After the Restoration, the Cavaliers who
filled the House of Commons,
zealous as they were for the prerogative, still
remembered with bitterness the tyranny of
the High Commission, and were by no
means disposed to revive an institution so odious.
They at the same time thought, and not
without reason, that the statute
which had swept away all the courts Christian of the
realm, without providing any substitute,
was open to grave objection. They
accordingly repealed that statute, with the
exception of the part which related to the
High Commission. Thus, the
Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of
Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the
Court of Delegates were revived:
but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her successors
had been empowered to appoint
Commissioners with visitatorial
authority over the Church was not only not revived, but was
declared, with the utmost strength of
language, to be completely
abrogated. It is therefore as clear as any point of
constitutional law can be that James the
Second was not competent to appoint
a Commission with power to visit and govern the Church of England.94
But, if this were so, it was to little purpose that
the Act of Supremacy, in high sounding
words, empowered him to amend what
was amiss in that Church. Nothing but a machinery as
stringent as that which the Long
Parliament had destroyed could
force the Anglican clergy to become his agents for the
destruction of the Anglican doctrine and
discipline. He therefore, as early
as the month of April 1686, determined to
create a new Court of High Commission.
This design was not immediately
executed. It encountered the opposition of every
minister who was not devoted to France and
to the Jesuits. It was regarded by
lawyers as an outrageous violation of the law, and by
Churchmen as a direct attack upon the
Church. Perhaps the contest might
have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the
pride and inflamed the rage of the King.
He had, as supreme ordinary, put
forth directions, charging the clergy of the
establishment to abstain from touching in
their discourses on controverted
points of doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence
of the Roman Catholic religion were
preached on every Sunday and
holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the Church of
the state, the Church of the great
majority of the nation, was
forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit
of the whole clerical order rose against
this injustice. William Sherlock, a
divine of distinguished abilities, who had written
with sharpness against Whigs and
Dissenters, and had been rewarded
by the government with the Mastership of the Temple and
with a pension, was one of the first who
incurred the royal displeasure. His
pension was stopped, and he was severely reprimanded. John
Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector of St.
Giles's in the Fields, soon gave
still greater offence. He was a man of learning and
fervent piety, a preacher of great fame,
and an exemplary parish priest. In
politics he was, like most of his brethren, a Tory,
and had just been appointed one of the
royal chaplains. He received an
anonymous letter which purported to come from one of
his parishioners who had been staggered by
the arguments of Roman Catholic
theologians, and who was anxious to be satisfied that
the Church of England was a branch of the
true Church of Christ. No divine,
not utterly lost to all sense of religious duty and of
professional honour, could refuse to
answer such a call. On the
following Sunday Sharp delivered an animated discourse against
the high pretensions of the see of Rome.
Some of his expressions were
exaggerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to
Whitehall. It was falsely said that he had
spoken with contumely of the
theological disquisitions which had been found in the
strong box of the late King, and which the
present King had published.
Compton, the Bishop of London, received orders from Sunderland to
suspend Sharp till the royal pleasure should be
further known. The Bishop was in great
perplexity. His recent conduct in
the House of Lords had given deep offence to the
court. Already his name had been struck
out of the list of Privy
Councillors. Already he had been dismissed from his office in the
royal chapel. He was unwilling to give
fresh provocation but the act which
he was directed to perform was a judicial act. He felt
that it was unjust, and he was assured by
the best advisers that it was also
illegal, to inflict punishment without giving any
opportunity for defence. He accordingly,
in the humblest terms, represented
his difficulties to the King, and privately requested
Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the
present. Reasonable as were
Compton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James
was greatly incensed. What insolence to
plead either natural justice or
positive law in opposition to an express command of
the Sovereign Sharp was forgotten.
The Bishop became a mark for
the whole vengeance of the government. The
King felt more painfully than ever
the want of that tremendous engine which had
once coerced refractory ecclesiastics. He
probably knew that, for a few angry
words uttered against his father's government, Bishop
Williams had been suspended by the High
Commission from all ecclesiastical
dignities and functions. The design of reviving
that formidable tribunal was pushed on
more eagerly than ever. In July
London was alarmed by the news that the King had, in direct
defiance of two acts of Parliament drawn
in the strongest terms, entrusted
the whole government of the Church to seven
Commissioners. The words in which the
jurisdiction of these officers was
described were loose, and might be stretched to
almost any extent. All colleges and
grammar schools, even those founded
by the liberality of private benefactors, were placed
under the authority of the new board. All
who depended for bread on
situations in the Church or in academical institutions, from
the Primate down to the youngest curate,
from the Vicechancellors of Oxford
and Cambridge down to the humblest pedagogue who taught
Corderius, were at the royal mercy. If any
one of those many thousands was
suspected of doing or saying anything distasteful
to the government, the Commissioners might
cite him before them. In their mode
of dealing with him they were fettered by no rules.
They were themselves at once prosecutors
and judges. The accused party was
furnished with no copy of the charge. He was examined
and crossexamined. If his answers did not
give satisfaction, he was liable to
be suspended from his office, to be ejected from
it, to be pronounced incapable of holding
any preferment in future. If he
were contumacious, he might be excommunicated, or,
in other words, be deprived of all civil
rights and imprisoned for life. He might also, at the discretion of
the court, be loaded with all the
costs of the proceeding by which he had been
reduced to beggary. No appeal was given.
The Commissioners were directed to
execute their office notwithstanding any law which
might be, or might seem to be,
inconsistent with these
regulations. Lastly, lest any person should doubt that it was
intended to revive that terrible court
from which the Long Parliament had
freed the nation, the new tribunal was directed to
use a seal bearing exactly the same device
and the same superscription with
the seal of the old High Commission.
The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor.
His presence and assent were
necessary to every proceeding. All men knew how
unjustly, insolently, and barbarously he
had acted in courts where he had
been, to a certain extent, restrained by the known
laws of England. It was, therefore, not
difficult to foresee how he would
conduct himself in a situation in which he was at entire
liberty to make forms of procedure and
rules of evidence for himself.
