No More Learning

There was no doubt that the
next Parliament which should meet at Dublin, though representing almost
exclusively the English interest, would, in return for the King's
promise to maintain that interest in all its legal rights, willingly
grant to him a very considerable sum for the purpose of indemnifying, at
least in part, such native families as had been wrongfully despoiled.
It was thus that in our own time the French government put an end to the
disputes engendered by the most extensive confiscation that ever took
place in Europe. And thus, if James had been guided by the advice of
his most loyal Protestant counsellors, he would have at least greatly
mitigated one of the chief evils which afflicted Ireland. [162]

Having done this, he should have laboured to reconcile the hostile races
to each other by impartially protecting the rights and restraining the
excesses of both. He should have punished with equal severity the native
who indulged in the license of barbarism, and the colonist who abused
the strength of civilisation. As far as the legitimate authority of
the crown extended,--and in Ireland it extended far,--no man who
was qualified for office by integrity and ability should have been
considered as disqualified by extraction or by creed for any public
trust. It is probable that a Roman Catholic King, with an ample revenue
absolutely at his disposal, would, without much difficulty, have secured
the cooperation of the Roman Catholic prelates and priests in the great
work of reconciliation. Much, however, must still have been left to the
healing influence of time. The native race would still have had to learn
from the colonists industry and forethought, the arts of life, and the
language of England. There could not be equality between men who lived
in houses and men who lived in sties, between men who were fed on bread
and men who were fed on potatoes, between men who spoke the noble tongue
of great philosophers and poets and men who, with a perverted pride,
boasted that they could not writhe their mouths into chattering such
a jargon as that in which the Advancement of Learning and the Paradise
Lost were written. [163] Yet it is not unreasonable to believe that, if
the gentle policy which has been described had been steadily followed by
the government, all distinctions would gradually have been effaced, and
that there would now have been no more trace of the hostility which has
been the curse of Ireland than there is of the equally deadly hostility
which once raged between the Saxons and the Normans in England.

Unhappily James, instead of becoming a mediator became the fiercest and
most reckless of partisans. Instead of allaying the animosity of the two
populations, he inflamed it to a height before unknown. He determined
to reverse their relative position, and to put the Protestant colonists
under the feet of the Popish Celts. To be of the established religion,
to be of the English blood, was, in his view, a disqualification
for civil and military employment. He meditated the design of again
confiscating and again portioning out the soil of half the island, and
showed his inclination so clearly that one class was soon agitated by
terrors which he afterwards vainly wished to soothe, and the other by
hopes which he afterwards vainly wished to restrain. But this was the
smallest part of his guilt and madness. He deliberately resolved, not
merely to give to the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland the entire
possession of their own country, but also to use them as his instruments
for setting up arbitrary government in England. The event was such as
might have been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with the stubborn
hardihood of their race. The mother country justly regarded their cause
as her own. Then came a desperate struggle for a tremendous stake.
Everything dear to nations was wagered on both sides: nor can we
justly blame either the Irishman or the Englishman for obeying, in that
extremity, the law of self-preservation. The contest was terrible, but
short. The weaker went down. His fate was cruel; and yet for the cruelty
with which he was treated there was, not indeed a defence, but an
excuse: for, though he suffered all that tyranny could inflict, he
suffered nothing that he would not himself have inflicted. The effect of
the insane attempt to subjugate England by means of Ireland was that the
Irish became hewers of wood and drawers of water to the English. The
old proprietors, by their effort to recover what they had lost, lost
the greater part of what they had retained. The momentary ascendency of
Popery produced such a series of barbarous laws against Popery as made
the statute book of Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom.
Such were the bitter fruits of the policy of James.

We have seen that one of his first acts, after he became King, was to
recall Ormond from Ireland. Ormond was the head of the English interest
in that kingdom: he was firmly attached to the Protestant religion;
and his power far exceeded that of an ordinary Lord Lieutenant, first,
because he was in rank and wealth the greatest of the colonists, and,
secondly, because he was not only the chief of the civil administration,
but also commander of the forces. The King was not at that time disposed
to commit the government wholly to Irish hands. He had indeed been heard
to say that a native viceroy would soon become an independent sovereign.
[164] For the present, therefore, he determined to divide the power
which Ormond had possessed, to entrust the civil administration to an
English and Protestant Lord Lieutenant, and to give the command of the
army to an Irish and Roman Catholic General. The Lord Lieutenant was
Clarendon; the General was Tyrconnel.

Tyrconnel sprang, as has already been said, from one of those degenerate
families of the Pale which were popularly classed with the aboriginal
population of Ireland. He sometimes, indeed, in his rants, talked with
Norman haughtiness of the Celtic barbarians: [165] but all his sympathies
were really with the natives. The Protestant colonists he hated; and
they returned his hatred. Clarendon's inclinations were very different:
but he was, from temper, interest, and principle, an obsequious
courtier. His spirit was mean; his circumstances were embarrassed; and
his mind had been deeply imbued with the political doctrines which the
Church of England had in that age too assiduously taught. His abilities,
however, were not contemptible; and, under a good King, he would
probably have been a respectable viceroy.

