No More Learning

The estate which he had acquired by this match was popularly
estimated at not less than ten thousand pounds a year. Titles, and
favours more substantial than titles, were lavished on him. He was made
Duke of Monmouth in England, Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland, a Knight of
the Garter, Master of the Horse, Commander of the first troop of Life
Guards, Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent, and Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge. Nor did he appear to the public unworthy of his
high fortunes. His countenance was eminently handsome and engaging, his
temper sweet, his manners polite and affable. Though a libertine, he won
the hearts of the Puritans. Though he was known to have been privy
to the shameful attack on Sir John Coventry, he easily obtained the
forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere moralists owned that, in
such a court, strict conjugal fidelity was scarcely to be expected from
one who, while a child, had been married to another child. Even patriots
were willing to excuse a headstrong boy for visiting with immoderate
vengeance an insult offered to his father. And soon the stain left by
loose amours and midnight brawls was effaced by honourable exploits.
When Charles and Lewis united their forces against Holland, Monmouth
commanded the English auxiliaries who were sent to the Continent, and
approved himself a gallant soldier and a not unintelligent officer. On
his return he found himself the most popular man in the kingdom. Nothing
was withheld from him but the crown; nor did even the crown seem to
be absolutely beyond his reach. The distinction which had most
injudiciously been made between him and the highest nobles had produced
evil consequences. When a boy he had been invited to put on his hat in
the presence chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncovered round
him. When foreign princes died, he had mourned for them in the long
purple cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince
Rupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that these things should
lead him to regard himself as a legitimate prince of the House of
Stuart. Charles, even at a ripe age, was devoted to his pleasures and
regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought incredible that he
should at twenty have secretly gone through the form of espousing a lady
whose beauty had fascinated him. While Monmouth was still a child, and
while the Duke of York still passed for a Protestant, it was rumoured
throughout the country, and even in circles which ought to have been
well informed, that the King had made Lucy Walters his wife, and that,
if every one had his right, her son would be Prince of Wales. Much
was said of a certain black box which, according to the vulgar belief,
contained the contract of marriage. When Monmouth had returned from the
Low Countries with a high character for valour and conduct, and when the
Duke of York was known to be a member of a church detested by the great
majority of the nation, this idle story became important. For it
there was not the slightest evidence. Against it there was the solemn
asseveration of the King, made before his Council, and by his order
communicated to his people. But the multitude, always fond of romantic
adventures, drank in eagerly the tale of the secret espousals and the
black box. Some chiefs of the opposition acted on this occasion as they
acted with respect to the more odious fables of Oates, and countenanced
a story which they must have despised. The interest which the populace
took in him whom they regarded as the champion of the true religion, and
the rightful heir of the British throne, was kept up by every artifice.
When Monmouth arrived in London at midnight, the watchmen were ordered
by the magistrates to proclaim the joyful event through the streets of
the City: the people left their beds: bonfires were lighted: the windows
were illuminated: the churches were opened; and a merry peal rose from
all the steeples. When he travelled, he was everywhere received with not
less pomp, and with far more enthusiasm, than had been displayed when
Kings had made progresses through the realm. He was escorted from
mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of armed gentlemen and yeomen.
Cities poured forth their whole population to receive him. Electors
thronged round him, to assure him that their votes were at his disposal.
To such a height were his pretensions carried, that he not only
exhibited on his escutcheon the lions of England and the lilies of
France without the baton sinister under which, according to the law of
heraldry, they should have been debruised in token of his illegitimate
birth, but ventured to touch for the king's evil. At the same time he
neglected no art of condescension by which the love of the multitude
could be conciliated. He stood godfather to the children of the
peasantry, mingled in every rustic sport, wrestled, played at
quarterstaff, and won footraces in his boots against fleet runners in
shoes.

It is a curious circumstance that, at two of the greatest conjunctures
in our history, the chiefs of the Protestant party should have committed
the same error, and should by that error have greatly endangered their
country and their religion. At the death of Edward the Sixth they set up
the Lady Jane, without any show of birthright, in opposition, not only
to their enemy Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the true hope of England
and of the Reformation. Thus the most respectable Protestants, with
Elizabeth at their head, were forced to make common cause with the
Papists. In the same manner, a hundred and thirty years later, a part
of the opposition, by setting up Monmouth as a claimant of the crown,
attacked the rights, not only of James, whom they justly regarded as
an implacable foe of their faith and their liberties, but also of the
Prince and Princess of Orange, who were eminently marked out, both
by situation and by personal qualities, as the defenders of all free
governments and of all reformed churches.