Of the other six Commissioners three were
prelates and three laymen. The name
of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. But he was
fully convinced that the court was
illegal, that all its judgments
would be null, and that by sitting in it he should
incur a serious responsibility. He
therefore determined not to comply
with the royal mandate. He did not, however, act on this
occasion with that courage and sincerity
which he showed when driven to
extremity two years later. He begged to be excused on
the plea of business and ill health. The
other members of the board, he
added, were men of too much ability to need his
assistance. These disingenuous apologies
ill became the Primate of all
England at such a crisis; nor did they avert the royal
displeasure. Sancroft's name was not
indeed struck out of the list of
Privy Councillors: but, to the bitter mortification of
the friends of the Church, he was no
longer summoned on Council days.
"If," said the King, "he is too sick or too busy to go to
the Commission, it is a kindness to
relieve him from attendance at
Council."
The government found no similar difficulty
with Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop of the
great and opulent see of Durham, a man nobly born,
and raised so high in his profession that
he could scarcely wish to rise
higher, but mean, vain, and cowardly. He had been made
Dean of the Chapel Royal when the Bishop
of London was banished from the
palace. The honour of being an Ecclesiastical Commissioner turned
Crewe's head. It was to no purpose that some
of his friends represented to him the risk
which he ran by sitting in an
illegal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that
he could not live out of the royal smile,
and exultingly expressed his hope
that his name would appear in history, a hope
which has not been altogether
disappointed.
Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the
third clerical Commissioner. He was
a man to whose talents posterity has
scarcely done justice. Unhappily for his
fame, it has been usual to print
his verses in collections of the British poets; and
those who judge of him by his verses must
consider him as a servile imitator,
who, without one spark of Cowley's admirable
genius, mimicked whatever was least
commendable in Cowley's manner: but
those who are acquainted with Sprat's prose writings
will form a very different estimate of his
powers. He was indeed a great
master of our language, and possessed at once the
eloquence of the orator, of the
controversialist, and of the
historian. His moral character might have passed with little
censure had he belonged to a less sacred
profession; for the worst that can
be said of him is that he was indolent, luxurious,
and worldly: but such failings, though not
commonly regarded as very heinous
in men of secular callings, are scandalous in a
prelate. The Archbishopric of York was
vacant; Sprat hoped to obtain it,
and therefore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical
board: but he was too goodnatured a man to
behave harshly; and he was too
sensible a man not to know that he might at some future
time be called to a serious account by a
Parliament. He therefore, though he
consented to act, tried to do as little
mischief, and to make as few enemies, as
possible.
The three remaining Commissioners were the
Lord Treasurer, the Lord President,
and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
Rochester, disapproving and murmuring,
consented to serve. Much as he had
to endure at the court, he could not bear to quit it.
Much as he loved the Church, he could not
bring himself to sacrifice for her
sake his white staff, his patronage, his salary
of eight thousand pounds a year, and the
far larger indirect emoluments of
his office. He excused his conduct to others, and
perhaps to himself, by pleading that, as a
Commissioner, he might be able to
prevent much evil, and that, if he refused to act,
some person less attached to the
Protestant religion would be found
to replace him. Sunderland was the representative of the
Jesuitical cabal. Herbert's recent
decision on the question of the
dispensing power seemed to prove that he would not flinch from any
service which the King might require.
As soon as the Commission had been opened,
the Bishop of London was cited
before the new tribunal. He appeared. "I demand of
you," said Jeffreys, "a direct and
positive answer. Why did not you
suspend Dr. Sharp?"
The Bishop requested a copy of the
Commission in order that he might
know by what authority he was thus interrogated. "If you
mean," said Jeffreys, "to dispute our
authority, I shall take another
course with you. As to the Commission, I do not doubt
that you have seen it. At all events you
may see it in any coffeehouse for a
penny." The insolence of the Chancellor's reply
appears to have shocked the other
Commissioners, and he was forced to
make some awkward apologies. He then returned to the
point from which he had started. "This,"
he said, "is not a court in which
written charges are exhibited. Our proceedings are
summary, and by word of mouth. The
question is a plain one. Why did
you not obey the King?" With some difficulty Compton obtained
a brief delay, and the assistance of
counsel. When the case had been
heard, it was evident to all men that the Bishop had done
only what he was bound to do. The
Treasurer, the Chief Justice, and
Sprat were for acquittal. The King's wrath was moved. It
seemed that his Ecclesiastical Commission
would fail him as his Tory
Parliament had failed him. He offered Rochester a simple
choice, to pronounce the Bishop guilty, or
to quit the Treasury. Rochester was
base enough to yield. Compton was suspended from
all spiritual functions; and the charge of
his great diocese was committed to
his judges, Sprat and Crewe. He continued, however,
to reside in his palace and to receive his
revenues; for it was known that,
had any attempt been made to deprive him of his
temporalities, he would have put himself
under the protection of the common
law; and Herbert himself declared that, at common law,
judgment must be given against the crown.
This consideration induced the King
to pause. Only a few weeks had elapsed since he
had packed the courts of Westminster Hall
in order to obtain a decision in
favour of his dispensing power. He now found that,
unless he packed them again, he should not
be able to obtain a decision in
favour of the proceedings of his Ecclesiastical
Commission. He determined, therefore, to
postpone for a short time the
confiscation of the freehold property of refractory
clergymen.
The temper of the nation was indeed such
as might well make him hesitate.
During some months discontent had been steadily and rapidly
increasing. The celebration of the Roman Catholic worship
had long been prohibited by Act of
Parliament. During several
generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit
himself in any public place with the
badges of his office. Against the
regular clergy, and against the restless and subtle
Jesuits by name, had been enacted a
succession of rigorous statutes.
Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to
be hanged, drawn, and quartered. A reward
was offered for his detection. He
was not allowed to take advantage of the general
rule, that men are not bound to accuse
themselves. Whoever was suspected
of being a Jesuit might be interrogated, and, if he
refused to answer, might be sent to prison
for life. These laws, though they
had not, except when there was supposed to be
some peculiar danger, been strictly
executed, and though they had never
prevented Jesuits from resorting to England, had made
disguise necessary. But all disguise was
now thrown off. Injudicious members
of the King's Church, encouraged by him, took
a pride in defying statutes which were
still of undoubted validity, and
feelings which had a stronger hold of the national
mind than at any former period. Roman
Catholic chapels rose all over the
country. Cowls, girdles of ropes, and strings of beads
constantly appeared in the, streets, and
astonished a population, the oldest
of whom had never seen a conventual garb except on the
stage. A convent rose at Clerkenwell on
the site of the ancient cloister of
Saint John. The Franciscans occupied a mansion in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Carmelites were
quartered in the City. A society of
Benedictine monks was lodged in Saint James's
Palace. In the Savoy a spacious house,
including a church and a school,
was built for the Jesuits. The skill and care with
which those fathers had, during several
generations, conducted the
education of youth, had drawn forth reluctant praises from
the wisest Protestants. Bacon had
pronounced the mode of instruction
followed in the Jesuit colleges to be the best yet
known in the world, and had warmly
expressed his regret that so
admirable a system of intellectual and moral discipline should be
subservient to the interests of a corrupt
religion. It was not improbable
that the new academy in the Savoy might, under royal
patronage, prove a formidable rival to the
great foundations of Eton,
Westminster, and Winchester. Indeed, soon after the school
was opened, the classes consisted of four
hundred boys, about one half of
whom were Protestants. The Protestant pupils were not
required to attend mass: but there could
be no doubt that the influence of
able preceptors, devoted to the Roman Catholic
Church, and versed in all the arts which
win the confidence and affection of
youth, would make many converts.
These things produced great excitement
among the populace, which is always
more moved by what impresses the senses than by what is
addressed to the reason. Thousands of rude
and ignorant men, to whom the
dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commission were
words without a meaning, saw with dismay
and indignation a Jesuit college
rising on the banks of the Thames, friars in hoods and
gowns walking in the Strand, and crowds of
devotees pressing in at the doors
of temples where homage was paid to graven images.
Riots broke out in several parts of the
country. At Coventry and Worcester
the Roman Catholic worship was violently
interrupted. At Bristol the rabble,
countenanced, it was said, by the
magistrates, exhibited a profane and indecent pageant, in
which the Virgin Mary was represented by a
buffoon, and in which a mock host
was carried in procession. The garrison was called
out to disperse the mob. The mob, then and
ever since one of the fiercest in
the kingdom, resisted. Blows were exchanged, and
serious hurts inflicted. The agitation was
great in the capital, and greater
in the City, properly so called, than at
Westminster. For the people of Westminster
had been accustomed to see among
them the private chapels of Roman Catholic Ambassadors:
but the City had not, within living
memory, been polluted by any
idolatrous exhibition. Now, however, the resident of the Elector
Palatine, encouraged by the King, fitted
up a chapel in Lime Street. The
heads of the corporation, though men selected for
office on account of their known Toryism,
protested against this proceeding,
which, as they said, the ablest gentlemen of the long
robe regarded as illegal. The Lord Mayor
was ordered to appear before the
Privy Council. "Take heed what you do," said the King.
"Obey me; and do not trouble yourself
either about gentlemen of the long
robe or gentlemen of the short robe." The Chancellor
took up the word, and reprimanded the
unfortunate magistrate with the
genuine eloquence of the Old Bailey bar. The chapel was
opened. All the neighbourhood was soon in
commotion. Great crowds assembled
in Cheapside to attack the new mass house. The priests
were insulted. A crucifix was taken out of
the building and set up on the
parish pump. The Lord Mayor came to quell the tumult,
but was received with cries of "No wooden
gods." The trainbands were ordered
to disperse the crowd: but they shared in the
popular feeling; and murmurs were heard
from the ranks, "We cannot in
conscience fight for Popery."
The Elector Palatine was, like James, a
sincere and zealous Catholic, and
was, like James, the ruler of a Protestant people;
but the two princes resembled each other
little in temper and understanding. The Elector had promised to
respect the rights of the Church
which he found established in his dominions. He had
strictly kept his word, and had not
suffered himself to be provoked to
any violence by the indiscretion of preachers who, in
their antipathy to his faith, occasionally
forgot the respect which they owed
to his person. He learned, with concern, that
great offence had been given to the people
of London by the injudicious act of
his representative, and, much to his honour,
declared that he would forego the
privilege to which, as a sovereign
prince, he was entitled, rather than endanger the peace
of a great city. "I, too," he wrote to
James, "have Protestant subjects;
and I know with how much caution and delicacy it is
necessary that a Catholic prince so
situated should act." James,
instead of expressing gratitude for this humane and considerate
conduct, turned the letter into ridicule
before the foreign ministers. It
was determined that the Elector should have a
chapel in the City whether he would or
not, and that, if the trainbands
refused to do their duty, their place should be
supplied by the Guards.
The effect of these disturbances on trade
was serious. The Dutch minister
informed the States General that the business of the
Exchange was at a stand. The Commissioners
of the Customs reported to the King
that, during the month which followed the
opening of Lime Street Chapel, the receipt
in the port of the Thames had
fallen off by some thousands of pounds. Several
Aldermen, who, though zealous royalists
appointed under the new charter,
were deeply interested in the commercial prosperity of
their city, and loved neither Popery nor
martial law, tendered their
resignations. But the King was resolved not to yield. He
formed a camp on Hounslow Heath, and
collected there, within a
circumference of about two miles and a half, fourteen battalions
of foot and thirty-two squadrons of horse,
amounting to thirteen thousand
fighting men. Twenty-six pieces of artillery, and many
wains laden with arms and ammunition, were
dragged from the Tower through the
City to Hounslow. The Londoners saw this great
force assembled in their neighbourhood
with a terror which familiarity
soon diminished. A visit to Hounslow became their
favourite amusement on holidays. The camp
presented the appearance of a vast
fair. Mingled with the musketeers and
dragoons, a multitude of fine gentlemen
and ladies from Soho Square,
sharpers and painted women from Whitefriars, invalids in
sedans, monks in hoods and gowns, lacqueys
in rich liveries, pedlars, orange
girls, mischievous apprentices and gaping clowns,
was constantly passing and repassing
through the long lanes of tents. From some pavilions were heard the
noises of drunken revelry, from
others the curses of gamblers. In truth the place
was merely a gay suburb of the capital.
