It could
hardly be doubted that Sarah would be placed under arrest and would be
subjected to a strict examination by shrewd and rigorous inquisitors.
hardly be doubted that Sarah would be placed under arrest and would be
subjected to a strict examination by shrewd and rigorous inquisitors.
Macaulay
The fleet commanded by Dartmouth lay close at
hand: and it was supposed that, if things went ill, the royal infant
would, without difficulty, be conveyed from Portsmouth to France. [528]
On the nineteenth James reached Salisbury, and took up his quarters in
the episcopal palace. Evil news was now fast pouring in upon him from
all sides. The western counties had at length risen. As soon as the news
of Cornbury's desertion was known, many wealthy landowners took
heart and hastened to Exeter. Among them was Sir William Portman of
Bryanstone, one of the greatest men in Dorsetshire, and Sir Francis
Warre of Hestercombe, whose interest was great in Somersetshire. [529]
But the most important of the new comets was Seymour, who had recently
inherited a baronetcy which added little to his dignity, and who, in
birth, in political influence, and in parliamentary abilities, was
beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. At
his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride
in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. "I think, Sir Edward,"
said William, meaning to be very civil, "that you are of the family
of the Duke of Somerset. " "Pardon me, sir," said Sir Edward, who never
forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Seymours, "the
Duke of Somerset is of my family. " [530]
The quarters of William now began to present the appearance of a court.
More than sixty men of rank and fortune were lodged at Exeter; and the
daily display of rich liveries, and of coaches drawn by six horses,
in the Cathedral Close, gave to that quiet precinct something of the
splendour and gaiety of Whitehall. The common people were eager to take
arms; and it would have been easy to form many battalions of infantry.
But Schomberg, who thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough,
maintained that, if the expedition could not succeed without such help,
it would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much professional
feeling as Schomberg, concurred in this opinion. Commissions therefore
for raising new regiments were very sparingly given; and none but picked
recruits were enlisted.
It was now thought desirable that the Prince should give a public
reception to the whole body of noblemen and gentlemen who had assembled
at Exeter. He addressed them in a short but dignified and well
considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all
whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high
they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their
tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late
to save the kingdom. "Therefore," he said, "gentlemen, friends, and
fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily
welcome to our court and camp. " [531]
Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction,
saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince
stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of
sand: no common object had been publicly and formally avowed: nobody was
pledged to anything. As soon as the assembly at the Deanery broke up, he
sent for Burnet, and suggested that an association should be formed, and
that all the English adherents of the Prince should put their hands to
an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and to each other.
Burnet carried the suggestion to the Prince and to Shrewsbury, by both
of whom it was approved. A meeting was held in the Cathedral. A short
paper drawn up by Burnet was produced, approved, and eagerly signed. The
subscribers engaged to pursue in concert the objects set forth in the
Prince's declaration; to stand by him and by each other; to take signal
vengeance on all who should make any attempt on his person; and, even
if such an attempt should unhappily succeed, to persist in their
undertaking till the liberties and the religion of the nation should be
effectually secured. [532]
About the same time a messenger arrived at Exeter from the Earl of Bath,
who commanded at Plymouth. Bath declared that he placed himself, his
troops, and the fortress which he governed at the Prince's disposal. The
invaders therefore had now not a single enemy in their rear. [533]
While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North was all
in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Delamere took arms in Cheshire.
He convoked his tenants, called upon them to stand by him, promised
that, if they fell in the cause, their leases should be renewed to their
children, and exhorted every one who had a good horse either to take the
field or to provide a substitute. [534] He appeared at Manchester with
fifty men armed and mounted, and his force had trebled before he reached
Boaden Downs.
The neighbouring counties were violently agitated. It had been arranged
that Danby should seize York, and that Devonshire should appear at
Nottingham. At Nottingham no resistance was anticipated. But at York
there was a small garrison under the command of Sir John Reresby. Danby
acted with rare dexterity. A meeting of the gentry and freeholders of
Yorkshire had been summoned for the twenty-second of November to address
the King on the state of affairs. All the Deputy Lieutenants of the
three Ridings, several noblemen, and a multitude of opulent esquires and
substantial yeomen had been attracted to the provincial capital. Four
troops of militia had been drawn out under arms to preserve the public
peace. The Common Hall was crowded with freeholders, and the discussion
had begun, when a cry was suddenly raised that the Papists were up, and
were slaying the Protestants. The Papists of York were much more likely
to be employed in seeking for hiding places than in attacking enemies
who outnumbered them in the proportion of a hundred to one. But at that
time no story of Popish atrocity could be so wild and marvellous as not
to find ready belief. The meeting separated in dismay. The whole city
was in confusion. At this moment Danby at the head of about a hundred
horsemen rode up to the militia, and raised the cry "No Popery! A free
Parliament! The Protestant religion! " The militia echoed the shout. The
garrison was instantly surprised and disarmed. The governor was placed
under arrest. The gates were closed. Sentinels were posted everywhere.
The populace was suffered to pull down a Roman Catholic chapel; but
no other harm appears to have been done. On the following morning the
Guildhall was crowded with the first gentlemen of the shire, and with
the principal magistrates of the city. The Lord Mayor was placed in the
chair. Danby proposed a Declaration setting forth the reasons which had
induced the friends of the constitution and of the Protestant religion
to rise in arms. This Declaration was eagerly adopted, and received in a
few hours the signatures of six peers, of five baronets, of six knights,
and of many gentlemen of high consideration. [535]
Devonshire meantime, at the head of a great body of friends and
dependents, quitted the palace which he was rearing at Chatsworth, and
appeared in arms at Derby. There he formally delivered to the municipal
authorities a paper setting forth the reasons which had moved him to
this enterprise. He then proceeded to Nottingham, which soon became the
head quarters of the Northern insurrection. Here a proclamation was put
forth couched in bold and severe terms. The name of rebellion, it was
said, was a bugbear which could frighten no reasonable man. Was it
rebellion to defend those laws and that religion which every King of
England bound himself by oath to maintain? How that oath had lately been
observed was a question on which, it was to be hoped, a free Parliament
would soon pronounce. In the meantime, the insurgents declared that they
held it to be not rebellion, but legitimate self defence, to resist
a tyrant who knew no law but his own will. The Northern rising became
every day more formidable. Four powerful and wealthy Earls, Manchester,
Stamford, Rutland, and Chesterfield, repaired to Nottingham, and were
joined there by Lord Cholmondley and by Lord Grey de Ruthyn. [536]
All this time the hostile armies in the south were approaching each
other. The Prince of Orange, when he learned that the King had arrived
at Salisbury, thought it time to leave Exeter. He placed that city and
the surrounding country under the government of Sir Edward Seymour, and
set out on Wednesday the twenty-first of November, escorted by many of
the most considerable gentlemen of the western counties, for Axminster,
where he remained several days.
The King was eager to fight; and it was obviously his interest to do
so. Every hour took away something from his own strength, and added
something to the strength of his enemies. It was most important, too,
that his troops should be blooded. A great battle, however it might
terminate, could not but injure the Prince's popularity. All this
William perfectly understood, and determined to avoid an action as long
as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg was told that the enemy
were advancing and were determined to fight, he answered, with the
composure of a tactician confident in his skill, "That will be just as
we may choose. " It was, however, impossible to prevent all skirmishing
between the advanced guards of the armies. William was desirous that
in such skirmishing nothing might happen which could wound the pride or
rouse the vindictive feelings of the nation which he meant to deliver.
He therefore, with admirable prudence, placed his British regiments in
the situations where there was most risk of collision. The outposts
of the royal army were Irish. The consequence was that, in the little
combats of this short campaign, the invaders had on their side the
hearty sympathy of all Englishmen.
The first of these encounters took place at Wincanton. Mackay's
regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the King's
Irish troops, commanded by their countryman, the gallant Sarsfield.
Mackay sent out a small party under a lieutenant named Campbell,
to procure horses for the baggage. Campbell found what he wanted at
Wincanton, and was just leaving that town on his return, when a strong
detachment of Sarsfield's troops approached. The Irish were four to one:
but Campbell resolved to fight it out to the last. With a handful of
resolute men he took his stand in the road. The rest of his soldiers
lined the hedges which overhung the highway on the right and on the
left. The enemy came up. "Stand," cried Campbell: "for whom are you? " "I
am for King James," answered the leader of the other party. "And I for
the Prince of Orange," cried Campbell. "We will prince you," answered
the Irishman with a curse. "Fire! " exclaimed Campbell; and a sharp fire
was instantly poured in from both the hedges. The King's troops received
three well aimed volleys before they could make any return. At length
they succeeded in carrying one of the hedges; and would have overpowered
the little band which was opposed to them, had not the country people,
who mortally hated the Irish, given a false alarm that more of the
Prince's troops were coming up. Sarsfield recalled his men and fell
back; and Campbell proceeded on his march unmolested with the baggage
horses.
