No More Learning

The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of
protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the
policy of England had, during many years, been chiefly governed, was not
only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under
such circumstances it is not strange that the common people should have
been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called
Bloody Mary.

Thus the nation was in such a temper that the smallest spark might raise
a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the
vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole was in a
blaze.

The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, artfully
contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, by the
instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless man who
had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of
Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an application
made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles for a sum of
money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was,
in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on account of his
delinquencies, but on account of his merits; not because he had been
an accomplice in a criminal transaction, but because he had been a most
unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the circumstances, which
have, in the judgment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his
contemporaries were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had
sold England to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an
end, and doubtful whether his head could be saved.

Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when compared with
the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad that a great Popish
plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a clergyman of the Church of
England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on
himself the censure of his spiritual superiors, had been compelled to
quit his benefice, and had ever since led an infamous and vagrant life.
He had once professed himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time
on the Continent in English colleges of the order of Jesus. In those
seminaries he had heard much wild talk about the best means of
bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he
constructed a hideous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man
than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope,
he said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The
Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed
Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest
offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once.
They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning
a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping in the Thames. They were
to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neighbours. A
French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading
statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four
schemes had been formed for assassinating the King. He was to be
stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine He was to be shot with
silver bullets. The public mind was so sore and excitable that these
lies readily found credit with the vulgar; and two events which speedily
took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though
evidently distorted and exaggerated, might have some foundation.

Edward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Catholic
intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was made for his
papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the greater part of
them. But a few which had escaped contained some passages such as,
to minds strongly prepossessed, might seem to confirm the evidence of
Oates. Those passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to
express little more than the hopes which the posture of affairs, the
predilections of Charles, the still stronger predilections of James,
and the relations existing between the French and English courts, might
naturally excite in the mind of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to
the interests of his Church. But the country was not then inclined to
construe the letters of Papists candidly; and it was urged, with
some show of reason, that, if papers which had been passed over as
unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery
of iniquity must have been contained in those documents which had been
carefully committed to the flames.

A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent
justice of the peace who had taken the depositions of Oates against
Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made; and Godfrey's corpse was
found in a field near London. It was clear that he had died by violence.
It was equally clear that he had not been set upon by robbers. His fate
is to this day a secret. Some think that he perished by his own
hand; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. The most improbable
supposition is that he was murdered by the party hostile to the court,
in order to give colour to the story of the plot. The most probable
supposition seems, on the whole, to be that some hotheaded Roman
Catholic, driven to frenzy by the lies of Oates and by the insults
of the multitude, and not nicely distinguishing between the perjured
accuser and the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which the
history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this
were so, the assassin must have afterwards bitterly execrated his own
wickedness and folly. The capital and the whole nation went mad with
hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of
their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were busied in
searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with
Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The
trainbands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for
barricading the great thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the
streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself
safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to
brain the Popish assassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was
exhibited during several days to the gaze of great multitudes, and was
then committed to the grave with strange and terrible ceremonies,
which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance shall sorrow or
religious hope. The Houses insisted that a guard should be placed in the
vaults over which they sate, in order to secure them against a second
Gunpowder Plot. All their proceedings were of a piece with this demand.
Ever since the reign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy had been exacted
from members of the House of Commons. Some Roman Catholics, however,
had contrived so to interpret this oath that they could take it without
scruple. A more stringent test was now added: every member of Parliament
was required to make the Declaration against Transubstantiation; and
thus the Roman Catholic Lords were for the first time excluded from
their seats. Strong resolutions were adopted against the Queen. The
Commons threw one of the Secretaries of State into prison for having
countersigned commissions directed to gentlemen who were not good
Protestants. They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay,
they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil war
was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even attempted
to wrest the command of the militia out of the King's hands. To such
a temper had eighteen years of misgovernment brought the most loyal
Parliament that had ever met in England.

Yet it may seem strange that, even in that extremity, the King should
have ventured to appeal to the people; for the people were more excited
than their representatives. The Lower House, discontented as it was,
contained a larger number of Cavaliers than were likely to find seats
again. But it was thought that a dissolution would put a stop to the
prosecution of the Lord Treasurer, a prosecution which might probably
bring to light all the guilty mysteries of the French alliance, and
might thus cause extreme personal annoyance and embarrassment to
Charles. Accordingly, in January, 1679, the Parliament, which had been
in existence ever since the beginning of the year 1661, was dissolved;
and writs were issued for a general election.