The King, as was amply proved two
years later, had greatly miscalculated. He had
forgotten that vicinity operates in more
ways than one. He had hoped that
his army would overawe London: but the result of his
policy was that the feelings and opinions
of London took complete possession
of his army.
Scarcely indeed had the encampment been
formed when there were rumours of
quarrels between the Protestant and Popish
soldiers. A little tract, entitled A
humble and hearty Address to all
English Protestants in the Army, had been actively
circulated through the ranks. The writer
vehemently exhorted the troops to
use their arms in defence, not of the mass book, but of
the Bible, of the Great Charter, and of
the Petition of Right. He was a man
already under the frown of power. His character was
remarkable, and his history not
uninstructive.
His name was Samuel Johnson. He was a
priest of the Church of England,
and had been chaplain to Lord Russell. Johnson was one
of those persons who are mortally hated by
their opponents, and less loved
than respected by their allies. His morals were pure,
his religious feelings ardent, his
learning and abilities not
contemptible, his judgment weak, his temper acrimonious,
turbulent, and unconquerably stubborn. His
profession made him peculiarly
odious to the zealous supporters of monarchy; for a
republican in holy orders was a strange
and almost an unnatural being.
During the late reign Johnson had published a book
entitled Julian the Apostate. The object
of this work was to show that the
Christians of the fourth century did not hold the
doctrine of nonresistance. It was easy to
produce passages from Chrysostom
and Jerome written in a spirit very different from
that of the Anglican divines who preached
against the Exclusion Bill.
Johnson, however, went further. He attempted to revive the
odious imputation which had, for very
obvious reasons, been thrown by
Libanius on the Christian soldiers of Julian, and
insinuated that the dart which slew the
imperial renegade came, not from
the enemy, but from some Rumbold or Ferguson in the
Roman ranks. A hot controversy followed.
Whig and Tory disputants wrangled
fiercely about an obscure passage, in which Gregory of
Nazianzus praises a pious Bishop who was
going to bastinado somebody. The
Whigs maintained that the holy man was going to
bastinado the Emperor; the Tories that, at
the worst, he was only going to
bastinado a captain of the guard. Johnson prepared a reply to his
assailants, in which he drew an elaborate parallel
between Julian and James, then Duke of
York, Julian had, during many
years, pretended to abhor idolatry, while in heart an
idolater. Julian had, to serve a turn,
occasionally affected respect for
the rights of conscience. Julian had punished cities
which were zealous for the true religion,
by taking away their municipal
privileges. Julian had, by his flatterers, been called
the Just. James was provoked beyond
endurance. Johnson was prosecuted
for a libel, convicted, and condemned to a fine which
he had no means of paying. He was
therefore kept in gaol; and it
seemed likely that his confinement would end only with his
life.
Over the room which he occupied in the
King's Bench prison lodged another
offender whose character well deserves to be studied.
This was Hugh Speke, a young man of good
family, but of a singularly base
and depraved nature. His love of mischief and of
dark and crooked ways amounted almost to
madness. To cause confusion without
being found out was his business and his
pastime; and he had a rare skill in using
honest enthusiasts as the
instruments of his coldblooded malice. He had attempted, by
means of one of his puppets, to fasten on
Charles and James the crime of
murdering Essex in the Tower. On this occasion the
agency of Speke had been traced and,
though he succeeded in throwing the
greater part of the blame on his dupe, he had not
escaped with impunity. He was now a
prisoner; but his fortune enabled
him to live with comfort; and he was under so little
restraint that he was able to keep up
regular communication with one of
his confederates who managed a secret press.
Johnson was the very man for Speke's
purposes, zealous and intrepid, a
scholar and a practised controversialist, yet as
simple as a child. A close intimacy sprang
up between the two fellow
prisoners. Johnson wrote a succession of bitter and
vehement treatises which Speke conveyed to
the printer. When the camp was
formed at Hounslow, Speke urged Johnson to compose an
address which might excite the troops to
mutiny. The paper was instantly
drawn up. Many thousands of copies were struck off and
brought to Speke's room, whence they were
distributed over the whole country,
and especially among the soldiers. A milder
government than that which then ruled
England would have been moved to
high resentment by such a provocation. Strict search was
made. A subordinate agent who had been
employed to circulate the address
saved himself by giving up Johnson; and Johnson was not
the man to save himself by giving up
Speke. An information was filed, and a conviction obtained without
difficulty. Julian Johnson, as he
was popularly called, was sentenced to stand
thrice in the pillory, and to be whipped
from Newgate to Tyburn. The Judge,
Sir Francis Withins, told the criminal to be thankful
for the great lenity of the Attorney
General, who might have treated the
case as one of high treason. "I owe him no thanks,"
answered Johnson, dauntlessly. "Am I,
whose only crime is that I have
defended the Church and the laws, to be grateful for being
scourged like a dog, while Popish
scribblers are suffered daily to
insult the Church and to violate the laws with impunity?" The
energy with which he spoke was such that
both the Judges and the crown
lawyers thought it necessary to vindicate themselves, and
protested that they knew of no Popish
publications such as those to which
the prisoner alluded. He instantly drew from his pocket
some Roman Catholic books and trinkets
which were then freely exposed for
sale under the royal patronage, read aloud the titles
of the books, and threw a rosary across
the table to the King's counsel.
"And now," he cried with a loud voice, "I lay this
information before God, before this court,
and before the English people. We
shall soon see whether Mr. Attorney will do his duty."
It was resolved that, before the
punishment was inflicted, Johnson
should be degraded from the priesthood. The prelates who
had been charged by the Ecclesiastical
Commission with the care of the
diocese of London cited him before them in the chapter
house of Saint Paul's Cathedral. The
manner in which he went through the
ceremony made a deep impression on many minds. When
he was stripped of his sacred robe he
exclaimed, "You are taking away my
gown because I have tried to keep your gowns on your
backs." The only part of the formalities
which seemed to distress him was
the plucking of the Bible out of his hand. He made a
faint struggle to retain the sacred book,
kissed it, and burst into tears.
"You cannot," he said, "deprive me of the hopes which
I owe to it." Some attempts were made to
obtain a remission of the flogging.
A Roman Catholic priest offered to intercede in
consideration of a bribe of two hundred
pounds. The money was raised; and
the priest did his best, but in vain.
