One of the most
remarkable speeches of that day was made by a
young man, whose
eccentric career was destined to amaze Europe.
This was Charles
Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, widely renowned,
many years
later, as Earl of Peterborough. Already he had given
abundant proofs
of his courage, of his capacity, and of that
strange
unsoundness of mind which made his courage and capacity
almost useless
to his country. Already he had distinguished
himself as a wit
and a scholar, as a soldier and a sailor. He had
even set his
heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and Bossuet. Though an
avowed
freethinker, he had sate up all night at sea to compose
sermons, and had
with great difficulty been prevented from
edifying the crew of a man of war with his
pious oratory. He now addressed
the House of Peers, for the first time, with
characteristic
eloquence, sprightliness, and audacity. He blamed
the Commons for
not having taken a bolder line. "They have been
afraid," he
said, "to speak out. They have talked of apprehensions
and jealousies. What have apprehension and jealousy
to do here?
Apprehension and jealousy are the feelings with which
we regard future
and uncertain evils. The evil which we are
considering is
neither future nor uncertain. A standing army
exists. It is
officered by Papists. We have no foreign enemy.
There is no
rebellion in the land. For what, then, is this force
maintained,
except for the purpose of subverting our laws and
establishing
that arbitrary power which is so justly abhorred by
Englishmen?"
Jeffreys spoke
against the motion in the coarse and savage style
of which he was
a master; but he soon found that it was not quite
so easy to
browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in
their own hall,
as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended
on his favour or
prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man
whose life has
been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever
may be his
talents and courage, generally makes a mean figure
when he is
vigorously assailed, for, being
unaccustomed to stand on the defensive, he becomes
confused; and
the knowledge that all those whom he has insulted
are enjoying his
confusion confuses him still more. Jeffreys was
now, for the
first time since he had become a great man,
encountered on
equal terms by adversaries who did not fear him.
To the general
delight, he passed at once from the extreme of
insolence to the
extreme of meanness, and could not refrain from
weeping with rage and vexation. Nothing indeed was wanting to
his humiliation;
for the House was crowded by about a hundred
peers, a larger
number than had voted even on the great day of
the Exclusion
Bill. The King, too, was present. His brother had
been in the
habit of attending the sittings of the Lords for
amusement, and
used often to say that a debate was as
entertaining as
a comedy. James came, not to be diverted, but in
the hope that
his presence might impose some restraint on the
discussion. He
was disappointed. The sense of the House was so
strongly
manifested that, after a closing speech, of great
keenness, from
Halifax, the courtiers did not venture to divide.
An early day was
fixed for taking the royal speech into
consideration;
and it was ordered that every peer who was not at
a distance from
Westminster should be in his place.
On the following
morning the King came down, in his robes, to the
House of Lords.
The Usher of the Black Rod summoned the Commons
to the bar; and
the Chancellor announced that the Parliament was
prorogued to the
tenth of February. The members who had voted
against the
court were dismissed from the public service. Charles Fox quitted the
Pay Office. The Bishop of London ceased to be
Dean of the
Chapel Royal, and his name was struck out of the list
of Privy
Councillors.
The effect of
the prorogation was to put an end to a legal
proceeding of
the highest importance. Thomas Grey, Earl of
Stamford, sprung
from one of the most illustrious houses of
England, had
been recently arrested and committed close prisoner
to the Tower on
a charge of high treason. He was accused of
having been
concerned in the Rye House Plot. A true bill had been
found against
him by the grand jury of the City of London, and
had been removed
into the House of Lords, the only court before
which a temporal
peer can, during a session of Parliament, be
arraigned for
any offence higher than a misdemeanour. The first
of December had
been fixed for the trial; and orders had been
given that
Westminster Hall should be fitted up with seats and
hangings. In
consequence of the prorogation, the hearing of the
cause was
postponed for an indefinite period; and Stamford soon
regained his
liberty.
Three other
Whigs of great eminence were in confinement when the
session closed,
Charles Gerard, Lord Gerard of Brandon, eldest
son of the Earl
of Macclesfield, John Hampden, grandson of the
renowned leader
of the Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord
Delamere. Gerard
and Hampden were accused of having taken part in
the Rye House
Plot: Delamere of having abetted the Western
insurrection.
It was not the
intention of the government to put either Gerard
or Hampden to
death. Grey had stipulated for their lives before
he consented to become a witness against
them. But there was a still stronger
reason for sparing them. They were heirs to large
property: but
their fathers were still living. The court could
therefore get
little in the way of forfeiture, and might get much
in the way of
ransom. Gerard was tried, and, from the very scanty
accounts which
have come down to us, seems to have defended
himself with
great spirit and force. He boasted of the exertions
and sacrifices
made by his family in the cause of Charles the
First, and
proved Rumsey, the witness who had murdered Russell by
telling one
story and Cornish by telling another, to be utterly
undeserving of
credit. The jury, with some hesitation, found a
verdict of
Guilty. After long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to
redeem himself. Hampden had inherited the political opinions
and a large
share of the abilities of his grandfather, but had
degenerated from
the uprightness and the courage by which his grandfather had
been distinguished. It appears that the prisoner
was, with cruel
cunning, long kept in an agony of suspense, in
order that his
family might be induced to pay largely for mercy.