The folly of this course speedily became manifest. At present the
popularity of Monmouth constituted a great part of the strength of the
opposition. The elections went against the court: the day fixed for
the meeting of the Houses drew near; and it was necessary that the
King should determine on some line of conduct. Those who advised him
discerned the first faint signs of a change of public feeling, and hoped
that, by merely postponing the conflict, he would be able to secure the
victory. He therefore, without even asking the opinion of the Council of
the Thirty, resolved to prorogue the new Parliament before it entered
on business. At the same time the Duke of York, who had returned from
Brussels, was ordered to retire to Scotland, and was placed at the head
of the administration of that kingdom.

Temple's plan of government was now avowedly abandoned and very soon
forgotten. The Privy Council again became what it had been. Shaftesbury,
and those who were connected with him in politics resigned their seats.
Temple himself, as was his wont in unquiet times, retired to his garden
and his library. Essex quitted the board of Treasury, and cast in his
lot with the opposition. But Halifax, disgusted and alarmed by the
violence of his old associates, and Sunderland, who never quitted place
while he could hold it, remained in the King's service.

In consequence of the resignations which took place at this conjuncture,
the way to greatness was left clear to a new set of aspirants. Two
statesmen, who subsequently rose to the highest eminence which a British
subject can reach, soon began to attract a large share of the public
attention. These were Lawrence Hyde and Sidney Godolphin.

Lawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor Clarendon, and was
brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent parts, which
had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic experience; but the
infirmities of his temper detracted much from the effective strength of
his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he was, he never learned the
art of governing or of concealing his emotions. When prosperous, he
was insolent and boastful: when he sustained a check, his undisguised
mortification doubled the triumph of his enemies: very slight
provocations sufficed to kindle his anger; and when he was angry he
said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which
others remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have
made him a consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency and
impatience. His writings proved that he had many of the qualities of an
orator: but his irritability prevented him from doing himself justice
in debate; for nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion; and,
from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of
opponents far inferior to him in capacity.

Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was a
consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the old
school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a hater
of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a great body of
personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on him as their own
man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the
truth, he stood in some need: for he drank deep; and when he was in a
rage,--and he very often was in a rage,--he swore like a porter.

He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed that the
place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then the importance and
dignity which now belong to it. When there was a Lord Treasurer, that
great officer was generally prime minister: but, when the white staff
was in commission, the chief commissioner hardly ranked so high as a
Secretary of State. It was not till the time of Walpole that the First
Lord of the Treasury became, under a humbler name, all that the Lord
High Treasurer had been.

Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early acquired all
the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran courtier. He was
laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in the details of finance.
Every government, therefore, found him an useful servant; and there was
nothing in his opinions or in his character which could prevent him from
serving any government. "Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never
in the way, and never out of the way. " This pointed remark goes far to
explain Godolphin's extraordinary success in life.

He acted at different times with both the great political parties: but
he never shared in the passions of either. Like most men of cautious
tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong disposition to support
whatever existed. He disliked revolutions; and, for the same reason
for which he disliked revolutions, he disliked counter-revolutions. His
deportment was remarkably grave and reserved: but his personal tastes
were low and frivolous; and most of the time which he could save from
public business was spent in racing, cardplaying, and cockfighting. He
now sate below Rochester at the Board of Treasury, and distinguished
himself there by assiduity and intelligence.

Before the new Parliament was suffered to meet for the despatch of
business a whole year elapsed, an eventful year, which has left
lasting traces in our manners and language. Never before had political
controversy been carried on with so much freedom. Never before had
political clubs existed with so elaborate an organisation or so
formidable an influence. The one question of the Exclusion occupied the
public mind. All the presses and pulpits of the realm took part in
the conflict. On one side it was maintained that the constitution and
religion of the state could never be secure under a Popish King; on the
other, that the right of James to wear the crown in his turn was derived
from God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the
branches of the legislature. Every county, every town, every family,
was in agitation. The civilities and hospitalities of neighbourhood were
interrupted. The dearest ties of friendship and of blood were sundered.
Even schoolboys were divided into angry parties; and the Duke of York
and the Earl of Shaftesbury had zealous adherents on all the forms of
Westminster and Eton. The theatres shook with the roar of the contending
factions. Pope Joan was brought on the stage by the zealous Protestants.
Pensioned poets filled their prologues and epilogues with eulogies
on the King and the Duke. The malecontents besieged the throne with
petitions, demanding that Parliament might be forthwith convened. The
royalists sent up addresses, expressing the utmost abhorrence of all who
presumed to dictate to the sovereign. The citizens of London assembled
by tens of thousands to burn the Pope in effigy. The government posted
cavalry at Temple Bar, and placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that
year our tongue was enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable
memorials of a season of tumult and imposture. [21] Opponents of the
court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists. Those
who took the King's side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers, and Tantivies.
These appellations soon become obsolete: but at this time were first
heard two nicknames which, though originally given in insult, were soon
assumed with pride, which are still in daily use, which have spread as
widely as the English race, and which will last as long as the English
literature. It is a curious circumstance that one of these nicknames
was of Scotch, and the other of Irish, origin. Both in Scotland and in
Ireland, misgovernment had called into existence bands of desperate men
whose ferocity was heightened by religions enthusiasm. In Scotland some
of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by oppression, had lately
murdered the Primate, had taken arms against the government, had
obtained some advantages against the King's forces, and had not been put
down till Monmouth, at the head of some troops from England, had routed
them at Bothwell Bridge. These zealots were most numerous among the
rustics of the western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus
the appellation of Whig was fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of
Scotland, and was transferred to those English politicians who showed a
disposition to oppose the court, and to treat Protestant Nonconformists
with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same time, afforded a
refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those who were afterwards
known as Whiteboys. These men were then called Tories. The name of Tory
was therefore given to Englishmen who refused to concur in excluding a
Roman Catholic prince from the throne.