This affair, creditable undoubtedly to the valour and discipline of the
Prince's army was magnified by report into a victory won against great
odds by British Protestants over Popish barbarians who had been brought
from Connaught to oppress our island. [537]
A few hours after this skirmish an event took place which put an end to
all risk of a more serious struggle between the armies. Churchill and
some of his principal accomplices were assembled at Salisbury. Two of
the conspirators, Kirke and Trelawney, had proceeded to Warminster,
where their regiments were posted. All was ripe for the execution of the
long meditated treason.
Churchill advised the King to visit Warminster, and to inspect the
troops stationed there. James assented; and his coach was at the door
of the episcopal palace when his nose began to bleed violently. He
was forced to postpone his expedition and to put himself under medical
treatment. Three days elapsed before the hemorrhage was entirely
subdued; and during those three days alarming rumours reached his ears.
It was impossible that a conspiracy so widely spread as that of which
Churchill was the head could be kept altogether secret. There was no
evidence which could be laid before a jury or a court martial: but
strange whispers wandered about the camp. Feversham, who held the chief
command, reported that there was a bad spirit in the army. It was hinted
to the King that some who were near his person were not his friends, and
that it would be a wise precaution to send Churchill and Grafton under
a guard to Portsmouth. James rejected this counsel. A propensity to
suspicion was not among his vices. Indeed the confidence which he
reposed in professions of fidelity and attachment was such as might
rather have been expected from a goodhearted and inexperienced stripling
than from a politician who was far advanced in life, who had seen much
of the world, who had suffered much from villanous arts, and whose own
character was by no means a favourable specimen of human nature. It
would be difficult to mention any other man who, having himself so
little scruple about breaking faith, was so slow to believe that his
neighbours could break faith with him. Nevertheless the reports which he
had received of the state of his army disturbed him greatly. He was now
no longer impatient for a battle. He even began to think of retreating.
On the evening of Saturday, the twenty-fourth of November, he called a
council of war. The meeting was attended by those officers against whom
he had been most earnestly cautioned. Feversham expressed an opinion
that it was desirable to fall back. Churchill argued on the other side.
The consultation lasted till midnight. At length the King declared that
he had decided for a retreat. Churchill saw or imagined that he was
distrusted, and, though gifted with a rare self command, could not
conceal his uneasiness. Before the day broke he fled to the Prince's
quarters, accompanied by Grafton. [538]
Churchill left behind him a letter of explanation. It was written with
that decorum which he never failed to preserve in the midst of guilt and
dishonour. He acknowledged that he owed everything to the royal favour.
Interest, he said, and gratitude impelled him in the same direction.
Under no other government could he hope to be so great and prosperous as
he had been: but all such considerations must yield to a paramount duty.
He was a Protestant; and he could not conscientiously draw his sword
against the Protestant cause. As to the rest he would ever be ready
to hazard life and fortune in defence of the sacred person and of the
lawful rights of his gracious master. [539]
Next morning all was confusion in the royal camp. The King's friends
were in dismay. His enemies could not conceal their exultation. The
consternation of James was increased by news which arrived on the same
day from Warminster. Kirke, who commanded at that post, had refused to
obey orders which he had received from Salisbury. There could no longer
be any doubt that he too was in league with the Prince of Orange. It
was rumoured that he had actually gone over with all his troops to
the enemy: and the rumour, though false, was, during some hours, fully
believed. [540] A new light flashed on the mind of the unhappy King. He
thought that he understood why he had been pressed, a few days before,
to visit Warminster. There he would have found himself helpless, at the
mercy of the conspirators, and in the vicinity of the hostile outposts.
Those who might have attempted to defend him would have been easily
overpowered. He would have been carried a prisoner to the head quarters
of the invading army. Perhaps some still blacker treason might have
been committed; for men who have once engaged in a wicked and perilous
enterprise are no longer their own masters, and are often impelled, by a
fatality which is part of their just punishment, to crimes such as they
would at first have shuddered to contemplate. Surely it was not without
the special intervention of some guardian Saint that a King devoted
to the Catholic Church had, at the very moment when he was blindly
hastening to captivity, perhaps to death, been suddenly arrested by what
he had then thought a disastrous malady.
All these things confirmed James in the resolution which he had taken
on the preceding evening. Orders were given for an immediate retreat.
Salisbury was in an uproar. The camp broke up with the confusion of a
flight. No man knew whom to trust or whom to obey. The material strength
of the army was little diminished: but its moral strength had been
destroyed. Many whom shame would have restrained from leading the way to
the Prince's quarters were eager to imitate an example which they never
would have set; and many, who would have stood by their King while
he appeared to be resolutely advancing against the invaders, felt no
inclination to follow a receding standard. [541]
James went that day as far as Andover. He was attended by his son in
law Prince George, and by the Duke of Ormond. Both were among the
conspirators, and would probably have accompanied Churchill, had he
not, in consequence of what had passed at the council of war, thought it
expedient to take his departure suddenly. The impenetrable stupidity of
Prince George served his turn on this occasion better than cunning would
have done. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim in
French, "possible? " "Is it possible? " This catchword was now of great
use to him. "Est-il-possible? " he cried, when he had been made to
understand that Churchill and Grafton were missing. And when the ill
tidings came from Warminster, he again ejaculated, "Est-il-possible? "
Prince George and Ormond were invited to sup with the King at
Andover. The meal must have been a sad one. The King was overwhelmed by
his misfortunes. His son in law was the dullest of companions. "I have
tried Prince George sober," said Charles the Second; "and I have tried
him drunk; and, drunk or sober, there is nothing in him. " [542] Ormond,
who was through life taciturn and bashful, was not likely to be in high
spirits at such a moment. At length the repast terminated. The King
retired to rest. Horses were in waiting for the Prince and Ormond,
who, as soon as they left the table, mounted and rode off. They were
accompanied by the Earl of Drumlanrig, eldest son of the Duke of
Queensberry. The defection of this young nobleman was no insignificant
event. For Queensberry was the head of the Protestant Episcopalians of
Scotland, a class compared with whom the bitterest English Tories might
be called Whiggish; and Drumlanrig himself was Lieutenant Colonel of
Dundee's regiment, a band more detested by the Whigs than even Kirke's
lambs. This fresh calamity was announced to the King on the following
morning. He was less disturbed by the news than might have been
expected. The shock which he had undergone twenty-four hours before
had prepared him for almost any disaster; and it was impossible to be
seriously angry with Prince George, who was hardly an accountable being,
for having yielded to the arts of such a tempter as Churchill. "What! "
said James, "is Est-il-possible gone too? After all, a good trooper
would have been a greater loss. " [543] In truth the King's whole anger
seems, at this time, to have been concentrated, and not without cause,
on one object. He set off for London, breathing vengeance against
Churchill, and learned, on arriving, a new crime of the arch deceiver.
The Princess Anne had been some hours missing.
Anne, who had no will but that of the Churchills, had been induced
by them to notify under her own hand to William, a week before, her
approbation of his enterprise. She assured him that she was entirely in
the hands of her friends, and that she would remain in the palace, or
take refuge in the City, as they might determine. [544] On Sunday the
twenty-fifth of November, she, and those who thought for her, were under
the necessity of coming to a sudden resolution. That afternoon a courier
from Salisbury brought tidings that Churchill had disappeared, that he
had been accompanied by Grafton, that Kirke had proved false, and that
the royal forces were in full retreat. There was, as usually happened
when great news, good or bad, arrived in town, an immense crowd that
evening in the galleries of Whitehall. Curiosity and anxiety sate
on every face. The Queen broke forth into natural expressions of
indignation against the chief traitor, and did not altogether spare his
too partial mistress. The sentinels were doubled round that part of the
palace which Anne occupied. The Princess was in dismay. In a few hours
her father would be at Westminster. It was not likely that he would
treat her personally with severity; but that he would permit her any
longer to enjoy the society of her friend was not to be hoped.
It could
hardly be doubted that Sarah would be placed under arrest and would be
subjected to a strict examination by shrewd and rigorous inquisitors.
Her papers would be seized. Perhaps evidence affecting her life might be
discovered. If so the worst might well be dreaded. The vengeance of the
implacable King knew no distinction of sex. For offences much smaller
than those which might probably be brought home to Lady Churchill he had
sent women to the scaffold and the stake. Strong affection braced the
feeble mind of the Princess. There was no tie which she would not
break, no risk which she would not run, for the object of her idolatrous
affection. "I will jump out of the window," she cried, "rather than be
found here by my father. " The favourite undertook to manage an escape.
She communicated in all haste with some of the chiefs of the conspiracy.
