# Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 3/Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.
REIGN OF JAMES II. (Continued).
James was determined to push forward his schemes for the restoration of Romanism in defiance of every long-cherished prejudice of the public, and of every constitutional principle. Besides the conversions which interest had made amongst the courtiers, there were a few other persons of more or less distinction who for royal favour had apostatised, but the number was most insignificant. The earl of Peterborough, and the earl of Salisbury, the descendant of Cecil, Elizabeth's minister, had embraced Catholicism, and amongst literary men some half dozen. There was Wyeherley, the ​obscene dramatist, Haines, a low comedian, and Tindal, who afterwards became a professed deist; but the most remarkable and deplorable instance was that of the poet Dryden. Dryden had sufficiently degraded Ms fine talents by plays and other compositions which could not be read now without a blush; but his compliance with the impure taste of the age had not enriched him. He enjoyed a pension of one hundred pounds a year from Charles, but that expired with Charles, and James, on renewing it, withdrew the usual butt of sack which accompanied it. After that no further notice was taken of the poet who had rendered such services to the royal cause, and, pressed by his needs, Dryden declared himself a papist, and was speedily rewarded by royal notice and emolument. Henceforward his pen was employed to defend the royal religion, and the most remarkable result of his labour remains in his celebrated poem of "The Hind and Panther."
Slight as were these triumphs over the steadfast minds of Englishmen, James began now to be aware that he must win over bodies which he really hated, and had hitherto persecuted with all his might, if he meant to succeed. We have had occasion to relate the horrible cruelties and sanguinary ferocity with which he had pursued the covenanters in Scotland and the puritans in England, but he now deemed it necessary to pretend himself their friend. The church had so uniformly and vehemently proclaimed the doctrine of non-resistance, that he imagined he was pretty sure of it; but in Scotland and England the nonconformists were a numerous and sturdy race, and danger from them might be apprehended in case Romanism was too exclusively reinstated. He therefore concluded to make his approaches to this object by feigning a love of religious liberty. He commenced first in Scotland by issuing a declaration of indulgence, on the 12th of February, 1687, but with an avowal of absolutism and a niggardly concession of religious liberty, which were not likely to be very gratefully received by the Scotch. "We, by our sovereign authority, prerogative royal and absolute power, do hereby give and grant our royal toleration. We allow and tolerate the modern presbyterians to meet in their private houses, and to hear such ministers as have been or are willing to accept of our indulgence; but they are not to build meeting-houses, but to exercise in houses. We tolerate quakers to meet in their form in any place or places appointed for their worship; and we, by our sovereign authority, suspend, stop, and disable all laws and acts of parliament made and executed against any of our Roman catholic subjects, so that they shall be free to exercise their religion and to enjoy all; but they are to exercise in houses or chapels; and we cass, disannul, and discharge all oaths by which our subjects are disabled from holding offices."
Thus James had declared himself absolute, above all laws, and at liberty to discharge any act of parliament. The same breath which gave a decree of religious liberty, annihilated every other liberty, and made the whole nation dependent on the will of one man. But whilst thus sweeping away all the labours of all past parliaments at his pleasure, he, with an inconsistency which betrayed a secret feeling that the power of parliament was not so easily set aside, even then contemplated calling parliament together if he could have but a prospect that it would confirm what he had done in Scotland, and proposed immediately to do in England. He therefore commenced a system of what has been called "closetings." He sent for the tory members of parliament, who were in town, one by one, and taking them into his closet at Whitehall, tried by personal persuasions and by bribes—for though dreadfully penurious, he now all at once became liberal of promises, and tolerably liberal of money—and entreated the members to oblige him by voting for the abolition of the laws against catholics, which he told them had been, in truth, directed against himself; and whilst he promised, he threatened, too, in case his wishes were not complied with. Whilst he made this experiment in town, the judges now on circuit were ordered to send for the members in the country to the different county towns, and use the same persuasions. The result was by no means satisfactory. If there was one feeling stronger than another which had taken possession of the public mind, it was, then and long after, that the catholics were not to be trusted with power, and that to grant them opportunity would be to restore the horrors of queen Mary's days. James himself met with some signal rebuffs, and in every instance he dismissed the refusers from any office that they held; amongst them Herbert, master of the robes, and rear-admiral of England.
As no good was to be obtained from parliament, he at once prorogued it again till November, declaring that he would grant toleration on his own authority; and on the 8th of April he issued his "Declaration of Indulgence for England." This declaration, though in not quite positive and reiterated terms, declared the same principle of absolutism, and independence of parliament. "We have thought fit, by virtue of our royal prerogative, to issue forth this our declaration of indulgence, making no doubt of the concurrence of our two houses of parliament when we shall think it convenient for them to meet." He made no secret in it of Wishing to see catholicism the religion of the land; but, as the people did not seem willing to accept it, he had resolved to give to all professions of religion the same freedom. He talked like a philosopher about the virtues and justice of entire toleration, and the impolicy as well as injustice of persecution—conveniently ignoring that his practice, whenever he had had the power, had been in direct opposition to these smooth maxims. He not only then proceeded to abolish all the penal acts which had ever been passed, giving free right of worship, public or private, to all denominations, but denounced the utmost vengeance of the laws against any one who should disturb any congregation or person in the exercise of their religion. The substance of the declaration was admirable; it was so because it was the Christian truth; but the deed had two defects, and they were fatal ones. It was granted at the expense of the whole constitution; and to admit that it was valid was to abandon Magna Charta, and the Petition of Rights, and accept instead the arbitrary will of the monarch. The second and equally fatal objection was that every one knew, from James's practice, and his proved deceitfulness, and his obstinate persistency, that the whole was but a snare to introduce Romanism, and then tread down every other form of religion. James boasted to the pope's nuncio that the ​declaration would be a great blow, and that in a general liberty of conscience the Anglican church would go down, for persecution of the dissenters would then be revenged upon her, and, unsupported by the crown, she would meet with deserved contempt. And, had the toleration been legitimately obtained and guaranteed, after the servile conduct of the church at that time, this might have been the case. The dissenters had every reason to be thankful for toleration. They had been trodden down by the Anglican hierarchy; they had been dragged before the arbitrary High Commission, and plundered and imprisoned at pleasure. The bishops had supported every unrighteous act against them—the conventicle acts, the test act, the five-mile act, the act of uniformity; and now they could enjoy their property, the peace of their firesides, their liberty, and their worship in the open sight of God and man. These were great boons, and, therefore, a great number of nonconformists expressed their gratitude for them. The quakers in particular sent up a grateful address, which was presented by Penn with an equally warm speech; but both they and the other dissenters restricted themselves to thanking James for the ease they enjoyed, without going into the question of his right to grant it. Some few individuals, in their enthusiasm, or worked upon by the court, went beyond this; but the general body of the nonconformists were on their guard, and some of the most eminent leaders refused even to address the king in acknowledgment of the boon. Amongst these were Baxter, who had been so ignominiously treated by Jeffreys; Howe, who had had to flee abroad, and Bunyan, who had suffered twelve years' imprisonment for his faith; they boldly reminded their followers of the unconstitutional and, therefore, insecure basis on which the relief rested; that a protestant successor might come—even if before that popery, grown strong, had not crushed them—and again subject them to the harsh dominance of the Anglican hierarchy.
No exertions were omitted to induce the dissenters to send up addresses; and they were actively canvassed by members of their different bodies, as Carr, Alsop, Lobb, and Rosewell, the last of whom was liberated from prison for the purpose. James took care to throw all the blame of the past persecutions on the church, which, he said, had been at the bottom of all those councils. The church, on the other hand, deserted by the crown, retorted the accusation, and attributed every act of persecution to the government, to which it professed unwillingly to have submitted. Thus was soon the edifying sight of the two arch-oppressors quarrelling, and in their mutual recriminations letting out the confession that they both knew very well how base and un-Christian their conduct had been.
But there was a third party to which all alike looked with anxiety in this crisis, and this consisted of William of Orange and his wife. As protestants, and the probable successors of James, if they approved of the indulgence, they would greatly strengthen the king; if they disapproved it altogether, it would give a great shock to the protestant interest in England. But William was too politic not to see all the bearings of the question, and he and the princess jointly avowed their entire approval of complete toleration of all phases of the Christian religion, but their disapproval of the illegal means by which James aimed to effect it, and of catholics being admitted to place and power. These were precisely the views of the great majority of Englishmen; and accordingly James sunk still deeper in public odium on this publication, and William and Mary rose in popularity. They seized the opportunity to organise a most powerful party in their favour, and thus pave the way to an accession to the throne, which their sagacity assured them would much sooner arrive than the natural demise of the king. It has been a common subject of censure on Mary that she so readily united in a plan to drive her father from the throne; but the course of this history will greatly extenuate, if not entirely excuse, her conduct. So long as the policy of James promised a continuance of his power, no steps were taken by Mary to supersede him; so soon as it became evident that no earthly power, to say nothing of justice or right, could keep him on the throne, it became a mere act of prudence to take care that no alien interest usurped her own. We shall see that James did contemplate entirely setting aside his legitimate issue in favour of an illegitimate son, and with the intention to permanently destroy protestantism. That Mary contemplated or committed any act of personal cruelty or harshness towards her father anything further than securing her succession against an intruder, remains to be shown. Her husband, with all his virtues, was not proof against allowing if not perpetrating questionable acts, as has been and will be soon; and he was so jealous of his own dignity and power, that he for years in secret brooded in gloomy discontent on the prospect of Mary's succession to the crown of England without his having any claim to share it, not even communicating his splenetic feeling to her. But this secret was penetrated by Burnet, explained to Mary, and, through her generosity, at once the difficulty was dissipated by her engaging to admit him to a full share of her hereditary authority. From that moment William redoubled his zeal to secure the succession; but there is no question that Mary exerted her filial regard to secure her father against any personal injustice, as the event showed.
