But Parliament
had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the
sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes
in matters ecclesiastical.
had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the
sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes
in matters ecclesiastical.
Macaulay
[338] But scarcely had the new officebearers been
sworn in when it was discovered that they were as unmanageable as their
predecessors. At Newcastle on Tyne the regulators appointed a Roman
Catholic Mayor and Puritan Alderman. No doubt was entertained that the
municipal body, thus remodelled, would vote an address promising to
support the king's measures. The address, however, was negatived. The
mayor went up to London in a fury, and told the king that the Dissenters
were all knaves and rebels, and that in the whole corporation the
government could not reckon on more than four votes. [339] At Reading
twenty-four Tory aldermen were dismissed. Twenty-four new aldermen
were appointed. Twenty-three of these immediately declared against the
Indulgence, and were dismissed in their turn. [340] In the course of a
few days the borough of Yarmouth was governed by three different sets
of magistrates, all equally hostile to the court. [341] These are mere
examples of what was passing all over the kingdom. The Dutch Ambassador
informed the States that at many towns the public functionaries had,
within one month, been changed twice, and even thrice, and yet changed
in vain. [342] From the records of the Privy Council it appears that the
number of regulations, as they were called, exceeded two hundred. [343]
The regulators indeed found that, in not a few places, the change
had been for the worse. The discontented Tories, even while murmuring
against the king's policy, had constantly expressed respect for his
person and his office, and had disclaimed all thoughts of resistance.
Very different was the language of some of the new members of
corporations. It was said that old soldiers of the Commonwealth, who, to
their own astonishment and that of the public, had been made aldermen,
gave the agents of the court very distinctly to understand that blood
should flow before Popery and arbitrary power were established in
England. [344]
The regulators found that little or nothing had been gained by what had
as yet been done. There was one way, and one way only, in which they
could hope to effect their object. The charters of the boroughs must
be resumed; and other charters must be granted confining the elective
franchise to very small constituent bodies appointed by the sovereign.
[345]
But how was this plan to be carried into effect? In a few of the new
charters, indeed, a right of revocation had been reserved to the crown:
but the rest James could get into his hands only by voluntary surrender
on the part of corporations, or by judgment of the King's Bench. Few
corporations were now disposed to surrender their charters voluntarily;
and such judgments as would suit the purposes of the government were
hardly to be expected even from such a slave as Wright. The writs of Quo
Warranto which had been brought a few years before for the purpose of
crushing the Whig party had been condemned by every impartial man. Yet
those writs had at least the semblance of justice; for they were brought
against ancient municipal bodies; and there were few ancient municipal
bodies in which some abuse, sufficient to afford a pretext for a penal
proceeding, had not grown up in the course of ages. But the corporations
now to be attacked were still in the innocence of infancy. The oldest
among them had not completed its fifth year. It was impossible that many
of them should have committed offences meriting disfranchisement. The
Judges themselves were uneasy. They represented that what they were
required to do was in direct opposition to the plainest principles
of law and justice: but all remonstrance was vain. The boroughs were
commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the course
which the King took with those few did not encourage others to trust
him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away from the
commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, who were
required to bind themselves by oath to support the candidates
recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for example, the franchise
was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this number was too large.
Hatred and fear had spread so widely through the community that it
was scarcely possible to bring together in any town, by any process of
packing, thirteen men on whom the court could absolutely depend. It was
rumoured that the majority of the new constituent body of Tewkesbury was
animated by the same sentiment which was general throughout the nation,
and would, when the decisive day should arrive, send true Protestants
to Parliament. The regulators in great wrath threatened to reduce the
number of electors to three. [346] Meanwhile the great majority of
the boroughs firmly refused to give up their privileges. Barnstaple,
Winchester, and Buckingham, distinguished themselves by the boldness of
their opposition. At Oxford the motion that the city should resign its
franchises to the King was negatived by eighty votes to two. [347] The
Temple and Westminster Hall were in a ferment with the sudden rush of
business from all corners of the kingdom. Every lawyer in high practice
was overwhelmed with the briefs from corporations. Ordinary litigants
complained that their business was neglected. [348] It was evident that
a considerable time must elapse before judgment could be given in so
great a number of important cases. Tyranny could ill brook this delay.
Nothing was omitted which could terrify the refractory boroughs into
submission. At Buckingham some of the municipal officers had spoken of
Jeffreys in language which was not laudatory. They were prosecuted, and
were given to understand that no mercy should be shown to them unless
they would ransom themselves by surrendering their charter. [349] At
Winchester still more violent measures were adopted. A large body of
troops was marched into the town for the sole purpose of burdening and
harassing the inhabitants. [350] The town continued resolute; and the
public voice loudly accused the King of imitating the worst crimes of
his brother of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was
indeed reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not more
effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quartering
soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this practice had
sixty years before excited formidable discontents, and had been solemnly
pronounced illegal by the Petition of Right, a statute scarcely less
venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. But he hoped to obtain
from the courts of law a declaration that even the Petition of Right
could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted the Chief
justice of the King's Bench on this subject: [351] but the result of the
consultation remained secret; and in a very few weeks the aspect of
affairs became such that a fear stronger than even the fear of the royal
displeasure began to impose some restraint even on a man so servile as
Wright.
While the Lords Lieutenants were questioning the justices of the Peace,
while the regulators were remodelling the boroughs, all the public
departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace was first
purified. Every battered old Cavalier, who, in return for blood and
lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place under the
Keeper of the Wardrobe or the Master of the Harriers, was called upon to
choose between the King and the Church. The Commissioners of Customs
and Excise were ordered to attend His Majesty at the Treasury. There he
demanded from them a promise to support his policy, and directed them
to require a similar promise from all their subordinates. [352] One
Customhouse officer notified his submission to the royal will in a
way which excited both merriment and compassion. "I have," he said,
"fourteen reasons for obeying His Majesty's commands, a wife and
thirteen young children. " [353] Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there
were not a few instances in which, even against such reasons, religious
and patriotic feelings prevailed.
There is reason to believe that the government at this time seriously
meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of families to
beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system of every
part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could be sold without a
license. It was rumoured that every person holding such a license would
shortly be required to enter into the same engagements which had been
imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his trade. [354]
It seems certain that, if such a step had been taken, the houses of
entertainment and of public resort all over the kingdom would have been
at once shut up by hundreds. What effect such an interference with the
comfort of all ranks would have produced must be left to conjecture. The
resentment produced by grievances is not always proportioned to their
dignity; and it is by no means improbable that the resumption of
licenses might have done what the resumption of charters had failed
to do. Men of fashion would have missed the chocolate house in Saint
James's Street, and men of business the coffee pot, round which they
were accustomed to smoke and talk politics, in Change Alley. Half the
clubs would have been wandering in search of shelter. The traveller
at nightfall would have found the inn where he had expected to sup and
lodge deserted. The clown would have regretted the hedge alehouse, where
he had been accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in
summer, and at the chimney corner in winter. The nation might, perhaps
under such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting
for the help of foreign allies.
It was not to be expected that a prince who required all the humblest
servants of the government to support his policy on pain of dismission
would continue to employ an Attorney General whose aversion to that
policy was no secret. Sawyer had been suffered to retain his situation
more than a year and a half after he had declared against the dispensing
power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the extreme difficulty
which the government found in supplying his place. It was necessary, for
the protection of the pecuniary interests of the crown, that at least
one of the two chief law officers should be a man of ability and
knowledge; and it was by no means easy to induce any barrister of
ability and knowledge to put himself in peril by committing every day
acts which the next Parliament would probably treat as high crimes and
misdemeanours. It had been impossible to procure a better Solicitor
General than Powis, a man who indeed stuck at nothing, but who was
incompetent to perform the ordinary duties of his post. In these
circumstances it was thought desirable that there should be a division
of labour. An Attorney, the value of whose professional talents was much
diminished by his conscientious scruples, was coupled with a Solicitor
whose want of scruples made some amends for his want of talents. When
the government wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer.
When the government wished to break the law, recourse was had to Powis.
This arrangement lasted till the king obtained the services of an
advocate who was at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer.