In a few hours every thing was arranged. That evening Anne retired to
her chamber as usual. At dead of night she rose, and, accompanied by her
friend Sarah and two other female attendants, stole down the back stairs
in a dressing gown and slippers. The fugitives gained the open street
unchallenged. A hackney coach was in waiting for them there. Two men
guarded the humble vehicle. One of them was Compton, Bishop of London,
the Princess's old tutor: the other was the magnificent and accomplished
Dorset, whom the extremity of the public danger had roused from his
luxurious repose. The coach drove instantly to Aldersgate Street, where
the town residence of the Bishops of London then stood, within the
shadow of their Cathedral. There the Princess passed the night. On the
following morning she set out for Epping Forest. In that wild tract
Dorset possessed a venerable mansion, which has long since been
destroyed. In his hospitable dwelling, the favourite resort, during,
many years, of wits and poets, the fugitives made a short stay. They
could not safely attempt to reach William's quarters; for the road
thither lay through a country occupied by the royal forces. It was
therefore determined that Anne should take refuge with the northern
insurgents. Compton wholly laid aside, for the time, his sacerdotal
character. Danger and conflict had rekindled in him all the military
ardour which he had felt twenty-eight years before, when he rode in
the Life Guards. He preceded the Princess's carriage in a buff coat and
jackboots, with a sword at his side and pistols in his holsters. Long
before she reached Nottingham, she was surrounded by a body guard of
gentlemen who volunteered to escort her. They invited the Bishop to act
as their colonel; and he consented with an alacrity which gave great
scandal to rigid Churchmen, and did not much raise his character even in
the opinion of Whigs. [545]
When, on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Anne's apartment was found
empty, the consternation was great in Whitehall. While the Ladies of
her Bedchamber ran up and down the courts of the palace, screaming and
wringing their hands, while Lord Craven, who commanded the Foot Guards,
was questioning the sentinels in the gallery, while the Chancellor was
sealing up the papers of the Churchills, the Princess's nurse broke into
the royal apartments crying out that the dear lady had been murdered by
the Papists. The news flew to Westminster Hall. There the story was that
Her Highness had been hurried away by force to a place of confinement.
When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary,
numerous fictions were invented to account for it. She had been grossly
insulted; she had been threatened; nay, though she was in that situation
in which woman is entitled to peculiar tenderness, she had been beaten
by her cruel stepmother. The populace, which years of misrule had made
suspicious and irritable, was so much excited by these calumnies that
the Queen was scarcely safe. Many Roman Catholics, and some Protestant
Tories whose loyalty was proof to all trials, repaired to the palace
that they might be in readiness to defend her in the event of an
outbreak. In the midst of this distress and tenor arrived the news of
Prince George's flight. The courier who brought these evil tidings was
fast followed by the King himself. The evening was closing in when James
arrived, and was informed that his daughter had disappeared. After all
that he had suffered, this affliction forced a cry of misery from his
lips. "God help me," he said; "my own children have forsaken me. " [546]
That evening he sate in Council with his principal ministers, till
a late hour. It was determined that he should summon all the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London to attend him on
the following day, and that he should solemnly ask their advice.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of Tuesday the twenty-seventh, the Lords
met in the dining room of the palace. The assembly consisted of nine
prelates and between thirty and forty secular nobles, all Protestants.
The two Secretaries of State, Middleton and Preston, though not peers
of England, were in attendance. The King himself presided. The traces of
severe bodily and mental suffering were discernible in his countenance
and deportment. He opened the proceedings by referring to the petition
which had been put into his hands just before he set out for Salisbury.
The prayer of that petition was that he would convoke a free Parliament.
Situated as he then was, he had not, he said, thought it right to
comply. But, during his absence from London, great changes had taken
place. He had also observed that his people everywhere seemed anxious
that the Houses should meet. He had therefore commanded the attendance
of his faithful Peers, in order to ask their counsel.
For a time there was silence. Then Oxford, whose pedigree, unrivalled in
antiquity and splendour, gave him a kind of primacy in the meeting, said
that in his opinion those Lords who had signed the petition to which His
Majesty had referred ought now to explain their views.
These words called up Rochester. He defended the petition, and declared
that he still saw no hope for the throne or the country but in a
Parliament. He would not, he said, venture to affirm that, in so
disastrous an extremity, even that remedy would be efficacious: but he
had no other remedy to propose. He added that it might be advisable to
open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Jeffreys and Godolphin
followed; and both declared that they agreed with Rochester.
Then Clarendon rose, and, to the astonishment of all who remembered
his loud professions of loyalty, and the agony of shame and sorrow into
which he had been thrown, only a few days before, by the news of his
son's defection, broke forth into a vehement invective against tyranny
and Popery. "Even now," he said, "His Majesty is raising in London a
regiment into which no Protestant is admitted. " "That is not true,"
cried James, in great agitation, from the head of the board. Clarendon
persisted, and left this offensive topic only to pass to a topic still
more offensive. He accused the unfortunate King of pusillanimity. Why
retreat from Salisbury? Why not try the event of a battle? Could people
be blamed for submitting to the invader when they saw their sovereign
run away at the head of his army? James felt these insults keenly,
and remembered them long. Indeed even Whigs thought the language of
Clarendon indecent and ungenerous. Halifax spoke in a very different
tone. During several years of peril he had defended with admirable
ability the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of his country against
the prerogative. But his serene intellect, singularly unsusceptible of
enthusiasm, and singularly averse to extremes, began to lean towards the
cause of royalty at the very moment at which those noisy Royalists who
had lately execrated the Trimmers as little bettor than rebels were
everywhere rising in rebellion. It was his ambition to be, at this
conjuncture, the peacemaker between the throne and the nation. His
talents and character fitted him for that office; and, if he failed, the
failure is to be ascribed to causes against which no human skill could
contend, and chiefly to the folly, faithlessness, and obstinacy of the
Prince whom he tried to save.
Halifax now gave utterance to much unpalatable truth, but with a
delicacy which brought on him the reproach of flattery from spirits
too abject to understand that what would justly be called flattery when
offered to the powerful is a debt of humanity to the fallen. With many
expressions of sympathy and deference, he declared it to be his opinion
that the King must make up his mind to great sacrifices. It was not
enough to convoke a Parliament or to open a negotiation with the
Prince of Orange. Some at least of the grievances of which the nation
complained should be instantly redressed without waiting till redress
was demanded by the Houses or by the captain of the hostile army.
Nottingham, in language equally respectful, declared that he agreed with
Halifax. The chief concessions which these Lords pressed the King to
make were three. He ought, they said, forthwith to dismiss all Roman
Catholics from office, to separate himself wholly from France, and to
grant an unlimited amnesty to those who were in arms against him. The
last of these propositions, it should seem, admitted of no dispute. For,
though some of those who were banded together against the King had acted
towards him in a manner which might not unreasonably excite his bitter
resentment, it was more likely that he would soon be at their mercy than
that they would ever be at his. It would have been childish to open a
negotiation with William, and yet to denounce vengeance against men whom
William could not without infamy abandon. But the clouded understanding
and implacable temper of James held out long against the arguments
of those who laboured to convince him that it would be wise to pardon
offences which he could not punish. "I cannot do it," he exclaimed.
"I must make examples, Churchill above all; Churchill whom I raised so
high. He and he alone has done all this. He has corrupted my army.
He has corrupted my child. He would have put me into the hands of the
Prince of Orange, but for God's special providence. My Lords, you are
strangely anxious for the safety of traitors. None of you troubles
himself about my safety. " In answer to this burst of impotent anger,
those who had recommended the amnesty represented with profound respect,
but with firmness, that a prince attacked by powerful enemies can be
safe only by conquering or by conciliating. "If your Majesty, after all
that has happened, has still any hope of safety in arms, we have done:
but if not, you can be safe only by regaining the affections of your
people. " After long and animated debate the King broke up the meeting.