The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufficiently violent,
if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously exasperated by the
common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to bribe and flatter
both the court and the opposition. He exhorted Charles to be firm: he
exhorted James to raise a civil war in Scotland: he exhorted the Whigs
not to flinch, and to rely with confidence on the protection of France.

Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived that
the public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution of the Roman
Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer matters of course. A
new brood of false witnesses, among whom a villain named Dangerfield was
the most conspicuous, infested the courts: but the stories of these men,
though better constructed than that of Oates, found less credit. Juries
were no longer so easy of belief as during the panic which had followed
the murder of Godfrey; and Judges, who, while the popular frenzy was at
the height, had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured to
express some part of what they had from the first thought.

At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so great
a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went through all its
stages there without difficulty. The King scarcely knew on what members
of his own cabinet he could reckon. Hyde had been true to his Tory
opinions, and had steadily supported the cause of hereditary monarchy.
But Godolphin, anxious for quiet, and believing that quiet could be
restored only by concession, wished the bill to pass. Sunderland, ever
false, and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the signs of approaching
reaction, and anxious to conciliate the party which he believed to
be irresistible, determined to vote against the court. The Duchess of
Portsmouth implored her royal lover not to rush headlong to destruction.
If there were any point on which he had a scruple of conscience or of
honour, it was the question of the succession; but during some days
it seemed that he would submit. He wavered, asked what sum the Commons
would give him if he yielded, and suffered a negotiation to be opened
with the leading Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust which had been
many years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of
France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place confidence
in the other. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the
House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King himself was
present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. Some
hands were laid on the pommels of swords in a manner which revived the
recollection of the stormy Parliaments of Edward the Third and Richard
the Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treacherous
Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax bore down all opposition. Deserted
by his most important colleagues, and opposed to a crowd of able
antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke of York, in a succession
of speeches which, many years later, were remembered as masterpieces of
reasoning, of wit, and of eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes
votes. Yet the attestation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that,
on this occasion, votes were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The
Bishops, true to their doctrines, supported the principle of hereditary
right, and the bill was rejected by a great majority. [22]

The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly
mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the blood
of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one of the
unhappy men who had been accused of a share in the plot, was impeached;
and on the testimony of Oates and of two other false witnesses, Dugdale
and Turberville, was found guilty of high treason, and suffered death.
But the circumstances of his trial and execution ought to have given an
useful warning to the Whig leaders. A large and respectable minority of
the House of Lords pronounced the prisoner not guilty. The multitude,
which a few months before had received the dying declarations of Oates's
victims with mockery and execrations, now loudly expressed a belief that
Stafford was a murdered man. When he with his last breath protested
his innocence, the cry was, "God bless you, my Lord! We believe you, my
Lord. " A judicious observer might easily have predicted that the blood
then shed would shortly have blood.

The King determined to try once more the experiment of a dissolution. A
new Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford, in March, 1681. Since the
days of the Plantagenets the Houses had constantly sat at Westminster,
except when the plague was raging in the capital: but so extraordinary
a conjuncture seemed to require extraordinary precautions. If the
Parliament were held in its usual place of assembling, the House of
Commons might declare itself permanent, and might call for aid on the
magistrates and citizens of London. The trainbands might rise to defend
Shaftesbury as they had risen forty years before to defend Pym and
Hampden. The Guards might be overpowered, the palace forced, the King a
prisoner in the hands of his mutinous subjects. At Oxford there was no
such danger. The University was devoted to the crown; and the gentry of
the neighbourhood were generally Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition
had more reason than the King to apprehend violence.

