The members were so much cowed by the
royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it
would not have been safe to divide.
royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it
would not have been safe to divide.
Macaulay
The Protestant magistrates were deprived
of the honour of nobility. The Protestant officers of the royal
household were informed that His Majesty dispensed with their services.
Orders were given that no Protestant should be admitted into the legal
profession. The oppressed sect showed some faint signs of that spirit
which in the preceding century had bidden defiance to the whole power
of the House of Valois. Massacres and executions followed. Dragoons
were quartered in the towns where the heretics were numerous, and in the
country seats of the heretic gentry; and the cruelty and licentiousness
of these rude missionaries was sanctioned or leniently censured by the
government. Still, however, the edict of Nantes, though practically
violated in its most essential provisions, had not been formally
rescinded; and the King repeatedly declared in solemn public acts that
he was resolved to maintain it. But the bigots and flatterers who had
his ear gave him advice which he was but too willing to take. They
represented to him that his rigorous policy had been eminently
successful, that little or no resistance had been made to his will, that
thousands of Huguenots had already been converted, that, if he would
take the one decisive step which yet remained, those who were still
obstinate would speedily submit, France would be purged from the taint
of heresy, and her prince would have earned a heavenly crown not less
glorious than that of Saint Lewis. These arguments prevailed. The final
blow was struck. The edict of Nantes was revoked; and a crowd of decrees
against the sectaries appeared in rapid succession. Boys and girls
were torn from their parents and sent to be educated in convents. All
Calvinistic ministers were commanded either to abjure their religion or
to quit their country within a fortnight. The other professors of the
reformed faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in order to
prevent them from making their escape, the outports and frontiers were
strictly guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus separated from
the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true fold. But in spite of
all the vigilance of the military police there was a vast emigration.
It was calculated that, in a few months, fifty thousand families quitted
France for ever. Nor were the refugees such as a country can well spare.
They were generally persons of intelligent minds, of industrious habits,
and of austere morals. In the list are to be found names eminent in war,
in science, in literature, and in art. Some of the exiles offered their
swords to William of Orange, and distinguished themselves by the
fury with which they fought against their persecutor. Others avenged
themselves with weapons still more formidable, and, by means of the
presses of Holland, England, and Germany, inflamed, during thirty years,
the public mind of Europe against the French government. A more peaceful
class erected silk manufactories in the eastern suburb of London. One
detachment of emigrants taught the Saxons to make the stuffs and hats of
which France had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the first
vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. [12]
In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would have
eagerly applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on heresy. But such
was the hatred inspired by the injustice and haughtiness of Lewis that,
when he became a persecutor, the courts of Spain and Rome took the side
of religious liberty, and loudly reprobated the cruelty of turning a
savage and licentious soldiery loose on an unoffending people. [13]
One cry of grief and rage rose from the whole of Protestant Europe. The
tidings of the revocation of the edict of Nantes reached England about
a week before the day to which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was
clear then that the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva was still the
spirit of the Roman Catholic Church. Lewis was not inferior to James in
generosity and humanity, and was certainly far superior to James in all
the abilities and acquirements of a statesman. Lewis had, like James,
repeatedly promised to respect the privileges of his Protestant
subjects. Yet Lewis was now avowedly a persecutor of the reformed
religion. What reason was there, then, to doubt that James waited only
for an opportunity to follow the example? He was already forming, in
defiance of the law, a military force officered to a great extent by
Roman Catholics. Was there anything unreasonable in the apprehension
that this force might be employed to do what the French dragoons had
done?
James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects by the conduct of the
court of Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if it had meant
to embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask from a Protestant
legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics. Nothing, therefore,
could be more unwelcome to him than the intelligence that, in a
neighbouring country, toleration had just been withdrawn by a Roman
Catholic government from Protestants. His vexation was increased by a
speech which the Bishop of Valence, in the name of the Gallican clergy,
addressed at this time to Lewis, the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of
England, the orator said, looked to the most Christian King for support
against a heretical nation. It was remarked that the members of the
House of Commons showed particular anxiety to procure copies of this
harangue, and that it was read by all Englishmen with indignation and
alarm. [14] James was desirous to counteract the impression which these
things had made, and was also at that moment by no means unwilling to
let all Europe see that he was not the slave of France. He therefore
declared publicly that he disapproved of the manner in which the
Huguenots had been treated, granted to the exiles some relief from his
privy purse, and, by letters under his great seal, invited his subjects
to imitate his liberality. In a very few months it became clear that all
this compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajoling his Parliament,
that he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred, and that he regretted
nothing so much as his own inability to do what Lewis had done.
On the ninth of November the Houses met. The Commons were summoned to
the bar of the Lords; and the King spoke from the throne. His speech had
been composed by himself. He congratulated his loving subjects on the
suppression of the rebellion in the West: but he added that the speed
with which that rebellion had risen to a formidable height, and the
length of time during which it had continued to rage, must convince
all men how little dependence could be placed on the militia. He had,
therefore, made additions to the regular army. The charge of that army
would henceforth be more than double of what it had been; and he trusted
that the Commons would grant him the means of defraying the increased
expense. He then informed his hearers that he had employed some officers
who had not taken the test; but he knew them to be fit for public trust.
He feared that artful men might avail themselves of this irregularity
to disturb the harmony which existed between himself and his Parliament.
But he would speak out. He was determined not to part with servants on
whose fidelity he could rely, and whose help he might perhaps soon need.
[15]
This explicit declaration that he had broken the laws which were
regarded by the nation as the chief safeguards of the established
religion, and that he was resolved to persist in breaking those laws,
was not likely to soothe the excited feelings of his subjects. The
Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in opposition to a government,
consented to vote him formal thanks for what he had said. But the
Commons were in a less complying mood. When they had returned to their
own House there was a long silence; and the faces of many of the most
respectable members expressed deep concern. At length Middleton rose and
moved the House to go instantly into committee on the King's speech: but
Sir Edmund Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who was supposed
to speak the sentiments of Danby, protested against this course, and
demanded time for consideration. Sir Thomas Clarges, maternal uncle of
the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished in Parliament as a man of
business and a viligant steward of the public money, took the same
side. The feeling of the House could not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, insisted that the delay should not exceed
forty-eight hours; but he was overruled; and it was resolved that the
discussion should be postponed for three days. [16]
The interval was well employed by those who took the lead against the
court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three days a country
party was to be organized. The difficulty of the task is in our age not
easily to be appreciated; for in our age all the nation may be said to
assist at every deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is said by
the leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after midnight is read
by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of Northumberland
and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and the Highlands
of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore, the stages of
legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of faction, the opinions,
temper, and style of every active member of either House, are familiar
to hundreds of thousands. Every man who now enters Parliament possesses
what, in the seventeenth century, would have been called a great stock
of parliamentary knowledge. Such knowledge was then to be obtained only
by actual parliamentary service. The difference between an old and a new
member was as great as the difference between a veteran soldier and a
recruit just taken from the plough; and James's Parliament contained
a most unusual proportion of new members, who had brought from their
country seats to Westminster no political knowledge and many violent
prejudices. These gentlemen hated the Papists, but hated the Whigs not
less intensely, and regarded the King with superstitious veneration. To
form an opposition out of such materials was a feat which required the
most skilful and delicate management. Some men of great weight, however,
undertook the work, and performed it with success. Several experienced
Whig politicians, who had not seats in that Parliament, gave useful
advice and information. On the day preceding that which had been fixed
for the debate, many meetings were held at which the leaders instructed
the novices; and it soon appeared that these exertions had not been
thrown away. [17]
The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was well understood
that a few days would now decide the great question, whether the King
of England was or was not to be the vassal of the King of France. The
ministers of the House of Austria were most anxious that James should
give satisfaction to his Parliament. Innocent had sent to London two
persons charged to inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by
example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had
been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and
a rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, and
taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum,
and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an
Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and courtly manners,
had been appointed Nuncio. These functionaries were eagerly welcomed by
James. No Roman Catholic Bishop had exercised spiritual functions in the
island during more than half a century. No Nuncio had been received here
during the hundred and twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the
death of Mary. Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, and received a pension
of a thousand pounds a year. Adda did not yet assume a public character.
He passed for a foreigner of rank whom curiosity had brought to London,
appeared daily at court, and was treated with high consideration. Both
the Papal emissaries did their best to diminish, as much as possible,
the odium inseparable from the offices which they filled, and to
restrain the rash zeal of James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared
that nothing could be more injurious to the interests of the Church of
Rome than a rupture between the King and the Parliament. [18]
Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he
received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be studied;
for they furnish a key to the policy systematically pursued by his
master towards England during the twenty years which preceded our
revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, were alarming. Strong
hopes were entertained there that James would ally himself closely
with the House of Austria, as soon as he should be assured that his
Parliament would give him no trouble. In these circumstances, it was
evidently the interest of France that the Parliament should prove
refractory. Barillon was therefore directed to act, with all possible
precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was
to omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the kingly
pride of James; but at the same time it might be desirable to have some
secret communication with the malecontents. Such communication would
indeed be hazardous and would require the utmost adroitness; yet it
might perhaps be in the power of the Ambassador, without committing
himself or his government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for the
laws and liberties of England, and to let it be understood that those
laws and liberties were not regarded by his master with an unfriendly
eye. [19]
Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how speedily
and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by the obstinacy and
stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November the House of Commons,
resolved itself into a committee on the royal speech. The Solicitor
General Heneage Finch, was in the chair. The debate was conducted by
the chiefs of the new country party with rare tact and address. No
expression indicating disrespect to the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels
was suffered to escape. The western insurrection was always mentioned
with abhorrence. Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and
Jeffreys. It was admitted that the heavy expenditure which had been
occasioned by the late troubles justified the King in asking some
further supply: but strong objections were made to the augmentation of
the army and to the infraction of the Test Act.