"My Lords," he said, "you have used great freedom: but I do not take
it ill of you. I have made up my mind on one point. I shall call a
Parliament. The other suggestions which have been offered are of grave
importance; and you will not be surprised that I take a night to reflect
on them before I decide. " [547]
At first James seemed disposed to make excellent use of the time which
he had taken for consideration. The Chancellor was directed to issue
writs convoking a Parliament for the thirteenth of January. Halifax was
sent for to the closet, had a long audience, and spoke with much more
freedom than he had thought it decorous to use in the presence of
a large assembly. He was informed that he had been appointed a
Commissioner to treat with the Prince of Orange. With him were joined
Nottingham and Godolphin. The King declared that he was prepared to
make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. Halifax answered that great
sacrifices would doubtless be required. "Your Majesty," he said, "must
not expect that those who have the power in their hands will consent to
any terms which would leave the laws at the mercy of the prerogative. "
With this distinct explanation of his views, he accepted the Commission
which the King wished him to undertake. [548] The concessions which a
few hours before had been so obstinately refused were now made in the
most liberal manner. A proclamation was put forth by which the King not
only granted a free pardon to all who were in rebellion against him, but
declared them eligible to be members of the approaching Parliament. It
was not even required as a condition of eligibility that they should lay
down their arms. The same Gazette which announced that the Houses were
about to meet contained a notification that Sir Edward Hales, who, as a
Papist, as a renegade, as the foremost champion of the dispensing power,
and as the harsh gaoler of the Bishops, was one of the most unpopular
men in the realm, had ceased to be Lieutenant of the Tower, and had been
succeeded by his late prisoner, Bevil Skelton, who, though he held
no high place in the esteem of his countrymen, was at least not
disqualified by law for public trust. [549]
But these concessions were meant only to blind the Lords and the nation
to the King's real designs. He had secretly determined that, even in
this extremity, he would yield nothing. On the very day on which he
issued the proclamation of amnesty, he fully explained his intentions to
Barillon. "This negotiation," said James, "is a mere feint. I must send
commissioners to my nephew, that I may gain time to ship off my wife
and the Prince of Wales. You know the temper of my troops. None but the
Irish will stand by me; and the Irish are not in sufficient force to
resist the enemy. A Parliament would impose on me conditions which I
could not endure. I should be forced to undo all that I have done for
the Catholics, and to break with the King of France. As soon, therefore,
as the Queen and my child are safe, I will leave England, and tale
refuge in Ireland, in Scotland, or with your master. " [550]
Already James had made preparations for carrying this scheme into
effect. Dover had been sent to Portsmouth with instructions to take
charge of the Prince of Wales; and Dartmouth, who commanded the fleet
there, had been ordered to obey Dover's directions in all things
concerning the royal infant, and to have a yacht manned by trusty
sailors in readiness to sail for France at a moment's notice. [551]
The King now sent positive orders that the child should instantly be
conveyed to the nearest continental port. [552] Next to the Prince of
Wales the chief object of anxiety was the Great Seal. To that symbol of
kingly authority our jurists have always ascribed a peculiar and almost
mysterious importance. It is held that, if the Keeper of the Seal should
affix it, without taking the royal pleasure, to a patent of peerage or
to a pardon, though he may be guilty of a high offence, the instrument
cannot be questioned by any court of law, and can be annulled only by
an Act of Parliament. James seems to have been afraid that his enemies
might get this organ of his will into their hands, and might thus give a
legal validity to acts which might affect him injuriously. Nor will
his apprehensions be thought unreasonable when it is remembered that,
exactly a hundred years later, the Great Seal of a King was used, with
the assent of Lords and Commons, and with the approbation of many great
statesmen and lawyers, for the purpose of transferring his prerogatives
to his son. Lest the talisman which possessed such formidable powers
should be abused, James determined that it should be kept within a few
yards of his own closet. Jeffreys was therefore ordered to quit the
costly mansion which he had lately built in Duke Street, and to take up
his residence in a small apartment at Whitehall. [553]
The King had made all his preparations for flight, when an unexpected
impediment compelled him to postpone the execution of his design. His
agents at Portsmouth began to entertain scruples. Even Dover, though a
member of the Jesuitical cabal, showed signs of hesitation. Dartmouth
was still less disposed to comply with the royal wishes. He had hitherto
been faithful to the throne, and had done all that he could do, with a
disaffected fleet, and in the face of an adverse wind, to prevent
the Dutch from landing in England: but he was a zealous member of the
Established Church; and was by no means friendly to the policy of that
government which he thought himself bound in duty and honour to defend.
The mutinous tamper of the officers and men under his command had caused
him much anxiety; and he had been greatly relieved by the news that a
free Parliament had been convoked, and that Commissioners had been named
to treat with the Prince of Orange. The joy was clamorous throughout
the fleet. An address, warmly thanking the King for these gracious
concessions to public feeling, was drawn up on board of the flag ship.
The Admiral signed first. Thirty-eight Captains wrote their names
under his. This paper on its way to Whitehall crossed the messenger
who brought to Portsmouth the order that the Prince of Wales should
instantly be conveyed to France. Dartmouth learned, with bitter grief
and resentment, that the free Parliament, the general amnesty, the
negotiation, were all parts of a great fraud on the nation, and that in
this fraud he was expected to be an accomplice. In a pathetic and manly
letter he declared that he had already carried his obedience to the
farthest point to which a Protestant and an Englishman could go. To put
the heir apparent of the British crown into the hands of Lewis would be
nothing less than treason against the monarchy. The nation, already
too much alienated from the Sovereign, would be roused to madness. The
Prince of Wales would either not return at all, or would return attended
by a French army. If His Royal Highness remained in the island, the
worst that could be apprehended was that he would be brought up a member
of the national Church; and that he might be so brought up ought to be
the prayer of every loyal subject. Dartmouth concluded by declaring that
he would risk his life in defence of the throne, but that he would be no
party to the transporting of the Prince into France. [554]
This letter deranged all the projects of James. He learned too that
he could not on this occasion expect from his Admiral even passive
obedience. For Dartmouth had gone so far as to station several sloops at
the mouth of the harbour of Portsmouth with orders to suffer no vessel
to pass out unexamined. A change of plan was necessary. The child must
be brought back to London, and sent thence to France. An interval of
some days must elapse before this could be done. During that interval
the public mind must be amused by the hope of a Parliament and the
semblance of a negotiation. Writs were sent out for the elections.
Trumpeters went backward and forward between the capital and the Dutch
headquarters. At length passes for the king's Commissioners arrived; and
the three Lords set out on their embassy.
They left the capital in a state of fearful distraction. The passions
which, during three troubled years, had been gradually gathering force,
now, emancipated from the restraint of fear, and stimulated by victory
and sympathy, showed themselves without disguise, even in the precincts
of the royal dwelling. The grand jury of Middlesex found a bill against
the Earl of Salisbury for turning Papist. [555] The Lord Mayor ordered
the houses of the Roman Catholics of the City to be searched for arms.
The mob broke into the house of one respectable merchant who held the
unpopular faith, in order to ascertain whether he had not run a mine
from his cellars under the neighbouring parish church, for the purpose
of blowing up parson and congregation. [556] The hawkers bawled about
the streets a hue and cry after Father Petre, who had withdrawn himself,
and not before it was time, from his apartments in the palace. [557]
Wharton's celebrated song, with many additional verses, was chaunted
more loudly than ever in all the streets of the capital. The very
sentinels who guarded the palace hummed, as they paced their rounds,
"The English confusion to Popery drink,
Lillibullero bullen a la. "
The secret presses of London worked without ceasing. Many papers daily
came into circulation by means which the magistracy could not discover,
or would not check. One of these has been preserved from oblivion by the
skilful audacity with which it was written, and by the immense effect
which it produced. It purported to be a supplemental declaration under
the hand and seal of the Prince of Orange: but it was written in a style
very different from that of his genuine manifesto. Vengeance alien from
the usages of Christian and civilised nations was denounced against
all Papists who should dare to espouse the royal cause. They should be
treated, not as soldiers or gentlemen, but as freebooters. The ferocity
and licentiousness of the invading army, which had hitherto been
restrained with a strong hand, should be let loose on them. Good
Protestants, and especially those who inhabited the capital, were
adjured, as they valued all that was dear to them, and commanded,
on peril of the Prince's highest displeasure, to seize, disarm, and
imprison their Roman Catholic neighbours. This document, it is said,
was found by a Whig bookseller one morning under his shop door. He made
haste to print it. Many copies were dispersed by the post, and
passed rapidly from hand to hand. Discerning men had no difficulty
in pronouncing it a forgery devised by some unquiet and unprincipled
adventurer, such as, in troubled times, are always busy in the foulest
and darkest offices of faction. But the multitude was completely duped.
Indeed to such a height had national and religious feeling been excited
against the Irish Papists that most of those who believed the spurious
proclamation to be genuine were inclined to applaud it as a seasonable
exhibition of vigour. When it was known that no such document had
really proceeded from William, men asked anxiously what impostor had
so daringly and so successfully personated his Highness. Some suspected
Ferguson, others Johnson. At length, after the lapse of twenty-seven
years, Hugh Speke avowed the forgery, and demanded from the House of
Brunswick a reward for so eminent a service rendered to the Protestant
religion. He asserted, in the tone of a man who conceives himself to
have done something eminently virtuous and honourable, that, when the
Dutch invasion had thrown Whitehall into consternation, he had offered
his services to the court, had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs,
and had promised to act as a spy upon them; that he had thus obtained
admittance to the royal closet, had vowed fidelity, had been promised
large pecuniary rewards, and had procured blank passes which enabled
him to travel backwards and forwards across the hostile lines. All these
things he protested that he had done solely in order that he might,
unsuspected, aim a deadly blow at the government, and produce a violent
outbreak of popular feeling against the Roman Catholics. The forged
proclamation he claimed as one of his contrivances: but whether his
claim were well founded may be doubted. He delayed to make it so long
that we may reasonably suspect him of having waited for the death of
those who could confute him; and he produced no evidence but his own.
