All the forces except those which were
necessary
to keep the peace
of the capital were ordered to move to the west.
of the capital were ordered to move to the west.
Macaulay
Thousands of horses had perished.
All thought of a design on
England must be relinquished, at least for the present year. Here was
a lesson for the nation. While James expected immediate invasion and
rebellion, he had given orders that reparation should be made to those
whom he had unlawfully despoiled. As soon as he found himself safe,
those orders had been revoked. This imputation, though at that time
generally believed, and though, since that time, repeated by writers who
ought to have been well informed, was without foundation. It is
certain that the mishap of the Dutch fleet could not, by any mode of
communication, have been known at Westminster till some hours after the
Bishop of Winchester had received the summons which called him away
from Oxford. The King, however, had little right to complain of the
suspicions of his people. If they sometimes, without severely examining
evidence, ascribed to his dishonest policy what was really the effect of
accident or inadvertence, the fault was his own. That men who are in the
habit of breaking faith should be distrusted when they mean to keep it
is part of their just and natural punishment. [492]
It is remarkable that James, on this occasion, incurred one unmerited
imputation solely in consequence of his eagerness to clear himself from
another imputation equally unmerited. The Bishop of Winchester had been
hastily summoned from Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of
the Privy Council, or rather an assembly of Notables, which had been
convoked at Whitehall. With the Privy Councillors were joined, in this
solemn sitting, all the Peers Spiritual and Temporal who chanced to be
in or near the capital, the Judges, the crown lawyers, the Lord Mayor
and the Aldermen of the City of London. A hint had been given to Petre
that he would do well to absent himself. In truth few of the Peers would
have chosen to sit with him. Near the head of the board a chair of state
was placed for the Queen Dowager. The Princess Anne had been requested
to attend, but had excused herself on the plea of delicate health.
James informed this great assembly that he thought it necessary to
produce proofs of the birth of his son. The arts of bad men had poisoned
the public mind to such an extent that very many believed the Prince
of Wales to be a supposititious child. But Providence had graciously
ordered things so that scarcely any prince had ever come into the world
in the presence of so many witnesses. Those witnesses then appeared and
gave their evidence. After all the depositions had been taken, James
with great solemnity declared that the imputation thrown on him was
utterly false, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than wrong
any of his children.
All who were present appeared to be satisfied. The evidence was
instantly published, and was allowed by judicious and impartial persons
to be decisive. [493] But the judicious are always a minority; and
scarcely anybody was then impartial. The whole nation was convinced that
all sincere Papists thought it a duty to perjure themselves whenever
they could, by perjury, serve the interests of their Church. Men who,
having been bred Protestants, had for the sake of lucre pretended to be
converted to Popery, were, if possible, less trustworthy than sincere
Papists. The depositions of all who belonged to these two classes were
therefore regarded as mere nullities. Thus the weight of the testimony
on which James had relied was greatly reduced. What remained was
malignantly scrutinised. To every one of the few Protestant witnesses
who had said anything material some exception was taken. One was
notoriously a greedy sycophant. Another had not indeed yet apostatized,
but was nearly related to an apostate. The people asked, as they had
asked from the first, why, if all was right, the King, knowing, as he
knew, that many doubted the reality of his wife's pregnancy, had not
taken care that the birth should be more satisfactorily proved. Was
there nothing suspicious in the false reckoning, in the sudden change
of abode, in the absence of the Princess Anne and of the Archbishop of
Canterbury? Why was no prelate of the Established Church in attendance?
Why was not the Dutch Ambassador summoned? Why, above all, were not the
Hydes, loyal servants of the crown, faithful sons of the Church, and
natural guardians of the interest of their nieces, suffered to mingle
with the crowd of Papists which was assembled in and near the royal
bedchamber? Why, in short, was there, in the long list of assistants,
not a single name which commanded public confidence and respect? The
true answer to these questions was that the King's understanding was
weak, that his temper was despotic, and that he had willingly seized an
opportunity of manifesting his contempt for the opinion of his subjects.
But the multitude, not contented with this explanation, attributed to
deep laid villany what was really the effect of folly and perverseness.
Nor was this opinion confined to the multitude. The Lady Anne, at her
toilette, on the morning after the Council, spoke of the investigation
with such scorn as emboldened the very tirewomen who were dressing her
to put in their jests. Some of the Lords who had heard the examination,
and had appeared to be satisfied, were really unconvinced. Lloyd,
Bishop of St. Asaph, whose piety and learning commanded general respect,
continued to the end of his life to believe that a fraud had been
practised.
The depositions taken before the Council had not been many hours in the
hands of the public when it was noised abroad that Sunderland had been
dismissed from all his places. The news of his disgrace seems to have
taken the politicians of the coffeehouses by surprise, but did not
astonish those who had observed what was passing in the palace. Treason
had not been brought home to him by legal, or even by tangible, evidence
but there was a strong suspicion among those who watched him closely
that, through some channel or other, he was in communication with the
enemies of that government in which he occupied so high a place. He,
with unabashed forehead, imprecated on his own head all evil here and
hereafter if he was guilty. His only fault, he protested, was that he
had served the crown too well. Had he not given hostages to the royal
cause? Had he not broken down every bridge by which he could, in case of
a disaster, effect his retreat? Had he not gone all lengths in favour
of the dispensing power, sate in the High Commission, signed the warrant
for the commitment of the Bishops, appeared as a witness against them,
at the hazard of his life, amidst the hisses and curses of the thousands
who filled Westminster Hall? Had he not given the last proof of fidelity
by renouncing his religion, and publicly joining a Church which the
nation detested? What had he to hope from a change? What had he not to
dread? These arguments, though plausible, and though set off by the most
insinuating address, could not remove the impression which whispers and
reports arriving at once from a hundred different quarters had produced.
The King became daily colder and colder. Sunderland attempted to support
himself by the Queen's help, obtained an audience of Her Majesty, and
was actually in her apartment when Middleton entered, and, by the King's
orders, demanded the seals. That evening the fallen minister was for the
last time closeted with the Prince whom he had flattered and betrayed.
The interview was a strange one. Sunderland acted calumniated virtue to
perfection. He regretted not, he said, the Secretaryship of State or the
Presidency of the Council, if only he retained his sovereign's esteem.
"Do not, sir, do not make me the most unhappy gentleman in your
dominions, by refusing to declare that you acquit me of disloyalty. " The
King hardly knew what to believe. There was no positive proof of guilt;
and the energy and pathos with which Sunderland lied might have imposed
on a keener understanding than that with which he had to deal. At the
French embassy his professions still found credit. There he declared
that he should remain a few days in London, and show himself at court.
He would then retire to his country seat at Althorpe, and try to repair
his dilapidated fortunes by economy. If a revolution should take place
he must fly to France. His ill requited loyalty had left him no other
place of refuge. [494]
The seals which had been taken from Sunderland were delivered to
Preston. The same Gazette which announced this change contained the
official intelligence of the disaster which had befallen the Dutch
fleet. [495] That disaster was serious, though far less serious than
the King and his few adherents, misled by their wishes, were disposed to
believe.
On the sixteenth of October, according to the English reckoning, was
held a solemn sitting of the States of Holland. The Prince came to bid
them farewell. He thanked them for the kindness with which they had
watched over him when he was left an orphan child, for the confidence
which they had reposed in him during his administration, and for the
assistance which they had granted to him at this momentous crisis. He
entreated them to believe that he had always meant and endeavoured to
promote the interest of his country. He was now quitting them, perhaps
never to return. If he should fall in defence of the reformed religion
and of the independence of Europe, he commended his beloved wife to
their care. The Grand Pensionary answered in a faltering voice; and in
all that grave senate there was none who could refrain from shedding
tears. But the iron stoicism of William never gave way; and he stood
among his weeping friends calm and austere as if he had been about to
leave them only for a short visit to his hunting grounds at Loo. [496]
The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to his yacht. Even
the representatives of Amsterdam, so long the chief seat of opposition
to his administration, joined in paying him this compliment. Public
prayers were offered for him on that day in all the churches of the
Hague.
In the evening he arrived at Helvoetsluys and went on board of a frigate
called the Brill. His flag was immediately hoisted. It displayed the
arms of Nassau quartered with those of England. The motto, embroidered
in letters three feet long, was happily chosen. The House of Orange had
long used the elliptical device, "I will maintain. " The ellipsis was now
filled up with words of high import, "The liberties of England and the
Protestant religion. "
The Prince had not been many hours on board when the wind became fair.