No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than
William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as a
Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been
chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the
Oxford Parliament he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy
demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess
considerable quickness and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed
to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had
faults compared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for
virtues. The government sought occasion against him, and easily found
it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a narrative
which Dangerfield had written. This narrative, if published by a
private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal
information was filed in the King's Bench against Williams: he pleaded
the privileges of Parliament in vain: he was convicted and sentenced
to a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually
paid: for the rest he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had
been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield's narrative, was encouraged,
by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action,
and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this
juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way which, to
a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful
than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell himself to that
government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer
to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on those liberties and on
that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He might
expiate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigoted Tories,
stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney, shrank in horror. The
bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted.
Peterborough was induced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action.
Sawyer was dismissed. Powis became Attorney General. Williams was made
Solicitor, received the honour of knighthood, and was soon a favourite.
Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his
abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his
superior into the shade. [355]
Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear a
chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British
annals.
On the twenty-seventh of April 1688, the King put forth a second
Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the
Declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to
have convinced his people that he was not a person who could easily
be induced to depart from any resolution which he had formed. But,
as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might be
prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to
proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved to
employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and that he
had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many of his disobedient
servants from civil and military employments. He announced that he meant
to hold a Parliament in November at the latest; and he exhorted his
subjects to choose representatives who would assist him in the great
work which he had undertaken. [356]
This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It contained
nothing new; and men wondered that the King should think it worth while
to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of telling them
that he had not changed his mind. [357] Perhaps James was nettled by
the indifference with which the announcement of his fixed resolution was
received by the public, and thought that his dignity and authority would
suffer unless he without delay did something novel and striking. On
the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an Order in Council that his
Declaration of the preceding week should be read, on two successive
Sundays at the time of divine service, by the officiating ministers
of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. In London and in
the suburbs the reading was to take place on the twentieth and
twenty-seventh of May, in other parts of England on the third and
tenth of June. The Bishops were directed to distribute copies of the
Declaration through their respective dioceses. [358]
When it is considered that the clergy of the Established Church, with
scarcely an exception, regarded the Indulgence as a violation of the
laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the King, and
as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own
profession, it will scarcely admit of doubt that the Order in Council
was intended to be felt by them as a cruel affront. It was popularly
believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metaphor
borrowed from the rhetoric of the East. He would, he said, make them
eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt. But, tyrannical and
malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priesthood refuse to
obey? The King's temper was arbitrary and severe. The proceedings of the
Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary as those of a court martial.
Whoever ventured to resist might in a week be ejected from his
parsonage, deprived of his whole income, pronounced incapable of holding
any other spiritual preferment, and left to beg from door to door. If,
indeed, the whole body offered an united opposition to the royal will,
it was probable that even James would scarcely venture to punish
ten thousand delinquents at once. But there was not time to form an
extensive combination. The Order in Council was gazetted on the seventh
of May. On the twentieth the Declaration was to be read in all the
pulpits of London and the neighbourhood. By no exertion was it possible
in that age to ascertain within a fortnight the intentions of one tenth
part of the parochial ministers who were scattered over the kingdom.
It was not easy to collect in so short a time the sense even of the
episcopal order. It might also well be apprehended that, if the clergy
refused to read the Declaration, the Protestant Dissenters would
misinterpret the refusal, would despair of obtaining any toleration from
the members of the Church of England, and would throw their whole weight
into the scale of the court.
The clergy therefore hesitated; and this hesitation may well be excused:
for some eminent laymen, who possessed a large share of the public
confidence, were disposed to recommend submission. They thought that
a general opposition could hardly be expected, and that a partial
opposition would be ruinous to individuals, and of little advantage to
the Church and to the nation. Such was the opinion given at this time
by Halifax and Nottingham. The day drew near; and still there was no
concert and no formed resolution. [359]
At this conjuncture the Protestant Dissenters of London won for
themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country. They had
hitherto been reckoned by the government as part of its strength. A few
of their most active and noisy preachers, corrupted by the favours of
the court, had got up addresses in favour of the King's policy. Others,
estranged by the recollection of many cruel wrongs both from the
Church of England and from the House of Stuart, had seen with resentful
pleasure the tyrannical prince and the tyrannical hierarchy separated
by a bitter enmity, and bidding against each other for the help of sects
lately persecuted and despised. But this feeling, however natural, had
been indulged long enough. The time had come when it was necessary to
make a choice: and the Nonconformists of the City, with a noble spirit,
arrayed themselves side by side with the members of the Church in
defence of the fundamental laws of the realm. Baxter, Bates, and Howe
distinguished themselves by their efforts to bring about this coalition:
but the generous enthusiasm which pervaded the whole Puritan body made
the task easy. The zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors. Those
Presbyterian and Independent teachers who showed an inclination to take
part with the King against the ecclesiastical establishment received
distinct notice that, unless they changed their conduct, their
congregations would neither hear them nor pay them. Alsop, who had
flattered himself that he should be able to bring over a great body of
his disciples to the royal side, found himself on a sudden an object
of contempt and abhorrence to those who had lately revered him as their
spiritual guide, sank into a deep melancholy, and hid himself from the
public eye. Deputations waited on several of the London clergy imploring
them not to judge of the dissenting body from the servile adulation
which had lately filled the London Gazette, and exhorting them, placed
as they were in the van of this great fight, to play the men for the
liberties of England and for the faith delivered to the Saints. These
assurances were received with joy and gratitude. Yet there was still
much anxiety and much difference of opinion among those who had to
decide whether, on Sunday the twentieth, they would or would not obey
the King's command. The London clergy, then universally acknowledged to
be the flower of their profession, held a meeting. Fifteen Doctors
of Divinity were present. Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, the most
celebrated preacher of the age, came thither from a sick bed. Sherlock,
Master of the Temple, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough and Rector of
the important parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and Stillingfleet,
Archdeacon of London and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, attended. The
general feeling of the assembly seemed to be that it was, on the whole,
advisable to obey the Order in Council. The dispute began to wax warm,
and might have produced fatal consequences, if it had not been brought
to a close by the firmness and wisdom of Doctor Edward Fowler, Vicar of
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, one of a small but remarkable class of divines
who united that love of civil liberty which belonged to the school of
Calvin with the theology of the school of Arminius. [360] Standing up,
Fowler spoke thus: "I must be plain. The question is so simple that
argument can throw no new light on it, and can only beget heat. Let
every man say Yes or No. But I cannot consent to be bound by the vote
of the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach of unity. But this
Declaration I cannot in conscience read. " Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock,
and Stillingfleet declared that they were of the same mind. The majority
yielded to the authority of a minority so respectable. A resolution
by which all present pledged themselves to one another not to read the
Declaration was then drawn up. Patrick was the first who set his hand
to it; Fowler was the second. The paper was sent round the city, and was
speedily subscribed by eighty-five incumbents. [361]
Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as to the
course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a grave and
learned company was assembled round the table of the Primate at Lambeth.
Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop of Ely, White, Bishop of
Peterborough, and Tenison, Rector of St. Martin's parish, were among the
guests. The Earl of Clarendon, a zealous and uncompromising friend of
the Church, had been invited. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, intruded
himself on the meeting, probably as a spy. While he remained, no
confidential communication could take place; but, after his departure,
the great question of which all minds were full was propounded and
discussed. The general opinion was that the Declaration ought not to be
read. Letters were forthwith written to several of the most respectable
prelates of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come
up without delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their
metropolitan at this conjuncture. [362] As there was little doubt that
these letters would be opened if they passed through the office in
Lombard Street, they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post
towns on the different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty
had been so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from
indisposition, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but
found himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed
to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precautions,
detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of his
brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his order, did
not reach London in time. [363] His namesake, William Lloyd, Bishop of
St. Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment,
and half crazed by his persevering endeavours to extract from Daniel and
the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France,
hastened to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth. [364] On the
following day came the excellent Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lake,
Bishop of Chichester, and Sir John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a
baronet of an old and honourable Cornish family.
