No More Learning

He played his part
with rare adroitness. To the world he showed himself as a Protestant. In
the royal closet he assumed the character of an earnest inquirer after
truth, who was almost persuaded to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and
who, while waiting for fuller illumination, was disposed to render every
service in his power to the professors of the old faith. James, who
was never very discerning, and who in religious matters was absolutely
blind, suffered himself, notwithstanding all that he had seen of human
knavery, of the knavery of courtiers as a class, and of the knavery of
Sunderland in particular, to be duped into the belief that divine grace
had touched the most false and callous of human hearts. During many
months the wily minister continued to be regarded at court as a
promising catechumen, without exhibiting himself to the public in the
character of a renegade. [61]

He early suggested to the King the expediency of appointing a secret
committee of Roman Catholics to advise on all matters affecting the
interests of their religion. This committee met sometimes at Chiffinch's
lodgings, and sometimes at the official apartments of Sunderland,
who, though still nominally a Protestant, was admitted to all its
deliberations, and soon obtained a decided ascendency over the other
members. Every Friday the Jesuitical cabal dined with the Secretary. The
conversation at table was free; and the weaknesses of the prince whom
the confederates hoped to manage were not spared. To Petre Sunderland
promised a Cardinal's hat; to Castelmaine a splendid embassy to Rome;
to Dover a lucrative command in the Guards; and to Tyrconnel high
employment in Ireland. Thus hound together by the strongest ties of
interest, these men addressed themselves to the task of subverting the
Treasurer's power. [62]

There were two Protestant members of the cabinet who took no decided
part in the struggle. Jeffreys was at this time tortured by a cruel
internal malady which had been aggravated by intemperance. At a dinner
which a wealthy Alderman gave to some of the leading members of the
government, the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor were so drunk
that they stripped themselves almost stark naked, and were with
difficulty prevented from climbing up a signpost to drink His Majesty's
health. The pious Treasurer escaped with nothing but the scandal of the
debauch: but the Chancellor brought on a violent fit of his complaint.
His life was for some time thought to be in serious danger. James
expressed great uneasiness at the thought of losing a minister who
suited him so well, and said, with some truth, that the loss of such a
man could not be easily repaired. Jeffreys, when he became convalescent,
promised his support to both the contending parties, and waited to
see which of them would prove victorious. Some curious proofs of his
duplicity are still extant. It has been already said that the two French
agents who were then resident in London had divided the English court
between them. Bonrepaux was constantly with Rochester; and Barillon
lived with Sunderland. Lewis was informed in the same week by Bonrepaux
that the Chancellor was entirely with the Treasurer, and by Barillon
that the Chancellor was in league with the Secretary. [63]

Godolphin, cautious and taciturn, did his best to preserve neutrality.
His opinions and wishes were undoubtedly with Rochester; but his office
made it necessary for him to be in constant attendance on the Queen; and
he was naturally unwilling to be on bad terms with her. There is indeed
reason to believe that he regarded her with an attachment more
romantic than often finds place in the hearts of veteran statesmen;
and circumstances, which it is now necessary to relate, had thrown her
entirely into the hands of the Jesuitical cabal. [64]

The King, stern as was his temper and grave as was his deportment, was
scarcely less under the influence of female attractions than his
more lively and amiable brother had been. The beauty, indeed, which
distinguished the favourite ladies of Charles was not necessary to
James. Barbara Palmer, Eleanor Gwynn, and Louisa de Querouaille were
among the finest women of their time. James, when young, had surrendered
his liberty, descended below his rank, and incurred the displeasure of
his family for the coarse features of Anne Hyde. He had soon, to the
great diversion of the whole court, been drawn away from his plain
consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His second wife,
though twenty years younger than himself, and of no unpleasing face or
figure, had frequent reason to complain of his inconstancy. But of
all his illicit attachments the strongest was that which bound him to
Catharine Sedley.

This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the most
brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The licentiousness of
his writings is not redeemed by much grace or vivacity; but the charms
of his conversation were acknowledged even by sober men who had no
esteem for his character. To sit near him at the theatre, and to hear
his criticisms on a new play, was regarded as a privilege. [65] Dryden
had done him the honour to make him a principal interlocutor in the
Dialogue on Dramatic Poesy. The morals of Sedley were such as, even in
that age, gave great scandal. He on one occasion, after a wild revel,
exhibited himself without a shred of clothing in the balcony of a
tavern near Covent Garden, and harangued the people who were passing in
language so indecent and profane that he was driven in by a shower of
brickbats, was prosecuted for a misdemeanour, was sentenced to a heavy
fine, and was reprimanded by the Court of King's Bench in the most
cutting terms. [66] His daughter had inherited his abilities and his
impudence. Personal charms she had none, with the exception of two
brilliant eyes, the lustre of which, to men of delicate taste, seemed
fierce and unfeminine. Her form was lean, her countenance haggard.
Charles, though he liked her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and
said that the priests must have recommended her to his brother by way of
penance. She well knew that she was not handsome, and jested freely on
her own homeliness. Yet, with strange inconsistency, she loved to
adorn herself magnificently, and drew on herself much keen ridicule
by appearing in the theatre and the ring plastered, painted, clad in
Brussels lace, glittering with diamonds, and affecting all the graces of
eighteen. [67]

