreetly and unseasonably eager to bring over proselytes to his
Church, he never reflected that his brother was in danger of dying
without the last sacraments. This neglect was the more extraordinary
because the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, suggested,
on the morning on which the King was taken ill, the propriety of
procuring spiritual assistance. For such assistance Charles was at last
indebted to an agency very different from that of his pious wife and
sister-in-law. A life of frivolty and vice had not extinguished in the
Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that kindness
which is the glory of her sex. The French ambassador Barillon, who had
come to the palace to enquire after the King, paid her a visit. He found
her in an agony of sorrow. She took him into a secret room, and poured
out her whole heart to him. "I have," she said, "a thing of great moment
to tell you. If it were known, my head would be in danger. The King is
really and truly a Catholic; but he will die without being reconciled
to the Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergymen. I cannot
enter it without giving scandal. The Duke is thinking only of himself.
Speak to him. Remind him that there is a soul at stake. He is master
now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will be too late. "
Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and delivered
the message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote him. He
started as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should
prevent him from discharging the sacred duty which had been too long
delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke
commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and
whispered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which
they supposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles
answered in an audible voice, "Yes, yes, with all my heart. " None of
the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was
declaring his wish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome.
"Shall I bring a priest? " said the Duke. "Do, brother," replied the Sick
man. "For God's sake do, and lose no time. But no; you will get into
trouble. " "If it costs me my life," said the Duke, "I will fetch a
priest. "
To find a priest, however, for such a purpose, at a moment's notice,
was not easy. For, as the law then stood, the person who admitted a
proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime.
The Count of Castel Melhor, a Portuguese nobleman, who, driven by
political troubles from his native land, had been hospitably received at
the English court, undertook to procure a confessor. He had recourse to
his countrymen who belonged to the Queen's household; but he found that
none of her chaplains knew English or French enough to shrive the King.
The Duke and Barillon were about to send to the Venetian Minister for
a clergyman when they heard that a Benedictine monk, named John
Huddleston, happened to be at Whitehall. This man had, with great risk
to himself, saved the King's life after the battle of Worcester, and
had, on that account, been, ever since the Restoration, a privileged
person. In the sharpest proclamations which had been put forth against
Popish priests, when false witnesses had inflamed the nation to fury,
Huddleston had been excepted by name. [219] He readily consented to put
his life a second time in peril for his prince; but there was still a
difficulty. The honest monk was so illiterate that he did not know what
he ought to say on an occasion of such importance. He however obtained
some hints, through the intervention of Castel Melhor, from a Portuguese
ecclesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the back stairs by
Chiffinch, a confidential servant, who, if the satires of that age
are to be credited, had often introduced visitors of a very different
description by the same entrance. The Duke then, in the King's name,
commanded all who were present to quit the room, except Lewis Duras,
Earl of Feversham, and John Granville, Earl of Bath. Both these Lords
professed the Protestant religion; but James conceived that he could
count on their fidelity. Feversham, a Frenchman of noble birth, and
nephew of the great Turenne, held high rank in the English army, and was
Chamberlain to the Queen. Bath was Groom of the Stole.
The Duke's orders were obeyed; and even the physicians withdrew. The
back door was then opened; and Father Huddleston entered. A cloak
had been thrown over his sacred vestments; and his shaven crown was
concealed by a flowing wig. "Sir," said the Duke, "this good man once
saved your life. He now comes to save your soul. " Charles faintly
answered, "He is welcome. " Huddleston went through his part better than
had been expected. He knelt by the bed, listened to the confession,
pronounced the absolution, and administered extreme unction. He asked
if the King wished to receive the Lord's supper. "Surely," said Charles,
"if I am not unworthy. " The host was brought in. Charles feebly strove
to rise and kneel before it. The priest made him lie still, and assured
him that God would accept the humiliation of the soul, and would not
require the humiliation of the body. The King found so much difficulty
in swallowing the bread that it was necessary to open the door and
procure a glass of water. This rite ended, the monk held up a crucifix
before the penitent, charged him to fix his last thoughts on the
sufferings of the Redeemer, and withdrew. The whole ceremony had
occupied about three quarters of an hour; and, during that time, the
courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to
each other by whispers and significant glances. The door was at length
thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of death.
It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by what
had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside, the Dukes
of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess of
Cleveland, the Duke of Saint Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynn, and the Duke
of Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all,
but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face which should
have been there was wanting. The eldest and best loved child was an
exile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father.
During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth
and her boy to the care of James; "And do not," he good-naturedly added,
"let poor Nelly starve. " The Queen sent excuses for her absence by
Halifax. She said that she was too much disordered to resume her post
by the couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might
unwittingly have given. "She ask my pardon, poor woman! " cried Charles;
"I ask hers with all my heart. "
The morning light began to peep through the windows of Whitehall; and
Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, that he might
have one more look at the day. He remarked that it was time to wind up
a clock which stood near his bed. These little circumstances were long
remembered because they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared
himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession of his faculties.
He apologised to those who had stood round him all night for the trouble
which he had caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time
dying; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse
of the exquisite urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the
resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of
the dying man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had
repaired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When the prayer
for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply his people
felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, he passed away
without a struggle. [220]
At that time the common people throughout Europe, and nowhere more
than in England, were in the habit of attributing the death of princes,
especially when the prince was popular and the death unexpected, to the
foulest and darkest kind of assassination. Thus James the First had
been accused of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles the First had been
accused of poisoning James the First. Thus when, in the time of the
Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died at Carisbrook, it was loudly
asserted that Cromwell had stooped to the senseless and dastardly
wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with the food of a young girl whom he
had no conceivable motive to injure. [221] A few years later, the rapid
decomposition of Cromwell's own corpse was ascribed by many to a deadly
potion administered in his medicine. The death of Charles the Second
could scarcely fail to occasion similar rumours. The public ear had been
repeatedly abused by stories of Popish plots against his life. There
was, therefore, in many minds, a strong predisposition to suspicion; and
there were some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so predisposed,
might seem to indicate that a crime had been perpetrated. The fourteen
Doctors who deliberated on the King's case contradicted each other and
themselves. Some of them thought that his fit was epileptic, and that
he should be suffered to have his doze out. The majority pronounced
him apoplectic, and tortured him during some hours like an Indian at
a stake. Then it was determined to call his complaint a fever, and to
administer doses of bark. One physician, however, protested against
this course, and assured the Queen that his brethren would kill the
King among them. Nothing better than dissension and vacillation could be
expected from such a multitude of advisers. But many of the vulgar not
unnaturally concluded, from the perplexity of the great masters of the
healing art, that the malady had some extraordinary origin. There is
reason to believe that a horrible suspicion did actually cross the mind
of Short, who, though skilful in his profession, seems to have been a
nervous and fanciful man, and whose perceptions were probably confused
by dread of the odious imputations to which he, as a Roman Catholic,
was peculiarly exposed. We cannot, therefore, wonder that wild stories
without number were repeated and believed by the common people. His
Majesty's tongue had swelled to the size of a neat's tongue. A cake of
deleterious powder had been found in his brain. There were blue spots on
his breast, There were black spots on his shoulder. Something had been,
put in his snuff-box. Something had been put into his broth. Something
had been put into his favourite dish of eggs and ambergrease. The
Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned him in a cup of chocolate. The
Queen had poisoned him in a jar of dried pears. Such tales ought to be
preserved; for they furnish us with a measure of the intelligence and
virtue of the generation which eagerly devoured them. That no rumour of
the same kind has ever, in the present age, found credit among us, even
when lives on which great interest depended have been terminated
by unforeseen attacks of disease, is to be attributed partly to the
progress of medical and chemical science, but partly also, it may be
hoped, to the progress which the nation has made in good sense, justice,
and humanity. [222]
When all was over, James retired from the bedside to his closet, where,
during a quarter of an hour, he remained alone. Meanwhile the Privy
Councillors who were in the palace assembled. The new King came
forth, and took his place at the head of the board. He commenced his
administration, according to usage, by a speech to the Council. He
expressed his regret for the loss which he had just sustained, and he
promised to imitate the singular lenity which had distinguished the late
reign. He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a fondness for
arbitrary power. But that was not the only falsehood which had been told
of him. He was resolved to maintain the established government both in
Church and State. The Church of England he knew to be eminently loyal.
