No More Learning

On
the following morning the Commissioners took their seats in the hall
of Magdalene. Cartwright pronounced a loyal oration which, a few years
before, would have called forth the acclamations of an Oxonian audience,
but which was now heard with sullen indignation. A long dispute
followed. The President defended his rights with skill, temper, and
resolution. He professed great respect for the royal authority. But
he steadily maintained that he had by the laws of England a freehold
interest in the house and revenues annexed to the presidency. Of
that interest he could not be deprived by an arbitrary mandate of the
Sovereign. "Will you submit", said the Bishop, "to our visitation? "
"I submit to it," said Hough with great dexterity, "so far as it is
consistent with the laws, and no farther. " "Will you deliver up the key
of your lodgings? " said Cartwright. Hough remained silent. The question
was repeated; and Hough returned a mild but resolute refusal. The
Commissioners pronounced him an intruder, and charged the Fellows no
longer to recognise his authority, and to assist at the admission of the
Bishop of Oxford. Charneck eagerly promised obedience; Smith returned an
evasive answer: but the great body of the members of the college firmly
declared that they still regarded Hough as their rightful head.

And now Hough himself craved permission to address a few words to the
Commissioners. They consented with much civility, perhaps expecting
from the calmness and suavity of his manner that he would make some
concession. "My Lords," said he, "you have this day deprived me of my
freehold: I hereby protest against all your proceedings as illegal,
unjust, and null; and I appeal from you to our sovereign Lord the King
in his courts of justice. " A loud murmur of applause arose from the
gownsmen who filled the hall. The Commissioners were furious. Search was
made for the offenders, but in vain. Then the rage of the whole board
was turned against Hough. "Do not think to huff us, sir," cried
Jenner, punning on the President's name. "I will uphold His Majesty's
authority," said Wright, "while I have breath in my body. All this comes
of your popular protest. You have broken the peace. You shall answer it
in the King's Bench. I bind you over in one thousand pounds to appear
there next term. I will see whether the civil power cannot manage you.
If that is not enough, you shall have the military too. " In truth Oxford
was in a state which made the Commissioners not a little uneasy. The
soldiers were ordered to have their carbines loaded. It was said that an
express was sent to London for the purpose of hastening the arrival of
more troops. No disturbance however took place. The Bishop of Oxford was
quietly installed by proxy: but only two members of Magdalene College
attended the ceremony. Many signs showed that the spirit of resistance
had spread to the common people. The porter of the college threw down
his keys. The butler refused to scratch Hough's name out of the buttery
book, and was instantly dismissed. No blacksmith could be found in the
whole city who would force the lock of the President's lodgings. It was
necessary for the Commissioners to employ their own servants, who broke
open the door with iron bars. The sermons which on the following Sunday
were preached in the University church were full of reflections such as
stung Cartwright to the quick, though such as he could not discreetly
resent.

And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter might have
stopped. The Fellows in general were not inclined to carry their
resistance further. They were of opinion that, by refusing to assist
in the admission of the intruder, they had sufficiently proved their
respect for their statutes and oaths, and that, since he was now in
actual possession, they might justifiably submit to him as their head,
till he should be removed by sentence of a competent court. Only one
Fellow, Doctor Fairfax, refused to yield even to this extent. The
Commissioners would gladly have compromised the dispute on these terms;
and during a few hours there was a truce which many thought likely to
end in an amicable arrangement: but soon all was again in confusion.
The Fellows found that the popular voice loudly accused them of
pusillanimity. The townsmen already talked ironically of a Magdalene
conscience, and exclaimed that the brave Hough and the honest Fairfax
had been betrayed and abandoned. Still more annoying were the sneers
of Obadiah Walker and his brother renegades. This then, said those
apostates, was the end of all the big words in which the society had
declared itself resolved to stand by its lawful President and by its
Protestant faith. While the Fellows, bitterly annoyed by the public
censure, were regretting the modified submission which they had
consented to make, they learned that this submission was by no means
satisfactory to the King. It was not enough, he said, that they offered
to obey the Bishop of Oxford as President in fact. They must distinctly
admit the Commission and all that had been done under it to be legal.
They must acknowledge that they had acted undutifully; they must declare
themselves penitent; they must promise to behave better in future,
must implore His Majesty's pardon, and lay themselves at his feet. Two
Fellows of whom the King had no complaint to make, Charnock and Smith,
were excused from the obligation of making these degrading apologies.

Even James never committed a grosser error. The Fellows, already angry
with themselves for having conceded so much, and galled by the censure
of the world, eagerly caught at the opportunity which was now offered
them of regaining the public esteem. With one voice they declared that
they would never ask pardon for being in the right, or admit that the
visitation of their college and the deprivation of their President had
been legal.

Then the King, as he had threatened, laid on them the whole weight of
his hand. They were by one sweeping edict condemned to expulsion.
Yet this punishment was not deemed sufficient. It was known that many
noblemen and gentlemen who possessed church patronage would be disposed
to provide for men who had suffered so much for the laws of England
or men and for the Protestant religion. The High Commission therefore
pronounced the ejected Fellows incapable of ever holding any church
preferment. Such of them as were not yet in holy orders were pronounced
incapable of receiving the clerical character. James might enjoy the
thought that he had reduced many of them from a situation in which
they were surrounded by comforts, and had before them the fairest
professional prospects, to hopeless indigence.