"Mr. Johnson," said the King, "has the
spirit of a martyr; and it is fit
that he should be one." William the Third said, a few
years later, of one of the most
acrimonious and intrepid Jacobites,
"He has set his heart on being a martyr, and I have
set mine on disappointing him." These two
speeches would alone suffice to
explain the widely different fates of the two princes.
The day appointed for the flogging came. A
whip of nine lashes was used. Three
hundred and seventeen stripes were inflicted; but
the sufferer never winced. He afterwards
said that the pain was cruel, but
that, as he was dragged at the tail of the cart, he
remembered how patiently the cross had
been borne up Mount Calvary, and
was so much supported by the thought that, but for
the fear of incurring the suspicion of
vain glory, he would have sung a
psalm with as firm and cheerful a voice as if he had been
worshipping God in the congregation. It is
impossible not to wish that so much
heroism had been less alloyed by intemperance and
intolerance.
Among the clergy of the Church of England
Johnson found no sympathy. He had
attempted to justify rebellion; he had even
hinted approbation of regicide; and they
still, in spite of much
provocation, clung to the doctrine of nonresistance. But they saw
with alarm and concern the progress of
what they considered as a noxious
superstition, and, while they abjured all thought of
defending their religion by the sword,
betook themselves manfully to
weapons of a different kind. To preach against the errors of
Popery was now regarded by them as a point
of duty and a point of honour. The
London clergy, who were then in abilities and
influence decidedly at the head of their
profession, set an example which
was bravely followed by their ruder brethren all
over the country. Had only a few bold men
taken this freedom, they would
probably have been at once cited before the
Ecclesiastical Commission; but it was
hardly possible to punish an
offence which was committed every Sunday by thousands of
divines, from Berwick to Penzance. The
presses of the capital, of Oxford,
and of Cambridge, never rested. The act which subjected
literature to a censorship did not
seriously impede the exertions of
Protestant controversialists; for it contained a proviso in
favour of the two Universities, and
authorised the publication of
theological works licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It
was therefore out of the power of the
government to silence the defenders
of the established religion. They were a numerous, an
intrepid, and a well appointed band of
combatants. Among them were
eloquent declaimers, expert dialecticians, scholars deeply
read in the writings of the fathers and in
all parts of ecclesiastical
history. Some of them, at a later period, turned
against one another the formidable arms
which they had wielded against the
common enemy, and by their fierce contentions and
insolent triumphs brought reproach on the
Church which they had saved. But at
present they formed an united phalanx. In the van
appeared a rank of steady and skilful
veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Prideaux, Whitby,
Patrick, Tenison, Wake. The rear
was brought up by the most distinguished bachelors
of arts who were studying for deacon's
orders. Conspicuous amongst the
recruits whom Cambridge sent to the field was a
distinguished pupil of the great Newton,
Henry Wharton, who had, a few
months before, been senior wrangler of his year, and whose
early death was soon after deplored by men
of all parties as an irreparable
loss to letters. Oxford was not less proud of a
youth, whose great powers, first essayed
in this conflict, afterwards
troubled the Church and the State during forty
eventful years, Francis Atterbury. By such
men as these every question in
issue between the Papists and the Protestants was
debated, sometimes in a popular style
which boys and women could
comprehend, sometimes with the utmost subtlety of logic, and
sometimes with an immense display of
learning. The pretensions of the
Holy See, the authority of tradition, purgatory,
transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the
mass, the adoration of the host,
the denial of the cup to the laity, confession,
penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the
invocation of saints, the adoration
of images, the celibacy of the clergy, the monastic
vows, the practice of celebrating public
worship in a tongue unknown to the
multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome,
the history of the Reformation, the
characters of the chief reformers,
were copiously discussed. Great numbers of absurd
legends about miracles wrought by saints
and relics were translated from the
Italian and published as specimens of the
priestcraft by which the greater part of
Christendom had been fooled. Of the
tracts put forth on these subjects by Anglican
divines during the short reign of James
the Second many have probably
perished. Those which may still be found in our great
libraries make up a mass of near twenty
thousand pages.
The Roman Catholics did not yield the
victory without a struggle. One of
them, named Henry Hills, had been appointed printer to the
royal household and chapel, and had been
placed by the King at the head of a
great office in London from which theological
tracts came forth by hundreds. Obadiah
Walker's press was not less active
at Oxford. But, with the exception of some bad
translations of Bossuet's admirable works,
these establishments put forth
nothing of the smallest value. It was indeed impossible
for any intelligent and candid Roman
Catholic to deny that the champions
of his Church were, in every talent and acquirement,
completely over-matched. The ablest of
them would not, on the other side,
have been considered as of the third rate. Many of
them, even when they had something to say,
knew not how to say it. They had been excluded by their religion from
English schools and universities;
nor had they ever, till the accession of James,
found England an agreeable, or even a
safe, residence. They had therefore
passed the greater part of their lives on the
Continent, and had almost unlearned their
mother tongue. When they preached,
their outlandish accent moved the derision of the
audience. They spelt like washerwomen.
Their diction was disfigured by
foreign idioms; and, when they meant to be
eloquent, they imitated, as well as they
could, what was considered as fine
writing in those Italian academies where
rhetoric had then reached the last stage
of corruption. Disputants labouring
under these disadvantages would scarcely,
even with truth on their side, have been
able to make head against men whose
style is eminently distinguished by simple
purity and grace.
The situation of England in the year 1686
cannot be better described than in
the words of the French Ambassador. "The
discontent," he wrote, "is great and
general: but the fear of incurring
still worse evils restrains all who have anything to
lose. The King openly expresses his joy at
finding himself in a situation to
strike bold strokes. He likes to be complimented on
this subject. He has talked to me about
it, and has assured me that he will
not flinch."
Meanwhile in other parts of the empire
events of grave importance had
taken place. The situation of the episcopalian Protestants of
Scotland differed widely from that in
which their English brethren stood.
In the south of the island the religion of the
state was the religion of the people, and
had a strength altogether
independent of the strength derived from the support
of the government. The sincere conformists
were far more numerous than the
Papists and the Protestant Dissenters taken together.