On the nineteenth the armament put to sea, and traversed, before a
strong breeze, about half the distance between the Dutch and English
coasts. Then the wind changed, blew hard from the west, and swelled into
a violent tempest. The ships, scattered and in great distress, regained
the shore of Holland as they best might. The Brill reached Helvoetsluys
on the twenty-first. The Prince's fellow passengers had observed with
admiration that neither peril nor mortification had for one moment
disturbed his composure. He now, though suffering from sea sickness,
refused to go on shore: for he conceived that, by remaining on board,
he should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe that the late
misfortune had only delayed for a very short time the execution of his
purpose. In two or three days the fleet reassembled. One vessel only had
been cast away. Not a single soldier or sailor was missing. Some horses
had perished: but this loss the Prince with great expedition repaired;
and, before the London Gazette had spread the news of his mishap, he was
again ready to sail. [497]
His Declaration preceded him only by a few hours. On the first of
November it began to be mentioned in mysterious whispers by the
politicians of London, was passed secretly from man to man, and was
slipped into the boxes of the post office. One of the agents was
arrested, and the packets of which he was in charge were carried to
Whitehall. The King read, and was greatly troubled. His first impulse
was to bide the paper from all human eyes. He threw into the fire every
copy which had been brought to him, except one; and that one he would
scarcely trust out of his own hands. [498]
The paragraph in the manifesto which disturbed him most was that in
which it was said that some of the Peers, Spiritual and Temporal, had
invited the Prince of Orange to invade England. Halifax, Clarendon, and
Nottingham were then in London. They were immediately summoned to the
palace and interrogated. Halifax, though conscious of innocence, refused
at first to make any answer. "Your Majesty asks me," said he, "whether I
have committed high treason. If I am suspected, let me be brought before
my peers. And how can your Majesty place any dependence on the answer
of a culprit whose life is at stake? Even if I had invited His Highness
over, I should without scruple plead Not Guilty. " The King declared that
he did not at all consider Halifax as a culprit, and that he had asked
the question as one gentleman asks another who has been calumniated
whether there be the least foundation for the calumny. "In that case,"
said Halifax, "I have no objection to aver, as a gentleman speaking to a
gentleman, on my honour, which is as sacred as my oath, that I have not
invited the Prince of Orange over. " [499] Clarendon and Nottingham said
the same. The King was still more anxious to ascertain the temper of the
Prelates. If they were hostile to him, his throne was indeed in danger.
But it could not be. There was something monstrous in the supposition
that any Bishop of the Church of England could rebel against his
Sovereign. Compton was called into the royal closet, and was asked
whether he believed that there was the slightest ground for the Prince's
assertion. The Bishop was in a strait; for he was himself one of the
seven who had signed the invitation; and his conscience, not a very
enlightened conscience, would not suffer him, it seems, to utter a
direct falsehood. "Sir," he said, "I am quite confident that there
is not one of my brethren who is not as guiltless as myself in this
matter. " The equivocation was ingenious: but whether the difference
between the sin of such an equivocation and the sin of a lie be worth
any expense of ingenuity may perhaps be doubted. The King was satisfied.
"I fully acquit you all," he said. "But I think it necessary that you
should publicly contradict the slanderous charge brought against you
in the Prince's declaration. " The Bishop very naturally begged that he
might be allowed to read the paper which he was required to contradict;
but the King would not suffer him to look at it.
On the following day appeared a proclamation threatening with the
severest punishment all who should circulate, or who should even dare to
read, William's manifesto. [500] The Primate and the few Spiritual Peers
who happened to be then in London had orders to wait upon the King.
Preston was in attendance with the Prince's Declaration in his hand. "My
Lords," said James, "listen to this passage. It concerns you. " Preston
then read the sentence in which the Spiritual Peers were mentioned. The
King proceeded: "I do not believe one word of this: I am satisfied
of your innocence; but I think it fit to let you know of what you are
accused. "
The Primate, with many dutiful expressions, protested that the King did
him no more than justice. "I was born in your Majesty's allegiance. I
have repeatedly confirmed that allegiance by my oath. I can have but
one King at one time. I have not invited the Prince over; and I do not
believe that a single one of my brethren has done so. " "I am sure I have
not," said Crewe of Durham. "Nor I," said Cartwright of Chester.
Crewe and Cartwright might well be believed; for both had sate in the
Ecclesiastical Commission. When Compton's turn came, he parried the
question with an adroitness which a Jesuit might have envied. "I gave
your Majesty my answer yesterday. "
James repeated again and again that he fully acquitted them all.
Nevertheless it would, in his judgment, be for his service and for their
own honour that they should publicly vindicate themselves. He therefore
required them to draw up a paper setting forth their abhorrence of the
Prince's design. They remained silent: their silence was supposed to
imply consent; and they were suffered to withdraw. [501]
Meanwhile the fleet of William was on the German Ocean. It was on the
evening of Thursday the first of November that he put to sea the second
time. The wind blew fresh from the east. The armament, during twelve
hours, held a course towards the north west. The light vessels sent out
by the English Admiral for the purpose of obtaining intelligence brought
back news which confirmed the prevailing opinion that the enemy would
try to land in Yorkshire. All at once, on a signal from the Prince's
ship, the whole fleet tacked, and made sail for the British Channel.
The same breeze which favoured the voyage of the invaders prevented
Dartmouth from coming out of the Thames. His ships were forced to strike
yards and topmasts; and two of his frigates, which had gained the open
sea, were shattered by the violence of the weather and driven back into
the river. [502]
The Dutch fleet ran fast before the gale, and reached the Straits at
about ten in the morning of Saturday the third of November. William
himself, in the Brill, led the way. More than six hundred vessels,
with canvass spread to a favourable wind, followed in his train. The
transports were in the centre. The men of war, more than fifty in
number, formed an outer rampart. Herbert, with the title of Lieutenant
Admiral General, commanded the whole fleet. His post was in the rear,
and many English sailors, inflamed against Popery, and attracted by
high pay, served under him. It was not without great difficulty that the
Prince had prevailed on some Dutch officers of high reputation to
submit to the authority of a stranger. But the arrangement was eminently
judicious. There was, in the King's fleet, much discontent and an ardent
zeal for the Protestant faith. But within the memory of old mariners
the Dutch and English navies had thrice, with heroic spirit and various
fortune, contended for the empire of the sea. Our sailors had not
forgotten the broom with which Tromp had threatened to sweep the
Channel, or the fire which De Ruyter had lighted in the dockyards of the
Medway. Had the rival nations been once more brought face to face on the
element of which both claimed the sovereignty, all other thoughts might
have given place to mutual animosity. A bloody and obstinate battle
might have been fought. Defeat would have been fatal to William's
enterprise. Even victory would have deranged all his deeply meditated
schemes of policy. He therefore wisely determined that the pursuers,
if they overtook him, should be hailed in their own mother tongue,
and adjured, by an admiral under whom they had served, and whom they
esteemed, not to fight against old mess-mates for Popish tyranny. Such
an appeal might possibly avert a conflict. If a conflict took place, one
English commander would be opposed to another; nor would the pride of
the islanders be wounded by learning that Dartmouth had been compelled
to strike to Herbert. [503]
Happily William's precautions were not necessary. Soon after midday he
passed the Straits. His fleet spread to within a league of Dover on the
north and of Calais on the south. The men of war on the extreme right
and left saluted both fortresses at once. The troops appeared under arms
on the decks. The flourish of trumpets, the clash of cymbals, and the
rolling of drums were distinctly heard at once on the English and French
shores. An innumerable company of gazers blackened the white beach of
Kent. Another mighty multitude covered the coast of Picardy. Rapin de
Thoyras, who, driven by persecution from his country, had taken service
in the Dutch army and accompanied the Prince to England, described the
spectacle, many years later, as the most magnificent and affecting that
was ever seen by human eyes. At sunset the armament was off Beachy Head.
Then the lights were kindled. The sea was in a blaze for many miles. But
the eyes of all the steersmen were fixed throughout the night on three
huge lanterns which flamed on the stern of the Brill. [504]
Meanwhile a courier bad been riding post from Dover Castle to Whitehall
with news that the Dutch had passed the Straits and were steering
westward. It was necessary to make an immediate change in all the
military arrangements. Messengers were despatched in every direction.
Officers were roused from their beds at dead of night. At three on the
Sunday morning there was a great muster by torchlight in Hyde Park.
The King had sent several regiments northward in the expectation that
William would land in Yorkshire. Expresses were despatched to recall
them.
All the forces except those which were necessary to keep the peace
of the capital were ordered to move to the west. Salisbury was appointed
as the place of rendezvous: but, as it was thought possible that
Portsmouth might be the first point of attack, three battalions of
guards and a strong body of cavalry set out for that fortress. In a few
hours it was known that Portsmouth was safe; and these troops received
orders to change their route and to hasten to Salisbury. [505]
When Sunday the fourth of November dawned, the cliffs of the Isle
of Wight were full in view of the Dutch armament. That day was the
anniversary both of William's birth and of his marriage. Sail was
slackened during part of the morning; and divine service was performed
on board of the ships. In the afternoon and through the night the fleet
held on its course. Torbay was the place where the Prince intended to
land. But the morning of Monday the fifth of November was hazy. The
pilot of the Brill could not discern the sea marks, and carried the
fleet too far to the west. The danger was great. To return in the face
of the wind was impossible. Plymouth was the next port. But at Plymouth
a garrison had been posted under the command of Lord Bath. The landing
might be opposed; and a check might produce serious consequences. There
could be little doubt, moreover, that by this time the royal fleet had
got out of the Thames and was hastening full sail down the Channel.