On the eighteenth a meeting of prelates and of other eminent divines
was held at Lambeth. Tillotson, Tenison, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
and Sherlock, were present. Prayers were solemnly read before the
consultation began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying the
general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. It was
not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cumbrous and
inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft some raillery,
which he bore with less patience than he showed under much heavier
trials. But in substance nothing could be more skilfully framed than
this memorable document. All disloyalty, all intolerance, was earnestly
disclaimed. The King was assured that the Church still was, as she had
ever been, faithful to the throne. He was assured also that the Bishops
would, in proper place and time, as Lords of Parliament and members
of the Upper House of Convocation, show that they by no means wanted
tenderness for the conscientious scruples of Dissenters.
But Parliament
had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the
sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes
in matters ecclesiastical. The Declaration was therefore illegal;
and the petitioners could not, in prudence, honour, or conscience, be
parties to the solemn publication of an illegal Declaration in the house
of God, and during the time of divine service.
This paper was signed by the Archbishop and by six of his suffragans,
Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and
Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. The Bishop of
London, being under suspension, did not sign.
It was now late on Friday evening: and on Sunday morning the Declaration
was to be read in the churches of London. It was necessary to put the
paper into the King's hands without delay. The six Bishops set off for
Whitehall. The Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the court, did
not accompany them. Lloyd, leaving his five brethren at the house of
Lord Dartmouth in the vicinity of the palace, went to Sunderland, and
begged that minister to read the petition, and to ascertain when the
King would be willing to receive it. Sunderland, afraid of compromising
himself, refused to look at the paper, but went immediately to the royal
closet. James directed that the Bishops should be admitted. He had
heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal
mandate, but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and
that they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty
was therefore in very good humour. When they knelt before him, he
graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, "This
is my Lord of Canterbury's hand. " "Yes, sir, his own hand," was the
answer. James read the petition; he folded it up; and his countenance
grew dark. "This," he said, "is a great surprise to me. I did not expect
this from your Church, especially from some of you. This is a standard
of rebellion. " The Bishops broke out into passionate professions of
loyalty: but the King, as usual, repeated the same words over and
over. "I tell you, this is a standard of rebellion. " "Rebellion! " cried
Trelawney, falling on his knees. "For God's sake, sir, do not say so
hard a thing of us. No Trelawney can be a rebel. Remember that my
family has fought for the crown. Remember how I served your Majesty when
Monmouth was in the West. " "We put down the last rebellion," said Lake,
"we shall not raise another. " "We rebel! " exclaimed Turner; "we are
ready to die at your Majesty's feet. " "Sir," said Ken, in a more manly
tone, "I hope that you will grant to us that liberty of conscience which
you grant to all mankind. " Still James went on. "This is rebellion.
This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good Churchman question
the dispensing power before? Have not some of you preached for it
and written for it? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my
Declaration published. " "We have two duties to perform," answered Ken,
"our duty to God, and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you, but we
fear God. " "Have I deserved this? " said the King, more and more, angry,
"I who have been such a friend to your Church! I did not expect this
from some of you. I will be obeyed. My Declaration shall be published.
You are trumpeters of sedition. What do you do here? Go to your dioceses
and see that I am obeyed. I will keep this paper. I will not part with
it. I will remember you that have signed it. " "God's will be done," said
Ken. "God has given me the dispensing power," said the King, "and I
will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thousand of your
Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal. " The Bishops respectfully
retired. [365] That very evening the document which they had put into
the hands of the King appeared word for word in print, was laid on
the tables of all the coffeehouses, and was cried about the streets.
Everywhere the people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the
hawkers. It was said that the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few
hours by this penny broadside. This is probably an exaggeration; but
it is an exaggeration which proves that the sale was enormous. How the
petition got abroad is still a mystery. Sancroft declared that he had
taken every precaution against publication, and that he knew of no copy
except that which he had himself written, and which James had taken out
of Lloyd's hand. The veracity of the Archbishop is beyond all suspicion.
It is, however, by no means improbable that some of the divines
who assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short
a composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The
prevailing opinion, however, was that some person about the King had
been indiscreet or treacherous. [366] Scarcely less sensation was
produced by a short letter which was written with great power of
argument and language, printed secretly, and largely circulated on the
same day by the post and by the common carriers. A copy was sent to
every clergyman in the kingdom. The writer did not attempt to disguise
the danger which those who disobeyed the royal mandate would incur: but
he set forth in a lively manner the still greater danger of submission.
"If we read the Declaration," said he, "we fall to rise no more. We fall
unpitied and despised. We fall amidst the curses of a nation whom our
compliance will have ruined. " Some thought that this paper came from
Holland. Others attributed it to Sherlock. But Prideaux, Dean of
Norwich, who was a principal agent in distributing it, believed it to be
the work of Halifax.
The conduct of the prelates was rapturously extolled by the general
voice: but some murmurs were heard. It was said that such grave men,
if they thought themselves bound in conscience to remonstrate with the
King, ought to have remonstrated earlier. Was it fair to him to leave
him in the dark till within thirty-six hours of the time fixed for the
reading of the Declaration? Even if he wished to revoke the Order in
Council, it was too late to do so. The inference seemed to be that the
petition was intended, not to move the royal mind, but merely to inflame
the discontents of the people. [367] These complaints were utterly
groundless. The King had laid on the Bishops a command new, surprising,
and embarrassing. It was their duty to communicate with each other, and
to ascertain as far as possible the sense of the profession of which
they were the heads before they took any step. They were dispersed over
the whole kingdom. Some of them were distant from others a full week's
journey. James allowed them only a fortnight to inform themselves, to
meet, to deliberate, and to decide; and he surely had no right to think
himself aggrieved because that fortnight was drawing to a close before
he learned their decision. Nor is it true that they did not leave him
time to revoke his order if he had been wise enough to do so. He might
have called together his Council on Saturday morning, and before night
it might have been known throughout London and the suburbs that he had
yielded to the intreaties of the fathers of the Church. The Saturday,
however, passed over without any sign of relenting on the part of the
government, and the Sunday arrived, a day long remembered.
In the City and Liberties of London were about a hundred parish
churches. In only four of these was the Order in Council obeyed. At
Saint Gregory's the Declaration was read by a divine of the name of
Martin. As soon as he uttered the first words, the whole congregation
rose and withdrew. At Saint Matthew's, in Friday Street, a wretch named
Timothy Hall, who had disgraced his gown by acting as broker for the
Duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons, and who now had hopes of
obtaining the vacant bishopric of Oxford, was in like manner left alone
in his church. At Serjeant's Inn, in Chancery Lane, the clerk pretended
that he had forgotten to bring a copy; and the Chief justice of the
King's Bench, who had attended in order to see that the royal mandate
was obeyed, was forced to content himself with this excuse. Samuel
Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, a curate in London, took
for his text that day the noble answer of the three Jews to the Chaldean
tyrant. "Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods,
nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. " Even in the chapel
of Saint James's Palace the officiating minister had the courage to
disobey the order. The Westminster boys long remembered what took place
that day in the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiated there as
Dean. As soon as he began to read the Declaration, murmurs and the noise
of people crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. He trembled so
violently that men saw the paper shake in his hand. Long before he had
finished, the place was deserted by all but those whose situation made
it necessary for them to remain. [368]
Never had the Church been so dear to the nation as on the afternoon of
that day. The spirit of dissent seemed to be extinct. Baxter from his
pulpit pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops and parochial clergy. The
Dutch minister, a few hours later, wrote to inform the States General
that the Anglican priesthood had risen in the estimation of the public
to an incredible degree. The universal cry of the Nonconformists,
he said, was that they would rather continue to lie under the penal
statutes than separate their cause from that of the prelates. [369]
Another week of anxiety and agitation passed away. Sunday came
again. Again the churches of the capital were thronged by hundreds
of thousands. The Declaration was read nowhere except at the very few
places where it had been read the week before. The minister who had
officiated at the chapel in Saint James's Palace had been turned out of
his situation, and a more obsequious divine appeared with the paper in
his hand: but his agitation was so great that he could not articulate.