It should therefore always be his care to support and defend her. The
laws of England, he also knew, were sufficient to make him as great a
King as he could wish to be. He would not relinquish his own rights; but
he would respect the rights of others. He had formerly risked his life
in defense of his country; and he would still go as far as any man in
support of her just liberties.
This speech was not, like modern speeches on similar occasions,
carefully prepared by the advisers of the sovereign. It was the
extemporaneous expression of the new King's feelings at a moment of
great excitement. The members of the Council broke forth into clamours
of delight and gratitude. The Lord President, Rochester, in the name
of his brethren, expressed a hope that His Majesty's most welcome
declaration would be made public. The Solicitor General, Heneage Finch,
offered to act as clerk. He was a zealous churchman, and, as such, was
naturally desirous that there should be some permanent record of the
gracious promises which had just been uttered. "Those promises," he
said, "have made so deep an impression on me that I can repeat them word
for word. " He soon produced his report. James read it, approved of it,
and ordered it to be published. At a later period he said that he had
taken this step without due consideration, that his unpremeditated
expressions touching the Church of England were too strong, and that
Finch had, with a dexterity which at the time escaped notice, made them
still stronger. [223]
The King had been exhausted by long watching and by many violent
emotions. He now retired to rest. The Privy Councillors, having
respectfully accompanied him to his bedchamber, returned to their seats,
and issued orders for the ceremony of proclamation. The Guards were
under arms; the heralds appeared in their gorgeous coats; and the
pageant proceeded without any obstruction. Casks of wine were broken up
in the streets, and all who passed were invited to drink to the health
of the new sovereign. But, though an occasional shout was raised, the
people were not in a joyous mood. Tears were seen in many eyes; and it
was remarked that there was scarcely a housemaid in London who had not
contrived to procure some fragment of black crepe in honour of King
Charles. [224]
The funeral called forth much censure. It would, indeed, hardly have
been accounted worthy of a noble and opulent subject. The Tories gently
blamed the new King's parsimony: the Whigs sneered at his want of
natural affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scotland exultingly
proclaimed that the curse denounced of old against wicked princes had
been signally fulfilled, and that the departed tyrant had been buried
with the burial of an ass. [225] Yet James commenced his administration
with a large measure of public good will. His speech to the Council
appeared in print, and the impression which it produced was highly
favourable to him. This, then, was the prince whom a faction had driven
into exile and had tried to rob of his birthright, on the ground that
he was a deadly enemy to the religion and laws of England. He had
triumphed: he was on the throne; and his first act was to declare that
he would defend the Church, and would strictly respect the rights of
his people.
The estimate which all parties had formed of his character,
added weight to every word that fell from him. The Whigs called him
haughty, implacable, obstinate, regardless of public opinion. The
Tories, while they extolled his princely virtues, had often lamented his
neglect of the arts which conciliate popularity. Satire itself had never
represented him as a man likely to court public favour by professing
what he did not feel, and by promising what he had no intention of
performing. On the Sunday which followed his accession, his speech was
quoted in many pulpits. "We have now for our Church," cried one loyal
preacher, "the word of a King, and of a King who was never worse than
his word. " This pointed sentence was fast circulated through town and
country, and was soon the watchword of the whole Tory party. [226]
The great offices of state had become vacant by the demise of the crown
and it was necessary for James to determine how they should be filled.
Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to expect his
favour. Sunderland, who was Secretary of State, and Godolphin, who was
First Lord of the Treasury, had supported the Exclusion Bill. Halifax,
who held the Privy Seal, had opposed that bill with unrivalled powers
of argument and eloquence. But Halifax was the mortal enemy of despotism
and of Popery. He saw with dread the progress of the French arms on the
Continent and the influence of French gold in the counsels of England.
Had his advice been followed, the laws would have been strictly
observed: clemency would have been extended to the vanquished Whigs: the
Parliament would have been convoked in due season: an attempt would have
been made to reconcile our domestic factions; and the principles of
the Triple Alliance would again have guided our foreign policy. He
had therefore incurred the bitter animosity of James. The Lord Keeper
Guildford could hardly be said to belong to either of the parties into
which the court was divided. He could by no means be called a friend of
liberty; and yet he had so great a reverence for the letter of the
law that he was not a serviceable tool of arbitrary power. He was
accordingly designated by the vehement Tories as a Trimmer, and was to
James an object of aversion with which contempt was largely mingled.
Ormond, who was Lord Steward of the Household and Viceroy of Ireland,
then resided at Dublin. His claims on the royal gratitude were superior
to those of any other subject. He had fought bravely for Charles the
First: he had shared the exile of Charles the Second; and, since the
Restoration, he had, in spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty
unstained. Though he had been disgraced during the predominance of the
Cabal, he had never gone into factious opposition, and had, in the
days of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, been foremost among the
supporters of the throne. He was now old, and had been recently tried by
the most cruel of all calamities. He had followed to the grave a son who
should have been his own chief mourner, the gallant Ossory. The eminent
services, the venerable age, and the domestic misfortunes of Ormond made
him an object of general interest to the nation. The Cavaliers regarded
him as, both by right of seniority and by right of merit, their head;
and the Whigs knew that, faithful as he had always been to the cause of
monarchy, he was no friend either to Popery or to arbitrary power. But,
high as he stood in the public estimation, he had little favor to expect
from his new master. James, indeed, while still a subject, had urged his
brother to make a complete change in the Irish administration. Charles
had assented; and it had been arranged that, in a few months, there
should be a new Lord Lieutenant. [227]
Rochester was the only member of the cabinet who stood high in the
favour of the King. The general expectation was that he would be
immediately placed at the head of affairs, and that all the other great
officers of the state would be changed. This expectation proved to be
well founded in part only. Rochester was declared Lord Treasurer, and
thus became prime minister. Neither a Lord High Admiral nor a Board of
Admiralty was appointed. The new King, who loved the details of naval
business, and would have made a respectable clerk in a dockyard at
Chatham, determined to be his own minister of marine. Under him the
management of that important department was confided to Samuel Pepys,
whose library and diary have kept his name fresh to our time. No servant
of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much
art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of
so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's
obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill
be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made
Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel
on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he
determined not yet to dismiss them, but merely to humble and annoy them.