[558]
While these things happened in London, every post from every part of
the country brought tidings of some new insurrection. Lumley had seized
Newcastle. The inhabitants had welcomed him with transport. The statue
of the King, which stood on a lofty pedestal of marble, had been pulled
down and hurled into the Tyne. The third of December was long remembered
at Hull as the town taking day. That place had a garrison commanded by
Lord Langdale, a Roman Catholic. The Protestant officers concerted
with the magistracy a plan of revolt: Langdale and his adherents
were arrested; and soldiers and citizens united in declaring for the
Protestant religion and a free Parliament.
hand: and it was supposed that, if things went ill, the royal infant
would, without difficulty, be conveyed from Portsmouth to France. [528]
On the nineteenth James reached Salisbury, and took up his quarters in
the episcopal palace. Evil news was now fast pouring in upon him from
all sides. The western counties had at length risen. As soon as the news
of Cornbury's desertion was known, many wealthy landowners took
heart and hastened to Exeter. Among them was Sir William Portman of
Bryanstone, one of the greatest men in Dorsetshire, and Sir Francis
Warre of Hestercombe, whose interest was great in Somersetshire. [529]
But the most important of the new comets was Seymour, who had recently
inherited a baronetcy which added little to his dignity, and who, in
birth, in political influence, and in parliamentary abilities, was
beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. At
his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride
in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. "I think, Sir Edward,"
said William, meaning to be very civil, "that you are of the family
of the Duke of Somerset. " "Pardon me, sir," said Sir Edward, who never
forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Seymours, "the
Duke of Somerset is of my family. " [530]
The quarters of William now began to present the appearance of a court.
More than sixty men of rank and fortune were lodged at Exeter; and the
daily display of rich liveries, and of coaches drawn by six horses,
in the Cathedral Close, gave to that quiet precinct something of the
splendour and gaiety of Whitehall. The common people were eager to take
arms; and it would have been easy to form many battalions of infantry.
But Schomberg, who thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough,
maintained that, if the expedition could not succeed without such help,
it would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much professional
feeling as Schomberg, concurred in this opinion. Commissions therefore
for raising new regiments were very sparingly given; and none but picked
recruits were enlisted.
It was now thought desirable that the Prince should give a public
reception to the whole body of noblemen and gentlemen who had assembled
at Exeter. He addressed them in a short but dignified and well
considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all
whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high
they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their
tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late
to save the kingdom. "Therefore," he said, "gentlemen, friends, and
fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily
welcome to our court and camp. " [531]
Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction,
saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince
stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of
sand: no common object had been publicly and formally avowed: nobody was
pledged to anything. As soon as the assembly at the Deanery broke up, he
sent for Burnet, and suggested that an association should be formed, and
that all the English adherents of the Prince should put their hands to
an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and to each other.
Burnet carried the suggestion to the Prince and to Shrewsbury, by both
of whom it was approved. A meeting was held in the Cathedral. A short
paper drawn up by Burnet was produced, approved, and eagerly signed. The
subscribers engaged to pursue in concert the objects set forth in the
Prince's declaration; to stand by him and by each other; to take signal
vengeance on all who should make any attempt on his person; and, even
if such an attempt should unhappily succeed, to persist in their
undertaking till the liberties and the religion of the nation should be
effectually secured. [532]
About the same time a messenger arrived at Exeter from the Earl of Bath,
who commanded at Plymouth. Bath declared that he placed himself, his
troops, and the fortress which he governed at the Prince's disposal. The
invaders therefore had now not a single enemy in their rear. [533]
While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North was all
in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Delamere took arms in Cheshire.
He convoked his tenants, called upon them to stand by him, promised
that, if they fell in the cause, their leases should be renewed to their
children, and exhorted every one who had a good horse either to take the
field or to provide a substitute. [534] He appeared at Manchester with
fifty men armed and mounted, and his force had trebled before he reached
Boaden Downs.
The neighbouring counties were violently agitated. It had been arranged
that Danby should seize York, and that Devonshire should appear at
Nottingham. At Nottingham no resistance was anticipated. But at York
there was a small garrison under the command of Sir John Reresby. Danby
acted with rare dexterity. A meeting of the gentry and freeholders of
Yorkshire had been summoned for the twenty-second of November to address
the King on the state of affairs. All the Deputy Lieutenants of the
three Ridings, several noblemen, and a multitude of opulent esquires and
substantial yeomen had been attracted to the provincial capital. Four
troops of militia had been drawn out under arms to preserve the public
peace. The Common Hall was crowded with freeholders, and the discussion
had begun, when a cry was suddenly raised that the Papists were up, and
were slaying the Protestants. The Papists of York were much more likely
to be employed in seeking for hiding places than in attacking enemies
who outnumbered them in the proportion of a hundred to one. But at that
time no story of Popish atrocity could be so wild and marvellous as not
to find ready belief. The meeting separated in dismay. The whole city
was in confusion. At this moment Danby at the head of about a hundred
horsemen rode up to the militia, and raised the cry "No Popery! A free
Parliament! The Protestant religion! " The militia echoed the shout. The
garrison was instantly surprised and disarmed. The governor was placed
under arrest. The gates were closed. Sentinels were posted everywhere.
The populace was suffered to pull down a Roman Catholic chapel; but
no other harm appears to have been done. On the following morning the
Guildhall was crowded with the first gentlemen of the shire, and with
the principal magistrates of the city. The Lord Mayor was placed in the
chair. Danby proposed a Declaration setting forth the reasons which had
induced the friends of the constitution and of the Protestant religion
to rise in arms. This Declaration was eagerly adopted, and received in a
few hours the signatures of six peers, of five baronets, of six knights,
and of many gentlemen of high consideration. [535]
Devonshire meantime, at the head of a great body of friends and
dependents, quitted the palace which he was rearing at Chatsworth, and
appeared in arms at Derby. There he formally delivered to the municipal
authorities a paper setting forth the reasons which had moved him to
this enterprise. He then proceeded to Nottingham, which soon became the
head quarters of the Northern insurrection. Here a proclamation was put
forth couched in bold and severe terms. The name of rebellion, it was
said, was a bugbear which could frighten no reasonable man. Was it
rebellion to defend those laws and that religion which every King of
England bound himself by oath to maintain? How that oath had lately been
observed was a question on which, it was to be hoped, a free Parliament
would soon pronounce. In the meantime, the insurgents declared that they
held it to be not rebellion, but legitimate self defence, to resist
a tyrant who knew no law but his own will. The Northern rising became
every day more formidable. Four powerful and wealthy Earls, Manchester,
Stamford, Rutland, and Chesterfield, repaired to Nottingham, and were
joined there by Lord Cholmondley and by Lord Grey de Ruthyn. [536]
All this time the hostile armies in the south were approaching each
other. The Prince of Orange, when he learned that the King had arrived
at Salisbury, thought it time to leave Exeter. He placed that city and
the surrounding country under the government of Sir Edward Seymour, and
set out on Wednesday the twenty-first of November, escorted by many of
the most considerable gentlemen of the western counties, for Axminster,
where he remained several days.
The King was eager to fight; and it was obviously his interest to do
so. Every hour took away something from his own strength, and added
something to the strength of his enemies. It was most important, too,
that his troops should be blooded. A great battle, however it might
terminate, could not but injure the Prince's popularity. All this
William perfectly understood, and determined to avoid an action as long
as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg was told that the enemy
were advancing and were determined to fight, he answered, with the
composure of a tactician confident in his skill, "That will be just as
we may choose. " It was, however, impossible to prevent all skirmishing
between the advanced guards of the armies. William was desirous that
in such skirmishing nothing might happen which could wound the pride or
rouse the vindictive feelings of the nation which he meant to deliver.
He therefore, with admirable prudence, placed his British regiments in
the situations where there was most risk of collision. The outposts
of the royal army were Irish. The consequence was that, in the little
combats of this short campaign, the invaders had on their side the
hearty sympathy of all Englishmen.
The first of these encounters took place at Wincanton. Mackay's
regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the King's
Irish troops, commanded by their countryman, the gallant Sarsfield.
Mackay sent out a small party under a lieutenant named Campbell,
to procure horses for the baggage. Campbell found what he wanted at
Wincanton, and was just leaving that town on his return, when a strong
detachment of Sarsfield's troops approached. The Irish were four to one:
but Campbell resolved to fight it out to the last. With a handful of
resolute men he took his stand in the road. The rest of his soldiers
lined the hedges which overhung the highway on the right and on the
left. The enemy came up. "Stand," cried Campbell: "for whom are you? " "I
am for King James," answered the leader of the other party. "And I for
the Prince of Orange," cried Campbell. "We will prince you," answered
the Irishman with a curse. "Fire! " exclaimed Campbell; and a sharp fire
was instantly poured in from both the hedges. The King's troops received
three well aimed volleys before they could make any return. At length
they succeeded in carrying one of the hedges; and would have overpowered
the little band which was opposed to them, had not the country people,
who mortally hated the Irish, given a false alarm that more of the
Prince's troops were coming up. Sarsfield recalled his men and fell
back; and Campbell proceeded on his march unmolested with the baggage
horses.