About three quarters of a year elapsed between the recall of Ormond and
the arrival of Clarendon at Dublin. During that interval the King
was represented by a board of Lords Justices: but the military
administration was in Tyrconnel's hands. Already the designs of the
court began gradually to unfold themselves. A royal order came from
Whitehall for disarming the population. This order Tyrconnel strictly
executed as respected the English. Though the country was infested by
predatory bands, a Protestant gentleman could scarcely obtain permission
to keep a brace of pistols. The native peasantry, on the other hand,
were suffered to retain their weapons. [166] The joy of the colonists
was therefore great, when at length, in December 1685, Tyrconnel
was summoned to London and Clarendon set out for Dublin. But it soon
appeared that the government was really directed, not at Dublin, but in
London. Every mail that crossed St. George's Channel brought tidings of
the boundless influence which Tyrconnel exercised on Irish affairs. It
was said that he was to be a Marquess, that he was to be a Duke, that he
was to have the command of the forces, that he was to be entrusted
with the task of remodelling the army and the courts of justice. [167]
Clarendon was bitterly mortified at finding himself a subordinate in
ember of that administration of which he had expected to be the head.
He complained that whatever he did was misrepresented by his detractors,
and that the gravest resolutions touching the country which he governed
were adopted at Westminster, made known to the public, discussed at
coffee houses, communicated in hundreds of private letters, some weeks
before one hint had been given to the Lord Lieutenant. His own personal
dignity, he said, mattered little: but it was no light thing that the
representative of the majesty of the throne should be made an object of
contempt to the people. [168] Panic spread fast among the English
when they found that the viceroy, their fellow countryman and fellow
Protestant, was unable to extend to them the protection which they had
expected from him. They began to know by bitter experience what it is to
be a subject caste. They were harassed by the natives with accusations
of treason and sedition. This Protestant had corresponded with Monmouth:
that Protestant had said something disrespectful of the King four or
five years ago, when the Exclusion Bill was under discussion; and the
evidence of the most infamous of mankind was ready to substantiate every
charge. The Lord Lieutenant expressed his apprehension that, if these
practices were not stopped, there would soon be at Dublin a reign of
terror similar to that which he had seen in London, when every man held
his life and honour at the mercy of Oates and Bedloe. [169]

Clarendon was soon informed, by a concise despatch from Sunderland, that
it had been resolved to make without delay a complete change in both
the civil and the military government of Ireland, and to bring a large
number of Roman Catholics instantly into office. His Majesty, it was
most ungraciously added, had taken counsel on these matters with persons
more competent to advise him than his inexperienced Lord Lieutenant
could possibly be. [170]

Before this letter reached the viceroy the intelligence which it
contained had, through many channels, arrived in Ireland. The terror
of the colonists was extreme. Outnumbered as they were by the native
population, their condition would be pitiable indeed if the native
population were to be armed against them with the whole power of
the state; and nothing less than this was threatened. The English
inhabitants of Dublin passed each other in the streets with dejected
looks. On the Exchange business was suspended. Landowners hastened to
sell their estates for whatever could be got, and to remit the purchase
money to England. Traders began to call in their debts and to make
preparations for retiring from business. The alarm soon affected the
revenue. [171] Clarendon attempted to inspire the dismayed settlers with
a confidence which he was himself far from feeling. He assured them that
their property would be held sacred, and that, to his certain knowledge,
the King was fully determined to maintain the act of settlement which
guaranteed their right to the soil. But his letters to England were in
a very different strain. He ventured even to expostulate with the
King, and, without blaming His Majesty's intention of employing Roman
Catholics, expressed a strong opinion that the Roman Catholics who might
be employed should be Englishmen. [172]

The reply of James was dry and cold. He declared that he had no
intention of depriving the English colonists of their land, but that
he regarded a large portion of them as his enemies, and that, since he
consented to leave so much property in the hands of his enemies, it was
the more necessary that the civil and military administration should be
in the hands of his friends. [173]

Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of the Privy Council; and
orders were sent to corporations to admit Roman Catholics to municipal
advantages. [174] Many officers of the army were arbitrarily deprived of
their commissions and of their bread. It was to no purpose that the Lord
Lieutenant pleaded the cause of some whom he knew to be good soldiers
and loyal subjects. Among them were old Cavaliers, who had fought
bravely for monarchy, and who bore the marks of honourable wounds.
Their places were supplied by men who had no recommendation but their
religion. Of the new Captains and Lieutenants, it was said, some had
been cow-herds, some footmen, some noted marauders; some had been so
used to wear brogues that they stumbled and shuffled about strangely in
their military jack boots. Not a few of the officers who were discarded
took refuge in the Dutch service, and enjoyed, four years later, the
pleasure of driving their successors before them in ignominious rout
through the waters of the Boyne. [175]

The distress and alarm of Clarendon were increased by news which reached
him through private channels. Without his approbation, without his
knowledge, preparations were making for arming and drilling the whole
Celtic population of the country of which he was the nominal governor.
Tyrconnel from London directed the design; and the prelates of his
Church were his agents. Every priest had been instructed to prepare an
exact list of all his male parishioners capable of bearing arms, and to
forward it to his Bishop. [176]