But all these severities produced an effect directly the opposite of
that which he had anticipated. The spirit of Englishmen, that sturdy
spirit which no King of the House of Stuart could ever be taught by
experience to understand, swelled up high and strong against injustice.
Oxford, the quiet scat of learning and loyalty, was in a state
resembling that of the City of London on the morning after the attempt
of Charles the First to seize the five members. The Vicechancellor had
been asked to dine with the Commissioners on the day of the expulsion.
He refused. "My taste," he said, "differs from that of Colonel Kirke. I
cannot eat my meals with appetite under a gallows. " The scholars refused
to pull off their caps to the new rulers of Magdalene College. Smith was
nicknamed Doctor Roguery, and was publicly insulted in a coffeehouse.
When Charnock summoned the Demies to perform their academical exercises
before him, they answered that they were deprived of their lawful
governors and would submit to no usurped authority. They assembled apart
both for study and for divine service. Attempts were made to corrupt
them by offers of the lucrative fellowships which had just been declared
vacant: but one undergraduate after another manfully answered that his
conscience would not suffer him to profit by injustice. One lad who was
induced to take a fellowship was turned out of the hall by the rest.
Youths were invited from other colleges, but with small success. The
richest foundation in the kingdom seemed to have lost all attractions
for needy students. Meanwhile, in London and all over the country, money
was collected for the support of the ejected Fellows. The Princess of
Orange, to the great joy of all Protestants, subscribed two hundred
pounds. Still, however, the King held on his course. The expulsion of
the Fellows was soon followed by the expulsion of a crowd of Demies.
All this time the new President was fast sinking under bodily and mental
disease. He had made a last feeble effort to serve the government by
publishing, at the very time when the college was in a state of open
rebellion against his authority, a defence of the Declaration of
Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation.
This piece called forth many answers, and particularly one from Burnet,
written with extraordinary vigour and acrimony. A few weeks after
the expulsion of the Demies, Parker died in the house of which he
had violently taken possession. Men said that his heart was broken by
remorse and shame. He lies in the beautiful antechapel of the college:
but no monument marks his grave.

Then the King's whole plan was carried into full effect. The college was
turned into a Popish seminary. Bonaventure Giffard, the Roman Catholic
Bishop of Madura, was appointed President. The Roman Catholic service
was performed in the chapel. In one day twelve Roman Catholics were
admitted Fellows. Some servile Protestants applied for fellowships, but
met with refusals. Smith, an enthusiast in loyalty, but still a sincere
member of the Anglican Church, could not bear to see the altered
aspect of the house. He absented himself; he was ordered to return into
residence: he disobeyed: he was expelled; and the work of spoliation was
complete. [298]

The nature of the academical system of England is such that no event
which seriously affects the interests and honour of either University
can fail to excite a strong feeling throughout the country. Every
successive blow, therefore, which fell on Magdalene College, was felt
to the extremities of the kingdom. In the coffeehouses of London, in the
Inns of Court, in the closes of all the Cathedral towns, in parsonages
and manor houses scattered over the remotest shires, pity for the
sufferers and indignation against the government went on growing. The
protest of Hough was everywhere applauded: the forcing of his door was
everywhere mentioned with abhorrence: and at length the sentence of
deprivation fulminated against the Fellows dissolved those ties, once
so close and dear, which had bound the Church of England to the House of
Stuart. Bitter resentment and cruel apprehension took the place of love
and confidence. There was no prebendary, no rector, no vicar, whose mind
was not haunted by the thought that, however quiet his temper, however
obscure his situation, he might, in a few months, be driven from his
dwelling by an arbitrary edict to beg in a ragged cassock with his wife
and children, while his freehold, secured to him by laws of immemorial
antiquity and by the royal word, was occupied by some apostate. This
then was the reward of that heroic loyalty never once found wanting
through the vicissitudes of fifty tempestuous years. It was for this
that the clergy had endured spoliation and persecution in the cause of
Charles the First. It was for this that they had supported Charles the
Second in his hard contest with the Whig opposition. It was for this
that they had stood in the front of the battle against those who sought
to despoil James of his birthright. To their fidelity alone their
oppressor owed the power which he was now employing to their ruin. They
had long been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language all
that they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day of his
power. Yet for the Puritan there was some excuse. He was an avowed
enemy: he had wrongs to avenge; and even he, while remodelling the
ecclesiastical constitution of the country, and ejecting all who would
not subscribe his Covenant, had not been altogether without compassion.
He had at least granted to those whose benefices he seized a pittance
sufficient to support life. But the hatred felt by the King towards that
Church which had saved him from exile and placed him on a throne was
not to be so easily satiated. Nothing but the utter ruin of his victims
would content him. It was not enough that they were expelled from their
homes and stripped of their revenues. They found every walk of life
towards which men of their habits could look for a subsistence closed
against them with malignant care, and nothing left to them but the
precarious and degrading resource of alms.