The elections were sharply contested. The Whigs still composed a
majority of the House of Commons: but it was plain that the Tory
spirit was fast rising throughout the country. It should seem that the
sagacious and versatile Shaftesbury ought to have foreseen the coming
change, and to have consented to the compromise which the court offered:
but he appears to have forgotten his old tactics. Instead of making
dispositions which, in the worst event, would have secured his retreat,
he took up a position in which it was necessary that he should either
conquer or perish. Perhaps his head, strong as it was, had been turned
by popularity, by success, and by the excitement of conflict. Perhaps
he had spurred his party till he could no longer curb it, and was really
hurried on headlong by those whom he seemed to guide.

The eventful day arrived. The meeting at Oxford resembled rather that of
a Polish Diet than that of an English Parliament. The Whig members were
escorted by great numbers of their armed and mounted tenants and
serving men, who exchanged looks of defiance with the royal Guards. The
slightest provocation might, under such circumstances, have produced
a civil war; but neither side dared to strike the first blow. The King
again offered to consent to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons
were determined to accept nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days
the Parliament was again dissolved.

The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some months before
the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly on. The nation,
indeed, was still hostile to Popery: but, when men reviewed the whole
history of the plot, they felt that their Protestant zeal had hurried
them into folly and crime, and could scarcely believe that they had been
induced by nursery tales to clamour for the blood of fellow subjects
and fellow Christians. The most loyal, indeed, could not deny that the
administration of Charles had often been highly blamable. But men who
had not the full information which we possess touching his dealings with
France, and who were disgusted by the violence of the Whigs, enumerated
the large concessions which, during the last few years he had made to
his Parliaments, and the still larger concessions which he had declared
himself willing to make. He had consented to the laws which excluded
Roman Catholics from the House of Lords, from the Privy Council, and
from all civil and military offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus
Act. If securities yet stronger had not been provided against the
dangers to which the constitution and the Church might be exposed under
a Roman Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had
invited the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those Whigs
who had refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion Bill. One
thing only had the King denied to his people. He had refused to take
away his brother's birthright. And was there not good reason to believe
that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings? What selfish motive
could faction itself impute to the royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did
not curtail the reigning King's prerogatives, or diminish his income.
Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition
to his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if
he had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in favour
of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural
explanation of the King's conduct seemed to be that, careless as was
his temper and loose as were his morals, he had, on this occasion, acted
from a sense of duty and honour. And, if so, would the nation compel
him to do what he thought criminal and disgraceful? To apply, even by
strictly constitutional means, a violent pressure to his conscience,
seemed to zealous royalists ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly
constitutional means were not the only means which the Whigs were
disposed to employ. Signs were already discernible which portended the
approach of great troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and
of the Commonwealth, had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged
from the obscurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden
themselves from the general hatred, showed their confident and busy
faces everywhere, and appeared to anticipate a second reign of the
Saints. Another Naseby, another High Court of Justice, another usurper
on the throne, the Lords again ejected from their hall by violence, the
Universities again purged, the Church again robbed and persecuted, the
Puritans again dominant, to such results did the desperate policy of the
opposition seem to tend.

Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper and
middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The situation of the
King bore, at this time, a great resemblance to that in which his father
stood just after the Remonstrance had been voted. But the reaction of
1641 had not been suffered to run its course. Charles the First, at the
very moment when his people, long estranged, were returning to him with
hearts disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfidious violation of the
fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their confidence for ever.
Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, had he arrested the Whig
leaders in an irregular manner, had he impeached them of high treason
before a tribunal which had no legal jurisdiction over them, it is
highly probable that they would speedily have regained the ascendancy
which they had lost. Fortunately for himself, he was induced, at this
crisis, to adopt a policy singularly judicious. He determined to conform
to the law, but at the same time to make vigorous and unsparing use
of the law against his adversaries. He was not bound to convoke a
Parliament till three years should have elapsed. He was not much
distressed for money. The produce of the taxes which had been settled on
him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace with all the world.
He could retrench his expenses by giving up the costly and useless
settlement of Tangier; and he might hope for pecuniary aid from France.
He had, therefore, ample time and means for a systematic attack on
the opposition under the forms of the constitution. The Judges were
removable at his pleasure: the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs;
and, in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriffs were nominated
by himself. Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently
sworn away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives of
Whigs.

The first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of mean
birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was celebrated as the
inventor of the Protestant flail. [23] He had been at Oxford when the
Parliament sate there, and was accused of having planned a rising and an
attack on the King's guards. Evidence was given against him by Dugdale
and Turberville, the same infamous men who had, a few months earlier,
borne false witness against Stafford. In the sight of a jury of
country squires no Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was
convicted. The crowd which filled the court house of Oxford received the
verdict with a roar of exultation, as barbarous as that which he and
his friends had been in the habit of raising when innocent Papists were
doomed to the gallows. His execution was the beginning of a new judicial
massacre not less atrocious than that in which he had himself borne a
share.