The nature of her influence over James is not easily to be explained. He
was no longer young. He was a religious man; at least he was willing
to make for his religion exertions and sacrifices from which the great
majority of those who are called religious men would shrink. It seems
strange that any attractions should have drawn him into a course of life
which he must have regarded as highly criminal; and in this case
none could understand where the attraction lay. Catharine herself was
astonished by the violence of his passion. "It cannot be my beauty," she
said; "for he must see that I have none; and it cannot be my wit, for he
has not enough to know that I have any. "

At the moment of the King's accession a sense of the new responsibility
which lay on him made his mind for a time peculiarly open to religious
impressions. He formed and announced many good resolutions, spoke in
public with great severity of the impious and licentious manners of the
age, and in private assured his Queen and his confessor that he would
see Catharine Sedley no more. He wrote to his mistress entreating her
to quit the apartments which she occupied at Whitehall, and to go to a
house in Saint James's Square which had been splendidly furnished for
her at his expense. He at the same time promised to allow her a large
pension from his privy purse. Catharine, clever, strongminded, intrepid,
and conscious of her power, refused to stir. In a few months it began
to be whispered that the services of Chiffinch were again employed, and
that the mistress frequently passed and repassed through that private
door through which Father Huddleston had borne the host to the bedside
of Charles. The King's Protestant ministers had, it seems, conceived a
hope that their master's infatuation for this woman might cure him
of the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to attack their
religion. She had all the talents which could qualify her to play on his
feelings, to make game of his scruples, to set before him in a strong
light the difficulties and dangers into which he was running headlong.
Rochester, the champion of the Church, exerted himself to strengthen her
influence. Ormond, who is popularly regarded as the personification of
all that is pure and highminded in the English Cavalier, encouraged the
design. Even Lady Rochester was not ashamed to cooperate, and that in
the very worst way. Her office was to direct the jealousy of the injured
wife towards a young lady who was perfectly innocent. The whole court
took notice of the coldness and rudeness with which the Queen treated
the poor girl on whom suspicion had been thrown: but the cause of Her
Majesty's ill humour was a mystery. For a time the intrigue went on
prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the King plainly what
the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to hint in the most
delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at stake: the old dotard
Arundell and the blustering Tyrconnel would lead him to his ruin. It is
possible that her caresses might have done what the united exhortations
of the Lords and the Commons, of the House of Austria and the Holy See,
had failed to do, but for a strange mishap which changed the whole face
of affairs. James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make his mistress
Countess of Dorchester in her own right. Catharine saw all the peril of
such a step, and declined the invidious honour. Her lover was obstinate,
and himself forced the patent into her hands. She at last accepted it
on one condition, which shows her confidence in her own power and in
his weakness. She made him give her a solemn promise, not that he would
never quit her, but that, if he did so, he would himself announce his
resolution to her, and grant her one parting interview.

As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace was
in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of the Queen.
Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank and of her
stainless chastity, she could not without agonies of grief and rage
see herself deserted and insulted for such a rival. Rochester, perhaps
remembering how patiently, after a short struggle, Catharine of Braganza
had consented to treat the mistresses of Charles with politeness, had
expected that, after a little complaining and pouting, Mary of Modena
would be equally submissive. It was not so. She did not even attempt
to conceal from the eyes of the world the violence of her emotions.
Day after day the courtiers who came to see her dine observed that the
dishes were removed untasted from the table. She suffered the tears to
stream down her cheeks unconcealed in the presence of the whole circle
of ministers and envoys. To the King she spoke with wild vehemence.
"Let me go," she cried. "You have made your woman a Countess: make her
a Queen. Put my crown on her head. Only let me hide myself in some
convent, where I may never see her more. " Then, more soberly, she asked
him how he reconciled his conduct to his religious professions. "You are
ready," she said, "to put your kingdom to hazard for the sake of your
soul; and yet you are throwing away your soul for the sake of that
creature. " Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these remonstrances.
It was his duty to do so; and his duty was not the less strenuously
performed because it coincided with his interest. The King went on for
a time sinning and repenting. In his hours of remorse his penances
were severe. Mary treasured up to the end of her life, and at her death
bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, the scourge with which he had
vigorously avenged her wrongs upon his own shoulders. Nothing but
Catharine's absence could put an end to this struggle between an ignoble
love and an ignoble superstition. James wrote, imploring and commanding
her to depart. He owned that he had promised to bid her farewell in
person. "But I know too well," he added, "the power which you have over
me. I have not strength of mind enough to keep my resolution if I see
you. " He offered her a yacht to convey her with all dignity and comfort
to Flanders, and threatened that if she did not go quietly she should be
sent away by force. She at one time worked on his feelings by pretending
to be ill. Then she assumed the airs of a martyr, and impudently
proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then again
she adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the King to remove
her. She would try the right with him. While the Great Charter and the
Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she would live where she
pleased. "And Flanders," she cried; "never! I have learned one thing
from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin; and that is never to trust myself
in a country where there are convents. " At length she selected Ireland
as the place of her exile, probably because the brother of her patron
Rochester was viceroy there. After many delays she departed, leaving the
victory to the Queen. [68]