The Anglican clergy therefore, and that portion of the laity which was
strongly attached to Protestant episcopacy, now regarded the King with
those feelings which injustice aggravated by ingratitude naturally
excites. Yet had the Churchman still many scruples of conscience
and honour to surmount before he could bring himself to oppose the
government by force. He had been taught that passive obedience was
enjoined without restriction or exception by the divine law. He had
professed this opinion ostentatiously. He had treated with contempt the
suggestion that an extreme case might possibly arise which would justify
a people in drawing the sword against regal tyranny. Both principle
and shame therefore restrained him from imitating the example of
the rebellious Roundheads, while any hope of a peaceful and legal
deliverance remained; and such a hope might reasonably be cherished as
long as the Princess of Orange stood next in succession to the crown. If
he would but endure with patience this trial of his faith, the laws
of nature would soon do for him what he could not, without sin and
dishonour, do for himself. The wrongs of the Church would be redressed,
her property and dignity would be fenced by new guarantees; and those
wicked ministers who had injured and insulted her in the day of her
adversity would be signally punished.

The event to which the Church of England looked forward as to an
honourable and peaceful termination of her troubles was one of which
even the most reckless members of the Jesuitical cabal could not think
without painful apprehensions. If their master should die, leaving them
no better security against the penal laws than a Declaration which the
general voice of the nation pronounced to be a nullity, if a Parliament,
animated by the same spirit which had prevailed in the Parliament of
Charles the Second, should assemble round the throne of a Protestant
sovereign, was it not probable that a terrible retribution would be
exacted, that the old laws against Popery would be rigidly enforced, and
that new laws still more severe would be added to the statute book? The
evil counsellors had long been tormented by these gloomy apprehensions,
and some of them had contemplated strange and desperate remedies. James
had scarcely mounted the throne when it began to be whispered about
Whitehall that, if the Lady Anne would turn Roman Catholic, it might not
be impossible, with the help of Lewis, to transfer to her the birthright
of her elder sister. At the French embassy this scheme was warmly
approved; and Bonrepaux gave it as his opinion that the assent of James
would be easily obtained. [299] Soon, however, it became manifest that
Anne was unalterably attached to the Established Church. All thought of
making her Queen was therefore relinquished. Nevertheless, a small knot
of fanatics still continued to cherish a wild hope that they might be
able to change the order of succession. The plan formed by these men
was set forth in a minute of which a rude French translation has been
preserved. It was to be hoped, they said, that the King might be able to
establish the true faith without resorting to extremities; but, in the
worst event, he might leave his crown at the disposal of Lewis. It was
better for Englishmen to be the vassals of France than the slaves of the
Devil. [300] This extraordinary document was handed about from Jesuit
to Jesuit, and from courtier to courtier, till some eminent Roman
Catholics, in whom bigotry had not extinguished patriotism, furnished
the Dutch Ambassador with a copy. He put the paper into the hands of
James. James, greatly agitated, pronounced it a vile forgery contrived
by some pamphleteer in Holland. The Dutch minister resolutely
answered that he could prove the contrary by the testimony of several
distinguished members of His Majesty's own Church, nay, that there would
be no difficulty in pointing out the writer, who, after all, had written
only what many priests and many busy politicians said every day in the
galleries of the palace. The King did not think it expedient to ask who
the writer was, but, abandoning the charge of forgery, protested, with
great vehemence and solemnity, that no thought of disinheriting his
eldest daughter had ever crossed his mind. "Nobody," he said, "ever
dared to hint such a thing to me. I never would listen to it. God does
not command us to propagate the true religion by injustice and this
would be the foulest, the most unnatural injustice. " [301] Notwithstanding
all these professions, Barillon, a few days later, reported to his court
that James had begun to listen to suggestions respecting a change in the
order of succession, that the question was doubtless a delicate one,
but that there was reason to hope that, with time and management, a
way might be found to settle the crown on some Roman Catholic to the
exclusion of the two Princesses. [302] During many months this subject
continued to be discussed by the fiercest and most extravagant Papists
about the court; and candidates for the regal office were actually
named. [303]

It is not probable however that James ever meant to take a course so
insane. He must have known that England would never bear for a single
day the yoke of an usurper who was also a Papist, and that any attempt
to set aside the Lady Mary would have been withstood to the death, both
by all those who had supported the Exclusion Bill, and by all those
who had opposed it. There is however no doubt that the King was an
accomplice in a plot less absurd, but not less unjustifiable,
against the rights of his children. Tyrconnel had, with his master's
approbation, made arrangements for separating Ireland from the empire,
and for placing her under the protection of Lewis, as soon as the crown
should devolve on a Protestant sovereign. Bonrepaux had been consulted,
had imparted the design to his court, and had been instructed to assure
Tyrconnel that France would lend effectual aid to the accomplishment of
this great project. [304] These transactions, which, though perhaps
not in all parts accurately known at the Hague, were strongly suspected
there, must not be left out of the account if we would pass a just
judgment on the course taken a few months later by the Princess of
Orange. Those who pronounce her guilty of a breach of filial duty must
admit that her fault was at least greatly extenuated by her wrongs. If,
to serve the cause of her religion, she broke through the most sacred
ties of consanguinity, she only followed her father's example. She did
not assist to depose him till he had conspired to disinherit her.