The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have carefully
avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on the great
superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them tauntingly
asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be entrusted to
the beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad to know how the
Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth's
scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis. But these
arguments had little effect on Cavaliers who still remembered with
bitterness the stern rule of the Protector. The general feeling was
forcibly expressed by the first of the Tory country gentlemen of
England, Edward Seymour. He admitted that the militia was not in a
satisfactory state, but maintained that it might be remodelled. The
remodelling might require money; but, for his own part, he would rather
give a million to keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear,
than half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever be afraid.
Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be strengthened; and the
country would be secure. A standing army was at best a mere drain on the
public resources. The soldier was withdrawn from all useful labour. He
produced nothing: he consumed the fruits of the industry of other men;
and he domineered over those by whom he was supported. But the nation
was now threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a Popish
standing army, with a standing army officered by men who might be
very amiable and honourable, but who were on principle enemies to the
constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden, member for the county of
Kent, spoke on the same side with great keenness and loud applause. Sir
Richard Temple, one of the few Whigs who had a seat in that Parliament,
dexterously accommodating his speech to the temper of his audience,
reminded the House that a standing army had been found, by experience,
to be as dangerous to the just authority of princes as to the liberty
of nations. Sir John Maynard, the most learned lawyer of his time, took
part in the debate. He was now more than eighty years old, and could
well remember the political contests of the reign of James the First. He
had sate in the Long Parliament, and had taken part with the Roundheads,
but had always been for lenient counsels, and had laboured to bring
about a general reconciliation. His abilities, which age had not
impaired, and his professional knowledge, which had long overawed all
Westminster Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He, too,
declared himself against the augmentation of the regular forces.
After much debate, it was resolved that a supply should be granted to
the crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should be brought in for
making the militia more efficient. This last resolution was tantamount
to a declaration against the standing army. The King was greatly
displeased; and it was whispered that, if things went on thus, the
session would not be of long duration. [20]
On the morrow the contention was renewed. The language of the country
party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preceding day.
That paragraph of the King's speech which related to supply preceded the
paragraph which related to the test. On this ground Middleton proposed
that the paragraph relating to supply should be first considered in
committee. The opposition moved the previous question. They contended
that the reasonable and constitutional practice was to grant no money
till grievances had been redressed, and that there would be an end of
this practice if the House thought itself bound servilely to follow the
order in which matters were mentioned by the King from the throne.
The division was taken on the question whether Middletons motion should
be put. The Noes were ordered by the Speaker to go forth into the lobby.
They resented this much, and complained loudly of his servility and
partiality: for they conceived that, according to the intricate and
subtle rule which was then in force, and which, in our time, was
superseded by a more rational and convenient practice, they were
entitled to keep their seats; and it was held by all the Parliamentary
tacticians of that age that the party which stayed in the House had an
advantage over the party which went out; for the accommodation on the
benches was then so deficient that no person who had been fortunate
enough to get a good seat was willing to lose it. Nevertheless, to
the dismay of the ministers, many persons on whose votes the court had
absolutely depended were seen moving towards the door. Among them was
Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and son of Sir Stephen Fox, Clerk
of the Green Cloth. The Paymaster had been induced by his friends to
absent himself during part of the discussion. But his anxiety had become
insupportable. He come down to the Speaker's chamber, heard part of
the debate, withdrew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between
conscience and five thousand pounds a year, took a manly resolution and
rushed into the House just in time to vote. Two officers of the army,
Colonel John Darcy, son of the Lord Conyers, and Captain James Kendall,
withdrew to the lobby. Middleton went down to the bar and expostulated
warmly with them. He particularly addressed himself to Kendall, a needy
retainer of the court, who had, in obedience to the royal mandate, been
sent to Parliament by a packed corporation in Cornwall, and who had
recently obtained a grant of a hundred head of rebels sentenced to
transportation. "Sir," said Middleton, "have not you a troop of horse in
His Majesty's service? " "Yes, my Lord," answered Kendall: "but my elder
brother is just dead, and has left me seven hundred a year. "
When the tellers had done their office it appeared that the Ayes were
one hundred and eighty-two, and the Noes one and eighty-three. In that
House of Commons which had been brought together by the unscrupulous use
of chicanery, of corruption, and of violence, in that House of Commons
of which James had said that more than eleven twelfths of the members
were such as he would himself have nominated, the court had sustained a
defeat on a vital question. [21]
In consequence of this vote the expressions which the King had used
respecting the test were, on the thirteenth of November, taken into
consideration. It was resolved, after much discussion, that an address
should be presented to him, reminding him that he could not legally
continue to employ officers who refused to qualify, and pressing him to
give such directions as might quiet the apprehensions and jealousies of
his people. [22]
A motion was then made that the Lords should be requested to join in the
address. Whether this motion was honestly made by the opposition, in
the hope that the concurrence of the peers would add weight to the
remonstrance, or artfully made by the courtiers, in the hope that a
breach between the Houses might be the consequence, it is now impossible
to discover. The proposition was rejected. [23]
The House then resolved itself into a committee, for the purpose of
considering the amount of supply to be granted. The King wanted fourteen
hundred thousand pounds: but the ministers saw that it would be vain to
ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned twelve
hundred thousand pounds. The chiefs of the opposition replied that to
vote for such a grant would be to vote for the permanence of the present
military establishment: they were disposed to give only so much as might
suffice to keep the regular troops on foot till the militia could be
remodelled and they therefore proposed four hundred thousand pounds.
The courtiers exclaimed against this motion as unworthy of the House and
disrespectful to the King: but they were manfully encountered. One of
the western members, John Windham, who sate for Salisbury, especially
distinguished himself. He had always, he said, looked with dread and
aversion on standing armies; and recent experience had strengthened
those feelings. He then ventured to touch on a theme which had hitherto
been studiously avoided. He described the desolation of the western
counties. The people, he said, were weary of the oppression of the
troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still fouler crimes
which the law called felonies, but for which, when perpetrated by this
class of felons, no redress could be obtained. The King's servants had
indeed told the House that excellent rules had been laid down for the
government of the army; but none could venture to say that these rules
had been observed. What, then, was the inevitable inference? Did not the
contrast between the paternal injunctions issued from the throne and the
insupportable tyranny of the soldiers prove that the army was even now
too strong for the prince as well as for the people? The Commons might
surely, with perfect consistency, while they reposed entire confidence
in the intentions of His Majesty, refuse to make any addition to a force
which it was clear that His Majesty could not manage.
The motion that the sum to be granted should not exceed four hundred
thousand pounds, was lost by twelve votes. This victory of the ministers
was little better than a defeat. The leaders of the country party,
nothing disheartened, retreated a little, made another stand, and
proposed the sum of seven hundred thousand pounds. The committee divided
again, and the courtiers were beaten by two hundred and twelve votes to
one hundred and seventy. [24]
On the following day the Commons went in procession to Whitehall with
their address on the subject of the test. The King received them on
his throne. The address was drawn up in respectful and affectionate
language; for the great majority of those who had voted for it were
zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and had readily agreed to
insert some complimentary phrases, and to omit every word which the
courtiers thought offensive. The answer of James was a cold and sullen
reprimand. He declared himself greatly displeased and amazed that the
Commons should have profited so little by the admonition which he had
given them. "But," said he, "however you may proceed on your part, I
will be very steady in all the promises which I have made to you. " [25]
The Commons reassembled in their chamber, discontented, yet somewhat
overawed. To most of them the King was still an object of filial
reverence. Three more years filled with injuries, and with insults more
galling than injuries, were scarcely sufficient to dissolve the ties
which bound the Cavalier gentry to the throne.
The Speaker repeated the substance of the King's reply. There was, for
some time, a solemn stillness; then the order of the day was read
in regular course; and the House went into committee on the bill for
remodelling the militia.
In a few hours, however, the spirit of the opposition revived. When,
at the close of the day, the Speaker resumed the chair, Wharton, the
boldest and most active of the Whigs, proposed that a time should be
appointed for taking His Majesty's answer into consideration. John Coke,
member for Derby, though a noted Tory, seconded Wharton. "I hope," he
said, "that we are all Englishmen, and that we shall not be frightened
from our duty by a few high words. "
It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower," resounded
from every side. Those who were most lenient proposed that the offender
should be reprimanded: but the ministers vehemently insisted that he
should be sent to prison. The House might pardon, they said, offences
committed against itself, but had no right to pardon an insult offered
to the crown. Coke was sent to the Tower. The indiscretion of one
man had deranged the whole system of tactics which had been so ably
concerted by the chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that
moment, Edward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted
them to fix a day for discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that the discussion would be conducted with the respect due
from subjects to the sovereign.