During some weeks the contention over the whole country was fierce and
obstinate beyond example. Unprecedented sums were expended. New tactics
were employed. It was remarked by the pamphleteers of that time as
something extraordinary that horses were hired at a great charge for
the conveyance of electors. The practice of splitting freeholds for
the purpose of multiplying votes dates from this memorable struggle.
Dissenting preachers, who had long hidden themselves in quiet nooks from
persecution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode from village to
village, for the purpose of rekindling the zeal of the scattered people
of God. The tide ran strong against the government. Most of the new
members came up to Westminster in a mood little differing from that of
their predecessors who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower.

Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst of
political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of every
party, were disgraced by wilder passions and fouler corruptions than
were to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Oates, though it had
sufficed to convulse the whole realm, would not, unless confirmed by
other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those whom he had
accused. For, by the old law of England, two witnesses are necessary
to establish a charge of treason. But the success of the first impostor
produced its natural consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised
from penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made him the dread
of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad
minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors
and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in
Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against
the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon
from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London,
false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics.
One came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to
muster in the disguise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to sail thence to
Wales. Another had been promised canonisation and five hundred pounds
to murder the King. A third had stepped into an eating house in Covent
Garden, and had there heard a great Roman Catholic banker vow, in the
hearing of all the guests and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant.
Oates, that he might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added
a large supplement to his original narrative. He had the portentous
impudence to affirm, among other things, that he had once stood behind a
door which was ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she
had resolved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband.
The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe,
even such fictions as these. The chief judges of the realm were corrupt,
cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encouraged the
prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, indeed, were
themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part of the evidence
of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless
perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance which
served their turn; and to their seared consciences the death of an
innocent man gave no more uneasiness than the death of a partridge. The
juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation,
and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those feelings without
restraint. The multitude applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted
and pelted the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and
shouted with joy when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in
vain that the sufferers appealed to the respectability of their past
lives: for the public mind was possessed with a belief that the more
conscientious a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a
Protestant government. It was in vain that, just before the cart passed
from under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence: for the
general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were
serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious.

While innocent blood was shedding under the forms of justice, the new
Parliament met; and such was the violence of the predominant party
that even men whose youth had been passed amidst revolutions men who
remembered the attainder of Strafford, the attempt on the five members,
the abolition of the House of Lords, the execution of the King, stood
aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The impeachment of Danby was
resumed. He pleaded the royal pardon. But the Commons treated the
plea with contempt, and insisted that the trial should proceed. Danby,
however, was not their chief object. They were convinced that the only
effectual way of securing the liberties and religion of the nation was
to exclude the Duke of York from the throne.

The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that his brother, the
sight of whom inflamed the populace to madness, should retire for a
time to Brussels: but this concession did not seem to have produced any
favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now decidedly preponderant.
Towards that party leaned millions who had, at the time of the
Restoration, leaned towards the side of prerogative. Of the old
Cavaliers many participated in the prevailing fear of Popery, and many,
bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince for whom they had
sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as carelessly as he had
looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, mortified and alarmed by the
apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to
join cordially in the outcry against the Roman Catholics.

The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir William Temple. Of all
the official men of that age Temple had preserved the fairest character.
The Triple Alliance had been his work. He had refused to take any
part in the politics of the Cabal, and had, while that administration
directed affairs, lived in strict privacy. He had quitted his retreat at
the call of Danby, had made peace between England and Holland, and had
borne a chief part in bringing about the marriage of the Lady Mary to
her cousin the Prince of Orange. Thus he had the credit of every one
of the few good things which had been done by the government since the
Restoration. Of the numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen
years none could be imputed to him. His private life, though not
austere, was decorous: his manners were popular; and he was not to be
corrupted either by titles or by money. Something, however, was wanting
to the character of this respectable statesman. The temperature of his
patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his personal dignity
too much, and shrank from responsibility with a pusillanimous fear. Nor
indeed had his habits fitted him to bear a part in the conflicts of our
domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth year without having sate
in the English Parliament; and his official experience had been almost
entirely acquired at foreign courts. He was justly esteemed one of the
first diplomatists in Europe: but the talents and accomplishments of a
diplomatist are widely different from those which qualify a politician
to lead the House of Commons in agitated times.

