JAMES was now at
the height of power and prosperity. Both in England and in
Scotland he had vanquished his enemies, and had punished them
with a severity which had indeed excited their bitterest
hatred, but had, at the same time, effectually quelled their courage.
The Whig party seemed extinct. The name of Whig was never used
except as a term of reproach. The Parliament was devoted to the
King; and it was in his power to keep that Parliament to
the end of his reign. The Church was louder than ever in
professions of attachment to him, and had, during the late
insurrection, acted up to those professions. The Judges were his tools; and
if they ceased to be so, it was in his power to remove them. The
corporations were filled with his creatures. His revenues far
exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride rose high. He was not
the same man who, a few months before, in doubt whether his
throne might not be overturned in a hour, had implored foreign
help with unkingly supplications, and had accepted it with
tears of gratitude. Visions of dominion and glory rose
before him. He already saw himself, in imagination, the umpire of
Europe, the champion of many states oppressed by one too powerful
monarchy. So early as the month of June he had assured the
United Provinces that, as soon as the affairs of England were
settled, he would show the world how little he feared France.
In conformity with these assurances, he, within a month after the
battle of Sedgemoor, concluded with the States General a
defensive treaty, framed in the very spirit of the Triple League.
It was regarded, both at the Hague and at Versailles, as a
most significant circumstance that Halifax, who was the constant
and mortal enemy of French ascendency, and who had scarcely
ever before been consulted on any grave affair since the beginning of
the reign, took the lead on this occasion, and seemed to have
the royal ear. It was a circumstance not less significant that
no previous communication was made to Barillon. Both he and his
master were taken by surprise. Lewis was much troubled, and
expressed great, and not unreasonable, anxiety as to the ulterior
designs of the prince who had lately been his pensioner and
vassal. There were strong rumours that William of Orange was
busied in organizing a great confederacy, which was to include both
branches of the House of Austria, the United Provinces, the
kingdom of Sweden, and the electorate of Brandenburg. It
now seemed that this confederacy would have at its head the
King and Parliament of England.
In fact,
negotiations tending to such a result were actually opened. Spain
proposed to form a close alliance with James; and he listened to
the proposition with favour, though it was evident that such an
alliance would be little less than a declaration of war against
France. But he postponed his final decision till after the
Parliament should have reassembled. The fate of Christendom
depended on the temper in which he might then find the Commons. If
they were disposed to acquiesce in his plans of domestic
government, there would be nothing to prevent him from interfering with
vigour and authority in the great dispute which must soon be
brought to an issue on the Continent. If they were refractory, he
must relinquish all thought of arbitrating between contending
nations, must again implore French assistance, must again submit to
French dictation, must sink into a potentate of the third or
fourth class, and must indemnify himself for the contempt with
which he would be regarded abroad by triumphs over law and public
opinion at home. It seemed,
indeed, that it would not be easy for him to demand more than the
Commons were disposed to give. Already they had abundantly
proved that they were desirous to maintain his prerogatives
unimpaired, and that they were by no means extreme to mark his
encroachments on the rights of the people. Indeed, eleven twelfths
of the members were either dependents of the court, or
zealous Cavaliers from the country. There were few things which
such an assembly could pertinaciously refuse to the Sovereign; and,
happily for the nation, those few things were the very things on
which James had set his heart.
One of his
objects was to obtain a repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act, which he
hated, as it was natural that a tyrant should hate the most
stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny. This feeling
remained deeply fixed in his mind to the last, and appears in the
instructions which he drew up, in exile, for the guidance of his
son. But the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed during the
ascendency of the Whigs, was not more dear to the Whigs than to
the Tories. It is indeed not wonderful that this great law should
be highly prized by all Englishmen without distinction of
party: for it is a law which, not by circuitous, but by direct
operation, adds to the security and happiness of every inhabitant
of the realm. James had yet
another design, odious to the party which had set him on the
throne and which had upheld him there. He wished to form a great
standing army. He had taken advantage of the late insurrection to
make large additions to the military force which his brother had
left. The bodies now designated as the first six regiments of
dragoon guards, the third and fourth regiments of dragoons, and
the nine regiments of infantry of the line, from the seventh to
the fifteenth inclusive, had just been raised.
The effect of
these augmentations, and of the recall of the garrison of
Tangier, was that the number of regular troops in England had, in
a few months, been increased from six thousand to near twenty
thousand. No English King had ever, in time of peace, had such a force
at his command. Yet even with this force James was not content.
He often repeated that no confidence could be placed in the
fidelity of the train-bands, that they sympathized with all the
passions of the class to which they belonged, that, at Sedgemoor,
there had been more militia men in the rebel army than in the
royal encampment, and that, if the throne had been defended only by
the array of the counties, Monmouth would have marched in
triumph from Lyme to London.
The revenue,
large as it was when compared with that of former Kings, barely
sufficed to meet this new charge. A great part of the produce of
the new taxes was absorbed by the naval expenditure. At
the close of the late reign the whole cost of the army, the
Tangier regiments included, had been under three hundred thousand
pounds a year. Six hundred thousand pounds a year would not
now suffice. If any further augmentation were made, it would
be necessary to demand a supply from Parliament; and it was not
likely that Parliament would be in a complying mood. The very
name of standing army was hateful to the whole nation, and to
no part of the nation more hateful than to the Cavalier
gentlemen who filled the Lower House. In their minds a standing army
was inseparably associated with the Rump, with the Protector, with
the spoliation of the Church, with the purgation of the
Universities, with the abolition of the peerage, with the murder of the
King, with the sullen reign of the Saints, with cant and
asceticism, with fines and sequestrations, with the insults which
Major Generals, sprung from the dregs of the people, had
offered to the oldest and most honourable families of the kingdom.