Scarcely had Bonrepaux been informed that Lewis had resolved to assist
the enterprise of Tyrconnel when all thoughts of that enterprise were
abandoned. James had caught the first glimpse of a hope which delighted
and elated him. The Queen was with child.

Before the end of October 1687 the great news began to be whispered.
It was observed that Her Majesty had absented herself from some public
ceremonies, on the plea of indisposition. It was said that many relics,
supposed to possess extraordinary virtue, had been hung about her.
Soon the story made its way from the palace to the coffeehouses of the
capital, and spread fast over the country. By a very small minority the
rumour was welcomed with joy. The great body of the nation listened with
mingled derision and fear. There was indeed nothing very extraordinary
in what had happened.

The King had but just completed his fifty-fourth year. The Queen was
in the summer of life. She had already borne four children who had
died young; and long afterwards she was delivered of another child
whom nobody had any interest in treating as supposititious, and who was
therefore never said to be so. As, however, five years had elapsed since
her last pregnancy, the people, under the influence of that delusion
which leads men to believe what they wish, had ceased to entertain any
apprehension that she would give an heir to the throne. On the other
hand, nothing seemed more natural and probable than that the Jesuits
should have contrived a pious fraud. It was certain that they must
consider the accession of the Princess of Orange as one of the greatest
calamities which could befall their Church. It was equally certain
that they would not be very scrupulous about doing whatever might be
necessary to save their Church from a great calamity. In books written
by eminent members of the Society, and licensed by its rulers, it was
distinctly laid down that means even more shocking to all notions of
justice and humanity than the introduction of a spurious heir into
a family might lawfully be employed for ends less important than the
conversion of a heretical kingdom. It had got abroad that some of the
King's advisers, and even the King himself, had meditated schemes for
defrauding the Lady Mary, either wholly or in part, of her rightful
inheritance. A suspicion, not indeed well founded, but by no means so
absurd as is commonly supposed, took possession of the public mind. The
folly of some Roman Catholics confirmed the vulgar prejudice. They spoke
of the auspicious event as strange, as miraculous, as an exertion of the
same Divine power which had made Sarah proud and happy in Isaac, and
had given Samuel to the prayers of Hannah. Mary's mother, the Duchess of
Modena, had lately died. A short time before her death, she had, it
was said, implored the Virgin of Loretto, with fervent vows and rich
offerings, to bestow a son on James. The King himself had, in the
preceding August, turned aside from his progress to visit the Holy
Well, and had there besought Saint Winifred to obtain for him that boon
without which his great designs for the propagation of the true faith
could be but imperfectly executed. The imprudent zealots who dwelt on
these tales foretold with confidence that the unborn infant would be a
boy, and offered to back their opinion by laying twenty guineas to one.
Heaven, they affirmed, would not have interfered but for a great end.
One fanatic announced that the Queen would give birth to twins, of whom
the elder would be King of England, and the younger Pope of Rome. Mary
could not conceal the delight with which she heard this prophecy; and
her ladies found that they could not gratify her more than by talking of
it. The Roman Catholics would have acted more wisely if they had spoken
of the pregnancy as of a natural event, and if they had borne with
moderation their unexpected good fortune. Their insolent triumph excited
the popular indignation. Their predictions strengthened the popular
suspicions. From the Prince and Princess of Denmark down to porters and
laundresses nobody alluded to the promised birth without a sneer. The
wits of London described the new miracle in rhymes which, it may well be
supposed, were not the most delicate. The rough country squires roared
with laughter if they met with any person simple enough to believe that
the Queen was really likely to be again a mother. A royal proclamation
appeared commanding the clergy to read a form of prayer and thanksgiving
which had been prepared for this joyful occasion by Crewe and Sprat.
The clergy obeyed: but it was observed that the congregations made no
responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the coffeehouses
was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the
King had employed. Mother East had also her full share of abuse. Into
that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the
great house of Este which reigned at Modena. [305]

The new hope which elated the King's spirits was mingled with many
fears. Something more than the birth of a Prince of Wales was necessary
to the success of the plans formed by the Jesuitical party. It was
not very likely that James would live till his son should be of age to
exercise the regal functions. The law had made no provision for the
case of a minority. The reigning sovereign was not competent to make
provision for such a case by will.
The legislature only could supply the
defect. If James should die before the defect had been supplied, leaving
a successor of tender years, the supreme power would undoubtedly devolve
on Protestants. Those Tories who held most firmly the doctrine that
nothing could justify them in resisting their liege lord would have no
scruple about drawing their swords against a Popish woman who should
dare to usurp the guardianship of the realm and of the infant sovereign.
The result of a contest could scarcely be matter of doubt. The Prince of
Orange or his wife, would be Regent. The young King would be placed in
the hands of heretical instructors, whose arts might speedily efface
from his mind the impressions which might have been made on it in the
nursery. He might prove another Edward the Sixth; and the blessing
granted to the intercession of the Virgin Mother and of Saint Winifred
might be turned into a curse. [306] This was a danger against which
nothing but, an Act of Parliament could be a security; and to obtain
such an Act was not easy. Everything seemed to indicate that, if the
Houses were convoked, they would come up to Westminster animated by
the spirit of 1640. The event of the county elections could hardly be
doubted. The whole body of freeholders, high and low, clerical and lay,
was strongly excited against the government. In the great majority of
those towns where the right of voting depended on the payment of local
taxes, or on the occupation of a tenement, no courtly candidate could
dare to show his face. A very large part of the House of Commons was
returned by members of municipal corporations. These corporations had
recently been remodelled for the purpose of destroying the influence
of the Whigs and Dissenters. More than a hundred constituent bodies had
been deprived of their charters by tribunals devoted to the crown,
or had been induced to avert compulsory disfranchisement by voluntary
surrender. Every Mayor, every Alderman, every Town Clerk, from Berwick
to Helstone, was a Tory and a Churchman: but Tories and Churchmen were
now no longer devoted to the sovereign. The new municipalities were
more unmanageable than the old municipalities had ever been, and would
undoubtedly return representatives whose first act would be to impeach
all the Popish Privy Councillors, and all the members of the High
Commission.