The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a blow at an
enemy of a very different class. It was resolved that Shaftesbury should
be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was collected which, it was
thought, would support a charge of treason. But the facts which it was
necessary to prove were alleged to have been committed in London. The
Sheriffs of London, chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. They
named a Whig grand jury, which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from
discouraging those who advised the King, suggested to them a new and
daring scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their way, that
charter must be annulled. It was pretended, therefore, that the City
had by some irregularities forfeited its municipal privileges; and
proceedings were instituted against the corporation in the Court of
King's Bench. At the same time those laws which had, soon after the
Restoration, been enacted against Nonconformists, and which had remained
dormant during the ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the
kingdom with extreme rigour.

Yet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. Though in evil plight, they
were still a numerous and powerful party; and as they mustered strong in
the large towns, and especially in the capital, they made a noise and
a show more than proportioned to their real force. Animated by the
recollection of past triumphs, and by the sense of present oppression,
they overrated both their strength and their wrongs. It was not in
their power to make out that clear and overwhelming case which can alone
justify so violent a remedy as resistance to an established government.
Whatever they might suspect, they could not prove that their sovereign
had entered into a treaty with France against the religion and liberties
of England. What was apparent was not sufficient to warrant an appeal
to the sword. If the Lords had thrown out the Exclusion Bill, they had
thrown it out in the exercise of a right coeval with the constitution.
If the King had dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by
virtue of a prerogative which had never been questioned. If he had,
since the dissolution, done some harsh things, still those things were
in strict conformity with the letter of the law, and with the recent
practice of the malecontents themselves. If he had prosecuted his
opponents, he had prosecuted them according to the proper forms, and
before the proper tribunals. The evidence now produced for the crown was
at least as worthy of credit as the evidence on which the noblest blood
of England had lately been shed by the opposition. The treatment which
an accused Whig had now to expect from judges, advocates, sheriffs,
juries and spectators, was no worse than the treatment which had lately
been thought by the Whigs good enough for an accused Papist. If the
privileges of the City of London were attacked, they were attacked, not
by military violence or by any disputable exercise of prerogative,
but according to the regular practice of Westminster Hall. No tax was
imposed by royal authority. No law was suspended. The Habeas Corpus
Act was respected. Even the Test Act was enforced. The opposition,
therefore, could not bring home to the King that species of
misgovernment which alone could justify insurrection. And, even had his
misgovernment been more flagrant than it was, insurrection would still
have been criminal, because it was almost certain to be unsuccessful.
The situation of the Whigs in 1682 differed widely from that of the
Roundheads forty years before. Those who took up arms against Charles
the First acted under the authority of a Parliament which had been
legally assembled, and which could not, without its own consent, be
legally dissolved. The opponents of Charles the Second were private men.
Almost all the military and naval resources of the kingdom had been at
the disposal of those who resisted Charles the First. All the military
and naval resources of the kingdom were at the disposal of Charles the
Second. The House of Commons had been supported by at least half the
nation against Charles the First. But those who were disposed to levy
war against Charles the Second were certainly a minority. It could
hardly be doubted, therefore, that, if they attempted a rising, they
would fail. Still less could it be doubted that their failure would
aggravate every evil of which they complained. The true policy of the
Whigs was to submit with patience to adversity which was the natural
consequence and the just punishment of their errors, to wait patiently
for that turn of public feeling which must inevitably come, to observe
the law, and to avail themselves of the protection, imperfect indeed,
but by no means nugatory, which the law afforded to innocence. Unhappily
they took a very different course. Unscrupulous and hot-headed chiefs of
the party formed and discussed schemes of resistance, and were heard, if
not with approbation, yet with the show of acquiescence, by much better
men than themselves. It was proposed that there should be simultaneous
insurrections in London, in Cheshire, at Bristol, and at Newcastle.
Communications were opened with the discontented Presbyterians of
Scotland, who were suffering under a tyranny such as England, in the
worst times, had never known. While the leaders of the opposition thus
revolved plans of open rebellion, but were still restrained by fears
or scruples from taking any decisive step, a design of a very different
kind was meditated by some of their accomplices. To fierce spirits,
unrestrained by principle, or maddened by fanaticism, it seemed that to
waylay and murder the King and his brother was the shortest and surest
way of vindicating the Protestant religion and the liberties of England.
A place and a time were named; and the details of the butchery were
frequently discussed, if not definitely arranged. This scheme was known
but to few, and was concealed with especial care from the upright and
humane Russell, and from Monmouth, who, though not a man of delicate
conscience, would have recoiled with horror from the guilt of parricide.
Thus there were two plots, one within the other. The object of the great
Whig plot was to raise the nation in arms against the government. The
lesser plot, commonly called the Rye House Plot, in which only a few
desperate men were concerned, had for its object the assassination of
the King and of the heir presumptive.