The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect, if
it were not added that there is still extant a religious meditation,
written by the Treasurer, with his own hand, on the very same day on
which the intelligence of his attempt to govern his master by means of
a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to Versailles. No composition of
Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit of more fervent and exalted piety
than this effusion. Hypocrisy cannot be suspected: for the paper was
evidently meant only for the writer's own eye, and was not published
till he had been more than a century in his grave. So much is history
stranger than fiction; and so true is it that nature has caprices which
art dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture to bring on
the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, ready to sacrifice his
crown in order to serve the interests of his religion, indefatigable in
making proselytes, and yet deserting and insulting a wife who had youth
and beauty for the sake of a profligate paramour who had neither. Still
less, if possible, would a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman
stooping to the wicked and shameful part of a procurer, and calling in
his wife to aid him in that dishonourable office, yet, in his moments of
leisure, retiring to his closet, and there secretly pouring out his soul
to his God in penitent tears and devout ejaculations. [69]

The Treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous means for the purpose
of obtaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a crime, but a
folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected, indeed, to listen with
civility while the Hydes excused their recent conduct as well as they
could; and she occasionally pretended to use her influence in their
favour: but she must have been more or less than woman if she had really
forgiven the conspiracy which had been formed against her dignity and
her domestic happiness by the family of her husband's first wife. The
Jesuits strongly represented to the King the danger which he had so
narrowly escaped. His reputation, they said, his peace, his soul, had
been put in peril by the machinations of his prime minister. The Nuncio,
who would gladly have counteracted the influence of the violent party,
and cooperated with the moderate members of the cabinet, could not
honestly or decently separate himself on this occasion from Father
Petre. James himself, when parted by the sea from the charms which had
so strongly fascinated him, could not but regard with resentment and
contempt those who had sought to govern him by means of his vices. What
had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church in his
esteem, and of lowering the Church of England. The Jesuits, whom it
was the fashion to represent as the most unsafe of spiritual guides, as
sophists who refined away the whole system of evangelical morality, as
sycophants who owed their influence chiefly to the indulgence with which
they treated the sins of the great, had reclaimed him from a life of
guilt by rebukes as sharp and bold as those which David had heard
from Nathan and Herod from the Baptist. On the other hand, zealous
Protestants, whose favourite theme was the laxity of Popish casuists
and the wickedness of doing evil that good might come, had attempted
to obtain advantages for their own Church in a way which all Christians
regarded as highly criminal. The victory of the cabal of evil
counsellors was therefore complete. The King looked coldly on Rochester.
The courtiers and foreign ministers soon perceived that the Lord
Treasurer was prime minister only in name. He continued to offer his
advice daily, and had the mortification to find it daily rejected. Yet
he could not prevail on himself to relinquish the outward show of power
and the emoluments which he directly and indirectly derived from his
great place. He did his best, therefore, to conceal his vexations from
the public eye. But his violent passions and his intemperate habits
disqualified him for the part of a dissembler. His gloomy looks, when he
came out of the council chamber, showed how little he was pleased
with what had passed at the board; and, when the bottle had gone round
freely, words escaped him which betrayed his uneasiness. [70]

He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and unpopular measures
followed each other in rapid succession. All thought of returning to the
policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. The King explicitly avowed
to the ministers of those continental powers with which he had lately
intended to ally himself, that all his views had undergone a change, and
that England was still to be, as she had been under his grandfather,
his father, and his brother, of no account in Europe. "I am in no
condition," he said to the Spanish Ambassador, "to trouble myself about
what passes abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take
their course, to establish my authority at home, and to do something for
my religion. " A few days later he announced the same intentions to the
States General. [71] From that time to the close of his ignominious
reign, he made no serious effort to escape from vassalage, though, to
the last, he could never hear, without transports of rage, that men
called him a vassal.

The two events which proved to the public that Sunderland and
Sunderland's party were victorious were the prorogation of the
Parliament from February to May, and the departure of Castelmaine for
Rome with the appointments of an Ambassador of the highest rank. [72]

Hitherto all the business of the English government at the papal court
had been transacted by John Caryl. This gentleman was known to his
contemporaries as a man of fortune and fashion, and as the author of two
successful plays, a tragedy in rhyme which had been made popular by
the action and recitation of Betterton, and a comedy which owes all
its value to scenes borrowed from Moliere. These pieces have long been
forgotten; but what Caryl could not do for himself has been done for him
by a more powerful genius. Half a line in the Rape of the Lock has made
his name immortal.

Caryl, who was, like all the other respectable Roman Catholics, an enemy
to violent courses, had acquitted himself of his delicate errand at Rome
with good sense and good feeling. The business confided to him was well
done; but he assumed no public character, and carefully avoided all
display. His mission, therefore, put the government to scarcely any
charge, and excited scarcely any murmurs. His place was now most
unwisely supplied by a costly and ostentatious embassy, offensive in the
highest degree to the people of England, and by no means welcome to the
court of Rome. Castelmaine had it in charge to demand a Cardinal's hat
for his confederate Petre.