In the Lords the prospect was scarcely less gloomy than in the Commons.
Among the temporal peers it was certain that an immense majority would
be against the King's measures: and on that episcopal bench, which
seven years before had unanimously supported him against those who
had attempted to deprive him of his birthright, he could now look for
support only to four or five sycophants despised by their profession and
by their country. [307]

To all men not utterly blinded by passion these difficulties appeared
insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of
uneasiness. Dryden muttered that the King would only make matters worse
by trying to mend them, and sighed for the golden days of the careless
and goodnatured Charles. [308] Even Jeffreys wavered. As long as he
was poor, he was perfectly ready to face obloquy and public hatred for
lucre. But he had now, by corruption and extortion, accumulated great
riches; and he was more anxious to secure them than to increase them.
His slackness drew on him a sharp reprimand from the royal lips. In
dread of being deprived of the Great Seal, he promised whatever was
required of him: but Barillon, in reporting this circumstance to Lewis,
remarked that the King of England could place little reliance on any man
who had any thing to lose. [309]

Nevertheless James determined to persevere. The sanction of a Parliament
was necessary to his system. The sanction of a free and lawful
Parliament it was evidently impossible to obtain: but it might not be
altogether impossible to bring together by corruption, by intimidation,
by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent distortions of law,
an assembly which might call itself a Parliament, and might be willing
to register any edict of the Sovereign. Returning officers must be
appointed who would avail themselves of the slightest pretence to
declare the King's friends duly elected. Every placeman, from the
highest to the lowest, must be made to understand that, if he wished to
retain his office, he must, at this conjuncture, support the throne by
his vote and interest. The High Commission meanwhile would keep its eye
on the clergy. The boroughs, which had just been remodelled to serve one
turn, might be remodelled again to serve another. By such means the
King hoped to obtain a majority in the House of Commons. The Upper
House would then be at his mercy. He had undoubtedly by law the power of
creating peers without limit: and this power he was fully determined
to use. He did not wish, and indeed no sovereign can wish, to make the
highest honour which is in the gift of the crown worthless. He cherished
the hope that, by calling up some heirs apparent to the assembly in
which they must ultimately sit, and by conferring English titles on some
Scotch and Irish Lords, he might be able to secure a majority without
ennobling new men in such numbers as to bring ridicule on the coronet
and the ermine. But there was no extremity to which he was not prepared
to go in case of necessity. When in a large company an opinion was
expressed that the peers would prove intractable, "Oh, silly," cried
Sunderland, turning to Churchill, "your troop of guards shall be called
up to the House of Lords. " [310]

Having determined to pack a Parliament, James set himself energetically
and methodically to the work. A proclamation appeared in the Gazette,
announcing that the King had determined to revise the Commissions of
Peace and of Lieutenancy, and to retain in public employment only such
gentlemen as should be disposed to support his policy. [311] A committee
of seven Privy Councillors sate at Whitehall, for the purpose of
regulating--such was the phrase--the municipal corporations. In this
committee Jeffreys alone represented the Protestant interest. Powis
alone represented the moderate Roman Catholics. All the other members
belonged to the Jesuitical faction. Among them was Petre, who had just
been sworn of the Council. Till he took his seat at the board, his
elevation had been kept a profound secret from everybody but Sunderland.
The public indignation at this new violation of the law was clamorously
expressed; and it was remarked that the Roman Catholics were even louder
in censure than the Protestants. The vain and ambitious Jesuit was now
charged with the business of destroying and reconstructing half
the constituent bodies in the kingdom. Under the committee of Privy
Councillors a subcommittee consisting of bustling agents less eminent in
rank was entrusted with the management of details. Local subcommittees
of regulators all over the country corresponded with the central board
at Westminster. [312]

The persons on whom James chiefly relied for assistance in his new and
arduous enterprise were the Lords Lieutenants. Every Lord Lieutenant
received written orders directing him to go down immediately into his
county. There he was to summon before him all his deputies, and all the
justices of the Peace, and to put to them a series of interrogatories
framed for the purpose of ascertaining how they would act at a general
election. He was to take down the answers in writing, and to transmit
them to the government. He was to furnish a list of such Roman
Catholics, and such Protestant Dissenters, as might be best qualified
for the bench and for commands in the militia. He was also to examine
into the state of all the boroughs in his county, and to make such
reports as might be necessary to guide the operations of the board of
regulators. It was intimated to him that he must himself perform these
duties, and that he could not be permitted to delegate them to any other
person. [313]

The first effect produced by these orders would have at once sobered a
prince less infatuated than James. Half the Lords Lieutenants of England
peremptorily refused to stoop to the odious service which was required
of them. They were immediately dismissed. All those who incurred this
glorious disgrace were peers of high consideration; and all had hitherto
been regarded as firm supporters of monarchy. Some names in the list
deserve especial notice.