In truth the feeling of the whole nation had now become such as none
but the very best and noblest, or the very worst and basest, of mankind
could without much discomposure encounter. [370]
Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence of the tempest
which he had raised. What step was he next to take? He must either
advance or recede: and it was impossible to advance without peril, or to
recede without humiliation. At one moment he determined to put forth a
second order enjoining the clergy in high and angry terms to publish
his Declaration, and menacing every one who should be refractory with
instant suspension. This order was drawn up and sent to the press, then
recalled, then a second time sent to the press, then recalled a second
time. [371] A different plan was suggested by some of those who were
for rigorous measures. The prelates who had signed the petition might be
cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission and deprived of their sees.
But to this course strong objections were urged in Council. It had been
announced that the Houses would be convoked before the end of the
year. The Lords would assuredly treat the sentence of deprivation as a
nullity, would insist that Sancroft and his fellow petitioners should be
summoned to Parliament, and would refuse to acknowledge a new Archbishop
of Canterbury or a new Bishop of Bath and Wells. Thus the session, which
at best was likely to be sufficiently stormy, would commence with a
deadly quarrel between the crown and the peers. If therefore it were
thought necessary to punish the Bishops, the punishment ought to be
inflicted according to the known course of English law. Sunderland
had from the beginning objected, as far as he dared, to the Order
in Council. He now suggested a course which, though not free from
inconveniences, was the most prudent and the most dignified that a
series of errors had left open to the government. The King might with
grace and majesty announce to the world that he was deeply hurt by the
undutiful conduct of the Church of England; but that he could not
forget all the services rendered by that Church, in trying times, to his
father, to his brother, and to himself; that, as a friend to the liberty
of conscience, he was unwilling to deal severely by men whom conscience,
ill informed indeed, and unreasonably scrupulous, might have prevented
from obeying his commands; and that he would therefore leave the
offenders to that punishment which their own reflections would inflict
whenever they should calmly compare their recent acts with the loyal
doctrines of which they had so loudly boasted. Not only Powis and
Bellasyse, who had always been for moderate counsels, but even Dover and
Arundell, leaned towards this proposition. Jeffreys, on the other hand,
maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors
as the seven Bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand.
He did not, however, wish them to be cited before the Ecclesiastical
Commission, in which he sate as chief or rather as sole judge. For the
load of public hatred under which he already lay was too much even
for his shameless forehead and obdurate heart; and he shrank from the
responsibility which he would have incurred by pronouncing an illegal
sentence on the rulers of the Church and the favourites of the nation.
He therefore recommended a criminal information. It was accordingly
resolved that the Archbishop and the six other petititioners should be
brought before the Court of King's Bench on a charge of seditious libel.
That they would be convicted it was scarcely possible to doubt. The
judges and their officers were tools of the court. Since the old charter
of the City of London had been forfeited, scarcely one prisoner whom
the government was bent on bringing to punishment had been absolved by
a jury. The refractory prelates would probably be condemned to ruinous
fines and to long imprisonment, and would be glad to ransom themselves
by serving, both in and out of Parliament, the designs of the Sovereign.
[372]
On the twenty-seventh of May it was notified to the Bishops that on the
eighth of June they must appear before the King in Council. Why so long
an interval was allowed we are not informed. Perhaps James hoped that
some of the offenders, terrified by his displeasure, might submit before
the day fixed for the reading of the Declaration in their dioceses, and
might, in order to make their peace with him, persuade their clergy to
obey his order. If such was his hope it was signally disappointed.
Sunday the third of June came; and all parts of England followed the
example of the capital. Already the Bishops of Norwich, Gloucester,
Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter, had signed copies of the petition
in token of their approbation. The Bishop of Worcester had refused to
distribute the Declaration among his clergy. The Bishop of Hereford had
distributed it: but it was generally understood that he was overwhelmed
by remorse and shame for having done so. Not one parish priest in fifty
complied with the Order in Council. --In the great diocese of Chester,
including the county of Lancaster, only three clergymen could be
prevailed on by Cartwright to obey the King. In the diocese of Norwich
are many hundreds of parishes. In only four of these was the Declaration
read. The courtly Bishop of Rochester could not overcome the scruples of
the minister of the ordinary of Chatham, who depended on the government
for bread. There is still extant a pathetic letter which this honest
priest sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty. "I cannot," he wrote,
"reasonably expect your Honour's protection. God's will be done. I must
choose suffering rather than sin. " [373]
On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates, furnished by
the ablest lawyers in England with full advice, repaired to the palace,
and were called into the Council chamber. Their petition was lying
on the table. The Chancellor took the paper up, showed it to the
Archbishop, and said, "Is this the paper which your Grace wrote, and
which the six Bishops present delivered to his Majesty? " Sancroft looked
at the paper, turned to the King, and spoke thus: "Sir, I stand here a
culprit. I never was so before. Once I little thought that I ever should
be so. Least of all could I think that I should be charged with any
offence against my King: but, since I am so unhappy as to be in this
situation, your Majesty will not be offended if I avail myself of my
lawful right to decline saying anything which may criminate me. " "This
is mere chicanery," said the King. "I hope that your Grace will not do
so ill a thing as to deny your own hand? Sir," said Lloyd, whose studies
had been much among the casuists, "all divines agree that a person
situated as we are may refuse to answer such a question. " The King, as
slow of understanding as quick of temper, could not comprehend what the
prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently becoming very
angry. "Sir," said the Archbishop, "I am not bound to accuse myself.
Nevertheless, if your Majesty positively commands me to answer, I will
do so in the confidence that a just and generous prince will not suffer
what I say in obedience to his orders to be brought in evidence against
me. " "You must not capitulate with your Sovereign," said the Chancellor.
"No," said the King; "I will not give any such command. If you choose to
deny your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you. "
The Bishops were repeatedly sent out into the antechamber, and
repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James positively
commanded them to answer the question. He did not expressly engage
that their confession should not be used against them. But they, not
unnaturally, supposed that, after what had passed, such an engagement
was implied in his command. Sancroft acknowledged his handwriting; and
his brethren followed his example. They were then interrogated about the
meaning of some words in the petition, and about the letter which had
been circulated with so much effect all over the kingdom: but their
language was so guarded that nothing was gained by the examination. The
Chancellor then told them that a criminal information would be exhibited
against them in the Court of King's Bench, and called upon them to enter
into recognisances. They refused. They were peers of the realm, they
said. They were advised by the best lawyers in Westminster Hall that no
peer could be required to enter into a recognisance in a case of libel;
and they should not think themselves justified in relinquishing the
privilege of their order. The King was so absurd as to think himself
personally affronted because they chose, on a legal question, to be
guided by legal advice. "You believe everybody," he said, "rather than
me. " He was indeed mortified and alarmed. For he had gone so far that,
if they persisted, he had no choice left but to send them to prison;
and, though he by no means foresaw all the consequences of such a step,
he foresaw probably enough to disturb him. They were resolute. A warrant
was therefore made out directing the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep
them in safe custody, and a barge was manned to convey them down the
river. [374]
It was known all over London that the Bishops were before the Council.
The public anxiety was intense. A great multitude filled the courts
of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets. Many people were in the
habit of refreshing themselves at the close of a summer day with the
cool air of the Thames. But on this evening the whole river was alive
with wherries. When the Seven came forth under a guard, the emotions of
the people broke through all restraint. Thousands fell on their knees
and prayed aloud for the men who had, with the Christian, courage of
Ridley and Latimer, confronted a tyrant inflamed by all the bigotry of
Mary. Many dashed into the stream, and, up to their waists in ooze and
water, cried to the holy fathers to bless them. All down the river,
from Whitehall to London Bridge, the royal barge passed between lines of
boats, from which arose a shout of "God bless your Lordships. " The King,
in great alarm, gave orders that the garrison of the Tower should be
doubled, that the Guards should be held ready for action, and that two
companies should be detached from every regiment in the kingdom, and
sent up instantly to London. But the force on which he relied as the
means of coercing the people shared all the feelings of the people.