About the same time the King began to show, in an unequivocal manner,
the feeling which he really entertained towards the banished Huguenots.
While he had still hoped to cajole his Parliament into submission and to
become the head of an European coalition against France, he had affected
to blame the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and to pity the unhappy
men whom persecution had driven from their country. He had caused it to
be announced that, at every church in the kingdom, a collection would
be made under his sanction for their benefit. A proclamation on this
subject had been drawn up in terms which might have wounded the pride of
a sovereign less sensitive and vainglorious than Lewis. But all was now
changed. The principles of the treaty of Dover were again the principles
of the foreign policy of England. Ample apologies were therefore made
for the discourtesy with which the English government had acted towards
France in showing favour to exiled Frenchmen. The proclamation which
had displeased Lewis was recalled. [73] The Huguenot ministers were
admonished to speak with reverence of their oppressor in their public
discourses, as they would answer it at their peril. James not only
ceased to express commiseration for the sufferers, but declared that he
believed them to harbour the worst designs, and owned that he had been
guilty of an error in countenancing them. One of the most eminent of the
refugees, John Claude, had published on the Continent a small volume
in which he described with great force the sufferings of his brethren.
Barillon demanded that some opprobrious mark should be put on his book.
James complied, and in full council declared it to be his pleasure
that Claude's libel should be burned by the hangman before the Royal
Exchange. Even Jeffreys was startled, and ventured to represent that
such a proceeding was without example, that the book was written in a
foreign tongue, that it had been printed at a foreign press, that it
related entirely to transactions which had taken place in a foreign
country, and that no English government had ever animadverted on
such works. James would not suffer the question to be discussed. "My
resolution," he said, "is taken. It has become the fashion to treat
Kings disrespectfully; and they must stand by each other. One King
should always take another's part: and I have particular reasons for
showing this respect to the King of France. " There was silence at
the board. The order was forthwith issued; and Claude's pamphlet was
committed to the flames, not without the deep murmurs of many who had
always been reputed steady loyalists. [74]

The promised collection was long put off under various pretexts. The
King would gladly have broken his word; but it was pledged so solemnly
that he could not for very shame retract. [75] Nothing, however, which
could cool the zeal of congregations was omitted. It had been expected
that, according to the practice usual on such occasions, the people
would be exhorted to liberality from the pulpits. But James was
determined not to tolerate declamations against his religion and his
ally. The Archbishop of Canterbury was therefore commanded to inform
the clergy that they must merely read the brief, and must not presume
to preach on the sufferings of the French Protestants. [76] Nevertheless
the contributions were so large that, after all deductions, the sum of
forty thousand pounds was paid into the Chamber of London. Perhaps none
of the munificent subscriptions of our own age has borne so great a
proportion to the means of the nation. [77]

The King was bitterly mortified by the large amount of the collection
which had been made in obedience to his own call. He knew, he said, what
all this liberality meant. It was mere Whiggish spite to himself and his
religion. [78] He had already resolved that the money should be of no
use to those whom the donors wished to benefit. He had been, during some
weeks, in close communication with the French embassy on this subject,
and had, with the approbation of the court of Versailles, determined on
a course which it is not very easy to reconcile with those principles of
toleration to which he afterwards pretended to be attached. The refugees
were zealous for the Calvinistic discipline and worship. James therefore
gave orders that none should receive a crust of bread or a basket of
coals who did not first take the sacrament according to the Anglican
ritual. [79] It is strange that this inhospitable rule should have been
devised by a prince who affected to consider the Test Act as an outrage
on the rights of conscience: for, however unjustifiable it may be to
establish a sacramental test for the purpose of ascertaining whether
men are fit for civil and military office, it is surely much more
unjustifiable to establish a sacramental test for the purpose of
ascertaining whether, in their extreme distress, they are fit objects of
charity. Nor had James the plea which may be urged in extenuation of
the guilt of almost all other persecutors: for the religion which he
commanded the refugees to profess, on pain of being left to starve,
was not his own religion. His conduct towards them was therefore less
excusable than that of Lewis: for Lewis oppressed them in the hope of
bringing them over from a damnable heresy to the true Church: James
oppressed them only for the purpose of forcing them to apostatize from
one damnable heresy to another.

Several Commissioners, of whom the Chancellor was one, had been
appointed to dispense the public alms. When they met for the first time,
Jeffreys announced the royal pleasure. The refugees, he said, were too
generally enemies of monarchy and episcopacy. If they wished for relief,
they must become members of the Church of England, and must take the
sacrament from the hands of his chaplain. Many exiles, who had come full
of gratitude and hope to apply for succour, heard their sentence, and
went brokenhearted away. [80]

May was now approaching; and that month had been fixed for the meeting
of the Houses: but they were again prorogued to November. [81] It
was not strange that the King did not wish to meet them: for he had
determined to adopt a policy which he knew to be, in the highest degree,
odious to them. From his predecessors he had inherited two prerogatives,
of which the limits had never been defined with strict accuracy, and
which, if exerted without any limit, would of themselves have sufficed
to overturn the whole polity of the State and of the Church. These were
the dispensing power and the ecclesiastical supremacy. By means of the
dispensing power the King purposed to admit Roman Catholics, not merely
to civil and military, but to spiritual, offices. By means of the
ecclesiastical supremacy he hoped to make the Anglican clergy his
instruments for the destruction of their own religion.