William now dispatched to England orders to his ambassador, Dykvelt, to use his endeavours to knit up the different sections of the discontented into one paramount interest in his favour. The scattered elements of an overwhelming power lay around the throne, which James, by his blind folly and tyranny, had made hostile to himself, and prepared ready to the hand of a master to combine for his destruction. Danby, who had fallen in the late reign for his opposition to the French influence, and who had been the means of uniting Mary to William, had regained extensive influence amongst both tories and whig:, and was driven by James into determined opposition. Halifax, who had been the chief champion of James's accession by opposing the exclusion bill, and whose dangerous eloquence made him especially formidable, had been dismissed and neglected by him; Finch, earl of Nottingham, a zealous tory and churchman, and one of the most powerful orators of the house of lords, he made his enemy by his dismissal of his younger brother from the post of solicitor-general for not acquiescing in the king's dispensing powers, and by his attacks on the church and the constitution; the earl of Devonshire he had managed, by imprisonment and a monstrous fine, equally to disgust; and ​the earl of Bedford he had still more immediately driven from him by his execution of his son, lord Russell. Compton, the bishop of London; Herbert, lately rear-admiral of England; Clarendon, Rochester, Lumley, Shrewsbury, had all, by a most insensate folly, been alienated by dismission and private injuries. There was not a man of any talent or influence that this insane tyrant had not driven from him in insobstinate resolve to set Romanism and despotism along with him on the throne, except lord Churchill, upon whom he continued to heap favours, but who was too worldly-wise not to see that his benefactor was running headlong to ruin, and to make up his mind not to share his ruin, out of gratitude. Dykvelt executed his mission so well, that in four months he returned to the Hague with a packet of letters in his possession from all those noblemen, bishops, and others, including admiral Russell, the cousin of the decapitated lord Russell, promising William their most enthusiastic support. From the princess Anne, who was bound up heart and soul with Churchill and his clever wife—afterwards the celebrated Sarah, duchess of Marlborough—her sister Mary also received the most cordial assurances that nothing should induce her to abandon her religion, or her attachment to her sister's rights.
Dykvelt returned from England on the 9th of June; and, to continue the effect produced in that country, on the 8th of August another agent in the person of general Zulestein was dispatched thither. His ostensible mission was to offer an address of condolence on the death of the queen's mother, the duchess of Modena; but his real one was to strengthen the connection with the malcontents, which he could the more unsuspectedly do from his military character, and from his having taken no particular part in diplomacy. Zulestein was completely successful; but all these proceedings could not entirely escape James or his envoy at the Hague, the catholic marquis of Abbeville, who succeeded in getting Burnet, the active adviser of William, removed from open intercourse with the court. But Burnet was still not far off, and through his chief counsellors, Bentinck and Halweyn, William still consulted with him on every step of the plans regarding England. James also sought to reach William through Stewart, a Scottish lawyer, who had fled from his persecutions of the covenanters to the Hague, but who, on the appearance of the declaration of indulgence, most suddenly went to the king's side, in hopes of promotion. Stewart wrote a letter to Fagel, the grand pensionary, who had great influence with William, which he confessed was at the suggestion of the king, strongly urging him to use his power with William to persuade him to support James's act; but Fagel, with a dexterous policy, replied in another letter, stating that the prince and princess were advocates for the most ample toleration, but not for the abolition of the test, or of any other act having the inviolability of the Anglican church for its object. This was calculated to satisfy the catholics of every privilege which they could reasonably expect from the laws and the public opinion of England, whilst it fully assured the church of its safety under William and Mary.
Every fresh movement thus contributed to strengthen the position of William, and to show to James, had he had sufficient mind to comprehend it, how completely his conduct had deprived him of the confidence of his subjects. Even the pope took no pains to conceal how suicidal he deemed his policy. He would have sufficiently rejoiced in any rational prospect of the return of England to the church of Rome, but he was not dull enough to imagine the sentiment of the king the sentiment of the nation; on the contrary, he was persuaded that the rash cabals of the Jesuits were inevitably hastening a crisis which must the more deeply root the Anglican antipathy to popery. James had dispatched Castlemaine as ambassador to Rome, with a splendid retinue. It was not enough that this open affront was done to his country by sending a catholic ambassador to the pope, and in the person, too, of a man who had no distinction except the disgraceful one of having purchased his title by the prostitution of his wife; but Castlemaine was deputed to solicit a dispensation from Innocent for father Petre to receive the episcopal dignity, which was forbidden to a Jesuit. James contemplated nothing less than making Petre archbishop of York, which see he kept vacant for the purpose; but the pope was too much at enmity with the Jesuits, as well as with James for his impolitic conduct, and his alliance with the great French aggressor, to concede any such favour. Castlemaine, who was living in great pomp at Rome, threatened to take his departure if this request was not granted, and Innocent only sarcastically replied by bidding him start in the cool of the morning, and take care of his health on the journey.
This discourtesy shown him by the head of that religion for which he was putting everything to the hazard, had, however, only the effect of further raising the pugnacity of James. He determined only the more to honour and exalt popery in England. The nuncio, Adda, had been made archbishop of Amasia—a mere title of honour, in consequence of James's desire that he should be publicly acknowledged at his court. Hitherto both he and the vicar-apostolic, Leyburn, had been instructed by the papal court to keep a careful incognito; but James would no longer consent to this; and, accordingly, on the 1st of May, 1686, Adda had been publicly consecrated at Whitehall, by the titular archbishop of Ireland, assisted by Leyburn, the vicar-apostolic. In the evening of that day the nuncio was received into the royal circle, in the queen's apartments; and James shocked and disgusted his courtiers by falling on his knees before him and imploring his blessing. It was the first time that an English court had seen their monarch, for a very long period, doing homage at the feet of a papal nuncio, and the effect was humiliating. On the 3rd of July the nuncio was favoured with a public reception at Windsor. He went thither attended by a numerous procession of the ministers and of officials of the court, and was conveyed in a royal coach, wearing a purple robe, and a brilliant cross upon his breast. In his train was seen with surprise and contempt the equipages of Crewe, bishop of Durham, and Cartwright, bishop of Chester. The duke of Somerset, as first lord of the bed-chamber, was expected to introduce him; but he declined, representing the penalties to which the act would expose him. This refusal was the less expected, because he had not objected to carry the sword of state before his majesty when the king had gone to the royal papal chapel. James was indignant. "I thought," he said, "that I was doing you a great honour by appointing you to escort the ​minister of the first of all crowned heads." Somerset, moved to a firmness of demeanour and language unusal even in him, declared that he dared not break the law. James replied, "I will make you fear me as well as the law. Do you not know that I am above the law?" "Your majesty," replied Somerset, with commingled dignity and affected humility, "may be above the law, but I am not; and I am only safe while I obey the law." The king, not used to being thwarted, much less to language of so plain a sort, turned from him in a rage, and the next day issued a decree depriving him of his posts in the household and of his command in the guards.
Earl of Shrewsbury and other nobles dispatching their proposals to the Prince of Orange.
This most impolitic conduct James followed, on the 1st of February of the present year, by a still more absurd and ludicrous, but equally mischievous reception. It was that of Cocker, an English Benedictine monk, who, being more deeply implicated in treason than his friends cared to confess, had narrowly escaped with his life in the trials of the popish plot. This man the elector of Cologne had appointed his resident at the English court—probably at the suggestion of James, and in defiance of public opinion; and James now insisted that he should receive a public introduction to court, in the habit of his order, and attended by six other monks in a like costume. Thus James took a pleasure in violating the laws and insulting public opinion at every turn, to show that he was independent of both; and he now prepared to commence in earnest the destruction of the church.
Before advancing to this dangerous experiment, however, he deemed it necessary to tighten the discipline of the army, which had shown no little disgust of his proceedings, and left it doubtful whether it would stand by him in the momentous crisis.
Many of James's soldiers had deserted, and it was found ​that they were under no oath or obligation which rendered such desertion liable to serious punishment. But James determined to punish them, even condignly, in order to strike a sufficient terror into the whole army. He consulted the judges as to whether he did not possess this power; they said that he did not. Instead of accepting this answer, James dismissed Herbert, the chief justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Holt, another judge of the same bench and recorder of London, and put in their places Sir Robert Wright, a creature of Jeffreys', a man of ruined and base character, Richard Allibone, and Sir Bartholomew Shower as recorder. With these infamous instruments he went to work; and, instead of trying the offenders by court-martial, he brought them before these men in the King's Bench and in the Old Bailey, and hanged them in sight of their regiments. By these outrages on every law and principle of constitutional safety James thought he had terrified the army into obedience; and he now attacked the very existence of the universities, in order to give the education of the country into the hands of popery.
James commenced his encroachments on the universities by ordering one Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to be admitted a master of arts in that of Cambridge. That many persons not strictly admissible by the rules of the university had received honorary degrees, including foreigners of different forms of faith, and even a Turk, was indisputable; but the object of these favours was so clear that no mischief could arise from the practice. But now the universities were but too well aware that James aimed at a thorough usurpation of these schools by the catholics, to lightly pass the matter by. The heads of colleges sent hastily to Albemarle, their chancellor, begging him to explain to the king that the person named could not be admitted according to the statutes; at the same time they conceded so far as to offer to admit Francis on his taking the oaths of supremacy and obedience. He refused. James menaced the authorities, but in vain, and he summoned them before the High Commission Court. John Pechell, the vice-chancellor of the university, attended by eight fellows, including tin illustrious Isaac Newton—afterwards Sir Isaac—appeared, and were received by Jeffreys with all his devilish bluster. Pechell was soon terrified at this most brutal monster, whose employment alone would have sufficiently stamped the character of James; and, when any of the other fellows attempted to speak, Jeffreys roared out, "You are not vice-chancellor; when you are, you may talk; till then, hold your tongue." Finding, however, that, though he could embarrass, he could not bend the vice-chancellor, Jeffreys, by order of James, declared Pechell dismissed from the office of vice-chancellor, and all his emoluments suspended. This was a gross violation of the rights of the university, and Jeffreys added to the outrage a piece of his usually blasphemous advice to the fellows—" Go your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall you."