The very sentinels who were under arms at the Traitors' Gate reverently
asked for a blessing from the martyrs whom they were to guard. Sir
Edward Hales was Lieutenant of the Tower.
sworn in when it was discovered that they were as unmanageable as their
predecessors. At Newcastle on Tyne the regulators appointed a Roman
Catholic Mayor and Puritan Alderman. No doubt was entertained that the
municipal body, thus remodelled, would vote an address promising to
support the king's measures. The address, however, was negatived. The
mayor went up to London in a fury, and told the king that the Dissenters
were all knaves and rebels, and that in the whole corporation the
government could not reckon on more than four votes. [339] At Reading
twenty-four Tory aldermen were dismissed. Twenty-four new aldermen
were appointed. Twenty-three of these immediately declared against the
Indulgence, and were dismissed in their turn. [340] In the course of a
few days the borough of Yarmouth was governed by three different sets
of magistrates, all equally hostile to the court. [341] These are mere
examples of what was passing all over the kingdom. The Dutch Ambassador
informed the States that at many towns the public functionaries had,
within one month, been changed twice, and even thrice, and yet changed
in vain. [342] From the records of the Privy Council it appears that the
number of regulations, as they were called, exceeded two hundred. [343]
The regulators indeed found that, in not a few places, the change
had been for the worse. The discontented Tories, even while murmuring
against the king's policy, had constantly expressed respect for his
person and his office, and had disclaimed all thoughts of resistance.
Very different was the language of some of the new members of
corporations. It was said that old soldiers of the Commonwealth, who, to
their own astonishment and that of the public, had been made aldermen,
gave the agents of the court very distinctly to understand that blood
should flow before Popery and arbitrary power were established in
England. [344]
The regulators found that little or nothing had been gained by what had
as yet been done. There was one way, and one way only, in which they
could hope to effect their object. The charters of the boroughs must
be resumed; and other charters must be granted confining the elective
franchise to very small constituent bodies appointed by the sovereign.
[345]
But how was this plan to be carried into effect? In a few of the new
charters, indeed, a right of revocation had been reserved to the crown:
but the rest James could get into his hands only by voluntary surrender
on the part of corporations, or by judgment of the King's Bench. Few
corporations were now disposed to surrender their charters voluntarily;
and such judgments as would suit the purposes of the government were
hardly to be expected even from such a slave as Wright. The writs of Quo
Warranto which had been brought a few years before for the purpose of
crushing the Whig party had been condemned by every impartial man. Yet
those writs had at least the semblance of justice; for they were brought
against ancient municipal bodies; and there were few ancient municipal
bodies in which some abuse, sufficient to afford a pretext for a penal
proceeding, had not grown up in the course of ages. But the corporations
now to be attacked were still in the innocence of infancy. The oldest
among them had not completed its fifth year. It was impossible that many
of them should have committed offences meriting disfranchisement. The
Judges themselves were uneasy. They represented that what they were
required to do was in direct opposition to the plainest principles
of law and justice: but all remonstrance was vain. The boroughs were
commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the course
which the King took with those few did not encourage others to trust
him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away from the
commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, who were
required to bind themselves by oath to support the candidates
recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for example, the franchise
was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this number was too large.
Hatred and fear had spread so widely through the community that it
was scarcely possible to bring together in any town, by any process of
packing, thirteen men on whom the court could absolutely depend. It was
rumoured that the majority of the new constituent body of Tewkesbury was
animated by the same sentiment which was general throughout the nation,
and would, when the decisive day should arrive, send true Protestants
to Parliament. The regulators in great wrath threatened to reduce the
number of electors to three. [346] Meanwhile the great majority of
the boroughs firmly refused to give up their privileges. Barnstaple,
Winchester, and Buckingham, distinguished themselves by the boldness of
their opposition. At Oxford the motion that the city should resign its
franchises to the King was negatived by eighty votes to two. [347] The
Temple and Westminster Hall were in a ferment with the sudden rush of
business from all corners of the kingdom. Every lawyer in high practice
was overwhelmed with the briefs from corporations. Ordinary litigants
complained that their business was neglected. [348] It was evident that
a considerable time must elapse before judgment could be given in so
great a number of important cases. Tyranny could ill brook this delay.
Nothing was omitted which could terrify the refractory boroughs into
submission. At Buckingham some of the municipal officers had spoken of
Jeffreys in language which was not laudatory. They were prosecuted, and
were given to understand that no mercy should be shown to them unless
they would ransom themselves by surrendering their charter. [349] At
Winchester still more violent measures were adopted. A large body of
troops was marched into the town for the sole purpose of burdening and
harassing the inhabitants. [350] The town continued resolute; and the
public voice loudly accused the King of imitating the worst crimes of
his brother of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was
indeed reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not more
effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quartering
soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this practice had
sixty years before excited formidable discontents, and had been solemnly
pronounced illegal by the Petition of Right, a statute scarcely less
venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. But he hoped to obtain
from the courts of law a declaration that even the Petition of Right
could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted the Chief
justice of the King's Bench on this subject: [351] but the result of the
consultation remained secret; and in a very few weeks the aspect of
affairs became such that a fear stronger than even the fear of the royal
displeasure began to impose some restraint even on a man so servile as
Wright.
While the Lords Lieutenants were questioning the justices of the Peace,
while the regulators were remodelling the boroughs, all the public
departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace was first
purified. Every battered old Cavalier, who, in return for blood and
lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place under the
Keeper of the Wardrobe or the Master of the Harriers, was called upon to
choose between the King and the Church. The Commissioners of Customs
and Excise were ordered to attend His Majesty at the Treasury. There he
demanded from them a promise to support his policy, and directed them
to require a similar promise from all their subordinates. [352] One
Customhouse officer notified his submission to the royal will in a
way which excited both merriment and compassion. "I have," he said,
"fourteen reasons for obeying His Majesty's commands, a wife and
thirteen young children. " [353] Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there
were not a few instances in which, even against such reasons, religious
and patriotic feelings prevailed.
There is reason to believe that the government at this time seriously
meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of families to
beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system of every
part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could be sold without a
license. It was rumoured that every person holding such a license would
shortly be required to enter into the same engagements which had been
imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his trade. [354]
It seems certain that, if such a step had been taken, the houses of
entertainment and of public resort all over the kingdom would have been
at once shut up by hundreds. What effect such an interference with the
comfort of all ranks would have produced must be left to conjecture. The
resentment produced by grievances is not always proportioned to their
dignity; and it is by no means improbable that the resumption of
licenses might have done what the resumption of charters had failed
to do. Men of fashion would have missed the chocolate house in Saint
James's Street, and men of business the coffee pot, round which they
were accustomed to smoke and talk politics, in Change Alley. Half the
clubs would have been wandering in search of shelter. The traveller
at nightfall would have found the inn where he had expected to sup and
lodge deserted. The clown would have regretted the hedge alehouse, where
he had been accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in
summer, and at the chimney corner in winter. The nation might, perhaps
under such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting
for the help of foreign allies.
It was not to be expected that a prince who required all the humblest
servants of the government to support his policy on pain of dismission
would continue to employ an Attorney General whose aversion to that
policy was no secret. Sawyer had been suffered to retain his situation
more than a year and a half after he had declared against the dispensing
power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the extreme difficulty
which the government found in supplying his place. It was necessary, for
the protection of the pecuniary interests of the crown, that at least
one of the two chief law officers should be a man of ability and
knowledge; and it was by no means easy to induce any barrister of
ability and knowledge to put himself in peril by committing every day
acts which the next Parliament would probably treat as high crimes and
misdemeanours. It had been impossible to procure a better Solicitor
General than Powis, a man who indeed stuck at nothing, but who was
incompetent to perform the ordinary duties of his post. In these
circumstances it was thought desirable that there should be a division
of labour. An Attorney, the value of whose professional talents was much
diminished by his conscientious scruples, was coupled with a Solicitor
whose want of scruples made some amends for his want of talents. When
the government wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer.
When the government wished to break the law, recourse was had to Powis.
This arrangement lasted till the king obtained the services of an
advocate who was at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer.