There was, moreover, scarcely a baronet or a squire in the
Parliament who did not owe part of his importance in his own county to
his rank in the militia. If that national force were set aside,
the gentry of England must lose much of their dignity and
influence.
It was therefore probable that the King would find it
more difficult to obtain funds for the support of his army than
even to obtain the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act.
But both the
designs which have been mentioned were subordinate to one great
design on which the King's whole soul was bent, but which was
abhorred by those Tory gentlemen who were ready to shed their blood for
his rights, abhorred by that Church which had never, during
three generations of civil discord, wavered in fidelity to his
house, abhorred even by that army on which, in the last
extremity, he must rely.
His religion was
still under proscription. Many rigorous laws against Roman
Catholics appeared on the Statute Book, and had, within no long
time, been rigorously executed. The Test Act excluded from
civil and military office all who dissented from the Church of
England; and, by a subsequent Act, passed when the fictions of
Oates had driven the nation wild, it had been provided that no
person should sit in either House of Parliament without solemnly
abjuring the doctrine of transubstantiation.
That the King
should wish to obtain for the Church to which he belonged a
complete toleration was natural and right; nor is there any reason
to doubt that, by a little patience, prudence, and justice,
such a toleration might have been obtained.
The extreme
antipathy and dread with which the English people regarded his
religion was not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to theological
animosity. That salvation might be found in the Church of Rome,
nay, that some members of that Church had been among the
brightest examples of Christian virtue, was admitted by all divines of
the Anglican communion and by the most illustrious Nonconformists.
It is notorious that the penal laws against Popery were
strenuously defended by many who thought Arianism, Quakerism, and
Judaism more dangerous, in a spiritual point of view, than
Popery, and who yet showed no disposition to enact similar laws
against Arians, Quakers, or Jews.
It is easy to
explain why the Roman Catholic was treated with less indulgence
than was shown to men who renounced the doctrine of the Nicene
fathers, and even to men who had not been admitted by baptism
within the Christian pale.
There was among the English a strong
conviction that the Roman Catholic, where the interests of his religion
were concerned, thought himself free from all the ordinary rules
of morality, nay, that he thought it meritorious to violate those
rules if, by so doing, he could avert injury or reproach from
the Church of which he was a member.
Nor was this
opinion destitute of a show of reason. It was
impossible to
deny that Roman Catholic casuists of great eminence
had written in
defence of equivocation, of mental reservation, of
perjury, and
even of assassination. Nor, it was said, had the
speculations of
this odious school of sophists been barren of
results. The
massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the murder of the
first William of
Orange, the murder of Henry the Third of France,
the numerous
conspiracies which had been formed against the life
of Elizabeth,
and, above all, the gunpowder treason, were
constantly cited
as instances of the close connection between
vicious theory
and vicious practice. It was alleged that every
one of these
crimes had been prompted or applauded by Roman
Catholic
divines. The letters which Everard Digby wrote in lemon
juice from the
Tower to his wife had recently been published, and
were often
quoted. He was a scholar and a gentleman, upright in
all ordinary
dealings, and strongly impressed with a sense of
duty to God. Yet
he had been deeply concerned in the plot for
blowing up King,
Lords, and Commons, and had, on the brink of
eternity,
declared that it was incomprehensible to him how any
Roman Catholic
should think such a design sinful. The inference
popularly drawn
from these things was that, however fair the
general
character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of
fraud or cruelty
of which he was not capable when the safety and
honour of his
Church were at stake.
The
extraordinary success of the fables of Oates is to be chiefly
ascribed to the
prevalence of this opinion. It was to no purpose
that the accused
Roman Catholic appealed to the integrity,
humanity, and
loyalty which he had shown through the whole course
of his life. It
was to no purpose that he called crowds of
respectable
witnesses, of his own persuasion, to contradict
monstrous
romances invented by the most infamous of mankind. It
was to no
purpose that, with the halter round his neck, he
invoked on
himself the whole vengeance of the God before whom, in
a few moments,
he must appear, if he had been guilty of
meditating any
ill to his prince or to his Protestant fellow
countrymen. The
evidence which he produced in his favour proved
only how little
Popish oaths were worth. His very virtues raised
a presumption of
his guilt. That he had before him death and
judgment in
immediate prospect only made it more likely that he
would deny what,
without injury to the holiest of causes, he
could not
confess. Among the unhappy men who were convicted of
the murder of
Godfrey was one Protestant of no high character,
Henry Berry. It
is a remarkable and well attested circumstance,
that Berry's
last words did more to shake the credit of the plot
than the dying
declarations of all the pious and honourable Roman
Catholics who
underwent the same fate.
It was not only
by the ignorant populace, it was not only by
zealots in whom
fanaticism had extinguished all reason and
charity, that
the Roman Catholic was regarded as a man the very
tenderness of
whose conscience might make him a false witness, an
incendiary, or a
murderer, as a man who, where his Church was
concerned,
shrank from no atrocity and could be bound by no oath.