The scheme which he proposed showed considerable ingenuity. Though not
a profound philosopher, he had thought more than most busy men of the
world on the general principles of government; and his mind had been
enlarged by historical studies and foreign travel. He seems to have
discerned more clearly than most of his contemporaries one cause of the
difficulties by which the government was beset. The character of the
English polity was gradually changing. The Parliament was slowly, but
constantly, gaining ground on the prerogative. The line between the
legislative and executive powers was in theory as strongly marked as
ever, but in practice was daily becoming fainter and fainter. The theory
of the constitution was that the King might name his own ministers.
But the House of Commons had driven Clarendon, the Cabal, and
Danby successively from the direction of affairs. The theory of the
constitution was that the King alone had the power of making peace and
war. But the House of Commons had forced him to make peace with Holland,
and had all but forced him to make war with France. The theory of the
constitution was that the King was the sole judge of the cases in which
it might be proper to pardon offenders. Yet he was so much in dread
of the House of Commons that, at that moment, he could not venture to
rescue from the gallows men whom he well knew to be the innocent victims
of perjury.

Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the legislature its
undoubted constitutional powers, and yet to prevent it, if
possible, from encroaching further on the province of the executive
administration. With this view he determined to interpose between the
sovereign and the Parliament a body which might break the shock of their
collision. There was a body ancient, highly honourable, and recognised
by the law, which, he thought, might be so remodelled as to serve this
purpose. He determined to give to the Privy Council a new character and
office in the government. The number of Councillors he fixed at thirty.
Fifteen of them were to be the chief ministers of state, of law, and of
religion. The other fifteen were to be unplaced noblemen and gentlemen
of ample fortune and high character. There was to be no interior
cabinet. All the thirty were to be entrusted with every political
secret, and summoned to every meeting; and the King was to declare that
he would, on every occasion, be guided by their advice.

Temple seems to have thought that, by this contrivance, he could at
once secure the nation against the tyranny of the Crown, and the Crown
against the encroachments of the Parliament. It was, on one hand, highly
improbable that schemes such as had been formed by the Cabal would
be even propounded for discussion in an assembly consisting of thirty
eminent men, fifteen of whom were bound by no tie of interest to the
court. On the other hand, it might be hoped that the Commons, content
with the guarantee against misgovernment which such a Privy Council
furnished, would confine themselves more than they had of late done
to their strictly legislative functions, and would no longer think it
necessary to pry into every part of the executive administration.

This plan, though in some respects not unworthy of the abilities of its
author, was in principle vicious. The new board was half a cabinet and
half a Parliament, and, like almost every other contrivance, whether
mechanical or political, which is meant to serve two purposes altogether
different, failed of accomplishing either. It was too large and too
divided to be a good administrative body. It was too closely connected
with the Crown to be a good checking body. It contained just enough of
popular ingredients to make it a bad council of state, unfit for the
keeping of secrets, for the conducting of delicate negotiations, and
for the administration of war. Yet were these popular ingredients by no
means sufficient to secure the nation against misgovernment. The
plan, therefore, even if it had been fairly tried, could scarcely
have succeeded; and it was not fairly tried. The King was fickle
and perfidious: the Parliament was excited and unreasonable; and the
materials out of which the new Council was made, though perhaps the best
which that age afforded, were still bad.

The commencement of the new system was, however, hailed with general
delight; for the people were in a temper to think any change an
improvement. They were also pleased by some of the new nominations.
Shaftesbury, now their favourite, was appointed Lord President. Russell
and some other distinguished members of the Country Party were sworn
of the Council. But a few days later all was again in confusion. The
inconveniences of having so numerous a cabinet were such that Temple
himself consented to infringe one of the fundamental rules which he
had laid down, and to become one of a small knot which really directed
everything. With him were joined three other ministers, Arthur Capel,
Earl of Essex, George Savile, Viscount Halifax, and Robert Spencer, Earl
of Sunderland.

Of the Earl of Essex, then First Commissioner of the Treasury, it is
sufficient to say that he was a man of solid, though not brilliant
parts, and of grave and melancholy character, that he had been connected
with the Country Party, and that he was at this time honestly desirous
to effect, on terms beneficial to the state, a reconciliation between
that party and the throne.