Russell saw the whole extent of the peril, and exclaimed to Burnet,
"You may go to prayers, Doctor. All is over. " At that moment the wind
changed: a soft breeze sprang up from the south: the mist dispersed; the
sun shone forth and, under the mild light of an autumnal noon, the fleet
turned back, passed round the lofty cape of Berry Head, and rode safe in
the harbour of Torbay. [506]
Since William looked on that harbour its aspect has greatly changed. The
amphitheatre which surrounds the spacious basin now exhibits everywhere
the signs of prosperity and civilisation. At the northeastern extremity
has sprung up a great watering place, to which strangers are attracted
from the most remote parts of our island by the Italian softness of the
air; for in that climate the myrtle flourishes unsheltered; and even the
winter is milder than the Northumbrian April. The inhabitants are about
ten thousand in number. The newly built churches and chapels, the baths
and libraries, the hotels and public gardens, the infirmary and the
museum, the white streets, rising terrace above terrace, the gay
villas peeping from the midst of shrubberies and flower beds, present
a spectacle widely different from any that in the seventeenth century
England could show. At the opposite end of the bay lies, sheltered by
Berry head, the stirring market town of Brixham, the wealthiest seat of
our fishing trade. A pier and a haven were formed there at the beginning
of the present century, but have been found insufficient for the
increasing traffic. The population is about six thousand souls. The
shipping amounts to more than two hundred sail. The tonnage exceeds many
times the tonnage of the port of Liverpool under the Kings of the House
of Stuart. But Torbay, when the Dutch fleet cast anchor there, was known
only as a haven where ships sometimes took refuge from the tempests of
the Atlantic. Its quiet shores were undisturbed by the bustle either
of commerce or of pleasure and the huts of ploughmen and fishermen
were thinly scattered over what is now the site of crowded marts and of
luxurious pavilions.
The peasantry of the coast of Devonshire remembered the name of Monmouth
with affection, and held Popery in detestation. They therefore
crowded down to the seaside with provisions and offers of service. The
disembarkation instantly commenced. Sixty boats conveyed the troops to
the coast. Mackay was sent on shore first with the British regiments.
The Prince soon followed. He landed where the quay of Brixham now
stands. The whole aspect of the place has been altered. Where we now see
a port crowded with shipping, and a market place swarming with buyers
and sellers, the waves then broke on a desolate beach: but a fragment of
the rock on which the deliverer stepped from his boat has been carefully
preserved, and is set up as an object of public veneration in the centre
of that busy wharf.
As soon as the Prince had planted his foot on dry ground he called for
horses. Two beasts, such as the small yeomen of that time were in the
habit of riding, were procured from the neighbouring village. William
and Schomberg mounted and proceeded to examine the country.
As soon as Burnet was on shore he hastened to the Prince. An
amusing dialogue took place between them. Burnet poured forth his
congratulations with genuine delight, and then eagerly asked what were
His Highness's plans. Military men are seldom disposed to take counsel
with gownsmen on military matters; and William regarded the interference
of unprofessional advisers, in questions relating to war, with even more
than the disgust ordinarily felt by soldiers on such occasions. But he
was at that moment in an excellent humour, and, instead of signifying
his displeasure by a short and cutting reprimand, graciously extended
his hand, and answered his chaplain's question by another question:
"Well, Doctor, what do you think of predestination now? " The reproof was
so delicate that Burnet, whose perceptions were not very fine, did not
perceive it. He answered with great fervour that he should never forget
the signal manner in which Providence had favoured their undertaking.
[507]
During the first day the troops who had gone on shore had many
discomforts to endure. The earth was soaked with rain. The baggage was
still on board of the ships. Officers of high rank were compelled to
sleep in wet clothes on the wet ground: the Prince himself had no better
quarters than a hut afforded. His banner was displayed on the thatched
roof; and some bedding brought from his ship was spread for him on the
floor. [508] There was some difficulty about landing the horses; and it
seemed probable that this operation would occupy several days. But on
the following morning the prospect cleared. The wind was gentle. The
water in the bay was as even as glass. Some fishermen pointed out a
place where the ships could be brought within sixty feet of the beach.
This was done; and in three hours many hundreds of horses swam safely to
shore.
The disembarkation had hardly been effected when the wind rose again,
and swelled into a fierce gale from the west. The enemy coming in
pursuit down the Channel had been stopped by the same change of weather
which enabled William to land. During two days the King's fleet lay on
an unruffled sea in sight of Beachy Head. At length Dartmouth was able
to proceed. He passed the Isle of Wight, and one of his ships came
in sight of the Dutch topmasts in Torbay. Just at this moment he was
encountered by the tempest, and compelled to take shelter in the harbour
of Portsmouth. [509] At that time James, who was not incompetent to
form a judgment on a question of seamanship, declared himself perfectly
satisfied that his Admiral had done all that man could do, and had
yielded only to the irresistible hostility of the winds and waves. At
a later period the unfortunate prince began, with little reason, to
suspect Dartmouth of treachery, or at least of slackness. [510]
The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some men
of more piety than judgment fully believed the ordinary laws of nature
to have been suspended for the preservation of the liberty and religion
of England. Exactly a hundred years before, they said, the Armada,
invincible by man, had been scattered by the wrath of God. Civil freedom
and divine truth were again in jeopardy; and again the obedient elements
had fought for the good cause. The wind had blown strong from the east
while the Prince wished to sail down the Channel, had turned to the
south when he wished to enter Torbay, had sunk to a calm during the
disembarkation, and, as soon as the disembarkation was completed, had
risen to a storm, and had met the pursuers in the face. Nor did men omit
to remark that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Prince had reached
our shores on a day on which the Church of England commemorated, by
prayer and thanksgiving, the wonderful escape of the royal House and
of the three Estates from the blackest plot ever devised by Papists.
Carstairs, whose suggestions were sure to meet with attention from the
Prince, recommended that, as soon as the landing had been effected,
public thanks should be offered to God for the protection so
conspicuously accorded to the great enterprise. This advice was taken,
and with excellent effect. The troops, taught to regard themselves as
favourites of heaven, were inspired with new courage; and the English
people formed the most favourable opinion of a general and an army so
attentive to the duties of religion.
On Tuesday, the sixth of November, William's army began to march up the
country. Some regiments advanced as far as Newton Abbot. A stone, set
up in the midst of that little town, still marks the spot where the
Prince's Declaration was solemnly read to the people. The movements of
the troops were slow: for the rain fell in torrents; and the roads
of England were then in a state which seemed frightful to persons
accustomed to the excellent communications of Holland. William took
up his quarters, during two days, at Ford, a seat of the ancient and
illustrious family of Courtenay, in the neighbourhood of Newton Abbot.
He was magnificently lodged and feasted there; but it is remarkable that
the owner of the house, though a strong Whig, did not choose to be the
first to put life and fortune in peril, and cautiously abstained from
doing anything which, if the King should prevail, could be treated as a
crime.
Exeter, in the meantime, was greatly agitated. Lamplugh, the bishop, as
soon as he heard that the Dutch were at Torbay, set off in terror for
London. The Dean fled from the deanery. The magistrates were for the
King, the body of the inhabitants for the Prince. Every thing was in
confusion when, on the morning of Thursday, the eighth of November, a
body of troops, under the command of Mordaunt, appeared before the city.
With Mordaunt came Burnet, to whom William had entrusted the duty of
protecting the clergy of the Cathedral from injury and insult. [511] The
Mayor and Aldermen had ordered the gates to be closed, but yielded on
the first summons. The deanery was prepared for the reception of
the Prince. On the following day, Friday the ninth, he arrived. The
magistrates had been pressed to receive him in state at the entrance of
the city, but had steadfastly refused. The pomp of that day, however,
could well spare them. Such a sight had never been seen in Devonshire.
Many went forth half a day's journey to meet the champion of their
religion. All the neighbouring villages poured forth their inhabitants.
A great crowd, consisting chiefly of young peasants, brandishing their
cudgels, had assembled on the top of Haldon Hill, whence the army,
marching from Chudleigh, first descried the rich valley of the Exe, and
the two massive towers rising from the cloud of smoke which overhung the
capital of the West. The road, all down the long descent, and through
the plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile, with
spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral Close, the pressing and
shouting on each side was such as reminded Londoners of the crowds on
the Lord Mayor's day. The houses were gaily decorated. Doors, windows,
balconies, and roofs were thronged with gazers. An eye accustomed to
the pomp of war would have found much to criticize in the spectacle.
For several toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who
travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in clay, had not
improved the appearance either of the men or of their accoutrements.