If there were in
that age two persons inclined by their judgment
and by their
temper to toleration, those persons were Tillotson
and Locke. Yet
Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of
schismatics and
heretics brought on him the reproach of
heterodoxy, told
the House of Commons from the pulpit that it was
their duty to
make effectual provision against the propagation of
a religion more
mischievous than irreligion itself, of a religion
which demanded
from its followers services directly opposed to
the first
principles of morality. His temper, he truly said, was
prone to lenity;
but his duty to he community forced him to be,
in this one
instance, severe. He declared that, in his judgment,
Pagans who had
never heard the name of Christ, and who were
guided only by
the light of nature, were more trustworthy members
of civil society
than men who had been formed in the schools of
the Popish
casuists.7 Locke, in the celebrated treatise in which
he laboured to
show that even the grossest forms of idolatry
ought not to be
prohibited under penal sanctions, contended that
the Church which
taught men not to keep faith with heretics had
no claim to
toleration.
It is evident
that, in such circumstances, the greatest service
which an English
Roman Catholic could render to his brethren in
the faith was to
convince the public that, whatever some rash men might, in times
of violent excitement, have written or done, his
Church did not
hold that any end could sanctify means
inconsistent
with morality. And this great service it was in the
power of James
to render. He was King. He was more powerful than
any English King
had been within the memory of the oldest man. It
depended on him
whether the reproach which lay on his religion
should be taken
away or should be made permanent.
Had he conformed
to the laws, had be fulfilled his promises, had
he abstained
from employing any unrighteous methods for the
propagation of
his own theological tenets, had he suspended the
operation of the
penal statutes by a large exercise of his
unquestionable
prerogative of mercy, but, at the same time,
carefully
abstained from violating the civil or ecclesiastical
constitution of
the realm, the feeling of his people must have
undergone a
rapid change. So conspicuous an example of good faith
punctiliously
observed by a Popish prince towards a Protestant
nation would
have quieted the public apprehensions. Men who saw
that a Roman
Catholic might safely be suffered to direct the
whole executive
administration, to command the army and navy, to
convoke and
dissolve the legislature, to appoint the Bishops and
Deans of the
Church of England, would soon have ceased to fear
that any great
evil would arise from allowing a Roman Catholic to
be captain of a
company or alderman of a borough. It is probable
that, in a few
years, the sect so long detested by the nation
would, with
general applause, have been admitted to office and to
Parliament.
If, on the other
hand, James should attempt to promote the
interest of his
Church by violating the fundamental laws of his
kingdom and the
solemn promises which he had repeatedly made in
the face of the
whole world, it could hardly be doubted that the
charges which it
had been the fashion to bring against the Roman
Catholic
religion would be considered by all Protestants as fully
established.
For, if ever a Roman Catholic could be expected to
keep faith with
heretics, James might have been expected to keep
faith with the
Anglican clergy. To them he owed his crown. But
for their
strenuous opposition to the Exclusion Bill he would
have been a
banished man. He had repeatedly and emphatically
acknowledged his
obligation to them, and had vowed to maintain
them in all
their legal rights. If he could not be bound by ties
like these, it
must be evident that, where his superstition was
concerned, no
tie of gratitude or of honour could bind him. To
trust him would
thenceforth be impossible; and, if his people
could not trust
him, what member of his Church could they trust?
He was not
supposed to be constitutionally or habitually
treacherous. To
his blunt manner, and to his want of
consideration
for the feelings of others, he owed a much higher
reputation for
sincerity than he at all deserved. His eulogists
affected to call
him James the Just. If then it should appear
that, in turning
Papist, he had also turned dissembler and
promisebreaker,
what conclusion was likely to be drawn by a
nation already
disposed to believe that Popery had a pernicious
influence on the
moral character?
On these grounds
many of the most eminent Roman Catholics of that
age, and among
them the Supreme Pontiff, were of opinion that the
interest of
their Church in our island would be most effectually
promoted by a
moderate and constitutional policy. But such
reasoning had no
effect on the slow understanding and imperious
temper of James.
In his eagerness to remove the disabilities
under which the
professors of his religion lay, he took a course
which convinced
the most enlightened and tolerant Protestants of
his time that
those disabilities were essential to the safety of
the state. To
his policy the English Roman Catholics owed three
years of lawless
and insolent triumph, and a hundred and forty
years of
subjection and degradation.
Many members of
his Church held commissions in the newly raised
regiments. This
breach of the law for a time passed uncensured:
for men were not
disposed to note every irregularity which was
committed by a
King suddenly called upon to defend his crown and
his life against
rebels. But the danger was now over. The
insurgents had
been vanquished and punished. Their unsuccessful
attempt had
strengthened the government which they had hoped to
overthrow. Yet
still James continued to grant commissions to
unqualified
persons; and speedily it was announced that he was
determined to be
no longer bound by the Test Act, that he hoped
to induce the
Parliament to repeal that Act, but that, if the
Parliament
proved refractory, he would not the less have his own
way.
As soon as this
was known, a deep murmur, the forerunner of a
tempest, gave
him warning that the spirit before which his
grandfather, his
father, and his brother had been compelled to
recede, though
dormant, was not extinct. Opposition appeared
first in the
cabinet. Halifax did not attempt to conceal his
disgust and
alarm. At the Council board he courageously gave
utterance to
those feelings which, as it soon appeared, pervaded
the whole
nation. None of his colleagues seconded him; and the subject dropped.
He was summoned to the royal closet, and had two
long conferences
with his master. James tried the effect of
compliments and
blandishments, but to no purpose. Halifax
positively
refused to promise that he would give his vote in the
House of Lords
for the repeal either of the Test Act or of the
Habeas Corpus
Act.