His spirit sank
under the terrors of death. When brought to the
bar of the Old
Bailey he not only pleaded guilty, but disgraced
the illustrious
name which he bore by abject submissions and
entreaties. He
protested that he had not been privy to the design
of
assassination; but he owned that he had meditated rebellion,
professed deep
repentance for his offence, implored the
intercession of
the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal clemency
were extended to
him, his whole life should be passed in evincing
his gratitude
for such goodness. The Whigs were furious at his
pusillanimity,
and loudly declared him to be far more deserving
of blame than
Grey, who, even in turning King's evidence, had
preserved a
certain decorum. Hampden's life was spared; but his
family paid
several thousand pounds to the Chancellor. Some
courtiers of
less note succeeded in extorting smaller sums. The
unhappy man had
spirit enough to feel keenly the degradation to
which he had
stooped. He survived the day of his ignominy several
years. He lived
to see his party triumphant, to be once more an
important member
of it, to rise high in the state, and to make
his persecutors
tremble in their turn. But his prosperity was
embittered by
one insupportable recollection. He never regained
his
cheerfulness, and at length died by his own hand.
That Delamere,
if he had needed the royal mercy, would have found
it is not very
probable. It is certain that every advantage which
the letter of
the law gave to the government was used against him
without scruple
or shame. He was in a different situation from
that in which
Stamford stood. The indictment against Stamford had
been removed
into the House of Lords during the session of
Parliament, and
therefore could not be prosecuted till the
Parliament
should reassemble. All the peers would then have
voices, and
would be judges as well of law as of fact. But the
bill against
Delamere was not found till after the prorogation.
He was therefore
within the jurisdiction of the Court of the Lord High Steward.
This court, to
which belongs, during a recess of Parliament, the
cognizance of treasons and felonies committed by
temporal peers,
was then so constituted that no prisoner charged
with a political
offence could expect an impartial trial. The
King named a
Lord High Steward. The Lord High Steward named, at
his discretion,
certain peers to sit on their accused brother.
The number to be
summoned was indefinite. No challenge was
allowed. A
simple majority, provided that it consisted of twelve,
was sufficient
to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of the law; and the
Lords Triers formed merely a jury to pronounce on
the question of
fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He
selected thirty
Triers; and the selection was characteristic of
the man and of
the times. All the thirty were in politics
vehemently
opposed to the prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels
of regiments,
and might be removed from their lucrative commands
at the pleasure
of the King. Among the remaining fifteen were the
Lord Treasurer,
the principal Secretary of State, the Steward of
the Household,
the Comptroller of the Household, the Captain of
the Band of
Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen's Chamberlain, and
other persons
who were bound by strong ties of interest to the
court.
Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages over the
humbler culprits
who had been arraigned at the Old Bailey. There
the jurymen,
violent partisans, taken for a single day by courtly
Sheriffs from
the mass of society and speedily sent back to
mingle with that
mass, were under no restraint of shame, and
being little
accustomed to weigh evidence, followed without
scruple the
directions of the bench. But in the High Steward's
Court every
Trier was a man of some experience in grave affairs.
Every Trier
filled a considerable space in the public eye. Every
Trier, beginning
from the lowest, had to rise separately and to
give in his
verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse.
That verdict,
accompanied with his name, would go to every part
of the world,
and would live in history. Moreover, though the
selected nobles
were all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of
them had begun
to look with uneasiness on the King's proceedings,
and to doubt
whether the case of Delamere might not soon be their
own.
Jeffreys
conducted himself, as was his wont, insolently and
unjustly. He had
indeed an old grudge to stimulate his zeal. He
had been Chief
Justice of Chester when Delamere, then Mr. Booth,
represented that
county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly
complained to
the Commons that the dearest interests of his
constituents were intrusted to a drunken
jackpudding. The revengeful judge
was now not ashamed to resort to artifices which
even in an
advocate would have been culpable. He reminded the
Lords Triers, in
very significant language, that Delamere had, in
Parliament,
objected to the bill for attainting Monmouth, a fact
which was not,
and could not be, in evidence. But it was not in
the power of
Jeffreys to overawe a synod of peers as he had been
in the habit of
overawing common juries. The evidence for the
crown would
probably have been thought amply sufficient on the
Western Circuit
or at the City Sessions, but could not for a
moment impose on
such men as Rochester, Godolphin, and Churchill; nor were they,
with all their faults, depraved enough to condemn
a fellow
creature to death against the plainest rules of justice.
Grey, Wade, and
Goodenough were produced, but could only repeat
what they had
heard said by Monmouth and by Wildman's emissaries.
The principal
witness for the prosecution, a miscreant named
Saxton, who had
been concerned in the rebellion, and was now
labouring to
earn his pardon by swearing against all who were
obnoxious to the
government, who proved by overwhelming evidence
to have told a
series of falsehoods. All the Triers, from
Churchill who,
as junior baron, spoke first, up to the Treasurer,
pronounced, on
their honour, that Delamere was not guilty. The
gravity and pomp
of the whole proceeding made a deep impression
even on the
Nuncio, accustomed as he was to the ceremonies of
Rome, ceremonies
which, in solemnity and splendour, exceed all
that the rest of
the world can show. The King, who was present,
and was unable
to complain of a decision evidently just, went
into a rage with
Saxton, and vowed that the wretch should first
be pilloried
before Westminster Hall for perjury, and then sent
down to the West
to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for
treason.