But the people of Devonshire, altogether unused to the splendour of well
ordered camps, were overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of
the martial pageant were circulated all over the kingdom. They contained
much that was well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite for the
marvellous. For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in
various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an
aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had,
in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. First rode
Macclesfield at the head of two hundred gentlemen, mostly of English
blood, glittering in helmets and cuirasses, and mounted on Flemish war
horses. Each was attended by a negro, brought from the sugar plantations
on the coast of Guiana. The citizens of Exeter, who had never seen so
many specimens of the African race, gazed with wonder on those black
faces set off by embroidered turbans and white feathers. Then with drawn
broad swords came a squadron of Swedish horsemen in black armour and fur
cloaks. They were regarded with a strange interest; for it was rumoured
that they were natives of a land where the ocean was frozen and where
the night lasted through half the year, and that they had themselves
slain the huge bears whose skins they wore. Next, surrounded by a goodly
company of gentlemen and pages, was borne aloft the Prince's banner. On
its broad folds the crowd which covered the roofs and filled the windows
read with delight that memorable inscription, "The Protestant religion
and the liberties of England. " But the acclamations redoubled when,
attended by forty running footmen, the Prince himself appeared, armed on
back and breast, wearing a white plume and mounted on a white charger.
With how martial an air he curbed his horse, how thoughtful and
commanding was the expression of his ample forehead and falcon eye,
may still be seen on the canvass of Kneller. Once those grave features
relaxed into a smile. It was when an ancient woman, perhaps one of
the zealous Puritans who through twenty-eight years of persecution had
waited with firm faith for the consolation of Israel, perhaps the mother
of some rebel who had perished in the carnage of Sedgemoor, or in the
more fearful carnage of the Bloody Circuit, broke from the crowd, rushed
through the drawn swords and curvetting horses, touched the hand of the
deliverer, and cried out that now she was happy. Near to the Prince was
one who divided with him the gaze of the multitude. That, men said, was
the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne
and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the
Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had
earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of
France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the
two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were
entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each
other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young
Prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the
veteran who now rode in friendship by his side. Then came a long column
of the whiskered infantry of Switzerland, distinguished in all the
continental wars of two centuries by preeminent valour and discipline,
but never till that week seen on English ground. And then marched a
succession of bands designated, as was the fashion of that age, after
their leaders, Bentinck, Solmes and Ginkell, Talmash and Mackay. With
peculiar pleasure Englishmen might look on one gallant regiment which
still bore the name of the honoured and lamented Ossory. The effect of
the spectacle was heightened by the recollection of the renowned events
in which many of the warriors now pouring through the West Gate had
borne a share. For they had seen service very different from that of the
Devonshire militia or of the camp at Hounslow. Some of them had repelled
the fiery onset of the French on the field of Seneff; and others had
crossed swords with the infidels in the cause of Christendom on that
great day when the siege of Vienna was raised. The very senses of the
multitude were fooled by imagination. Newsletters conveyed to every
part of the kingdom fabulous accounts of the size and strength of the
invaders. It was affirmed that they were, with scarcely an exception,
above six feet high, and that they wielded such huge pikes, swords, and
muskets, as had never before been seen in England. Nor did the wonder
of the population diminish when the artillery arrived, twenty-one huge
pieces of brass cannon, which were with difficulty tugged along by
sixteen cart horses to each. Much curiosity was excited by a strange
structure mounted on wheels. It proved to be a moveable smithy,
furnished with all tools and materials necessary for repairing arms and
carriages. But nothing raised so much admiration as the bridge of
boats, which was laid with great speed on the Exe for the conveyance of
waggons, and afterwards as speedily taken to pieces and carried away.
It was made, if report said true, after a pattern contrived by the
Christians who were warring against the Great Turk on the Danube. The
foreigners inspired as much good will as admiration. Their politic
leader took care to distribute the quarters in such a manner as to cause
the smallest possible inconvenience to the inhabitants of Exeter and of
the neighbouring villages. The most rigid discipline was maintained. Not
only were pillage and outrage effectually prevented, but the troops were
required to demean themselves with civility towards all classes. Those
who had formed their notions of an army from the conduct of Kirke and
his Lambs were amazed to see soldiers who never swore at a landlady or
took an egg without paying for it. In return for this moderation the
people furnished the troops with provisions in great abundance and at
reasonable prices. [512]
Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, the clergy
of the Church of England might take; and the members of the Chapter of
Exeter were the first who were called upon to declare their sentiments.
Burnet informed the Canons, now left without a head by the flight of the
Dean, that they could not be permitted to use the prayer for the Prince
of Wales, and that a solemn service must be performed in honour of the
safe arrival of the Prince. The Canons did not choose to appear in their
stalls; but some of the choristers and prebendaries attended. William
repaired in military state to the Cathedral. As he passed under the
gorgeous screen, that renowned organ, scarcely surpassed by any of those
which are the boast of his native Holland, gave out a peal of triumph.
He mounted the Bishop's seat, a stately throne rich with the carving of
the fifteenth century. Burnet stood below; and a crowd of warriors and
nobles appeared on the right hand and on the left. The singers, robed
in white, sang the Te Deum. When the chaunt was over, Burnet read the
Prince's Declaration: but as soon as the first words were uttered,
prebendaries and singers crowded in all haste out of the choir. At the
close Burnet cried in a loud voice, "God save the Prince of Orange! " and
many fervent voices answered, "Amen. " [513]
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, Burnet preached before the Prince
in the Cathedral, and dilated on the signal mercy vouchsafed by God
to the English Church and nation. At the same time a singular event
happened in a humbler place of worship. Ferguson resolved to preach
at the Presbyterian meeting house. The minister and elders would not
consent but the turbulent and halfwitted knave, fancying that the times
of Fleetwood and Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through
the congregation sword in hand, mounted the pulpit, and there poured
forth a fiery invective against the King. The time for such follies had
gone by; and this exhibition excited nothing but derision and disgust.
[514]
While these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment was great in
London. The Prince's Declaration, in spite of all precautions, was now
in every man's hands. On the sixth of November James, still uncertain on
what part of the coast the invaders had landed, summoned the Primate and
three other Bishops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and
Sprat of Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened
graciously while the prelates made warm professions of loyalty, and
assured them that he did not suspect them. "But where," said he, "is
the paper that you were to bring me? " "Sir," answered Sancroft, "we have
brought no paper. We are not solicitous to clear our fame to the
world. It is no new thing to us to be reviled and falsely accused. Our
consciences acquit us: your Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied. "
"Yes," said the King; "but a declaration from you is necessary to my
service. " He then produced a copy of the Prince's manifesto. "See," he
said, "how you are mentioned here. " "Sir," answered one of the Bishops,
"not one person in five hundred believes this manifesto to be genuine. "
"No! " cried the King fiercely; "then those five hundred would bring the
Prince of Orange to cut my throat. " "God forbid," exclaimed the prelates
in concert. But the King's understanding, never very clear, was now
quite bewildered. One of his peculiarities was that, whenever his
opinion was not adopted, he fancied that his veracity was questioned.
"This paper not genuine! " he exclaimed, turning over the leaves with his
hands. "Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word not to be taken? "
"At all events, sir," said one of the Bishops, "this is not an
ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere of the civil power.
God has entrusted your Majesty with the sword: and it is not for us
to invade your functions. " Then the Archbishop, with that gentle and
temperate malice which inflicts the deepest wounds, declared that he
must be excused from setting his hand to any political document. "I and
my brethren, sir," he said, "have already smarted severely for meddling
with affairs of state; and we shall be very cautious how we do so again.
We once subscribed a petition of the most harmless kind: we presented it
in the most respectful manner; and we found that we had committed a high
offence. We were saved from ruin only by the merciful protection of God.
And, sir, the ground then taken by your Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor
was that, out of Parliament, we were private men, and that it was
criminal presumption in private men to meddle with politics. They
attacked us so fiercely that for my part I gave myself over for lost. "
"I thank you for that, my Lord of Canterbury," said the King; "I should
have hoped that you would not have thought yourself lost by falling
into my hands. " Such a speech might have become the mouth of a merciful
sovereign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had burned
a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies, from a
prince round whose knees his own nephew had clung in vain agonies of
supplication. The Archbishop was not to be so silenced. He resumed his
story, and recounted the insults which the creatures of the court had
offered to the Church of England, among which some ridicule thrown on
his own style occupied a conspicuous place. The King had nothing to say
but that there was no use in repeating old grievances, and that he had
hoped that these things had been quite forgotten. He, who never forgot
the smallest injury that he had suffered, could not understand how
others should remember for a few weeks the most deadly injuries that he
had inflicted.
At length the conversation came back to the point from which it had
wandered. The King insisted on having from the Bishops a paper declaring
their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise. They, with many professions
of the most submissive loyalty, pertinaciously refused. The Prince,
they said, asserted that he had been invited by temporal as well as by
spiritual peers. The imputation was common. Why should not the purgation
be common also?
