No More Learning

He gave his assent to the Supply Bill, thanked
the Houses for it, announced his intention of going to Ireland, and
prorogued the Parliament. None could doubt that a dissolution would
speedily follow. As the concluding words, "I have thought it convenient
now to put an end to this session," were uttered, the Tories, both above
and below the bar, broke forth into a shout of joy. The King meanwhile
surveyed his audience from the throne with that bright eagle eye which
nothing escaped. He might be pardoned if he felt some little vindictive
pleasure in annoying those who had cruelly annoyed him. "I saw," he
wrote to Portland the next day, "faces an ell long. I saw some of those
men change colour with vexation twenty times while I was speaking. "
[566]

A few hours after the prorogation, a hundred and fifty Tory members of
Parliament had a parting dinner together at the Apollo Tavern in Fleet
Street, before they set out for their counties. They were in better
temper with William than they had been since his father in law had been
turned out of Whitehall. They had scarcely recovered from the joyful
surprise with which they had heard it announced from the throne that the
session was at an end. The recollection of their danger and the sense of
their deliverance were still fresh. They talked of repairing to Court in
a body to testify their gratitude: but they were induced to forego their
intention; and not without cause: for a great crowd of squires after a
revel, at which doubtless neither October nor claret had been spared,
might have caused some inconvenience in the presence chamber. Sir
John Lowther, who in wealth and influence was inferior to no country
gentleman of that age, was deputed to carry the thanks of the assembly
to the palace. He spoke, he told the King, the sense of a great body of
honest gentlemen. They begged His Majesty to be assured that they would
in their counties do their best to serve him; and they cordially wished
him a safe voyage to Ireland, a complete victory, a speedy return, and
a long and happy reign. During the following week, many, who had never
shown their faces in the circle at Saint James's since the Revolution,
went to kiss the King's hand. So warmly indeed did those who had
hitherto been regarded as half Jacobites express their approbation of
the policy of the government that the thoroughgoing Jacobites were much
disgusted, and complained bitterly of the strange blindness which seemed
to have come on the sons of the Church of England, [567]

All the acts of William, at this time, indicated his determination to
restrain, steadily though gently, the violence of the Whigs, and to
conciliate, if possible, the good will of the Tories. Several persons
whom the Commons had thrown into prison for treason were set at liberty
on bail, [568] The prelates who held that their allegiance was still
due to James were treated with a tenderness rare in the history of
revolutions. Within a week after the prorogation, the first of February
came, the day on which those ecclesiastics who refused to take the oath
were to be finally deprived. Several of the suspended clergy, after
holding out till the last moment, swore just in time to save themselves
from beggary. But the Primate and five of his suffragans were still
inflexible. They consequently forfeited their bishoprics; but Sancroft
was informed that the King had not yet relinquished the hope of being
able to make some arrangement which might avert the necessity of
appointing successors, and that the nonjuring prelates might continue
for the present to reside in their palaces. Their receivers were
appointed receivers for the Crown, and continued to collect the revenues
of the vacant sees, [569] Similar indulgence was shown to some
divines of lower rank. Sherlock, in particular, continued, after his
deprivation, to live unmolested in his official mansion close to the
Temple Church.

And now appeared a proclamation dissolving the Parliament. The writs for
a general election went out; and soon every part of the kingdom was in
a ferment. Van Citters, who had resided in England during many eventful
years, declared that he had never seen London more violently agitated,
[570] The excitement was kept up by compositions of all sorts, from
sermons with sixteen heads down to jingling street ballads. Lists of
divisions were, for the first time in our history, printed and dispersed
for the information of constituent bodies. Two of these lists may still
be seen in old libraries. One of the two, circulated by the Whigs,
contained the names of those Tories who had voted against declaring the
throne vacant. The other, circulated by the Tories, contained the names
of those Whigs who had supported the Sacheverell clause.

It soon became clear that public feeling had undergone a great change
during the year which had elapsed since the Convention had met; and
it is impossible to deny that this change was, at least in part, the
natural consequence and the just punishment of the intemperate and
vindictive conduct of the Whigs. Of the city of London they thought
themselves sure. The Livery had in the preceding year returned four
zealous Whigs without a contest. But all the four had voted for the
Sacheverell clause; and by that clause many of the merchant princes of
Lombard Street and Cornhill, men powerful in the twelve great companies,
men whom the goldsmiths followed humbly, hat in hand, up and down the
arcades of the Royal Exchange, would have been turned with all indignity
out of the Court of Aldermen and out of the Common Council. The struggle
was for life or death. No exertions, no artifices, were spared. William
wrote to Portland that the Whigs of the City, in their despair, stuck
at nothing, and that, as they went on, they would soon stand as much
in need of an Act of Indemnity as the Tories. Four Tories however were
returned, and that by so decisive a majority, that the Tory who stood
lowest polled four hundred votes more than the Whig who stood highest,
[571] The Sheriffs, desiring to defer as long as possible the triumph
of their enemies, granted a scrutiny. But, though the majority was
diminished, the result was not affected, [572] At Westminster, two
opponents of the Sacheverell clause were elected without a contest,
[573] But nothing indicated more strongly the disgust excited by
the proceedings of the late House of Commons than what passed in the
University of Cambridge. Newton retired to his quiet observatory over
the gate of Trinity College. Two Tories were returned by an overwhelming
majority. At the head of the poll was Sawyer, who had, but a few days
before, been excepted from the Indemnity Bill and expelled from the
House of Commons. The records of the University contain curious proofs
that the unwise severity with which he had been treated had raised an
enthusiastic feeling in his favour. Newton voted for Sawyer; and this
remarkable fact justifies us in believing that the great philosopher,
in whose genius and virtue the Whig party justly glories, had seen
the headstrong and revengeful conduct of that party with concern and
disapprobation, [574]

It was soon plain that the Tories would have a majority in the new House
of Commons, [575] All the leading Whigs however obtained seats, with one
exception. John Hampden was excluded, and was regretted only by the most
intolerant and unreasonable members of his party, [576]

The King meanwhile was making, in almost every department of the
executive government, a change corresponding to the change which the
general election was making in the composition of the legislature.
Still, however, he did not think of forming what is now called a
ministry. He still reserved to himself more especially the direction
of foreign affairs; and he superintended with minute attention all
the preparations for the approaching campaign in Ireland. In his
confidential letters he complained that he had to perform, with little
or no assistance, the task of organizing the disorganized military
establishments of the kingdom. The work, he said, was heavy; but it must
be done; for everything depended on it, [577] In general, the government
was still a government by independent departments; and in almost every
department Whigs and Tories were still mingled, though not exactly in
the old proportions. The Whig element had decidedly predominated, in
1689. The Tory element predominated, though not very decidedly, in 1690.