It had already been rumoured that Tyrconnel would soon return to Dublin
armed with extraordinary and independent powers; and the rumour gathered
strength daily. The Lord Lieutenant, whom no insult could drive to
resign the pomp and emoluments of his place, declared that he should
submit cheerfully to the royal pleasure, and approve himself in all
things a faithful and obedient subject. He had never, he said, in
his life, had any difference with Tyrconnel, and he trusted that
no difference would now arise. [177] Clarendon appears not to have
recollected that there had once been a plot to ruin the fame of his
innocent sister, and that in that plot Tyrconnel had borne a chief part.
This is not exactly one of the injuries which high spirited men most
readily pardon. But, in the wicked court where the Hydes had long
been pushing their fortunes, such injuries were easily forgiven and
forgotten, not from magnanimity or Christian charity, but from mere
baseness and want of moral sensibility. In June 1686, Tyrconnel came.
His commission authorised him only to command the troops, but he brought
with him royal instructions touching all parts of the administration,
and at once took the real government of the island into his own hands.
On the day after his arrival he explicitly said that commissions must be
largely given to Roman Catholic officers, and that room must be made for
them by dismissing more Protestants. He pushed on the remodelling of
the army eagerly and indefatigably. It was indeed the only part of the
functions of a Commander in Chief which he was competent to perform;
for, though courageous in brawls and duels, he knew nothing of military
duty. At the very first review which he held, it was evident to all who
were near to him that he did not know how to draw up a regiment. [178]
To turn Englishmen out and to put Irishmen in was, in his view, the
beginning and the end of the administration of war. He had the insolence
to cashier the Captain of the Lord Lieutenant's own Body Guard: nor was
Clarendon aware of what had happened till he saw a Roman Catholic, whose
face was quite unknown to him, escorting the state coach. [179] The
change was not confined to the officers alone. The ranks were completely
broken up and recomposed. Four or five hundred soldiers were turned
out of a single regiment chiefly on the ground that they were below the
proper stature. Yet the most unpractised eye at once perceived that they
were taller and better made men than their successors, whose wild and
squalid appearance disgusted the beholders. [180] Orders were given
to the new officers that no man of the Protestant religion was to be
suffered to enlist. The recruiting parties, instead of beating their
drums for volunteers at fairs and markets, as had been the old practice,
repaired to places to which the Roman Catholics were in the habit of
making pilgrimages for purposes of devotion. In a few weeks the General
had introduced more than two thousand natives into the ranks; and the
people about him confidently affirmed that by Christmas day not a man of
English race would be left in the whole army. [181]

On all questions which arose in the Privy Council, Tyrconnel showed
similar violence and partiality. John Keating, Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, a man distinguished by ability, integrity, and loyalty,
represented with great mildness that perfect equality was all that the
General could reasonably ask for his own Church. The King, he said,
evidently meant that no man fit for public trust should be excluded
because he was a Roman Catholic, and that no man unfit for public trust
should be admitted because he was a Protestant. Tyrconnel immediately
began to curse and swear. "I do not know what to say to that; I would
have all Catholics in. " [182] The most judicious Irishmen of his own
religious persuasion were dismayed at his rashness, and ventured to
remonstrate with him; but he drove them from him with imprecations.
[183] His brutality was such that many thought him mad. Yet it was less
strange than the shameless volubility with which he uttered falsehoods.
He had long before earned the nickname of Lying Dick Talbot; and, at
Whitehall, any wild fiction was commonly designated as one of Dick
Talbot's truths. He now daily proved that he was well entitled to this
unenviable reputation. Indeed in him mendacity was almost a disease. He
would, after giving orders for the dismission of English officers, take
them into his closet, assure them of his confidence and friendship, and
implore heaven to confound him, sink him, blast him, if he did not
take good care of their interests. Sometimes those to whom he had thus
perjured himself learned, before the day closed, that he had cashiered
them. [184]

On his arrival, though he swore savagely at the Act of Settlement, and
called the English interest a foul thing, a roguish thing, and a damned
thing, he yet intended to be convinced that the distribution of property
could not, after the lapse of so many years, be altered. [185] But, when
he had been a few weeks at Dublin, his language changed. He began to
harangue vehemently at the Council board on the necessity of giving back
the land to the old owners. He had not, however, as yet, obtained
his master's sanction to this fatal project. National feeling still
struggled feebly against superstition in the mind of James. He was
an Englishman: he was an English King; and he could not, without some
misgivings, consent to the destruction of the greatest colony that
England had ever planted. The English Roman Catholics with whom he was
in the habit of taking counsel were almost unanimous in favour of the
Act of Settlement. Not only the honest and moderate Powis, but the
dissolute and headstrong Dover, gave judicious and patriotic advice.
Tyrconnel could hardly hope to counteract at a distance the effect which
such advice must produce on the royal mind. He determined to plead the
cause of his caste in person; and accordingly he set out, at the end of
August, for England.

His presence and his absence were equally dreaded by the Lord
Lieutenant. It was, indeed, painful to be daily browbeaten by an enemy:
but it was not less painful to know that an enemy was daily breathing
calumny and evil counsel in the royal ear. Clarendon was overwhelmed by
manifold vexations. He made a progress through the country, and found
that he was everywhere treated by the Irish population with contempt.
The Roman Catholic priests exhorted their congregations to withhold from
him all marks of honour. The native gentry, instead of coming to pay
their respects to him, remained at their houses. The native peasantry
everywhere sang Erse songs in praise of Tyrconnel, who would, they
doubted not, soon reappear to complete the humiliation of their
oppressors. [186] The viceroy had scarcely returned to Dublin, from his
unsatisfactory tour, when he received letters which informed him that
he had incurred the King's serious displeasure. His Majesty--so these
letters ran--expected his servants not only to do what he commanded,
but to do it from the heart, and with a cheerful countenance. The Lord
Lieutenant had not, indeed, refused to cooperate in the reform of the
army and of the civil administration; but his cooperation had been
reluctant and perfunctory: his looks had betrayed his feelings; and
everybody saw that he disapproved of the policy which he was employed
to carry into effect. [187] In great anguish of mind he wrote to defend
himself; but he was sternly told that his defence was not satisfactory.
He then, in the most abject terms, declared that he would not attempt to
justify himself, that he acquiesced in the royal judgment, be it what it
might, that he prostrated himself in the dust, that he implored pardon,
that of all penitents he was the most sincere, that he should think it
glorious to die in his Sovereign's cause, but found it impossible to
live under his Sovereign's displeasure. Nor was this mere interested
hypocrisy, but, at least in part, unaffected slavishness and poverty
of spirit; for in confidential letters, not meant for the royal eye, he
bemoaned himself to his family in the same strain. He was miserable;
he was crushed; the wrath of the King was insupportable; if that wrath
could not be mitigated, life would not be worth having. [188] The poor
man's terror increased when he learned that it had been determined at
Whitehall to recall him, and to appoint, as his successor, his rival
and calumniator, Tyrconnel. [189] Then for a time the prospect seemed
to clear; the King was in better humour; and during a few days Clarendon
flattered himself that his brother's intercession had prevailed, and
that the crisis was passed. [190]