The decease of the president of Magdalene College, Oxford, enabled James to follow up his plans without loss of time. Magdalene was one of the very richest of the English foundations, and consisted of a president, forty fellows, and thirty scholars, called Demies. It was the law of the foundation that the president could only be elected from those who were or had been members of that college, or of New College. The president died in March, 1687, and the 13th of April was fixed for the election of the new one. A Dr. Smith, a learned orientalist, and an enthusiastically loyal man, applied for the royal consent, but was informed that the king was determined to give it only to one of his own religion; and, to the astonishment and disgust of the college, one Anthony Farmer was named as the royal nominee. The choice seemed made to insult the university in the highest degree possible, for not only was Farmer a popish convert, but a man of the most drunken, debauched, and infamous character who could have been picked from the vilest haunts of unameable wickedness. The astounded fellows humbly but earnestly remonstrated, but in vain. On the appointed day, spite of the king's positive injunctions, and the presence of his agent, the choice fell on a distinguished and highly virtuous member of the college, John Hough.
The irate king summoned the fellows before the beastly Jeffreys and the High Commission, as he had summoned the heads of the university of Cambridge. There Jeffreys exhibited his constant display of insufferable Billingsgate; and when Dr. Fairfax, one of the fellows, had the boldness to call in question the legality of the High Commission, he lost all patience. "Who is this man? What commission has he to be impudent here? Seize him; put him into a dark room. What does he do without a keeper? He is under my care as a lunatic. I wonder nobody has applied to me for the custody of him." But, after all, the character of Farmer was shown to be so vilely reprobate, that he was dropped, and the college ordered to receive Dr. Parker, bishop of Oxford.
Parker was not an openly acknowledged papist, but was understood to be really one; but he was neither a fellow of Magdalene nor New College, and the fellows were firm enough to stand by their own election of Dr. Hough. James determined to go in person to Oxford and overawe these obstinate men; and he was the more bent upon it, having in the meantime suffered a similar defeat in endeavouring to force a catholic into the hospital connected with the Charterhouse school. The trustees refused, and were called before Jeffreys. There he began browbeating the master, Thomas Burnet, but was unexpectedly opposed by the venerable duke of Ormond. At this the bully swagger of this most hideous and contemptible judge that ever sat on a bench at once gave way, for he had no real courage. He stole from the court, and the scheme failed for the day. But the High Commission having sentenced Hough to be deposed from the presidentship of Magdalene, and Fairfax from his fellowship, again met, and summoned the trustees of the Charterhouse. Here again they were awed by a letter addressed to the king, signed by the trustees, including the names of Ormond, Halifax, Danby, and Nottingham, the chiefs of all the great parties who secured to James his crown, and still by their forbearance kept it on his head, so that they were compelled to pause before proceeding further.
On the 16th of August James set out on a progress, with every display of royal state which could impress on the minds of his subjects an idea of his kingly security. He proceeded to Portsmouth, Southampton, Bath; thence by Gloucester and Worcester to Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Chester; whence ​he again turned south, and reached Oxford on the 3rd of September. Everywhere he had been attended by the high sheriffs of the counties with splendid retinues; and the clergy in the towns had flocked around him in great numbers, though he continued on his progress to neglect their preaching for mass. If outward circumstances could be relied on, it might have been supposed that the king had never been more popular: and, with all the prestige of this tour, he summoned the refractory fellows of Magdalene before him, and rated them soundly on their disobedience. They knelt and offered him a petition, but he haughtily refused to look at it, bidding them go that instant and elect the bishop of Oxford, or expect his high displeasure. But the fellows could not be thus brought to submission, and James quitted the town in high dudgeon.
At this crisis comes in one more of the persevering calumnies of Macaulay on William Penn, which are the more remarkable from an historian whose grandfather was dismissed from the Society of Friends, and who was himself ejected from the representation of Edinburgh chiefly by the agency of members of that society. In noting this first instance of his animosity, we once for all are contented to state that, without following his continual attacks on the Society of Friends, we have examined them, and find them groundless. In this case Macaulay states that James engaged Penn to write a letter to the fellows, and afterwards to make them a visit, to persuade them to admit Parker. Macaulay declares that Penn never denied the writing of this letter—an assertion quite contrary to the fact; the copy of the proceedings still preserved at Magdalene bearing on this very letter this endorsement—"Mr. Penn disowned this." So far from Penn being engaged by the king, too, to persuade the fellows, they declare that they solicited his good offices; and a deputation of them even went from Oxford to Windsor to have an interview with him on the subject; and Dr. Hough himself, in a letter still preserved in the British Museum, says, "I thank God he did not so much as offer at any proposal by way of accommodation." These words themselves throw down the whole fabric of Macaulay's calumnious charges on this head; and with this, though often occurring, we may dismiss them.
On the 20th of October James sent down a special commission, consisting of Cartwright, bishop of Chester, Wright, chief justice of the King's Bench, and Jenner, a baron of the exchequer, attended by three troops of cavalry with drawn swords, to Oxford, to expel Hough and install Parker. Parker was installed, but the fellows would not acknowledge him. James, therefore, ejected them altogether. In a few weeks Parker died, and then he proceeded to put the whole college into the hands of papists, appointing Gifford, one of the four vicars-apostolic, president: for now, in the regular progress of his system, James had admitted four vicars-apostolic here, instead of one, which had been the case before. It may be imagined what resentment this arbitrary proceeding occasioned, not only in the universities themselves, but amongst the clergy in every quarter of the kingdom, who now saw that nothing would deter the king from uprooting the deepest foundations of the church.
Still more daring and atrocious schemes were agitated by James and his popish cabal. Soon after his accession it had been proposed to set aside the claims of the princess of Orange, and make Anne heir-apparent on condition that she embraced popery. Anne utterly refused. It was then proposed to make over Ireland to Louis of France in case Mary of Orange could not be prevented succeeding to England; and Louis expressed his assent to the proposal. Tyrconnel was to make all necessary preparations for this traitorous transfer. But at this moment a new light broke on James, which quashed these unnatural and unnational projects: the queen was declared pregnant.
The news of this prospect was received by the public with equal incredulity and suspicion. The queen had had several children, who had died in their infancy; and there was nothing improbable in the expectation of another child, although five years had elapsed since her last confinement. But what excited the ridicule and the suspicion was the obvious interest of the king to have an heir who might be educated in popery, and the foolish prophecies and assertions of the Jesuit cabal about the court. The Jesuits had unfortunately only too notoriously in their writing sanctioned any fraud for gaining their ends, and it was now immediately believed that they had a scheme for foisting a false heir on the country. The queen's mother, the duchess of Modena, before her death, had sent rich offerings to our lady of Loretto, imploring a male heir for James; and this pious monarch himself, on his late progress, had visited St. Winifred's Well, and put up similar earnest petitions to that saint. The Jesuits and other catholics about court propagated the most extraordinary prophecies of a fine, healthy son who was to arrive, and not only of a son, but of twin sons, the second of whom was to be pope of Rome. The consequence was that the whole story was treated with the utmost ridicule by every class throughout the country. The princess of Orange, so far from betraying any alarm on the subject, joined in and encouraged the ridicule; and her sister Anne, the princess of Denmark, wrote letters so plain and even gross, that they cannot now be read without wonder. Anne contended that, if the queen was really pregnant, she would be glad to convince her by an actual personal examination, but that, on the contrary, she avoided letting her see her undress; and she declared that she would never believe the story unless she saw the child born.
The prospect of an heir, however, true or false, drove James on further and more desperate projects. Should a son be born, and live, which none of the queen's children had done hitherto, the popish heir would be exposed to the danger of a long minority. James might be called away before the son had been firmly rooted in the catholic faith, and the protestant bishops and nobles would surround him with protestant instructors, and most likely ruin all James's plans, of perpetuating popery. To obviate this, he determined to have an act of parliament, settling the form of the child's guardianship and education, and vesting all the necessary powers in catholic hands. Any prudent man would at least have waited to see the birth and probable life of the child before rushing on so desperate a scheme; for, to have an act, he must call a parliament; and to call a parliament under the present feeling of the nation was to bring together one of the most determinedly-protestant assemblies of men that had ever been seen. But James was of that mole-eyed, ​bigot character which goes headlong on the most perilous issues. He determined to pack a parliament by means which none but a madman would have attempted. Whether from county or borough, he could expect nothing but a most obstinate and universal demonstration in favour of the church and constitution. His brother Charles, for his own purposes, had deprived the towns of their charters, because they were whig, and often nonconformist, and had given them others, which put them into the hands of the tories and churchmen; and these were the very men who now would resist James's plans to the death. The country were equally church and tory, but all this did not daunt James. He determined to remodel the corporations, and to change every magistrate in the counties that were not ready to carry out his views. He appointed a board of regulators at Whitehall, to examine into the state of the corporations, and introduce new rules and new men as they thought fit. These regulators were seven in number, and all catholics and Jesuits, except the king's incarnate devil, Jeffreys. These men appointed deputations of chosen tools to visit the different corporations, and report to them; and James issued a proclamation, announcing his intention to revise the commissions of the peace, and of the lieutenancy of counties. In fact, James proceeded like a man who was satisfied that he could do just as he pleased with the constitution of a country which, through all ages, had shown itself more jealous of its constitution than any other in the world.