Halifax had laid down the Privy Seal. It was offered to Chesterfield,
a Tory who had voted in the Convention for a Regency. But Chesterfield
refused to quit his country house and gardens in Derbyshire for
the Court and the Council Chamber; and the Privy Seal was put into
Commission, [578] Caermarthen was now the chief adviser of the Crown
on all matters relating to the internal administration and to the
management of the two Houses of Parliament. The white staff, and the
immense power which accompanied the white staff, William was still
determined never to entrust to any subject. Caermarthen therefore,
continued to be Lord President; but he took possession of a suite of
apartments in Saint James's Palace which was considered as peculiarly
belonging to the Prime Minister, [579] He had, during the preceding
year, pleaded ill health as an excuse for seldom appearing at the
Council Board; and the plea was not without foundation, for his
digestive organs had some morbid peculiarities which puzzled the whole
College of Physicians; his complexion was livid; his frame was meagre;
and his face, handsome and intellectual as it was, had a haggard look
which indicated the restlessness of pain as well as the restlessness
of ambition, [580] As soon, however, as he was once more minister, he
applied himself strenuously to business, and toiled every day, and all
day long, with an energy which amazed every body who saw his ghastly
countenance and tottering gait.

Though he could not obtain for himself the office of Lord Treasurer, his
influence at the Treasury was great. Monmouth, the First Commissioner,
and Delamere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, two of the most violent
Whigs in England, quitted their seats. On this, as on many other
occasions, it appeared that they had nothing but their Whiggism
in common. The volatile Monmouth, sensible that he had none of the
qualities of a financier, seems to have taken no personal offence at
being removed from a place which he never ought to have occupied. He
thankfully accepted a pension, which his profuse habits made necessary
to him, and still continued to attend councils, to frequent the Court,
and to discharge the duties of a Lord of the Bedchamber, [581] He also
tried to make himself useful in military business, which he understood,
if not well, yet better than most of his brother nobles; and he
professed, during a few months, a great regard for Caermarthen. Delamere
was in a very different mood. It was in vain that his services were
overpaid with honours and riches. He was created Earl of Warrington. He
obtained a grant of all the lands that could be discovered belonging
to Jesuits in five or six counties. A demand made by him on account
of expenses incurred at the time of the Revolution was allowed; and
he carried with him into retirement as the reward of his patriotic
exertions a large sum, which the State could ill spare. But his anger
was not to be so appeased; and to the end of his life he continued to
complain bitterly of the ingratitude with which he and his party had
been treated, [582]

Sir John Lowther became First Lord of the Treasury, and was the person
on whom Caermarthen chiefly relied for the conduct of the ostensible
business of the House of Commons. Lowther was a man of ancient descent,
ample estate, and great parliamentary interest. Though not an old man,
he was an old senator: for he had, before he was of age, succeeded
his father as knight of the shire for Westmoreland. In truth
the representation of Westmoreland was almost as much one of the
hereditaments of the Lowther family as Lowther Hall. Sir John's
abilities were respectable; his manners, though sarcastically noticed
in contemporary lampoons as too formal, were eminently courteous;
his personal courage he was but too ready to prove; his morals were
irreproachable; his time was divided between respectable labours and
respectable pleasures; his chief business was to attend the House of
Commons and to preside on the Bench of justice; his favourite amusements
were reading and gardening. In opinions he was a very moderate Tory. He
was attached to hereditary monarchy and to the Established Church; but
he had concurred in the Revolution; he had no misgivings touching the
title of William and Mary; he had sworn allegiance to them without
any mental reservation; and he appears to have strictly kept his oath.
Between him and Caermarthen there was a close connection. They had acted
together cordially in the Northern insurrection; and they agreed in
their political views, as nearly as a very cunning statesman and a
very honest country gentleman could be expected to agree, [583] By
Caermarthen's influence Lowther was now raised to one of the most
important places in the kingdom. Unfortunately it was a place requiring
qualities very different from those which suffice to make a valuable
county member and chairman of quarter sessions. The tongue of the new
First Lord of the Treasury was not sufficiently ready, nor was his
temper sufficiently callous for his post. He had neither adroitness to
parry, nor fortitude to endure, the gibes and reproaches to which, in
his new character of courtier and placeman, he was exposed. There was
also something to be done which he was too scrupulous to do; something
which had never been done by Wolsey or Burleigh; something which has
never been done by any English statesman of our generation; but which,
from the time of Charles the Second to the time of George the Third, was
one of the most important parts of the business of a minister.

The history of the rise, progress, and decline of parliamentary
corruption in England still remains to be written. No subject has called
forth a greater quantity of eloquent vituperation and stinging sarcasm.
Three generations of serious and of sportive writers wept and laughed
over the venality of the senate. That venality was denounced on the
hustings, anathematized from the pulpit, and burlesqued on the stage;
was attacked by Pope in brilliant verse, and by Bolingbroke in stately
prose, by Swift with savage hatred, and by Gay with festive malice. The
voices of Tories and Whigs, of Johnson and Akenside, of Smollett and
Fielding, contributed to swell the cry. But none of those who railed
or of those who jested took the trouble to verify the phaenomena, or to
trace them to the real causes.