This affair, creditable undoubtedly to the valour and discipline of the
Prince's army was magnified by report into a victory won against great
odds by British Protestants over Popish barbarians who had been brought
from Connaught to oppress our island. [537]
A few hours after this skirmish an event took place which put an end to
all risk of a more serious struggle between the armies. Churchill and
some of his principal accomplices were assembled at Salisbury. Two of
the conspirators, Kirke and Trelawney, had proceeded to Warminster,
where their regiments were posted. All was ripe for the execution of the
long meditated treason.
Churchill advised the King to visit Warminster, and to inspect the
troops stationed there. James assented; and his coach was at the door
of the episcopal palace when his nose began to bleed violently. He
was forced to postpone his expedition and to put himself under medical
treatment. Three days elapsed before the hemorrhage was entirely
subdued; and during those three days alarming rumours reached his ears.
It was impossible that a conspiracy so widely spread as that of which
Churchill was the head could be kept altogether secret. There was no
evidence which could be laid before a jury or a court martial: but
strange whispers wandered about the camp. Feversham, who held the chief
command, reported that there was a bad spirit in the army. It was hinted
to the King that some who were near his person were not his friends, and
that it would be a wise precaution to send Churchill and Grafton under
a guard to Portsmouth. James rejected this counsel. A propensity to
suspicion was not among his vices. Indeed the confidence which he
reposed in professions of fidelity and attachment was such as might
rather have been expected from a goodhearted and inexperienced stripling
than from a politician who was far advanced in life, who had seen much
of the world, who had suffered much from villanous arts, and whose own
character was by no means a favourable specimen of human nature. It
would be difficult to mention any other man who, having himself so
little scruple about breaking faith, was so slow to believe that his
neighbours could break faith with him. Nevertheless the reports which he
had received of the state of his army disturbed him greatly. He was now
no longer impatient for a battle. He even began to think of retreating.
On the evening of Saturday, the twenty-fourth of November, he called a
council of war. The meeting was attended by those officers against whom
he had been most earnestly cautioned. Feversham expressed an opinion
that it was desirable to fall back. Churchill argued on the other side.
The consultation lasted till midnight. At length the King declared that
he had decided for a retreat. Churchill saw or imagined that he was
distrusted, and, though gifted with a rare self command, could not
conceal his uneasiness. Before the day broke he fled to the Prince's
quarters, accompanied by Grafton. [538]
Churchill left behind him a letter of explanation. It was written with
that decorum which he never failed to preserve in the midst of guilt and
dishonour. He acknowledged that he owed everything to the royal favour.
Interest, he said, and gratitude impelled him in the same direction.
Under no other government could he hope to be so great and prosperous as
he had been: but all such considerations must yield to a paramount duty.
He was a Protestant; and he could not conscientiously draw his sword
against the Protestant cause. As to the rest he would ever be ready
to hazard life and fortune in defence of the sacred person and of the
lawful rights of his gracious master. [539]
Next morning all was confusion in the royal camp. The King's friends
were in dismay. His enemies could not conceal their exultation. The
consternation of James was increased by news which arrived on the same
day from Warminster. Kirke, who commanded at that post, had refused to
obey orders which he had received from Salisbury. There could no longer
be any doubt that he too was in league with the Prince of Orange. It
was rumoured that he had actually gone over with all his troops to
the enemy: and the rumour, though false, was, during some hours, fully
believed. [540] A new light flashed on the mind of the unhappy King. He
thought that he understood why he had been pressed, a few days before,
to visit Warminster. There he would have found himself helpless, at the
mercy of the conspirators, and in the vicinity of the hostile outposts.
Those who might have attempted to defend him would have been easily
overpowered. He would have been carried a prisoner to the head quarters
of the invading army. Perhaps some still blacker treason might have
been committed; for men who have once engaged in a wicked and perilous
enterprise are no longer their own masters, and are often impelled, by a
fatality which is part of their just punishment, to crimes such as they
would at first have shuddered to contemplate. Surely it was not without
the special intervention of some guardian Saint that a King devoted
to the Catholic Church had, at the very moment when he was blindly
hastening to captivity, perhaps to death, been suddenly arrested by what
he had then thought a disastrous malady.
All these things confirmed James in the resolution which he had taken
on the preceding evening. Orders were given for an immediate retreat.
Salisbury was in an uproar. The camp broke up with the confusion of a
flight. No man knew whom to trust or whom to obey. The material strength
of the army was little diminished: but its moral strength had been
destroyed. Many whom shame would have restrained from leading the way to
the Prince's quarters were eager to imitate an example which they never
would have set; and many, who would have stood by their King while
he appeared to be resolutely advancing against the invaders, felt no
inclination to follow a receding standard. [541]
James went that day as far as Andover. He was attended by his son in
law Prince George, and by the Duke of Ormond. Both were among the
conspirators, and would probably have accompanied Churchill, had he
not, in consequence of what had passed at the council of war, thought it
expedient to take his departure suddenly. The impenetrable stupidity of
Prince George served his turn on this occasion better than cunning would
have done. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim in
French, "possible? " "Is it possible? " This catchword was now of great
use to him. "Est-il-possible? " he cried, when he had been made to
understand that Churchill and Grafton were missing. And when the ill
tidings came from Warminster, he again ejaculated, "Est-il-possible? "
Prince George and Ormond were invited to sup with the King at
Andover. The meal must have been a sad one. The King was overwhelmed by
his misfortunes. His son in law was the dullest of companions. "I have
tried Prince George sober," said Charles the Second; "and I have tried
him drunk; and, drunk or sober, there is nothing in him. " [542] Ormond,
who was through life taciturn and bashful, was not likely to be in high
spirits at such a moment. At length the repast terminated. The King
retired to rest. Horses were in waiting for the Prince and Ormond,
who, as soon as they left the table, mounted and rode off. They were
accompanied by the Earl of Drumlanrig, eldest son of the Duke of
Queensberry. The defection of this young nobleman was no insignificant
event. For Queensberry was the head of the Protestant Episcopalians of
Scotland, a class compared with whom the bitterest English Tories might
be called Whiggish; and Drumlanrig himself was Lieutenant Colonel of
Dundee's regiment, a band more detested by the Whigs than even Kirke's
lambs. This fresh calamity was announced to the King on the following
morning. He was less disturbed by the news than might have been
expected. The shock which he had undergone twenty-four hours before
had prepared him for almost any disaster; and it was impossible to be
seriously angry with Prince George, who was hardly an accountable being,
for having yielded to the arts of such a tempter as Churchill. "What! "
said James, "is Est-il-possible gone too? After all, a good trooper
would have been a greater loss. " [543] In truth the King's whole anger
seems, at this time, to have been concentrated, and not without cause,
on one object. He set off for London, breathing vengeance against
Churchill, and learned, on arriving, a new crime of the arch deceiver.
The Princess Anne had been some hours missing.
Anne, who had no will but that of the Churchills, had been induced
by them to notify under her own hand to William, a week before, her
approbation of his enterprise. She assured him that she was entirely in
the hands of her friends, and that she would remain in the palace, or
take refuge in the City, as they might determine. [544] On Sunday the
twenty-fifth of November, she, and those who thought for her, were under
the necessity of coming to a sudden resolution. That afternoon a courier
from Salisbury brought tidings that Churchill had disappeared, that he
had been accompanied by Grafton, that Kirke had proved false, and that
the royal forces were in full retreat. There was, as usually happened
when great news, good or bad, arrived in town, an immense crowd that
evening in the galleries of Whitehall. Curiosity and anxiety sate
on every face. The Queen broke forth into natural expressions of
indignation against the chief traitor, and did not altogether spare his
too partial mistress. The sentinels were doubled round that part of the
palace which Anne occupied. The Princess was in dismay. In a few hours
her father would be at Westminster. It was not likely that he would
treat her personally with severity; but that he would permit her any
longer to enjoy the society of her friend was not to be hoped.
It could
hardly be doubted that Sarah would be placed under arrest and would be
subjected to a strict examination by shrewd and rigorous inquisitors.
Her papers would be seized. Perhaps evidence affecting her life might be
discovered. If so the worst might well be dreaded. The vengeance of the
implacable King knew no distinction of sex. For offences much smaller
than those which might probably be brought home to Lady Churchill he had
sent women to the scaffold and the stake. Strong affection braced the
feeble mind of the Princess. There was no tie which she would not
break, no risk which she would not run, for the object of her idolatrous
affection. "I will jump out of the window," she cried, "rather than be
found here by my father. " The favourite undertook to manage an escape.
She communicated in all haste with some of the chiefs of the conspiracy.