The members were so much cowed by the
royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it
would not have been safe to divide. [26]
The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that the
spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the nineteenth of
November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The time had arrived for
taking into consideration the petitions which had been presented from
all parts of England against the late elections. When, on the first
meeting of the Parliament, Seymour had complained of the force and fraud
by which the government had prevented the sense of constituent bodies
from being fairly taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had then
flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, and, with Sir John
Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had, before the recess,
suggested that there ought to be an enquiry into the abuses which had
so much excited the public mind. The House was now in a much more angry
temper; and many voices were boldly raised in menace and accusation. The
ministers were told that the nation expected, and should have, signal
redress. Meanwhile it was dexterously intimated that the best atonement
which a gentleman who had been brought into the House by irregular means
could make to the public was to use his ill acquired power in defence
of the religion and liberties of his country. No member who, in that
crisis, did his duty had anything to fear. It might be necessary to
unseat him; but the whole influence of the opposition should be employed
to procure his reelection. [27]
On the same day it became clear that the spirit of opposition had spread
from the Commons to the Lords, and even to the episcopal bench. William
Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took the lead in the Upper House; and he
was well qualified to do so. In wealth and influence he was second to
none of the English nobles; and the general voice designated him as the
finest gentleman of his time. His magnificence, his taste, his talents,
his classical learning, his high spirit, the grace and urbanity of his
manners, were admitted by his enemies. His eulogists, unhappily, could
not pretend that his morals had escaped untainted from the widespread
contagion of that age. Though an enemy of Popery and of arbitrary
power, he had been averse to extreme courses, had been willing, when the
Exclusion Bill was lost, to agree to a compromise, and had never
been concerned in the illegal and imprudent schemes which had brought
discredit on the Whig party. But, though regretting part of the conduct
of his friends, he had not, on that account, failed to perform zealously
the most arduous and perilous duties of friendship. He had stood near
Russell at the bar, had parted from him on the sad morning of the
execution with close embraces and with many bitter tears, nay, had
offered to manage an escape at the hazard of his own life. [28] This
great nobleman now proposed that a day should be fixed for considering
the royal speech. It was contended, on the other side, that the
Lords, by voting thanks for the speech, had precluded themselves from
complaining of it. But this objection was treated with contempt by
Halifax. "Such thanks," he said with the sarcastic pleasantry in
which he excelled, "imply no approbation. We are thankful whenever our
gracious Sovereign deigns to speak to us. Especially thankful are we
when, as on the present occasion, he speaks out, and gives us fair
warning of what we are to suffer. " [29] Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of
London, spoke strongly for the motion. Though not gifted with eminent
abilities, nor deeply versed in the learning of his profession, he
was always heard by the House with respect; for he was one of the few
clergymen who could, in that age, boast of noble blood. His own loyalty,
and the loyalty of his family, had been signally proved. His father,
the second Earl of Northampton, had fought bravely for King Charles the
First, and, surrounded by the parliamentary soldiers, had fallen, sword
in hand, refusing to give or take quarter. The Bishop himself, before he
was ordained, had borne arms in the Guards; and, though he generally did
his best to preserve the gravity and sobriety befitting a prelate, some
flashes of his military spirit would, to the last, occasionally break
forth. He had been entrusted with the religious education of the two
Princesses, and had acquitted himself of that important duty in a
manner which had satisfied all good Protestants, and had secured to him
considerable influence over the minds of his pupils, especially of the
Lady Anne. [30] He now declared that he was empowered to speak the sense
of his brethren, and that, in their opinion and in his own, the whole
civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was in danger.
One of the most remarkable speeches of that day was made by a young man,
whose eccentric career was destined to amaze Europe. This was Charles
Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, widely renowned, many years later, as Earl
of Peterborough. Already he had given abundant proofs of his courage,
of his capacity, and of that strange unsoundness of mind which made
his courage and capacity almost useless to his country. Already he had
distinguished himself as a wit and a scholar, as a soldier and a sailor.
He had even set his heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and Bossuet. Though an
avowed freethinker, he had sate up all night at sea to compose sermons,
and had with great difficulty been prevented from edifying the crew of
a man of war with his pious oratory. [31] He now addressed the House of
Peers, for the first time, with characteristic eloquence, sprightliness,
and audacity. He blamed the Commons for not having taken a bolder line.
"They have been afraid," he said, "to speak out. They have talked of
apprehensions and jealousies. What have apprehension and jealousy to do
here? Apprehension and jealousy are the feelings with which we regard
future and uncertain evils. The evil which we are considering is
neither future nor uncertain. A standing army exists. It is officered
by Papists. We have no foreign enemy. There is no rebellion in the land.
For what, then, is this force maintained, except for the purpose of
subverting our laws and establishing that arbitrary power which is so
justly abhorred by Englishmen? " [32]
Jeffreys spoke against the motion in the coarse and savage style of
which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy
to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own
hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour
or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been
passed in attacking and domineering, whatever may be his talents and
courage, generally makes a mean figure when he is vigorously assailed,
for, being unaccustomed to stand on the defensive, he becomes confused;
and the knowledge that all those whom he has insulted are enjoying his
confusion confuses him still more. Jeffreys was now, for the first
time since he had become a great man, encountered on equal terms by
adversaries who did not fear him. To the general delight, he passed at
once from the extreme of insolence to the extreme of meanness, and could
not refrain from weeping with rage and vexation. [33] Nothing indeed was
wanting to his humiliation; for the House was crowded by about a hundred
peers, a larger number than had voted even on the great day of the
Exclusion Bill. The King, too, was present. His brother had been in the
habit of attending the sittings of the Lords for amusement, and used
often to say that a debate was as entertaining as a comedy. James came,
not to be diverted, but in the hope that his presence might impose some
restraint on the discussion. He was disappointed. The sense of the
House was so strongly manifested that, after a closing speech, of great
keenness, from Halifax, the courtiers did not venture to divide. An
early day was fixed for taking the royal speech into consideration;
and it was ordered that every peer who was not at a distance from
Westminster should be in his place. [34]
On the following morning the King came down, in his robes, to the House
of Lords. The Usher of the Black Rod summoned the Commons to the bar;
and the Chancellor announced that the Parliament was prorogued to the
tenth of February. [35] The members who had voted against the court were
dismissed from the public service. Charles Fox quitted the Pay Office.
The Bishop of London ceased to be Dean of the Chapel Royal, and his name
was struck out of the list of Privy Councillors.
The effect of the prorogation was to put an end to a legal proceeding of
the highest importance. Thomas Grey, Earl of Stamford, sprung from one
of the most illustrious houses of England, had been recently arrested
and committed close prisoner to the Tower on a charge of high treason.
He was accused of having been concerned in the Rye House Plot. A true
bill had been found against him by the grand jury of the City of London,
and had been removed into the House of Lords, the only court before
which a temporal peer can, during a session of Parliament, be arraigned
for any offence higher than a misdemeanour. The first of December had
been fixed for the trial; and orders had been given that Westminster
Hall should be fitted up with seats and hangings. In consequence of the
prorogation, the hearing of the cause was postponed for an indefinite
period; and Stamford soon regained his liberty. [36]
Three other Whigs of great eminence were in confinement when the session
closed, Charles Gerard, Lord Gerard of Brandon, eldest son of the Earl
of Macclesfield, John Hampden, grandson of the renowned leader of the
Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord Delamere. Gerard and Hampden were
accused of having taken part in the Rye House Plot: Delamere of having
abetted the Western insurrection.
It was not the intention of the government to put either Gerard
or Hampden to death. Grey had stipulated for their lives before he
consented to become a witness against them. [37] But there was a still
stronger reason for sparing them. They were heirs to large property: but
their fathers were still living. The court could therefore get little in
the way of forfeiture, and might get much in the way of ransom. Gerard
was tried, and, from the very scanty accounts which have come down
to us, seems to have defended himself with great spirit and force. He
boasted of the exertions and sacrifices made by his family in the cause
of Charles the First, and proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered
Russell by telling one story and Cornish by telling another, to be
utterly undeserving of credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a
verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to redeem
himself. [38] Hampden had inherited the political opinions and a large
share of the abilities of his grandfather, but had degenerated from
the uprightness and the courage by which his grandfather had been
distinguished. It appears that the prisoner was, with cruel cunning,
long kept in an agony of suspense, in order that his family might be
induced to pay largely for mercy. His spirit sank under the terrors of
death. When brought to the bar of the Old Bailey he not only pleaded
guilty, but disgraced the illustrious name which he bore by abject
submissions and entreaties. He protested that he had not been privy
to the design of assassination; but he owned that he had meditated
rebellion, professed deep repentance for his offence, implored the
intercession of the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal clemency
were extended to him, his whole life should be passed in evincing
his gratitude for such goodness. The Whigs were furious at his
pusillanimity, and loudly declared him to be far more deserving of blame
than Grey, who, even in turning King's evidence, had preserved a certain
decorum. Hampden's life was spared; but his family paid several thousand
pounds to the Chancellor. Some courtiers of less note succeeded in
extorting smaller sums. The unhappy man had spirit enough to feel keenly
the degradation to which he had stooped. He survived the day of his
ignominy several years. He lived to see his party triumphant, to be once
more an important member of it, to rise high in the state, and to make
his persecutors tremble in their turn. But his prosperity was embittered
by one insupportable recollection. He never regained his cheerfulness,
and at length died by his own hand. [39]
That Delamere, if he had needed the royal mercy, would have found it is
not very probable. It is certain that every advantage which the letter
of the law gave to the government was used against him without scruple
or shame. He was in a different situation from that in which Stamford
stood. The indictment against Stamford had been removed into the House
of Lords during the session of Parliament, and therefore could not be
prosecuted till the Parliament should reassemble. All the peers would
then have voices, and would be judges as well of law as of fact. But the
bill against Delamere was not found till after the prorogation. [40]
He was therefore within the jurisdiction of the Court of the Lord High
Steward. This court, to which belongs, during a recess of Parliament,
the cognizance of treasons and felonies committed by temporal peers, was
then so constituted that no prisoner charged with a political offence
could expect an impartial trial. The King named a Lord High Steward.