This scheme developed itself by degrees.
It was not thought safe to
begin by granting to the whole Roman Catholic body a dispensation from
all statutes imposing penalties and tests. For nothing was more fully
established than that such a dispensation was illegal. The Cabal had,
in 1672, put forth a general Declaration of Indulgence. The Commons,
as soon as they met, had protested against it. Charles the Second had
ordered it to be cancelled in his presence, and had, both by his own
mouth and by a written message, assured the Houses that the step which
had caused so much complaint should never be drawn into precedent. It
would have been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a barrister
of reputation to argue in defence of a prerogative which the Sovereign,
seated on his throne in full Parliament, had solemnly renounced a few
years before. But it was not quite so clear that the King might not,
on special grounds, grant exemptions to individuals by name. The first
object of James, therefore, was to obtain from the courts of common
law an acknowledgment that, to this extent at least, he possessed the
dispensing power.

But, though his pretensions were moderate when compared with those which
he put forth a few months later, he soon found that he had against him
almost the whole sense of Westminster Hall. Four of the Judges gave him
to understand that they could not, on this occasion, serve his purpose;
and it is remarkable that all the four were violent Tories, and that
among them were men who had accompanied Jeffreys on the Bloody Circuit,
and who had consented to the death of Cornish and of Elizabeth Gaunt.
Jones, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a man who had never before
shrunk from any drudgery, however cruel or servile, now held in the
royal closet language which might have become the lips of the purest
magistrates in our history. He was plainly told that he must either
give up his opinion or his place. "For my place," he answered, "I care
little. I am old and worn out in the service of the crown; but I am
mortified to find that your Majesty thinks me capable of giving a
judgment which none but an ignorant or a dishonest man could give. " "I
am determined," said the King, "to have twelve Judges who will be all
of my mind as to this matter. " "Your Majesty," answered Jones, "may
find twelve Judges of your mind, but hardly twelve lawyers. " [82] He was
dismissed together with Montague, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and
two puisne Judges, Neville and Charlton. One of the new Judges was
Christopher Milton, younger brother of the great poet. Of Christopher
little is known except that, in the time of the civil war, he had been
a Royalist, and that he now, in his old age, leaned towards Popery. It
does not appear that he was ever formally reconciled to the Church of
Rome: but he certainly had scruples about communicating with the Church
of England, and had therefore a strong interest in supporting the
dispensing power. [83]

The King found his counsel as refractory as his Judges. The first
barrister who learned that he was expected to defend the dispensing
power was the Solicitor General, Heneage Finch. He peremptorily refused,
and was turned out of office on the following day. [84] The Attorney
General, Sawyer, was ordered to draw warrants authorising members of
the Church of Rome to hold benefices belonging to the Church of England.
Sawyer had been deeply concerned in some of the harshest and most
unjustifiable prosecutions of that age; and the Whigs abhorred him as a
man stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney: but on this occasion
he showed no want of honesty or of resolution. "Sir," said he, "this is
not merely to dispense with a statute; it is to annul the whole statute
law from the accession of Elizabeth to this day. I dare not do it; and I
implore your Majesty to consider whether such an attack upon the rights
of the Church be in accordance with your late gracious promises. " [85]
Sawyer would have been instantly dismissed as Finch had been, if the
government could have found a successor: but this was no easy matter. It
was necessary for the protection of the rights of the crown that one
at least of the crown lawyers should be a man of learning, ability, and
experience; and no such man was willing to defend the dispensing power.
The Attorney General was therefore permitted to retain his place
during some months. Thomas Powis, an insignificant man, who had no
qualification for high employment except servility, was appointed
Solicitor.

The preliminary arrangements were now complete. There was a Solicitor
General to argue for the dispensing power, and twelve Judges to decide
in favour of it. The question was therefore speedily brought to a
hearing. Sir Edward Hales, a gentleman of Kent, had been converted
to Popery in days when it was not safe for any man of note openly to
declare himself a Papist. He had kept his secret, and, when questioned,
had affirmed that he was a Protestant with a solemnity which did little
credit to his principles. When James had ascended the throne, disguise
was no longer necessary. Sir Edward publicly apostatized, and was
rewarded with the command of a regiment of foot. He had held his
commission more than three months without taking the sacrament. He was
therefore liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, which an informer
might recover by action of debt. A menial servant was employed to bring
a suit for this sum in the Court of King's Bench. Sir Edward did not
dispute the facts alleged against him, but pleaded that he had letters
patent authorising him to hold his commission notwithstanding the Test
Act. The plaintiff demurred, that is to say, admitted Sir Edward's plea
to be true in fact, but denied that it was a sufficient answer. Thus was
raised a simple issue of law to be decided by the court. A barrister,
who was notoriously a tool of the government, appeared for the mock
plaintiff, and made some feeble objections to the defendant's plea. The
new Solicitor General replied. The Attorney General took no part in the
proceedings. Judgment was given by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edward
Herbert. He announced that he had submitted the question to all the
twelve Judges, and that, in the opinion of eleven of them, the King
might lawfully dispense with penal statutes in particular cases, and
for special reasons of grave importance. The single dissentient, Baron
Street, was not removed from his place. He was a man of morals so bad
that his own relations shrank from him, and that the Prince of Orange,
at the time of the Revolution, was advised not to see him. The character
of Street makes it impossible to believe that he would have been more
scrupulous than his brethren. The character of James makes it impossible
to believe that a refractory Baron of the Exchequer would have been
permitted to retain his post. There can be no reasonable doubt that the
dissenting Judge was, like the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counsel,
acting collusively. It was important that there should be a great
preponderance of authority in favour of the dispensing power; yet it
was important that the bench, which had been carefully packed for the
occasion, should appear to be independent. One Judge, therefore,
the least respectable of the twelve, was permitted, or more probably
commanded, to give his voice against the prerogative. [86]