In a few hours every thing was arranged. That evening Anne retired to
her chamber as usual. At dead of night she rose, and, accompanied by her
friend Sarah and two other female attendants, stole down the back stairs
in a dressing gown and slippers. The fugitives gained the open street
unchallenged. A hackney coach was in waiting for them there. Two men
guarded the humble vehicle. One of them was Compton, Bishop of London,
the Princess's old tutor: the other was the magnificent and accomplished
Dorset, whom the extremity of the public danger had roused from his
luxurious repose. The coach drove instantly to Aldersgate Street, where
the town residence of the Bishops of London then stood, within the
shadow of their Cathedral. There the Princess passed the night. On the
following morning she set out for Epping Forest. In that wild tract
Dorset possessed a venerable mansion, which has long since been
destroyed. In his hospitable dwelling, the favourite resort, during,
many years, of wits and poets, the fugitives made a short stay. They
could not safely attempt to reach William's quarters; for the road
thither lay through a country occupied by the royal forces. It was
therefore determined that Anne should take refuge with the northern
insurgents. Compton wholly laid aside, for the time, his sacerdotal
character. Danger and conflict had rekindled in him all the military
ardour which he had felt twenty-eight years before, when he rode in
the Life Guards. He preceded the Princess's carriage in a buff coat and
jackboots, with a sword at his side and pistols in his holsters. Long
before she reached Nottingham, she was surrounded by a body guard of
gentlemen who volunteered to escort her. They invited the Bishop to act
as their colonel; and he consented with an alacrity which gave great
scandal to rigid Churchmen, and did not much raise his character even in
the opinion of Whigs. [545]
When, on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Anne's apartment was found
empty, the consternation was great in Whitehall. While the Ladies of
her Bedchamber ran up and down the courts of the palace, screaming and
wringing their hands, while Lord Craven, who commanded the Foot Guards,
was questioning the sentinels in the gallery, while the Chancellor was
sealing up the papers of the Churchills, the Princess's nurse broke into
the royal apartments crying out that the dear lady had been murdered by
the Papists. The news flew to Westminster Hall. There the story was that
Her Highness had been hurried away by force to a place of confinement.
When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary,
numerous fictions were invented to account for it. She had been grossly
insulted; she had been threatened; nay, though she was in that situation
in which woman is entitled to peculiar tenderness, she had been beaten
by her cruel stepmother. The populace, which years of misrule had made
suspicious and irritable, was so much excited by these calumnies that
the Queen was scarcely safe. Many Roman Catholics, and some Protestant
Tories whose loyalty was proof to all trials, repaired to the palace
that they might be in readiness to defend her in the event of an
outbreak. In the midst of this distress and tenor arrived the news of
Prince George's flight. The courier who brought these evil tidings was
fast followed by the King himself. The evening was closing in when James
arrived, and was informed that his daughter had disappeared. After all
that he had suffered, this affliction forced a cry of misery from his
lips. "God help me," he said; "my own children have forsaken me. " [546]
That evening he sate in Council with his principal ministers, till
a late hour. It was determined that he should summon all the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London to attend him on
the following day, and that he should solemnly ask their advice.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of Tuesday the twenty-seventh, the Lords
met in the dining room of the palace. The assembly consisted of nine
prelates and between thirty and forty secular nobles, all Protestants.
The two Secretaries of State, Middleton and Preston, though not peers
of England, were in attendance. The King himself presided. The traces of
severe bodily and mental suffering were discernible in his countenance
and deportment. He opened the proceedings by referring to the petition
which had been put into his hands just before he set out for Salisbury.
The prayer of that petition was that he would convoke a free Parliament.
Situated as he then was, he had not, he said, thought it right to
comply. But, during his absence from London, great changes had taken
place. He had also observed that his people everywhere seemed anxious
that the Houses should meet. He had therefore commanded the attendance
of his faithful Peers, in order to ask their counsel.
For a time there was silence. Then Oxford, whose pedigree, unrivalled in
antiquity and splendour, gave him a kind of primacy in the meeting, said
that in his opinion those Lords who had signed the petition to which His
Majesty had referred ought now to explain their views.
These words called up Rochester. He defended the petition, and declared
that he still saw no hope for the throne or the country but in a
Parliament. He would not, he said, venture to affirm that, in so
disastrous an extremity, even that remedy would be efficacious: but he
had no other remedy to propose. He added that it might be advisable to
open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Jeffreys and Godolphin
followed; and both declared that they agreed with Rochester.
Then Clarendon rose, and, to the astonishment of all who remembered
his loud professions of loyalty, and the agony of shame and sorrow into
which he had been thrown, only a few days before, by the news of his
son's defection, broke forth into a vehement invective against tyranny
and Popery. "Even now," he said, "His Majesty is raising in London a
regiment into which no Protestant is admitted. " "That is not true,"
cried James, in great agitation, from the head of the board. Clarendon
persisted, and left this offensive topic only to pass to a topic still
more offensive. He accused the unfortunate King of pusillanimity. Why
retreat from Salisbury? Why not try the event of a battle? Could people
be blamed for submitting to the invader when they saw their sovereign
run away at the head of his army? James felt these insults keenly,
and remembered them long. Indeed even Whigs thought the language of
Clarendon indecent and ungenerous. Halifax spoke in a very different
tone. During several years of peril he had defended with admirable
ability the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of his country against
the prerogative. But his serene intellect, singularly unsusceptible of
enthusiasm, and singularly averse to extremes, began to lean towards the
cause of royalty at the very moment at which those noisy Royalists who
had lately execrated the Trimmers as little bettor than rebels were
everywhere rising in rebellion. It was his ambition to be, at this
conjuncture, the peacemaker between the throne and the nation. His
talents and character fitted him for that office; and, if he failed, the
failure is to be ascribed to causes against which no human skill could
contend, and chiefly to the folly, faithlessness, and obstinacy of the
Prince whom he tried to save.
Halifax now gave utterance to much unpalatable truth, but with a
delicacy which brought on him the reproach of flattery from spirits
too abject to understand that what would justly be called flattery when
offered to the powerful is a debt of humanity to the fallen. With many
expressions of sympathy and deference, he declared it to be his opinion
that the King must make up his mind to great sacrifices. It was not
enough to convoke a Parliament or to open a negotiation with the
Prince of Orange. Some at least of the grievances of which the nation
complained should be instantly redressed without waiting till redress
was demanded by the Houses or by the captain of the hostile army.
Nottingham, in language equally respectful, declared that he agreed with
Halifax. The chief concessions which these Lords pressed the King to
make were three. He ought, they said, forthwith to dismiss all Roman
Catholics from office, to separate himself wholly from France, and to
grant an unlimited amnesty to those who were in arms against him. The
last of these propositions, it should seem, admitted of no dispute. For,
though some of those who were banded together against the King had acted
towards him in a manner which might not unreasonably excite his bitter
resentment, it was more likely that he would soon be at their mercy than
that they would ever be at his. It would have been childish to open a
negotiation with William, and yet to denounce vengeance against men whom
William could not without infamy abandon. But the clouded understanding
and implacable temper of James held out long against the arguments
of those who laboured to convince him that it would be wise to pardon
offences which he could not punish. "I cannot do it," he exclaimed.
"I must make examples, Churchill above all; Churchill whom I raised so
high. He and he alone has done all this. He has corrupted my army.
He has corrupted my child. He would have put me into the hands of the
Prince of Orange, but for God's special providence. My Lords, you are
strangely anxious for the safety of traitors. None of you troubles
himself about my safety. " In answer to this burst of impotent anger,
those who had recommended the amnesty represented with profound respect,
but with firmness, that a prince attacked by powerful enemies can be
safe only by conquering or by conciliating. "If your Majesty, after all
that has happened, has still any hope of safety in arms, we have done:
but if not, you can be safe only by regaining the affections of your
people. " After long and animated debate the King broke up the meeting.
