No More Learning

He seems, indeed, about this time, to
have been seized with an unusually violent fit of zeal for his religion;
and this is the more remarkable, because he had just relapsed, after
a short interval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which all Christian
divines condemn as sinful, and which, in an elderly man married to
an agreeable young wife, is regarded even by people of the world as
disreputable. Lady Dorchester had returned from Dublin, and was again
the King's mistress. Her return was politically of no importance. She
had learned by experience the folly of attempting to save her lover from
the destruction to which he was running headlong. She therefore suffered
the Jesuits to guide his political conduct and they, in return, suffered
her to wheedle him out of money; She was, however, only one of several
abandoned women who at this time shared, with his beloved Church, the
dominion over his mind. [194] He seems to have determined to make some
amends for neglecting the welfare of his own soul by taking care of the
souls of others. He set himself, therefore, to labour, with real good
will, but with the good will of a coarse, stern, and arbitrary mind,
for the conversion of his kinsman. Every audience which the Treasurer
obtained was spent in arguments about the authority of the Church and
the worship of images. Rochester was firmly resolved not to abjure his
religion; but he had no scruple about employing in selfdefence artifices
as discreditable as those which had been used against him. He affected
to speak like a man whose mind was not made up, professed himself
desirous to be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books,
and listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several interviews
with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the chaplain and almoner
of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure Giffard, a theologian trained
to polemics in the schools of Douay. It was agreed that there should
be a formal disputation between these doctors and some Protestant
clergymen. The King told Rochester to choose any ministers of the
Established Church, with two exceptions. The proscribed persons were
Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of
that age, and in manners the most inoffensive of men, had been much
connected with some leading Whigs; and Stillingfleet, who was renowned
as a consummate master of all the weapons of controversy, had given
still deeper offence by publishing an answer to the papers which had
been found in the strong box of Charles the Second. Rochester took the
two royal chaplains who happened to be in waiting. One of them was
Simon Patrick, whose commentaries on the Bible still form a part of
theological libraries; the other was Jane, a vehement Tory, who had
assisted in drawing up that decree by which the University of Oxford had
solemnly adopted the worst follies of Filmer. The conference took place
at Whitehall on the thirtieth of November. Rochester, who did not wish
it to be known that he had even consented to hear the arguments of
Popish priests, stipulated for secrecy. No auditor was suffered to be
present except the King. The subject discussed was the real presence.
The Roman Catholic divines took on themselves the burden of the proof.
Patrick and Jane said little; nor was it necessary that they should
say much; for the Earl himself undertook to defend the doctrine of
his Church, and, as was his habit, soon warmed with conflict, lost his
temper, and asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he
should change his religion on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered
how much he was risking, began again to dissemble, complimented the
disputants on their skill and learning, and asked time to consider what
had been said. [195]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VII

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

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

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

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

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

His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a statesman:
but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silent prince who founded the
Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher place among statesmen than
among warriors. The event of battles, indeed, is not an unfailing test
of the abilities of a commander; and it would be peculiarly unjust to
apply this test to William: for it was his fortune to be almost always
opposed to captains who were consummate masters of their art, and to
troops far superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is reason to
believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to
some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he
trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frankness of a man
who had done great things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some
deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the
military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head
of an army. Among his officers there had been none competent to instruct
him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only lessons.
"I would give," he once exclaimed, "a good part of my estates to have
served a few campaigns under the Prince of Conde before I had to command
against him. " It is not improbable that the circumstance which prevented
William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been
favourable to the general vigour of his intellect. If his battles were
not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be called a great
man. No disaster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of
the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired
with such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te
Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever
deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect
and confidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage.
Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without
disgrace through a campaign, is possessed, or might, under proper
training, be acquired, by the great majority of men. But courage like
that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every test; by war,
by wounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the
imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken
very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even the adamantine
fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could ever discover what that thing was
which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could with difficulty
induce him to take any precaution against the pistols and daggers of
conspirators. [209] Old sailors were amazed at the composure which he
preserved amidst roaring breakers on a perilous coast. In battle his
bravery made him conspicuous even among tens of thousands of brave
warriors, drew forth the generous applause of hostile armies, and was
never questioned even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his
first campaigns he exposed himself like a man who sought for death, was
always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought, sword in
hand, in the thickest press, and, with a musket ball in his arm and the
blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved his
hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of
a life invaluable to his country; and his most illustrious antagonist,
the great Conde, remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff that the
Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general,
except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied that he
was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty and on a
cool calculation of what the public interest required that he was always
at the post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been little
used to war, and shrank from a close encounter with the veteran soldiery
of France. It was necessary that their leader should show them how
battles were to be won. And in truth more than one day which had seemed
hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his
broken battalions and cut down with his own hand the cowards who set the
example of flight. Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange
pleasure in venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were
never so high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amidst
the tumult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the
excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure.
The chase was his favourite recreation; and he loved it most when it
was most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest
companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have thought the
most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to have pined in the
Great Park of Windsor for the game which he had been used to drive to
bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wild boars, and huge stags
with sixteen antlers. [210]