Among the statesmen of those times Halifax was, in genius, the first.
His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished,
luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of
his voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation
overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well
deserve to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitle him
to a place among English classics. To the weight derived from talents so
great and various he united all the influence which belongs to rank and
ample possessions. Yet he was less successful in politics than many who
enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed, those intellectual peculiarities
which make his writings valuable frequently impeded him in the contests
of active life. For he always saw passing events, not in the point of
view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them,
but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they
appear to the philosophic historian. With such a turn of mind he
could not long continue to act cordially with any body of men. All the
prejudices, all the exaggerations, of both the great parties in the
state moved his scorn. He despised the mean arts and unreasonable
clamours of demagogues. He despised still more the doctrines of divine
right and passive obedience. He sneered impartially at the bigotry of
the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan. He was equally unable
to comprehend how any man should object to Saints' days and surplices,
and how any man should persecute any other man for objecting to them. In
temper he was what, in our time, is called a Conservative: in theory
he was a Republican. Even when his dread of anarchy and his disdain
for vulgar delusions led him to side for a time with the defenders of
arbitrary power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. Indeed,
his jests upon hereditary monarchy were sometimes such as would have
better become a member of the Calf's Head Club than a Privy Councillor
of the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from being a zealot that
he was called by the uncharitable an atheist: but this imputation he
vehemently repelled; and in truth, though he sometimes gave scandal by
the way in which he exerted his rare powers both of reasoning and
of ridicule on serious subjects, he seems to have been by no means
unsusceptible of religious impressions.

He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties
contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this
nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great
vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said,
trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate
in which men are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen.
The English Church trims between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist
lethargy. The English constitution trims between Turkish despotism and
Polish anarchy. Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities
any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the
perfection of the Supreme Being himself consists in the exact
equilibrium of attributes, none of which could preponderate without
disturbing the whole moral and physical order of the world. [20]
Thus Halifax was a Trimmer on principle. He was also a Trimmer by the
constitution both of his head and of his heart. His understanding was
keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections;
his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper
placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone either to
malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration. Such a man could not long
be constant to any band of political allies. He must not, however, be
confounded with the vulgar crowd of renegades. For though, like them,
he passed from side to side, his transition was always in the direction
opposite to theirs. He had nothing in common with those who fly from
extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which they have deserted
with all animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies.
His
place was on the debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the
community, and he never wandered far beyond the frontier of either. The
party to which he at any moment belonged was the party which, at that
moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which at that moment
he had the nearest view. He was therefore always severe upon his violent
associates, and was always in friendly relations with his moderate
opponents. Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive
triumph incurred his censure; and every faction, when vanquished and
persecuted, found in him a protector. To his lasting honour it must be
mentioned that he attempted to save those victims whose fate has left
the deepest stain both on the Whig and on the Tory name.

He had greatly distinguished himself in opposition, and had thus drawn
on himself the royal displeasure, which was indeed so strong that he was
not admitted into the Council of Thirty without much difficulty and long
altercation. As soon, however, as he had obtained a footing at court,
the charms of his manner and of his conversation made him a favourite.
He was seriously alarmed by the violence of the public discontent.
He thought that liberty was for the present safe, and that order and
legitimate authority were in danger. He therefore, as was his fashion,
joined himself to the weaker side. Perhaps his conversion was not wholly
disinterested. For study and reflection, though they had emancipated
him from many vulgar prejudices, had left him a slave to vulgar desires.
Money he did not want; and there is no evidence that he ever obtained
it by any means which, in that age, even severe censors considered as
dishonourable; but rank and power had strong attractions for him. He
pretended, indeed, that he considered titles and great offices as baits
which could allure none but fools, that he hated business, pomp, and
pageantry, and that his dearest wish was to escape from the bustle and
glitter of Whitehall to the quiet woods which surrounded his ancient
mansion in Nottinghamshire; but his conduct was not a little at variance
with his professions. In truth he wished to command the respect at
once of courtiers and of philosophers, to be admired for attaining high
dignities, and to be at the same time admired for despising them.