The power which the courts of law had thus recognised was not suffered
to lie idle. Within a month after the decision of the King's Bench
had been pronounced, four Roman Catholic Lords were sworn of the Privy
Council. Two of these, Powis and Bellasyse, were of the moderate
party, and probably took their seats with reluctance and with many sad
forebodings. The other two, Arundell and Dover, had no such misgivings.
[87]

The dispensing power was, at the same time, employed for the purpose
of enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical preferment. The new
Solicitor readily drew the warrants in which Sawyer had refused to be
concerned. One of these warrants was in favour of a wretch named Edward
Sclater, who had two livings which he was determined to keep at all
costs and through all changes. He administered the sacrament to his
parishioners according to the rites of the Church of England on Palm
Sunday 1686. On Easter Sunday, only seven days later, he was at mass.
The royal dispensation authorised him to retain the emoluments of his
benefices. To the remonstrances of the patrons from whom he had received
his preferment he replied in terms of insolent defiance, and, while the
Roman Catholic cause prospered, put forth an absurd treatise in defence
of his apostasy. But, a very few weeks after the Revolution, a great
congregation assembled at Saint Mary's in the Savoy, to see him received
again into the bosom of the Church which he had deserted. He read his
recantation with tears flowing from his eyes, and pronounced a bitter
invective against the Popish priests whose arts had seduced him. [88]

Scarcely less infamous was the conduct of Obadiah Walker. He was an aged
priest of the Church of England, and was well known in the University of
Oxford as a man of learning. He had in the late reign been suspected of
leaning towards Popery, but had outwardly conformed to the established
religion, and had at length been chosen Master of University College.
Soon after the accession of James, Walker determined to throw off the
disguise which he had hitherto worn. He absented himself from the
public worship of the Church of England, and, with some fellows and
undergraduates whom he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own
apartments. One of the first acts performed by the new Solicitor General
was to draw up an instrument which authorised Walker and his proselytes
to hold their benefices, notwithstanding their apostasy. Builders were
immediately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an oratory. In a
few weeks the Roman Catholic rites were publicly performed in University
College. A Jesuit was quartered there as chaplain. A press was
established there under royal license for the printing of Roman Catholic
tracts. During two years and a half, Walker continued to make war on
Protestantism with all the rancour of a renegade: but when fortune
turned he showed that he wanted the courage of a martyr. He was brought
to the bar of the House of Commons to answer for his conduct, and was
base enough to protest that he had never changed his religion, that he
had never cordially approved of the doctrines of the Church of Rome,
and that he had never tried to bring any other person within the pale
of that Church. It was hardly worth while to violate the most sacred
obligations of law and of plighted faith, for the purpose of making such
converts as these. [89]

In a short time the King went a step further. Sclater and Walker had
only been permitted to keep, after they became Papists, the preferment
which had been bestowed on them while they passed for Protestants. To
confer a high office in the Established Church on an avowed enemy of
that Church was a far bolder violation of the laws and of the royal
word. But no course was too bold for James. The Deanery of Christchurch
became vacant. That office was, both in dignity and in emolument, one of
the highest in the University of Oxford. The Dean was charged with the
government of a greater number of youths of high connections and of
great hopes than could then be found in any other college. He was also
the head of a Cathedral. In both characters it was necessary that he
should be a member of the Church of England. Nevertheless John Massey,
who was notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and who had not
one single recommendation, except that he was a member of the Church of
Rome, was appointed by virtue of the dispensing power; and soon within
the walls of Christchurch an altar was decked, at which mass was daily
celebrated. [90] To the Nuncio the King said that what had been done at
Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge. [91]

Yet even this was a small evil compared with that which Protestants
had good ground to apprehend. It seemed but too probable that the whole
government of the Anglican Church would shortly pass into the hands of
her deadly enemies. Three important sees had lately become vacant, that
of York, that of Chester, and that of Oxford. The Bishopric of Oxford
was given to Samuel Parker, a parasite, whose religion, if he had any
religion, was that of Rome, and who called himself a Protestant only
because he was encumbered with a wife. "I wished," the King said to
Adda, "to appoint an avowed Catholic: but the time is not come. Parker
is well inclined to us; he is one of us in feeling; and by degrees he
will bring round his clergy. " [92] The Bishopric of Chester, vacant by the
death of John Pearson, a great name both in philology and in divinity,
was bestowed on Thomas Cartwright, a still viler sycophant than Parker.
The Archbishopric of York remained several years vacant. As no good
reason could be found for leaving so important a place unfilled, men
suspected that the nomination was delayed only till the King could
venture to place the mitre on the head of an avowed Papist. It is indeed
highly probable that the Church of England was saved from this outrage
by the good sense and good feeling of the Pope. Without a special
dispensation from Rome no Jesuit could be a Bishop; and Innocent could
not be induced to grant such a dispensation to Petre.