Some of those
who were about the King advised him not, on the eve
of the meeting
of Parliament, to drive the most eloquent and
accomplished
statesman of the age into opposition. They
represented that
Halifax loved the dignity and emoluments of
office, that,
while he continued to be Lord President, it would
be hardly
possible for him to put forth his whole strength
against the
government, and that to dismiss him from his high
post was to
emancipate him from all restraint. The King was
peremptory.
Halifax was informed that his services were no longer
needed; and his
name was struck out of the Council-Book.
His dismission
produced a great sensation not only in England,
but also at
Paris, at Vienna, and at the Hague: for it was well
known, that he
had always laboured to counteract the influence
exercised by the
court of Versailles on English affairs. Lewis
expressed great
pleasure at the news. The ministers of the United
Provinces and of
the House of Austria, on the other hand,
extolled the
wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a
manner which
gave great offence at Whitehall. James was
particularly
angry with the secretary of the imperial legation,
who did not
scruple to say that the eminent service which Halifax
had performed in
the debate on the Exclusion Bill had been
requited with
gross ingratitude.
It soon became
clear that Halifax would have many followers. A
portion of the
Tories, with their old leader, Danby, at their
head, began to
hold Whiggish language. Even the prelates hinted
that there was a
point at which the loyalty due to the prince
must yield to
higher considerations. The discontent of the chiefs
of the army was
still more extraordinary and still more
formidable.
Already began to appear the first symptoms of that
feeling which,
three years later, impelled so many officers of
high rank to
desert the royal standard. Men who had never before
had a scruple
had on a sudden become strangely scrupulous.
Churchill gently
whispered that the King was going too far.
Kirke, just
returned from his western butchery, swore to stand by
the Protestant
religion. Even if he abjured the faith in which he
had been bred,
he would never, he said, become a Papist. He was already
bespoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a
solemn promise
to the Emperor of Morocco to turn Mussulman.
While the
nation, agitated by many strong emotions, looked
anxiously
forward to the reassembling of the Houses, tidings,
which increased
the prevailing excitement, arrived from France.
The long and
heroic struggle which the Huguenots had maintained
against the
French government had been brought to a final close
by the ability
and vigour of Richelieu. That great statesman
vanquished them;
but he confirmed to them the liberty of
conscience which
had been bestowed on them by the edict of
Nantes. They
were suffered, under some restraints of no galling
kind, to worship
God according to their own ritual, and to write
in defence of
their own doctrine. They were admissible to
political and
military employment; nor did their heresy, during a
considerable
time, practically impede their rise in the world.
Some of them
commanded the armies of the state; and others
presided over
important departments of the civil administration.
At length a
change took place. Lewis the Fourteenth had, from an
early age,
regarded the Calvinists with an aversion at once
religious and
political. As a zealous Roman Catholic, he detested
their
theological dogmas. As a prince fond of arbitrary power, he
detested those
republican theories which were intermingled with
the Genevese
divinity. He gradually retrenched all the privileges
which the
schismatics enjoyed. He interfered with the education
of Protestant
children, confiscated property bequeathed to
Protestant
consistories, and on frivolous pretexts shut up
Protestant
churches. The Protestant ministers were harassed by
the tax
gatherers. The Protestant magistrates were deprived of
the honour of
nobility. The Protestant officers of the royal
household were
informed that His Majesty dispensed with their
services. Orders
were given that no Protestant should be admitted
into the legal
profession. The oppressed sect showed some faint
signs of that
spirit which in the preceding century had bidden
defiance to the
whole power of the House of Valois. Massacres and
executions
followed. Dragoons were quartered in the towns where
the heretics
were numerous, and in the country seats of the
heretic gentry;
and the cruelty and licentiousness of these rude
missionaries was
sanctioned or leniently censured by the
government.
Still, however, the edict of Nantes, though
practically
violated in its most essential provisions, had not
been formally
rescinded; and the King repeatedly declared in
solemn public
acts that he was resolved to maintain it. But the
bigots and
flatterers who had his ear gave him advice which he was but too
willing to take. They represented to him that his
rigorous policy
had been eminently successful, that little or no
resistance had
been made to his will, that thousands of Huguenots
had already been
converted, that, if he would take the one
decisive step
which yet remained, those who were still obstinate
would speedily
submit, France would be purged from the taint of
heresy, and her
prince would have earned a heavenly crown not
less glorious
than that of Saint Lewis. These arguments
prevailed. The
final blow was struck. The edict of Nantes was
revoked; and a
crowd of decrees against the sectaries appeared in
rapid
succession. Boys and girls were torn from their parents and
sent to be
educated in convents. All Calvinistic ministers were
commanded either
to abjure their religion or to quit their
country within a
fortnight. The other professors of the reformed
faith were
forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in order to
prevent them
from making their escape, the outports and frontiers
were strictly
guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus
separated from
the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true
fold. But in
spite of all the vigilance of the military police
there was a vast
emigration. It was calculated that, in a few
months, fifty
thousand families quitted France for ever. Nor were
the refugees
such as a country can well spare. They were
generally
persons of intelligent minds, of industrious habits,
and of austere
morals. In the list are to be found names eminent
in war, in
science, in literature, and in art. Some of the exiles
offered their
swords to William of Orange, and distinguished
themselves by
the fury with which they fought against their
persecutor.
Others avenged themselves with weapons still more
formidable, and,
by means of the presses of Holland, England, and
Germany,
inflamed, during thirty years, the public mind of Europe
against the
French government. A more peaceful class erected silk
manufactories in
the eastern suburb of London. One detachment of
emigrants taught
the Saxons to make the stuffs and hats of which
France had
hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the first
vines in the
neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope.