The noblest subject in England, and indeed, as Englishmen loved to say,
the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last of
the old Earls of Oxford. He derived his title through an uninterrupted
male descent from a time when the families of Howard and Seymour were
still obscure, when the Nevilles and Percies enjoyed only a provincial
celebrity, and when even the great name of Plantagenet had not yet
been heard in England. One chief of the house of De Vere had held high
command at Hastings: another had marched, with Godfrey and Tancred, over
heaps of slaughtered Moslem, to the sepulchre of Christ. The first Earl
of Oxford had been minister of Henry Beauclerc. The third Earl had been
conspicuous among the Lords who extorted the Great Charter from John.
The seventh Earl had fought bravely at Cressy and Pointiers. The
thirteenth Earl had, through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the
chief of the party of the Red Rose, and had led the van on the decisive
day of Bosworth. The seventeenth Earl had shone at the court of
Elizabeth, and had won for himself an honourable place among the early
masters of English poetry. The nineteenth Earl had fallen in arms for
the Protestant religion and for the liberties of Europe under the walls
of Maastricht. His son Aubrey, in whom closed the longest and most
illustrious line of nobles that England has seen, a man of loose morals,
but of inoffensive temper and of courtly manners, was Lord Lieutenant
of Essex, and Colonel of the Blues. His nature was not factious; and his
interest inclined him to avoid a rupture with the court; for his estate
was encumbered, and his military command lucrative. He was summoned
to the royal closet; and an explicit declaration of his intentions was
demanded from him. "Sir," answered Oxford, "I will stand by your Majesty
against all enemies to the last drop of my blood. But this is matter
of conscience, and I cannot comply. " He was instantly deprived of his
lieutenancy and of his regiment. [314]

Inferior in antiquity and splendour to the house of De Vere, but to the
house of De Vere alone, was the house of Talbot. Ever since the reign of
Edward the Third, the Talbots had sate among the peers of the realm. The
earldom of Shrewsbury had been bestowed, in the fifteenth century, on
John Talbot, the antagonist of the Maid of Orleans. He had been long
remembered by his countrymen with tenderness and reverence as one of
the most illustrious of those warriors who had striven to erect a great
English empire on the Continent of Europe. The stubborn courage which he
had shown in the midst of disasters had made him an object of interest
greater than more fortunate captains had inspired, and his death had
furnished a singularly touching scene to our early stage. His posterity
had, during two centuries, flourished in great honour. The head of the
family at the time of the Restoration was Francis, the eleventh Earl,
a Roman Catholic. His death had been attended by circumstances such as,
even in those licentious times which immediately followed the downfall
of the Puritan tyranny, had moved men to horror and pity. The Duke
of Buckingham in the course of his vagrant amours was for a moment
attracted by the Countess of Shrewsbury. She was easily won. Her lord
challenged the gallant, and fell. Some said that the abandoned woman
witnessed the combat in man's attire, and others that she clasped her
victorious lover to her bosom while his shirt was still dripping with
the blood of her husband. The honours of the murdered man descended to
his infant son Charles. As the orphan grew up to man's estate, it was
generally acknowledged that of the young nobility of England none had
been so richly gifted by nature. His person was pleasing, his temper
singularly sweet, his parts such as, if he had been born in a humble
rank, might well have raised him to the height of civil greatness. All
these advantages he had so improved that, before he was of age, he was
allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his
time. His learning is proved by notes which are still extant in his
handwriting on books in almost every department of literature. He
spoke French like a gentleman of Lewis's bedchamber, and Italian like a
citizen of Florence. It was impossible that a youth of such parts should
not be anxious to understand the grounds on which his family had refused
to conform to the religion of the state. He studied the disputed points
closely, submitted his doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their
answers before Tillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long
and attentively, and, after an investigation which occupied two years,
declared himself a Protestant. The Church of England welcomed the
illustrious convert with delight. His popularity was great, and became
greater when it was known that royal solicitations and promises had
been vainly employed to seduce him back to the superstition which he had
abjured. The character of the young Earl did not however develop itself
in a manner quite satisfactory to those who had borne the chief part
in his conversion. His morals by no means escaped the contagion of
fashionable libertinism. In truth the shock which had overturned his
early prejudices had at the same time unfixed all his opinions, and
left him to the unchecked guidance of his feelings. But, though his
principles were unsteady, his impulses were so generous, his temper so
bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impossible not to
love him. He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a
long, eventful, and chequered life, lost his right to that name. [315]
Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of one
of the regiments of horse which had been raised in consequence of
the Western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of
regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions.