Sunderland was Secretary of State. In this man the political immorality
of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given
him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold
heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by
which all his vices had been nursed up to the rankest maturity. At his
entrance into public life, he had passed several years in diplomatic
posts abroad, and had been, during some time, minister in France. Every
calling has its peculiar temptations. There is no injustice in saying
that diplomatists, as a class, have always been more distinguished by
their address, by the art with which they win the confidence of those
with whom they have to deal, and by the ease with which they catch the
tone of every society into which they are admitted, than by generous
enthusiasm or austere rectitude; and the relations between Charles and
Lewis were such that no English nobleman could long reside in France as
envoy, and retain any patriotic or honourable sentiment. Sunderland
came forth from the bad school in which he had been brought up, cunning,
supple, shameless, free from all prejudices, and destitute of all
principles. He was, by hereditary connection, a Cavalier: but with the
Cavaliers he had nothing in common. They were zealous for monarchy, and
condemned in theory all resistance. Yet they had sturdy English hearts
which would never have endured real despotism. He, on the contrary,
had a languid speculative liking for republican institutions which was
compatible with perfect readiness to be in practice the most servile
instrument of arbitrary power. Like many other accomplished flatterers
and negotiators, he was far more skilful in the art of reading the
characters and practising on the weaknesses of individuals, than in the
art of discerning the feelings of great masses, and of foreseeing the
approach of great revolutions. He was adroit in intrigue; and it
was difficult even for shrewd and experienced men who had been amply
forewarned of his perfidy to withstand the fascination of his manner,
and to refuse credit to his professions of attachment. But he was so
intent on observing and courting particular persons, that he often
forgot to study the temper of the nation. He therefore miscalculated
grossly with respect to some of the most momentous events of his time.
More than one important movement and rebound of the public mind took
him by surprise; and the world, unable to understand how so clever a man
could be blind to what was clearly discerned by the politicians of the
coffee houses, sometimes attributed to deep design what were in truth
mere blunders.

It was only in private conference that his eminent abilities displayed
themselves. In the royal closet, or in a very small circle, he exercised
great influence. But at the Council board he was taciturn; and in the
House of Lords he never opened his lips.

The four confidential advisers of the crown soon found that their
position was embarrassing and invidious. The other members of the
Council murmured at a distinction inconsistent with the King's
promises; and some of them, with Shaftesbury at their head, again betook
themselves to strenuous opposition in Parliament. The agitation, which
had been suspended by the late changes, speedily became more violent
than ever. It was in vain that Charles offered to grant to the Commons
any security for the Protestant religion which they could devise,
provided only that they would not touch the order of succession. They
would hear of no compromise. They would have the Exclusion Bill, and
nothing but the Exclusion Bill. The King, therefore, a few weeks after
he had publicly promised to take no step without the advice of his
new Council, went down to the House of Lords without mentioning his
intention in Council, and prorogued the Parliament.

The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of May, 1679, is a great
era in our history. For on that day the Habeas Corpus Act received the
royal assent. From the time of the Great Charter the substantive law
respecting the personal liberty of Englishmen had been nearly the same
as at present: but it had been inefficacious for want of a stringent
system of procedure. What was needed was not a new light, but a prompt
and searching remedy; and such a remedy the Habeas Corpus Act supplied.
The King would gladly have refused his consent to that measure: but he
was about to appeal from his Parliament to his people on the question
of the succession, and he could not venture, at so critical a moment, to
reject a bill which was in the highest degree popular.

On the same day the press of England became for a short time free. In
old times printers had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star
Chamber. The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had,
in spite of the philosophical and eloquent expostulation of Milton,
established and maintained a censorship. Soon after the Restoration, an
Act had been passed which prohibited the printing of unlicensed books;
and it had been provided that this Act should continue in force till
the end of the first session of the next Parliament. That moment had
now arrived; and the King, in the very act of dismissing the House,
emancipated the Press.

Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution and another general
election. The zeal and strength of the opposition were at the height.
The cry for the Exclusion Bill was louder than ever, and with this cry
was mingled another cry, which fired the blood of the multitude, but
which was heard with regret and alarm by all judicious friends of
freedom. Not only the rights of the Duke of York, an avowed Papist,
but those of his two daughters, sincere and zealous Protestants, were
assailed. It was confidently affirmed that the eldest natural son of the
King had been born in wedlock, and was lawful heir to the crown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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