The public joy
at the acquittal of Delamere was great. The reign
of terror was
over. The innocent began to breathe freely, and
false accusers
to tremble. One letter written on this occasion is
scarcely to be
read without tears. The widow of Russell, in her
retirement,
learned the good news with mingled feelings. "I do
bless God," she
wrote, "that he has caused some stop to be put to
the shedding of
blood in this poor land. Yet when I should
rejoice with
them that do rejoice, I seek a corner to weep in. I
find I am
capable of no more gladness; but every new
circumstance,
the very comparing my night of sorrow after such a
day, with theirs
of joy, does, from a reflection of one kind or
another, rack my
uneasy mind. Though I am far from wishing the
close of theirs
like mine, yet I cannot refrain giving some time
to lament mine
was not like theirs."
And now the tide
was on the turn. The death of Stafford,
witnessed with
signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to
whose rage he
was sacrificed, marks the close of one
proscription.
The acquittal of Delamere marks the close of
another. The
crimes which had disgraced the stormy tribuneship of
Shaftesbury had
been fearfully expiated. The blood of innocent
Papists had been
avenged more than tenfold by the blood of
zealous
Protestants. Another great reaction had commenced.
Factions were
fast taking new forms. Old allies were separating. Old enemies were
uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through
all the ranks of
the party lately dominant. A hope, still indeed
faint and
indefinite, of victory and revenge, animated the party
which had lately
seemed to be extinct. Amidst such circumstances
the eventful and
troubled year 1685 terminated, and the year 1686
began.
The prorogation
had relieved the King from the gentle
remonstrances of
the Houses: but he had still to listen to
remonstrances,
similar in effect, though uttered in a tone even
more cautious
and subdued. Some men who had hitherto served him
but too
strenuously for their own fame and for the public welfare
had begun to
feel painful misgivings, and occasionally ventured
to hint a small
part of what they felt.
During many
years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary
monarchy and his
zeal for the established religion had grown up
together and had
strengthened each other. It had never occurred
to him that the
two sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even
identical, might
one day be found to be not only distinct but
incompatible.
From the commencement of the strife between the
Stuarts and the
Commons, the cause of the crown and the cause of
the hierarchy
had, to all appearance, been one. Charles the First
was regarded by
the Church as her martyr. If Charles the Second
had plotted
against her, he had plotted in secret. In public he
had ever
professed himself her grateful and devoted son, had
knelt at her
altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had
succeeded in
persuading the great body of her adherents that he
felt a sincere
preference for her. Whatever conflicts, therefore,
the honest
Cavalier might have had to maintain against Whigs and
Roundheads he
had at least been hitherto undisturbed by conflict
in his own mind.
He had seen the path of duty plain before him.
Through good and
evil he was to be true to Church and King. But,
if those two
august and venerable powers, which had hitherto
seemed to be so
closely connected that those who were true to one
could not be
false to the other, should be divided by a deadly
enmity, what
course was the orthodox Royalist to take? What
situation could
be more trying than that in which he would be
placed,
distracted between two duties equally sacred, between two
affections
equally ardent? How was he to give to Caesar all that
was Caesar's,
and yet to withhold from God no part of what was
God's? None who
felt thus could have watched, without deep
concern and
gloomy forebodings, the dispute between the King and
the Parliament
on the subject of the test. If James could even
now be induced
to reconsider his course, to let the Houses reassemble, and
to comply with their wishes, all might yet be
well.
Such were the
sentiments of the King's two kinsmen, the Earls of
Clarendon and
Rochester. The power and favour of these noblemen
seemed to be
great indeed. The younger brother was Lord Treasurer
and prime
minister; and the elder, after holding the Privy Seal
during some
months, had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. The
venerable Ormond took the same side. Middleton and
Preston, who, as
managers of the House of Commons, had recently
learned by proof
how dear the established religion was to the
loyal gentry of
England, were also for moderate counsels.
At the very
beginning of the new year these statesmen and the
great party
which they represented had to suffer a cruel
mortification.
That the late King had been at heart a Roman
Catholic had
been, during some months, suspected and whispered,
but not formally
announced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be
made without
great scandal. Charles had, times without number,
declared himself
a Protestant, and had been in the habit of
receiving the
Eucharist from the Bishops of the Established
Church. Those
Protestants who had stood by him in his
difficulties,
and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance
of him, must be
filled with shame and indignation by learning
that his whole
life had been a lie, that, while he professed to
belong to their
communion, he had really regarded them as
heretics, and
that the demagogues who had represented him as a
concealed Papist
had been the only people who had formed a
correct judgment
of his character. Even Lewis understood enough
of the state of
public feeling in England to be aware that the
divulging of the
truth might do harm, and had, of his own accord,
promised to keep
the conversion of Charles strictly secret.
James, while his
power was still new, had thought that on this
point it was
advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to
inter his
brother with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a
time, therefore,
every man was at liberty to believe what he
wished. The
Papists claimed the deceased prince as their
proselyte. The
Whigs execrated him as a hypocrite and a renegade.
The Tories
regarded the report of his apostasy as a calumny which
Papists and
Whigs had, for very different reasons, a common
interest in
circulating. James now took a step which greatly
disconcerted the
whole Anglican party. Two papers, in which were
set forth very
concisely the arguments ordinarily used by Roman
Catholics in
controversy with Protestants, had been found in
Charles's strong
box, and appeared to be in his handwriting.