He sent for the lords-lieutenants, and delivered to them a paper of instructions, with which they were each to proceed to their several counties. They were to summon all the magistrates, and tell them what his majesty expected from them on the ensuing election of parliament, and to send him up their individual answers, along with the list of all the catholic and dissenting gentlemen who might take the place of those who should dare to object to the king's plans, on the bench or in the militia. The proposal was so audacious, that the greater proportion of the lords-lieutenants peremptorily refused to undertake any such commission; these included the noblest names in the peerage, and they were at once dismissed. The sweeping measure of turning out the duke of Somerset, the viscounts Newport and Falconberg, the earls of Derby, Dorset, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke, Rutland, Bridgewater, Thanet, Abingdon, Northampton, Scarsdale, Gainsborough, and many others, showed how far James was gone in his madness. As the king could not get any noblemen to take the places of the dismissed, he filled them up as he could, and even made his butcher, Jeffreys, lord-lieutenant of two counties. But all was in vain; he soon received answers from every quarter that the whole nation, town and country, absolutely refused to obey the king's injunctions. Even those who had gone most zealously to work were obliged to return with most disconsolate reports, and to assure the king that, if he turned out every magistrate and militia officer, the next would still vote against popery. Catholics and nonconformists, though glad of indulgence, would not consent to attempt measures which could only end in defeat and confusion. The nonconformists would not move a finger to endanger protestantism. It was the same in the corporations. Some of these James could deprive of their charters, for the new ones frequently contained a power of revocation; but when he had done this he found himself no forwarder, for the new ministers upon the points that he had at heart were as sturdy as the old. Other towns from which he demanded the surrender of their charters, refused. Wherever James could eject the church members of corporations he did, from London to the remotest borough, and put in presbyterians, independents, and baptists. It was perfectly useless; they were as protestant as the church. Even where he obtained a few truckling officials, they found it impossible to make the people vote as they wished; and in the counties the catholic or dissenting sheriffs were equally indisposed to press the government views, or unable to obtain them if they did. He changed the borough magistrates in some cases two or three times, but in vain. Some of the people in the towns did not content themselves with mere passive resistance; they loudly declared their indignation, and the tyrant marched soldiers in upon them; but only to hear them exclaim that James was imitating his dear brother of France, and dragonading the protestants.
Whilst these thing's were going on all over the country, James was putting on the same insane pressure in every public department of government. The heads of departments were called on to pledge themselves to support the wishes of the king, and to demand from their subordinates the same obedience. The refractory were dismissed, even to the highest law officers of the crown; and James demanded from the judges a declaration that even the Petition of Right could not bar the exercise of his prerogative; but the bench consulted in secret, and the result was never known. He even contemplated granting no licenses to inns, beer-houses or coffee-houses, without an engagement to support the king, spite of church or magistrate; but another of his measures now brought things to a crisis. James determined to make his intentions known for fully restoring popery by a new declaration of indulgence, in which he reminded his subjects of his determined character, and of the numbers of public servants that he had already dismissed for opposing his will. This declaration he published on the 27th of April, 1688, and he ordered the clergy to read it from all pulpits in London on the 20th and 27th of May, and in the country on the 3rd and 10th of June. This was calling on the bishops and clergy to practice their doctrine of non-resistance to some purpose; it was tantamount to demanding from them to co-operate in the overthrow of their own church. They were, as may be supposed, in an awful dilemma; and now was the time for the dissenters—whom they had so sharply persecuted and so soundly lectured on the duty of entire submission—to enjoy their embarrassment. But the dissenters were too generous, and had too much in common at stake. They met, and sent deputations to the clergy, and exhorted them to stand manfully for their faith, declaring that they would stand firmly by them. A meeting of the metropolitan clergy was called, at which were present Tillotson, Sherlock, Stillingfleet—great names—and others high in the church. They determined not to read the declaration on the 20th, and sent round a copy of the resolution through the city, where eighty-five incumbents immediately signed it.
The bishops meantime met at. Lambeth, and discussed the same question. Cartwright and Chester, one of the king's ​most servile tools, and a member of the High Commission, took care to he there, to inform the king of what passed; but during his stay nothing but a disposition to compliance appeared to prevail, and he hurried away to Whitehall with the news. No sooner, however, was he gone, than letters were secretly dispatched, summoning the bishops of the province of Canterbury; and another meeting took place on the 18th, or two days prior to the Sunday fixed for the further reading of the declaration. The bishops concluded not to read it, and six of them waited on the king with the written resolution. James was confounded, having assumed himself they meant to comply. He used the most menacing language, and declared that they had set up the standard of rebellion; and ordered them from his presence to go at once and see that he was obeyed. To prevent the publication of the resolution, he detained it; but that very evening it was printed and hawked through the streets, where it was received with acclamations by the people. Any but a mad bigot, seeing the feelings of the public, would have instantly revoked the declaration; but James was not that man. Sunday arrived, and, out of all the hundred churches, the declaration was only read in four, and with the effect of instantly clearing them, amid murmurs of indignation. Still it was not too late to recall the order in council; and even James himself, with all his folly and infatuation, was now staggered. It was strongly recommended in the council to abandon the declaration; but James listened to his evil genius, the brutal Jeffreys, and determined to bring the seven signing bishops to trial before the court of King's Bench, on a charge of seditious libel. The fatal counsel was adopted, and they were summoned to appear before the privy council on the 8th of June.
In the interval the bishops and clergy in all parts of England, with few exceptions, showed the same resolute spirit. The bishops of Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury, Winchester, Exeter, and London, signed copies of the same petition. The bishop of Carlisle regretted that, not belonging to the province of Canterbury, he could not do the same. The bishop of Worcester refused to distribute the declaration amongst his clergy; and the same spirit showed itself amongst the parochial clergy, who almost to a man refused to read it.
On the evening of the day appointed, the seven prelates, namely, Sancroft, the archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, attended the privy council. Jeffreys took up the petition, and, showing it to Sancroft, asked him if that was not the paper which he had written, and the six bishops present had signed. Sancroft and his colleagues had been well instructed by the ablest lawyers in England of the course they should pursue, and the dangers to be avoided. The primate, therefore, instead of acknowledging the paper, turned to the king and said—" Sir, I am called hither as a criminal, which I never was before; and, since I have that happiness, I trust your majesty will not be offended if I decline answering questions which may tend to incriminate me." "This is mere chicanery," said James. "I hope you will not disown your own handwriting." Lloyd of St. Asaph said that it was agreed by all divines that no man in their situation was obliged to answer any such question; but, as James still pressed for an answer, Sancroft observed that, though he were not bound to accuse himself, yet, if the king commanded it, he would answer, taking it for granted that his majesty would not take advantage to bring his admission there in evidence against him. James said he would not command him; but Jeffreys told them to withdraw for awhile, and when they were called back, James commanded the primate, and he acknowledged the writing. They were then again sent out, and, on coming back, were told by Jeffreys that they would be proceeded against, not before the High Commission, but, "with all fairness," before the King's Bench.
They were then called upon to enter into recognizances, but they refused, on the plea that they were peers of parliament, and that no peer of parliament could be required to enter into recognizances in ease of libel. This greatly disconcerted James, for it compelled him to send them to prison, and he justly feared the effect of it on the public. But there was no alternative; a warrant was signed for their commitment to the Tower, and they were sent thither in a barge.
The scene which immediately took place showed that James had at length a glimmering of the danger which he had raised. The whole river was crowded with wherries full of people, who crowded round the bishops to entreat their blessings, many rushing breast-high into the water to come near enough. James, in terror, ordered the garrison and guards of the Tower to be doubled; but the same spirit animated the soldiers, who knelt at the approach of the prelates, and also solicited their blessing. Presently the soldiers were found carousing to the health of their prisoners; and when Sir Edward Hales, who had been made lieutenant of the Tower for his going over to popery, desired the officers to put a stop to it, they returned and told him that it was impossible, for the soldiers would drink nobody's health but the bishops'. Every day the gates of the Tower were besieged by the equipages of the chief nobility. The very nonconformists came in bodies to condole with their old persecutors; and Tower Hill was one constant throng of people manifesting their sympathy.
Such were the miracles of resistance and all but revolt which the folly and insane bigotry of James had created out of the most obsequious aristocracy and hierarchy, which had done anything so long as he let alone the national church. Great praise has been heaped on the seven bishops; for their conduct on this occasion. It has been represented by the tory writers as if they, indeed, created and effected this mighty revolution. The revolution was the work of the Stuarts themselves, brought to a crisis by this most obstinate and tyrannic creature of the whole breed. It was not the effort of the bishops, or any respect personally for them; it was that James had made them and the existence of their church one and the same thing. The act of the bishops was but the natural instinct of self-preservation—an act in which they were fully supported by the aristocracy. That same aristocracy which had consented to assist in treading down the liberties of Scotland, Ireland, and the people of England, had now refused to go any further, because there was but one step betwixt them and the gulf of popery and a popish despotism, in which no man's person or property would be ​safe, in which there would be nothing but national and individual dishonour and degradation; and nothing in history is finer than the moral retribution, the poetical justice, of the state church and the state aristocracy being now driven into this cleft stick, and compelled to turn again and drive out the incorrigible tyrants whom they had so long flattered and assisted.
The vessel which brought over the Prince of Orange to England.
THE SEVEN BISHOPS.