None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public favour
than Charles Sackville Earl of Dorset. He was indeed a remarkable man.
In his youth he had been one of the most notorious libertines of the
wild time which followed the Restoration. He had been the terror of the
City watch, had passed many nights in the round house, and had at least
once occupied a cell in Newgate. His passion for Betty Morrice, and for
Nell Gwynn, who called him her Charles the First, had given no small
amusement and scandal to the town. [316] Yet, in the midst of follies
and vices, his courageous spirit, his fine understanding, and his
natural goodness of heart, had been conspicuous. Men said that the
excesses in which he indulged were common between him and the whole race
of gay young Cavaliers, but that his sympathy with human suffering and
the generosity with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks
had injured were all his own. His associates were astonished by the
distinction which the public made between him and them. "He may do what
he chooses," said Wilmot; "he is never in the wrong. " The judgment
of the world became still more favourable to Dorset when he had been
sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his brilliant
conversation, his soft heart, his open hand, were universally praised.
No day passed, it was said, in which some distressed family had not
reason to bless his name. And yet, with all his goodnature, such was
the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose sarcasm all the town feared
stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All political parties
esteemed and caressed him; but politics were not much to his taste. Had
he been driven by necessity to exert himself, he would probably have
risen to the highest posts in the state; but he was born to rank so high
and wealth so ample that many of the motives which impel men to engage
in public affairs were wanting to him. He took just so much part in
parliamentary and diplomatic business as sufficed to show that he wanted
nothing but inclination to rival Danby and Sunderland, and turned away
to pursuits which pleased him better. Like many other men who, with
great natural abilities, are constitutionally and habitually indolent,
he became an intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing
branches of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application.
He was allowed to be the best judge of painting, of sculpture, of
architecture, of acting, that the court could show. On questions of
polite learning his decisions were regarded at all the coffeehouses as
without appeal. More than one clever play which had failed on the first
representation was supported by his single authority against the whole
clamour of the pit, and came forth successful from the second trial.
The delicacy of his taste in French composition was extolled by Saint
Evremond and La Fontaine. Such a patron of letters England had never
seen. His bounty was bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and
was confined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estranged from each
other by literary jealousy or by difference of political opinion, joined
in acknowledging his impartial kindness. Dryden owned that he had been
saved from ruin by Dorset's princely generosity. Yet Montague and Prior,
who had keenly satirised Dryden, were introduced by Dorset into public
life; and the best comedy of Dryden's mortal enemy, Shadwell, was
written at Dorset's country seat. The munificent Earl might, if such had
been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was content to be
the benefactor. For the verses which he occasionally composed,
unstudied as they are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, assiduously
cultivated, would have produced something great. In the small volume of
his works may be found songs which have the easy vigour of Suckling,
and little satires which sparkle with wit as splendid as that of Butler.
[317]

Dorset was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex: and to Sussex the board of
regulators looked with great anxiety: for in no other county, Cornwall
and Wiltshire excepted, were there so many small boroughs. He was
ordered to repair to his post. No person who knew him expected that he
would obey. He gave such an answer as became him, and was informed that
his services were no longer needed. The interest which his many noble
and amiable qualities inspired was heightened when it was known that he
had received by the post an anonymous billet telling him that, if he did
not promptly comply with the King's wishes, all his wit and popularity
should not save him from assassination. A similar warning was sent
to Shrewsbury. Threatening letters were then much more rare than they
afterwards became. It is therefore not strange that the people, excited
as they were, should have been disposed to believe that the best and
noblest Englishmen were really marked out for Popish daggers. [318] Just
when these letters were the talk of all London, the mutilated corpse of
a noted Puritan was found in the streets. It was soon discovered that
the murderer had acted from no religious or political motive. But
the first suspicions of the populace fell on the Papists. The mangled
remains were carried in procession to the house of the Jesuits in the
Savoy; and during a few hours the fear and rage of the populace were
scarcely less violent than on the day when Godfrey was borne to his
grave. [319]

The other dismissions must be more concisely related. The Duke of
Somerset, whose regiment had been taken from him some months before, was
now turned out of the lord lieutenancy of the East Riding of Yorkshire.
The North Riding was taken from Viscount Fauconberg, Shropshire from
Viscount Newport, and Lancashire from the Earl of Derby, grandson of
that gallant Cavalier who had faced death so bravely, both on the field
of battle and on the scaffold, for the House of Stuart. The Earl of
Pembroke, who had recently served the crown with fidelity and spirit
against Monmouth, was displaced in Wiltshire, the Earl of Husband in
Leicestershire, the Earl of Bridgewater in Buckinghamshire, the Earl of
Thanet in Cumberland, the Earl of Northampton in Warwickshire, the Earl
of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and the Earl of Scarsdale in Derbyshire.
Scarsdale was also deprived of a regiment of cavalry, and of an office
in the household of the Princess of Denmark. She made a struggle to
retain his services, and yielded only to a peremptory command of
her father. The Earl of Gainsborough was rejected, not only from the
lieutenancy of Hampshire, but also from the government of Portsmouth and
the rangership of the New Forest, two places for which he had, only a
few months before, given five thousand pounds. [320]

The King could not find Lords of great note, or indeed Protestant Lords
of any sort, who would accept the vacant offices. It was necessary
to assign two shires to Jeffreys, a new man whose landed property was
small, and two to Preston who was not even an English peer. The other
counties which had been left without governors were entrusted, with
scarcely an exception, to known Roman Catholics, or to courtiers who had
secretly promised the King to declare themselves Roman Catholics as soon
as they could do so with prudence.