Halifax was told that he must give up the Privy seal and accept the
Presidency of the Council. He submitted with extreme reluctance. For,
though the President of the Council had always taken precedence of
the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Privy Seal was, in that age a much more
important officer than the Lord President. Rochester had not forgotten
the jest which had been made a few months before on his own removal from
the Treasury, and enjoyed in his turn the pleasure of kicking his rival
up stairs. The Privy Seal was delivered to Rochester's elder brother,
Henry Earl of Clarendon.
To Barillon James expressed the strongest dislike of Halifax. "I
know him well, I never can trust him. He shall have no share in the
management of public business. As to the place which I have given him,
it will just serve to show how little influence he has. " But to Halifax
it was thought convenient to hold a very different language. "All the
past is forgotten," said the King, "except the service which you did me
in the debate on the Exclusion Bill. " This speech has often been cited
to prove that James was not so vindictive as he had been called by
his enemies. It seems rather to prove that he by no means deserved the
praises which have been bestowed on his sincerity by his friends. [228]
Ormond was politely informed that his services were no longer needed
in Ireland, and was invited to repair to Whitehall, and to perform the
functions of Lord Steward. He dutifully submitted, but did not affect to
deny that the new arrangement wounded his feelings deeply. On the eve of
his departure he gave a magnificent banquet at Kilmainham Hospital, then
just completed, to the officers of the garrison of Dublin. After dinner
he rose, filled a goblet to the brim with wine, and, holding it up,
asked whether he had spilt one drop. "No, gentlemen; whatever the
courtiers may say, I am not yet sunk into dotage. My hand does not fail
me yet: and my hand is not steadier than my heart. To the health of King
James! " Such was the last farewell of Ormond to Ireland. He left the
administration in the hands of Lords Justices, and repaired to London,
where he was received with unusual marks of public respect. Many persons
of rank went forth to meet him on the road. A long train of eguipages
followed him into Saint James's Square, where his mansion stood; and
the Square was thronged by a multitude which greeted him with loud
acclamations. [229]
The Great Seal was left in Guildford's custody; but a marked indignity
was at the same time offered to him. It was determined that another
lawyer of more vigour and audacity should be called to assist in the
administration. The person selected was Sir George Jeffreys, Chief
Justice of the Court of King's Bench. The depravity of this man has
passed into a proverb. Both the great English parties have attacked his
memory with emulous violence: for the Whigs considered him as their most
barbarous enemy; and the Tories found it convenient to throw on him the
blame of all the crimes which had sullied their triumph. A diligent and
candid enquiry will show that some frightful stories which have been
told concerning him are false or exaggerated. Yet the dispassionate
historian will be able to make very little deduction from the vast mass
of infamy with which the memory of the wicked judge has been loaded.
He was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitutionally prone to
insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging from boyhood
he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where advocates
have always used a license of tongue unknown in Westminster Hall. Here,
during many years his chief business was to examine and crossexamine
the most hardened miscreants of a great capital. Daily conflicts
with prostitutes and thieves called out and exercised his powers so
effectually that he became the most consummate bully ever known in his
profession. Tenderness for others and respect for himself were feelings
alike unknown to him. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric
in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The profusion of
maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary
could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden.
His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these
natural advantages,--for such he seems to have thought them,--he had
improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of
rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate
upon his brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for the unhappy
victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and his eye were less
terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, as was
said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the
judgment day. These qualifications he carried, while still a young man,
from the bar to the bench. He early became Common Serjeant, and then
Recorder of London. As a judge at the City sessions he exhibited the
same propensities which afterwards, in a higher post, gained for him an
unenviable immortality. Already might be remarked in him the most odious
vice which is incident to human nature, a delight in misery merely
as misery. There was a fiendish exultation in the way in which he
pronounced sentence on offenders. Their weeping and imploring seemed
to titillate him voluptuously; and he loved to scare them into fits by
dilating with luxuriant amplification on all the details of what they
were to suffer. Thus, when he had an opportunity of ordering an unlucky
adventuress to be whipped at the cart's tail, "Hangman," he would
exclaim, "I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady! Scourge
her soundly man! Scourge her till the blood runs down! It is Christmas,
a cold time for Madam to strip in! See that you warm her shoulders
thoroughly! " [230] He was hardly less facetious when he passed judgment
on poor Lodowick Muggleton, the drunken tailor who fancied himself a
prophet. "Impudent rogue! " roared Jeffreys, "thou shalt have an easy,
easy, easy punishment! " One part of this easy punishment was the
pillory, in which the wretched fanatic was almost killed with brickbats.
[231]
By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hardened to that temper
which tyrants require in their worst implements. He had hitherto looked
for professional advancement to the corporation of London. He had
therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had always appeared to be
in a higher state of exhilaration when he explained to Popish priests
that they were to be cut down alive, and were to see their own bowels
burned, than when he passed ordinary sentences of death. But, as soon
as he had got all that the city could give, he made haste to sell his
forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the Court. Chiffinch, who
was accustomed to act as broker in infamous contracts of more than one
kind, lent his aid. He had conducted many amorous and many political
intrigues; but he assuredly never rendered a more scandalous service to
his masters than when he introduced Jeffreys to Whitehall. The renegade
soon found a patron in the obdurate and revengeful James, but was always
regarded with scorn and disgust by Charles, whose faults, great as they
were, had no affinity with insolence and cruelty. "That man," said the
King, "has no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impudence than
ten carted street-walkers. " [232] Work was to be done, however, which
could be trusted to no man who reverenced law or was sensible of
shame; and thus Jeffreys, at an age at which a barrister thinks himself
fortunate if he is employed to conduct an important cause, was made
Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
His enemies could not deny that he possessed some of the qualities of
a great judge. His legal knowledge, indeed, was merely such as he had
picked up in practice of no very high kind. But he had one of those
happily constituted intellects which, across labyrinths of sophistry,
and through masses of immaterial facts, go straight to the true point.
Of his intellect, however, he seldom had the full use. Even in civil
causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually disordered his
judgment. To enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast,
which none could tame, and which was as likely to be roused to rage by
caresses as by attacks. He frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and
defendants, barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, torrents of
frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses. His looks and tones
had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate struggling into
practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal
in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him.
Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in
general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated
by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to
revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him
to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low
merriment, but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on
such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the
vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him. These men bantered and
abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk,
sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed
them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But though wine at first seemed
to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He
often came to the judgment seat, having kept the court waiting long, and
yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes
staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon
companions of the preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his
way: for the recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted
them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity
of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious
of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in
publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin
tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favour.
The services which the government had expected from him were performed,
not merely without flinching, but eagerly and triumphantly. His first
exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sidney. What followed was
in perfect harmony with this beginning. Respectable Tories lamented the
disgrace which the barbarity and indecency of so great a functionary
brought upon the administration of justice. But the excesses which
filled such men with horror were titles to the esteem of James.
Jeffreys, therefore, very soon after the death of Charles, obtained a
seat in the cabinet and a peerage. This last honour was a signal mark of
royal approbation. For, since the judicial system of the realm had been
remodelled in the thirteenth century, no Chief Justice had been a Lord
of Parliament. [233]
Guildford now found himself superseded in all his political functions,
and restricted to his business as a judge in equity. At Council he was
treated by Jeffreys with marked incivility. The whole legal patronage
was in the hands of the Chief Justice; and it was well known by the bar
that the surest way to propitiate the Chief Justice was to treat the
Lord Keeper with disrespect.