In ordinary
circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would
have eagerly
applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on
heresy. But such
was the hatred inspired by the injustice and
haughtiness of
Lewis that, when he became a persecutor, the
courts of Spain
and Rome took the side of religious liberty, and
loudly
reprobated the cruelty of turning a savage and licentious
soldiery loose
on an unoffending people.13 One cry of grief and
rage rose from
the whole of Protestant Europe. The tidings of the
revocation of
the edict of Nantes reached England about a week before the day
to which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was
clear then that
the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva was still the
spirit of the
Roman Catholic Church. Lewis was not inferior to
James in
generosity and humanity, and was certainly far superior
to James in all
the abilities and acquirements of a statesman.
Lewis had, like
James, repeatedly promised to respect the
privileges of
his Protestant subjects. Yet Lewis was now avowedly
a persecutor of
the reformed religion. What reason was there,
then, to doubt
that James waited only for an opportunity to
follow the
example? He was already forming, in defiance of the
law, a military
force officered to a great extent by Roman
Catholics. Was
there anything unreasonable in the apprehension
that this force
might be employed to do what the French dragoons
had done?
James was almost
as much disturbed as his subjects by the conduct
of the court of
Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if
it had meant to
embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask from
a Protestant
legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics.
Nothing,
therefore, could be more unwelcome to him than the
intelligence
that, in a neighbouring country, toleration had just
been withdrawn
by a Roman Catholic government from Protestants.
His vexation was
increased by a speech which the Bishop of
Valence, in the
name of the Gallican clergy, addressed at this
time to Lewis,
the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of England,
the orator said,
looked to the most Christian King for support
against a
heretical nation. It was remarked that the members of
the House of
Commons showed particular anxiety to procure copies
of this
harangue, and that it was read by all Englishmen with
indignation and
alarm.14 James was desirous to counteract the
impression which
these things had made, and was also at that
moment by no
means unwilling to let all Europe see that he was
not the slave of
France. He therefore declared publicly that he
disapproved of
the manner in which the Huguenots had been
treated, granted
to the exiles some relief from his privy purse,
and, by letters
under his great seal, invited his subjects to
imitate his
liberality. In a very few months it became clear that
all this
compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajoling his
Parliament, that
he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred, and
that he
regretted nothing so much as his own inability to do what
Lewis had done.
On the ninth of
November the Houses met. The Commons were
summoned to the
bar of the Lords; and the King spoke from the
throne. His
speech had been composed by himself. He congratulated his loving
subjects on the suppression of the rebellion in the
West: but he
added that the speed with which that rebellion had
risen to a
formidable height, and the length of time during which
it had continued
to rage, must convince all men how little
dependence could
be placed on the militia. He had, therefore,
made additions
to the regular army. The charge of that army would
henceforth be
more than double of what it had been; and he
trusted that the
Commons would grant him the means of defraying
the increased
expense. He then informed his hearers that he had
employed some
officers who had not taken the test; but he knew
them to be fit
for public trust. He feared that artful men might
avail themselves
of this irregularity to disturb the harmony
which existed
between himself and his Parliament. But he would
speak out. He
was determined not to part with servants on whose
fidelity he
could rely, and whose help he might perhaps soon
need.
This explicit
declaration that he had broken the laws which were
regarded by the
nation as the chief safeguards of the established
religion, and
that he was resolved to persist in breaking those
laws, was not
likely to soothe the excited feelings of his
subjects. The
Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in
opposition to a
government, consented to vote him formal thanks
for what he had
said. But the Commons were in a less complying
mood. When they
had returned to their own House there was a long
silence; and the
faces of many of the most respectable members
expressed deep
concern. At length Middleton rose and moved the
House to go
instantly into committee on the King's speech: but
Sir Edmund
Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who was
supposed to
speak the sentiments of Danby, protested against this
course, and
demanded time for consideration. Sir Thomas Clarges,
maternal uncle
of the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished
in Parliament as
a man of business and a viligant steward of the
public money,
took the same side. The feeling of the House could
not be mistaken.
Sir John Ernley, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
insisted that
the delay should not exceed forty-eight hours; but
he was
overruled; and it was resolved that the discussion should
be postponed for
three days.
The interval was
well employed by those who took the lead against
the court. They
had indeed no light work to perform. In three
days a country
party was to be organized. The difficulty of the
task is in our
age not easily to be appreciated; for in our age
all the nation
may be said to assist at every deliberation of
the Lords and Commons. What is said by the leaders of the
ministry and of the opposition after midnight is
read by the
whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of
Northumberland
and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and
the Highlands of
Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore,
the stages of
legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of
faction, the
opinions, temper, and style of every active member
of either House,
are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man
who now enters
Parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth
century, would
have been called a great stock of parliamentary
knowledge. Such
knowledge was then to be obtained only by actual
parliamentary
service. The difference between an old and a new
member was as
great as the difference between a veteran soldier
and a recruit
just taken from the plough; and James's Parliament
contained a most
unusual proportion of new members, who had
brought from
their country seats to Westminster no political
knowledge and
many violent prejudices. These gentlemen hated the
Papists, but
hated the Whigs not less intensely, and regarded the
King with
superstitious veneration. To form an opposition out of
such materials
was a feat which required the most skilful and
delicate
management. Some men of great weight, however, undertook
the work, and
performed it with success. Several experienced Whig
politicians, who
had not seats in that Parliament, gave useful
advice and
information. On the day preceding that which had been
fixed for the
debate, many meetings were held at which the
leaders
instructed the novices; and it soon appeared that these
exertions had
not been thrown away.