Sometimes the evil was imputed to the depravity of a particular
minister: but, when he had been driven from power, and when those who
had most loudly accused him governed in his stead, it was found that the
change of men had produced no change of system. Sometimes the evil
was imputed to the degeneracy of the national character. Luxury and
cupidity, it was said, had produced in our country the same effect which
they had produced of old in the Roman republic. The modern Englishman
was to the Englishman of the sixteenth century what Verres and Curio
were to Dentatus and Fabricius. Those who held this language were as
ignorant and shallow as people generally are who extol the past at the
expense of the present. A man of sense would have perceived that, if the
English of the time of George the Second had really been more sordid and
dishonest than their forefathers, the deterioration would not have shown
itself in one place alone. The progress of judicial venality and
of official venality would have kept pace with the progress of
parliamentary venality. But nothing is more certain than that, while the
legislature was becoming more and more venal, the courts of law and the
public offices were becoming purer and purer. The representatives of
the people were undoubtedly more mercenary in the days of Hardwicke and
Pelham than in the days of the Tudors. But the Chancellors of the
Tudors took plate and jewels from suitors without scruple or shame; and
Hardwicke would have committed for contempt any suitor who had dared
to bring him a present. The Treasurers of the Tudors raised princely
fortunes by the sale of places, titles, and pardons; and Pelham would
have ordered his servants to turn out of his house any man who had
offered him money for a peerage or a commissionership of customs. It is
evident, therefore, that the prevalence of corruption in the Parliament
cannot be ascribed to a general depravation of morals. The taint was
local; we must look for some local cause; and such a cause will without
difficulty be found.

Under our ancient sovereigns the House of Commons rarely interfered with
the executive administration. The Speaker was charged not to let
the members meddle with matters of State. If any gentleman was very
troublesome he was cited before the Privy Council, interrogated,
reprimanded, and sent to meditate on his undutiful conduct in the
Tower. The Commons did their best to protect themselves by keeping their
deliberations secret, by excluding strangers, by making it a crime to
repeat out of doors what had passed within doors. But these precautions
were of small avail. In so large an assembly there were always
talebearers ready to carry the evil report of their brethren to the
palace. To oppose the Court was therefore a service of serious danger.
In those days of course, there was little or no buying of votes. For an
honest man was not to be bought; and it was much cheaper to intimidate
or to coerce a knave than to buy him.

For a very different reason there has been no direct buying of votes
within the memory of the present generation. The House of Commons is
now supreme in the State, but is accountable to the nation. Even those
members who are not chosen by large constituent bodies are kept in awe
by public opinion. Every thing is printed; every thing is discussed;
every material word uttered in debate is read by a million of people on
the morrow. Within a few hours after an important division, the lists
of the majority and the minority are scanned and analysed in every town
from Plymouth to Inverness. If a name be found where it ought not to be,
the apostate is certain to be reminded in sharp language of the promises
which he has broken and of the professions which he has belied. At
present, therefore, the best way in which a government can secure the
support of a majority of the representative body is by gaining the
confidence of the nation.

But between the time when our Parliaments ceased to be controlled by
royal prerogative and the time when they began to be constantly and
effectually controlled by public opinion there was a long interval.
After the Restoration, no government ventured to return to those methods
by which, before the civil war, the freedom of deliberation has been
restrained. A member could no longer be called to account for his
harangues or his votes. He might obstruct the passing of bills of
supply; he might arraign the whole foreign policy of the country; he
might lay on the table articles of impeachment against all the chief
ministers; and he ran not the smallest risk of being treated as Morrice
had been treated by Elizabeth, or Eliot by Charles the First. The
senator now stood in no awe of the Court. Nevertheless all the defences
behind which the feeble Parliaments of the sixteenth century had
entrenched themselves against the attacks of prerogative were not only
still kept up, but were extended and strengthened. No politician seems
to have been aware that these defences were no longer needed for their
original purpose, and had begun to serve a purpose very different.
The rules which had been originally designed to secure faithful
representatives against the displeasure of the Sovereign, now operated
to secure unfaithful representatives against the displeasure of the
people, and proved much more effectual for the latter end than they had
ever been for the former. It was natural, it was inevitable, that, in
a legislative body emancipated from the restraints of the sixteenth
century, and not yet subjected to the restraints of the nineteenth
century, in a legislative body which feared neither the King nor the
public, there should be corruption.

The plague spot began to be visible and palpable in the days of the
Cabal. Clifford, the boldest and fiercest of the wicked Five, had
the merit of discovering that a noisy patriot, whom it was no longer
possible to send to prison, might be turned into a courtier by a
goldsmith's note. Clifford's example was followed by his successors.
It soon became a proverb that a Parliament resembled a pump. Often, the
wits said, when a pump appears to be dry, if a very small quantity of
water is poured in, a great quantity of water gushes out: and so, when
a Parliament appears to be niggardly, ten thousand pounds judiciously
given in bribes will often produce a million in supplies. The evil was
not diminished, nay, it was aggravated, by that Revolution which freed
our country from so many other evils. The House of Commons was now more
powerful than ever as against the Crown, and yet was not more strictly
responsible than formerly to the nation. The government had a new motive
for buying the members; and the members had no new motive for refusing
to sell themselves. William, indeed, had an aversion to bribery; he
resolved to abstain from it; and, during the first year of his reign, he
kept his resolution. Unhappily the events of that year did not encourage
him to persevere in his good intentions. As soon as Caermarthen was
placed at the head of the internal administration of the realm, a
complete change took place. He was in truth no novice in the art of
purchasing votes. He had, sixteen years before, succeeded Clifford at
the Treasury, had inherited Clifford's tactics, had improved upon them,
and had employed them to an extent which would have amazed the inventor.
From the day on which Caermarthen was called a second time to the
chief direction of affairs, parliamentary corruption continued to be
practised, with scarcely any intermission, by a long succession of
statesmen, till the close of the American war. Neither of the great
English parties can justly charge the other with any peculiar guilt on
this account. The Tories were the first who introduced the system and
the last who clung to it; but it attained its greatest vigour in the
time of Whig ascendency. The extent to which parliamentary support was
bartered for money cannot be with any precision ascertained. But it
seems probable that the number of hirelings was greatly exaggerated by
vulgar report, and was never large, though often sufficient to turn the
scale on important divisions. An unprincipled minister eagerly accepted
the services of these mercenaries. An honest minister reluctantly
submitted, for the sake of the commonwealth, to what he considered as
a shameful and odious extortion. But during many years every minister,
whatever his personal character might be, consented, willingly or
unwillingly, to manage the Parliament in the only way in which the
Parliament could then be managed. It at length became as notorious that
there was a market for votes at the Treasury as that there was a market
for cattle in Smithfield. Numerous demagogues out of power declaimed
against this vile traffic; but every one of those demagogues, as soon as
he was in power, found himself driven by a kind of fatality to engage in
that traffic, or at least to connive at it. Now and then perhaps a man
who had romantic notions of public virtue refused to be himself the
paymaster of the corrupt crew, and averted his eyes while his less
scrupulous colleagues did that which he knew to be indispensable, and
yet felt to be degrading. But the instances of this prudery were
rare indeed. The doctrine generally received, even among upright and
honourable politicians, was that it was shameful to receive bribes, but
that it was necessary to distribute them. It is a remarkable fact that
the evil reached the greatest height during the administration of Henry
Pelham, a statesman of good intentions, of spotless morals in private
life, and of exemplary disinterestedness. It is not difficult to guess
by what arguments he and other well meaning men, who, like him, followed
the fashion of their age, quieted their consciences. No casuist, however
severe, has denied that it may be a duty to give what it is a crime to
take. It was infamous in Jeffreys to demand money for the lives of the
unhappy prisoners whom he tried at Dorchester and Taunton. But it was
not infamous, nay, it was laudable, in the kinsmen and friends of a
prisoner to contribute of their substance in order to make up a purse
for Jeffreys. The Sallee rover, who threatened to bastinado a Christian
captive to death unless a ransom was forthcoming, was an odious ruffian.
But to ransom a Christian captive from a Sallee rover was, not merely
an innocent, but a highly meritorious act. It would be improper in such
cases to use the word corruption. Those who receive the filthy lucre are
corrupt already. He who bribes them does not make them wicked: he finds
them so; and he merely prevents their evil propensities from producing
evil effects. And might not the same plea be urged in defence of a
minister who, when no other expedient would avail, paid greedy and
lowminded men not to ruin their country?