Thus, on all occasions, the church had freely and fully surrendered to these arbitrary monarchs, as for as in them Jay, the rights and liberties of all England. They had done all that they could, for their own selfish aggrandisement, to overturn the constitution of their country; to lay it in eternal thraldom—and that in the sacred name of God—at the feet of the church and the king; and it was beautiful that it should come to this at last; it was beautiful that the universities, which had always been the great hotbeds and nurseries of toryism, and had been the most truculently officious in fanning these traitor-kings with the adulation of the non-resistance doctrine, which no religion, no law, no fault, or forfeiture in the monarch himself could alter or diminish—should be the first to be tasted by their divine-right king; and we believe that none would more fully admit the necessity and the salutary effect of the striking punishment of both universities and church than the majority of their ministers and sons at the present day.
Had James, indeed, had any deep insight into human nature, he would have known that, on being put to the test, they would act as Satan suggested to the Almighty in the book of Job:—"Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face."—i. 10, 11. James had now, by his insane and openly avowed resolve to overthrow both church, state, and protestantism together, completely flashed into the faces of the clergy and universities the suicidal folly of their doctrine, and combined all parties in one league of resistance. Whig and tory, peer and commoner, English, Scotch, and Irish, churchman and dissenter, forgot their differences in the common danger. The old combatants for party powers, the persecutors and the persecuted, coalesced, and showed one bold front to his usurpation. The bishops, who had uniformly hitherto been arrayed on the side of arbitrary power, were row converted into the most honoured of patriots, and elevated in the zeal of the people almost to adoration.
Two days only after the bishops were sent to the Tower, namely, the 10th of June, was announced what, under other circumstances, would have been a most auspicious event for James—the birth of an heir. But the nation was so full of suspicion, both of the monarch and the Jesuits that he had around him, that it would not credit the news that the healthy boy which was born was the actual child of James and his queen. It was certainly of the highest moment that James should have taken every precaution to have the birth verified beyond dispute; but in this respect he had been as singularly maladroit as in all his other affairs. As the protestants were, of course, highly suspicious, he should have had the usual number of protestant witnesses ready. But the queen, who sat playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight, was suddenly taken ill a month before the calculated time, and there was neither the princess Anne present—she was away at Bath—nor the archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch ambassador—whom it was so necessary to satisfy on behalf of the princess and prince of Orange—nor any of the Hyde family, not even the earl of Clarendon, the uncle of Mary and Anne. On the contrary, there were plenty of Jesuits, and the renegade noblemen, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland—who directly after avowed himself a catholic—Mulgrave, and others. The consequence was that the whole people declared the child spurious; that it had been introduced into the bed in a warming-pan; and when the public announcement was made, and a day of solemn thanksgiving was appointed, there was no rejoicing. Fireworks were let off by order of government; but the night was black and tempestuous, and flashes of lurid lightning paled the artificial fires, and made the people only the more firm in the belief that heaven testified against the imposture. And yet there was no imposture. There were some protestants present—sufficient to prevent any collusion, and particularly Dr. Chamberlain, the eminent accoucheur; but James, by his folly and tyranny, had deprived himself of the public confidence, and fixed on his innocent offspring a brand of disavowment, which clung to him and his fortunes, and has only been removed by the cooler judgment of recent times.
William of Orange sent over Zulestein to congratulate James on the birth of an heir; but that minister brought back the account that not one person in ten believed the child to be the queen's.
This fortunate event offered a fine opportunity for James retracing his steps, and winning back the good-will of the nation. He had only to liberate the bishops, and declare himself resolved to govern according to his coronation oath, and the heart of the nation would have flowed back to him. Such was the advice that his more prescient ministers gave to him—but in vain; his nature was capable of nothing so reasonable or politic. On the contrary, he took every little opportunity of further incensing his subjects and strengthening their alarms. He sent word to the chaplain of the Tower to read the Declaration of Indulgence during divine service on Sunday, though the day for its reading was long past; and, on the chaplain's refusal, he dismissed him. He boasted of the conversion of Sunderland, and saw with delight this wretched sycophant, to avoid losing his place, go barefooted, and with a taper in his hand, to the royal chapel, to be there received as a humble penitent into the bosom of the church; and when earnestly exhorted to make ​some concession, he haughtily replied, " No, I will go on. Concession ruined my father, and I have been only too indulgent."
On Friday, the 15th of June, the first day of term, the bishops were brought from the Tower to the King's Bench, and, pleading not guilty, they were admitted to bail till the 29th of June. During this fortnight the public excitement continued to augment, and from every quarter of the kingdom—even from the presbyterians of Scotland, who had shown themselves such determined opponents of prelacy, and had been such sufferers from it—came messages of sympathy and encouragement to the bishops. On that day immense crowds assembled to receive their blessings and to utter others on their way to Westminster Hall; and this homage was the warmer because the prelates had resisted the demand of Sir Edward Hales, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his fees, this renegade having shown them little courtesy, and who now plainly let them know that, if they came again into his hands, they should lie on the bare stones. Every means had been taken to pack a jury. Sir Samuel Astrey, the clerk of the crown, had been summoned to the palace, and been instructed by James and his great legal adviser, Jeffreys. The judges, too, were of the most base and complying character. They were such as had been raised from the very lowest ranks of the bar for their servile fitness, and because the more eminent lawyers would not stoop to such ignominy. They were Wright, Allibone, a papist; Holloway, and Powell; the attorney-general, Sir Thomas Powis, an inferior lawyer; the solicitor general, Sir William Williams, a man of ability and vigour, but rash, imperious, and unpopular. Hanged against these were the most brilliant lawyers of the time—Sawyer, and Finch, formerly attorney and solicitor-general; Pemberton, formerly chief justice: Maynard, Sir George Treby, who had been recorder of London, and others. The foreman of the jury was Sir Roger Langley. The very men who came forward to defend this cause showed that the undisguised public opinion made them daring. On the other side the judges, and even the blustering Jeffreys, betrayed a sense of terror.
The trial commenced at nine in the morning, and not till seven in the evening did the jury retire to consider their verdict. The lawyers for the prisoners raised great difficulties as to proving the handwriting of the libel, and next in proving its being published in Westminster. The crown lawyers were obliged to bring into court Blathwayt, a clerk of the privy council, for this object; and then the counsel for the prisoners stopped him, and compelled him to state what had passed there betwixt the bishops and the king—much to the chagrin of the government party. Before the publication could be proved, even Sunderland was obliged to be brought into court in a sedan. He was pale, trembled violently from fright and shame of his late apostacy, and gave his evidence with his eyes fixed on the ground. But even then, when the judges came to consider the bishops' petition, they were divided in opinion. Wright and Alibone declared it a libel, and contended for the royal right of the dispensing power; but Holloway conceded that the petition appeared to him perfectly allowable from subjects to their sovereign; and Powell set himself right with the public and wrong with the court—a significant sign—by boldly declaring both the dispensing power and the declaration of indulgence contrary to law.
With such sentiments developing themselves on the bench, there could be little doubt what the verdict would be; yet the jury sate all night, from seven o'clock till six the next morning, before they were fully agreed, there being, however, only three dissentients at first. When the court met at ten o'clock, the crowd, both within and without, was crushing and immense; and when the foreman pronounced the words "Not guilty," Halifax was the first to start up and wave his hat; and such a shout was sent up as was heard as far as Temple Bar. The news flew far and wide; the shouting and rejoicing broke out in every quarter of the town. The whole population, nobility, clergy, people, all seemed gone mad. There were more than sixty lords who had stood out the trial, and now threw money amongst the throngs as they drove away. The people formed a hue down to the water's edge, and knelt as the bishops passed through, asking their blessing. The attorney-general, Williams, was pursued in his coach with curses and groans; and Cartwright, the bishop of Chester, and James's tool of the High Commission, being descried, was hooted at as "That wolf in sheep's clothing!" and, as he was a very fat man, one cried, " Room for the man with the pope in his belly!"
The whole city was in an intoxication of delight. Bonfires were lit, guns fired, the bells rang all night, and the pope in effigy was burnt in several places—one before the door of Whitehall itself; another was kindled before the door of the earl of Salisbury, who had lately gone over to popery; and his servants, in their ill-timed zeal, rushing out to extinguish it, were attacked, and, firing on the people, killed the parish beadle, who was come to attempt what they themselves were attempting—to put out the fire. That morning James had gone to review his troops on Hounslow Heath. He received the news of the acquittal by a special messenger while in lord Feversham's tent. He was greatly enraged, and set out at once for London. Before, however, he was clear of the camp the news had flown amongst the soldiers, and a tremendous cheering startled him. "What noise is that?" demanded James. "Oh!" said the general, "it is nothing but the soldiers shouting because the bishops are acquitted."
"And call you that nothing?" asked James; and added angrily, "but so much the worse for them."
This was an awakener, if anything could have aroused that dense and obstinate mind from its unconsciousness of the coming destruction. The paroxysm of exultation over his defeat spread through the whole nation, and through every class and rank. The old enemies and most hostile of parties shook hands and made common cause over the defeat of popery. Even old Sanoroft, who had persecuted the non-conformists rigorously by the High Commission, and abused them with his pen, now felt softened towards them; and he enjoined the bishops and clergy to regard them as brethren, and remember their kindness in the day of their own trouble.