James had not been many hours King when a dispute arose between the two
heads of the law. The customs had been settled on Charles for life only,
and could not therefore be legally exacted by the new sovereign. Some
weeks must elapse before a House of Commons could be chosen. If, in
the meantime, the duties were suspended, the revenue would suffer; the
regular course of trade would be interrupted; the consumer would derive
no benefit, and the only gainers would be those fortunate speculators
whose cargoes might happen to arrive during the interval between the
demise of the crown and the meeting of the Parliament. The Treasury was
besieged by merchants whose warehouses were filled with goods on which
duty had been paid, and who were in grievous apprehension of being
undersold and ruined. Impartial men must admit that this was one of
those cases in which a government may be justified in deviating from the
strictly constitutional course. But when it is necessary to deviate from
the strictly constitutional course, the deviation clearly ought to be
no greater than the necessity requires. Guildford felt this, and gave
advice which did him honour. He proposed that the duties should be
levied, but should be kept in the Exchequer apart from other sums till
the Parliament should meet. In this way the King, while violating
the letter of the laws, would show that he wished to conform to their
spirit, Jeffreys gave very different counsel. He advised James to put
forth an edict declaring it to be His Majesty's will and pleasure that
the customs should continue to be paid. This advice was well suited
to the King's temper. The judicious proposition of the Lord Keeper
was rejected as worthy only of a Whig, or of what was still worse,
a Trimmer. A proclamation, such as the Chief Justice had suggested,
appeared. Some people had expected that a violent outbreak of public
indignation would be the consequence; but they were deceived. The spirit
of opposition had not yet revived; and the court might safely venture to
take steps which, five years before, would have produced a rebellion.
In the City of London, lately so turbulent, scarcely a murmur was heard.
[234]
The proclamation, which announced that the customs would still be
levied, announced also that a Parliament would shortly meet. It was not
without many misgivings that James had determined to call the Estates of
his realm together. The moment was, indeed most auspicious for a general
election. Never since the accession of the House of Stuart had the
constituent bodies been so favourably disposed towards the Court.
But the new sovereign's mind was haunted by an apprehension not to be
mentioned even at this distance of time, without shame and indignation.
He was afraid that by summoning his Parliament he might incur the
displeasure of the King of France.
To the King of France it mattered little which of the two English
factions triumphed at the elections: for all the Parliaments which had
met since the Restoration, whatever might have been their temper as to
domestic politics, had been jealous of the growing power of the House of
Bourbon. On this subject there was little difference between the Whigs
and the sturdy country gentlemen who formed the main strength of the
Tory party. Lewis had therefore spared neither bribes nor menaces to
prevent Charles from convoking the Houses; and James, who had from the
first been in the secret of his brother's foreign politics, had, in
becoming King of England, become also a hireling and vassal of France.
Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who now formed the interior
cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master had been in
the habit of receiving money from the court of Versailles. They were
consulted by James as to the expediency of convoking the legislature.
They acknowledged the importance of keeping Lewis in good humour: but
it seemed to them that the calling of a Parliament was not a matter of
choice. Patient as the nation appeared to be, there were limits to its
patience. The principle, that the money of the subject could not be
lawfully taken by the King without the assent of the Commons, was firmly
rooted in the public mind; and though, on all extraordinary emergency
even Whigs might be willing to pay, during a few weeks, duties not
imposed by statute, it was certain that even Tories would become
refractory if such irregular taxation should continue longer than the
special circumstances which alone justified it. The Houses then must
meet; and since it was so, the sooner they were summoned the better.
Even the short delay which would be occasioned by a reference to
Versailles might produce irreparable mischief. Discontent and suspicion
would spread fast through society. Halifax would complain that the
fundamental principles of the constitution were violated. The Lord
Keeper, like a cowardly pedantic special pleader as he was, would take
the same side. What might have been done with a good grace would at last
be done with a bad grace. Those very ministers whom His Majesty most
wished to lower in the public estimation would gain popularity at his
expense. The ill temper of the nation might seriously affect the result
of the elections. These arguments were unanswerable. The King therefore
notified to the country his intention of holding a Parliament. But he
was painfully anxious to exculpate himself from the guilt of having
acted undutifully and disrespectfully towards France. He led Barillon
into a private room, and there apologised for having dared to take so
important a step without the previous sanction of Lewis. "Assure your
master," said James, "of my gratitude and attachment. I know that
without his protection I can do nothing. I know what troubles my brother
brought on himself by not adhering steadily to France. I will take good
care not to let the Houses meddle with foreign affairs. If I see in them
any disposition to make mischief, I will send them about their business.
Explain this to my good brother. I hope that he will not take it
amiss that I have acted without consulting him. He has a right to be
consulted; and it is my wish to consult him about everything. But
in this case the delay even of a week might have produced serious
consequences. "
These ignominious excuses were, on the following morning, repeated by
Rochester. Barillon received them civilly. Rochester, grown bolder,
proceeded to ask for money. "It will be well laid out," he said: "your
master cannot employ his revenues better. Represent to him strongly how
important it is that the King of England should be dependent, not on his
own people, but on the friendship of France alone. " [235]
Barillon hastened to communicate to Lewis the wishes of the English
government; but Lewis had already anticipated them. His first act,
after he was apprised of the death of Charles, was to collect bills of
exchange on England to the amount of five hundred thousand livres, a sum
equivalent to about thirty-seven thousand five hundred pounds sterling
Such bills were not then to be easily procured in Paris at day's notice.
In a few hours, however, the purchase was effected, and a courier
started for London.
presence of some Whig physicians was regarded as an extraordinary
circumstance. [217] One Roman Catholic, whose skill was then widely
renowned, Doctor Thomas Short, was in attendance. Several of the
prescriptions have been preserved. One of them is signed by fourteen
Doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied to his head.
A loathsome volatile salt, extracted from human skulls, was forced into
his mouth. He recovered his senses; but he was evidently in a situation
of extreme danger.
The Queen was for a time assiduous in her attendance. The Duke of York
scarcely left his brother's bedside. The Primate and four other bishops
were then in London. They remained at Whitehall all day, and took it
by turns to sit up at night in the King's room. The news of his illness
filled the capital with sorrow and dismay. For his easy temper and
affable manners had won the affection of a large part of the nation;
and those who most disliked him preferred his unprincipled levity to the
stern and earnest bigotry of his brother.
On the morning of Thursday the fifth of February, the London Gazette
announced that His Majesty was going on well, and was thought by the
physicians to be out of danger. The bells of all the churches rang
merrily; and preparations for bonfires were made in the streets. But in
the evening it was known that a relapse had taken place, and that the
medical attendants had given up all hope. The public mind was greatly
disturbed; but there was no disposition to tumult. The Duke of York, who
had already taken on himself to give orders, ascertained that the City
was perfectly quiet, and that he might without difficulty be proclaimed
as soon as his brother should expire.
The King was in great pain, and complained that he felt as if a fire
was burning within him. Yet he bore up against his sufferings with a
fortitude which did not seem to belong to his soft and luxurious nature.
The sight of his misery affected his wife so much that she fainted, and
was carried senseless to her chamber. The prelates who were in waiting
had from the first exhorted him to prepare for his end. They now thought
it their duty to address him in a still more urgent manner. William
Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, an honest and pious, though
narrowminded, man, used great freedom. "It is time," he said, "to
speak out; for, Sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no
respecter of persons. " The King answered not a word.
Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then tried his powers of
persuasion. He was a man of parts and learning, of quick sensibility and
stainless virtue. His elaborate works have long been forgotten; but
his morning and evening hymns are still repeated daily in thousands of
dwellings. Though, like most of his order, zealous for monarchy, he was
no sycophant. Before he became a Bishop, he had maintained the honour of
his gown by refusing, when the court was at Winchester, to let Eleanor
Gwynn lodge in the house which he occupied there as a prebendary. [218]
The King had sense enough to respect so manly a spirit. Of all the
prelates he liked Ken the best. It was to no purpose, however, that the
good Bishop now put forth all his eloquence. His solemn and pathetic
exhortation awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree that some
among them believed him to be filled with the same spirit which, in the
old time, had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes
to repentance. Charles however was unmoved. He made no objection indeed
when the service for the visitation of the sick was read. In reply to
the pressing questions of the divines, he said that he was sorry for
what he had done amiss; and he suffered the absolution to be pronounced
over him according to the forms of the Church of England: but, when he
was urged to declare that he died in the communion of that Church, he
seemed not to hear what was said; and nothing could induce him to take
the Eucharist from the hands of the Bishops. A table with bread and wine
was brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he said that there
was no hurry, and sometimes that he was too weak.
Many attributed this apathy to contempt for divine things, and many to
the stupor which often precedes death. But there were in the palace a
few persons who knew better. Charles had never been a sincere member of
the Established Church. His mind had long oscillated between Hobbism and
Popery. When his health was good and his spirits high he was a scoffer.
In his few serious moments he was a Roman Catholic. The Duke of York
was aware of this, but was entirely occupied with the care of his own
interests. He had ordered the outports to be closed. He had posted
detachments of the Guards in different parts of the city. He had also
procured the feeble signature of the dying King to an instrument by
which some duties, granted only till the demise of the Crown, were let
to farm for a term of three years. These things occupied the attention
of James to such a degree that, though, on ordinary occasions, he was
indiscreetly and unseasonably eager to bring over proselytes to his
Church, he never reflected that his brother was in danger of dying
without the last sacraments. This neglect was the more extraordinary
because the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, suggested,
on the morning on which the King was taken ill, the propriety of
procuring spiritual assistance. For such assistance Charles was at last
indebted to an agency very different from that of his pious wife and
sister-in-law. A life of frivolty and vice had not extinguished in the
Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that kindness
which is the glory of her sex. The French ambassador Barillon, who had
come to the palace to enquire after the King, paid her a visit. He found
her in an agony of sorrow. She took him into a secret room, and poured
out her whole heart to him. "I have," she said, "a thing of great moment
to tell you. If it were known, my head would be in danger. The King is
really and truly a Catholic; but he will die without being reconciled
to the Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergymen. I cannot
enter it without giving scandal. The Duke is thinking only of himself.
Speak to him. Remind him that there is a soul at stake. He is master
now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will be too late. "
Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and delivered
the message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote him. He
started as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should
prevent him from discharging the sacred duty which had been too long
delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke
commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and
whispered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which
they supposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles
answered in an audible voice, "Yes, yes, with all my heart. " None of
the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was
declaring his wish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome.
"Shall I bring a priest? " said the Duke. "Do, brother," replied the Sick
man. "For God's sake do, and lose no time. But no; you will get into
trouble. " "If it costs me my life," said the Duke, "I will fetch a
priest. "
To find a priest, however, for such a purpose, at a moment's notice,
was not easy. For, as the law then stood, the person who admitted a
proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime.
The Count of Castel Melhor, a Portuguese nobleman, who, driven by
political troubles from his native land, had been hospitably received at
the English court, undertook to procure a confessor. He had recourse to
his countrymen who belonged to the Queen's household; but he found that
none of her chaplains knew English or French enough to shrive the King.
The Duke and Barillon were about to send to the Venetian Minister for
a clergyman when they heard that a Benedictine monk, named John
Huddleston, happened to be at Whitehall. This man had, with great risk
to himself, saved the King's life after the battle of Worcester, and
had, on that account, been, ever since the Restoration, a privileged
person. In the sharpest proclamations which had been put forth against
Popish priests, when false witnesses had inflamed the nation to fury,
Huddleston had been excepted by name. [219] He readily consented to put
his life a second time in peril for his prince; but there was still a
difficulty. The honest monk was so illiterate that he did not know what
he ought to say on an occasion of such importance. He however obtained
some hints, through the intervention of Castel Melhor, from a Portuguese
ecclesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the back stairs by
Chiffinch, a confidential servant, who, if the satires of that age
are to be credited, had often introduced visitors of a very different
description by the same entrance. The Duke then, in the King's name,
commanded all who were present to quit the room, except Lewis Duras,
Earl of Feversham, and John Granville, Earl of Bath. Both these Lords
professed the Protestant religion; but James conceived that he could
count on their fidelity. Feversham, a Frenchman of noble birth, and
nephew of the great Turenne, held high rank in the English army, and was
Chamberlain to the Queen. Bath was Groom of the Stole.
The Duke's orders were obeyed; and even the physicians withdrew. The
back door was then opened; and Father Huddleston entered. A cloak
had been thrown over his sacred vestments; and his shaven crown was
concealed by a flowing wig. "Sir," said the Duke, "this good man once
saved your life. He now comes to save your soul. " Charles faintly
answered, "He is welcome. " Huddleston went through his part better than
had been expected. He knelt by the bed, listened to the confession,
pronounced the absolution, and administered extreme unction. He asked
if the King wished to receive the Lord's supper. "Surely," said Charles,
"if I am not unworthy. " The host was brought in. Charles feebly strove
to rise and kneel before it. The priest made him lie still, and assured
him that God would accept the humiliation of the soul, and would not
require the humiliation of the body. The King found so much difficulty
in swallowing the bread that it was necessary to open the door and
procure a glass of water. This rite ended, the monk held up a crucifix
before the penitent, charged him to fix his last thoughts on the
sufferings of the Redeemer, and withdrew. The whole ceremony had
occupied about three quarters of an hour; and, during that time, the
courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to
each other by whispers and significant glances. The door was at length
thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of death.
It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by what
had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside, the Dukes
of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess of
Cleveland, the Duke of Saint Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynn, and the Duke
of Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all,
but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face which should
have been there was wanting. The eldest and best loved child was an
exile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father.
During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth
and her boy to the care of James; "And do not," he good-naturedly added,
"let poor Nelly starve. " The Queen sent excuses for her absence by
Halifax. She said that she was too much disordered to resume her post
by the couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might
unwittingly have given. "She ask my pardon, poor woman! " cried Charles;
"I ask hers with all my heart. "
The morning light began to peep through the windows of Whitehall; and
Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, that he might
have one more look at the day. He remarked that it was time to wind up
a clock which stood near his bed. These little circumstances were long
remembered because they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared
himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession of his faculties.