England must be relinquished, at least for the present year. Here was
a lesson for the nation. While James expected immediate invasion and
rebellion, he had given orders that reparation should be made to those
whom he had unlawfully despoiled. As soon as he found himself safe,
those orders had been revoked. This imputation, though at that time
generally believed, and though, since that time, repeated by writers who
ought to have been well informed, was without foundation. It is
certain that the mishap of the Dutch fleet could not, by any mode of
communication, have been known at Westminster till some hours after the
Bishop of Winchester had received the summons which called him away
from Oxford. The King, however, had little right to complain of the
suspicions of his people. If they sometimes, without severely examining
evidence, ascribed to his dishonest policy what was really the effect of
accident or inadvertence, the fault was his own. That men who are in the
habit of breaking faith should be distrusted when they mean to keep it
is part of their just and natural punishment. [492]
It is remarkable that James, on this occasion, incurred one unmerited
imputation solely in consequence of his eagerness to clear himself from
another imputation equally unmerited. The Bishop of Winchester had been
hastily summoned from Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of
the Privy Council, or rather an assembly of Notables, which had been
convoked at Whitehall. With the Privy Councillors were joined, in this
solemn sitting, all the Peers Spiritual and Temporal who chanced to be
in or near the capital, the Judges, the crown lawyers, the Lord Mayor
and the Aldermen of the City of London. A hint had been given to Petre
that he would do well to absent himself. In truth few of the Peers would
have chosen to sit with him. Near the head of the board a chair of state
was placed for the Queen Dowager. The Princess Anne had been requested
to attend, but had excused herself on the plea of delicate health.
James informed this great assembly that he thought it necessary to
produce proofs of the birth of his son. The arts of bad men had poisoned
the public mind to such an extent that very many believed the Prince
of Wales to be a supposititious child. But Providence had graciously
ordered things so that scarcely any prince had ever come into the world
in the presence of so many witnesses. Those witnesses then appeared and
gave their evidence. After all the depositions had been taken, James
with great solemnity declared that the imputation thrown on him was
utterly false, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than wrong
any of his children.
All who were present appeared to be satisfied. The evidence was
instantly published, and was allowed by judicious and impartial persons
to be decisive. [493] But the judicious are always a minority; and
scarcely anybody was then impartial. The whole nation was convinced that
all sincere Papists thought it a duty to perjure themselves whenever
they could, by perjury, serve the interests of their Church. Men who,
having been bred Protestants, had for the sake of lucre pretended to be
converted to Popery, were, if possible, less trustworthy than sincere
Papists. The depositions of all who belonged to these two classes were
therefore regarded as mere nullities. Thus the weight of the testimony
on which James had relied was greatly reduced. What remained was
malignantly scrutinised. To every one of the few Protestant witnesses
who had said anything material some exception was taken. One was
notoriously a greedy sycophant. Another had not indeed yet apostatized,
but was nearly related to an apostate. The people asked, as they had
asked from the first, why, if all was right, the King, knowing, as he
knew, that many doubted the reality of his wife's pregnancy, had not
taken care that the birth should be more satisfactorily proved. Was
there nothing suspicious in the false reckoning, in the sudden change
of abode, in the absence of the Princess Anne and of the Archbishop of
Canterbury? Why was no prelate of the Established Church in attendance?
Why was not the Dutch Ambassador summoned? Why, above all, were not the
Hydes, loyal servants of the crown, faithful sons of the Church, and
natural guardians of the interest of their nieces, suffered to mingle
with the crowd of Papists which was assembled in and near the royal
bedchamber? Why, in short, was there, in the long list of assistants,
not a single name which commanded public confidence and respect? The
true answer to these questions was that the King's understanding was
weak, that his temper was despotic, and that he had willingly seized an
opportunity of manifesting his contempt for the opinion of his subjects.
But the multitude, not contented with this explanation, attributed to
deep laid villany what was really the effect of folly and perverseness.
Nor was this opinion confined to the multitude. The Lady Anne, at her
toilette, on the morning after the Council, spoke of the investigation
with such scorn as emboldened the very tirewomen who were dressing her
to put in their jests. Some of the Lords who had heard the examination,
and had appeared to be satisfied, were really unconvinced. Lloyd,
Bishop of St. Asaph, whose piety and learning commanded general respect,
continued to the end of his life to believe that a fraud had been
practised.
The depositions taken before the Council had not been many hours in the
hands of the public when it was noised abroad that Sunderland had been
dismissed from all his places. The news of his disgrace seems to have
taken the politicians of the coffeehouses by surprise, but did not
astonish those who had observed what was passing in the palace. Treason
had not been brought home to him by legal, or even by tangible, evidence
but there was a strong suspicion among those who watched him closely
that, through some channel or other, he was in communication with the
enemies of that government in which he occupied so high a place. He,
with unabashed forehead, imprecated on his own head all evil here and
hereafter if he was guilty. His only fault, he protested, was that he
had served the crown too well. Had he not given hostages to the royal
cause? Had he not broken down every bridge by which he could, in case of
a disaster, effect his retreat? Had he not gone all lengths in favour
of the dispensing power, sate in the High Commission, signed the warrant
for the commitment of the Bishops, appeared as a witness against them,
at the hazard of his life, amidst the hisses and curses of the thousands
who filled Westminster Hall? Had he not given the last proof of fidelity
by renouncing his religion, and publicly joining a Church which the
nation detested? What had he to hope from a change? What had he not to
dread? These arguments, though plausible, and though set off by the most
insinuating address, could not remove the impression which whispers and
reports arriving at once from a hundred different quarters had produced.
The King became daily colder and colder. Sunderland attempted to support
himself by the Queen's help, obtained an audience of Her Majesty, and
was actually in her apartment when Middleton entered, and, by the King's
orders, demanded the seals. That evening the fallen minister was for the
last time closeted with the Prince whom he had flattered and betrayed.
The interview was a strange one. Sunderland acted calumniated virtue to
perfection. He regretted not, he said, the Secretaryship of State or the
Presidency of the Council, if only he retained his sovereign's esteem.
"Do not, sir, do not make me the most unhappy gentleman in your
dominions, by refusing to declare that you acquit me of disloyalty. " The
King hardly knew what to believe. There was no positive proof of guilt;
and the energy and pathos with which Sunderland lied might have imposed
on a keener understanding than that with which he had to deal. At the
French embassy his professions still found credit. There he declared
that he should remain a few days in London, and show himself at court.
He would then retire to his country seat at Althorpe, and try to repair
his dilapidated fortunes by economy. If a revolution should take place
he must fly to France. His ill requited loyalty had left him no other
place of refuge. [494]
The seals which had been taken from Sunderland were delivered to
Preston. The same Gazette which announced this change contained the
official intelligence of the disaster which had befallen the Dutch
fleet. [495] That disaster was serious, though far less serious than
the King and his few adherents, misled by their wishes, were disposed to
believe.
On the sixteenth of October, according to the English reckoning, was
held a solemn sitting of the States of Holland. The Prince came to bid
them farewell. He thanked them for the kindness with which they had
watched over him when he was left an orphan child, for the confidence
which they had reposed in him during his administration, and for the
assistance which they had granted to him at this momentous crisis. He
entreated them to believe that he had always meant and endeavoured to
promote the interest of his country. He was now quitting them, perhaps
never to return. If he should fall in defence of the reformed religion
and of the independence of Europe, he commended his beloved wife to
their care. The Grand Pensionary answered in a faltering voice; and in
all that grave senate there was none who could refrain from shedding
tears. But the iron stoicism of William never gave way; and he stood
among his weeping friends calm and austere as if he had been about to
leave them only for a short visit to his hunting grounds at Loo. [496]
The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to his yacht. Even
the representatives of Amsterdam, so long the chief seat of opposition
to his administration, joined in paying him this compliment. Public
prayers were offered for him on that day in all the churches of the
Hague.
In the evening he arrived at Helvoetsluys and went on board of a frigate
called the Brill. His flag was immediately hoisted. It displayed the
arms of Nassau quartered with those of England. The motto, embroidered
in letters three feet long, was happily chosen. The House of Orange had
long used the elliptical device, "I will maintain. " The ellipsis was now
filled up with words of high import, "The liberties of England and the
Protestant religion. "
The Prince had not been many hours on board when the wind became fair.