The very day which pronounced the acquittal of the bishops saw signed and dispatched an invitation from the leading whigs to William of Orange to come over and drive the tyrant from the throne. The whigs had long been contemplating and preparing for this end; they now saw that the crisis was come. The brutal and besotted king had ​effectually alienated all hearts from him. From him nothing but destruction of every liberty and sentiment that Englishmen held dear was to be expected; and in the heir which was now, as was generally believed, foisted on the nation by the king and the Jesuits, there was only the pledge of the reign of popery and proscription, and of the extermination of all those high hopes and privileges which were entwined with protestant freedom. The whig leaders had sent repeatedly to William to stimulate him to the enterprise; but, independent of his habitual caution and the salutary fear that Monmouth's reception had inspired, the prince of Orange had many difficulties to contend with from the peculiar constitution of the Dutch republic, and the peculiar views and interests of his allies. Though at the head of the Dutch confederation, he had always experienced much opposition from individual states and cities, especially Amsterdam, which his great enemy, Louis of France, managed to influence. This enterprise called him to expel from his throne a catholic king, and replace his government by a protestant one, though the pope and Spain, the most catholic of countries, were his close allies, and must not be offended. He had, therefore, stipulated that he should receive such an invitation under the hands and seals of the whig leaders as should leave little doubt of his reception, and that he should be regarded as the saviour from an intolerable ruler, and not forced to attempt a conquest which must in its very success bring ruin by wounding the national pride of England.
He now received a paper, signed by the earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, lord Lumley, bishop Compton, Edward Russell, the admiral of England, and Henry Sidney, the brother of the late Algernon Sidney, and afterwards earl of Romney. This paper, which had been furnished at William's request, was but the result of negotiations betwixt himself and the whig leaders for some time. He now called into council with the English envoy his two great confidential friends, Bentinck and Dykvelt, and it was resolved that the time for action was come, and that the invitation should be accepted. Meantime, whilst William began in earnest, but as secretly as circumstances would allow, his preparations, James at home did everything which a foolish and obstinate ruler could do to complete the alienation of the affections of his subjects. He returned from his camp to his capital only to find it in all the transports of delight over his own defeat, and resounding on all sides with the explosions of guns and crackers, drinking of the health of the bishops in the streets, and the effigy of the pope blazing before his own gate. So far from making him pause at the contemplation of the avowed and universal spirit of his people, he was only the more exasperated, and continued muttering "So much the worse for them." He determined to take summary vengeance on the whole body of the clergy, on the lawyers who had opposed or deserted him, on the army, and on the people. He burst forth at once into an Ishmael, whose hand was against every one, only soon to find every man's hand against him. He was a modern Pharaoh, whose heart was now hardened to the pitch of defying heaven and earth, and rushing on destruction open-eyed. He at once promoted Mr. solicitor-general Williams, for his unscrupulous conduct on the trial of the bishops, to a baronetcy, and would have placed so convenient a man on the bench could he have spared him at the bar. He dismissed Powell and Holloway; he determined to visit with his vengeance all the clergy throughout the kingdom who had refused to read the declaration; and an order was issued to all the chancellors of the dioceses and the archdeacons to make a return of them. No matter that they approached ten thousand in number; if necessary, he would drive them all from their benefices. The judges on the circuits were ordered to denounce these refractory clergy, and to speak in the most derogatory terms of the bishops. He broke up his camp, the soldiers of which had been intended to overawe the capital, and stand by whilst he destroyed the national constitution and the national religion; but had now terrified and disgusted him by drinking to the healths of the liberated bishops.
But all his angry attempts only recoiled on himself, and showed more clearly than ever that the reins of power were irrecoverably slipping from his fingers. The spell of royalty, a people's respect, was utterly broken. The chancellors and archdeacons paid no attention to the order for reporting their independent brethren; the High Commission met, and, so far from finding any returns, received a letter from one of the most truckling of their own body, Sprat, bishop of Rochester, resigning his place in the High Commission. If such a man saw the handwriting on the wall, the warning, they felt, must be imminent, and they departed in confusion. The judges, on their part, found themselves deserted on their circuits; nobody but the sheriff and his javelin men came to meet them, and then went through their duties amid every sign of indifference to their dignity. They were treated, not as the high-minded judges of England, but as the base and venal tools of a most lawless and mischievous monarch. The soldiers were as bold in their separate quarters as they had been in camp. James thought he could deal with them separately, and tried the experiment by ordering a regiment of infantry which had been raised in the catholic district of Staffordshire, to sign an engagement to support him in dispersing all the rest, or to quit the army. Almost to a man they piled their arms, and the confounded king was obliged to withdraw the order. But James had a remedy even for the defection of the army. In Ireland the brutal and debauched Tyrconnel had been busily engaged in driving Irish Celts, and preparing an army so strongly catholic that he might by this means carry out the royal design of repealing the act of settlement, and driving the protestant colonists from their lands. These troops James sent for, regiment after regiment, and the people of England saw with equal indignation and alarm that their liberties, their religion, their laws were to be trodden down, and the kingdom reduced to a miserable abode of slaves by the wild tribes of the sister island, vengeful with centuries of unrequited oppressions. This put the climax to the national resentment, and still more pressing messages were sent over to William to hasten his approach, still more numerous leaders of party contemplated a speedy transit to his standard. It was at this juncture that the wild genius of Wharton gave vent to the pent-up feelings of protestant wrath, by the adaptation of the old Irish tune of "Lillibullero" to English words.
William, meantime, was making strenuous preparations for his enterprise. He formed a camp at Nimeguen, collecting troops and artillery from the different fortresses. ​Twenty-four additional ships of war were fitted out for service, and anus and accoutrements were in busy preparation in every manufactory in Holland. He had saved up unusual funds for him, and had money also pouring in from Englaud and from the refugee Huguenots, who hoped much from his enterprise in favour of protestantism. It was impossible that all this preparation could escape the attention of other nations, and especially of the quick-sighted Louis XIV. of France. But William had a ready answer—that he wanted an extra squadron to go in pursuit of a number of Algerine corsairs which had made their appearance off the Dutch coasts. The military preparations were not so easily explained; but though Louis was satisfied that they were intended against England, James, blind to his danger, as strongly suspected that they were meant to operate against France. The only enemies which William had to really dread were Louis and the council of Amsterdam, which Louis had so long influenced to hostility to William, and without whose consent no expedition could be permitted. But the ambition and the persecuting bigotry of Louis removed this only difficulty out of William's way in a manner which looked like the actual work of Providence. The two points on which Amsterdam was preeminently sensitive were trade and protestantism. Louis contrived to incense them on both these heads. His unrelenting persecution of the Huguenots, including also Hutch protestants who had settled in France, raised an intense feeling in Amsterdam, stimulated by the outcries and representations of their relatives there. To all representations for tolerance and mercy Louis was utterly deaf; and whilst this feeling was at its height, he imposed a heavy duty on the importation of herrings from Holland into France. Sixty thousand persons in Holland depended on this trade, and the effect was, therefore, disastrous. In vain did the French envoy, Avaux, represent these things; Louis continued haughty and inexorable.
These circumstances, in which the pride and bigotry of Louis got the better of his worldly policy, completed the triumph of William of Orange. He seized on them to effect a removal of the long-continued jealousies of the council of Amsterdam against him. He entered into negotiations with the leading members of the council through his trusty friends Bentinck and Dykvelt, and as they were in the worst of hmuours with Louis, the old animosities against William were suffered to sleep, and he obtained the sanction of the States-general to his proposed expedition for the release of England from the French and catholic influences, and its reception into the confederation of protestant nations. Another circumstance just at this crisis occurred to strengthen all these feelings in Hollaud and Germany, and to account for any amount of troops collected at Nimeguen. The aggressions of Louis had raised and combined all Europe against him. Powers both catholic and protestant had felt themselves compelled to unite in order to repress his attempts at universal dominion. The king of Spain, the emperor of Germany, the king of Sweden had entered into the league of Augsburg to defend the empire; and to these were added various Italian princes, with the pope Innocent XI. himself at their head. Louis had not hesitated to insult the pope on various occasions, and now he saw the pontiff in close coalition with heretic princes to repel his schemes.
In May of this year died Ferdinand of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne. Besides Cologne, the elector possessed the bishoprics of Liege, Munster, and Hildesheim. In 1672 Louis had endeavoured to secure a successor to the elector in the French interest. He therefore proposed as his coadjutor the cardinal Fustemberg, bishop of Strasburg; and he would have succeeded, but it was necessary in order to his election of coadjutor, that Furstemberg should first resign his bishopric; to this the pope, in his hostility to Louis, would not consent; he refused his dispensation. But now, the elector dying, the contest was renewed. Louis again proposed the cardinal; the allies of the league of Augsburg nominated the prince Clement of Bavaria, who was elected and confirmed by the pope, though a youth of only seventeen years of age. The allies were equally successful in the bishoprics of Liege, Munster, and Hildesheim; but the principal fortresses, Bonn, Neutz, Keiserswertch, and Rhinsberg, were held by the troops of Furstemberg, and therefore were at the service of France. Louis was, however, exasperated at the partial defeat of his plans, and complained loudly of the partiality of the pope, and began to march troops to the support of Fustemberg.
But whilst Louis was actually planning a sweeping descent on the German empire, in which William of Orange lay pre-eminently in his way, he was at the same time in danger of a more momentous occurrence—that of William leaving the way open by sailing for England. If William should succeed in placing himself on the throne of England, he would be able to raise a far more formidable opposition to his plans of aggrandisement than he had yet ever done. Even with his small resources he had proved a terrible enemy, and had arrayed all Europe against him; what would he do if he could bring all the powers of England by land and sea to co-operate with Holland, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands? The stupidity of James and the offended pride of Louis saved William in this dilemma, and led Louis to commit on this occasion the cardinal blunder of his reign. It was impossible that Louis could be ignorant of what William was doing. The preparations of ships and troops were indications of a contemplated attack somewhere. It might be directed to resist the French on the side of Germany; but other facts equally noticeable demonstrated that, the object was England. Avaux, the French envoy at the Hague, in the absence of Abville, who was on a visit to England, noticed, in the months of April and May, a swift sailing boat, which made rapid and frequent passage betwixt England and Rotterdam; and he noticed that, after every arrival from England, there were closetings of William and the English whig leaders at the Hague, especially Russell. After the birth of the heir-apparent of England, William dispatched Zulestein to London with his professedly warm, though they could not be very sincere, congratulations on the event; but soon after, on the escape to the Hague of vice-admiral Herbert, who was supposed to carry the invitation of the leading whigs to William, the prince omitted the child's name in the prayers for the royal family of England, and openly expressed his doubts of his being the real child of the queen.