He apologised to those who had stood round him all night for the trouble
which he had caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time
dying; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse
of the exquisite urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the
resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of
the dying man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had
repaired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When the prayer
for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply his people
felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, he passed away
without a struggle. [220]
At that time the common people throughout Europe, and nowhere more
than in England, were in the habit of attributing the death of princes,
especially when the prince was popular and the death unexpected, to the
foulest and darkest kind of assassination. Thus James the First had
been accused of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles the First had been
accused of poisoning James the First. Thus when, in the time of the
Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died at Carisbrook, it was loudly
asserted that Cromwell had stooped to the senseless and dastardly
wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with the food of a young girl whom he
had no conceivable motive to injure. [221] A few years later, the rapid
decomposition of Cromwell's own corpse was ascribed by many to a deadly
potion administered in his medicine. The death of Charles the Second
could scarcely fail to occasion similar rumours. The public ear had been
repeatedly abused by stories of Popish plots against his life. There
was, therefore, in many minds, a strong predisposition to suspicion; and
there were some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so predisposed,
might seem to indicate that a crime had been perpetrated. The fourteen
Doctors who deliberated on the King's case contradicted each other and
themselves. Some of them thought that his fit was epileptic, and that
he should be suffered to have his doze out. The majority pronounced
him apoplectic, and tortured him during some hours like an Indian at
a stake. Then it was determined to call his complaint a fever, and to
administer doses of bark. One physician, however, protested against
this course, and assured the Queen that his brethren would kill the
King among them. Nothing better than dissension and vacillation could be
expected from such a multitude of advisers. But many of the vulgar not
unnaturally concluded, from the perplexity of the great masters of the
healing art, that the malady had some extraordinary origin. There is
reason to believe that a horrible suspicion did actually cross the mind
of Short, who, though skilful in his profession, seems to have been a
nervous and fanciful man, and whose perceptions were probably confused
by dread of the odious imputations to which he, as a Roman Catholic,
was peculiarly exposed. We cannot, therefore, wonder that wild stories
without number were repeated and believed by the common people. His
Majesty's tongue had swelled to the size of a neat's tongue. A cake of
deleterious powder had been found in his brain. There were blue spots on
his breast, There were black spots on his shoulder. Something had been,
put in his snuff-box. Something had been put into his broth. Something
had been put into his favourite dish of eggs and ambergrease. The
Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned him in a cup of chocolate. The
Queen had poisoned him in a jar of dried pears. Such tales ought to be
preserved; for they furnish us with a measure of the intelligence and
virtue of the generation which eagerly devoured them. That no rumour of
the same kind has ever, in the present age, found credit among us, even
when lives on which great interest depended have been terminated
by unforeseen attacks of disease, is to be attributed partly to the
progress of medical and chemical science, but partly also, it may be
hoped, to the progress which the nation has made in good sense, justice,
and humanity. [222]
When all was over, James retired from the bedside to his closet, where,
during a quarter of an hour, he remained alone. Meanwhile the Privy
Councillors who were in the palace assembled. The new King came
forth, and took his place at the head of the board. He commenced his
administration, according to usage, by a speech to the Council. He
expressed his regret for the loss which he had just sustained, and he
promised to imitate the singular lenity which had distinguished the late
reign. He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a fondness for
arbitrary power. But that was not the only falsehood which had been told
of him. He was resolved to maintain the established government both in
Church and State. The Church of England he knew to be eminently loyal.
It should therefore always be his care to support and defend her. The
laws of England, he also knew, were sufficient to make him as great a
King as he could wish to be. He would not relinquish his own rights; but
he would respect the rights of others. He had formerly risked his life
in defense of his country; and he would still go as far as any man in
support of her just liberties.
This speech was not, like modern speeches on similar occasions,
carefully prepared by the advisers of the sovereign. It was the
extemporaneous expression of the new King's feelings at a moment of
great excitement. The members of the Council broke forth into clamours
of delight and gratitude. The Lord President, Rochester, in the name
of his brethren, expressed a hope that His Majesty's most welcome
declaration would be made public. The Solicitor General, Heneage Finch,
offered to act as clerk. He was a zealous churchman, and, as such, was
naturally desirous that there should be some permanent record of the
gracious promises which had just been uttered. "Those promises," he
said, "have made so deep an impression on me that I can repeat them word
for word. " He soon produced his report. James read it, approved of it,
and ordered it to be published. At a later period he said that he had
taken this step without due consideration, that his unpremeditated
expressions touching the Church of England were too strong, and that
Finch had, with a dexterity which at the time escaped notice, made them
still stronger. [223]
The King had been exhausted by long watching and by many violent
emotions. He now retired to rest. The Privy Councillors, having
respectfully accompanied him to his bedchamber, returned to their seats,
and issued orders for the ceremony of proclamation. The Guards were
under arms; the heralds appeared in their gorgeous coats; and the
pageant proceeded without any obstruction. Casks of wine were broken up
in the streets, and all who passed were invited to drink to the health
of the new sovereign. But, though an occasional shout was raised, the
people were not in a joyous mood. Tears were seen in many eyes; and it
was remarked that there was scarcely a housemaid in London who had not
contrived to procure some fragment of black crepe in honour of King
Charles. [224]
The funeral called forth much censure. It would, indeed, hardly have
been accounted worthy of a noble and opulent subject. The Tories gently
blamed the new King's parsimony: the Whigs sneered at his want of
natural affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scotland exultingly
proclaimed that the curse denounced of old against wicked princes had
been signally fulfilled, and that the departed tyrant had been buried
with the burial of an ass. [225] Yet James commenced his administration
with a large measure of public good will. His speech to the Council
appeared in print, and the impression which it produced was highly
favourable to him. This, then, was the prince whom a faction had driven
into exile and had tried to rob of his birthright, on the ground that
he was a deadly enemy to the religion and laws of England. He had
triumphed: he was on the throne; and his first act was to declare that
he would defend the Church, and would strictly respect the rights of
his people.
The estimate which all parties had formed of his character,
added weight to every word that fell from him. The Whigs called him
haughty, implacable, obstinate, regardless of public opinion. The
Tories, while they extolled his princely virtues, had often lamented his
neglect of the arts which conciliate popularity. Satire itself had never
represented him as a man likely to court public favour by professing
what he did not feel, and by promising what he had no intention of
performing. On the Sunday which followed his accession, his speech was
quoted in many pulpits. "We have now for our Church," cried one loyal
preacher, "the word of a King, and of a King who was never worse than
his word. " This pointed sentence was fast circulated through town and
country, and was soon the watchword of the whole Tory party. [226]
The great offices of state had become vacant by the demise of the crown
and it was necessary for James to determine how they should be filled.
Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to expect his
favour. Sunderland, who was Secretary of State, and Godolphin, who was
First Lord of the Treasury, had supported the Exclusion Bill. Halifax,
who held the Privy Seal, had opposed that bill with unrivalled powers
of argument and eloquence. But Halifax was the mortal enemy of despotism
and of Popery. He saw with dread the progress of the French arms on the
Continent and the influence of French gold in the counsels of England.
Had his advice been followed, the laws would have been strictly
observed: clemency would have been extended to the vanquished Whigs: the
Parliament would have been convoked in due season: an attempt would have
been made to reconcile our domestic factions; and the principles of
the Triple Alliance would again have guided our foreign policy. He
had therefore incurred the bitter animosity of James. The Lord Keeper
Guildford could hardly be said to belong to either of the parties into
which the court was divided. He could by no means be called a friend of
liberty; and yet he had so great a reverence for the letter of the
law that he was not a serviceable tool of arbitrary power. He was
accordingly designated by the vehement Tories as a Trimmer, and was to
James an object of aversion with which contempt was largely mingled.