At length the new machinery was put in action; and soon from every
corner of the realm arrived the news of complete and hopeless failure.
The catechism by which the Lords Lieutenants had been directed to test
the sentiments of the country gentlemen consisted of three questions.
Every magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant was to be asked, first, whether,
if he should be chosen to serve in Parliament, he would vote for a bill
framed on the principles of the Declaration of Indulgence; secondly,
whether, as an elector, he would support candidates who would engage to
vote for such a bill and, thirdly, whether, in his private capacity,
he would aid the King's benevolent designs by living in friendship with
people of all religious persuasions. [321]

As soon as the questions got abroad, a form of answer, drawn up with
admirable skill, was circulated all over the kingdom, and was generally
adopted. It was to the following effect: "As a member of the House of
Commons, should I have the honour of a seat there, I shall think it my
duty carefully to weigh such reasons as may be adduced in debate for
and against a Bill of Indulgence, and then to vote according to my
conscientious conviction. As an elector, I shall give my support to
candidates whose notions of the duty of a representative agree with my
own. As a private man, it is my wish to live in peace and charity with
every body. " This answer, far more provoking than a direct refusal,
because slightly tinged with a sober and decorous irony which could not
well be resented, was all that the emissaries of the court could extract
from most of the country gentlemen. Arguments, promises, threats, were
tried in vain. The Duke of Norfolk, though a Protestant, and though
dissatisfied with the proceedings of the government, had consented to
become its agent in two counties. He went first to Surrey, where he soon
found that nothing could be done. [322] He then repaired to Norfolk, and
returned to inform the King that, of seventy gentlemen of note who bore
office in that great province, only six had held out hopes that they
should support the policy of the court. [323] The Duke of Beaufort,
whose authority extended over four English shires and over the whole
principality of Wales, came up to Whitehall with an account not less
discouraging. [324] Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. All
his little stock of virtue had been expended in his struggle against the
strong temptation to sell his religion for lucre. He was still bound to
the court by a pension of four thousand pounds a year; and in return for
this pension he was willing to perform any service, however illegal or
degrading, provided only that he were not required to go through the
forms of a reconciliation with Rome. He had readily undertaken to manage
his county; and he exerted himself, as usual, with indiscreet heat and
violence. But his anger was thrown away on the sturdy squires to whom he
addressed himself. They told him with one voice that they would send up
no man to Parliament who would vote for taking away the safeguards
of the Protestant religion. [325] The same answer was given to the
Chancellor in Buckinghamshire. [326] The gentry of Shropshire, assembled
at Ludlow, unanimously refused to fetter themselves by the pledge which
the King demanded of them. [327] The Earl of Yarmouth reported from
Wiltshire that, of sixty magistrates and Deputy Lieutenants with whom
he had conferred, only seven had given favourable answers, and that even
those seven could not be trusted. [328] The renegade Peterborough made
no progress in Northamptonshire. [329] His brother renegade Dover was
equally unsuccessful in Cambridgeshire. [330] Preston brought cold news
from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dorsetshire and Huntingdonshire were
animated by the same spirit. The Earl of Bath, after a long canvass,
returned from the West with gloomy tidings. He had been authorised to
make the most tempting offers to the inhabitants of that region. In
particular he had promised that, if proper respect were shown to the
royal wishes, the trade in tin should be freed from the oppressive
restrictions under which it lay. But this lure, which at another time
would have proved irresistible, was now slighted. All the justices
and Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single
dissenting voice, declared that they would put life and property in
jeopardy for the King, but that the Protestant religion was dearer
to them than either life or property. "And, sir," said Bath, "if your
Majesty should dismiss all these gentlemen, their successors would give
exactly the same answer. " [331] If there was any district in which the
government might have hoped for success, that district was Lancashire.
Considerable doubts had been felt as to the result of what was passing
there. In no part of the realm had so many opulent and honourable
families adhered to the old religion. The heads of many of those
families had already, by virtue of the dispensing power, been made
justices of the Peace and entrusted with commands in the militia. Yet
from Lancashire the new Lord Lieutenant, himself a Roman Catholic,
reported that two thirds of his deputies and of the magistrates were
opposed to the court. [332] But the proceedings in Hampshire wounded the
King's pride still more deeply. Arabella Churchill had, more than twenty
years before, borne him a son, widely renowned, at a later period,
as one of the most skilful captains of Europe. The youth, named
James Fitzjames, had as yet given no promise of the eminence which he
afterwards attained: but his manners were so gentle and inoffensive that
he had no enemy except Mary of Modena, who had long hated the child of
the concubine with the bitter hatred of a childless wife. A small part
of the Jesuitical faction had, before the pregnancy of the Queen was
announced, seriously thought of setting him up as a competitor of the
Princess of Orange.