These papers
James showed triumphantly to several Protestants,
and declared
that, to his knowledge, his brother had lived and
died a Roman Catholic. One of the persons to whom the
manuscripts were
exhibited was Archbishop Sancroft. He read them
with much
emotion, and remained silent. Such silence was only the
natural effect
of a struggle between respect and vexation. But
James supposed
that the Primate was struck dumb by the
irresistible
force of reason, and eagerly challenged his Grace to
produce, with
the help of the whole episcopal bench, a
satisfactory
reply. "Let me have a solid answer, and in a
gentlemanlike
style; and it may have the effect which you so much
desire of
bringing me over to your Church." The Archbishop
mildly said
that, in his opinion, such an answer might, without
much difficulty,
be written, but declined the controversy on the
plea of
reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This
plea the King
considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished
disputant. Had
he been well acquainted with the polemical
literature of
the preceding century and a half, he would have
known that the
documents to which he attached so much value might
have been
composed by any lad of fifteen in the college of Douay,
and contained
nothing which had not, in the opinion of all
Protestant
divines, been ten thousand times refuted. In his
ignorant
exultation he ordered these tracts to be printed with
the utmost pomp
of typography, and appended to them a declaration
attested by his
sign manual, and certifying that the originals
were in his
brother's own hand. James himself distributed the
whole edition
among his courtiers and among the people of humbler
rank who crowded
round his coach. He gave one copy to a young
woman of mean
condition whom he supposed to be of his own
religious
persuasion, and assured her that she would be greatly
edified and
comforted by the perusal. In requital of his kindness
she delivered to
him, a few days later, an epistle adjuring him
to come out of
the mystical Babylon and to dash from his lips the
cup of
fornications.
These things
gave great uneasiness to Tory churchmen. Nor were
the most
respectable Roman Catholic noblemen much better pleased.
They might
indeed have been excused if passion had, at this
conjuncture,
made them deaf to the voice of prudence and justice:
for they had
suffered much. Protestant jealousy had degraded them
from the rank to
which they were born, had closed the doors of
the Parliament
House on the heirs of barons who had signed the
Charter, had
pronounced the command of a company of foot too high
a trust for the
descendants of the generals who had conquered at
Flodden and
Saint Quentin. There was scarcely one eminent peer attached to the
old faith whose honour, whose estate, whose life
had not been in
jeopardy, who had not passed months in the Tower,
who had not
often anticipated for himself the fate of Stafford.
Men who had been
so long and cruelly oppressed might have been
pardoned if they
had eagerly seized the first opportunity of
obtaining at
once greatness and revenge. But neither fanaticism
nor ambition,
neither resentment for past wrongs nor the
intoxication
produced by sudden good fortune, could prevent the
most eminent
Roman Catholics from perceiving that the prosperity
which they at
length enjoyed was only temporary, and, unless
wisely used,
might be fatal to them. They had been taught, by a
cruel
experience, that the antipathy of the nation to their
religion was not
a fancy which would yield to the mandate of a
prince, but a
profound sentiment, the growth of five generations,
diffused through
all ranks and parties, and intertwined not less
closely with the
principles of the Tory than with the principles
of the Whig. It
was indeed in the power of the King, by the
exercise of his
prerogative of mercy, to suspend the operation of
the penal laws.
It might hereafter be in his power, by discreet
management, to
obtain from the Parliament a repeal of the acts
which imposed
civil disabilities on those who professed his
religion. But,
if he attempted to subdue the Protestant feeling
of England by
rude means, it was easy to see that the violent
compression of
so powerful and elastic a spring would be followed
by as violent a
recoil. The Roman Catholic peers, by prematurely
attempting to
force their way into the Privy Council and the
House of Lords,
might lose their mansions and their ample
estates, and
might end their lives as traitors on Tower Hill, or
as beggars at
the porches of Italian convents.
Such was the
feeling of William Herbert, Earl of Powis, who was
generally
regarded as the chief of the Roman Catholic
aristocracy, and
who, according to Oates, was to have been prime
minister if the
Popish plot had succeeded. John Lord Bellasyse
took the same
view of the state of affairs. In his youth he had
fought gallantly
for Charles the First, had been rewarded after
the Restoration
with high honours and commands, and had quitted
them when the
Test Act was passed. With these distinguished
leaders all the
noblest and most opulent members of their church
concurred,
except Lord Arundell of Wardour, an old man fast
sinking into
second childhood.
But there was at
the court a small knot of Roman Catholics whose
hearts had been
ulcerated by old injuries, whose heads had been
turned by recent
elevation, who were impatient to climb to the highest honours
of the state, and who, having little to lose,
were not
troubled by thoughts of the day of reckoning. One of
these was Roger
Palmer, Earl of Castelmaine in Ireland, and
husband of the
Duchess of Cleveland. His title had notoriously
been purchased
by his wife's dishonour and his own. His fortune
was small. His
temper, naturally ungentle, had been exasperated
by his domestic
vexations, by the public reproaches, and by what
he had undergone
in the days of the Popish plot. He had been long
a prisoner, and
had at length been tried for his life. Happily
for him, he was
not put to the bar till the first burst of
popular rage had
spent itself, and till the credit of the false
witnesses had
been blown upon. He had therefore escaped, though
very narrowly.
With Castelmaine was allied one of the most
favoured of his
wife's hundred lovers, Henry Jermyn, whom James
had lately
created a peer by the title of Lord Dover. Jermyn had
been
distinguished more than twenty years before by his vagrant
amours and his
desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, and
was eager to
retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of lucrative
posts from which
the laws excluded him. To the same party
belonged an
intriguing pushing Irishman named White, who had been
much abroad, who
had served the House of Austria as something
between an envoy
and a spy, and who had been rewarded for his
services with
the title of Marquess of Albeville.
Soon after the
prorogation this reckless faction was strengthened
by an important
reinforcement. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel,
the fiercest and
most uncompromising of all those who hated the
liberties and
religion of England, arrived at court from Dublin.