The Lord High Steward named, at his discretion, certain peers to sit
on their accused brother. The number to be summoned was indefinite. No
challenge was allowed. A simple majority, provided that it consisted of
twelve, was sufficient to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of
the law; and the Lords Triers formed merely a jury to pronounce on
the question of fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He selected
thirty Triers; and the selection was characteristic of the man and of
the times. All the thirty were in politics vehemently opposed to the
prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels of regiments, and might be
removed from their lucrative commands at the pleasure of the King. Among
the remaining fifteen were the Lord Treasurer, the principal Secretary
of State, the Steward of the Household, the Comptroller of the
Household, the Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen's
Chamberlain, and other persons who were bound by strong ties of interest
to the court. Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages over the
humbler culprits who had been arraigned at the Old Bailey. There the
jurymen, violent partisans, taken for a single day by courtly Sheriffs
from the mass of society and speedily sent back to mingle with that
mass, were under no restraint of shame, and being little accustomed to
weigh evidence, followed without scruple the directions of the bench.
But in the High Steward's Court every Trier was a man of some experience
in grave affairs. Every Trier filled a considerable space in the public
eye. Every Trier, beginning from the lowest, had to rise separately and
to give in his verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse. That
verdict, accompanied with his name, would go to every part of the world,
and would live in history. Moreover, though the selected nobles were
all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of them had begun to look with
uneasiness on the King's proceedings, and to doubt whether the case of
Delamere might not soon be their own.
Jeffreys conducted himself, as was his wont, insolently and unjustly.
He had indeed an old grudge to stimulate his zeal. He had been Chief
Justice of Chester when Delamere, then Mr. Booth, represented that
county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly complained to the Commons that
the dearest interests of his constituents were intrusted to a drunken
jackpudding. [41] The revengeful judge was now not ashamed to resort
to artifices which even in an advocate would have been culpable. He
reminded the Lords Triers, in very significant language, that Delamere
had, in Parliament, objected to the bill for attainting Monmouth, a
fact which was not, and could not be, in evidence. But it was not in
the power of Jeffreys to overawe a synod of peers as he had been in
the habit of overawing common juries. The evidence for the crown would
probably have been thought amply sufficient on the Western Circuit or
at the City Sessions, but could not for a moment impose on such men
as Rochester, Godolphin, and Churchill; nor were they, with all their
faults, depraved enough to condemn a fellow creature to death against
the plainest rules of justice. Grey, Wade, and Goodenough were produced,
but could only repeat what they had heard said by Monmouth and by
Wildman's emissaries. The principal witness for the prosecution, a
miscreant named Saxton, who had been concerned in the rebellion, and
was now labouring to earn his pardon by swearing against all who were
obnoxious to the government, who proved by overwhelming evidence to
have told a series of falsehoods. All the Triers, from Churchill who,
as junior baron, spoke first, up to the Treasurer, pronounced, on their
honour, that Delamere was not guilty. The gravity and pomp of the whole
proceeding made a deep impression even on the Nuncio, accustomed as
he was to the ceremonies of Rome, ceremonies which, in solemnity and
splendour, exceed all that the rest of the world can show. [42]
The King, who was present, and was unable to complain of a decision
evidently just, went into a rage with Saxton, and vowed that the wretch
should first be pilloried before Westminster Hall for perjury, and then
sent down to the West to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason.
[43]
The public joy at the acquittal of Delamere was great. The reign
of terror was over. The innocent began to breathe freely, and false
accusers to tremble. One letter written on this occasion is scarcely to
be read without tears. The widow of Russell, in her retirement, learned
the good news with mingled feelings. "I do bless God," she wrote, "that
he has caused some stop to be put to the shedding of blood in this poor
land. Yet when I should rejoice with them that do rejoice, I seek a
corner to weep in. I find I am capable of no more gladness; but every
new circumstance, the very comparing my night of sorrow after such a
day, with theirs of joy, does, from a reflection of one kind or another,
rack my uneasy mind. Though I am far from wishing the close of theirs
like mine, yet I cannot refrain giving some time to lament mine was not
like theirs. " [44]
And now the tide was on the turn. The death of Stafford, witnessed with
signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to whose rage he was
sacrificed, marks the close of one proscription. The acquittal of
Delamere marks the close of another. The crimes which had disgraced the
stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury had been fearfully expiated. The blood
of innocent Papists had been avenged more than tenfold by the blood of
zealous Protestants. Another great reaction had commenced. Factions
were fast taking new forms. Old allies were separating. Old enemies
were uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through all the ranks of
the party lately dominant. A hope, still indeed faint and indefinite,
of victory and revenge, animated the party which had lately seemed to be
extinct. Amidst such circumstances the eventful and troubled year 1685
terminated, and the year 1686 began.
The prorogation had relieved the King from the gentle remonstrances
of the Houses: but he had still to listen to remonstrances, similar in
effect, though uttered in a tone even more cautious and subdued. Some
men who had hitherto served him but too strenuously for their own fame
and for the public welfare had begun to feel painful misgivings, and
occasionally ventured to hint a small part of what they felt.
During many years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary monarchy
and his zeal for the established religion had grown up together and
had strengthened each other. It had never occurred to him that the two
sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even identical, might one day
be found to be not only distinct but incompatible. From the commencement
of the strife between the Stuarts and the Commons, the cause of the
crown and the cause of the hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one.
Charles the First was regarded by the Church as her martyr. If Charles
the Second had plotted against her, he had plotted in secret. In public
he had ever professed himself her grateful and devoted son, had knelt
at her altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had succeeded in
persuading the great body of her adherents that he felt a sincere
preference for her. Whatever conflicts, therefore, the honest Cavalier
might have had to maintain against Whigs and Roundheads he had at least
been hitherto undisturbed by conflict in his own mind. He had seen the
path of duty plain before him. Through good and evil he was to be true
to Church and King. But, if those two august and venerable powers, which
had hitherto seemed to be so closely connected that those who were true
to one could not be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly
enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take? What situation
could be more trying than that in which he would be placed, distracted
between two duties equally sacred, between two affections equally
ardent? How was he to give to Caesar all that was Caesar's, and yet to
withhold from God no part of what was God's? None who felt thus could
have watched, without deep concern and gloomy forebodings, the dispute
between the King and the Parliament on the subject of the test. If James
could even now be induced to reconsider his course, to let the Houses
reassemble, and to comply with their wishes, all might yet be well.
Such were the sentiments of the King's two kinsmen, the Earls of
Clarendon and Rochester. The power and favour of these noblemen seemed
to be great indeed. The younger brother was Lord Treasurer and prime
minister; and the elder, after holding the Privy Seal during some
months, had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The venerable
Ormond took the same side. Middleton and Preston, who, as managers
of the House of Commons, had recently learned by proof how dear the
established religion was to the loyal gentry of England, were also for
moderate counsels.
At the very beginning of the new year these statesmen and the great
party which they represented had to suffer a cruel mortification. That
the late King had been at heart a Roman Catholic had been, during
some months, suspected and whispered, but not formally announced. The
disclosure, indeed, could not be made without great scandal. Charles
had, times without number, declared himself a Protestant, and had
been in the habit of receiving the Eucharist from the Bishops of the
Established Church. Those Protestants who had stood by him in his
difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance of
him, must be filled with shame and indignation by learning that his
whole life had been a lie, that, while he professed to belong to
their communion, he had really regarded them as heretics, and that the
demagogues who had represented him as a concealed Papist had been the
only people who had formed a correct judgment of his character. Even
Lewis understood enough of the state of public feeling in England to be
aware that the divulging of the truth might do harm, and had, of his own
accord, promised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret. [45]
James, while his power was still new, had thought that on this point it
was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to inter his brother
with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a time, therefore, every
man was at liberty to believe what he wished. The Papists claimed
the deceased prince as their proselyte. The Whigs execrated him as a
hypocrite and a renegade. The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy
as a calumny which Papists and Whigs had, for very different reasons,
a common interest in circulating. James now took a step which greatly
disconcerted the whole Anglican party. Two papers, in which were set
forth very concisely the arguments ordinarily used by Roman Catholics
in controversy with Protestants, had been found in Charles's strong
box, and appeared to be in his handwriting. These papers James
showed triumphantly to several Protestants, and declared that, to his
knowledge, his brother had lived and died a Roman Catholic. [46] One
of the persons to whom the manuscripts were exhibited was Archbishop
Sancroft. He read them with much emotion, and remained silent. Such
silence was only the natural effect of a struggle between respect and
vexation. But James supposed that the Primate was struck dumb by the
irresistible force of reason, and eagerly challenged his Grace to
produce, with the help of the whole episcopal bench, a satisfactory
reply. "Let me have a solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike style; and it
may have the effect which you so much desire of bringing me over to your
Church. " The Archbishop mildly said that, in his opinion, such an answer
might, without much difficulty, be written, but declined the controversy
on the plea of reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This
plea the King considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished disputant.
[47] Had he been well acquainted with the polemical literature of the
preceding century and a half, he would have known that the documents to
which he attached so much value might have been composed by any lad of
fifteen in the college of Douay, and contained nothing which had not, in
the opinion of all Protestant divines, been ten thousand times refuted.