It was by some such reasoning as this that the scruples of William were
overcome. Honest Burnet, with the uncourtly courage which distinguished
him, ventured to remonstrate with the King. "Nobody," William answered,
"hates bribery more, than I. But I have to do with a set of men who must
be managed in this vile way or not at all. I must strain a point or the
country is lost. " [584]

It was necessary for the Lord President to have in the House of Commons
an agent for the purchase of members; and Lowther was both too awkward
and too scrupulous to be such an agent. But a man in whom craft and
profligacy were united in a high degree was without difficulty found.
This was the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Trevor, who had been Speaker
in the single Parliament held by James. High as Trevor had risen in the
world, there were people who could still remember him a strange looking
lawyer's clerk in the Inner Temple. Indeed, nobody who had ever seen
him was likely to forget him. For his grotesque features and his hideous
squint were far beyond the reach of caricature. His parts, which were
quick and vigorous, had enabled him early to master the science of
chicane. Gambling and betting were his amusements; and out of these
amusements he contrived to extract much business in the way of his
profession. For his opinion on a question arising out of a wager or
a game at chance had as much authority as a judgment of any court in
Westminster Hall. He soon rose to be one of the boon companions whom
Jeffreys hugged in fits of maudlin friendship over the bottle at night,
and cursed and reviled in court on the morrow. Under such a teacher,
Trevor rapidly became a proficient in that peculiar kind of rhetoric
which had enlivened the trials of Baxter and of Alice Lisle. Report
indeed spoke of some scolding matches between the Chancellor and his
friend, in which the disciple had been not less voluble and scurrilous
than the master. These contests, however, did not take place till the
younger adventurer had attained riches and dignities such that he no
longer stood in need of the patronage which had raised him, [585] Among
High Churchmen Trevor, in spite of his notorious want of principle, had
at this time a certain popularity, which he seems to have owed chiefly
to their conviction that, however insincere he might be in general, his
hatred of the dissenters was genuine and hearty. There was little doubt
that, in a House of Commons in which the Tories had a majority, he
might easily, with the support of the Court, be chosen Speaker. He was
impatient to be again in his old post, which he well knew how to make
one of the most lucrative in the kingdom; and he willingly undertook
that secret and shameful office for which Lowther was altogether
unqualified.

Richard Hampden was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. This
appointment was probably intended as a mark of royal gratitude for the
moderation of his conduct, and for the attempts which he had made to
curb the violence of his Whig friends, and especially of his son.

Godolphin voluntarily left the Treasury; why, we are not informed. We
can scarcely doubt that the dissolution and the result of the general
election must have given him pleasure. For his political opinions leaned
towards Toryism; and he had, in the late reign, done some things which,
though not very heinous, stood in need of an indemnity. It is probable
that he did not think it compatible with his personal dignity to sit at
the board below Lowther, who was in rank his inferior, [586]

A new Commission of Admiralty was issued. At the head of the naval
administration was placed Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a high born
and high bred man, who had ranked among the Tories, who had voted for
a Regency, and who had married the daughter of Sawyer. That Pembroke's
Toryism, however, was not of a narrow and illiberal kind is sufficiently
proved by the fact that, immediately after the Revolution, the Essay on
the Human Understanding was dedicated to him by John Locke, in token of
gratitude for kind offices done in evil times, [587]

Nothing was omitted which could reconcile Torrington to this change.
For, though he had been found an incapable administrator, he still
stood so high in general estimation as a seaman that the government
was unwilling to lose his services. He was assured that no slight was
intended to him. He could not serve his country at once on the ocean
and at Westminster; and it had been thought less difficult to supply his
place in his office than on the deck of his flagship. He was at first
very angry, and actually laid down his commission: but some concessions
were made to his pride: a pension of three thousand pounds a year and a
grant of ten thousand acres of crown land in the Peterborough level were
irresistible baits to his cupidity; and, in an evil hour for England, he
consented to remain at the head of the naval force, on which the safety
of her coasts depended, [588]