Both plots were soon discovered. Cowardly traitors hastened to save
themselves, by divulging all, and more than all, that had passed in
the deliberations of the party. That only a small minority of those
who meditated resistance had admitted into their minds the thought of
assassination is fully established: but, as the two conspiracies ran
into each other, it was not difficult for the government to confound
them together. The just indignation excited by the Rye House Plot was
extended for a time to the whole Whig body. The King was now at
liberty to exact full vengeance for years of restraint and humiliation.
Shaftesbury, indeed, had escaped the fate which his manifold perfidy had
well deserved. He had seen that the ruin of his party was at hand, had
in vain endeavoured to make his peace with the royal brothers, had
fled to Holland, and had died there, under the generous protection of a
government which he had cruelly wronged. Monmouth threw himself at his
father's feet and found mercy, but soon gave new offence, and thought
it prudent to go into voluntary exile. Essex perished by his own hand
in the Tower. Russell, who appears to have been guilty of no offence
falling within the definition of high treason, and Sidney, of whose
guilt no legal evidence could be produced, were beheaded in defiance of
law and justice. Russell died with the fortitude of a Christian, Sidney
with the fortitude of a Stoic. Some active politicians of meaner
rank were sent to the gallows. Many quitted the country. Numerous
prosecutions for misprision of treason, for libel, and for conspiracy
were instituted. Convictions were obtained without difficulty from Tory
juries, and rigorous punishments were inflicted by courtly judges. With
these criminal proceedings were joined civil proceedings scarcely less
formidable. Actions were brought against persons who had defamed
the Duke of York and damages tantamount to a sentence of perpetual
imprisonment were demanded by the plaintiff, and without difficulty
obtained. The Court of King's Bench pronounced that the franchises of
the City of London were forfeited to the Crown. Flushed with this great
victory, the government proceeded to attack the constitutions of other
corporations which were governed by Whig officers, and which had been in
the habit of returning Whig members to Parliament. Borough after borough
was compelled to surrender its privileges; and new charters were granted
which gave the ascendency everywhere to the Tories.

These proceedings, however reprehensible, had yet the semblance of
legality. They were also accompanied by an act intended to quiet the
uneasiness with which many loyal men looked forward to the accession of
a Popish sovereign. The Lady Anne, younger daughter of the Duke of York
by his first wife, was married to George, a prince of the orthodox House
of Denmark. The Tory gentry and clergy might now flatter themselves that
the Church of England had been effectually secured without any violation
of the order of succession. The King and the heir presumptive were
nearly of the same age. Both were approaching the decline of life. The
King's health was good. It was therefore probable that James, if he came
to the throne, would have but a short reign. Beyond his reign there was
the gratifying prospect of a long series of Protestant sovereigns.

The liberty of unlicensed printing was of little or no use to the
vanquished party; for the temper of judges and juries was such that
no writer whom the government prosecuted for a libel had any chance of
escaping. The dread of punishment therefore did all that a censorship
could have done. Meanwhile, the pulpits resounded with harangues against
the sin of rebellion. The treatises in which Filmer maintained that
hereditary despotism was the form of government ordained by God, and
that limited monarchy was a pernicious absurdity, had recently appeared,
and had been favourably received by a large section of the Tory party.
The university of Oxford, on the very day on which Russell was put
to death, adopted by a solemn public act these strange doctrines,
and ordered the political works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be
publicly burned in the court of the Schools.

Thus emboldened, the King at length ventured to overstep the bounds
which he had during some years observed, and to violate the plain letter
of the law. The law was that not more than three years should pass
between the dissolving of one Parliament and the convoking of another.
But, when three years had elapsed after the dissolution of the
Parliament which sate at Oxford, no writs were issued for an election.
This infraction of the constitution was the more reprehensible, because
the King had little reason to fear a meeting with a new House of
Commons. The counties were generally on his side; and many boroughs in
which the Whigs had lately held sway had been so remodelled that they
were certain to return none but courtiers.