Ormond, who was Lord Steward of the Household and Viceroy of Ireland,
then resided at Dublin. His claims on the royal gratitude were superior
to those of any other subject. He had fought bravely for Charles the
First: he had shared the exile of Charles the Second; and, since the
Restoration, he had, in spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty
unstained. Though he had been disgraced during the predominance of the
Cabal, he had never gone into factious opposition, and had, in the
days of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, been foremost among the
supporters of the throne. He was now old, and had been recently tried by
the most cruel of all calamities. He had followed to the grave a son who
should have been his own chief mourner, the gallant Ossory. The eminent
services, the venerable age, and the domestic misfortunes of Ormond made
him an object of general interest to the nation. The Cavaliers regarded
him as, both by right of seniority and by right of merit, their head;
and the Whigs knew that, faithful as he had always been to the cause of
monarchy, he was no friend either to Popery or to arbitrary power. But,
high as he stood in the public estimation, he had little favor to expect
from his new master. James, indeed, while still a subject, had urged his
brother to make a complete change in the Irish administration. Charles
had assented; and it had been arranged that, in a few months, there
should be a new Lord Lieutenant. [227]
Rochester was the only member of the cabinet who stood high in the
favour of the King. The general expectation was that he would be
immediately placed at the head of affairs, and that all the other great
officers of the state would be changed. This expectation proved to be
well founded in part only. Rochester was declared Lord Treasurer, and
thus became prime minister. Neither a Lord High Admiral nor a Board of
Admiralty was appointed. The new King, who loved the details of naval
business, and would have made a respectable clerk in a dockyard at
Chatham, determined to be his own minister of marine. Under him the
management of that important department was confided to Samuel Pepys,
whose library and diary have kept his name fresh to our time. No servant
of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much
art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of
so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's
obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill
be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made
Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel
on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he
determined not yet to dismiss them, but merely to humble and annoy them.
Halifax was told that he must give up the Privy seal and accept the
Presidency of the Council. He submitted with extreme reluctance. For,
though the President of the Council had always taken precedence of
the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Privy Seal was, in that age a much more
important officer than the Lord President. Rochester had not forgotten
the jest which had been made a few months before on his own removal from
the Treasury, and enjoyed in his turn the pleasure of kicking his rival
up stairs. The Privy Seal was delivered to Rochester's elder brother,
Henry Earl of Clarendon.
To Barillon James expressed the strongest dislike of Halifax. "I
know him well, I never can trust him. He shall have no share in the
management of public business. As to the place which I have given him,
it will just serve to show how little influence he has. " But to Halifax
it was thought convenient to hold a very different language. "All the
past is forgotten," said the King, "except the service which you did me
in the debate on the Exclusion Bill. " This speech has often been cited
to prove that James was not so vindictive as he had been called by
his enemies. It seems rather to prove that he by no means deserved the
praises which have been bestowed on his sincerity by his friends. [228]
Ormond was politely informed that his services were no longer needed
in Ireland, and was invited to repair to Whitehall, and to perform the
functions of Lord Steward. He dutifully submitted, but did not affect to
deny that the new arrangement wounded his feelings deeply. On the eve of
his departure he gave a magnificent banquet at Kilmainham Hospital, then
just completed, to the officers of the garrison of Dublin. After dinner
he rose, filled a goblet to the brim with wine, and, holding it up,
asked whether he had spilt one drop. "No, gentlemen; whatever the
courtiers may say, I am not yet sunk into dotage. My hand does not fail
me yet: and my hand is not steadier than my heart. To the health of King
James! " Such was the last farewell of Ormond to Ireland. He left the
administration in the hands of Lords Justices, and repaired to London,
where he was received with unusual marks of public respect. Many persons
of rank went forth to meet him on the road. A long train of eguipages
followed him into Saint James's Square, where his mansion stood; and
the Square was thronged by a multitude which greeted him with loud
acclamations. [229]
The Great Seal was left in Guildford's custody; but a marked indignity
was at the same time offered to him. It was determined that another
lawyer of more vigour and audacity should be called to assist in the
administration. The person selected was Sir George Jeffreys, Chief
Justice of the Court of King's Bench. The depravity of this man has
passed into a proverb. Both the great English parties have attacked his
memory with emulous violence: for the Whigs considered him as their most
barbarous enemy; and the Tories found it convenient to throw on him the
blame of all the crimes which had sullied their triumph. A diligent and
candid enquiry will show that some frightful stories which have been
told concerning him are false or exaggerated. Yet the dispassionate
historian will be able to make very little deduction from the vast mass
of infamy with which the memory of the wicked judge has been loaded.
He was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitutionally prone to
insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging from boyhood
he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where advocates
have always used a license of tongue unknown in Westminster Hall. Here,
during many years his chief business was to examine and crossexamine
the most hardened miscreants of a great capital. Daily conflicts
with prostitutes and thieves called out and exercised his powers so
effectually that he became the most consummate bully ever known in his
profession. Tenderness for others and respect for himself were feelings
alike unknown to him. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric
in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The profusion of
maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary
could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden.
His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these
natural advantages,--for such he seems to have thought them,--he had
improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of
rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate
upon his brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for the unhappy
victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and his eye were less
terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, as was
said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the
judgment day. These qualifications he carried, while still a young man,
from the bar to the bench. He early became Common Serjeant, and then
Recorder of London. As a judge at the City sessions he exhibited the
same propensities which afterwards, in a higher post, gained for him an
unenviable immortality. Already might be remarked in him the most odious
vice which is incident to human nature, a delight in misery merely
as misery. There was a fiendish exultation in the way in which he
pronounced sentence on offenders. Their weeping and imploring seemed
to titillate him voluptuously; and he loved to scare them into fits by
dilating with luxuriant amplification on all the details of what they
were to suffer. Thus, when he had an opportunity of ordering an unlucky
adventuress to be whipped at the cart's tail, "Hangman," he would
exclaim, "I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady! Scourge
her soundly man! Scourge her till the blood runs down! It is Christmas,
a cold time for Madam to strip in! See that you warm her shoulders
thoroughly! " [230] He was hardly less facetious when he passed judgment
on poor Lodowick Muggleton, the drunken tailor who fancied himself a
prophet. "Impudent rogue! " roared Jeffreys, "thou shalt have an easy,
easy, easy punishment! " One part of this easy punishment was the
pillory, in which the wretched fanatic was almost killed with brickbats.
[231]
By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hardened to that temper
which tyrants require in their worst implements. He had hitherto looked
for professional advancement to the corporation of London. He had
therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had always appeared to be
in a higher state of exhilaration when he explained to Popish priests
that they were to be cut down alive, and were to see their own bowels
burned, than when he passed ordinary sentences of death. But, as soon
as he had got all that the city could give, he made haste to sell his
forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the Court. Chiffinch, who
was accustomed to act as broker in infamous contracts of more than one
kind, lent his aid. He had conducted many amorous and many political
intrigues; but he assuredly never rendered a more scandalous service to
his masters than when he introduced Jeffreys to Whitehall. The renegade
soon found a patron in the obdurate and revengeful James, but was always
regarded with scorn and disgust by Charles, whose faults, great as they
were, had no affinity with insolence and cruelty. "That man," said the
King, "has no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impudence than
ten carted street-walkers. " [232] Work was to be done, however, which
could be trusted to no man who reverenced law or was sensible of
shame; and thus Jeffreys, at an age at which a barrister thinks himself
fortunate if he is employed to conduct an important cause, was made
Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
His enemies could not deny that he possessed some of the qualities of
a great judge. His legal knowledge, indeed, was merely such as he had
picked up in practice of no very high kind. But he had one of those
happily constituted intellects which, across labyrinths of sophistry,
and through masses of immaterial facts, go straight to the true point.