Talbot was
descended from an old Norman family which had been
long settled in
Leinster, which had there sunk into degeneracy,
which had
adopted the manners of the Celts, which had, like the
Celts, adhered
to the old religion, and which had taken part with
the Celts in the
rebellion of 1641. In his youth he had been one
of the most
noted sharpers and bullies of London. He had been
introduced to
Charles and James when they were exiles in
Flanders, as a
man fit and ready for the infamous service of
assassinating
the Protector. Soon after the Restoration, Talbot
attempted to
obtain the favour of the royal family by a service
more infamous
still. A plea was wanted which might justify the
Duke of York in
breaking that promise of marriage by which he had
obtained from
Anne Hyde the last proof of female affection. Such
a plea Talbot,
in concert with some of his dissolute companions,
undertook to
furnish. They agreed to describe the poor young lady
as a creature
without virtue, shame, or delicacy, and made up long romances
about tender interviews and stolen favours. Talbot
in particular
related how, in one of his secret visits to her, he
had unluckily
overturned the Chancellor's inkstand upon a pile of
papers, and how
cleverly she had averted a discovery by laying
the blame of the
accident on her monkey. These stories, which, if
they had been
true, would never have passed the lips of any but
the basest of
mankind, were pure inventions. Talbot was soon
forced to own
that they were so; and he owned it without a blush.
The injured lady
became Duchess of York. Had her husband been a
man really
upright and honourable, he would have driven from his
presence with
indignation and contempt the wretches who had
slandered her.
But one of the peculiarities of James's character
was that no act,
however wicked and shameful, which had been
prompted by a
desire to gain his favour, ever seemed to him
deserving of
disapprobation. Talbot continued to frequent the
court, appeared
daily with brazen front before the princess whose
ruin he had
plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of
chief pandar to
her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown
into confusion
by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly
called, had laid
a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo
was sent to the
Tower: but in a few days he was again swaggering
about the
galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward
between his
patron and the ugliest maids of honour. It was in
vain that old
and discreet counsellors implored the royal
brothers not to
countenance this bad man, who had nothing to
recommend him
except his fine person and his taste in dress.
Talbot was not
only welcome at the palace when the bottle or the
dicebox was
going round, but was heard with attention on matters
of business. He
affected the character of an Irish patriot, and
pleaded, with
great audacity, and sometimes with success, the
cause of his
countrymen whose estates had been confiscated. He
took care,
however, to be well paid for his services, and
succeeded in
acquiring, partly by the sale of his influence,
partly by
gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three
thousand pounds
a year. For under an outward show of levity,
profusion,
improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was in truth
one of the most
mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no
longer young,
and was expiating by severe sufferings the
dissoluteness of
his youth: but age and disease had made no
essential change
in his character and manners. He still, whenever
he opened his
mouth, ranted, cursed and swore with such frantic
violence that
superficial observers set him down for the wildest
of libertines.
The multitude was unable to conceive that a man
who, even when
sober, was more furious and boastful than others
when they were
drunk, and who seemed utterly incapable of disguising any
emotion or keeping any secret, could really be a
coldhearted,
farsighted, scheming sycophant. Yet such a man was
Talbot. In truth
his hypocrisy was of a far higher and rarer sort
than the
hypocrisy which had flourished in Barebone's Parliament.
For the
consummate hypocrite is not he who conceals vice behind
the semblance of
virtue, but he who makes the vice which he has
no objection to
show a stalking horse to cover darker and more
profitable vice
which it is for his interest to hide.
Talbot, raised
by James to the earldom of Tyrconnel, had
commanded the
troops in Ireland during the nine months which
elapsed between
the death of Charles and the commencement of the
viceroyalty of
Clarendon. When the new Lord Lieutenant was about
to leave London
for Dublin, the General was summoned from Dublin
to London. Dick
Talbot had long been well known on the road which
he had now to
travel. Between Chester and the capital there was
not an inn where
he had not been in a brawl. Wherever he came he
pressed horses
in defiance of law, swore at the cooks and
postilions, and
almost raised mobs by his insolent rodomontades.
The Reformation,
he told the people, had ruined everything. But
fine times were
coming. The Catholics would soon be uppermost.
The heretics
should pay for all. Raving and blaspheming
incessantly,
like a demoniac, he came to the court. As soon as
he was there, he
allied himself closely with Castelmaine, Dover,
and Albeville.
These men called with one voice for war on the
constitution of
the Church and the State. They told their master
that he owed it
to his religion and to the dignity of his crown
to stand firm
against the outcry of heretical demagogues, and to
let the
Parliament see from the first that he would be master in
spite of
opposition, and that the only effect of opposition would
be to make him a
hard master.
Each of the two
parties into which the court was divided had
zealous foreign
allies. The ministers of Spain, of the Empire,
and of the
States General were now as anxious to support
Rochester as
they had formerly been to support Halifax. All the
influence of
Barillon was employed on the other side; and
Barillon was
assisted by another French agent, inferior to him in
station, but far
superior in abilities, Bonrepaux. Barillon was
not without
parts, and possessed in large measure the graces and
accomplishments
which then distinguished the French gentry. But
his capacity was
scarcely equal to what his great place required.