In his ignorant exultation he ordered these tracts to be printed with
the utmost pomp of typography, and appended to them a declaration
attested by his sign manual, and certifying that the originals were
in his brother's own hand.
of the honour of nobility. The Protestant officers of the royal
household were informed that His Majesty dispensed with their services.
Orders were given that no Protestant should be admitted into the legal
profession. The oppressed sect showed some faint signs of that spirit
which in the preceding century had bidden defiance to the whole power
of the House of Valois. Massacres and executions followed. Dragoons
were quartered in the towns where the heretics were numerous, and in the
country seats of the heretic gentry; and the cruelty and licentiousness
of these rude missionaries was sanctioned or leniently censured by the
government. Still, however, the edict of Nantes, though practically
violated in its most essential provisions, had not been formally
rescinded; and the King repeatedly declared in solemn public acts that
he was resolved to maintain it. But the bigots and flatterers who had
his ear gave him advice which he was but too willing to take. They
represented to him that his rigorous policy had been eminently
successful, that little or no resistance had been made to his will, that
thousands of Huguenots had already been converted, that, if he would
take the one decisive step which yet remained, those who were still
obstinate would speedily submit, France would be purged from the taint
of heresy, and her prince would have earned a heavenly crown not less
glorious than that of Saint Lewis. These arguments prevailed. The final
blow was struck. The edict of Nantes was revoked; and a crowd of decrees
against the sectaries appeared in rapid succession. Boys and girls
were torn from their parents and sent to be educated in convents. All
Calvinistic ministers were commanded either to abjure their religion or
to quit their country within a fortnight. The other professors of the
reformed faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in order to
prevent them from making their escape, the outports and frontiers were
strictly guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus separated from
the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true fold. But in spite of
all the vigilance of the military police there was a vast emigration.
It was calculated that, in a few months, fifty thousand families quitted
France for ever. Nor were the refugees such as a country can well spare.
They were generally persons of intelligent minds, of industrious habits,
and of austere morals. In the list are to be found names eminent in war,
in science, in literature, and in art. Some of the exiles offered their
swords to William of Orange, and distinguished themselves by the
fury with which they fought against their persecutor. Others avenged
themselves with weapons still more formidable, and, by means of the
presses of Holland, England, and Germany, inflamed, during thirty years,
the public mind of Europe against the French government. A more peaceful
class erected silk manufactories in the eastern suburb of London. One
detachment of emigrants taught the Saxons to make the stuffs and hats of
which France had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the first
vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. [12]
In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would have
eagerly applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on heresy. But such
was the hatred inspired by the injustice and haughtiness of Lewis that,
when he became a persecutor, the courts of Spain and Rome took the side
of religious liberty, and loudly reprobated the cruelty of turning a
savage and licentious soldiery loose on an unoffending people. [13]
One cry of grief and rage rose from the whole of Protestant Europe. The
tidings of the revocation of the edict of Nantes reached England about
a week before the day to which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was
clear then that the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva was still the
spirit of the Roman Catholic Church. Lewis was not inferior to James in
generosity and humanity, and was certainly far superior to James in all
the abilities and acquirements of a statesman. Lewis had, like James,
repeatedly promised to respect the privileges of his Protestant
subjects. Yet Lewis was now avowedly a persecutor of the reformed
religion. What reason was there, then, to doubt that James waited only
for an opportunity to follow the example? He was already forming, in
defiance of the law, a military force officered to a great extent by
Roman Catholics. Was there anything unreasonable in the apprehension
that this force might be employed to do what the French dragoons had
done?
James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects by the conduct of the
court of Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if it had meant
to embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask from a Protestant
legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics. Nothing, therefore,
could be more unwelcome to him than the intelligence that, in a
neighbouring country, toleration had just been withdrawn by a Roman
Catholic government from Protestants. His vexation was increased by a
speech which the Bishop of Valence, in the name of the Gallican clergy,
addressed at this time to Lewis, the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of
England, the orator said, looked to the most Christian King for support
against a heretical nation. It was remarked that the members of the
House of Commons showed particular anxiety to procure copies of this
harangue, and that it was read by all Englishmen with indignation and
alarm. [14] James was desirous to counteract the impression which these
things had made, and was also at that moment by no means unwilling to
let all Europe see that he was not the slave of France. He therefore
declared publicly that he disapproved of the manner in which the
Huguenots had been treated, granted to the exiles some relief from his
privy purse, and, by letters under his great seal, invited his subjects
to imitate his liberality. In a very few months it became clear that all
this compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajoling his Parliament,
that he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred, and that he regretted
nothing so much as his own inability to do what Lewis had done.
On the ninth of November the Houses met. The Commons were summoned to
the bar of the Lords; and the King spoke from the throne. His speech had
been composed by himself. He congratulated his loving subjects on the
suppression of the rebellion in the West: but he added that the speed
with which that rebellion had risen to a formidable height, and the
length of time during which it had continued to rage, must convince
all men how little dependence could be placed on the militia. He had,
therefore, made additions to the regular army. The charge of that army
would henceforth be more than double of what it had been; and he trusted
that the Commons would grant him the means of defraying the increased
expense. He then informed his hearers that he had employed some officers
who had not taken the test; but he knew them to be fit for public trust.
He feared that artful men might avail themselves of this irregularity
to disturb the harmony which existed between himself and his Parliament.
But he would speak out. He was determined not to part with servants on
whose fidelity he could rely, and whose help he might perhaps soon need.
[15]
This explicit declaration that he had broken the laws which were
regarded by the nation as the chief safeguards of the established
religion, and that he was resolved to persist in breaking those laws,
was not likely to soothe the excited feelings of his subjects. The
Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in opposition to a government,
consented to vote him formal thanks for what he had said. But the
Commons were in a less complying mood. When they had returned to their
own House there was a long silence; and the faces of many of the most
respectable members expressed deep concern. At length Middleton rose and
moved the House to go instantly into committee on the King's speech: but
Sir Edmund Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who was supposed
to speak the sentiments of Danby, protested against this course, and
demanded time for consideration. Sir Thomas Clarges, maternal uncle of
the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished in Parliament as a man of
business and a viligant steward of the public money, took the same
side. The feeling of the House could not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, insisted that the delay should not exceed
forty-eight hours; but he was overruled; and it was resolved that the
discussion should be postponed for three days. [16]
The interval was well employed by those who took the lead against the
court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three days a country
party was to be organized. The difficulty of the task is in our age not
easily to be appreciated; for in our age all the nation may be said to
assist at every deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is said by
the leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after midnight is read
by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of Northumberland
and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and the Highlands
of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore, the stages of
legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of faction, the opinions,
temper, and style of every active member of either House, are familiar
to hundreds of thousands. Every man who now enters Parliament possesses
what, in the seventeenth century, would have been called a great stock
of parliamentary knowledge. Such knowledge was then to be obtained only
by actual parliamentary service. The difference between an old and a new
member was as great as the difference between a veteran soldier and a
recruit just taken from the plough; and James's Parliament contained
a most unusual proportion of new members, who had brought from their
country seats to Westminster no political knowledge and many violent
prejudices. These gentlemen hated the Papists, but hated the Whigs not
less intensely, and regarded the King with superstitious veneration. To
form an opposition out of such materials was a feat which required the
most skilful and delicate management. Some men of great weight, however,
undertook the work, and performed it with success. Several experienced
Whig politicians, who had not seats in that Parliament, gave useful
advice and information. On the day preceding that which had been fixed
for the debate, many meetings were held at which the leaders instructed
the novices; and it soon appeared that these exertions had not been
thrown away. [17]
The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was well understood
that a few days would now decide the great question, whether the King
of England was or was not to be the vassal of the King of France. The
ministers of the House of Austria were most anxious that James should
give satisfaction to his Parliament. Innocent had sent to London two
persons charged to inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by
example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had
been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and
a rich vein of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, and
taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum,
and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an
Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and courtly manners,
had been appointed Nuncio. These functionaries were eagerly welcomed by
James. No Roman Catholic Bishop had exercised spiritual functions in the
island during more than half a century. No Nuncio had been received here
during the hundred and twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the
death of Mary. Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, and received a pension
of a thousand pounds a year. Adda did not yet assume a public character.
He passed for a foreigner of rank whom curiosity had brought to London,
appeared daily at court, and was treated with high consideration. Both
the Papal emissaries did their best to diminish, as much as possible,
the odium inseparable from the offices which they filled, and to
restrain the rash zeal of James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared
that nothing could be more injurious to the interests of the Church of
Rome than a rupture between the King and the Parliament. [18]
Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he
received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be studied;
for they furnish a key to the policy systematically pursued by his
master towards England during the twenty years which preceded our
revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, were alarming. Strong
hopes were entertained there that James would ally himself closely
with the House of Austria, as soon as he should be assured that his
Parliament would give him no trouble. In these circumstances, it was
evidently the interest of France that the Parliament should prove
refractory. Barillon was therefore directed to act, with all possible
precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was
to omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the kingly
pride of James; but at the same time it might be desirable to have some
secret communication with the malecontents. Such communication would
indeed be hazardous and would require the utmost adroitness; yet it
might perhaps be in the power of the Ambassador, without committing
himself or his government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for the
laws and liberties of England, and to let it be understood that those
laws and liberties were not regarded by his master with an unfriendly
eye. [19]
Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how speedily
and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by the obstinacy and
stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November the House of Commons,
resolved itself into a committee on the royal speech. The Solicitor
General Heneage Finch, was in the chair. The debate was conducted by
the chiefs of the new country party with rare tact and address. No
expression indicating disrespect to the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels
was suffered to escape. The western insurrection was always mentioned
with abhorrence. Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and
Jeffreys. It was admitted that the heavy expenditure which had been
occasioned by the late troubles justified the King in asking some
further supply: but strong objections were made to the augmentation of
the army and to the infraction of the Test Act.