James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert vigorously
and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church all the
powers which he possessed as her head. He plainly said that, by a wise
dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means of
healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had
usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the Holy See. That
dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an orthodox
prince, and would be held by him in trust for the Holy See. He was
authorised by law to repress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual
abuse which he would repress should be the liberty which the Anglican
clergy assumed of defending their own religion and of attacking the
doctrines of Rome. [93]

But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesiastical supremacy
which had devolved on him, was by no means the same great and terrible
prerogative which Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First had
possessed. The enactment which annexed to the crown an almost boundless
visitatorial authority over the Church, though it had never been
formally repealed, had really lost a great part of its force. The
substantive law remained; but it remained unaccompanied by any
formidable sanction or by any efficient system of procedure, and was
therefore little more than a dead letter.

The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual dominion assumed
by her father and resigned by her sister, contained a clause authorising
the sovereign to constitute a tribunal which might investigate, reform,
and punish all ecclesiastical delinquencies. Under the authority given
by this clause, the Court of High Commission was created. That court
was, during many years, the terror of Nonconformists, and, under the
harsh administration of Laud, became an object of fear and hatred even
to those who most loved the Established Church. When the Long Parliament
met, the High Commission was generally regarded as the most grievous
of the many grievances under which the nation laboured. An act was
therefore somewhat hastily passed, which not only took away from the
Crown the power of appointing visitors to superintend the Church, but
abolished all ecclesiastical courts without distinction.

After the Restoration, the Cavaliers who filled the House of Commons,
zealous as they were for the prerogative, still remembered with
bitterness the tyranny of the High Commission, and were by no means
disposed to revive an institution so odious. They at the same time
thought, and not without reason, that the statute which had swept away
all the courts Christian of the realm, without providing any substitute,
was open to grave objection. They accordingly repealed that statute,
with the exception of the part which related to the High Commission.
Thus, the Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of
Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the Court of Delegates were revived:
but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her successors had been
empowered to appoint Commissioners with visitatorial authority over
the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, with the utmost
strength of language, to be completely abrogated. It is therefore as
clear as any point of constitutional law can be that James the Second
was not competent to appoint a Commission with power to visit and govern
the Church of England. [94] But, if this were so, it was to little
purpose that the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding words, empowered
him to amend what was amiss in that Church. Nothing but a machinery as
stringent as that which the Long Parliament had destroyed could force
the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the destruction of the
Anglican doctrine and discipline. He therefore, as early as the month
of April 1686, determined to create a new Court of High Commission. This
design was not immediately executed. It encountered the opposition of
every minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits. It
was regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation of the law, and by
Churchmen as a direct attack upon the Church. Perhaps the contest
might have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the pride and
inflamed the rage of the King. He had, as supreme ordinary, put forth
directions, charging the clergy of the establishment to abstain from
touching in their discourses on controverted points of doctrine. Thus,
while sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic religion were preached on
every Sunday and holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the
Church of the state, the Church of the great majority of the nation, was
forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit of the
whole clerical order rose against this injustice. William Sherlock,
a divine of distinguished abilities, who had written with sharpness
against Whigs and Dissenters, and had been rewarded by the government
with the Mastership of the Temple and with a pension, was one of the
first who incurred the royal displeasure. His pension was stopped, and
he was severely reprimanded. [95] John Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector
of St. Giles's in the Fields, soon gave still greater offence. He was
a man of learning and fervent piety, a preacher of great fame, and an
exemplary parish priest. In politics he was, like most of his brethren,
a Tory, and had just been appointed one of the royal chaplains. He
received an anonymous letter which purported to come from one of his
parishioners who had been staggered by the arguments of Roman Catholic
theologians, and who was anxious to be satisfied that the Church of
England was a branch of the true Church of Christ. No divine, not
utterly lost to all sense of religious duty and of professional honour,
could refuse to answer such a call. On the following Sunday Sharp
delivered an animated discourse against the high pretensions of the
see of Rome. Some of his expressions were exaggerated, distorted, and
carried by talebearers to Whitehall. It was falsely said that he had
spoken with contumely of the theological disquisitions which had been
found in the strong box of the late King, and which the present King
had published. Compton, the Bishop of London, received orders from
Sunderland to suspend Sharp till the royal pleasure should be further
known. The Bishop was in great perplexity. His recent conduct in the
House of Lords had given deep offence to the court. Already his name had
been struck out of the list of Privy Councillors. Already he had been
dismissed from his office in the royal chapel. He was unwilling to give
fresh provocation but the act which he was directed to perform was a
judicial act. He felt that it was unjust, and he was assured by the best
advisers that it was also illegal, to inflict punishment without giving
any opportunity for defence. He accordingly, in the humblest terms,
represented his difficulties to the King, and privately requested
Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. Reasonable as were
Compton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James was greatly
incensed. What insolence to plead either natural justice or positive
law in opposition to an express command of the Sovereign Sharp was
forgotten. The Bishop became a mark for the whole vengeance of the
government. [96] The King felt more painfully than ever the want of that
tremendous engine which had once coerced refractory ecclesiastics. He
probably knew that, for a few angry words uttered against his father's
government, Bishop Williams had been suspended by the High Commission
from all ecclesiastical dignities and functions. The design of reviving
that formidable tribunal was pushed on more eagerly than ever. In July
London was alarmed by the news that the King had, in direct defiance of
two acts of Parliament drawn in the strongest terms, entrusted the whole
government of the Church to seven Commissioners. [97] The words in which
the jurisdiction of these officers was described were loose, and might
be stretched to almost any extent. All colleges and grammar schools,
even those founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were placed
under the authority of the new board. All who depended for bread on
situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from the Primate
down to the youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors of Oxford and
Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught Corderius, were at
the royal mercy. If any one of those many thousands was suspected
of doing or saying anything distasteful to the government, the
Commissioners might cite him before them. In their mode of dealing
with him they were fettered by no rules. They were themselves at once
prosecutors and judges. The accused party was furnished with no copy of
the charge. He was examined and crossexamined. If his answers did not
give satisfaction, he was liable to be suspended from his office, to be
ejected from it, to be pronounced incapable of holding any preferment
in future. If he were contumacious, he might be excommunicated, or, in
other words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life. He
might also, at the discretion of the court, be loaded with all the costs
of the proceeding by which he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal
was given. The Commissioners were directed to execute their office
notwithstanding any law which might be, or might seem to be,
inconsistent with these regulations. Lastly, lest any person should
doubt that it was intended to revive that terrible court from which the
Long Parliament had freed the nation, the new tribunal was directed to
use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same superscription
with the seal of the old High Commission. [98]