The Established Church of Scotland was the
Church of a small minority. The
majority of the lowland population was firmly
attached to the Presbyterian discipline.
Prelacy was abhorred by the great
body of Scottish Protestants, both as an unscriptural
and as a foreign institution. It was
regarded by the disciples of Knox
as a relic of the abominations of Babylon the Great. It
painfully reminded a people proud of the
memory of Wallace and Bruce that
Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded to a
fairer inheritance, had been independent
in name only. The episcopal polity
was also closely associated in the public mind
with all the evils produced by twenty-five
years of corrupt and cruel
maladministration. Nevertheless this polity stood, though on a narrow
basis and amidst fearful storms, tottering indeed,
yet upheld by the civil magistrate, and
leaning for support, whenever
danger became serious, on the power of England. The
records of the Scottish Parliament were
thick set with laws denouncing
vengeance on those who in any direction strayed from
the prescribed pale. By an Act passed in
the time of Knox, and breathing his
spirit, it was a high crime to hear mass, and the
third offence was capital. An Act recently
passed, at the instance of James,
made it death to preach in any Presbyterian
conventicle whatever, and even to attend
such a conventicle in the open air.
The Eucharist was not, as in England, degraded
into a civil test; but no person could
hold any office, could sit in
Parliament, or could even vote for a member of Parliament,
without subscribing, under the sanction of
an oath, a declaration which
condemned in the strongest terms the principles both of the
Papists and of the Covenanters.
In the Privy Council of Scotland there
were two parties corresponding to
the two parties which were contending against
each other at Whitehall. William Douglas,
Duke of Queensberry, was Lord
Treasurer, and had, during some years, been considered
as first minister. He was nearly connected
by affinity, by similarity of
opinions, and by similarity of temper, with the
Treasurer of England. Both were Tories:
both were men of hot temper and
strong prejudices; both were ready to support their
master in any attack on the civil
liberties of his people; but both
were sincerely attached to the Established Church.
Queensberry had early notified to the
court that, if any innovation
affecting that Church were contemplated, to such
innovation he could be no party. But among
his colleagues were several men not
less unprincipled than Sunderland. In truth the
Council chamber at Edinburgh had been,
during a quarter of a century, a
seminary of all public and private vices; and some of
the politicians whose character had been
formed there had a peculiar
hardness of heart and forehead to which Westminster,
even in that bad age, could hardly show
anything quite equal. The
Chancellor, James Drummond, Earl of Perth, and his brother, the
Secretary of State, John Lord Melfort,
were bent on supplanting
Queensberry. The Chancellor had already an unquestionable title
to the royal favour. He had brought into
use a little steel thumbscrew which
gave such exquisite torment that it had wrung
confessions even out of men on whom His
Majesty's favourite boot had been
tried in vain. But it was well known that even
barbarity was not so sure a way to the
heart of James as apostasy. To
apostasy, therefore, Perth and Melfort resorted with a certain
audacious baseness which no English statesman could
hope to emulate. They declared that the
papers found in the strong box of
Charles the Second had converted them both to the
true faith; and they began to confess and
to hear mass. How little conscience
had to do with Perth's change of religion he
amply proved by taking to wife, a few
weeks later, in direct defiance of
the laws of the Church which he had just joined, a
lady who was his cousin german, without
waiting for a dispensation. When
the good Pope learned this, he said, with
scorn and indignation which well became
him, that this was a strange sort
of conversion. But James was more easily
satisfied. The apostates presented
themselves at Whitehall, and there
received such assurances of his favour, that they ventured
to bring direct charges against the
Treasurer. Those charges, however,
were so evidently frivolous that James was forced to
acquit the accused minister; and many
thought that the Chancellor had
ruined himself by his malignant eagerness to ruin his rival.
There were a few, however, who judged more
correctly. Halifax, to whom Perth
expressed some apprehensions, answered with a sneer
that there was no danger. "Be of good
cheer, my Lord; thy faith hath made
thee whole." The prediction was correct. Perth and
Melfort went back to Edinburgh, the real
heads of the government of their
country. Another member of the Scottish Privy
Council, Alexander Stuart, Earl of Murray,
the descendant and heir of the
Regent, abjured the religion of which his illustrious
ancestor had been the foremost champion,
and declared himself a member of
the Church of Rome. Devoted as Queensberry had always
been to the cause of prerogative, he could
not stand his ground against
competitors who were willing to pay such a price for the
favour of the court. He had to endure a
succession of mortifications and
humiliations similar to those which, about the
same time, began to embitter the life of
his friend Rochester. Royal letters
came down authorising Papists to hold offices
without taking the test. The clergy were
strictly charged not to reflect on
the Roman Catholic religion in their discourses. The
Chancellor took on himself to send the
macers of the Privy Council round
to the few printers and booksellers who could then
be found in Edinburgh, charging them not
to publish any work without his
license. It was well understood that this order was
intended to prevent the circulation of
Protestant treatises. One honest
stationer told the messengers that he had in his shop a
book which reflected in very coarse terms
on Popery, and begged to know
whether he might sell it. They asked to see it; and he
showed them a copy of the Bible. A cargo
of images, beads, crosses and
censers arrived at Leith directed to Lord Perth. The importation of
such articles had long been considered as illegal;
but now the officers of the customs
allowed the superstitious garments
and trinkets to pass. In a short time it was known
that a Popish chapel had been fitted up in
the Chancellor's house, and that
mass was regularly said there. The mob rose. The
mansion where the idolatrous rites were
celebrated was fiercely attacked.
The iron bars which protected the windows were wrenched
off. Lady Perth and some of her female
friends were pelted with mud. One
rioter was seized, and ordered by the Privy Council to
be whipped. His fellows rescued him and
beat the hangman. The city was all
night in confusion. The students of the University
mingled with the crowd and animated the
tumult. Zealous burghers drank the
health of the college lads and confusion to Papists,
and encouraged each other to face the
troops. The troops were already
under arms. They were received with a shower of stones,
which wounded an officer. Orders were
given to fire; and several citizens
were killed. The disturbance was serious; but the
Drummonds, inflamed by resentment and
ambition, exaggerated it strangely.
Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any
person, who had not been a witness of the
tumult, to believe that a sedition
as formidable as that of Masaniello had been raging at
Edinburgh. They in return accused the
Treasurer, not only of extenuating
the crime of the insurgents, but of having himself
prompted it, and did all in their power to
obtain evidence of his guilt. One
of the ringleaders, who had been taken, was offered a
pardon if he would own that Queensberry
had set him on; but the same
religious enthusiasm, which had impelled the unhappy
prisoner to criminal violence, prevented
him from purchasing his life by a
calumny. He and several of his accomplices were hanged.
A soldier, who was accused of exclaiming,
during the affray, that he should
like to run his sword through a Papist, was shot; and
Edinburgh was again quiet: but the
sufferers were regarded as martyrs;
and the Popish Chancellor became an object of mortal
hatred, which in no long time was largely
gratified.
The King was much incensed. The news of
the tumult reached him when the
Queen, assisted by the Jesuits, had just triumphed over
Lady Dorchester and her Protestant allies.
The malecontents should find, he
declared, that the only effect of the resistance
offered to his will was to make him more
and more resolute. He sent orders
to the Scottish Council to punish the guilty with the
utmost severity, and to make unsparing use
of the boot. He pretended to be
fully convinced of the Treasurer's innocence, and
wrote to that minister in gracious words;
but the gracious words were
accompanied by ungracious acts. The Scottish Treasury was put into
commission in spite of the earnest remonstrances of
Rochester, who probably saw his own fate
prefigured in that of his kinsman.
Queensberry was, indeed, named First
Commissioner, and was made President of
the Privy Council: but his fall,
though thus broken, was still a fall. He was also
removed from the government of the castle
of Edinburgh, and was succeeded in
that confidential post by the Duke of Gordon, a
Roman Catholic.
And now a letter arrived from London,
fully explaining to the Scottish
Privy Council the intentions of the King. What he wanted
was that the Roman Catholics should be
exempted from all laws imposing
penalties and disabilities on account of nonconformity,
but that the persecution of the
Covenanters should go on without
mitigation. This scheme encountered strenuous opposition in
the Council. Some members were unwilling
to see the existing laws relaxed.
Others, who were by no means averse to some relaxation,
yet felt that it would he monstrous to
admit Roman Catholics to the
highest honours of the state, and yet to leave unrepealed the
Act which made it death to attend a
Presbyterian conventicle. The
answer of the board was, therefore, less obsequious than usual.
The King in reply sharply reprimanded his
undutiful Councillors, and ordered
three of them, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George
Lockhart, and General Drummond, to attend
him at Westminster. Hamilton's
abilities and knowledge, though by no means such as
would have sufficed to raise an obscure
man to eminence, appeared highly
respectable in one who was premier peer of Scotland.
Lockhart had long been regarded as one of
the first jurists, logicians, and
orators that his country had produced, and enjoyed
also that sort of consideration which is
derived from large possessions; for
his estate was such as at that time very few
Scottish nobles possessed. He had been
lately appointed President of the
Court of Session. Drummond, a younger brother of
Perth and Melfort, was commander of the
forces in Scotland. He was a loose
and profane man: but a sense of honour which his two
kinsmen wanted restrained him from a
public apostasy. He lived and died,
in the significant phrase of one of his countrymen, a
bad Christian, but a good Protestant.
James was pleased by the dutiful language
which the three Councillors used
when first they appeared before him.
He spoke highly of them to Barillon, and
particularly extolled Lockhart as
the ablest and most eloquent Scotchman living. They
soon proved, however, less tractable than
had been expected; and it was
rumoured at court that they had been perverted by the company which
they had kept in London. Hamilton lived much with
zealous churchmen; and it might be feared
that Lockhart, who was related to
the Wharton family, had fallen into still worse
society. In truth it was natural that
statesmen fresh from a country
where opposition in any other form than that of
insurrection and assassination had long
been almost unknown, and where all
that was not lawless fury was abject submission, should
have been struck by the earnest and
stubborn, yet sober, discontent
which pervaded England, and should have been
emboldened to try the experiment of
constitutional resistance to the
royal will. They indeed declared themselves willing to grant
large relief to the Roman Catholics; but
on two conditions; first, that
similar indulgence should be extended to the
Calvinistic sectaries; and, secondly, that
the King should bind himself by a
solemn promise not to attempt anything to the
prejudice of the Protestant religion.
Both conditions were highly distasteful to
James. He reluctantly agreed,
however, after a dispute which lasted several days, that
some indulgence should be granted to the
Presbyterians but he would by no
means consent to allow them the full liberty which he
demanded for members of his own communion.
To the second condition proposed by
the three Scottish Councillors he
positively refused to listen. The Protestant religion, he said,
was false and he would not give any
guarantee that he would not use his
power to the prejudice of a false religion. The
altercation was long, and was not brought
to a conclusion satisfactory to
either party.
The time fixed for the meeting of the
Scottish Estates drew near; and it
was necessary that the three Councillors should leave
London to attend their parliamentary duty
at Edinburgh. On this occasion
another affront was offered to Queensberry. In the late
session he had held the office of Lord
High Commissioner, and had in that
capacity represented the majesty of the absent King. This
dignity, the greatest to which a Scottish
noble could aspire, was now
transferred to the renegade Murray.
On the twenty-ninth of April the
Parliament met at Edinburgh. A
letter from the King was read. He exhorted the Estates to give
relief to his Roman Catholic subjects, and
offered in return a free trade with
England and an amnesty for political offences. A
committee was appointed to draw up an
answer. That committee, though
named by Murray, and composed of Privy Councillors and
courtiers, framed a reply, full indeed of
dutiful and respectful expressions, yet clearly indicating a
determination to refuse what the
King demanded. The Estates, it was said, would go as far
as their consciences would allow to meet
His Majesty's wishes respecting his
subjects of the Roman Catholic religion. These
expressions were far from satisfying the
Chancellor; yet, such as they were,
he was forced to content himself with them, and even
had some difficulty in persuading the
Parliament to adopt them. Objection
was taken by some zealous Protestants to the mention
made of the Roman Catholic religion. There
was no such religion. There was an
idolatrous apostasy, which the laws punished with
the halter, and to which it did not become
Christian men to give flattering
titles. To call such a superstition Catholic was to
give up the whole question which was at
issue between Rome and the reformed
Churches. The offer of a free trade with England was
treated as an insult. "Our fathers," said
one orator, "sold their King for
southern gold; and we still lie under the reproach of
that foul bargain. Let it not be said of
us that we have sold our God!" Sir
John Lauder of Fountainhall, one of the Senators of the
College of Justice, suggested the words,
"the persons commonly called Roman
Catholics." "Would you nickname His Majesty?"