In truth the crisis was only beginning. While Clarendon was trying to
lean on Rochester, Rochester was unable longer to support himself. As
in Ireland the elder brother, though retaining the guard of honour, the
sword of state, and the title of Excellency, had really been superseded
by the Commander of the Forces, so in England, the younger brother,
though holding the white staff, and walking, by virtue of his high
office, before the greatest hereditary nobles, was fast sinking into a
mere financial clerk. The Parliament was again prorogued to a distant
day, in opposition to the Treasurer's known wishes. He was not even told
that there was to be another prorogation, but was left to learn the news
from the Gazette. The real direction of affairs had passed to the cabal
which dined with Sunderland on Fridays. The cabinet met only to hear the
despatches from foreign courts read: nor did those despatches contain
anything which was not known on the Royal Exchange; for all the English
Envoys had received orders to put into the official letters only the
common talk of antechambers, and to reserve important secrets for
private communications which were addressed to James himself, to
Sunderland, or to Petre. [191] Yet the victorious faction was not
content. The King was assured by those whom he most trusted that the
obstinacy with which the nation opposed his designs was really to be
imputed to Rochester. How could the people believe that their Sovereign
was unalterably resolved to persevere in the course on which he had
entered, when they saw at his right hand, ostensibly first in power and
trust among his counsellors, a man who notoriously regarded that course
with strong disapprobation? Every step which had been taken with the
object of humbling the Church of England, and of elevating the Church of
Rome, had been opposed by the Treasurer. True it was that, when he
had found opposition vain, he had gloomily submitted, nay, that he had
sometimes even assisted in carrying into effect the very plans against
which he had most earnestly contended. True it was that, though he
disliked the Ecclesiastical Commission, he had consented to be a
Commissioner. True it was that he had, while declaring that he could see
nothing blamable in the conduct of the Bishop of London, voted sullenly
and reluctantly for the sentence of deprivation. But this was not
enough. A prince, engaged in an enterprise so important and arduous
as that on which James was bent, had a right to expect from his first
minister, not unwilling and ungracious acquiescence, but zealous and
strenuous cooperation. While such advice was daily given to James by
those in whom he reposed confidence, he received, by the penny post,
many anonymous letters filled with calumnies against the Lord Treasurer.
This mode of attack had been contrived by Tyrconnel, and was in perfect
harmony with every part of his infamous life. [192]

The King hesitated. He seems, indeed, to have really regarded his
brother in law with personal kindness, the effect of near affinity,
of long and familiar intercourse, and of many mutual good offices. It
seemed probable that, as long as Rochester continued to submit himself,
though tardily and with murmurs, to the royal pleasure, he would
continue to be in name prime minister. Sunderland, therefore, with
exquisite cunning, suggested to his master the propriety of asking the
only proof of obedience which it was quite certain that Rochester
never would give. At present,--such was the language of the artful
Secretary,--it was impossible to consult with the first of the King's
servants respecting the object nearest to the King's heart. It was
lamentable to think that religious prejudices should, at such a
conjuncture, deprive the government of such valuable assistance. Perhaps
those prejudices might not prove insurmountable. Then the deceiver
whispered that, to his knowledge, Rochester had of late had some
misgivings about the points in dispute between the Protestants and
Catholics. [193] This was enough. The King eagerly caught at the hint.
He began to flatter himself that he might at once escape from the
disagreeable necessity of removing a friend, and secure an able
coadjutor for the great work which was in progress. He was also elated
by the hope that he might have the merit and the glory of saving a
fellow creature from perdition. He seems, indeed, about this time, to
have been seized with an unusually violent fit of zeal for his religion;
and this is the more remarkable, because he had just relapsed, after
a short interval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which all Christian
divines condemn as sinful, and which, in an elderly man married to
an agreeable young wife, is regarded even by people of the world as
disreputable. Lady Dorchester had returned from Dublin, and was again
the King's mistress. Her return was politically of no importance. She
had learned by experience the folly of attempting to save her lover from
the destruction to which he was running headlong. She therefore suffered
the Jesuits to guide his political conduct and they, in return, suffered
her to wheedle him out of money; She was, however, only one of several
abandoned women who at this time shared, with his beloved Church, the
dominion over his mind. [194] He seems to have determined to make some
amends for neglecting the welfare of his own soul by taking care of the
souls of others. He set himself, therefore, to labour, with real good
will, but with the good will of a coarse, stern, and arbitrary mind,
for the conversion of his kinsman. Every audience which the Treasurer
obtained was spent in arguments about the authority of the Church and
the worship of images. Rochester was firmly resolved not to abjure his
religion; but he had no scruple about employing in selfdefence artifices
as discreditable as those which had been used against him. He affected
to speak like a man whose mind was not made up, professed himself
desirous to be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books,
and listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several interviews
with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the chaplain and almoner
of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure Giffard, a theologian trained
to polemics in the schools of Douay. It was agreed that there should
be a formal disputation between these doctors and some Protestant
clergymen. The King told Rochester to choose any ministers of the
Established Church, with two exceptions. The proscribed persons were
Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of
that age, and in manners the most inoffensive of men, had been much
connected with some leading Whigs; and Stillingfleet, who was renowned
as a consummate master of all the weapons of controversy, had given
still deeper offence by publishing an answer to the papers which had
been found in the strong box of Charles the Second. Rochester took the
two royal chaplains who happened to be in waiting. One of them was
Simon Patrick, whose commentaries on the Bible still form a part of
theological libraries; the other was Jane, a vehement Tory, who had
assisted in drawing up that decree by which the University of Oxford had
solemnly adopted the worst follies of Filmer. The conference took place
at Whitehall on the thirtieth of November. Rochester, who did not wish
it to be known that he had even consented to hear the arguments of
Popish priests, stipulated for secrecy. No auditor was suffered to be
present except the King. The subject discussed was the real presence.
The Roman Catholic divines took on themselves the burden of the proof.
Patrick and Jane said little; nor was it necessary that they should
say much; for the Earl himself undertook to defend the doctrine of
his Church, and, as was his habit, soon warmed with conflict, lost his
temper, and asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he
should change his religion on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered
how much he was risking, began again to dissemble, complimented the
disputants on their skill and learning, and asked time to consider what
had been said. [195]