The foreign
embassies were all in a ferment. It was well
understood that
a few days would now decide the great question,
whether the King
of England was or was not to be the vassal of
the King of
France. The ministers of the House of Austria were
most anxious
that James should give satisfaction to his
Parliament.
Innocent had sent to London two persons charged to
inculcate
moderation, both by admonition and by example. One of
them was John
Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been
secretary to
Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a
rich vein of
natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous,
and taciturn of
men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of
Adrumetum, and
named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand,
Count of Adda,
an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild
temper and
courtly manners, had been appointed Nuncio. These
functionaries
were eagerly welcomed by James. No Roman Catholic
Bishop had
exercised spiritual functions in the island during
more than half a
century. No Nuncio had been received here during
the hundred and
twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the death of Mary.
Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, and received a
pension of a
thousand pounds a year. Adda did not yet assume a
public
character. He passed for a foreigner of rank whom
curiosity had
brought to London, appeared daily at court, and was
treated with
high consideration. Both the Papal emissaries did
their best to
diminish, as much as possible, the odium
inseparable from
the offices which they filled, and to restrain
the rash zeal of
James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared that
nothing could be
more injurious to the interests of the Church of
Rome than a
rupture between the King and the Parliament.
Barillon was
active on the other side. The instructions which he
received from
Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be
studied; for
they furnish a key to the policy systematically
pursued by his
master towards England during the twenty years
which preceded
our revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis
wrote, were
alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there that
James would ally
himself closely with the House of Austria, as
soon as he
should be assured that his Parliament would give him
no trouble. In
these circumstances, it was evidently the interest
of France that
the Parliament should prove refractory. Barillon
was therefore
directed to act, with all possible precautions
against
detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was to
omit no
opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the
kingly pride of
James; but at the same time it might be
desirable to
have some secret communication with the
malecontents.
Such communication would indeed be hazardous and
would require
the utmost adroitness; yet it might perhaps be in
the power of the
Ambassador, without committing himself or his
government, to
animate the zeal of the opposition for the laws
and liberties of
England, and to let it be understood that those
laws and
liberties were not regarded by his master with an
unfriendly
eye.
Lewis, when he
dictated these instructions, did not foresee how
speedily and how
completely his uneasiness would be removed by
the obstinacy
and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November
the House of
Commons, resolved itself into a committee on the
royal speech.
The Solicitor General Heneage Finch, was in the
chair. The
debate was conducted by the chiefs of the new country
party with rare
tact and address. No expression indicating
disrespect to
the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels was suffered
to escape. The
western insurrection was always mentioned with
abhorrence.
Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and
Jeffreys. It was
admitted that the heavy expenditure which had been occasioned
by the late troubles justified the King in asking
some further
supply: but strong objections were made to the
augmentation of
the army and to the infraction of the Test Act.
The subject of
the Test Act the courtiers appear to have
carefully
avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on
the great
superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them
tauntingly asked
whether the defence of the kingdom was to be
entrusted to the
beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad
to know how the
Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion
before
Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household
troops of Lewis.
But these arguments had little effect on
Cavaliers who
still remembered with bitterness the stern rule of
the Protector.
The general feeling was forcibly expressed by the
first of the
Tory country gentlemen of England, Edward Seymour.
He admitted that
the militia was not in a satisfactory state, but
maintained that
it might be remodelled. The remodelling might
require money;
but, for his own part, he would rather give a
million to keep
up a force from which he had nothing to fear,
than half a
million to keep up a force of which he must ever be
afraid. Let the
trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be
strengthened;
and the country would be secure. A standing army
was at best a
mere drain on the public resources. The soldier was
withdrawn from
all useful labour. He produced nothing: he
consumed the
fruits of the industry of other men; and he
domineered over
those by whom he was supported. But the nation
was now
threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a
Popish standing
army, with a standing army officered by men who
might be very
amiable and honourable, but who were on principle
enemies to the
constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden,
member for the
county of Kent, spoke on the same side with great
keenness and
loud applause. Sir Richard Temple, one of the few
Whigs who had a
seat in that Parliament, dexterously
accommodating
his speech to the temper of his audience, reminded
the House that a
standing army had been found, by experience, to
be as dangerous
to the just authority of princes as to the
liberty of
nations. Sir John Maynard, the most learned lawyer of
his time, took
part in the debate. He was now more than eighty
years old, and
could well remember the political contests of the
reign of James
the First. He had sate in the Long Parliament, and
had taken part
with the Roundheads, but had always been for
lenient
counsels, and had laboured to bring about a general
reconciliation.
His abilities, which age had not impaired, and
his professional
knowledge, which had long overawed all
Westminster
Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He, too, declared
himself against the augmentation of the regular
forces.
After much
debate, it was resolved that a supply should be
granted to the
crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should
be brought in
for making the militia more efficient. This last
resolution was
tantamount to a declaration against the standing
army. The King
was greatly displeased; and it was whispered that,
if things went
on thus, the session would not be of long
duration.
On the morrow
the contention was renewed. The language of the
country party
was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the
preceding day.
That paragraph of the King's speech which related
to supply
preceded the paragraph which related to the test. On
this ground
Middleton proposed that the paragraph relating to
supply should be
first considered in committee. The opposition
moved the
previous question. They contended that the reasonable
and
constitutional practice was to grant no money till grievances
had been
redressed, and that there would be an end of this
practice if the
House thought itself bound servilely to follow
the order in
which matters were mentioned by the King from the
throne.