While these changes were making in the offices round Whitehall, the
Commissions of Lieutenancy all over the kingdom were revised. The Tories
had, during twelve months, been complaining that their share in the
government of the districts in which they lived bore no proportion
to their number, to their wealth, and to the consideration which they
enjoyed in society. They now regained with great delight their former
position in their shires. The Whigs raised a cry that the King was
foully betrayed, and that he had been induced by evil counsellors to put
the sword into the hands of men who, as soon as a favourable opportunity
offered, would turn the edge against himself. In a dialogue which was
believed to have been written by the newly created Earl of Warrington,
and which had a wide circulation at the time, but has long been
forgotten, the Lord Lieutenant of a county was introduced expressing his
apprehensions that the majority of his deputies were traitors at heart,
[589] But nowhere was the excitement produced by the new distribution of
power so great as in the capital. By a Commission of Lieutenancy which
had been issued immediately after the Revolution, the train bands of the
City had been put under the command of staunch Whigs. Those powerful and
opulent citizens whose names were omitted complained that the list was
filled with elders of Puritan congregations, with Shaftesbury's brisk
boys, with Rye House plotters, and that it was scarcely possible to
find, mingled with that multitude of fanatics and levellers, a single
man sincerely attached to monarchy and to the Church. A new Commission
now appeared framed by Caermarthen and Nottingham.
They had taken
counsel with Compton, the Bishop of the diocese; and Compton was not
a very discreet adviser. He had originally been a High Churchman and a
Tory. The severity with which he had been treated in the late reign had
transformed him into a Latitudinarian and a rebel; and he had now, from
jealousy of Tillotson, turned High Churchman and Tory again. The Whigs
complained that they were ungratefully proscribed by a government
which owed its existence to them; that some of the best friends of King
William had been dismissed with contumely to make room for some of
his worst enemies, for men who were as unworthy of trust as any Irish
Rapparee, for men who had delivered up to a tyrant the charter and
the immemorial privileges of the City, for men who had made themselves
notorious by the cruelty with which they had enforced the penal laws
against Protestant dissenters, nay, for men who had sate on those juries
which had found Russell and Cornish guilty, [590] The discontent was
so great that it seemed, during a short time, likely to cause pecuniary
embarrassment to the State. The supplies voted by the late Parliament
came in slowly. The wants of the public service were pressing. In such
circumstances it was to the citizens of London that the government
always looked for help; and the government of William had hitherto
looked especially to those citizens who professed Whig opinions. Things
were now changed. A few eminent Whigs, in their first anger, sullenly
refused to advance money. Nay, one or two unexpectedly withdrew
considerable sums from the Exchequer, [591] The financial difficulties
might have been serious, had not some wealthy Tories, who, if
Sacheverell's clause had become law, would have been excluded from all
municipal honours, offered the Treasury a hundred thousand pounds down,
and promised to raise a still larger sum, [592]

While the City was thus agitated, came a day appointed by royal
proclamation for a general fast. The reasons assigned for this solemn
act of devotion were the lamentable state of Ireland and the approaching
departure of the King. Prayers were offered up for the safety of His
Majesty's person and for the success of his arms. The churches of London
were crowded. The most eminent preachers of the capital, who were, with
scarcely an exception, either moderate Tories or moderate Whigs, exerted
themselves to calm the public mind, and earnestly exhorted their flocks
not to withhold, at this great conjuncture, a hearty support from the
prince, with whose fate was bound up the fate of the whole nation.
Burnet told a large congregation from the pulpit how the Greeks, when
the Great Turk was preparing to besiege Constantinople, could not be
persuaded to contribute any part of their wealth for the common defence,
and how bitterly they repented of their avarice when they were compelled
to deliver up to the victorious infidels the treasures which had been
refused to the supplications of the last Christian emperor, [593]

The Whigs, however, as a party, did not stand in need of such an
admonition. Grieved and angry as they were, they were perfectly sensible
that on the stability of the throne of William depended all that they
most highly prized. What some of them might, at this conjuncture, have
been tempted to do if they could have found another leader, if, for
example, their Protestant Duke, their King Monmouth, had still been
living, may be doubted. But their only choice was between the Sovereign
whom they had set up and the Sovereign whom they had pulled down. It
would have been strange indeed if they had taken part with James in
order to punish William, when the worst fault which they imputed to
William was that he did not participate in the vindictive feeling with
which they remembered the tyranny of James. Much as they disliked the
Bill of Indemnity, they had not forgotten the Bloody Circuit. They
therefore, even in their ill humour, continued true to their own King,
and, while grumbling at him, were ready to stand by him against his
adversary with their lives and fortunes, [594]

There were indeed exceptions; but they were very few; and they were
to be found almost exclusively in two classes, which, though widely
differing from each other in social position, closely resembled each
other in laxity of principle. All the Whigs who are known to have
trafficked with Saint Germains belonged, not to the main body of
the party, but either to the head or to the tail. They were either
patricians high in rank and office, or caitiffs who had long been
employed in the foulest drudgery of faction. To the former class
belonged Shrewsbury. Of the latter class the most remarkable specimen
was Robert Ferguson. From the day on which the Convention Parliament was
dissolved, Shrewsbury began to waver in his allegiance: but that he had
ever wavered was not, till long after, suspected by the public. That
Ferguson had, a few months after the Revolution, become a furious
Jacobite, was no secret to any body, and ought not to have been matter
of surprise to any body. For his apostasy he could not plead even the
miserable excuse that he had been neglected. The ignominious services
which he had formerly rendered to his party as a spy, a raiser of
riots, a dispenser of bribes, a writer of libels, a prompter of false
witnesses, had been rewarded only too prodigally for the honour of
the new government. That he should hold any high office was of course
impossible. But a sinecure place of five hundred a year had been created
for him in the department of the Excise. He now had what to him was
opulence: but opulence did not satisfy him. For money indeed he had
never scrupled to be guilty of fraud aggravated by hypocrisy; yet the
love of money was not his strongest passion. Long habits had developed
in him a moral disease from, which people who make political agitation
their calling are seldom wholly free. He could not be quiet. Sedition,
from being his business, had become his pleasure. It was as impossible
for him to live without doing mischief as for an old dram drinker or
an old opium eater to live without the daily dose of poison. The very
discomforts and hazards of a lawless life had a strange attraction for
him. He could no more be turned into a peaceable and loyal subject than
the fox can be turned into a shepherd's dog, or than the kite can be
taught the habits of the barn door fowl. The Red Indian prefers his
hunting ground to cultivated fields and stately cities: the gipsy,
sheltered by a commodious roof, and provided with meat in due season,
still pines for the ragged tent on the moor and the meal of carrion, and
even so Ferguson became weary of plenty and security, of his salary, his
house, his table and his coach, and longed to be again the president
of societies where none could enter without a password, the director of
secret presses, the distributor of inflammatory pamphlets; to see the
walls placarded with descriptions of his Person and offers of reward for
his apprehension; to have six or seven names, with a different wig and
cloak for each, and to change his lodgings thrice a week at dead
of night. His hostility was not to Popery or to Protestantism, to
monarchical government or to republican government, to the House of
Stuart or to the House of Nassau, but to whatever was at the time
established.