No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than
William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as a
Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been
chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the
Oxford Parliament he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy
demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess
considerable quickness and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed
to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had
faults compared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for
virtues. The government sought occasion against him, and easily found
it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a narrative
which Dangerfield had written. This narrative, if published by a
private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal
information was filed in the King's Bench against Williams: he pleaded
the privileges of Parliament in vain: he was convicted and sentenced
to a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually
paid: for the rest he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had
been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield's narrative, was encouraged,
by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action,
and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this
juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way which, to
a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful
than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell himself to that
government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer
to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on those liberties and on
that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He might
expiate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigoted Tories,
stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney, shrank in horror. The
bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted.
Peterborough was induced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action.
Sawyer was dismissed. Powis became Attorney General. Williams was made
Solicitor, received the honour of knighthood, and was soon a favourite.
Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his
abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his
superior into the shade. [355]
Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear a
chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British
annals.
On the twenty-seventh of April 1688, the King put forth a second
Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the
Declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to
have convinced his people that he was not a person who could easily
be induced to depart from any resolution which he had formed. But,
as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might be
prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to
proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved to
employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and that he
had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many of his disobedient
servants from civil and military employments. He announced that he meant
to hold a Parliament in November at the latest; and he exhorted his
subjects to choose representatives who would assist him in the great
work which he had undertaken. [356]
This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It contained
nothing new; and men wondered that the King should think it worth while
to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of telling them
that he had not changed his mind. [357] Perhaps James was nettled by
the indifference with which the announcement of his fixed resolution was
received by the public, and thought that his dignity and authority would
suffer unless he without delay did something novel and striking. On
the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an Order in Council that his
Declaration of the preceding week should be read, on two successive
Sundays at the time of divine service, by the officiating ministers
of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. In London and in
the suburbs the reading was to take place on the twentieth and
twenty-seventh of May, in other parts of England on the third and
tenth of June. The Bishops were directed to distribute copies of the
Declaration through their respective dioceses. [358]
When it is considered that the clergy of the Established Church, with
scarcely an exception, regarded the Indulgence as a violation of the
laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the King, and
as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own
profession, it will scarcely admit of doubt that the Order in Council
was intended to be felt by them as a cruel affront. It was popularly
believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metaphor
borrowed from the rhetoric of the East. He would, he said, make them
eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt. But, tyrannical and
malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priesthood refuse to
obey? The King's temper was arbitrary and severe. The proceedings of the
Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary as those of a court martial.
Whoever ventured to resist might in a week be ejected from his
parsonage, deprived of his whole income, pronounced incapable of holding
any other spiritual preferment, and left to beg from door to door. If,
indeed, the whole body offered an united opposition to the royal will,
it was probable that even James would scarcely venture to punish
ten thousand delinquents at once. But there was not time to form an
extensive combination. The Order in Council was gazetted on the seventh
of May. On the twentieth the Declaration was to be read in all the
pulpits of London and the neighbourhood. By no exertion was it possible
in that age to ascertain within a fortnight the intentions of one tenth
part of the parochial ministers who were scattered over the kingdom.
It was not easy to collect in so short a time the sense even of the
episcopal order. It might also well be apprehended that, if the clergy
refused to read the Declaration, the Protestant Dissenters would
misinterpret the refusal, would despair of obtaining any toleration from
the members of the Church of England, and would throw their whole weight
into the scale of the court.
The clergy therefore hesitated; and this hesitation may well be excused:
for some eminent laymen, who possessed a large share of the public
confidence, were disposed to recommend submission. They thought that
a general opposition could hardly be expected, and that a partial
opposition would be ruinous to individuals, and of little advantage to
the Church and to the nation. Such was the opinion given at this time
by Halifax and Nottingham. The day drew near; and still there was no
concert and no formed resolution. [359]
At this conjuncture the Protestant Dissenters of London won for
themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country. They had
hitherto been reckoned by the government as part of its strength. A few
of their most active and noisy preachers, corrupted by the favours of
the court, had got up addresses in favour of the King's policy. Others,
estranged by the recollection of many cruel wrongs both from the
Church of England and from the House of Stuart, had seen with resentful
pleasure the tyrannical prince and the tyrannical hierarchy separated
by a bitter enmity, and bidding against each other for the help of sects
lately persecuted and despised. But this feeling, however natural, had
been indulged long enough. The time had come when it was necessary to
make a choice: and the Nonconformists of the City, with a noble spirit,
arrayed themselves side by side with the members of the Church in
defence of the fundamental laws of the realm. Baxter, Bates, and Howe
distinguished themselves by their efforts to bring about this coalition:
but the generous enthusiasm which pervaded the whole Puritan body made
the task easy. The zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors. Those
Presbyterian and Independent teachers who showed an inclination to take
part with the King against the ecclesiastical establishment received
distinct notice that, unless they changed their conduct, their
congregations would neither hear them nor pay them. Alsop, who had
flattered himself that he should be able to bring over a great body of
his disciples to the royal side, found himself on a sudden an object
of contempt and abhorrence to those who had lately revered him as their
spiritual guide, sank into a deep melancholy, and hid himself from the
public eye. Deputations waited on several of the London clergy imploring
them not to judge of the dissenting body from the servile adulation
which had lately filled the London Gazette, and exhorting them, placed
as they were in the van of this great fight, to play the men for the
liberties of England and for the faith delivered to the Saints. These
assurances were received with joy and gratitude. Yet there was still
much anxiety and much difference of opinion among those who had to
decide whether, on Sunday the twentieth, they would or would not obey
the King's command. The London clergy, then universally acknowledged to
be the flower of their profession, held a meeting. Fifteen Doctors
of Divinity were present. Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, the most
celebrated preacher of the age, came thither from a sick bed. Sherlock,
Master of the Temple, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough and Rector of
the important parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and Stillingfleet,
Archdeacon of London and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, attended. The
general feeling of the assembly seemed to be that it was, on the whole,
advisable to obey the Order in Council. The dispute began to wax warm,
and might have produced fatal consequences, if it had not been brought
to a close by the firmness and wisdom of Doctor Edward Fowler, Vicar of
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, one of a small but remarkable class of divines
who united that love of civil liberty which belonged to the school of
Calvin with the theology of the school of Arminius. [360] Standing up,
Fowler spoke thus: "I must be plain. The question is so simple that
argument can throw no new light on it, and can only beget heat. Let
every man say Yes or No. But I cannot consent to be bound by the vote
of the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach of unity. But this
Declaration I cannot in conscience read. " Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock,
and Stillingfleet declared that they were of the same mind. The majority
yielded to the authority of a minority so respectable. A resolution
by which all present pledged themselves to one another not to read the
Declaration was then drawn up. Patrick was the first who set his hand
to it; Fowler was the second. The paper was sent round the city, and was
speedily subscribed by eighty-five incumbents. [361]
Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as to the
course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a grave and
learned company was assembled round the table of the Primate at Lambeth.
Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop of Ely, White, Bishop of
Peterborough, and Tenison, Rector of St. Martin's parish, were among the
guests. The Earl of Clarendon, a zealous and uncompromising friend of
the Church, had been invited. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, intruded
himself on the meeting, probably as a spy. While he remained, no
confidential communication could take place; but, after his departure,
the great question of which all minds were full was propounded and
discussed. The general opinion was that the Declaration ought not to be
read. Letters were forthwith written to several of the most respectable
prelates of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come
up without delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their
metropolitan at this conjuncture. [362] As there was little doubt that
these letters would be opened if they passed through the office in
Lombard Street, they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post
towns on the different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty
had been so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from
indisposition, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but
found himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed
to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precautions,
detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of his
brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his order, did
not reach London in time. [363] His namesake, William Lloyd, Bishop of
St. Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment,
and half crazed by his persevering endeavours to extract from Daniel and
the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France,
hastened to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth. [364] On the
following day came the excellent Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lake,
Bishop of Chichester, and Sir John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a
baronet of an old and honourable Cornish family.