Slow as James was, he could not but see that this was mere trifling. He
told Barillon that Rochester's language was not that of a man honestly
desirous of arriving at the truth. Still the King did not like to
propose directly to his brother in law the simple choice, apostasy or
dismissal: but, three days after the conference, Barillon waited on
the Treasurer, and, with much circumlocution and many expressions
of friendly concern, broke the unpleasant truth. "Do you mean," said
Rochester, bewildered by the involved and ceremonious phrases in
which the intimation was made, "that, if I do not turn Catholic, the
consequence will be that I shall lose my place? " "I say nothing about
consequences," answered the wary diplomatist. "I only come as a friend
to express a hope that you will take care to keep your place. " "But
surely," said Rochester, "the plain meaning of all this is that I must
turn Catholic or go out. " He put many questions for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the communication was made by authority, but
could extort only vague and mysterious replies. At last, affecting a
confidence which he was far from feeling, he declared that Barillon must
have been imposed upon by idle or malicious reports. "I tell you," he
said, "that the King will not dismiss me, and I will not resign. I know
him: he knows me; and I fear nobody. " The Frenchman answered that he was
charmed, that he was ravished to hear it, and that his only motive for
interfering was a sincere anxiety for the prosperity and dignity of his
excellent friend the Treasurer. And thus the two statesmen parted, each
flattering himself that he had duped the other. [196]

Meanwhile, in spite of all injunctions of secrecy, the news that the
Lord Treasurer had consented to be instructed in the doctrines of Popery
had spread fast through London. Patrick and Jane had been seen going in
at that mysterious door which led to Chiffinch's apartments. Some Roman
Catholics about the court had, indiscreetly or artfully, told all, and
more than all, that they knew. The Tory churchmen waited anxiously
for fuller information. They were mortified to think that their leader
should even have pretended to waver in his opinion; but they could not
believe that he would stoop to be a renegade. The unfortunate minister,
tortured at once by his fierce passions and his low desires, annoyed by
the censures of the public, annoyed by the hints which he had received
from Barillon, afraid of losing character, afraid of losing office,
repaired to the royal closet. He was determined to keep his place, if it
could be kept by any villany but one. He would pretend to be shaken in
his religious opinions, and to be half a convert: he would promise to
give strenuous support to that policy which he had hitherto opposed:
but, if he were driven to extremity, he would refuse to change his
religion. He began, therefore, by telling the King that the business in
which His Majesty took so much interest was not sleeping, that Jane
and Giffard were engaged in consulting books on the points in dispute
between the Churches, and that, when these researches were over, it
would be desirable to have another conference. Then he complained
bitterly that all the town was apprised of what ought to have been
carefully concealed, and that some persons, who, from their station,
might be supposed to be well informed, reported strange things as to the
royal intentions. "It is whispered," he said, "that, if I do not do as
your Majesty would have me, I shall not be suffered to continue in
my present station. " The King said, with some general expressions of
kindness, that it was difficult to prevent people from talking, and
that loose reports were not to be regarded. These vague phrases were not
likely to quiet the perturbed mind of the minister. His agitation became
violent, and he began to plead for his place as if he had been pleading
for his life. "Your Majesty sees that I do all in my power to obey you.
Indeed I will do all that I can to obey you in every thing. I will serve
you in your own way. Nay," he cried, in an agony of baseness, "I will do
what I can to believe as you would have me. But do not let me be
told, while I am trying to bring my mind to this, that, if I find
it impossible to comply, I must lose all. For I must needs tell your
Majesty that there are other considerations. " "Oh, you must needs,"
exclaimed the King, with an oath. For a single word of honest and
manly sound, escaping in the midst of all this abject supplication, was
sufficient to move his anger. "I hope, sir," said poor Rochester, "that
I do not offend you. Surely your Majesty could not think well of me if I
did not say so. " The King recollected himself protested that he was not
offended, and advised the Treasurer to disregard idle rumours, and to
confer again with Jane and Giffard. [197]