He had become
sluggish and self indulgent, liked the pleasures of
society and of
the table better than business, and on great
emergencies
generally waited for admonitions and even for reprimands from
Versailles before he showed much activity.53
Bonrepaux had
raised himself from obscurity by the intelligence
and industry
which he had exhibited as a clerk in the department
of the marine,
and was esteemed an adept in the mystery of
mercantile
politics. At the close of the year 1685, he was sent
to London,
charged with several special commissions of high
importance. He
was to lay the ground for a treaty of commerce; he
was to ascertain
and report the state of the English fleets and
dockyards; and
he was to make some overtures to the Huguenot
refugees, who,
it was supposed, had been so effectually tamed by
penury and
exile, that they would thankfully accept almost any
terms of
reconciliation. The new Envoy's origin was plebeian, his
stature was
dwarfish, his countenance was ludicrously ugly, and
his accent was
that of his native Gascony: but his strong sense,
his keen
penetration, and his lively wit eminently qualified him
for his post. In
spite of every disadvantage of birth and figure
he was soon
known as a most pleasing companion and as a most
skilful
diplomatist. He contrived, while flirting with the
Duchess of
Mazarin, discussing literary questions with Waller and
Saint Evremond,
and corresponding with La Fontaine, to acquire a
considerable
knowledge of English politics. His skill in maritime
affairs
recommended him to James, who had, during many years,
paid close
attention to the business of the Admiralty, and
understood that
business as well as he was capable of
understanding
anything. They conversed every day long and freely
about the state
of the shipping and the dock-yards. The result of
this intimacy
was, as might have been expected, that the keen and
vigilant
Frenchman conceived a great contempt for the King's
abilities and
character. The world, he said, had much overrated
His Britannic
Majesty, who had less capacity than Charles, and
not more
virtues.
The two envoys
of Lewis, though pursuing one object, very
judiciously took
different paths. They made a partition of the
court. Bonrepaux
lived chiefly with Rochester and Rochester's
adherents.
Barillon's connections were chiefly with the opposite
faction. The
consequence was that they sometimes saw the same
event in
different points of view. The best account now extant of
the contest
which at this time agitated Whitehall is to be found
in their
despatches.
As each of the
two parties at the Court of James had the support
of foreign
princes, so each had also the support of an
ecclesiastical
authority to which the King paid great deference.
The Supreme
Pontiff was for legal and moderate courses; and his sentiments were
expressed by the Nuncio and by the Vicar
Apostolic. On
the other side was a body of which the weight
balanced even
the weight of the Papacy, the mighty Order of
Jesus.
That at this
conjuncture these two great spiritual powers, once,
as it seemed,
inseparably allied, should have been opposed to
each other, is a
most important and remarkable circumstance.
During a period
of little less than a thousand years the regular
clergy had been
the chief support of the Holy See. By that See
they had been
protected from episcopal interference; and the
protection which
they had received had been amply repaid. But for
their exertions
it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have
been merely the
honorary president of a vast aristocracy of
prelates. It was
by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the
Seventh was
enabled to contend at once against the Franconian
Caesars and
against the secular priesthood. It was by the aid of
the Dominicans
and Franciscans that Innocent the Third crushed
the Albigensian
sectaries. In the sixteenth century the
Pontificate
exposed to new dangers more formidable than had ever
before
threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which
was animated by
intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite
skill. When the
Jesuits came to the rescue of the Papacy, they
found it in
extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of
battle turned.
Protestantism, which had, during a whole
generation,
carried all before it, was stopped in its progress,
and rapidly
beaten back from the foot of the Alps to the shores
of the Baltic.
Before the Order had existed a hundred years, it
had filled the
whole world with memorials of great things done
and suffered for
the faith. No religious community could produce
a list of men so
variously distinguished: - none had extended its
operations over
so vast a space; yet in none had there ever been
such perfect
unity of feeling and action. There was no region of
the globe, no
walk of speculative or of active life, in which
Jesuits were not
to be found. They guided the counsels of Kings.
They deciphered
Latin inscriptions. They observed the motions of
Jupiter's
satellites. They published whole libraries,
controversy,
casuistry, history, treatises on optics, Alcaic
odes, editions
of the fathers, madrigals, catechisms, and
lampoons. The
liberal education of youth passed almost entirely
into their
hands, and was conducted by them with conspicuous
ability. They
appear to have discovered the precise point to
which
intellectual culture can be carried without risk of
intellectual
emancipation. Enmity itself was compelled to own
that, in the art
of managing and forming the tender mind, they had no equals.
Meanwhile they assiduously and successfully
cultivated the
eloquence of the pulpit. With still greater
assiduity and
still greater success they applied themselves to
the ministry of
the confessional. Throughout Catholic Europe the
secrets of every
government and of almost every family of note
were in their
keeping. They glided from one Protestant country to
another under
innumerable disguises, as gay Cavaliers, as simple
rustics, as
Puritan preachers. They wandered to countries which
neither
mercantile avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever
impelled any
stranger to explore. They were to be found in the
garb of
Mandarins, superintending the observatory at Pekin. They
were to be
found, spade in hand, teaching the rudiments of
agriculture to
the savages of Paraguay. Yet, whatever might be
their residence,
whatever might be their employment, their spirit
was the same,
entire devotion to the common cause, implicit
obedience to the
central authority. None of them had chosen his
dwelling place
or his vocation for himself. Whether the Jesuit
should live
under the arctic circle or under the equator, whether
he should pass
his life in arranging gems and collating
manuscripts at
the Vatican or in persuading naked barbarians in
the southern
hemisphere not to eat each other, were matters which
he left with
profound submission to the decision of others. If he
was wanted at
Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. If
he was wanted at
Bagdad, he was toiling through the desert with
the next
caravan. If his ministry was needed in some country
where his life
was more insecure than that of a wolf, where it
was a crime to
harbour him, where the heads and quarters of his
brethren, fixed
in the public places, showed him what he had to
expect, he went
without remonstrance or hesitation to his doom.