On the eighteenth a meeting of prelates and of other eminent divines
was held at Lambeth. Tillotson, Tenison, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
and Sherlock, were present. Prayers were solemnly read before the
consultation began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying the
general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. It was
not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cumbrous and
inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft some raillery,
which he bore with less patience than he showed under much heavier
trials. But in substance nothing could be more skilfully framed than
this memorable document. All disloyalty, all intolerance, was earnestly
disclaimed. The King was assured that the Church still was, as she had
ever been, faithful to the throne. He was assured also that the Bishops
would, in proper place and time, as Lords of Parliament and members
of the Upper House of Convocation, show that they by no means wanted
tenderness for the conscientious scruples of Dissenters.
But Parliament
had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the
sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes
in matters ecclesiastical. The Declaration was therefore illegal;
and the petitioners could not, in prudence, honour, or conscience, be
parties to the solemn publication of an illegal Declaration in the house
of God, and during the time of divine service.
This paper was signed by the Archbishop and by six of his suffragans,
Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and
Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. The Bishop of
London, being under suspension, did not sign.
It was now late on Friday evening: and on Sunday morning the Declaration
was to be read in the churches of London. It was necessary to put the
paper into the King's hands without delay. The six Bishops set off for
Whitehall. The Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the court, did
not accompany them. Lloyd, leaving his five brethren at the house of
Lord Dartmouth in the vicinity of the palace, went to Sunderland, and
begged that minister to read the petition, and to ascertain when the
King would be willing to receive it. Sunderland, afraid of compromising
himself, refused to look at the paper, but went immediately to the royal
closet. James directed that the Bishops should be admitted. He had
heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal
mandate, but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and
that they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty
was therefore in very good humour. When they knelt before him, he
graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, "This
is my Lord of Canterbury's hand. " "Yes, sir, his own hand," was the
answer. James read the petition; he folded it up; and his countenance
grew dark. "This," he said, "is a great surprise to me. I did not expect
this from your Church, especially from some of you. This is a standard
of rebellion. " The Bishops broke out into passionate professions of
loyalty: but the King, as usual, repeated the same words over and
over. "I tell you, this is a standard of rebellion. " "Rebellion! " cried
Trelawney, falling on his knees. "For God's sake, sir, do not say so
hard a thing of us. No Trelawney can be a rebel. Remember that my
family has fought for the crown. Remember how I served your Majesty when
Monmouth was in the West. " "We put down the last rebellion," said Lake,
"we shall not raise another. " "We rebel! " exclaimed Turner; "we are
ready to die at your Majesty's feet. " "Sir," said Ken, in a more manly
tone, "I hope that you will grant to us that liberty of conscience which
you grant to all mankind. " Still James went on. "This is rebellion.
This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good Churchman question
the dispensing power before? Have not some of you preached for it
and written for it? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my
Declaration published. " "We have two duties to perform," answered Ken,
"our duty to God, and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you, but we
fear God. " "Have I deserved this? " said the King, more and more, angry,
"I who have been such a friend to your Church! I did not expect this
from some of you. I will be obeyed. My Declaration shall be published.
You are trumpeters of sedition. What do you do here? Go to your dioceses
and see that I am obeyed. I will keep this paper. I will not part with
it. I will remember you that have signed it. " "God's will be done," said
Ken. "God has given me the dispensing power," said the King, "and I
will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thousand of your
Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal. " The Bishops respectfully
retired. [365] That very evening the document which they had put into
the hands of the King appeared word for word in print, was laid on
the tables of all the coffeehouses, and was cried about the streets.
Everywhere the people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the
hawkers. It was said that the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few
hours by this penny broadside. This is probably an exaggeration; but
it is an exaggeration which proves that the sale was enormous. How the
petition got abroad is still a mystery. Sancroft declared that he had
taken every precaution against publication, and that he knew of no copy
except that which he had himself written, and which James had taken out
of Lloyd's hand. The veracity of the Archbishop is beyond all suspicion.
It is, however, by no means improbable that some of the divines
who assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short
a composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The
prevailing opinion, however, was that some person about the King had
been indiscreet or treacherous. [366] Scarcely less sensation was
produced by a short letter which was written with great power of
argument and language, printed secretly, and largely circulated on the
same day by the post and by the common carriers. A copy was sent to
every clergyman in the kingdom. The writer did not attempt to disguise
the danger which those who disobeyed the royal mandate would incur: but
he set forth in a lively manner the still greater danger of submission.
"If we read the Declaration," said he, "we fall to rise no more. We fall
unpitied and despised. We fall amidst the curses of a nation whom our
compliance will have ruined. " Some thought that this paper came from
Holland. Others attributed it to Sherlock. But Prideaux, Dean of
Norwich, who was a principal agent in distributing it, believed it to be
the work of Halifax.
The conduct of the prelates was rapturously extolled by the general
voice: but some murmurs were heard. It was said that such grave men,
if they thought themselves bound in conscience to remonstrate with the
King, ought to have remonstrated earlier. Was it fair to him to leave
him in the dark till within thirty-six hours of the time fixed for the
reading of the Declaration? Even if he wished to revoke the Order in
Council, it was too late to do so. The inference seemed to be that the
petition was intended, not to move the royal mind, but merely to inflame
the discontents of the people. [367] These complaints were utterly
groundless. The King had laid on the Bishops a command new, surprising,
and embarrassing. It was their duty to communicate with each other, and
to ascertain as far as possible the sense of the profession of which
they were the heads before they took any step. They were dispersed over
the whole kingdom. Some of them were distant from others a full week's
journey. James allowed them only a fortnight to inform themselves, to
meet, to deliberate, and to decide; and he surely had no right to think
himself aggrieved because that fortnight was drawing to a close before
he learned their decision. Nor is it true that they did not leave him
time to revoke his order if he had been wise enough to do so. He might
have called together his Council on Saturday morning, and before night
it might have been known throughout London and the suburbs that he had
yielded to the intreaties of the fathers of the Church. The Saturday,
however, passed over without any sign of relenting on the part of the
government, and the Sunday arrived, a day long remembered.
In the City and Liberties of London were about a hundred parish
churches. In only four of these was the Order in Council obeyed. At
Saint Gregory's the Declaration was read by a divine of the name of
Martin. As soon as he uttered the first words, the whole congregation
rose and withdrew. At Saint Matthew's, in Friday Street, a wretch named
Timothy Hall, who had disgraced his gown by acting as broker for the
Duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons, and who now had hopes of
obtaining the vacant bishopric of Oxford, was in like manner left alone
in his church. At Serjeant's Inn, in Chancery Lane, the clerk pretended
that he had forgotten to bring a copy; and the Chief justice of the
King's Bench, who had attended in order to see that the royal mandate
was obeyed, was forced to content himself with this excuse. Samuel
Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, a curate in London, took
for his text that day the noble answer of the three Jews to the Chaldean
tyrant. "Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods,
nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. " Even in the chapel
of Saint James's Palace the officiating minister had the courage to
disobey the order. The Westminster boys long remembered what took place
that day in the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiated there as
Dean. As soon as he began to read the Declaration, murmurs and the noise
of people crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. He trembled so
violently that men saw the paper shake in his hand. Long before he had
finished, the place was deserted by all but those whose situation made
it necessary for them to remain. [368]
Never had the Church been so dear to the nation as on the afternoon of
that day. The spirit of dissent seemed to be extinct. Baxter from his
pulpit pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops and parochial clergy. The
Dutch minister, a few hours later, wrote to inform the States General
that the Anglican priesthood had risen in the estimation of the public
to an incredible degree. The universal cry of the Nonconformists,
he said, was that they would rather continue to lie under the penal
statutes than separate their cause from that of the prelates. [369]
Another week of anxiety and agitation passed away. Sunday came
again. Again the churches of the capital were thronged by hundreds
of thousands. The Declaration was read nowhere except at the very few
places where it had been read the week before. The minister who had
officiated at the chapel in Saint James's Palace had been turned out of
his situation, and a more obsequious divine appeared with the paper in
his hand: but his agitation was so great that he could not articulate.