In a short time the law was again violated in order to gratify the Duke
of York. That prince was, partly on account of his religion, and partly
on account of the sternness and harshness of his nature, so unpopular
that it had been thought necessary to keep him out of sight while the
Exclusion Bill was before Parliament, lest his appearance should give
an advantage to the party which was struggling to deprive him of his
birthright. He had therefore been sent to govern Scotland, where the
savage old tyrant Lauderdale was sinking into the grave. Even Lauderdale
was now outdone. The administration of James was marked by odious laws,
by barbarous punishments, and by judgments to the iniquity of which even
that age furnished no parallel. The Scottish Privy Council had power to
put state prisoners to the question. But the sight was so dreadful that,
as soon as the boots appeared, even the most servile and hardhearted
courtiers hastened out of the chamber. The board was sometimes quite
deserted: and it was at length found necessary to make an order that the
members should keep their seats on such occasions. The Duke of York, it
was remarked, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle which some of
the worst men then living were unable to contemplate without pity
and horror. He not only came to Council when the torture was to be
inflicted, but watched the agonies of the sufferers with that sort of
interest and complacency with which men observe a curious experiment in
science. Thus he employed himself at Edinburgh, till the event of the
conflict between the court and the Whigs was no longer doubtful. He then
returned to England: but he was still excluded by the Test Act from all
public employment; nor did the King at first think it safe to violate a
statute which the great majority of his most loyal subjects regarded as
one of the chief securities of their religion and of their civil rights.
When, however, it appeared, from a succession of trials, that the nation
had patience to endure almost anything that the government had courage
to do, Charles ventured to dispense with the law in his brother's
favour. The Duke again took his seat in the Council, and resumed the
direction of naval affairs.

These breaches of the constitution excited, it is true, some murmurs
among the moderate Tories, and were not unanimously approved even by the
King's ministers. Halifax in particular, now a Marquess and Lord Privy
Seal, had, from the very day on which the Tories had by his help gained
the ascendant, begun to turn Whig. As soon as the Exclusion Bill had
been thrown out, he had pressed the House of Lords to make provision
against the danger to which, in the next reign, the liberties and
religion of the nation might be exposed. He now saw with alarm the
violence of that reaction which was, in no small measure, his own
work. He did not try to conceal the scorn which he felt for the servile
doctrines of the University of Oxford. He detested the French alliance.
He disapproved of the long intermission of Parliaments. He regretted the
severity with which the vanquished party was treated. He who, when the
Whigs were predominant, had ventured to pronounce Stafford not guilty,
ventured, when they were vanquished and helpless, to intercede for
Russell. At one of the last Councils which Charles held a remarkable
scene took place. The charter of Massachusetts had been forfeited. A
question arose how, for the future, the colony should be governed. The
general opinion of the board was that the whole power, legislative as
well as executive, should abide in the crown. Halifax took the opposite
side, and argued with great energy against absolute monarchy, and in
favour of representative government. It was vain, he said, to think that
a population, sprung from the English stock, and animated by English
feelings, would long bear to be deprived of English institutions. Life,
he exclaimed, would not be worth having in a country where liberty and
property were at the mercy of one despotic master. The Duke of York was
greatly incensed by this language, and represented to his brother the
danger of retaining in office a man who appeared to be infected with all
the worst notions of Marvell and Sidney.

Some modern writers have blamed Halifax for continuing in the ministry
while he disapproved of the manner in which both domestic and foreign
affairs were conducted. But this censure is unjust. Indeed it is to be
remarked that the word ministry, in the sense in which we use it, was
then unknown. [24] The thing itself did not exist; for it belongs to an
age in which parliamentary government is fully established. At present
the chief servants of the crown form one body. They are understood to be
on terms of friendly confidence with each other, and to agree as to
the main principles on which the executive administration ought to be
conducted. If a slight difference of opinion arises among them, it is
easily compromised: but, if one of them differs from the rest on a vital
point, it is his duty to resign. While he retains his office, he is held
responsible even for steps which he has tried to dissuade his colleagues
from taking. In the seventeenth century, the heads of the various
branches of the administration were bound together in no such
partnership. Each of them was accountable for his own acts, for the
use which he made of his own official seal, for the documents which he
signed, for the counsel which he gave to the King. No statesman was held
answerable for what he had not himself done, or induced others to do.
If he took care not to be the agent in what was wrong, and if, when
consulted, he recommended what was right, he was blameless. It would
have been thought strange scrupulosity in him to quit his post, because
his advice as to matters not strictly within his own department was
not taken by his master; to leave the Board of Admiralty, for example,
because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of Treasury because
the foreign relations of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It
was, therefore, by no means unusual to see in high office, at the same
time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as ever
Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox from Pitt.