"My Lords," he said, "you have used great freedom: but I do not take
it ill of you. I have made up my mind on one point. I shall call a
Parliament. The other suggestions which have been offered are of grave
importance; and you will not be surprised that I take a night to reflect
on them before I decide. " [547]
At first James seemed disposed to make excellent use of the time which
he had taken for consideration. The Chancellor was directed to issue
writs convoking a Parliament for the thirteenth of January. Halifax was
sent for to the closet, had a long audience, and spoke with much more
freedom than he had thought it decorous to use in the presence of
a large assembly. He was informed that he had been appointed a
Commissioner to treat with the Prince of Orange. With him were joined
Nottingham and Godolphin. The King declared that he was prepared to
make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. Halifax answered that great
sacrifices would doubtless be required. "Your Majesty," he said, "must
not expect that those who have the power in their hands will consent to
any terms which would leave the laws at the mercy of the prerogative. "
With this distinct explanation of his views, he accepted the Commission
which the King wished him to undertake. [548] The concessions which a
few hours before had been so obstinately refused were now made in the
most liberal manner. A proclamation was put forth by which the King not
only granted a free pardon to all who were in rebellion against him, but
declared them eligible to be members of the approaching Parliament. It
was not even required as a condition of eligibility that they should lay
down their arms. The same Gazette which announced that the Houses were
about to meet contained a notification that Sir Edward Hales, who, as a
Papist, as a renegade, as the foremost champion of the dispensing power,
and as the harsh gaoler of the Bishops, was one of the most unpopular
men in the realm, had ceased to be Lieutenant of the Tower, and had been
succeeded by his late prisoner, Bevil Skelton, who, though he held
no high place in the esteem of his countrymen, was at least not
disqualified by law for public trust. [549]
But these concessions were meant only to blind the Lords and the nation
to the King's real designs. He had secretly determined that, even in
this extremity, he would yield nothing. On the very day on which he
issued the proclamation of amnesty, he fully explained his intentions to
Barillon. "This negotiation," said James, "is a mere feint. I must send
commissioners to my nephew, that I may gain time to ship off my wife
and the Prince of Wales. You know the temper of my troops. None but the
Irish will stand by me; and the Irish are not in sufficient force to
resist the enemy. A Parliament would impose on me conditions which I
could not endure. I should be forced to undo all that I have done for
the Catholics, and to break with the King of France. As soon, therefore,
as the Queen and my child are safe, I will leave England, and tale
refuge in Ireland, in Scotland, or with your master. " [550]
Already James had made preparations for carrying this scheme into
effect. Dover had been sent to Portsmouth with instructions to take
charge of the Prince of Wales; and Dartmouth, who commanded the fleet
there, had been ordered to obey Dover's directions in all things
concerning the royal infant, and to have a yacht manned by trusty
sailors in readiness to sail for France at a moment's notice. [551]
The King now sent positive orders that the child should instantly be
conveyed to the nearest continental port. [552] Next to the Prince of
Wales the chief object of anxiety was the Great Seal. To that symbol of
kingly authority our jurists have always ascribed a peculiar and almost
mysterious importance. It is held that, if the Keeper of the Seal should
affix it, without taking the royal pleasure, to a patent of peerage or
to a pardon, though he may be guilty of a high offence, the instrument
cannot be questioned by any court of law, and can be annulled only by
an Act of Parliament. James seems to have been afraid that his enemies
might get this organ of his will into their hands, and might thus give a
legal validity to acts which might affect him injuriously. Nor will
his apprehensions be thought unreasonable when it is remembered that,
exactly a hundred years later, the Great Seal of a King was used, with
the assent of Lords and Commons, and with the approbation of many great
statesmen and lawyers, for the purpose of transferring his prerogatives
to his son. Lest the talisman which possessed such formidable powers
should be abused, James determined that it should be kept within a few
yards of his own closet. Jeffreys was therefore ordered to quit the
costly mansion which he had lately built in Duke Street, and to take up
his residence in a small apartment at Whitehall. [553]
The King had made all his preparations for flight, when an unexpected
impediment compelled him to postpone the execution of his design. His
agents at Portsmouth began to entertain scruples. Even Dover, though a
member of the Jesuitical cabal, showed signs of hesitation. Dartmouth
was still less disposed to comply with the royal wishes. He had hitherto
been faithful to the throne, and had done all that he could do, with a
disaffected fleet, and in the face of an adverse wind, to prevent
the Dutch from landing in England: but he was a zealous member of the
Established Church; and was by no means friendly to the policy of that
government which he thought himself bound in duty and honour to defend.
The mutinous tamper of the officers and men under his command had caused
him much anxiety; and he had been greatly relieved by the news that a
free Parliament had been convoked, and that Commissioners had been named
to treat with the Prince of Orange. The joy was clamorous throughout
the fleet. An address, warmly thanking the King for these gracious
concessions to public feeling, was drawn up on board of the flag ship.
The Admiral signed first. Thirty-eight Captains wrote their names
under his. This paper on its way to Whitehall crossed the messenger
who brought to Portsmouth the order that the Prince of Wales should
instantly be conveyed to France. Dartmouth learned, with bitter grief
and resentment, that the free Parliament, the general amnesty, the
negotiation, were all parts of a great fraud on the nation, and that in
this fraud he was expected to be an accomplice. In a pathetic and manly
letter he declared that he had already carried his obedience to the
farthest point to which a Protestant and an Englishman could go. To put
the heir apparent of the British crown into the hands of Lewis would be
nothing less than treason against the monarchy. The nation, already
too much alienated from the Sovereign, would be roused to madness. The
Prince of Wales would either not return at all, or would return attended
by a French army. If His Royal Highness remained in the island, the
worst that could be apprehended was that he would be brought up a member
of the national Church; and that he might be so brought up ought to be
the prayer of every loyal subject. Dartmouth concluded by declaring that
he would risk his life in defence of the throne, but that he would be no
party to the transporting of the Prince into France. [554]
This letter deranged all the projects of James. He learned too that
he could not on this occasion expect from his Admiral even passive
obedience. For Dartmouth had gone so far as to station several sloops at
the mouth of the harbour of Portsmouth with orders to suffer no vessel
to pass out unexamined. A change of plan was necessary. The child must
be brought back to London, and sent thence to France. An interval of
some days must elapse before this could be done. During that interval
the public mind must be amused by the hope of a Parliament and the
semblance of a negotiation. Writs were sent out for the elections.
Trumpeters went backward and forward between the capital and the Dutch
headquarters. At length passes for the king's Commissioners arrived; and
the three Lords set out on their embassy.
They left the capital in a state of fearful distraction. The passions
which, during three troubled years, had been gradually gathering force,
now, emancipated from the restraint of fear, and stimulated by victory
and sympathy, showed themselves without disguise, even in the precincts
of the royal dwelling. The grand jury of Middlesex found a bill against
the Earl of Salisbury for turning Papist. [555] The Lord Mayor ordered
the houses of the Roman Catholics of the City to be searched for arms.
The mob broke into the house of one respectable merchant who held the
unpopular faith, in order to ascertain whether he had not run a mine
from his cellars under the neighbouring parish church, for the purpose
of blowing up parson and congregation. [556] The hawkers bawled about
the streets a hue and cry after Father Petre, who had withdrawn himself,
and not before it was time, from his apartments in the palace. [557]
Wharton's celebrated song, with many additional verses, was chaunted
more loudly than ever in all the streets of the capital. The very
sentinels who guarded the palace hummed, as they paced their rounds,
"The English confusion to Popery drink,
Lillibullero bullen a la. "
The secret presses of London worked without ceasing. Many papers daily
came into circulation by means which the magistracy could not discover,
or would not check. One of these has been preserved from oblivion by the
skilful audacity with which it was written, and by the immense effect
which it produced. It purported to be a supplemental declaration under
the hand and seal of the Prince of Orange: but it was written in a style
very different from that of his genuine manifesto. Vengeance alien from
the usages of Christian and civilised nations was denounced against
all Papists who should dare to espouse the royal cause. They should be
treated, not as soldiers or gentlemen, but as freebooters. The ferocity
and licentiousness of the invading army, which had hitherto been
restrained with a strong hand, should be let loose on them. Good
Protestants, and especially those who inhabited the capital, were
adjured, as they valued all that was dear to them, and commanded,
on peril of the Prince's highest displeasure, to seize, disarm, and
imprison their Roman Catholic neighbours. This document, it is said,
was found by a Whig bookseller one morning under his shop door. He made
haste to print it. Many copies were dispersed by the post, and
passed rapidly from hand to hand. Discerning men had no difficulty
in pronouncing it a forgery devised by some unquiet and unprincipled
adventurer, such as, in troubled times, are always busy in the foulest
and darkest offices of faction. But the multitude was completely duped.
Indeed to such a height had national and religious feeling been excited
against the Irish Papists that most of those who believed the spurious
proclamation to be genuine were inclined to applaud it as a seasonable
exhibition of vigour. When it was known that no such document had
really proceeded from William, men asked anxiously what impostor had
so daringly and so successfully personated his Highness. Some suspected
Ferguson, others Johnson. At length, after the lapse of twenty-seven
years, Hugh Speke avowed the forgery, and demanded from the House of
Brunswick a reward for so eminent a service rendered to the Protestant
religion. He asserted, in the tone of a man who conceives himself to
have done something eminently virtuous and honourable, that, when the
Dutch invasion had thrown Whitehall into consternation, he had offered
his services to the court, had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs,
and had promised to act as a spy upon them; that he had thus obtained
admittance to the royal closet, had vowed fidelity, had been promised
large pecuniary rewards, and had procured blank passes which enabled
him to travel backwards and forwards across the hostile lines. All these
things he protested that he had done solely in order that he might,
unsuspected, aim a deadly blow at the government, and produce a violent
outbreak of popular feeling against the Roman Catholics. The forged
proclamation he claimed as one of his contrivances: but whether his
claim were well founded may be doubted. He delayed to make it so long
that we may reasonably suspect him of having waited for the death of
those who could confute him; and he produced no evidence but his own.
[558]
While these things happened in London, every post from every part of
the country brought tidings of some new insurrection. Lumley had seized
Newcastle. The inhabitants had welcomed him with transport. The statue
of the King, which stood on a lofty pedestal of marble, had been pulled
down and hurled into the Tyne. The third of December was long remembered
at Hull as the town taking day. That place had a garrison commanded by
Lord Langdale, a Roman Catholic. The Protestant officers concerted
with the magistracy a plan of revolt: Langdale and his adherents
were arrested; and soldiers and citizens united in declaring for the
Protestant religion and a free Parliament.