In truth the feeling of the whole nation had now become such as none
but the very best and noblest, or the very worst and basest, of mankind
could without much discomposure encounter. [370]
Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence of the tempest
which he had raised. What step was he next to take? He must either
advance or recede: and it was impossible to advance without peril, or to
recede without humiliation. At one moment he determined to put forth a
second order enjoining the clergy in high and angry terms to publish
his Declaration, and menacing every one who should be refractory with
instant suspension. This order was drawn up and sent to the press, then
recalled, then a second time sent to the press, then recalled a second
time. [371] A different plan was suggested by some of those who were
for rigorous measures. The prelates who had signed the petition might be
cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission and deprived of their sees.
But to this course strong objections were urged in Council. It had been
announced that the Houses would be convoked before the end of the
year. The Lords would assuredly treat the sentence of deprivation as a
nullity, would insist that Sancroft and his fellow petitioners should be
summoned to Parliament, and would refuse to acknowledge a new Archbishop
of Canterbury or a new Bishop of Bath and Wells. Thus the session, which
at best was likely to be sufficiently stormy, would commence with a
deadly quarrel between the crown and the peers. If therefore it were
thought necessary to punish the Bishops, the punishment ought to be
inflicted according to the known course of English law. Sunderland
had from the beginning objected, as far as he dared, to the Order
in Council. He now suggested a course which, though not free from
inconveniences, was the most prudent and the most dignified that a
series of errors had left open to the government. The King might with
grace and majesty announce to the world that he was deeply hurt by the
undutiful conduct of the Church of England; but that he could not
forget all the services rendered by that Church, in trying times, to his
father, to his brother, and to himself; that, as a friend to the liberty
of conscience, he was unwilling to deal severely by men whom conscience,
ill informed indeed, and unreasonably scrupulous, might have prevented
from obeying his commands; and that he would therefore leave the
offenders to that punishment which their own reflections would inflict
whenever they should calmly compare their recent acts with the loyal
doctrines of which they had so loudly boasted. Not only Powis and
Bellasyse, who had always been for moderate counsels, but even Dover and
Arundell, leaned towards this proposition. Jeffreys, on the other hand,
maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors
as the seven Bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand.
He did not, however, wish them to be cited before the Ecclesiastical
Commission, in which he sate as chief or rather as sole judge. For the
load of public hatred under which he already lay was too much even
for his shameless forehead and obdurate heart; and he shrank from the
responsibility which he would have incurred by pronouncing an illegal
sentence on the rulers of the Church and the favourites of the nation.
He therefore recommended a criminal information. It was accordingly
resolved that the Archbishop and the six other petititioners should be
brought before the Court of King's Bench on a charge of seditious libel.
That they would be convicted it was scarcely possible to doubt. The
judges and their officers were tools of the court. Since the old charter
of the City of London had been forfeited, scarcely one prisoner whom
the government was bent on bringing to punishment had been absolved by
a jury. The refractory prelates would probably be condemned to ruinous
fines and to long imprisonment, and would be glad to ransom themselves
by serving, both in and out of Parliament, the designs of the Sovereign.
[372]
On the twenty-seventh of May it was notified to the Bishops that on the
eighth of June they must appear before the King in Council. Why so long
an interval was allowed we are not informed. Perhaps James hoped that
some of the offenders, terrified by his displeasure, might submit before
the day fixed for the reading of the Declaration in their dioceses, and
might, in order to make their peace with him, persuade their clergy to
obey his order. If such was his hope it was signally disappointed.
Sunday the third of June came; and all parts of England followed the
example of the capital. Already the Bishops of Norwich, Gloucester,
Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter, had signed copies of the petition
in token of their approbation. The Bishop of Worcester had refused to
distribute the Declaration among his clergy. The Bishop of Hereford had
distributed it: but it was generally understood that he was overwhelmed
by remorse and shame for having done so. Not one parish priest in fifty
complied with the Order in Council. --In the great diocese of Chester,
including the county of Lancaster, only three clergymen could be
prevailed on by Cartwright to obey the King. In the diocese of Norwich
are many hundreds of parishes. In only four of these was the Declaration
read. The courtly Bishop of Rochester could not overcome the scruples of
the minister of the ordinary of Chatham, who depended on the government
for bread. There is still extant a pathetic letter which this honest
priest sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty. "I cannot," he wrote,
"reasonably expect your Honour's protection. God's will be done. I must
choose suffering rather than sin. " [373]
On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates, furnished by
the ablest lawyers in England with full advice, repaired to the palace,
and were called into the Council chamber. Their petition was lying
on the table. The Chancellor took the paper up, showed it to the
Archbishop, and said, "Is this the paper which your Grace wrote, and
which the six Bishops present delivered to his Majesty? " Sancroft looked
at the paper, turned to the King, and spoke thus: "Sir, I stand here a
culprit. I never was so before. Once I little thought that I ever should
be so. Least of all could I think that I should be charged with any
offence against my King: but, since I am so unhappy as to be in this
situation, your Majesty will not be offended if I avail myself of my
lawful right to decline saying anything which may criminate me. " "This
is mere chicanery," said the King. "I hope that your Grace will not do
so ill a thing as to deny your own hand? Sir," said Lloyd, whose studies
had been much among the casuists, "all divines agree that a person
situated as we are may refuse to answer such a question. " The King, as
slow of understanding as quick of temper, could not comprehend what the
prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently becoming very
angry. "Sir," said the Archbishop, "I am not bound to accuse myself.
Nevertheless, if your Majesty positively commands me to answer, I will
do so in the confidence that a just and generous prince will not suffer
what I say in obedience to his orders to be brought in evidence against
me. " "You must not capitulate with your Sovereign," said the Chancellor.
"No," said the King; "I will not give any such command. If you choose to
deny your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you. "
The Bishops were repeatedly sent out into the antechamber, and
repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James positively
commanded them to answer the question. He did not expressly engage
that their confession should not be used against them. But they, not
unnaturally, supposed that, after what had passed, such an engagement
was implied in his command. Sancroft acknowledged his handwriting; and
his brethren followed his example. They were then interrogated about the
meaning of some words in the petition, and about the letter which had
been circulated with so much effect all over the kingdom: but their
language was so guarded that nothing was gained by the examination. The
Chancellor then told them that a criminal information would be exhibited
against them in the Court of King's Bench, and called upon them to enter
into recognisances. They refused. They were peers of the realm, they
said. They were advised by the best lawyers in Westminster Hall that no
peer could be required to enter into a recognisance in a case of libel;
and they should not think themselves justified in relinquishing the
privilege of their order. The King was so absurd as to think himself
personally affronted because they chose, on a legal question, to be
guided by legal advice. "You believe everybody," he said, "rather than
me. " He was indeed mortified and alarmed. For he had gone so far that,
if they persisted, he had no choice left but to send them to prison;
and, though he by no means foresaw all the consequences of such a step,
he foresaw probably enough to disturb him. They were resolute. A warrant
was therefore made out directing the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep
them in safe custody, and a barge was manned to convey them down the
river. [374]
It was known all over London that the Bishops were before the Council.
The public anxiety was intense. A great multitude filled the courts
of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets. Many people were in the
habit of refreshing themselves at the close of a summer day with the
cool air of the Thames. But on this evening the whole river was alive
with wherries. When the Seven came forth under a guard, the emotions of
the people broke through all restraint. Thousands fell on their knees
and prayed aloud for the men who had, with the Christian, courage of
Ridley and Latimer, confronted a tyrant inflamed by all the bigotry of
Mary. Many dashed into the stream, and, up to their waists in ooze and
water, cried to the holy fathers to bless them. All down the river,
from Whitehall to London Bridge, the royal barge passed between lines of
boats, from which arose a shout of "God bless your Lordships. " The King,
in great alarm, gave orders that the garrison of the Tower should be
doubled, that the Guards should be held ready for action, and that two
companies should be detached from every regiment in the kingdom, and
sent up instantly to London. But the force on which he relied as the
means of coercing the people shared all the feelings of the people.
The very sentinels who were under arms at the Traitors' Gate reverently
asked for a blessing from the martyrs whom they were to guard. Sir
Edward Hales was Lieutenant of the Tower.