These circumstances, the continued activity of the military preparations, the constant sailings of this mysterious boat, ​and the subsequent closetings, with the continual growth of the number of distinguished English refugees at the Hague, satisfied the French envoy that a descent on England was certain and nigh at hand. Avaux not only warned Louis of the imminent danger, but he warned James by every successive mail from the Hague, through Barillon. Louis took the alarm. He dispatched Bonrepaux to London to arouse James to a due sense of his peril, and offered to join his fleet with an English one to prevent the passage of the Dutch armament. He held a powerful body of troops ready to march to the frontiers of Holland, and ordered Avaux to announce to the states-general that his master was fully cognisant of the warlike preparations of the stadt-holder; that he was quite aware of their destination, and that, as the king of England was his ally, he should consider the first act of hostility against James as a declaration of war against himself. He at the same time declared the cardinal Furstemberg and the chapter of Cologne under his protection. Simultaneously the same message was delivered to the Spanish governor of Flanders, and marshal d'Humieres was dispatched to take the command of the French army in that quarter.
This plain declaration fell like a thunderbolt into the midst of the states-general. There was the utmost evident confusion. A poor and embarrassed excuse was made, and a courier sent post haste to fetch William from Mindeu, where he was in secret negotiation with the elector of Brandenburg. If James took the alarm, and Louis, as was his intent, went heartily into the coalition to defeat the enterprise, it must become a most hazardous undertaking, even if it were at all feasible. But the folly of that most wrong-headed of the Stuarts again saved the prince of Orange, and removed the last difficulty out of the way of his enterprise. James would not believe a word of the warning. He would not believe that his own daughter would sanction an attempt at his dethronement. He would not believe that William's armament had any other object than the king of France himself. He highly resented the declaration of Louis that there was an alliance betwixt them, as calculated to alarm his own subjects, especially his protestant ones. He received Bonrepaux with cold hauteur in return for his offers of assistance; and Van Citters, the Dutch ambassador, with proportionate cordiality, who hastened on the part of the states to assure him that the French communications were sheer inventions. He gave orders that all the foreign ministers should be informed that there was no such league betwixt France and England as Louis pretended, for his own purposes.
In fact, James was living all this time in the midst of a set of traitors, who, even to his most confidential minister, Sunderland, had secretly gone over to William, and were putting him in possession of every daily thought, word, and intention of their master. Besides the seven that had signed, and of whom admiral Russell was already with William, the earl of Shrewsbury had fled to him, having mortgaged his estates and taken forty thousand pounds with him, and offered it to the prince. The two sons of the marquis of Winchester, lord Wiltshire, and a younger brother; Halifax's son, lord Eland; Danby's son, lord Dumblaine; lord Lorn, the son of the unfortunate earl of Argyll; lord Mordaunt, Gerard, earl of Macclesfield, and admiral Herbert were already with him. Herbert had been appointed admiral to the Dutch fleet, with a pension of six thousand pounds a year. Wildman, Carstairs, Ferguson, Hume, who had escaped from the Argyll and Monmouth expeditions, went there; and, whilst the sons of Halifax and Danby were with William, they themselves, though remaining in England with Devonshire, Lumley, and others, were sworn to rise in his favour the moment he landed. But the most unsuspected of the traitors at his own court were the lords Churchill and Sunderland. Churchill James had made almost everything that he was; on Sunderland he had heaped benefits without stint or measure. He had scraped money together by all possible means; and James did not merely connive at it, he favoured it. This meanest of creeping things was in the pay of France to the amount of six thousand pounds per annum; he had a pension from Ireland of five thousand pounds more; as president of the council he occupied the post of prime minister, and derived immense emoluments from fines, forfeitures, pardons, and the like. Rather than lose his place, he had openly professed Catholicism; but scarcely had he thus sold his soul for his beloved delf and power, when he saw as plainly as any one else that the ground was sliding from under the feet of his foolish master, and was overwhelmed with consternation. He hastened again to sell himself to William, on condition that his honours and property should be secure; and thus had James his very prime minister, his most confidential and trusted servant, at every turn drawing out all his plans and thoughts, and sending them to his intended invader. Sunderland's wife was the mistress of Sidney, who was at the Hague; and, through her, this most contemptible of men sent constantly his traitorous communications to her paramour, and so to William.
With such snakes in the grass about him, James was completely blinded to his danger. Churchill and Sunderland persuaded him that there was no danger from Holland, and inflamed his resentment at what they called the presumption of Louis. They were completely successful; and Sunderland, after the establishment of William in England, made a boast of this detestable conduct. Louis was so much disgusted by the haughty rejection of his warning, that he himself committed a gross political error. Instead of preventing the descent on England and the aggrandisement of his great opponent William—by far the most important measure for him—by directly attacking the frontiers of Holland, and keeping William engaged, in his vexation he abandoned the besotted James, and made an attack on the German empire. Dividing his army, one portion of it, under the marquis of Boufflers, seized Worms, Mentz, and Treves; a second, under Humieres, made itself master of Bonn; and a third, under the duke of Duras and marshal Vauban, took Philipsburg by storm. The greater part of the Rhine was at once in Louis's hands, and great was the triumph in Paris. But not the less was the exultation of William of Orange; for now, the French army removed, and the mind of Louis incensed against James, the way was wide open for him to England.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE ENTERING EXETER.
​these latter were the work of the grand pensionary Fagel but condensed and adapted more to the English taste by Burnet. In the memorial the people of England were made to complain of the wholesale violation of the constitution and the liberties of his subjects by James, and of the attempt to fix a false and popish heir on the nation. They called on William to come over and vindicate the rights of his wife, and at the Same time to rescue the country of her birth and her rightful claims from popery and arbitrary power.
The declarations to England and Scotland in reply were drawn with consummate art. William admitted that he had seen with deep concern the fundamental and continual violations of the laws of the kingdom. The contempt of acts of parliament; the expulsion of just judges from the bench to make room for the servile instruments of oppression; the introduction of prohibited persons into both the state and church, to the jeopardy of freedom and true religion; the arbitrary treatment of persons of high dignity by the illegal High Commission court; the forcible introduction of papists into the colleges; the removal of lords-lieutenants, and the destruction of corporations which stood firmly for the rights and religion of the nation; the attempt to impose a spurious and popish issue on the throne, and. the equally atrocious attempt to tread down English liberties by an army of Irish papists: for these reasons William declared himself ready to comply with the prayers of the British people, and to come over with a sufficient force for his own protection, but with no intention or desire of conquest, but simply to restore freedom by an independent parliament, to inquire into the circumstances attending the birth of the pretended prince, and to leave everything else to the decision of parliament and the nation. He declared that he should endeavour to re-establish the church of England and the church of Scotland, and at the same time to protect the just rights of other professors of religion willing to live as good subjects in obedience to the laws.
When copies of these papers were sent to James by his ambassador, Abville, from the Hague, the delusion of the affrighted monarch was suddenly and rudely dissipated. He gazed on the ominous documents—in which his subjects invited a foreign prince to take possession of his throne, and that prince, his son-in-law, accepted the proposal—with a face from which the colour fled, and with a violently trembling frame. Fear at once did that which no reason, no accumulation of the most visible signs of his vanishing popularity could ever effect. He at once hastened to make very concession. He summoned his council, and hastened a dispatch to the Hague, declaring that he regarded the siege of Philipsburg by Louis as a breach of the treaty of Nimeguen, and that he was ready to take the field against him in conjunction with the forces of Spain and Holland. Before an answer could be received, James hurried forward the work of retractation. When he looked around him there was not a power or party that he had not alienated—the cavaliers and tories who fought for his father, and supported his brother through a thousand arbitrary measures; the church, the dissenters, the army, the navy, the bench, the bar, the whole people, held in constant terror of being made the abject victims of popish domination, he had, in his insane rage for his religion, offended. injured, and alarmed beyond measure. He now sought to win back the able Halifax; he issued a proclamation, protesting that he would protect the church, and maintain the act of uniformity; that catholics should no longer be admitted to parliament or the council. He sent for the bishops, and asked for their earnest advice in the restoration of public affairs. He ordered the restoration of the deposed magistrates and lords-lieutenants; he reinstated Compton, bishop of London; he gave back the charter to the city, and, a few days after, the charter of the provincial corporations; he immediately abolished the court of High Commission; and finally replaced Dr. Hough and the ejected fellows of Magdalene college in full possession of their house and privileges.
These sweeping concessions showed plainly that the tyrant knew very well how odious his incroachments had been, and that nothing but fear could force their abandonment from his ungenerous soul. They had, therefore, the less effect. There was public rejoicing, indeed, but it was for the victory over the mean despot, not for gratitude for concessions which it was felt would be resumed the imminent danger should pass; and this feeling was deepened by an accident. The bishop of Winchester was sent down to Oxford to formally reinstate the principal and fellows of Magdalene, but was as suddenly recalled; and this event, coupled with a rumour that the Dutch fleet had put to sea, but was dispersed by a storm and put back, made the people more firmly conclude that no faith could be reposed in the words of James. The bishop, it was contended, had been temporarily recalled on urgent affairs; but the effect remained the same. Still the city of London celebrated the recovery of its charter with much rejoicing, and sent a deputation to express their gratitude to the king. The dukes of Somerset, Ormond, and Newcastle, the marquis of Winchester, the earls of Derby, Nottingham, and Danby, and the bishop of London, declared their fidelity, and the prelates issued a form of prayer for the safety and prosperity of the royal family.