The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have carefully
avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on the great
superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them tauntingly
asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be entrusted to
the beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad to know how the
Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth's
scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis. But these
arguments had little effect on Cavaliers who still remembered with
bitterness the stern rule of the Protector. The general feeling was
forcibly expressed by the first of the Tory country gentlemen of
England, Edward Seymour. He admitted that the militia was not in a
satisfactory state, but maintained that it might be remodelled. The
remodelling might require money; but, for his own part, he would rather
give a million to keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear,
than half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever be afraid.
Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be strengthened; and the
country would be secure. A standing army was at best a mere drain on the
public resources. The soldier was withdrawn from all useful labour. He
produced nothing: he consumed the fruits of the industry of other men;
and he domineered over those by whom he was supported. But the nation
was now threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a Popish
standing army, with a standing army officered by men who might be
very amiable and honourable, but who were on principle enemies to the
constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden, member for the county of
Kent, spoke on the same side with great keenness and loud applause. Sir
Richard Temple, one of the few Whigs who had a seat in that Parliament,
dexterously accommodating his speech to the temper of his audience,
reminded the House that a standing army had been found, by experience,
to be as dangerous to the just authority of princes as to the liberty
of nations. Sir John Maynard, the most learned lawyer of his time, took
part in the debate. He was now more than eighty years old, and could
well remember the political contests of the reign of James the First. He
had sate in the Long Parliament, and had taken part with the Roundheads,
but had always been for lenient counsels, and had laboured to bring
about a general reconciliation. His abilities, which age had not
impaired, and his professional knowledge, which had long overawed all
Westminster Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He, too,
declared himself against the augmentation of the regular forces.
After much debate, it was resolved that a supply should be granted to
the crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should be brought in for
making the militia more efficient. This last resolution was tantamount
to a declaration against the standing army. The King was greatly
displeased; and it was whispered that, if things went on thus, the
session would not be of long duration. [20]
On the morrow the contention was renewed. The language of the country
party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preceding day.
That paragraph of the King's speech which related to supply preceded the
paragraph which related to the test. On this ground Middleton proposed
that the paragraph relating to supply should be first considered in
committee. The opposition moved the previous question. They contended
that the reasonable and constitutional practice was to grant no money
till grievances had been redressed, and that there would be an end of
this practice if the House thought itself bound servilely to follow the
order in which matters were mentioned by the King from the throne.
The division was taken on the question whether Middletons motion should
be put. The Noes were ordered by the Speaker to go forth into the lobby.
They resented this much, and complained loudly of his servility and
partiality: for they conceived that, according to the intricate and
subtle rule which was then in force, and which, in our time, was
superseded by a more rational and convenient practice, they were
entitled to keep their seats; and it was held by all the Parliamentary
tacticians of that age that the party which stayed in the House had an
advantage over the party which went out; for the accommodation on the
benches was then so deficient that no person who had been fortunate
enough to get a good seat was willing to lose it. Nevertheless, to
the dismay of the ministers, many persons on whose votes the court had
absolutely depended were seen moving towards the door. Among them was
Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and son of Sir Stephen Fox, Clerk
of the Green Cloth. The Paymaster had been induced by his friends to
absent himself during part of the discussion. But his anxiety had become
insupportable. He come down to the Speaker's chamber, heard part of
the debate, withdrew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between
conscience and five thousand pounds a year, took a manly resolution and
rushed into the House just in time to vote. Two officers of the army,
Colonel John Darcy, son of the Lord Conyers, and Captain James Kendall,
withdrew to the lobby. Middleton went down to the bar and expostulated
warmly with them. He particularly addressed himself to Kendall, a needy
retainer of the court, who had, in obedience to the royal mandate, been
sent to Parliament by a packed corporation in Cornwall, and who had
recently obtained a grant of a hundred head of rebels sentenced to
transportation. "Sir," said Middleton, "have not you a troop of horse in
His Majesty's service? " "Yes, my Lord," answered Kendall: "but my elder
brother is just dead, and has left me seven hundred a year. "
When the tellers had done their office it appeared that the Ayes were
one hundred and eighty-two, and the Noes one and eighty-three. In that
House of Commons which had been brought together by the unscrupulous use
of chicanery, of corruption, and of violence, in that House of Commons
of which James had said that more than eleven twelfths of the members
were such as he would himself have nominated, the court had sustained a
defeat on a vital question. [21]
In consequence of this vote the expressions which the King had used
respecting the test were, on the thirteenth of November, taken into
consideration. It was resolved, after much discussion, that an address
should be presented to him, reminding him that he could not legally
continue to employ officers who refused to qualify, and pressing him to
give such directions as might quiet the apprehensions and jealousies of
his people. [22]
A motion was then made that the Lords should be requested to join in the
address. Whether this motion was honestly made by the opposition, in
the hope that the concurrence of the peers would add weight to the
remonstrance, or artfully made by the courtiers, in the hope that a
breach between the Houses might be the consequence, it is now impossible
to discover. The proposition was rejected. [23]
The House then resolved itself into a committee, for the purpose of
considering the amount of supply to be granted. The King wanted fourteen
hundred thousand pounds: but the ministers saw that it would be vain to
ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned twelve
hundred thousand pounds. The chiefs of the opposition replied that to
vote for such a grant would be to vote for the permanence of the present
military establishment: they were disposed to give only so much as might
suffice to keep the regular troops on foot till the militia could be
remodelled and they therefore proposed four hundred thousand pounds.
The courtiers exclaimed against this motion as unworthy of the House and
disrespectful to the King: but they were manfully encountered. One of
the western members, John Windham, who sate for Salisbury, especially
distinguished himself. He had always, he said, looked with dread and
aversion on standing armies; and recent experience had strengthened
those feelings. He then ventured to touch on a theme which had hitherto
been studiously avoided. He described the desolation of the western
counties. The people, he said, were weary of the oppression of the
troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still fouler crimes
which the law called felonies, but for which, when perpetrated by this
class of felons, no redress could be obtained. The King's servants had
indeed told the House that excellent rules had been laid down for the
government of the army; but none could venture to say that these rules
had been observed. What, then, was the inevitable inference? Did not the
contrast between the paternal injunctions issued from the throne and the
insupportable tyranny of the soldiers prove that the army was even now
too strong for the prince as well as for the people? The Commons might
surely, with perfect consistency, while they reposed entire confidence
in the intentions of His Majesty, refuse to make any addition to a force
which it was clear that His Majesty could not manage.
The motion that the sum to be granted should not exceed four hundred
thousand pounds, was lost by twelve votes. This victory of the ministers
was little better than a defeat. The leaders of the country party,
nothing disheartened, retreated a little, made another stand, and
proposed the sum of seven hundred thousand pounds. The committee divided
again, and the courtiers were beaten by two hundred and twelve votes to
one hundred and seventy. [24]
On the following day the Commons went in procession to Whitehall with
their address on the subject of the test. The King received them on
his throne. The address was drawn up in respectful and affectionate
language; for the great majority of those who had voted for it were
zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and had readily agreed to
insert some complimentary phrases, and to omit every word which the
courtiers thought offensive. The answer of James was a cold and sullen
reprimand. He declared himself greatly displeased and amazed that the
Commons should have profited so little by the admonition which he had
given them. "But," said he, "however you may proceed on your part, I
will be very steady in all the promises which I have made to you. " [25]
The Commons reassembled in their chamber, discontented, yet somewhat
overawed. To most of them the King was still an object of filial
reverence. Three more years filled with injuries, and with insults more
galling than injuries, were scarcely sufficient to dissolve the ties
which bound the Cavalier gentry to the throne.
The Speaker repeated the substance of the King's reply. There was, for
some time, a solemn stillness; then the order of the day was read
in regular course; and the House went into committee on the bill for
remodelling the militia.
In a few hours, however, the spirit of the opposition revived. When,
at the close of the day, the Speaker resumed the chair, Wharton, the
boldest and most active of the Whigs, proposed that a time should be
appointed for taking His Majesty's answer into consideration. John Coke,
member for Derby, though a noted Tory, seconded Wharton. "I hope," he
said, "that we are all Englishmen, and that we shall not be frightened
from our duty by a few high words. "
It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower," resounded
from every side. Those who were most lenient proposed that the offender
should be reprimanded: but the ministers vehemently insisted that he
should be sent to prison. The House might pardon, they said, offences
committed against itself, but had no right to pardon an insult offered
to the crown. Coke was sent to the Tower. The indiscretion of one
man had deranged the whole system of tactics which had been so ably
concerted by the chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that
moment, Edward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted
them to fix a day for discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that the discussion would be conducted with the respect due
from subjects to the sovereign.