Of his intellect, however, he seldom had the full use. Even in civil
causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually disordered his
judgment. To enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast,
which none could tame, and which was as likely to be roused to rage by
caresses as by attacks. He frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and
defendants, barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, torrents of
frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses. His looks and tones
had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate struggling into
practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal
in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him.
Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in
general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated
by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to
revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him
to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low
merriment, but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on
such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the
vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him. These men bantered and
abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk,
sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed
them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But though wine at first seemed
to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He
often came to the judgment seat, having kept the court waiting long, and
yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes
staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon
companions of the preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his
way: for the recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted
them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity
of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious
of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in
publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin
tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favour.
The services which the government had expected from him were performed,
not merely without flinching, but eagerly and triumphantly. His first
exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sidney. What followed was
in perfect harmony with this beginning. Respectable Tories lamented the
disgrace which the barbarity and indecency of so great a functionary
brought upon the administration of justice. But the excesses which
filled such men with horror were titles to the esteem of James.
Jeffreys, therefore, very soon after the death of Charles, obtained a
seat in the cabinet and a peerage. This last honour was a signal mark of
royal approbation. For, since the judicial system of the realm had been
remodelled in the thirteenth century, no Chief Justice had been a Lord
of Parliament. [233]
Guildford now found himself superseded in all his political functions,
and restricted to his business as a judge in equity. At Council he was
treated by Jeffreys with marked incivility. The whole legal patronage
was in the hands of the Chief Justice; and it was well known by the bar
that the surest way to propitiate the Chief Justice was to treat the
Lord Keeper with disrespect.
James had not been many hours King when a dispute arose between the two
heads of the law. The customs had been settled on Charles for life only,
and could not therefore be legally exacted by the new sovereign. Some
weeks must elapse before a House of Commons could be chosen. If, in
the meantime, the duties were suspended, the revenue would suffer; the
regular course of trade would be interrupted; the consumer would derive
no benefit, and the only gainers would be those fortunate speculators
whose cargoes might happen to arrive during the interval between the
demise of the crown and the meeting of the Parliament. The Treasury was
besieged by merchants whose warehouses were filled with goods on which
duty had been paid, and who were in grievous apprehension of being
undersold and ruined. Impartial men must admit that this was one of
those cases in which a government may be justified in deviating from the
strictly constitutional course. But when it is necessary to deviate from
the strictly constitutional course, the deviation clearly ought to be
no greater than the necessity requires. Guildford felt this, and gave
advice which did him honour. He proposed that the duties should be
levied, but should be kept in the Exchequer apart from other sums till
the Parliament should meet. In this way the King, while violating
the letter of the laws, would show that he wished to conform to their
spirit, Jeffreys gave very different counsel. He advised James to put
forth an edict declaring it to be His Majesty's will and pleasure that
the customs should continue to be paid. This advice was well suited
to the King's temper. The judicious proposition of the Lord Keeper
was rejected as worthy only of a Whig, or of what was still worse,
a Trimmer. A proclamation, such as the Chief Justice had suggested,
appeared. Some people had expected that a violent outbreak of public
indignation would be the consequence; but they were deceived. The spirit
of opposition had not yet revived; and the court might safely venture to
take steps which, five years before, would have produced a rebellion.
In the City of London, lately so turbulent, scarcely a murmur was heard.
[234]
The proclamation, which announced that the customs would still be
levied, announced also that a Parliament would shortly meet. It was not
without many misgivings that James had determined to call the Estates of
his realm together. The moment was, indeed most auspicious for a general
election. Never since the accession of the House of Stuart had the
constituent bodies been so favourably disposed towards the Court.
But the new sovereign's mind was haunted by an apprehension not to be
mentioned even at this distance of time, without shame and indignation.
He was afraid that by summoning his Parliament he might incur the
displeasure of the King of France.
To the King of France it mattered little which of the two English
factions triumphed at the elections: for all the Parliaments which had
met since the Restoration, whatever might have been their temper as to
domestic politics, had been jealous of the growing power of the House of
Bourbon. On this subject there was little difference between the Whigs
and the sturdy country gentlemen who formed the main strength of the
Tory party. Lewis had therefore spared neither bribes nor menaces to
prevent Charles from convoking the Houses; and James, who had from the
first been in the secret of his brother's foreign politics, had, in
becoming King of England, become also a hireling and vassal of France.
Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who now formed the interior
cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master had been in
the habit of receiving money from the court of Versailles. They were
consulted by James as to the expediency of convoking the legislature.
They acknowledged the importance of keeping Lewis in good humour: but
it seemed to them that the calling of a Parliament was not a matter of
choice. Patient as the nation appeared to be, there were limits to its
patience. The principle, that the money of the subject could not be
lawfully taken by the King without the assent of the Commons, was firmly
rooted in the public mind; and though, on all extraordinary emergency
even Whigs might be willing to pay, during a few weeks, duties not
imposed by statute, it was certain that even Tories would become
refractory if such irregular taxation should continue longer than the
special circumstances which alone justified it. The Houses then must
meet; and since it was so, the sooner they were summoned the better.
Even the short delay which would be occasioned by a reference to
Versailles might produce irreparable mischief. Discontent and suspicion
would spread fast through society. Halifax would complain that the
fundamental principles of the constitution were violated. The Lord
Keeper, like a cowardly pedantic special pleader as he was, would take
the same side. What might have been done with a good grace would at last
be done with a bad grace. Those very ministers whom His Majesty most
wished to lower in the public estimation would gain popularity at his
expense. The ill temper of the nation might seriously affect the result
of the elections. These arguments were unanswerable. The King therefore
notified to the country his intention of holding a Parliament. But he
was painfully anxious to exculpate himself from the guilt of having
acted undutifully and disrespectfully towards France. He led Barillon
into a private room, and there apologised for having dared to take so
important a step without the previous sanction of Lewis. "Assure your
master," said James, "of my gratitude and attachment. I know that
without his protection I can do nothing. I know what troubles my brother
brought on himself by not adhering steadily to France. I will take good
care not to let the Houses meddle with foreign affairs. If I see in them
any disposition to make mischief, I will send them about their business.
Explain this to my good brother. I hope that he will not take it
amiss that I have acted without consulting him. He has a right to be
consulted; and it is my wish to consult him about everything. But
in this case the delay even of a week might have produced serious
consequences. "
These ignominious excuses were, on the following morning, repeated by
Rochester. Barillon received them civilly. Rochester, grown bolder,
proceeded to ask for money. "It will be well laid out," he said: "your
master cannot employ his revenues better. Represent to him strongly how
important it is that the King of England should be dependent, not on his
own people, but on the friendship of France alone. " [235]
Barillon hastened to communicate to Lewis the wishes of the English
government; but Lewis had already anticipated them. His first act,
after he was apprised of the death of Charles, was to collect bills of
exchange on England to the amount of five hundred thousand livres, a sum
equivalent to about thirty-seven thousand five hundred pounds sterling
Such bills were not then to be easily procured in Paris at day's notice.
In a few hours, however, the purchase was effected, and a courier
started for London.