After this conversation, a fortnight elapsed before the decisive blow
fell. That fortnight Rochester passed in intriguing and imploring. He
attempted to interest in his favour those Roman Catholics who had the
greatest influence at court. He could not, he said, renounce his own
religion: but, with that single reservation, he would do all that they
could desire. Indeed, if he might only keep his place, they should find
that he could be more useful to them as a Protestant than as one of
their own communion. [198] His wife, who was on a sick bed, had already,
it was said, solicited the honour of a visit from the much injured
Queen, and had attempted to work on Her Majesty's feelings of
compassion. [199] But the Hydes abased themselves in vain. Petre
regarded them with peculiar malevolence, and was bent on their ruin.
[200] On the evening of the seventeenth of December the Earl was called
into the royal closet. James was unusually discomposed, and even shed
tears. The occasion, indeed, could not but call up some recollections
which might well soften even a hard heart. He expressed his regret that
his duty made it impossible for him to indulge his private partialities.
It was absolutely necessary, he said, that those who had the chief
direction of his affairs should partake his opinions and feelings. He
owned that he had very great personal obligations to Rochester, and that
no fault could be found with the way in which the financial business
had lately been done: but the office of Lord Treasurer was of such high
importance that, in general, it ought not to be entrusted to a single
person, and could not safely be entrusted by a Roman Catholic King to a
person zealous for the Church of England. "Think better of it, my Lord,"
he continued. "Read again the papers from my brother's box. I will give
you a little more time for consideration, if you desire it. " Rochester
saw that all was over, and that the wisest course left to him was to
make his retreat with as much money and as much credit as possible. He
succeeded in both objects. He obtained a pension of four thousand pounds
a year for two lives on the post office. He had made great sums out of
the estates of traitors, and carried with him in particular Grey's bond
for forty thousand pounds, and a grant of all the estate which the
crown had in Grey's extensive property. [201] No person had ever quitted
office on terms so advantageous. To the applause of the sincere friends
of the Established Church Rochester had, indeed, very slender claims.
To save his place he had sate in that tribunal which had been illegally
created for the purpose of persecuting her. To save his place he had
given a dishonest vote for degrading one of her most eminent ministers,
had affected to doubt her orthodoxy, had listened with the outward show
of docility to teachers who called her schismatical and heretical, and
had offered to cooperate strenuously with her deadliest enemies in their
designs against her. The highest praise to which he was entitled was
this, that he had shrunk from the exceeding wickedness and baseness of
publicly abjuring, for lucre, the religion in which he had been brought
up, which he believed to be true, and of which he had long made an
ostentatious profession. Yet he was extolled by the great body of
Churchmen as if he had been the bravest and purest of martyrs. The
Old and New Testaments, the Martyrologies of Eusebius and of Fox, were
ransacked to find parallels for his heroic piety. He was Daniel in the
den of lions, Shadrach in the fiery furnace, Peter in the dungeon of
Herod, Paul at the bar of Nero, Ignatius in the amphitheatre, Latimer at
the stake. Among the many facts which prove that the standard of honour
and virtue among the public men of that age was low, the admiration
excited by Rochester's constancy is, perhaps, the most decisive.

In his fall he dragged down Clarendon. On the seventh of January 1687,
the Gazette announced to the people of London that the Treasury was put
into commission. On the eighth arrived at Dublin a despatch formally
signifying that in a month Tyrconnel would assume the government
of Ireland. It was not without great difficulty that this man had
surmounted the numerous impediments which stood in the way of his
ambition. It was well known that the extermination of the English colony
in Ireland was the object on which his heart was set. He had, therefore,
to overcome some scruples in the royal mind. He had to surmount the
opposition, not merely of all the Protestant members of the government,
not merely of the moderate and respectable heads of the Roman Catholic
body, but even of several members of the jesuitical cabal. [202]
Sunderland shrank from the thought of an Irish revolution, religious,
political, and social. To the Queen Tyrconnel was personally an object
of aversion. Powis was therefore suggested as the man best qualified
for the viceroyalty. He was of illustrious birth: he was a sincere Roman
Catholic: and yet he was generally allowed by candid Protestants to be
an honest man and a good Englishman. All opposition, however, yielded
to Tyrconnel's energy and cunning. He fawned, bullied, and bribed
indefatigably. Petre's help was secured by flattery. Sunderland was
plied at once with promises and menaces. An immense price was offered
for his support, no less than an annuity of five thousand pounds a year
from Ireland, redeemable by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. If
this proposal were rejected, Tyrconnel threatened to let the King
know that the Lord President had, at the Friday dinners, described His
Majesty as a fool who must be governed either by a woman or by a priest.
Sunderland, pale and trembling, offered to procure for Tyrconnel supreme
military command, enormous appointments, anything but the viceroyalty:
but all compromise was rejected; and it was necessary to yield. Mary of
Modena herself was not free from suspicion of corruption. There was
in London a renowned chain of pearls which was valued at ten thousand
pounds. It had belonged to Prince Rupert; and by him it had been left
to Margaret Hughes, a courtesan who, towards the close of his life, had
exercised a boundless empire over him. Tyrconnel loudly boasted that
with this chain he had purchased the support of the Queen. There were
those, however, who suspected that this story was one of Dick Talbot's
truths, and that it had no more foundation than the calumnies which,
twenty-six years before, he had invented to blacken the fame of
Anne Hyde. To the Roman Catholic courtiers generally he spoke of the
uncertain tenure by which they held offices, honours, and emoluments.
The King might die tomorrow, and might leave them at the mercy of a
hostile government and a hostile rabble. But, if the old faith could
be made dominant in Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that country
could be destroyed, there would still be, in the worst event, an
asylum at hand to which they might retreat, and where they might either
negotiate or defend themselves with advantage. A Popish priest was hired
with the promise of the mitre of Waterford to preach at Saint James's
against the Act of Settlement; and his sermon, though heard with deep
disgust by the English part of the auditory, was not without its effect.
The struggle which patriotism had for a time maintained against bigotry
in the royal mind was at an end. "There is work to be done in Ireland,"
said James, "which no Englishman will do. " [203]

All obstacles were at length removed; and in February 1687, Tyrconnel
began to rule his native country with the power and appointments of Lord
Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of Lord Deputy.