The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his physical
organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been weak and
sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had been aggravated by
a severe attack of small pox. He was asthmatic and consumptive. His
slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He could not sleep
unless his head was propped by several pillows, and could scarcely
draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently
tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept
up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there
were anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his
broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one
long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion,
to bear up his suffering and languid body.

He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: but the
strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From the
multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and his resentment,
were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made him pass for the most
coldblooded of mankind. Those who brought him good news could seldom
detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw him after a defeat looked in
vain for any trace of vexation. He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and
punished, with the stern tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who
knew him well and saw him near were aware that under all this ice a
fierce fire was constantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived
him of power over himself. But when he was really enraged the first
outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe to
approach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained
his self command, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had
wronged as tempted them to wish that he would go into a fury again. His
affection was as impetuous as his wrath. Where he loved, he loved with
the whole energy of his strong mind. When death separated him from what
he loved, the few who witnessed his agonies trembled for his reason and
his life. To a very small circle of intimate friends, on whose fidelity
and secrecy he could absolutely depend, he was a different man from the
reserved and stoical William whom the multitude supposed to be destitute
of human feelings. He was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and
jocose, would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full share
in festive conversation. Highest in his favour stood a gentleman of
his household named Bentinck, sprung from a noble Batavian race, and
destined to be the founder of one of the great patrician houses of
England. The fidelity of Bentinck had been tried by no common test. It
was while the United Provinces were struggling for existence against the
French power that the young Prince on whom all their hopes were fixed
was seized by the small pox. That disease had been fatal to many members
of his family, and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malignant
aspect. The public consternation was great. The streets of the Hague
were crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously asking how his
Highness was. At length his complaint took a favourable turn. His escape
was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity, and partly to the
intrepid and indefatigable friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of
Bentinck alone William took food and medicine. By Bentinck alone William
was lifted from his bed and laid down in it. "Whether Bentinck slept or
not while I was ill," said William to Temple, with great tenderness,
"I know not. But this I know, that, through sixteen days and nights,
I never once called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my
side. " Before the faithful servant had entirely performed his task, he
had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against
drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. Then,
at length, Bentinck asked leave to go home. It was time: for his limbs
would no longer support him. He was in great danger, but recovered, and,
as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many
sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had been in peril of a
different kind, close to William's side.

Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient
or modern history records. The descendants of Bentinck still preserve
many letters written by William to their ancestor: and it is not too
much to say that no person who has not studied those letters can form
a correct notion of the Prince's character. He whom even his admirers
generally accounted the most distant and frigid of men here forgets
all distinctions of rank, and pours out all his thoughts with the
ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He imparts without reserve secrets of
the highest moment. He explains with perfect simplicity vast designs
affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his communications
on such subjects are other communications of a very different, but
perhaps not of a less interesting kind. All his adventures, all his
personal feelings, his long runs after enormous stags, his carousals
on St. Hubert's day, the growth of his plantations, the failure of his
melons, the state of his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad nag for
his wife, his vexation at learning that one of his household, after
ruining a girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of sea
sickness, his coughs, his headaches, his devotional moods, his gratitude
for the divine protection after a great escape, his struggles to submit
himself to the divine will after a disaster, are described with an
amiable garrulity hardly to have been expected from the most discreet
and sedate statesman of the age. Still more remarkable is the careless
effusion of his tenderness, and the brotherly interest which he takes
in his friend's domestic felicity. When an heir is born to Bentinck, "he
will live, I hope," says William, "to be as good a fellow as you are;
and, if I should have a son, our children will love each other, I hope,
as we have done. " [211] Through life he continues to regard the
little Bentincks with paternal kindness. He calls them by endearing
diminutives: he takes charge of them in their father's absence, and,
though vexed at being forced to refuse them any pleasure, will not
suffer them to go on a hunting party, where there would be risk of a
push from a stag's horn, or to sit up late at a riotous supper. [212]
When their mother is taken ill during her husband's absence, William,
in the midst of business of the highest moment, finds time to send off
several expresses in one day with short notes containing intelligence of
her state. [213] On one occasion, when she is pronounced out of danger
after a severe attack, the Prince breaks forth into fervent expressions
of gratitude to God. "I write," he says, "with tears of joy in my
eyes. " [214] There is a singular charm in such letters, penned by a man
whose irresistible energy and inflexible firmness extorted the respect
of his enemies, whose cold and ungracious demeanour repelled the
attachment of almost all his partisans, and whose mind was occupied by
gigantic schemes which have changed the face of the world.

His kindness was not misplaced. Bentinck was early pronounced by Temple
to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the good
fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that honourable
character. The friends were indeed made for each other. William wanted
neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a firm and just reliance on
his own judgment, he was not partial to counsellors who dealt much
in suggestions and objections. At the same time he had too much
discernment, and too much elevation of mind, to be gratified by
sycophancy. The confidant of such a prince ought to be a man, not of
inventive genius or commanding spirit, but brave and faithful, capable
of executing orders punctually, of keeping secrets inviolably, of
observing facts vigilantly, and of reporting them truly; and such a man
was Bentinck.

William was not less fortunate in marriage than in friendship. Yet his
marriage had not at first promised much domestic happiness. His choice
had been determined chiefly by political considerations: nor did it seem
likely that any strong affection would grow up between a handsome
girl of sixteen, well disposed indeed, and naturally intelligent, but
ignorant and simple, and a bridegroom who, though he had not completed
his twenty-eighth year, was in constitution older than her father, whose
manner was chilling, and whose head was constantly occupied by public
business or by field sports. For a time William was a negligent husband.
He was indeed drawn away from his wife by other women, particularly by
one of her ladies, Elizabeth Villiers, who, though destitute of personal
attractions, and disfigured by a hideous squint, possessed talents which
well fitted her to partake his cares. [215] He was indeed ashamed of his
errors, and spared no pains to conceal them: but, in spite of all his
precautions, Mary well knew that he was not strictly faithful to her.
Spies and talebearers, encouraged by her father, did their best to
inflame her resentment. A man of a very different character, the
excellent Ken, who was her chaplain at the Hague during some months, was
so much incensed by her wrongs that he, with more zeal than discretion,
threatened to reprimand her husband severely. [216] She, however, bore
her injuries with a meekness and patience which deserved, and gradually
obtained, William's esteem and gratitude. Yet there still remained one
cause of estrangement. A time would probably come when the Princess, who
had been educated only to work embroidery, to play on the spinet, and to
read the Bible and the Whole Duty of Man, would be the chief of a
great monarchy, and would hold the balance of Europe, while her lord,
ambitious, versed in affairs, and bent on great enterprises, would find
in the British government no place marked out for him, and would hold
power only from her bounty and during her pleasure. It is not strange
that a man so fond of authority as William, and so conscious of a genius
for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few
hours of royalty, put dissension between Guildford Dudley and the Lady
Jane, and which produced a rupture still more tragical between Darnley
and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the faintest
suspicion of her husband's feelings. Her preceptor, Bishop Compton, had
instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially guarded her
mind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, but had left her
profoundly ignorant of the English constitution and of her own position.
She knew that her marriage vow bound her to obey her husband; and it
had never occurred to her that the relation in which they stood to each
other might one day be inverted. She had been nine years married before
she discovered the cause of William's discontent; nor would she ever
have learned it from himself. In general his temper inclined him rather
to brood over his griefs than to give utterance to them; and in this
particular case his lips were sealed by a very natural delicacy. At
length a complete explanation and reconciliation were brought about by
the agency of Gilbert Burnet.