The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and assent were
necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how unjustly, insolently,
and barbarously he had acted in courts where he had been, to a certain
extent, restrained by the known laws of England. It was, therefore,
not difficult to foresee how he would conduct himself in a situation in
which he was at entire liberty to make forms of procedure and rules of
evidence for himself.

Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates and three laymen. The
name of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. But he was fully convinced that
the court was illegal, that all its judgments would be null, and that
by sitting in it he should incur a serious responsibility. He therefore
determined not to comply with the royal mandate. He did not, however,
act on this occasion with that courage and sincerity which he showed
when driven to extremity two years later. He begged to be excused on
the plea of business and ill health. The other members of the board,
he added, were men of too much ability to need his assistance. These
disingenuous apologies ill became the Primate of all England at such a
crisis; nor did they avert the royal displeasure. Sancroft's name was
not indeed struck out of the list of Privy Councillors: but, to the
bitter mortification of the friends of the Church, he was no longer
summoned on Council days. "If," said the King, "he is too sick or too
busy to go to the Commission, it is a kindness to relieve him from
attendance at Council. " [99]

The government found no similar difficulty with Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop
of the great and opulent see of Durham, a man nobly born, and raised so
high in his profession that he could scarcely wish to rise higher, but
mean, vain, and cowardly. He had been made Dean of the Chapel Royal when
the Bishop of London was banished from the palace. The honour of being
an Ecclesiastical Commissioner turned Crewe's head. It was to no purpose
that some of his friends represented to him the risk which he ran by
sitting in an illegal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that he
could not live out of the royal smile, and exultingly expressed his
hope that his name would appear in history, a hope which has not been
altogether disappointed. [100]

Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the third clerical Commissioner.
He was a man to whose talents posterity has scarcely done justice.
Unhappily for his fame, it has been usual to print his verses in
collections of the British poets; and those who judge of him by his
verses must consider him as a servile imitator, who, without one spark
of Cowley's admirable genius, mimicked whatever was least commendable
in Cowley's manner: but those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose
writings will form a very different estimate of his powers. He was
indeed a great master of our language, and possessed at once the
eloquence of the orator, of the controversialist, and of the historian.
His moral character might have passed with little censure had he
belonged to a less sacred profession; for the worst that can be said of
him is that he was indolent, luxurious, and worldly: but such failings,
though not commonly regarded as very heinous in men of secular callings,
are scandalous in a prelate. The Archbishopric of York was vacant; Sprat
hoped to obtain it, and therefore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical
board: but he was too goodnatured a man to behave harshly; and he was
too sensible a man not to know that he might at some future time be
called to a serious account by a Parliament. He therefore, though he
consented to act, tried to do as little mischief, and to make as few
enemies, as possible. [101]

The three remaining Commissioners were the Lord Treasurer, the Lord
President, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Rochester,
disapproving and murmuring, consented to serve.