His arrival spread dismay through the whole English population.
Clarendon was accompanied, or speedily followed, across St. George's
Channel, by a large proportion of the most respectable inhabitants of
Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artificers. It was said that
fifteen hundred families emigrated in a few days. The panic was not
unreasonable. The work of putting the colonists down under the feet
of the natives went rapidly on. In a short time almost every Privy
Councillor, Judge, Sheriff, Mayor, Alderman, and Justice of the Peace
was a Celt and a Roman Catholic. It seemed that things would soon
be ripe for a general election, and that a House of Commons bent on
abrogating the Act of Settlement would easily be assembled. [204]
Those who had lately been the lords of the island now cried out, in
the bitterness of their souls, that they had become a prey and a
laughingstock to their own serfs and menials; that houses were burnt and
cattle stolen with impunity; that the new soldiers roamed the country,
pillaging, insulting, ravishing, maiming, tossing one Protestant in a
blanket, tying up another by the hair and scourging him; that to appeal
to the law was vain; that Irish Judges, Sheriffs, juries, and witnesses
were all in a league to save Irish criminals; and that, even without an
Act of Parliament, the whole soil would soon change hands; for that, in
every action of ejectment tried under the administration of Tyrconnel,
judgment had been given for the native against the Englishman. [205]

While Clarendon was at Dublin the Privy Seal had been in the hands of
Commissioners. His friends hoped that it would, on his return to London,
be again delivered to him. But the King and the Jesuitical cabal had
determined that the disgrace of the Hydes should be complete. Lord
Arundell of Wardour, a Roman Catholic, received the Privy Seal.
Bellasyse, a Roman Catholic, was made First Lord of the Treasury; and
Dover, another Roman Catholic, had a seat at the board. The appointment
of a ruined gambler to such a trust would alone have sufficed to disgust
the public. The dissolute Etherege, who then resided at Ratisbon as
English envoy, could not refrain from expressing, with a sneer, his hope
that his old boon companion, Dover, would keep the King's money
better than his own. In order that the finances might not be ruined by
incapable and inexperienced Papists, the obsequious, diligent and silent
Godolphin was named a Commissioner of the Treasury, but continued to be
Chamberlain to the Queen. [206]

The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch in the reign of
James. From that time it was clear that what he really wanted was not
liberty of conscience for the members of his own church, but liberty to
persecute the members of other churches. Pretending to abhor tests, he
had himself imposed a test. He thought it hard, he thought it monstrous,
that able and loyal men should be excluded from the public service
solely for being Roman Catholics. Yet he had himself turned out of
office a Treasurer, whom he admitted to be both loyal and able, solely
for being a Protestant. The cry was that a general proscription was at
hand, and that every public functionary must make up his mind to lose
his soul or to lose his place. [207] Who indeed could hope to stand
where the Hydes had fallen? They were the brothers in law of the King,
the uncles and natural guardians of his children, his friends from
early youth, his steady adherents in adversity and peril, his obsequious
servants since he had been on the throne. Their sole crime was
their religion; and for this crime they had been discarded. In great
perturbation men began to look round for help; and soon all eyes were
fixed on one whom a rare concurrence both of personal qualities and of
fortuitous circumstances pointed out as the deliverer.




CHAPTER VII

William, Prince of Orange; his Appearance--His early Life and
Education--His Theological Opinions--His Military Qualifications--His
Love of Danger; his bad Health--Coldness of his Manners and Strength
of his Emotions; his Friendship for Bentinck--Mary, Princess of
Orange--Gilbert Burnet--He brings about a good Understanding between the
Prince and Princess--Relations between William and English Parties--His
Feelings towards England--His Feelings towards Holland and France--His
Policy consistent throughout--Treaty of Augsburg--William becomes the
Head of the English Opposition--Mordaunt proposes to William a Descent
on England--William rejects the Advice--Discontent in England after
the Fall of the Hydes--Conversions to Popery; Peterborough;
Salisbury--Wycherley; Tindal; Haines--Dryden--The Hind and
Panther--Change in the Policy of the Court towards the Puritans--Partial
Toleration granted in Scotland--Closeting--It is unsuccessful--Admiral
Herbert--Declaration of Indulgence--Feeling of the Protestant
Dissenters--Feeling of the Church of England--The Court and the
Church--Letter to a Dissenter; Conduct of the Dissenters--Some of the
Dissenters side with the Court; Care; Alsop--Rosewell; Lobb--Venn--The
Majority of the Puritans are against the Court; Baxter;
Howe,--Banyan--Kiffin--The Prince and Princess of Orange hostile to
the Declaration of Indulgence--Their Views respecting the English Roman
Catholics vindicated--Enmity of James to Burnet--Mission of Dykvelt
to England; Negotiations of Dykvelt with English
Statesmen--Danby--Nottingham--Halifax--Devonshire--Edward Russell;
Compton; Herbert--Churchill--Lady Churchill and the Princess
Anne--Dykvelt returns to the Hague with Letters from many eminent
Englishmen--Zulestein's Mission--Growing Enmity between James and
William--Influence of the Dutch Press--Correspondence of Stewart and
Fagel--Castelmaine's embassy to Rome

THE place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, occupies in the
history of England and of mankind is so great that it may be desirable
to portray with some minuteness the strong lineaments of his character.
[208]

He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and in mind he
was older than other men of the same age. Indeed it might be said that
he had never been young. His external appearance is almost as well known
to us as to his own captains and counsellors. Sculptors, painters, and
medallists exerted their utmost skill in the work of transmitting his
features to posterity; and his features were such as no artist could
fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could never be forgotten. His
name at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty
and ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye
rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and
somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale,
thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by care. That pensive,
severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or
a goodhumoured man. But it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken
capacity equal to the most arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be
shaken by reverses or dangers.

Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great ruler;
and education had developed those qualities in no common degree. With
strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he found himself, when
first his mind began to open, a fatherless and motherless child, the
chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, and the heir to
vast and indefinite pretensions, which excited the dread and aversion of
the oligarchy then supreme in the United Provinces. The common people,
fondly attached during a century to his house, indicated, whenever they
saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as
their rightful head. The able and experienced ministers of the republic,
mortal enemies of his name, came every day to pay their feigned
civilities to him, and to observe the progress of his mind. The first
movements of his ambition were carefully watched: every unguarded word
uttered by him was noted down; nor had he near him any adviser on whose
judgment reliance could be placed. He was scarcely fifteen years old
when all the domestics who were attached to his interest, or who enjoyed
any share of his confidence, were removed from under his roof by the
jealous government. He remonstrated with energy beyond his years, but in
vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more than once rise in the eyes
of the young state prisoner. His health, naturally delicate, sank for a
time under the emotions which his desolate situation had produced.
Such situations bewilder and unnerve the weak, but call forth all the
strength of the strong. Surrounded by snares in which an ordinary youth
would have perished, William learned to tread at once warily and firmly.
Long before he reached manhood he knew how to keep secrets, how to
baffle curiosity by dry and guarded answers, how to conceal all passions
under the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile he made little
proficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments. The manners of
the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace which was found in
the highest perfection among the gentlemen of France, and which, in an
inferior degree, embellished the Court of England; and his manners were
altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners
he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse with the world in general
he appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the
value of a favour and take away the sting of a refusal. He was little
interested in letters or science. The discoveries of Newton and
Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were unknown to him. Dramatic
performances tired him; and he was glad to turn away from the stage
and to talk about public affairs, while Orestes was raving, or while
Tartuffe was pressing Elmira's hand. He had indeed some talent for
sarcasm, and not seldom employed, quite unconsciously, a natural
rhetoric, quaint, indeed, but vigorous and original. He did not,
however, in the least affect the character of a wit or of an orator. His
attention had been confined to those studies which form strenuous and
sagacious men of business. From a child he listened with interest when
high questions of alliance, finance, and war were discussed. Of geometry
he learned as much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or
a hornwork. Of languages, by the help of a memory singularly powerful,
he learned as much as was necessary to enable him to comprehend and
answer without assistance everything that was said to him, and every
letter which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. He understood
Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote French, English,
and German, inelegantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently and
intelligibly. No qualification could be more important to a man whose
life was to be passed in organizing great alliances, and in commanding
armies assembled from different countries.

One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his attention
by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more than might have
been expected from his general character. Among the Protestants of the
United Provinces, as among the Protestants of our island, there were two
great religious parties which almost exactly coincided with two great
political parties. The chiefs of the municipal oligarchy were Arminians,
and were commonly regarded by the multitude as little better than
Papists. The princes of Orange had generally been the patrons of the
Calvinistic divinity, and owed no small part of their popularity to
their zeal for the doctrines of election and final perseverance, a zeal
not always enlightened by knowledge or tempered by humanity. William
had been carefully instructed from a child in the theological system to
which his family was attached, and regarded that system with even more
than the partiality which men generally feel for a hereditary faith. He
had ruminated on the great enigmas which had been discussed in the
Synod of Dort, and had found in the austere and inflexible logic of the
Genevese school something which suited his intellect and his temper.
That example of intolerance indeed which some of his predecessors had
set he never imitated. For all persecution he felt a fixed aversion,
which he avowed, not only where the avowal was obviously politic, but on
occasions where it seemed that his interest would have been promoted
by dissimulation or by silence. His theological opinions, however,
were even more decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet of
predestination was the keystone of his religion. He often declared that,
if he were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all belief in
a superintending Providence, and must become a mere Epicurean. Except in
this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind was early drawn
away from the speculative to the practical. The faculties which are
necessary for the conduct of important business ripened in him at a time
of life when they have scarcely begun to blossom in ordinary men.
Since Octavius the world had seen no such instance of precocious
statesmanship. Skilful diplomatists were surprised to hear the weighty
observations which at seventeen the Prince made on public affairs, and
still more surprised to see a lad, in situations in which he might
have been expected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as
imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the
commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them.
At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head
of the administration. At twenty-three he was renowned throughout Europe
as a soldier and a politician. He had put domestic factions under his
feet: he was the soul of a mighty coalition; and he had contended with
honour in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age.

His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a statesman:
but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silent prince who founded the
Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher place among statesmen than
among warriors. The event of battles, indeed, is not an unfailing test
of the abilities of a commander; and it would be peculiarly unjust to
apply this test to William: for it was his fortune to be almost always
opposed to captains who were consummate masters of their art, and to
troops far superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is reason to
believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to
some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he
trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frankness of a man
who had done great things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some
deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the
military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head
of an army. Among his officers there had been none competent to instruct
him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only lessons.
"I would give," he once exclaimed, "a good part of my estates to have
served a few campaigns under the Prince of Conde before I had to command
against him. " It is not improbable that the circumstance which prevented
William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been
favourable to the general vigour of his intellect. If his battles were
not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be called a great
man. No disaster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of
the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired
with such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te
Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever
deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect
and confidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage.
Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without
disgrace through a campaign, is possessed, or might, under proper
training, be acquired, by the great majority of men.