The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice and
pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on
with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more than a century
and a quarter in his grave. He is indeed as fair a mark as factious
animosity and petulant wit could desire. The faults of his understanding
and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed. They were not the
faults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to his country.
Alone among the many Scotchmen who have raised themselves to distinction
and prosperity in England, he had that character which satirists,
novelists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish adventurers.
His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his undissembled vanity,
his propensity to blunder, his provoking indiscretion, his unabashed
audacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to the Tories. Nor
did his enemies omit to compliment him, sometimes with more pleasantry
than delicacy, on the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his
calves, and his success in matrimonial projects on amorous and opulent
widows. Yet Burnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and even
to serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were quick, his
industry unwearied, his reading various and most extensive. He was at
once a historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer,
a debater, and an active political leader; and in every one of these
characters made himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many
spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only
to the curious: but his History of his own Times, his History of the
Reformation, his Exposition of the Articles, his Discourse of Pastoral
Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of Wilmot, are still reprinted, nor is
any good private library without them. Against such a fact as this all
the efforts of detractors are vain. A writer, whose voluminous works,
in several branches of literature, find numerous readers a hundred and
thirty years after his death, may have had great faults, but must
also have had great merits: and Burnet had great merits, a fertile and
vigorous mind, and a style, far indeed removed from faultless purity,
but always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to solemn and
fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which
were delivered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and
by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his
audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass, which in those
days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand,
the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had
run off once more. [217] In his moral character, as in his intellect,
great blemishes were more than compensated by great excellence. Though
often misled by prejudice and passion, he was emphatically an honest
man. Though he was not secure from the seductions of vanity, his spirit
was raised high above the influence either of cupidity or of fear. His
nature was kind, generous, grateful, forgiving. [218] His religious
zeal, though steady and ardent, was in general restrained by humanity,
and by a respect for the rights of conscience. Strongly attached to what
he regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked with indifference
on rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity, and was by no means
disposed to be severe even on infidels and heretics whose lives
were pure, and whose errors appeared to be the effect rather of some
perversion of the understanding than of the depravity of the heart. But,
like many other good men of that age, he regarded the case of the Church
of Rome as an exception to all ordinary rules.