Nor is this
heroic spirit yet extinct. When, in our own time, a
new and terrible
pestilence passed round the globe, when, in some
great cities,
fear had dissolved all the ties which hold society
together, when
the secular clergy had deserted their flocks, when
medical succour
was not to he purchased by gold, when the
strongest
natural affections had yielded to the love of life,
even then the
Jesuit was found by the pallet which bishop and
curate,
physician and nurse, father and mother, had deserted,
bending over
infected lips to catch the faint accents of
confession, and
holding up to the last, before the expiring
penitent, the
image of the expiring Redeemer.
But with the
admirable energy, disinterestedness, and self-
devotion which
were characteristic of the Society, great vices
were mingled. It
was alleged, and not without foundation, that
the ardent
public spirit which made the Jesuit regardless of his ease, of his
liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless
of truth and of
mercy; that no means which could promote the
interest of his
religion seemed to him unlawful, and that by the
interest of his
religion he too often meant the interest of his
Society. It was
alleged that, in the most atrocious plots
recorded in
history, his agency could be distinctly traced; that,
constant only in
attachment to the fraternity to which he
belonged, he was
in some countries the most dangerous enemy of
freedom, and in
others the most dangerous enemy of order. The
mighty victories
which he boasted that he had achieved in the
cause of the
Church were, in the judgment of many illustrious
members of that
Church, rather apparent than real. He had indeed
laboured with a
wonderful show of success to reduce the world
under her laws;
but he had done so by relaxing her laws to suit
the temper of
the world. Instead of toiling to elevate human
nature to the
noble standard fixed by divine precept and example,
he had lowered
the standard till it was beneath the average level
of human nature.
He gloried in multitudes of converts who had
been baptized in
the remote regions of the East: but it was
reported that
from some of those converts the facts on which the
whole theology
of the Gospel depends had been cunningly
concealed, and
that others were permitted to avoid persecution by
bowing down
before the images of false gods, while internally
repeating Paters
and Ayes. Nor was it only in heathen countries
that such arts
were said to be practised. It was not strange that
people of alt
ranks, and especially of the highest ranks, crowded
to the
confessionals in the Jesuit temples; for from those
confessionals
none went discontented away. There the priest was
all things to
all men. He showed just so much rigour as might not
drive those who
knelt at his spiritual tribunal to the Dominican
or the
Franciscan church. If he had to deal with a mind truly
devout, he spoke
in the saintly tones of the primitive fathers,
but with that
very large part of mankind who have religion enough
to make them
uneasy when they do wrong, and not religion enough
to keep them
from doing wrong, he followed a very different
system. Since he
could not reclaim them from guilt, it was his
business to save
them from remorse. He had at his command an
immense
dispensary of anodynes for wounded consciences. In the
books of
casuistry which had been written by his brethren, and
printed with the
approbation of his superiors, were to be found
doctrines
consolatory to transgressors of every class. There the
bankrupt was
taught how he might, without sin, secrete his goods
from his
creditors. The servant was taught how he might, without
sin, run off
with his master's plate. The pandar was assured that
a Christian man
might innocently earn his living by carrying letters and
messages between married women and their gallants.
The high
spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France were
gratified by a
decision in favour of duelling. The Italians,
accustomed to
darker and baser modes of vengeance, were glad to
learn that they
might, without any crime, shoot at their enemies
from behind
hedges. To deceit was given a license sufficient to
destroy the
whole value of human contracts and of human
testimony. In
truth, if society continued to hold together, if
life and
property enjoyed any security, it was because common
sense and common
humanity restrained men from doing what the
Society of Jesus
assured them that they might with a safe
conscience do.
So strangely
were good and evil intermixed in the character of
these celebrated
brethren; and the intermixture was the secret of
their gigantic
power. That power could never have belonged to
mere hypocrites.
It could never have belonged to rigid moralists.
It was to be
attained only by men sincerely enthusiastic in the
pursuit of a
great end, and at the same time unscrupulous as to
the choice of
means.
From the first
the Jesuits had been bound by a peculiar
allegiance to
the Pope. Their mission had been not less to quell
all mutiny
within the Church than to repel the hostility of her
avowed enemies.
Their doctrine was in the highest degree what has
been called on
our side of the Alps Ultramontane, and differed
almost as much
from the doctrine of Bossuet as from that of
Luther. They
condemned the Gallican liberties, the claim of
oecumenical
councils to control the Holy See, and the claim of
Bishops to an
independent commission from heaven. Lainez, in the
name of the
whole fraternity, proclaimed at Trent, amidst the
applause of the
creatures of Pius the Fourth, and the murmurs of
French and
Spanish prelates, that the government of the faithful
had been
committed by Christ to the Pope alone, that in the Pope
alone all
sacerdotal authority was concentrated, and that through
the Pope alone
priests and bishops derived whatever divine
authority they
possessed. During many years the union between
the Supreme
Pontiffs and the Order had continued unbroken. Had
that union been
still unbroken when James the Second ascended the
English throne,
had the influence of the Jesuits as well as the
influence of the
Pope been exerted in favour of a moderate and
constitutional
policy, it is probable that the great revolution
which in a short
time changed the whole state of European affairs
would never have
taken place. But, even before the middle of the
seventeenth
century, the Society, proud of its services and confident in its
strength, had become impatient of the yoke. A
generation of
Jesuits sprang up, who looked for protection and
guidance rather
to the court of France than to the court of Rome;
and this
disposition was not a little strengthened when Innocent
the Eleventh was
raised to the papal throne.