By the Jacobites this new ally was eagerly welcomed. They were at that
moment busied with schemes in which the help of a veteran plotter was
much needed. There had been a great stir among them from the day on
which it had been announced that William had determined to take the
command in Ireland; and they were all looking forward with impatient
hope to his departure. --He was not a prince against whom men lightly
venture to set up a standard of rebellion. His courage, his sagacity,
the secrecy of his counsels, the success which had generally crowned
his enterprises, overawed the vulgar. Even his most acrimonious
enemies feared him at least as much as they hated him. While he was at
Kensington, ready to take horse at a moment's notice, malecontents who
prized their heads and their estates were generally content to vent
their hatred by drinking confusion to his hooked nose, and by squeezing
with significant energy the orange which was his emblem. But their
courage rose when they reflected that the sea would soon roll between
him and our island. In the military and political calculations of that
age, thirty leagues of water were as important as three hundred leagues
now are. The winds and waves frequently interrupted all communication
between England and Ireland. It sometimes happened that, during a
fortnight or three weeks, not a word of intelligence from London reached
Dublin. Twenty English counties might be up in arms long before any
rumour that an insurrection was even apprehended could reach Ulster.
Early in the spring, therefore, the leading malecontents assembled in
London for the purpose of concerting an extensive plan of action, and
corresponded assiduously both with France and with Ireland.

Such was the temper of the English factions when, on the twentieth of
March, the new Parliament met. The first duty which the Commons had to
perform was that of choosing a Speaker. Trevor was proposed by Lowther,
was elected without opposition, and was presented and approved with the
ordinary ceremonial. The King then made a speech in which he especially
recommended to the consideration of the Houses two important subjects,
the settling of the revenue and the granting of an amnesty. He
represented strongly the necessity of despatch. Every day was precious,
the season for action was approaching. "Let not us," he said, "be
engaged in debates while our enemies are in the field. " [595]

The first subject which the Commons took into consideration was the
state of the revenue. A great part of the taxes had, since the accession
of William and Mary, been collected under the authority of Acts passed
for short terms, and it was now time to determine on a permanent
arrangement. A list of the salaries and pensions for which provision was
to be made was laid before the House; and the amount of the sums thus
expended called forth very just complaints from the independent members,
among whom Sir Charles Sedley distinguished himself by his sarcastic
pleasantry. A clever speech which he made against the placemen
stole into print and was widely circulated: it has since been often
republished; and it proves, what his poems and plays might make us
doubt, that his contemporaries were not mistaken in considering him as a
man of parts and vivacity. Unfortunately the ill humour which the sight
of the Civil List caused evaporated in jests and invectives without
producing any reform.

The ordinary revenue by which the government had been supported before
the Revolution had been partly hereditary, and had been partly drawn
from taxes granted to each sovereign for life. The hereditary revenue
had passed, with the crown, to William and Mary. It was derived from the
rents of the royal domains, from fees, from fines, from wine licenses,
from the first fruits and tenths of benefices, from the receipts of the
Post Office, and from that part of the excise which had, immediately
after the Restoration, been granted to Charles the Second and to his
successors for ever in lieu of the feudal services due to our ancient
kings. The income from all these sources was estimated at between four
and five hundred thousand pounds, [596]

Those duties of excise and customs which had been granted to James for
life had, at the close of his reign, yielded about nine hundred thousand
pounds annually. William naturally wished to have this income on the
same terms on which his uncle had enjoyed it; and his ministers did
their best to gratify his wishes. Lowther moved that the grant should
be to the King and Queen for their joint and separate lives, and
spoke repeatedly and earnestly in defence of this motion. He set forth
William's claims to public gratitude and confidence; the nation rescued
from Popery and arbitrary power; the Church delivered from persecution;
the constitution established on a firm basis. Would the Commons deal
grudgingly with a prince who had done more for England than had ever
been done for her by any of his predecessors in so short a time, with
a prince who was now about to expose himself to hostile weapons and
pestilential air in order to preserve the English colony in Ireland,
with a prince who was prayed for in every corner of the world where a
congregation of Protestants could meet for the worship of God? [597] But
on this subject Lowther harangued in vain. Whigs and Tories were equally
fixed in the opinion that the liberality of Parliaments had been the
chief cause of the disasters of the last thirty years; that to
the liberality of the Parliament of 1660 was to be ascribed the
misgovernment of the Cabal; that to the liberality of the Parliament
of 1685 was to be ascribed the Declaration of Indulgence, and that the
Parliament of 1690 would be inexcusable if it did not profit by a long,
a painful, an unvarying experience. After much dispute a compromise
was made. That portion of the excise which had been settled for life on
James, and which was estimated at three hundred thousand pounds a year,
was settled on William and Mary for their joint and separate lives. It
was supposed that, with the hereditary revenue, and with three hundred
thousand a year more from the excise, their Majesties would have,
independent of parliamentary control, between seven and eight hundred
thousand a year. Out of this income was to be defrayed the charge both
of the royal household and of those civil offices of which a list had
been laid before the House. This income was therefore called the Civil
List. The expenses of the royal household are now entirely separated
from the expenses of the civil government; but, by a whimsical
perversion, the name of Civil List has remained attached to that portion
of the revenue which is appropriated to the expenses of the royal
household. It is still more strange that several neighbouring nations
should have thought this most unmeaning of all names worth borrowing.
Those duties of customs which had been settled for life on Charles and
James successively, and which, in the year before the Revolution, had
yielded six hundred thousand pounds, were granted to the Crown for a
term of only four years, [598]

William was by no means well pleased with this arrangement. He thought
it unjust and ungrateful in a people whose liberties he had saved to
bind him over to his good behaviour. "The gentlemen of England," he said
to Burnet, "trusted King James who was an enemy of their religion and of
their laws; and they will not trust me by whom their religion and their
laws have been preserved. " Burnet answered very properly that there was
no mark of personal confidence which His Majesty was not entitled
to demand, but that this question was not a question of personal
confidence. The Estates of the Realm wished to establish a general
principle. They wished to set a precedent which might secure a remote
posterity against evils such as the indiscreet liberality of former
Parliaments had produced. "From those evils Your Majesty has delivered
this generation. By accepting the gift of the Commons on the terms on
which it is offered Your Majesty will be also a deliverer of future
generations. " William was not convinced; but he had too much wisdom and
selfcommand to give way to his ill humour; and he accepted graciously
what he could not but consider as ungraciously given, [599]