Burnet had during some years had an European reputation. His History of
the Reformation had been received with loud applause by all Protestants,
and had been felt by the Roman Catholics as a severe blow. The greatest
Doctor that the Church of Rome has produced since the schism of the
sixteenth century, Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, was engaged in framing an
elaborate reply. Burnet had been honoured by a vote of thanks from one
of the zealous Parliaments which had sate during the excitement of
the Popish plot, and had been exhorted, in the name of the Commons of
England, to continue his historical researches. He had been admitted to
familiar conversation both with Charles and James, had lived on terms of
close intimacy with several distinguished statesmen, particularly with
Halifax, and had been the spiritual guide of some persons of the highest
note. He had reclaimed from atheism and from licentiousness one of the
most brilliant libertines of the age, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
Lord Stafford, the victim of Oates, had, though a Roman Catholic, been
edified in his last hours by Burnet's exhortations touching those points
on which all Christians agree. A few years later a more illustrious
sufferer, Lord Russell, had been accompanied by Burnet from the Tower to
the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The court had neglected no means
of gaining so active and able a divine. Neither royal blandishments
nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though
infected in early youth by those servile doctrines which were commonly
held by the clergy of that age, had become on conviction a Whig; and
he firmly adhered through all vicissitudes to his principles. He had,
however, no part in that conspiracy which brought so much disgrace and
calamity on the Whig party, and not only abhorred the murderous designs
of Goodenough and Ferguson, but was of opinion that even his beloved and
honoured friend Russell, had gone to unjustifiable lengths against the
government. A time at length arrived when innocence was not a sufficient
protection. Burnet, though not guilty of any legal offence, was pursued
by the vengeance of the court. He retired to the Continent, and, after
passing about a year in those wanderings through Switzerland, Italy,
and Germany, of which he has left us an agreeable narrative, reached the
Hague in the summer of 1686, and was received there with kindness and
respect. He had many free conversations with the Princess on politics
and religion, and soon became her spiritual director and confidential
adviser. William proved a much more gracious host than could have been
expected. For of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were the most
offensive to him: and Burnet was allowed even by friends and admirers
to be the most officious and indiscreet of mankind. But the sagacious
Prince perceived that this pushing, talkative divine, who was always
blabbing secrets, asking impertinent questions, obtruding unasked
advice, was nevertheless an upright, courageous and able man, well
acquainted with the temper and the views of British sects and factions.
The fame of Burnet's eloquence and erudition was also widely spread.
William was not himself a reading man. But he had now been many years at
the head of the Dutch administration, in an age when the Dutch press was
one of the most formidable engines by which the public mind of Europe
was moved, and, though he had no taste for literary pleasures, was
far too wise and too observant to be ignorant of the value of literary
assistance. He was aware that a popular pamphlet might sometimes be of
as much service as a victory in the field. He also felt the importance
of having always near him some person well informed as to the civil and
ecclesiastical polity of our island: and Burnet was eminently qualified
to be of use as a living dictionary of British affairs. For his
knowledge, though not always accurate, was of immense extent and
there were in England and Scotland few eminent men of any political
or religious party with whom he had not conversed. He was therefore
admitted to as large a share of favour and confidence as was granted to
any but those who composed the very small inmost knot of the Prince's
private friends. When the Doctor took liberties, which was not seldom
the case, his patron became more than usually cold and sullen, and
sometimes uttered a short dry sarcasm which would have struck dumb any
person of ordinary assurance. In spite of such occurrences, however,
the amity between this singular pair continued, with some temporary
interruptions, till it was dissolved by death. Indeed, it was not easy
to wound Burnet's feelings. His selfcomplacency, his animal spirits, and
his want of tact, were such that, though he frequently gave offence, he
never took it.

All the peculiarities of his character fitted him to be the peacemaker
between William and Mary. When persons who ought to esteem and love
each other are kept asunder, as often happens, by some cause which three
words of frank explanation would remove, they are fortunate if they
possess an indiscreet friend who blurts out the whole truth. Burnet
plainly told the Princess what the feeling was which preyed upon
her husband's mind. She learned for the first time, with no small
astonishment, that, when she became Queen of England, William would
not share her throne. She warmly declared that there was no proof of
conjugal submission and affection which she was not ready to give.
Burnet, with many apologies and with solemn protestations that no human
being had put words into his mouth, informed her that the remedy was in
her own hands. She might easily, when the crown devolved on her, induce
her Parliament not only to give the regal title to her husband, but
even to transfer to him by a legislative act the administration of the
government. "But," he added, "your Royal Highness ought to consider well
before you announce any such resolution. For it is a resolution which,
having once been announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted. " "I
want no time for consideration," answered Mary. "It is enough that I
have an opportunity of showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him what
I say; and bring him to me that he may hear it from my own lips. " Burnet
went in quest of William; but William was many miles off after a stag.
It was not till the next day that the decisive interview took place.
"I did not know till yesterday," said Mary, "that there was such a
difference between the laws of England and the laws of God. But I now
promise you that you shall always bear rule: and, in return, I ask only
this, that, as I shall observe the precept which enjoins wives to obey
their husbands, you will observe that which enjoins husbands to love
their wives. " Her generous affection completely gained the heart of
William. From that time till the sad day when he was carried away in
fits from her dying bed, there was entire friendship and confidence
between them. Many of her letters to him are extant; and they contain
abundant evidence that this man, unamiable as he was in the eyes of the
multitude, had succeeded in inspiring a beautiful and virtuous woman,
born his superior, with a passion fond even to idolatry.

The service which Burnet had rendered to his country was of high moment.
A time had arrived at which it was important to the public safety that
there should be entire concord between the Prince and Princess.

Till after the suppression of the Western insurrection grave causes of
dissension had separated William both from Whigs and Tories. He had
seen with displeasure the attempts of the Whigs to strip the executive
government of some powers which he thought necessary to its efficiency
and dignity. He had seen with still deeper displeasure the countenance
given by a large section of that party to the pretensions of Monmouth.