The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were timidly and
feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guildford who had lately been
made Keeper of the Great Seal. The character of Guildford has been drawn
at full length by his brother Roger North, a most intolerant Tory, a
most affected and pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer of all those
minute circumstances which throw light on the dispositions of men. It is
remarkable that the biographer, though he was under the influence of the
strongest fraternal partiality, and though he was evidently anxious to
produce a flattering likeness, was unable to portray the Lord Keeper
otherwise than as the most ignoble of mankind. Yet the intellect of
Guildford was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters and
science respectable, and his legal learning more than respectable. His
faults were selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible
to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet
neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal
libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet
generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by paying
ignominious homage to all who possessed influence in the courts. He
became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and as such was party to some
of the foulest judicial murders recorded in our history. He had sense
enough to perceive from the first that Oates and Bedloe were impostors:
but the Parliament and the country were greatly excited: the government
had yielded to the pressure; and North was not a man to risk a good
place for the sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he was in
secret drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish plot,
he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as
the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of
judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned before him
for their lives. He had at length reached the highest post in the law.
But a lawyer, who, after many years devoted to professional labour,
engages in politics for the first time at an advanced period of life,
seldom distinguishes himself as a statesman; and Guildford was no
exception to the general rule. He was indeed so sensible of his
deficiencies that he never attended the meetings of his colleagues on
foreign affairs. Even on questions relating to his own profession his
opinion had less weight at the Council board than that of any man who
has ever held the Great Seal. Such as his influence was, however, he
used it, as far as he dared, on the side of the laws.

The chief opponent of Halifax was Lawrence Hyde, who had recently
been created Earl of Rochester. Of all Tories, Rochester was the
most intolerant and uncompromising. The moderate members of his party
complained that the whole patronage of the Treasury, while he was First
Commissioner there, went to noisy zealots, whose only claim to promotion
was that they were always drinking confusion to Whiggery, and lighting
bonfires to burn the Exclusion Bill. The Duke of York, pleased with
a spirit which so much resembled his own supported his brother in law
passionately and obstinately.

The attempts of the rival ministers to surmount and supplant each other
kept the court in incessant agitation. Halifax pressed the King to
summon a Parliament, to grant a general amnesty, to deprive the Duke of
York of all share in the government, to recall Monmouth from banishment,
to break with Lewis, and to form a close union with Holland on the
principles of the Triple Alliance. The Duke of York, on the other hand,
dreaded the meeting of a Parliament, regarded the vanquished Whigs with
undiminished hatred, still flattered himself that the design formed
fourteen years before at Dover might be accomplished, daily represented
to his brother the impropriety of suffering one who was at heart a
Republican to hold the Privy Seal, and strongly recommended Rochester
for the great place of Lord Treasurer.

While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, cautious, silent,
and laborious, observed a neutrality between them. Sunderland, with his
usual restless perfidy, intrigued against them both. He had been turned
out of office in disgrace for having voted in favour of the Exclusion
Bill, but had made his peace by employing the good offices of the
Duchess of Portsmouth and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was once
more Secretary of State.

Nor was Lewis negligent or inactive. Everything at that moment favoured
his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the German empire, which
was then contending against the Turks on the Danube. Holland could
not, unsupported venture to oppose him. He was therefore at liberty
to indulge his ambition and insolence without restraint. He seized
Strasburg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He exacted from the republic of Genoa
the most humiliating submissions. The power of France at that time
reached a higher point than it ever before or ever after attained,
during the ten centuries which separated the reign of Charlemagne from
the reign of Napoleon. It was not easy to say where her acquisitions
would stop, if only England could be kept in a state of vassalage. The
first object of the court of Versailles was therefore to prevent the
calling of a Parliament and the reconciliation of English parties.
For this end bribes, promises, and menaces were unsparingly employed.
Charles was sometimes allured by the hope of a subsidy, and sometimes
frightened by being told that, if he convoked the Houses, the secret
articles of the treaty of Dover should be published. Several Privy
Councillors were bought; and attempts were made to buy Halifax, but in
vain. When he had been found incorruptible, all the art and influence
of the French embassy were employed to drive him from office: but his
polished wit and his various accomplishments had made him so agreeable
to his master, that the design failed. [25]

Halifax was not content with standing on the defensive. He openly
accused Rochester of malversation. An inquiry took place. It appeared
that forty thousand pounds had been lost to the public by the
mismanagement of the First Lord of the Treasury. In consequence of this
discovery he was not only forced to relinquish his hopes of the white
staff, but was removed from the direction of the finances to the more
dignified but less lucrative and important post of Lord President.
"I have seen people kicked down stairs," said Halifax; "but my Lord
Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked up stairs. "
Godolphin, now a peer, became First Commissioner of the Treasury.

Still, however, the contest continued. The event depended wholly on
the will of Charles; and Charles could not come to a decision. In
his perplexity he promised everything to everybody. He would stand
by France: he would break with France: he would never meet another
Parliament: he would order writs for a Parliament to be issued without
delay. He assured the Duke of York that Halifax should be dismissed from
office, and Halifax that the Duke should be sent to Scotland. In public
he affected implacable resentment against Monmouth, and in private
conveyed to Monmouth assurances of unalterable affection. How long, if
the King's life had been protracted, his hesitation would have lasted,
and what would have been his resolve, can only be conjectured. Early
in the year 1685, while hostile parties were anxiously awaiting his
determination, he died, and a new scene opened.