The Civil List was charged with an annuity of twenty thousand pounds to
the Princess of Denmark, in addition to an annuity of thirty thousand
pounds which had been settled on her at the time of her marriage. This
arrangement was the result of a compromise which had been effected with
much difficulty and after many irritating disputes. The King and Queen
had never, since the commencement of their reign, been on very good
terms with their sister. That William should have been disliked by a
woman who had just sense enough to perceive that his temper was sour and
his manners repulsive, and who was utterly incapable of appreciating his
higher qualities, is not extraordinary. But Mary was made to be loved.
So lively and intelligent a woman could not indeed derive much pleasure
from the society of Anne, who, when in good humour, was meekly stupid,
and, when in bad humour, was sulkily stupid. Yet the Queen, whose
kindness had endeared her to her humblest attendants, would hardly have
made an enemy of one whom it was her duty and her interest to make a
friend, had not an influence strangely potent and strangely malignant
been incessantly at work to divide the Royal House against itself.
The fondness of the Princess for Lady Marlborough was such as, in a
superstitious age, would have been ascribed to some talisman or potion.
Not only had the friends, in their confidential intercourse with each
other, dropped all ceremony and all titles, and become plain Mrs. Morley
and plain Mrs. Freeman; but even Prince George, who cared as much for
the dignity of his birth as he was capable of caring for any thing but
claret and calvered salmon, submitted to be Mr. Morley. The Countess
boasted that she had selected the name of Freeman because it was
peculiarly suited to the frankness and boldness of her character; and,
to do her justice, it was not by the ordinary arts of courtiers that she
established and long maintained her despotic empire over the feeblest of
minds, She had little of that tact which is the characteristic talent of
her sex; she was far too violent to flatter or to dissemble: but, by
a rare chance, she had fallen in with a nature on which dictation and
contradiction acted as philtres. In this grotesque friendship all
the loyalty, the patience, the selfdevotion, was on the side of the
mistress. The whims, the haughty airs, the fits of ill temper, were on
the side of the waiting woman.

Nothing is more curious than the relation in which the two ladies stood
to Mr. Freeman, as they called Marlborough. In foreign countries people
knew in general that Anne was governed by the Churchills. They knew also
that the man who appeared to enjoy so large a share of her favour was
not only a great soldier and politician, but also one of the finest
gentlemen of his time, that his face and figure were eminently handsome,
his temper at once bland and resolute, his manners at once engaging
and noble. Nothing could be more natural than that graces and
accomplishments like his should win a female heart. On the Continent
therefore many persons imagined that he was Anne's favoured lover; and
he was so described in contemporary French libels which have long been
forgotten. In England this calumny never found credit even with the
vulgar, and is nowhere to be found even in the most ribald doggrel that
was sung about our streets. In truth the Princess seems never to have
been guilty of a thought inconsistent with her conjugal vows. To her
Marlborough, with all his genius and his valour, his beauty and his
grace, was nothing but the husband of her friend. Direct power over
Her Royal Highness he had none. He could influence her only by the
instrumentality of his wife; and his wife was no passive instrument.
Though it is impossible to discover, in any thing that she ever did,
said or wrote, any indication of superior understanding, her fierce
passions and strong will enabled her often to rule a husband who was
born to rule grave senates and mighty armies. His courage, that courage
which the most perilous emergencies of war only made cooler and more
steady, failed him when he had to encounter his Sarah's ready tears
and voluble reproaches, the poutings of her lip and the tossings of her
head. History exhibits to us few spectacles more remarkable than that
of a great and wise man, who, when he had combined vast and profound
schemes of policy, could carry them into effect only by inducing one
foolish woman, who was often unmanageable, to manage another woman who
was more foolish still.

In one point the Earl and the Countess were perfectly agreed. They were
equally bent on getting money; though, when it was got, he loved to
hoard it, and she was not unwilling to spend it, [600] The favour of the
Princess they both regarded as a valuable estate. In her father's reign,
they had begun to grow rich by means of her bounty. She was naturally
inclined to parsimony; and, even when she was on the throne, her
equipages and tables were by no means sumptuous, [601] It might have
been thought, therefore, that, while she was a subject, thirty thousand
a year, with a residence in the palace, would have been more than
sufficient for all her wants. There were probably not in the kingdom two
noblemen possessed of such an income. But no income would satisfy the
greediness of those who governed her. She repeatedly contracted debts
which James repeatedly discharged, not without expressing much surprise
and displeasure.