exclaimed the Chancellor. The answer drawn
by the committee was carried; but a
large and respectable minority voted against the
proposed words as too courtly. It was
remarked that the representatives
of the towns were, almost to a man, against the
government. Hitherto those members had
been of small account in the
Parliament, and had generally, been considered as the
retainers of powerful noblemen. They now
showed, for the first time, an
independence, a resolution, and a spirit of combination
which alarmed the court.
The answer was so unpleasing to James that
he did not suffer it to be printed
in the Gazette. Soon he learned that a law, such as
he wished to see passed, would not even be
brought in. The Lords of Articles,
whose business was to draw up the acts on which the
Estates were afterwards to deliberate,
were virtually nominated by
himself. Yet even the Lords of Articles proved refractory.
When they met, the three Privy Councillors
who had lately returned from London
took the lead in opposition to the royal
will. Hamilton declared plainly that he
could not do what was asked. He was
a faithful and loyal subject; but there was a limit
imposed by conscience. "Conscience!" said
the Chancellor: "conscience is a
vague word, which signifies any thing or
nothing." Lockhart, who sate in Parliament
as representative of the great
county of Lanark, struck in. "If conscience," he said,
"be a word without meaning, we will change
it for another phrase which, I hope, means something. For conscience
let us put the fundamental laws of
Scotland." These words raised a fierce
debate. General Drummond, who represented
Perthshire, declared that he agreed
with Hamilton and Lockhart. Most of the Bishops
present took the same side.
It was plain that, even in the Committee
of Articles, James could not
command a majority. He was mortified and irritated by the
tidings. He held warm and menacing
language, and punished some of his
mutinous servants, in the hope that the rest would take
warning. Several persons were dismissed
from the Council board. Several
were deprived of pensions, which formed an important part
of their income. Sir George Mackenzie of
Rosehaugh was the most
distinguished victim. He had long held the office of Lord
Advocate, and had taken such a part in the
persecution of the Covenanters that
to this day he holds, in the estimation of the
austere and godly peasantry of Scotland, a
place not far removed from the
unenviable eminence occupied by Claverhouse. The legal
attainments of Mackenzie were not of the
highest order: but, as a scholar, a
wit, and an orator, he stood high in the opinion of
his countrymen; and his renown had spread
even to the coffeehouses of London
and the cloisters of Oxford. The remains
of his forensic speeches prove him to have
been a man of parts, but are
somewhat disfigured by what he doubtless considered as
Ciceronian graces, interjections which
show more art than passion, and
elaborate amplifications, in which epithet rises
above epithet in wearisome climax. He had
now, for the first time, been found
scrupulous. He was, therefore, in spite of all
his claims on the gratitude of the
government, deprived of his office.
He retired into the country, and soon after went up to
London for the purpose of clearing
himself, but was refused admission
to the royal presence. While the King was thus
trying to terrify the Lords of Articles
into submission, the popular voice
encouraged them to persist. The utmost exertions of
the Chancellor could not prevent the
national sentiment from expressing
itself through the pulpit and the press. One tract,
written with such boldness and acrimony
that no printer dared to put it in
type, was widely circulated in manuscript. The papers
which appeared on the other side of the
question had much less effect,
though they were disseminated at the public charge, and
though the Scottish defenders of the
government were assisted by an
English auxiliary of great note, Lestrange, who had been sent
down to Edinburgh, and had apartments in
Holyrood House.
At length, after three weeks of debate,
the Lords of Articles came to a decision. They proposed merely that
Roman Catholics should be permitted
to worship God in private houses without
incurring any penalty; and it soon
appeared that, far as this measure
was from coming up to the King's demands and
expectations, the Estates either would not
pass it at all, or would pass it
with great restrictions and modifications.
While the contest lasted the anxiety in
London was intense. Every report,
every line, from Edinburgh was eagerly devoured. One day
the story ran that Hamilton had given way
and that the government would carry
every point. Then came intelligence that the
opposition had rallied and was more
obstinate than ever. At the most
critical moment orders were sent to the post-office that the
bags from Scotland should be transmitted
to Whitehall. During a whole week
not a single private letter from beyond the Tweed was
delivered in London. In our age such an
interruption of communication would
throw the whole island into confusion: but
there was then so little trade and
correspondence between England and
Scotland that the inconvenience was probably much smaller
than has been often occasioned in our own
time by a short delay in the
arrival of the Indian mail. While the ordinary channels of
information were thus closed, the crowd in
the galleries of Whitehall observed
with attention the countenances of the King
and his ministers. It was noticed, with
great satisfaction, that, after
every express from the North, the enemies of the Protestant
religion looked more and more gloomy. At
length, to the general joy, it was
announced that the struggle was over, that the
government had been unable to carry its
measures, and that the Lord High
Commissioner had adjourned the Parliament.
If James had not been proof to all
warning, these events would have
sufficed to warn him. A few months before this time the most
obsequious of English Parliaments had
refused to submit to his pleasure.
But the most obsequious of English Parliaments might be
regarded as an independent and high
spirited assembly when compared
with any Parliament that had ever sate in Scotland; and
the servile spirit of Scottish Parliaments
was always to be found in the
highest perfection, extracted and condensed, among the
Lords of Articles. Yet even the Lords of
Articles had been refractory. It
was plain that all those classes, all those
institutions, which, up to this year, had
been considered as the strongest
supports of monarchical power, must, if the King
persisted in his insane policy, be
reckoned as parts of the strength
of the opposition. All these signs, however, were lost
upon him. To every expostulation he had
one answer: he would never give way; for concession had ruined his
father; and his unconquerable
firmness was loudly applauded by the French embassy
and by the Jesuitical cabal.