The division was
taken on the question whether Middletons motion
should be put.
The Noes were ordered by the Speaker to go forth
into the lobby.
They resented this much, and complained loudly of
his servility
and partiality: for they conceived that, according
to the intricate
and subtle rule which was then in force, and
which, in our
time, was superseded by a more rational and
convenient
practice, they were entitled to keep their seats; and
it was held by
all the Parliamentary tacticians of that age that
the party which
stayed in the House had an advantage over the
party which went
out; for the accommodation on the benches was
then so
deficient that no person who had been fortunate enough to
get a good seat
was willing to lose it. Nevertheless, to the
dismay of the
ministers, many persons on whose votes the court
had absolutely
depended were seen moving towards the door. Among
them was Charles
Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and son of Sir
Stephen Fox,
Clerk of the Green Cloth. The Paymaster had been
induced by his
friends to absent himself during part of the
discussion. But
his anxiety had become insupportable. He come
down to the
Speaker's chamber, heard part of the debate,
withdrew, and,
after hesitating for an hour or two between
conscience and
five thousand pounds a year, took a manly resolution and
rushed into the House just in time to vote. Two
officers of the
army, Colonel John Darcy, son of the Lord
Conyers, and
Captain James Kendall, withdrew to the lobby.
Middleton went
down to the bar and expostulated warmly with them.
He particularly
addressed himself to Kendall, a needy retainer of
the court, who
had, in obedience to the royal mandate, been sent
to Parliament by
a packed corporation in Cornwall, and who had
recently
obtained a grant of a hundred head of rebels sentenced
to
transportation. "Sir," said Middleton, "have not you a troop
of horse in His
Majesty's service?" "Yes, my Lord," answered
Kendall: "but my
elder brother is just dead, and has left me
seven hundred a
year."
When the tellers
had done their office it appeared that the Ayes
were one hundred
and eighty-two, and the Noes one and eighty-
three. In that
House of Commons which had been brought together
by the
unscrupulous use of chicanery, of corruption, and of
violence, in
that House of Commons of which James had said that
more than eleven
twelfths of the members were such as he would
himself have
nominated, the court had sustained a defeat on a
vital
question.
In consequence
of this vote the expressions which the King had
used respecting
the test were, on the thirteenth of November,
taken into
consideration. It was resolved, after much discussion,
that an address
should be presented to him, reminding him that he
could not
legally continue to employ officers who refused to
qualify, and
pressing him to give such directions as might quiet
the
apprehensions and jealousies of his people.
A motion was
then made that the Lords should be requested to join
in the address.
Whether this motion was honestly made by the
opposition, in
the hope that the concurrence of the peers would
add weight to
the remonstrance, or artfully made by the
courtiers, in
the hope that a breach between the Houses might be
the consequence,
it is now impossible to discover. The
proposition was
rejected.
The House then
resolved itself into a committee, for the purpose
of considering
the amount of supply to be granted. The King
wanted fourteen
hundred thousand pounds: but the ministers saw
that it would be
vain to ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer
mentioned twelve hundred thousand pounds. The
chiefs of the
opposition replied that to vote for such a grant
would be to vote
for the permanence of the present military establishment:
they were disposed to give only so much as might
suffice to keep
the regular troops on foot till the militia could
be remodelled
and they therefore proposed four hundred thousand
pounds. The
courtiers exclaimed against this motion as unworthy
of the House and
disrespectful to the King: but they were
manfully
encountered. One of the western members, John Windham,
who sate for
Salisbury, especially distinguished himself. He had
always, he said,
looked with dread and aversion on standing
armies; and
recent experience had strengthened those feelings. He
then ventured to
touch on a theme which had hitherto been
studiously
avoided. He described the desolation of the western
counties. The
people, he said, were weary of the oppression of
the troops,
weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still
fouler crimes
which the law called felonies, but for which, when
perpetrated by
this class of felons, no redress could be
obtained. The
King's servants had indeed told the House that
excellent rules
had been laid down for the government of the
army; but none
could venture to say that these rules had been
observed. What,
then, was the inevitable inference? Did not the
contrast between
the paternal injunctions issued from the throne
and the
insupportable tyranny of the soldiers prove that the army
was even now too
strong for the prince as well as for the people?
The Commons
might surely, with perfect consistency, while they
reposed entire
confidence in the intentions of His Majesty,
refuse to make
any addition to a force which it was clear that
His Majesty
could not manage.
The motion that
the sum to be granted should not exceed four
hundred thousand
pounds, was lost by twelve votes. This victory
of the ministers
was little better than a defeat. The leaders of
the country
party, nothing disheartened, retreated a little, made
another stand,
and proposed the sum of seven hundred thousand
pounds. The
committee divided again, and the courtiers were
beaten by two
hundred and twelve votes to one hundred and
seventy.
On the following
day the Commons went in procession to Whitehall
with their
address on the subject of the test. The King received
them on his
throne. The address was drawn up in respectful and
affectionate
language; for the great majority of those who had
voted for it
were zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and
had readily
agreed to insert some complimentary phrases, and to
omit every word
which the courtiers thought offensive. The answer
of James was a
cold and sullen reprimand. He declared himself
greatly
displeased and amazed that the Commons should have profited so
little by the admonition which he had given them.
"But," said he,
"however you may proceed on your part, I will be
very steady in
all the promises which I have made to you."