The members were so much cowed by the
royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it
would not have been safe to divide. [26]
The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that the
spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the nineteenth of
November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The time had arrived for
taking into consideration the petitions which had been presented from
all parts of England against the late elections. When, on the first
meeting of the Parliament, Seymour had complained of the force and fraud
by which the government had prevented the sense of constituent bodies
from being fairly taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had then
flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, and, with Sir John
Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had, before the recess,
suggested that there ought to be an enquiry into the abuses which had
so much excited the public mind. The House was now in a much more angry
temper; and many voices were boldly raised in menace and accusation. The
ministers were told that the nation expected, and should have, signal
redress. Meanwhile it was dexterously intimated that the best atonement
which a gentleman who had been brought into the House by irregular means
could make to the public was to use his ill acquired power in defence
of the religion and liberties of his country. No member who, in that
crisis, did his duty had anything to fear. It might be necessary to
unseat him; but the whole influence of the opposition should be employed
to procure his reelection. [27]
On the same day it became clear that the spirit of opposition had spread
from the Commons to the Lords, and even to the episcopal bench. William
Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took the lead in the Upper House; and he
was well qualified to do so. In wealth and influence he was second to
none of the English nobles; and the general voice designated him as the
finest gentleman of his time. His magnificence, his taste, his talents,
his classical learning, his high spirit, the grace and urbanity of his
manners, were admitted by his enemies. His eulogists, unhappily, could
not pretend that his morals had escaped untainted from the widespread
contagion of that age. Though an enemy of Popery and of arbitrary
power, he had been averse to extreme courses, had been willing, when the
Exclusion Bill was lost, to agree to a compromise, and had never
been concerned in the illegal and imprudent schemes which had brought
discredit on the Whig party. But, though regretting part of the conduct
of his friends, he had not, on that account, failed to perform zealously
the most arduous and perilous duties of friendship. He had stood near
Russell at the bar, had parted from him on the sad morning of the
execution with close embraces and with many bitter tears, nay, had
offered to manage an escape at the hazard of his own life. [28] This
great nobleman now proposed that a day should be fixed for considering
the royal speech. It was contended, on the other side, that the
Lords, by voting thanks for the speech, had precluded themselves from
complaining of it. But this objection was treated with contempt by
Halifax. "Such thanks," he said with the sarcastic pleasantry in
which he excelled, "imply no approbation. We are thankful whenever our
gracious Sovereign deigns to speak to us. Especially thankful are we
when, as on the present occasion, he speaks out, and gives us fair
warning of what we are to suffer. " [29] Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of
London, spoke strongly for the motion. Though not gifted with eminent
abilities, nor deeply versed in the learning of his profession, he
was always heard by the House with respect; for he was one of the few
clergymen who could, in that age, boast of noble blood. His own loyalty,
and the loyalty of his family, had been signally proved. His father,
the second Earl of Northampton, had fought bravely for King Charles the
First, and, surrounded by the parliamentary soldiers, had fallen, sword
in hand, refusing to give or take quarter. The Bishop himself, before he
was ordained, had borne arms in the Guards; and, though he generally did
his best to preserve the gravity and sobriety befitting a prelate, some
flashes of his military spirit would, to the last, occasionally break
forth. He had been entrusted with the religious education of the two
Princesses, and had acquitted himself of that important duty in a
manner which had satisfied all good Protestants, and had secured to him
considerable influence over the minds of his pupils, especially of the
Lady Anne. [30] He now declared that he was empowered to speak the sense
of his brethren, and that, in their opinion and in his own, the whole
civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was in danger.
One of the most remarkable speeches of that day was made by a young man,
whose eccentric career was destined to amaze Europe. This was Charles
Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, widely renowned, many years later, as Earl
of Peterborough. Already he had given abundant proofs of his courage,
of his capacity, and of that strange unsoundness of mind which made
his courage and capacity almost useless to his country. Already he had
distinguished himself as a wit and a scholar, as a soldier and a sailor.
He had even set his heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and Bossuet. Though an
avowed freethinker, he had sate up all night at sea to compose sermons,
and had with great difficulty been prevented from edifying the crew of
a man of war with his pious oratory. [31] He now addressed the House of
Peers, for the first time, with characteristic eloquence, sprightliness,
and audacity. He blamed the Commons for not having taken a bolder line.
"They have been afraid," he said, "to speak out. They have talked of
apprehensions and jealousies. What have apprehension and jealousy to do
here? Apprehension and jealousy are the feelings with which we regard
future and uncertain evils. The evil which we are considering is
neither future nor uncertain. A standing army exists. It is officered
by Papists. We have no foreign enemy. There is no rebellion in the land.
For what, then, is this force maintained, except for the purpose of
subverting our laws and establishing that arbitrary power which is so
justly abhorred by Englishmen? " [32]
Jeffreys spoke against the motion in the coarse and savage style of
which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy
to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own
hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour
or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been
passed in attacking and domineering, whatever may be his talents and
courage, generally makes a mean figure when he is vigorously assailed,
for, being unaccustomed to stand on the defensive, he becomes confused;
and the knowledge that all those whom he has insulted are enjoying his
confusion confuses him still more. Jeffreys was now, for the first
time since he had become a great man, encountered on equal terms by
adversaries who did not fear him. To the general delight, he passed at
once from the extreme of insolence to the extreme of meanness, and could
not refrain from weeping with rage and vexation. [33] Nothing indeed was
wanting to his humiliation; for the House was crowded by about a hundred
peers, a larger number than had voted even on the great day of the
Exclusion Bill. The King, too, was present. His brother had been in the
habit of attending the sittings of the Lords for amusement, and used
often to say that a debate was as entertaining as a comedy. James came,
not to be diverted, but in the hope that his presence might impose some
restraint on the discussion. He was disappointed. The sense of the
House was so strongly manifested that, after a closing speech, of great
keenness, from Halifax, the courtiers did not venture to divide. An
early day was fixed for taking the royal speech into consideration;
and it was ordered that every peer who was not at a distance from
Westminster should be in his place. [34]
On the following morning the King came down, in his robes, to the House
of Lords. The Usher of the Black Rod summoned the Commons to the bar;
and the Chancellor announced that the Parliament was prorogued to the
tenth of February. [35] The members who had voted against the court were
dismissed from the public service. Charles Fox quitted the Pay Office.
The Bishop of London ceased to be Dean of the Chapel Royal, and his name
was struck out of the list of Privy Councillors.
The effect of the prorogation was to put an end to a legal proceeding of
the highest importance. Thomas Grey, Earl of Stamford, sprung from one
of the most illustrious houses of England, had been recently arrested
and committed close prisoner to the Tower on a charge of high treason.
He was accused of having been concerned in the Rye House Plot. A true
bill had been found against him by the grand jury of the City of London,
and had been removed into the House of Lords, the only court before
which a temporal peer can, during a session of Parliament, be arraigned
for any offence higher than a misdemeanour. The first of December had
been fixed for the trial; and orders had been given that Westminster
Hall should be fitted up with seats and hangings. In consequence of the
prorogation, the hearing of the cause was postponed for an indefinite
period; and Stamford soon regained his liberty. [36]
Three other Whigs of great eminence were in confinement when the session
closed, Charles Gerard, Lord Gerard of Brandon, eldest son of the Earl
of Macclesfield, John Hampden, grandson of the renowned leader of the
Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord Delamere. Gerard and Hampden were
accused of having taken part in the Rye House Plot: Delamere of having
abetted the Western insurrection.
It was not the intention of the government to put either Gerard
or Hampden to death. Grey had stipulated for their lives before he
consented to become a witness against them. [37] But there was a still
stronger reason for sparing them. They were heirs to large property: but
their fathers were still living. The court could therefore get little in
the way of forfeiture, and might get much in the way of ransom. Gerard
was tried, and, from the very scanty accounts which have come down
to us, seems to have defended himself with great spirit and force. He
boasted of the exertions and sacrifices made by his family in the cause
of Charles the First, and proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered
Russell by telling one story and Cornish by telling another, to be
utterly undeserving of credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a
verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to redeem
himself. [38] Hampden had inherited the political opinions and a large
share of the abilities of his grandfather, but had degenerated from
the uprightness and the courage by which his grandfather had been
distinguished. It appears that the prisoner was, with cruel cunning,
long kept in an agony of suspense, in order that his family might be
induced to pay largely for mercy. His spirit sank under the terrors of
death. When brought to the bar of the Old Bailey he not only pleaded
guilty, but disgraced the illustrious name which he bore by abject
submissions and entreaties. He protested that he had not been privy
to the design of assassination; but he owned that he had meditated
rebellion, professed deep repentance for his offence, implored the
intercession of the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal clemency
were extended to him, his whole life should be passed in evincing
his gratitude for such goodness. The Whigs were furious at his
pusillanimity, and loudly declared him to be far more deserving of blame
than Grey, who, even in turning King's evidence, had preserved a certain
decorum. Hampden's life was spared; but his family paid several thousand
pounds to the Chancellor. Some courtiers of less note succeeded in
extorting smaller sums. The unhappy man had spirit enough to feel keenly
the degradation to which he had stooped. He survived the day of his
ignominy several years. He lived to see his party triumphant, to be once
more an important member of it, to rise high in the state, and to make
his persecutors tremble in their turn. But his prosperity was embittered
by one insupportable recollection. He never regained his cheerfulness,
and at length died by his own hand. [39]
That Delamere, if he had needed the royal mercy, would have found it is
not very probable. It is certain that every advantage which the letter
of the law gave to the government was used against him without scruple
or shame. He was in a different situation from that in which Stamford
stood. The indictment against Stamford had been removed into the House
of Lords during the session of Parliament, and therefore could not be
prosecuted till the Parliament should reassemble. All the peers would
then have voices, and would be judges as well of law as of fact. But the
bill against Delamere was not found till after the prorogation. [40]
He was therefore within the jurisdiction of the Court of the Lord High
Steward. This court, to which belongs, during a recess of Parliament,
the cognizance of treasons and felonies committed by temporal peers, was
then so constituted that no prisoner charged with a political offence
could expect an impartial trial. The King named a Lord High Steward.