The Jesuits
were, at that time, engaged in a war to the death
against an enemy
whom they had at first disdained, but whom they
had at length
been forced to regard with respect and fear. Just
when their
prosperity was at the height, they were braved by a
handful of
opponents, who had indeed no influence with the rulers
of this world,
but who were strong in religious faith and
intellectual
energy. Then followed a long, a strange, a glorious
conflict of
genius against power. The Jesuit called cabinets,
tribunals,
universities to his aid; and they responded to the
call. Port Royal
appealed, not in vain, to the hearts and to the
understandings
of millions. The dictators of Christendom found
themselves, on a
sudden, in the position of culprits. They were
arraigned on the
charge of having systematically debased the
standard of
evangelical morality, for the purpose of increasing
their own
influence; and the charge was enforced in a manner
which at once
arrested the attention of the whole world: for the
chief accuser
was Blaise Pascal. His intellectual powers were
such as have
rarely been bestowed on any of the children of men;
and the
vehemence of the zeal which animated him was but too well
proved by the
cruel penances and vigils under which his macerated
frame sank into
an early grave. His spirit was the spirit of
Saint Bernard:
but the delicacy of his wit, the purity, the
energy, the
simplicity of his rhetoric, had never been equalled,
except by the
great masters of Attic eloquence. All Europe read
and admired,
laughed and wept. The Jesuits attempted to reply:
but their feeble
answers were received by the public with shouts
of mockery. They
wanted, it is true, no talent or accomplishment
into which men
can be drilled by elaborate discipline; but such
discipline,
though it may bring out the powers of ordinary minds,
has a tendency
to suffocate, rather than to develop, original
genius. It was
universally acknowledged that, in the literary
contest, the
Jansenists were completely victorious. To the
Jesuits nothing
was left but to oppress the sect which they could
not confute.
Lewis the Fourteenth was now their chief support.
His conscience
had, from boyhood, been in their keeping; and he
had learned from
them to abhor Jansenism quite as much as he
abhorred
Protestantism, and very much more than he abhorred
Atheism.
Innocent the Eleventh, on the other hand, leaned to the
Jansenist
opinions. The consequence was, that the Society found itself in a
situation never contemplated by its founder. The
Jesuits were
estranged from the Supreme Pontiff; and they were
closely allied
with a prince who proclaimed himself the champion
of the Gallican
liberties and the enemy of Ultramontane
pretensions.
Thus the Order became in England an instrument of
the designs of
Lewis, and laboured, with a success which the
Roman Catholics
afterwards long and bitterly deplored, to widen
the breach
between the King and the Parliament, to thwart the
Nuncio, to
undermine the power of the Lord Treasurer, and to
support the most
desperate schemes of Tyrconnel.
Thus on one side
were the Hydes and the whole body of Tory
churchmen, Powis
and all the most respectable noblemen and
gentlemen of the
King's own faith, the States General, the House
of Austria, and
the Pope. On the other side were a few Roman
Catholic
adventurers, of broken fortune and tainted reputation,
backed by France
and by the Jesuits.
The chief
representative of the Jesuits at Whitehall was an
English brother
of the Order, who had, during some time, acted as
Viceprovincial,
who had been long regarded by James with peculiar
favour, and who
had lately been made Clerk of the Closet. This
man, named
Edward Petre, was descended from an honourable family.
His manners were
courtly: his speech was flowing and plausible;
but he was weak
and vain, covetous and ambitious. Of all the evil
counsellors who
had access to the royal ear, he bore, perhaps,
the largest part
in the ruin of the House of Stuart.
The obstinate
and imperious nature of the King gave great
advantages to
those who advised him to be firm, to yield nothing,
and to make
himself feared. One state maxim had taken possession
of his small
understanding, and was not to be dislodged by
reason. To
reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending.
His mode of
arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not
uncommon among
dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to
be surrounded by
their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and,
as often as
wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it
was erroneous,
he asserted it again, in exactly the same words,
and conceived
that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all
objections. "I
will make no concession," he often repeated; "my
father made
concessions, and he was beheaded." If it were true
that concession
had been fatal to Charles the First, a man of
sense would have
known that a single experiment is not sufficient
to establish a
general rule even in sciences much less
complicated than
the science of government; that, since the beginning of the
world, no two political experiments were ever
made of which
all the conditions were exactly alike; and that the
only way to
learn civil prudence from history is to examine and
compare an
immense number of cases. But, if the single instance
on which the
King relied proved anything, it proved that he was
in the wrong.
There can be little doubt that, if Charles had
frankly made to
the Short Parliament, which met in the spring of
1640, but one
half of the concessions which he made, a few months
later, to the
Long Parliament, he would have lived and died a
powerful King.
On the other hand, there can be no doubt whatever
that, if he had
refused to make any concession to the Long
Parliament, and
had resorted to arms in defence of the ship money
and of the Star
Chamber, he would have seen, in the hostile
ranks, Hyde and
Falkland side by side with Hollis and Hampden.
But, in truth,
he would not have been able to resort to arms; for
nor twenty
Cavaliers would have joined his standard. It was to
his large
concessions alone that he owed the support of that
great body of
noblemen and gentlemen who fought so long and so
gallantly in his
cause. But it would have been useless to
represent these
things to James.