The Commons
reassembled in their chamber, discontented, yet
somewhat
overawed. To most of them the King was still an object
of filial
reverence. Three more years filled with injuries, and
with insults
more galling than injuries, were scarcely sufficient
to dissolve the
ties which bound the Cavalier gentry to the
throne.
The Speaker
repeated the substance of the King's reply. There
was, for some
time, a solemn stillness; then the order of the day
was read in
regular course; and the House went into committee on
the bill for
remodelling the militia.
In a few hours,
however, the spirit of the opposition revived.
When, at the
close of the day, the Speaker resumed the chair,
Wharton, the
boldest and most active of the Whigs, proposed that
a time should be
appointed for taking His Majesty's answer into
consideration.
John Coke, member for Derby, though a noted Tory,
seconded
Wharton. "I hope," he said, "that we are all Englishmen,
and that we
shall not be frightened from our duty by a few high
words."
It was manfully,
but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was in a
tempest. "Take
down his words," "To the bar," "To the Tower,"
resounded from
every side. Those who were most lenient proposed
that the
offender should be reprimanded: but the ministers
vehemently
insisted that he should be sent to prison. The House
might pardon,
they said, offences committed against itself, but
had no right to
pardon an insult offered to the crown. Coke was
sent to the
Tower. The indiscretion of one man had deranged the
whole system of
tactics which had been so ably concerted by the
chiefs of the
opposition. It was in vain that, at that moment,
Edward Seymour
attempted to rally his followers, exhorted them to
fix a day for
discussing the King's answer, and expressed his
confidence that
the discussion would be conducted with the
respect due from
subjects to the sovereign. The members were so
much cowed by
the royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the
rudeness of
Coke, that it would not have been safe to divide.
The House
adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that
the spirit of
opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the
nineteenth of
November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. The time had arrived
for taking into consideration the petitions
which had been
presented from all parts of England against the
late elections.
When, on the first meeting of the Parliament,
Seymour had
complained of the force and fraud by which the
government had
prevented the sense of constituent bodies from
being fairly
taken, he had found no seconder. But many who had
then flinched
from his side had subsequently taken heart, and,
with Sir John
Lowther, member for Cumberland, at their head, had,
before the
recess, suggested that there ought to be an enquiry
into the abuses
which had so much excited the public mind. The
House was now in
a much more angry temper; and many voices were
boldly raised in
menace and accusation. The ministers were told
that the nation
expected, and should have, signal redress.
Meanwhile it was
dexterously intimated that the best atonement
which a
gentleman who had been brought into the House by
irregular means
could make to the public was to use his ill
acquired power
in defence of the religion and liberties of his
country. No
member who, in that crisis, did his duty had anything
to fear. It
might be necessary to unseat him; but the whole
influence of the
opposition should be employed to procure his
reelection.
On the same day
it became clear that the spirit of opposition had
spread from the
Commons to the Lords, and even to the episcopal
bench. William
Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took the lead in
the Upper House;
and he was well qualified to do so. In wealth
and influence he
was second to none of the English nobles; and
the general
voice designated him as the finest gentleman of his
time. His
magnificence, his taste, his talents, his classical
learning, his
high spirit, the grace and urbanity of his manners,
were admitted by
his enemies. His eulogists, unhappily, could not
pretend that his
morals had escaped untainted from the widespread
contagion of
that age. Though an enemy of Popery and of arbitrary
power, he had
been averse to extreme courses, had been willing,
when the
Exclusion Bill was lost, to agree to a compromise, and
had never been
concerned in the illegal and imprudent schemes
which had
brought discredit on the Whig party. But, though
regretting part
of the conduct of his friends, he had not, on
that account,
failed to perform zealously the most arduous and
perilous duties
of friendship. He had stood near Russell at the
bar, had parted
from him on the sad morning of the execution with
close embraces
and with many bitter tears, nay, had offered to
manage an escape at the hazard of his own
life. This great nobleman now
proposed that a day should be fixed for considering
the royal
speech. It was contended, on the other side, that the Lords, by voting
thanks for the speech, had precluded themselves
from complaining
of it. But this objection was treated with
contempt by
Halifax. "Such thanks," he said with the sarcastic
pleasantry in
which he excelled, "imply no approbation. We are
thankful
whenever our gracious Sovereign deigns to speak to us.
Especially
thankful are we when, as on the present occasion, he
speaks out, and
gives us fair warning of what we are to
suffer."
Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of London, spoke strongly
for the motion.
Though not gifted with eminent abilities, nor
deeply versed in
the learning of his profession, he was always
heard by the
House with respect; for he was one of the few
clergymen who
could, in that age, boast of noble blood. His own
loyalty, and the
loyalty of his family, had been signally proved.
His father, the
second Earl of Northampton, had fought bravely
for King Charles
the First, and, surrounded by the parliamentary
soldiers, had
fallen, sword in hand, refusing to give or take
quarter. The
Bishop himself, before he was ordained, had borne
arms in the
Guards; and, though he generally did his best to
preserve the
gravity and sobriety befitting a prelate, some
flashes of his
military spirit would, to the last, occasionally
break forth. He
had been entrusted with the religious education
of the two
Princesses, and had acquitted himself of that
important duty
in a manner which had satisfied all good
Protestants, and
had secured to him considerable influence over
the minds of his pupils, especially of the
Lady Anne. He now declared that he
was empowered to speak the sense of his
brethren, and
that, in their opinion and in his own, the whole
civil and
ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was in danger.