On the nineteenth the armament put to sea, and traversed, before a
strong breeze, about half the distance between the Dutch and English
coasts. Then the wind changed, blew hard from the west, and swelled into
a violent tempest. The ships, scattered and in great distress, regained
the shore of Holland as they best might. The Brill reached Helvoetsluys
on the twenty-first. The Prince's fellow passengers had observed with
admiration that neither peril nor mortification had for one moment
disturbed his composure. He now, though suffering from sea sickness,
refused to go on shore: for he conceived that, by remaining on board,
he should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe that the late
misfortune had only delayed for a very short time the execution of his
purpose. In two or three days the fleet reassembled. One vessel only had
been cast away. Not a single soldier or sailor was missing. Some horses
had perished: but this loss the Prince with great expedition repaired;
and, before the London Gazette had spread the news of his mishap, he was
again ready to sail. [497]
His Declaration preceded him only by a few hours. On the first of
November it began to be mentioned in mysterious whispers by the
politicians of London, was passed secretly from man to man, and was
slipped into the boxes of the post office. One of the agents was
arrested, and the packets of which he was in charge were carried to
Whitehall. The King read, and was greatly troubled. His first impulse
was to bide the paper from all human eyes. He threw into the fire every
copy which had been brought to him, except one; and that one he would
scarcely trust out of his own hands. [498]
The paragraph in the manifesto which disturbed him most was that in
which it was said that some of the Peers, Spiritual and Temporal, had
invited the Prince of Orange to invade England. Halifax, Clarendon, and
Nottingham were then in London. They were immediately summoned to the
palace and interrogated. Halifax, though conscious of innocence, refused
at first to make any answer. "Your Majesty asks me," said he, "whether I
have committed high treason. If I am suspected, let me be brought before
my peers. And how can your Majesty place any dependence on the answer
of a culprit whose life is at stake? Even if I had invited His Highness
over, I should without scruple plead Not Guilty. " The King declared that
he did not at all consider Halifax as a culprit, and that he had asked
the question as one gentleman asks another who has been calumniated
whether there be the least foundation for the calumny. "In that case,"
said Halifax, "I have no objection to aver, as a gentleman speaking to a
gentleman, on my honour, which is as sacred as my oath, that I have not
invited the Prince of Orange over. " [499] Clarendon and Nottingham said
the same. The King was still more anxious to ascertain the temper of the
Prelates. If they were hostile to him, his throne was indeed in danger.
But it could not be. There was something monstrous in the supposition
that any Bishop of the Church of England could rebel against his
Sovereign. Compton was called into the royal closet, and was asked
whether he believed that there was the slightest ground for the Prince's
assertion. The Bishop was in a strait; for he was himself one of the
seven who had signed the invitation; and his conscience, not a very
enlightened conscience, would not suffer him, it seems, to utter a
direct falsehood. "Sir," he said, "I am quite confident that there
is not one of my brethren who is not as guiltless as myself in this
matter. " The equivocation was ingenious: but whether the difference
between the sin of such an equivocation and the sin of a lie be worth
any expense of ingenuity may perhaps be doubted. The King was satisfied.
"I fully acquit you all," he said. "But I think it necessary that you
should publicly contradict the slanderous charge brought against you
in the Prince's declaration. " The Bishop very naturally begged that he
might be allowed to read the paper which he was required to contradict;
but the King would not suffer him to look at it.
On the following day appeared a proclamation threatening with the
severest punishment all who should circulate, or who should even dare to
read, William's manifesto. [500] The Primate and the few Spiritual Peers
who happened to be then in London had orders to wait upon the King.
Preston was in attendance with the Prince's Declaration in his hand. "My
Lords," said James, "listen to this passage. It concerns you. " Preston
then read the sentence in which the Spiritual Peers were mentioned. The
King proceeded: "I do not believe one word of this: I am satisfied
of your innocence; but I think it fit to let you know of what you are
accused. "
The Primate, with many dutiful expressions, protested that the King did
him no more than justice. "I was born in your Majesty's allegiance. I
have repeatedly confirmed that allegiance by my oath. I can have but
one King at one time. I have not invited the Prince over; and I do not
believe that a single one of my brethren has done so. " "I am sure I have
not," said Crewe of Durham. "Nor I," said Cartwright of Chester.
Crewe and Cartwright might well be believed; for both had sate in the
Ecclesiastical Commission. When Compton's turn came, he parried the
question with an adroitness which a Jesuit might have envied. "I gave
your Majesty my answer yesterday. "
James repeated again and again that he fully acquitted them all.
Nevertheless it would, in his judgment, be for his service and for their
own honour that they should publicly vindicate themselves. He therefore
required them to draw up a paper setting forth their abhorrence of the
Prince's design. They remained silent: their silence was supposed to
imply consent; and they were suffered to withdraw. [501]
Meanwhile the fleet of William was on the German Ocean. It was on the
evening of Thursday the first of November that he put to sea the second
time. The wind blew fresh from the east. The armament, during twelve
hours, held a course towards the north west. The light vessels sent out
by the English Admiral for the purpose of obtaining intelligence brought
back news which confirmed the prevailing opinion that the enemy would
try to land in Yorkshire. All at once, on a signal from the Prince's
ship, the whole fleet tacked, and made sail for the British Channel.
The same breeze which favoured the voyage of the invaders prevented
Dartmouth from coming out of the Thames. His ships were forced to strike
yards and topmasts; and two of his frigates, which had gained the open
sea, were shattered by the violence of the weather and driven back into
the river. [502]
The Dutch fleet ran fast before the gale, and reached the Straits at
about ten in the morning of Saturday the third of November. William
himself, in the Brill, led the way. More than six hundred vessels,
with canvass spread to a favourable wind, followed in his train. The
transports were in the centre. The men of war, more than fifty in
number, formed an outer rampart. Herbert, with the title of Lieutenant
Admiral General, commanded the whole fleet. His post was in the rear,
and many English sailors, inflamed against Popery, and attracted by
high pay, served under him. It was not without great difficulty that the
Prince had prevailed on some Dutch officers of high reputation to
submit to the authority of a stranger. But the arrangement was eminently
judicious. There was, in the King's fleet, much discontent and an ardent
zeal for the Protestant faith. But within the memory of old mariners
the Dutch and English navies had thrice, with heroic spirit and various
fortune, contended for the empire of the sea. Our sailors had not
forgotten the broom with which Tromp had threatened to sweep the
Channel, or the fire which De Ruyter had lighted in the dockyards of the
Medway. Had the rival nations been once more brought face to face on the
element of which both claimed the sovereignty, all other thoughts might
have given place to mutual animosity. A bloody and obstinate battle
might have been fought. Defeat would have been fatal to William's
enterprise. Even victory would have deranged all his deeply meditated
schemes of policy. He therefore wisely determined that the pursuers,
if they overtook him, should be hailed in their own mother tongue,
and adjured, by an admiral under whom they had served, and whom they
esteemed, not to fight against old mess-mates for Popish tyranny. Such
an appeal might possibly avert a conflict. If a conflict took place, one
English commander would be opposed to another; nor would the pride of
the islanders be wounded by learning that Dartmouth had been compelled
to strike to Herbert. [503]
Happily William's precautions were not necessary. Soon after midday he
passed the Straits. His fleet spread to within a league of Dover on the
north and of Calais on the south. The men of war on the extreme right
and left saluted both fortresses at once. The troops appeared under arms
on the decks. The flourish of trumpets, the clash of cymbals, and the
rolling of drums were distinctly heard at once on the English and French
shores. An innumerable company of gazers blackened the white beach of
Kent. Another mighty multitude covered the coast of Picardy. Rapin de
Thoyras, who, driven by persecution from his country, had taken service
in the Dutch army and accompanied the Prince to England, described the
spectacle, many years later, as the most magnificent and affecting that
was ever seen by human eyes. At sunset the armament was off Beachy Head.
Then the lights were kindled. The sea was in a blaze for many miles. But
the eyes of all the steersmen were fixed throughout the night on three
huge lanterns which flamed on the stern of the Brill. [504]
Meanwhile a courier bad been riding post from Dover Castle to Whitehall
with news that the Dutch had passed the Straits and were steering
westward. It was necessary to make an immediate change in all the
military arrangements. Messengers were despatched in every direction.
Officers were roused from their beds at dead of night. At three on the
Sunday morning there was a great muster by torchlight in Hyde Park.
The King had sent several regiments northward in the expectation that
William would land in Yorkshire. Expresses were despatched to recall
them.
All the forces except those which were necessary to keep the peace
of the capital were ordered to move to the west. Salisbury was appointed
as the place of rendezvous: but, as it was thought possible that
Portsmouth might be the first point of attack, three battalions of
guards and a strong body of cavalry set out for that fortress. In a few
hours it was known that Portsmouth was safe; and these troops received
orders to change their route and to hasten to Salisbury. [505]
When Sunday the fourth of November dawned, the cliffs of the Isle
of Wight were full in view of the Dutch armament. That day was the
anniversary both of William's birth and of his marriage. Sail was
slackened during part of the morning; and divine service was performed
on board of the ships. In the afternoon and through the night the fleet
held on its course. Torbay was the place where the Prince intended to
land. But the morning of Monday the fifth of November was hazy. The
pilot of the Brill could not discern the sea marks, and carried the
fleet too far to the west. The danger was great. To return in the face
of the wind was impossible. Plymouth was the next port. But at Plymouth
a garrison had been posted under the command of Lord Bath. The landing
might be opposed; and a check might produce serious consequences. There
could be little doubt, moreover, that by this time the royal fleet had
got out of the Thames and was hastening full sail down the Channel.