The Lord High Steward named, at his discretion, certain peers to sit
on their accused brother. The number to be summoned was indefinite. No
challenge was allowed. A simple majority, provided that it consisted of
twelve, was sufficient to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of
the law; and the Lords Triers formed merely a jury to pronounce on
the question of fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He selected
thirty Triers; and the selection was characteristic of the man and of
the times. All the thirty were in politics vehemently opposed to the
prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels of regiments, and might be
removed from their lucrative commands at the pleasure of the King. Among
the remaining fifteen were the Lord Treasurer, the principal Secretary
of State, the Steward of the Household, the Comptroller of the
Household, the Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen's
Chamberlain, and other persons who were bound by strong ties of interest
to the court. Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages over the
humbler culprits who had been arraigned at the Old Bailey. There the
jurymen, violent partisans, taken for a single day by courtly Sheriffs
from the mass of society and speedily sent back to mingle with that
mass, were under no restraint of shame, and being little accustomed to
weigh evidence, followed without scruple the directions of the bench.
But in the High Steward's Court every Trier was a man of some experience
in grave affairs. Every Trier filled a considerable space in the public
eye. Every Trier, beginning from the lowest, had to rise separately and
to give in his verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse. That
verdict, accompanied with his name, would go to every part of the world,
and would live in history. Moreover, though the selected nobles were
all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of them had begun to look with
uneasiness on the King's proceedings, and to doubt whether the case of
Delamere might not soon be their own.
Jeffreys conducted himself, as was his wont, insolently and unjustly.
He had indeed an old grudge to stimulate his zeal. He had been Chief
Justice of Chester when Delamere, then Mr. Booth, represented that
county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly complained to the Commons that
the dearest interests of his constituents were intrusted to a drunken
jackpudding. [41] The revengeful judge was now not ashamed to resort
to artifices which even in an advocate would have been culpable. He
reminded the Lords Triers, in very significant language, that Delamere
had, in Parliament, objected to the bill for attainting Monmouth, a
fact which was not, and could not be, in evidence. But it was not in
the power of Jeffreys to overawe a synod of peers as he had been in
the habit of overawing common juries. The evidence for the crown would
probably have been thought amply sufficient on the Western Circuit or
at the City Sessions, but could not for a moment impose on such men
as Rochester, Godolphin, and Churchill; nor were they, with all their
faults, depraved enough to condemn a fellow creature to death against
the plainest rules of justice. Grey, Wade, and Goodenough were produced,
but could only repeat what they had heard said by Monmouth and by
Wildman's emissaries. The principal witness for the prosecution, a
miscreant named Saxton, who had been concerned in the rebellion, and
was now labouring to earn his pardon by swearing against all who were
obnoxious to the government, who proved by overwhelming evidence to
have told a series of falsehoods. All the Triers, from Churchill who,
as junior baron, spoke first, up to the Treasurer, pronounced, on their
honour, that Delamere was not guilty. The gravity and pomp of the whole
proceeding made a deep impression even on the Nuncio, accustomed as
he was to the ceremonies of Rome, ceremonies which, in solemnity and
splendour, exceed all that the rest of the world can show. [42]
The King, who was present, and was unable to complain of a decision
evidently just, went into a rage with Saxton, and vowed that the wretch
should first be pilloried before Westminster Hall for perjury, and then
sent down to the West to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason.
[43]
The public joy at the acquittal of Delamere was great. The reign
of terror was over. The innocent began to breathe freely, and false
accusers to tremble. One letter written on this occasion is scarcely to
be read without tears. The widow of Russell, in her retirement, learned
the good news with mingled feelings. "I do bless God," she wrote, "that
he has caused some stop to be put to the shedding of blood in this poor
land. Yet when I should rejoice with them that do rejoice, I seek a
corner to weep in. I find I am capable of no more gladness; but every
new circumstance, the very comparing my night of sorrow after such a
day, with theirs of joy, does, from a reflection of one kind or another,
rack my uneasy mind. Though I am far from wishing the close of theirs
like mine, yet I cannot refrain giving some time to lament mine was not
like theirs. " [44]
And now the tide was on the turn. The death of Stafford, witnessed with
signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to whose rage he was
sacrificed, marks the close of one proscription. The acquittal of
Delamere marks the close of another. The crimes which had disgraced the
stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury had been fearfully expiated. The blood
of innocent Papists had been avenged more than tenfold by the blood of
zealous Protestants. Another great reaction had commenced. Factions
were fast taking new forms. Old allies were separating. Old enemies
were uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through all the ranks of
the party lately dominant. A hope, still indeed faint and indefinite,
of victory and revenge, animated the party which had lately seemed to be
extinct. Amidst such circumstances the eventful and troubled year 1685
terminated, and the year 1686 began.
The prorogation had relieved the King from the gentle remonstrances
of the Houses: but he had still to listen to remonstrances, similar in
effect, though uttered in a tone even more cautious and subdued. Some
men who had hitherto served him but too strenuously for their own fame
and for the public welfare had begun to feel painful misgivings, and
occasionally ventured to hint a small part of what they felt.
During many years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary monarchy
and his zeal for the established religion had grown up together and
had strengthened each other. It had never occurred to him that the two
sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even identical, might one day
be found to be not only distinct but incompatible. From the commencement
of the strife between the Stuarts and the Commons, the cause of the
crown and the cause of the hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one.
Charles the First was regarded by the Church as her martyr. If Charles
the Second had plotted against her, he had plotted in secret. In public
he had ever professed himself her grateful and devoted son, had knelt
at her altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had succeeded in
persuading the great body of her adherents that he felt a sincere
preference for her. Whatever conflicts, therefore, the honest Cavalier
might have had to maintain against Whigs and Roundheads he had at least
been hitherto undisturbed by conflict in his own mind. He had seen the
path of duty plain before him. Through good and evil he was to be true
to Church and King. But, if those two august and venerable powers, which
had hitherto seemed to be so closely connected that those who were true
to one could not be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly
enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take? What situation
could be more trying than that in which he would be placed, distracted
between two duties equally sacred, between two affections equally
ardent? How was he to give to Caesar all that was Caesar's, and yet to
withhold from God no part of what was God's? None who felt thus could
have watched, without deep concern and gloomy forebodings, the dispute
between the King and the Parliament on the subject of the test. If James
could even now be induced to reconsider his course, to let the Houses
reassemble, and to comply with their wishes, all might yet be well.
Such were the sentiments of the King's two kinsmen, the Earls of
Clarendon and Rochester. The power and favour of these noblemen seemed
to be great indeed. The younger brother was Lord Treasurer and prime
minister; and the elder, after holding the Privy Seal during some
months, had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The venerable
Ormond took the same side. Middleton and Preston, who, as managers
of the House of Commons, had recently learned by proof how dear the
established religion was to the loyal gentry of England, were also for
moderate counsels.
At the very beginning of the new year these statesmen and the great
party which they represented had to suffer a cruel mortification. That
the late King had been at heart a Roman Catholic had been, during
some months, suspected and whispered, but not formally announced. The
disclosure, indeed, could not be made without great scandal. Charles
had, times without number, declared himself a Protestant, and had
been in the habit of receiving the Eucharist from the Bishops of the
Established Church. Those Protestants who had stood by him in his
difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance of
him, must be filled with shame and indignation by learning that his
whole life had been a lie, that, while he professed to belong to
their communion, he had really regarded them as heretics, and that the
demagogues who had represented him as a concealed Papist had been the
only people who had formed a correct judgment of his character. Even
Lewis understood enough of the state of public feeling in England to be
aware that the divulging of the truth might do harm, and had, of his own
accord, promised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret. [45]
James, while his power was still new, had thought that on this point it
was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to inter his brother
with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a time, therefore, every
man was at liberty to believe what he wished. The Papists claimed
the deceased prince as their proselyte. The Whigs execrated him as a
hypocrite and a renegade. The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy
as a calumny which Papists and Whigs had, for very different reasons,
a common interest in circulating. James now took a step which greatly
disconcerted the whole Anglican party. Two papers, in which were set
forth very concisely the arguments ordinarily used by Roman Catholics
in controversy with Protestants, had been found in Charles's strong
box, and appeared to be in his handwriting. These papers James
showed triumphantly to several Protestants, and declared that, to his
knowledge, his brother had lived and died a Roman Catholic. [46] One
of the persons to whom the manuscripts were exhibited was Archbishop
Sancroft. He read them with much emotion, and remained silent. Such
silence was only the natural effect of a struggle between respect and
vexation. But James supposed that the Primate was struck dumb by the
irresistible force of reason, and eagerly challenged his Grace to
produce, with the help of the whole episcopal bench, a satisfactory
reply. "Let me have a solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike style; and it
may have the effect which you so much desire of bringing me over to your
Church. " The Archbishop mildly said that, in his opinion, such an answer
might, without much difficulty, be written, but declined the controversy
on the plea of reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This
plea the King considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished disputant.
[47] Had he been well acquainted with the polemical literature of the
preceding century and a half, he would have known that the documents to
which he attached so much value might have been composed by any lad of
fifteen in the college of Douay, and contained nothing which had not, in
the opinion of all Protestant divines, been ten thousand times refuted.
In his ignorant exultation he ordered these tracts to be printed with
the utmost pomp of typography, and appended to them a declaration
attested by his sign manual, and certifying that the originals were
in his brother's own hand.