The Revolution opened to the Churchills a new and boundless prospect of
gain. The whole conduct of their mistress at the great crisis had proved
that she had no will, no judgment, no conscience, but theirs. To
them she had sacrificed affections, prejudices, habits, interests. In
obedience to them, she had joined in the conspiracy against her father;
she had fled from Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and
mire, to a hackney coach; she had taken refuge in the rebel camp; she
had consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the
Prince of Orange. They saw with pleasure that she, over whom they
possessed such boundless influence, possessed no common influence over
others. Scarcely had the Revolution been accomplished when many Tories,
disliking both the King who had been driven out and the King who had
come in, and doubting whether their religion had more to fear from
Jesuits or from Latitudinarians, showed a strong disposition to rally
round Anne. Nature had made her a bigot. Such was the constitution of
her mind that to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere,
without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin.
In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged
in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court
of her brother in law she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in
favour of a general union among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy
made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the
Royal Family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial
aversion. While a large party was disposed to make her an idol, she was
regarded by her two artful servants merely as a puppet. They knew that
she had it in her power to give serious annoyance to the government; and
they determined to use this power in order to extort money, nominally
for her, but really for themselves. While Marlborough was commanding
the English forces in the Low Countries, the execution of the plan was
necessarily left to his wife; and she acted, not as he would doubtless
have acted, with prudence and temper, but, as is plain even from her own
narrative, with odious violence and insolence. Indeed she had passions
to gratify from which he was altogether free. He, though one of the most
covetous, was one of the least acrimonious of mankind; but malignity
was in her a stronger passion than avarice. She hated easily; she hated
heartily; and she hated implacably. Among the objects of her hatred were
all who were related to her mistress either on the paternal or on the
maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess
could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her
the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well
knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they
might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she
detested them all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon and Rochester. Now
was the time to wreak the accumulated spite of years. It was not enough
to obtain a great, a regal, revenue for Anne. That revenue must be
obtained by means which would wound and humble those whom the favourite
abhorred. It must not be asked, it must not be accepted, as a mark of
fraternal kindness, but demanded in hostile tones, and wrung by force
from reluctant hands. No application was made to the King and Queen. But
they learned with astonishment that Lady Marlborough was indefatigable
in canvassing the Tory members of Parliament, that a Princess's party
was forming, that the House of Commons would be moved to settle on Her
Royal Highness a vast income independent of the Crown. Mary asked her
sister what these proceedings meant. "I hear," said Anne, "that my
friends have a mind to make me some settlement. " It is said that the
Queen, greatly hurt by an expression which seemed to imply that she and
her husband were not among her sister's friends, replied with unwonted
sharpness, "Of what friends do you speak? What friends have you except
the King and me? " [602] The subject was never again mentioned between
the sisters. Mary was probably sensible that she had made a mistake in
addressing herself to one who was merely a passive instrument in the
hands of others. An attempt was made to open a negotiation with the
Countess. After some inferior agents had expostulated with her in
vain, Shrewsbury waited on her. It might have been expected that
his intervention would have been successful; for, if the scandalous
chronicle of those times could be trusted, he had stood high, too high,
in her favour, [603] He was authorised by the King to promise that, if
the Princess would desist from soliciting the members of the House of
Commons to support her cause, the income of Her Royal Highness should
be increased from thirty thousand pounds to fifty thousand. The Countess
flatly rejected this offer. The King's word, she had the insolence to
hint, was not a sufficient security. "I am confident," said Shrewsbury,
"that His Majesty will strictly fulfil his engagements. If he breaks
them I will not serve him an hour longer. " "That may be very honourable
in you," answered the pertinacious vixen, "but it will be very poor
comfort to the Princess. " Shrewsbury, after vainly attempting to move
the servant, was at length admitted to an audience of the mistress.
Anne, in language doubtless dictated by her friend Sarah, told him that
the business had gone too far to be stopped, and must be left to the
decision of the Commons, [604]

The truth was that the Princess's prompters hoped to obtain from
Parliament a much larger sum than was offered by the King. Nothing less
than seventy thousand a year would content them. But their cupidity
overreached itself. The House of Commons showed a great disposition to
gratify Her Royal Highness. But, when at length her too eager adherents
ventured to name the sum which they wished to grant, the murmurs were
loud. Seventy thousand a year at a time when the necessary expenses of
the State were daily increasing, when the receipt of the customs was
daily diminishing, when trade was low, when every gentleman, every
farmer, was retrenching something from the charge of his table and
his cellar! The general opinion was that the sum which the King was
understood to be willing to give would be amply sufficient, [605] At
last something was conceded on both sides. The Princess was forced to
content herself with fifty thousand a year; and William agreed that
this sum should be settled on her by Act of Parliament. She rewarded the
services of Lady Marlborough with a pension of a thousand a year; [606]
but this was in all probability a very small part of what the Churchills
gained by the arrangement.

After these transactions the two royal sisters continued during many
months to live on terms of civility and even of apparent friendship. But
Mary, though she seems to have borne no malice to Anne, undoubtedly felt
against Lady Marlborough as much resentment as a very gentle heart is
capable of feeling. Marlborough had been out of England during a great
part of the time which his wife had spent in canvassing among the
Tories, and, though he had undoubtedly acted in concert with her, had
acted, as usual, with temper and decorum. He therefore continued to
receive from William many marks of favour which were unaccompanied by
any indication of displeasure.

In the debates on the settling of the revenue, the distinction between
Whigs and Tories does not appear to have been very clearly marked. In
truth, if there was any thing about which the two parties were agreed,
it was the expediency of granting the customs to the Crown for a time
not exceeding four years. But there were other questions which called
forth the old animosity in all its strength. The Whigs were now in a
minority, but a minority formidable in numbers, and more formidable in
ability. They carried on the parliamentary war, not less acrimoniously
than when they were a majority, but somewhat more artfully. They brought
forward several motions, such as no High Churchman could well support,
yet such as no servant of William and Mary could well oppose. The Tory
who voted for these motions would run a great risk of being pointed at
as a turncoat by the sturdy Cavaliers of his county. The Tory who voted
against those motions would run a great risk of being frowned upon at
Kensington.

It was apparently in pursuance of this policy that the Whigs laid on the
table of the House of Lords a bill declaring all the laws passed by the
late Parliament to be valid laws. No sooner had this bill been read than
the controversy of the preceeding spring was renewed. The Whigs were
joined on this occasion by almost all those noblemen who were connected
with the government. The rigid Tories, with Nottingham at their head,
professed themselves willing to enact that every statute passed in 1689
should have the same force that it would have had if it had been passed
by a parliament convoked in a regular manner; but nothing would induce
them to acknowledge that an assembly of lords and gentlemen, who
had come together without authority from the Great Seal, was
constitutionally a Parliament. Few questions seem to have excited
stronger passions than the question, practically altogether unimportant,
whether the bill should or should not be declaratory. Nottingham, always
upright and honourable, but a bigot and a formalist, was on this subject
singularly obstinate and unreasonable. In one debate he lost his temper,
forgot the decorum which in general he strictly observed, and narrowly
escaped being committed to the custody of the Black Rod, [607] After
much wrangling, the Whigs carried their point by a majority of seven,
[608] Many peers signed a strong protest written by Nottingham. In
this protest the bill, which was indeed open to verbal criticism, was
impolitely described as being neither good English nor good sense. The
majority passed a resolution that the protest should be expunged; and
against this resolution Nottingham and his followers again protested,
[609] The King was displeased by the pertinacity of his Secretary of
State; so much displeased indeed that Nottingham declared his intention
of resigning the Seals; but the dispute was soon accommodated. William
was too wise not to know the value of an honest man in a dishonest age.