Russell saw the whole extent of the peril, and exclaimed to Burnet,
"You may go to prayers, Doctor. All is over. " At that moment the wind
changed: a soft breeze sprang up from the south: the mist dispersed; the
sun shone forth and, under the mild light of an autumnal noon, the fleet
turned back, passed round the lofty cape of Berry Head, and rode safe in
the harbour of Torbay. [506]
Since William looked on that harbour its aspect has greatly changed. The
amphitheatre which surrounds the spacious basin now exhibits everywhere
the signs of prosperity and civilisation. At the northeastern extremity
has sprung up a great watering place, to which strangers are attracted
from the most remote parts of our island by the Italian softness of the
air; for in that climate the myrtle flourishes unsheltered; and even the
winter is milder than the Northumbrian April. The inhabitants are about
ten thousand in number. The newly built churches and chapels, the baths
and libraries, the hotels and public gardens, the infirmary and the
museum, the white streets, rising terrace above terrace, the gay
villas peeping from the midst of shrubberies and flower beds, present
a spectacle widely different from any that in the seventeenth century
England could show. At the opposite end of the bay lies, sheltered by
Berry head, the stirring market town of Brixham, the wealthiest seat of
our fishing trade. A pier and a haven were formed there at the beginning
of the present century, but have been found insufficient for the
increasing traffic. The population is about six thousand souls. The
shipping amounts to more than two hundred sail. The tonnage exceeds many
times the tonnage of the port of Liverpool under the Kings of the House
of Stuart. But Torbay, when the Dutch fleet cast anchor there, was known
only as a haven where ships sometimes took refuge from the tempests of
the Atlantic. Its quiet shores were undisturbed by the bustle either
of commerce or of pleasure and the huts of ploughmen and fishermen
were thinly scattered over what is now the site of crowded marts and of
luxurious pavilions.
The peasantry of the coast of Devonshire remembered the name of Monmouth
with affection, and held Popery in detestation. They therefore
crowded down to the seaside with provisions and offers of service. The
disembarkation instantly commenced. Sixty boats conveyed the troops to
the coast. Mackay was sent on shore first with the British regiments.
The Prince soon followed. He landed where the quay of Brixham now
stands. The whole aspect of the place has been altered. Where we now see
a port crowded with shipping, and a market place swarming with buyers
and sellers, the waves then broke on a desolate beach: but a fragment of
the rock on which the deliverer stepped from his boat has been carefully
preserved, and is set up as an object of public veneration in the centre
of that busy wharf.
As soon as the Prince had planted his foot on dry ground he called for
horses. Two beasts, such as the small yeomen of that time were in the
habit of riding, were procured from the neighbouring village. William
and Schomberg mounted and proceeded to examine the country.
As soon as Burnet was on shore he hastened to the Prince. An
amusing dialogue took place between them. Burnet poured forth his
congratulations with genuine delight, and then eagerly asked what were
His Highness's plans. Military men are seldom disposed to take counsel
with gownsmen on military matters; and William regarded the interference
of unprofessional advisers, in questions relating to war, with even more
than the disgust ordinarily felt by soldiers on such occasions. But he
was at that moment in an excellent humour, and, instead of signifying
his displeasure by a short and cutting reprimand, graciously extended
his hand, and answered his chaplain's question by another question:
"Well, Doctor, what do you think of predestination now? " The reproof was
so delicate that Burnet, whose perceptions were not very fine, did not
perceive it. He answered with great fervour that he should never forget
the signal manner in which Providence had favoured their undertaking.
[507]
During the first day the troops who had gone on shore had many
discomforts to endure. The earth was soaked with rain. The baggage was
still on board of the ships. Officers of high rank were compelled to
sleep in wet clothes on the wet ground: the Prince himself had no better
quarters than a hut afforded. His banner was displayed on the thatched
roof; and some bedding brought from his ship was spread for him on the
floor. [508] There was some difficulty about landing the horses; and it
seemed probable that this operation would occupy several days. But on
the following morning the prospect cleared. The wind was gentle. The
water in the bay was as even as glass. Some fishermen pointed out a
place where the ships could be brought within sixty feet of the beach.
This was done; and in three hours many hundreds of horses swam safely to
shore.
The disembarkation had hardly been effected when the wind rose again,
and swelled into a fierce gale from the west. The enemy coming in
pursuit down the Channel had been stopped by the same change of weather
which enabled William to land. During two days the King's fleet lay on
an unruffled sea in sight of Beachy Head. At length Dartmouth was able
to proceed. He passed the Isle of Wight, and one of his ships came
in sight of the Dutch topmasts in Torbay. Just at this moment he was
encountered by the tempest, and compelled to take shelter in the harbour
of Portsmouth. [509] At that time James, who was not incompetent to
form a judgment on a question of seamanship, declared himself perfectly
satisfied that his Admiral had done all that man could do, and had
yielded only to the irresistible hostility of the winds and waves. At
a later period the unfortunate prince began, with little reason, to
suspect Dartmouth of treachery, or at least of slackness. [510]
The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some men
of more piety than judgment fully believed the ordinary laws of nature
to have been suspended for the preservation of the liberty and religion
of England. Exactly a hundred years before, they said, the Armada,
invincible by man, had been scattered by the wrath of God. Civil freedom
and divine truth were again in jeopardy; and again the obedient elements
had fought for the good cause. The wind had blown strong from the east
while the Prince wished to sail down the Channel, had turned to the
south when he wished to enter Torbay, had sunk to a calm during the
disembarkation, and, as soon as the disembarkation was completed, had
risen to a storm, and had met the pursuers in the face. Nor did men omit
to remark that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Prince had reached
our shores on a day on which the Church of England commemorated, by
prayer and thanksgiving, the wonderful escape of the royal House and
of the three Estates from the blackest plot ever devised by Papists.
Carstairs, whose suggestions were sure to meet with attention from the
Prince, recommended that, as soon as the landing had been effected,
public thanks should be offered to God for the protection so
conspicuously accorded to the great enterprise. This advice was taken,
and with excellent effect. The troops, taught to regard themselves as
favourites of heaven, were inspired with new courage; and the English
people formed the most favourable opinion of a general and an army so
attentive to the duties of religion.
On Tuesday, the sixth of November, William's army began to march up the
country. Some regiments advanced as far as Newton Abbot. A stone, set
up in the midst of that little town, still marks the spot where the
Prince's Declaration was solemnly read to the people. The movements of
the troops were slow: for the rain fell in torrents; and the roads
of England were then in a state which seemed frightful to persons
accustomed to the excellent communications of Holland. William took
up his quarters, during two days, at Ford, a seat of the ancient and
illustrious family of Courtenay, in the neighbourhood of Newton Abbot.
He was magnificently lodged and feasted there; but it is remarkable that
the owner of the house, though a strong Whig, did not choose to be the
first to put life and fortune in peril, and cautiously abstained from
doing anything which, if the King should prevail, could be treated as a
crime.
Exeter, in the meantime, was greatly agitated. Lamplugh, the bishop, as
soon as he heard that the Dutch were at Torbay, set off in terror for
London. The Dean fled from the deanery. The magistrates were for the
King, the body of the inhabitants for the Prince. Every thing was in
confusion when, on the morning of Thursday, the eighth of November, a
body of troops, under the command of Mordaunt, appeared before the city.
With Mordaunt came Burnet, to whom William had entrusted the duty of
protecting the clergy of the Cathedral from injury and insult. [511] The
Mayor and Aldermen had ordered the gates to be closed, but yielded on
the first summons. The deanery was prepared for the reception of
the Prince. On the following day, Friday the ninth, he arrived. The
magistrates had been pressed to receive him in state at the entrance of
the city, but had steadfastly refused. The pomp of that day, however,
could well spare them. Such a sight had never been seen in Devonshire.
Many went forth half a day's journey to meet the champion of their
religion. All the neighbouring villages poured forth their inhabitants.
A great crowd, consisting chiefly of young peasants, brandishing their
cudgels, had assembled on the top of Haldon Hill, whence the army,
marching from Chudleigh, first descried the rich valley of the Exe, and
the two massive towers rising from the cloud of smoke which overhung the
capital of the West. The road, all down the long descent, and through
the plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile, with
spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral Close, the pressing and
shouting on each side was such as reminded Londoners of the crowds on
the Lord Mayor's day. The houses were gaily decorated. Doors, windows,
balconies, and roofs were thronged with gazers. An eye accustomed to
the pomp of war would have found much to criticize in the spectacle.
For several toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who
travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in clay, had not
improved the appearance either of the men or of their accoutrements.
But the people of Devonshire, altogether unused to the splendour of well
ordered camps, were overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of
the martial pageant were circulated all over the kingdom. They contained
much that was well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite for the
marvellous. For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in
various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an
aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had,
in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. First rode
Macclesfield at the head of two hundred gentlemen, mostly of English
blood, glittering in helmets and cuirasses, and mounted on Flemish war
horses. Each was attended by a negro, brought from the sugar plantations
on the coast of Guiana. The citizens of Exeter, who had never seen so
many specimens of the African race, gazed with wonder on those black
faces set off by embroidered turbans and white feathers. Then with drawn
broad swords came a squadron of Swedish horsemen in black armour and fur
cloaks. They were regarded with a strange interest; for it was rumoured
that they were natives of a land where the ocean was frozen and where
the night lasted through half the year, and that they had themselves
slain the huge bears whose skins they wore. Next, surrounded by a goodly
company of gentlemen and pages, was borne aloft the Prince's banner. On
its broad folds the crowd which covered the roofs and filled the windows
read with delight that memorable inscription, "The Protestant religion
and the liberties of England. " But the acclamations redoubled when,
attended by forty running footmen, the Prince himself appeared, armed on
back and breast, wearing a white plume and mounted on a white charger.
With how martial an air he curbed his horse, how thoughtful and
commanding was the expression of his ample forehead and falcon eye,
may still be seen on the canvass of Kneller. Once those grave features
relaxed into a smile. It was when an ancient woman, perhaps one of
the zealous Puritans who through twenty-eight years of persecution had
waited with firm faith for the consolation of Israel, perhaps the mother
of some rebel who had perished in the carnage of Sedgemoor, or in the
more fearful carnage of the Bloody Circuit, broke from the crowd, rushed
through the drawn swords and curvetting horses, touched the hand of the
deliverer, and cried out that now she was happy. Near to the Prince was
one who divided with him the gaze of the multitude. That, men said, was
the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne
and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the
Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had
earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of
France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the
two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were
entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each
other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young
Prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the
veteran who now rode in friendship by his side. Then came a long column
of the whiskered infantry of Switzerland, distinguished in all the
continental wars of two centuries by preeminent valour and discipline,
but never till that week seen on English ground. And then marched a
succession of bands designated, as was the fashion of that age, after
their leaders, Bentinck, Solmes and Ginkell, Talmash and Mackay. With
peculiar pleasure Englishmen might look on one gallant regiment which
still bore the name of the honoured and lamented Ossory. The effect of
the spectacle was heightened by the recollection of the renowned events
in which many of the warriors now pouring through the West Gate had
borne a share. For they had seen service very different from that of the
Devonshire militia or of the camp at Hounslow. Some of them had repelled
the fiery onset of the French on the field of Seneff; and others had
crossed swords with the infidels in the cause of Christendom on that
great day when the siege of Vienna was raised. The very senses of the
multitude were fooled by imagination. Newsletters conveyed to every
part of the kingdom fabulous accounts of the size and strength of the
invaders. It was affirmed that they were, with scarcely an exception,
above six feet high, and that they wielded such huge pikes, swords, and
muskets, as had never before been seen in England. Nor did the wonder
of the population diminish when the artillery arrived, twenty-one huge
pieces of brass cannon, which were with difficulty tugged along by
sixteen cart horses to each. Much curiosity was excited by a strange
structure mounted on wheels. It proved to be a moveable smithy,
furnished with all tools and materials necessary for repairing arms and
carriages. But nothing raised so much admiration as the bridge of
boats, which was laid with great speed on the Exe for the conveyance of
waggons, and afterwards as speedily taken to pieces and carried away.
It was made, if report said true, after a pattern contrived by the
Christians who were warring against the Great Turk on the Danube. The
foreigners inspired as much good will as admiration. Their politic
leader took care to distribute the quarters in such a manner as to cause
the smallest possible inconvenience to the inhabitants of Exeter and of
the neighbouring villages. The most rigid discipline was maintained. Not
only were pillage and outrage effectually prevented, but the troops were
required to demean themselves with civility towards all classes. Those
who had formed their notions of an army from the conduct of Kirke and
his Lambs were amazed to see soldiers who never swore at a landlady or
took an egg without paying for it. In return for this moderation the
people furnished the troops with provisions in great abundance and at
reasonable prices. [512]
Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, the clergy
of the Church of England might take; and the members of the Chapter of
Exeter were the first who were called upon to declare their sentiments.
Burnet informed the Canons, now left without a head by the flight of the
Dean, that they could not be permitted to use the prayer for the Prince
of Wales, and that a solemn service must be performed in honour of the
safe arrival of the Prince. The Canons did not choose to appear in their
stalls; but some of the choristers and prebendaries attended. William
repaired in military state to the Cathedral. As he passed under the
gorgeous screen, that renowned organ, scarcely surpassed by any of those
which are the boast of his native Holland, gave out a peal of triumph.
He mounted the Bishop's seat, a stately throne rich with the carving of
the fifteenth century. Burnet stood below; and a crowd of warriors and
nobles appeared on the right hand and on the left. The singers, robed
in white, sang the Te Deum. When the chaunt was over, Burnet read the
Prince's Declaration: but as soon as the first words were uttered,
prebendaries and singers crowded in all haste out of the choir. At the
close Burnet cried in a loud voice, "God save the Prince of Orange! " and
many fervent voices answered, "Amen. " [513]
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, Burnet preached before the Prince
in the Cathedral, and dilated on the signal mercy vouchsafed by God
to the English Church and nation. At the same time a singular event
happened in a humbler place of worship. Ferguson resolved to preach
at the Presbyterian meeting house. The minister and elders would not
consent but the turbulent and halfwitted knave, fancying that the times
of Fleetwood and Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through
the congregation sword in hand, mounted the pulpit, and there poured
forth a fiery invective against the King. The time for such follies had
gone by; and this exhibition excited nothing but derision and disgust.
[514]
While these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment was great in
London. The Prince's Declaration, in spite of all precautions, was now
in every man's hands. On the sixth of November James, still uncertain on
what part of the coast the invaders had landed, summoned the Primate and
three other Bishops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and
Sprat of Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened
graciously while the prelates made warm professions of loyalty, and
assured them that he did not suspect them. "But where," said he, "is
the paper that you were to bring me? " "Sir," answered Sancroft, "we have
brought no paper. We are not solicitous to clear our fame to the
world. It is no new thing to us to be reviled and falsely accused. Our
consciences acquit us: your Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied. "
"Yes," said the King; "but a declaration from you is necessary to my
service. " He then produced a copy of the Prince's manifesto. "See," he
said, "how you are mentioned here. " "Sir," answered one of the Bishops,
"not one person in five hundred believes this manifesto to be genuine. "
"No! " cried the King fiercely; "then those five hundred would bring the
Prince of Orange to cut my throat. " "God forbid," exclaimed the prelates
in concert. But the King's understanding, never very clear, was now
quite bewildered. One of his peculiarities was that, whenever his
opinion was not adopted, he fancied that his veracity was questioned.
"This paper not genuine! " he exclaimed, turning over the leaves with his
hands. "Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word not to be taken? "
"At all events, sir," said one of the Bishops, "this is not an
ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere of the civil power.
God has entrusted your Majesty with the sword: and it is not for us
to invade your functions. " Then the Archbishop, with that gentle and
temperate malice which inflicts the deepest wounds, declared that he
must be excused from setting his hand to any political document. "I and
my brethren, sir," he said, "have already smarted severely for meddling
with affairs of state; and we shall be very cautious how we do so again.
We once subscribed a petition of the most harmless kind: we presented it
in the most respectful manner; and we found that we had committed a high
offence. We were saved from ruin only by the merciful protection of God.
And, sir, the ground then taken by your Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor
was that, out of Parliament, we were private men, and that it was
criminal presumption in private men to meddle with politics. They
attacked us so fiercely that for my part I gave myself over for lost. "
"I thank you for that, my Lord of Canterbury," said the King; "I should
have hoped that you would not have thought yourself lost by falling
into my hands. " Such a speech might have become the mouth of a merciful
sovereign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had burned
a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies, from a
prince round whose knees his own nephew had clung in vain agonies of
supplication. The Archbishop was not to be so silenced. He resumed his
story, and recounted the insults which the creatures of the court had
offered to the Church of England, among which some ridicule thrown on
his own style occupied a conspicuous place. The King had nothing to say
but that there was no use in repeating old grievances, and that he had
hoped that these things had been quite forgotten. He, who never forgot
the smallest injury that he had suffered, could not understand how
others should remember for a few weeks the most deadly injuries that he
had inflicted.
At length the conversation came back to the point from which it had
wandered. The King insisted on having from the Bishops a paper declaring
their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise. They, with many professions
of the most submissive loyalty, pertinaciously refused. The Prince,
they said, asserted that he had been invited by temporal as well as by
spiritual peers. The imputation was common. Why should not the purgation
be common also?