Whilst James was exerting himself to conciliate his subjects, he was equally industrious in putting the kingdom into a posture of defence. He made lord Dartmouth commander of the fleet, which consisted of thirty-seven men-of-war, and seven fire-ships—a naval force inferior to that of the prince, and, still worse, weak in the principles of loyalty, though Dartmouth himself might be relied on. His army, including about six thousand Irish and Scotch, amounted to forty thousand men—more than enough to repel the force of the invaders, had the hearts of the men been in the cause.
William was compelled to delay his embarkation for more than a week by tempestuous weather. His fleet, under the command of Herbert, which was lying off Scheveling, on the 28th of September, was compelled to seek shelter in Helvoetsluys. The wind raged furiously till the 15th of October, and public prayers were offered in the churches for more favourable weather. All attempts to invade England had, since William of Normandy's enterprise, been notoriously defeated by storms; and the people became so superstitious on this head that it was found necessary, under severe penalties, to forbid foreboding language. On the 16th, the wind abating, William took a solemn leave of the ​states-general. He thanked them for their long and devoted support of him in his endeavours for the independence of Europe, and committed his wife to their protection whilst he was absent for the same great object, and the security of the protestant religion. He declared that if he died it would be as their servant; if he lived, it would be as their friend. The pensionary Fagel, now old and failing, replied with great emotion; and, amid the tears of most present, William stood like a stoic, without any visible agitation. The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to the water-side, and that evening he went on board his frigate the Brill. The next day a public fast was held in the Hague, with sermons and prayers for the success of the expedition, and Mary continued to retain her place in the church in public during the long service from half-past ten in the morning till half-past seven in the afternoon. Though the success of her husband must be the dethronement of her father, she maintained an outward air of callousness.
On the afternoon of the 19th the fleet sailed from Helvoetslnys, the men-of-war, in three divisions, forming a long line out at sea, and the transports driving before the breeze nearer in land. The day was fine, the wind steady from the south-west; and as the eventful squadron passed the sandy downs of Scheveling, the inhabitants of the Hague crowded them in thousands, and raised accumulations of anticipated success. But the scene rapidly changed. By ten o'clock at night a furious tempest was again raging, which dispersed the fleet, sunk one ship, damaged many others, compelled them to throw overboard great quantities of stores, and destroyed a thousand horses through being closed down under hatches. The fleet managed to regain Helvoetslnys, which William himself reached on the 21st. He refused to go on shore, but sent to the states for fresh supplies, and busied himself in pushing on his repairs.
The news of this disaster reached England with many aggravations, so that it was imagined that the expedition would be given up for that season; and James declared with much satisfaction that it was what he expected, the host having been exposed for several days. He seized, however, the time afforded by this delay to assemble an extraordinary body, the members of the privy council, the peers who were in or near London, the judges, the law officers of the crown, the lord mayor and Aldermen, the queen-dowager, and two-and-twenty women—some ladies about the queen, some menials. The princess Anne was summoned, but excused herself on account of indisposition. "I have called you together,"' said James, "upon a very extraordinary occasion; but extraordinary diseases must have extraordinary remedies. The malicious endeavours of my enemies have so poisoned the minds of many of my subjects, that, by the reports I have from all hands, I have reason to believe that many do think this son which God has pleased to bless me with be none of mine, but a suppostitious child." The witnesses were all examined on oath except the queen-dowager, and presented such a mass of evidence as was undoubtedly complete, and it was enrolled in chancery and published. But such was the intense prejudice of the age that it failed to convince the public at large. As Anne was not present, the council waited on her with a copy of the evidence, on which she observed, "My lords. this was not necessary; the king's word is more to me than all these depositions." Yet her uncle. Clarendon, assures us that she never mentioned the child but with ridicule, and only once was heard to call it the prince of Wales, and that was when she thought it was dying. Anne, in fact, was devoted to the cause of the prince of Orange; and Biuillon says that she avoided every opportunity of convincing herself of what she did not wish to believe.
This singular act of verification of the child's identity was the last act of the ministry of Sunderland His treason had not escaped observation. A letter of his wife's had been intercepted and shown to him by the king, in which she was found in close correspondence with Sidney. He strictly denied all knowledge of it, and did not hesitate to advert to his wife's liaison with Sidney as sufficiently exculpatory of himself. For a time he lulled James's suspicions, but they again revived; and, on the very evening of this extraordinary council, James sent Middleton and demanded the seals. To the last Sunderland acted the part of injured innocence; but was not long in getting away to the Hague, not, however, in time to join William before his second embarkation. His office of secretary to the southern department was given to Middleton, and of secretary to the northern department to lord Preston, both protestants. Petre was dismissed from the council, but retained his post as clerk of the closet at Whitehall. But all this did not alter the tone of public feeling. The very day before the assembling of the extraordinary council, the London mob demolished a new catholic chapel; and on the 11th of October, the king's birthday, there had been no sign of rejoicing, not even the firing of the Tower guns; but the people reminded one another that it was the anniversary of the landing of William the Conqueror. Their thoughts were running on the landing of another William.
On the 1st of November the prince of Orange again set sail, and this time with a favourable though strong gale from the east. Besides the English noblemen and gentlemen whom we have mentioned, including also Fletcher of Saltoun, William had with him marshal Schomberg, an able and experienced general, who was appointed second in command; Bentinck, Overkirk, and counts Solmes and Stourm. Herbert was the chief admiral, much to the chagrin of the Dutch admirals, but very wisely so determined by William, who well knew the hereditary jealousy of the Dutch fleet, and the remembered boast and besom of Van Tromp in England. He resolved that, if they came to conflict with lord Dartmouth, it should be English commander against English, or his cause might receive great prejudice. For twelve hours William drove before the breeze towards the coasts of Yorkshire, as if intending to land there; then, suddenly tacking, he stood down the Channel before the gale. Dartmouth attempted to issue from the mouth of the Thames to intercept him, but the violent wind which favoured William perfectly disabled him. His vessels as they came out to sea were driven back with much damage, compelled to strike yards and top-masts, and to lie abreast the Longsand; whilst William, leading the way in the Brill, sailed rapidly past with his whole fleet and a crowd of other vessels that had gathered in his rear, to the amount of nearly seven hundred. It was twenty-four hours before Dartmouth could give chase, and on the 5th of ​November, a fatal day for popery, William readied Torbay, his real destination.
James meantime had been in a state of dreadful agitation. The very day that William had set sail some of his declarations had been seized in circulation in London, and James ordered all but one copy to be destroyed, and suddenly summoned to his presence Halifax, Clarendon, and Nottingham. His eye had been arrested instantly by the paragraph which declared that William was earnestly invited to England by lords both temporal and spiritual. He demanded whether they had taken any part in any such invitation. They replied that they had not. He then sent for the bishop of London, who had many causes of discontent, and who was actually one of the seven who had signed the invitation. Compton replied with ready evasion that he was confident that there was not one of the bishops who were not as innocent as himself of any such matter. James, however, summoned all the bishops who were in town. They appeared on the morrow—Bancroft, the archbishop, Crewe of Durham, Cartwright of Chester, and the bishops of St. David's and London. James drew their attention to the assertion about the lords spiritual; declared that he did not believe a word of it, but still would like to have their explicit denial. Bancroft, Crewe, and Cartwright emphatically denied any participation in so treasonable an act—as they truly could, for Sancroft was not in the confidence of the revolutionary party, and Cartwright and Crewe had been thorough-going High Commission men. When Compton was asked again, he replied, "I answered yesterday." But James was not satisfied; he ordered them to draw their denial in a written form which he might publish to the nation, and they withdrew in silence as if about to comply, though in no very zealous mood. James sent repeatedly to hasten their proceedings, and at length they appeared and repeated their protestations of innocence. "But where," demanded James, "is the paper?" They replied that, on consultation, they did not feel that a written answer was requisite, as his majesty fully acquitted them. "But I expected a paper; I consider that you promised me one." "We assure your majesty," said the prelates, "that not one man in five hundred believes the declaration to be the prince's." " But five hundred," retorted James, angrily, "would bring in the prince of Orange upon my throat;" and he repeated that he must have their written answer. The bishops, however, now knew that the prince's fleet was sailing down the Channel, and they excused themselves from meddling in state affairs, having, as Sancroft remarked, so lately suffered imprisonment for a matter of state. At this hard hit James lost all patience, and he broke out in violent language. "If ever," says the bishop of Rochester, "in all my life I saw him more than ordinary vehement in speech and transported in his expressions, it was on this occasion." The primate alone returned a written answer, perfectly exonerating himself, and declaring his belief of the innocence of his brethren.
Scarcely had the bishops quitted the palace when the news arrived that the prince of Orange had landed at Torbay. James had a much superior army in point of numbers; he had forty thousand regular troops, besides seven regiments of militia—William only about fifteen thousand; and his unquestionable policy was to march rapidly down on the invader and crush him before he could be strengthened by any men of influence going over to him. If he succeeded in that, the disaffected would be careful to remain quiet, and, at the worst, he would have compelled the prince to fight, which would have injured his prestige as a peaceable deliverer from oppression, and converted him into a martial invader. This was the advice which Louis urgently gave him, and undoubtedly it was the best; but James was never wise in his decisions; his whole career had been one of the most flagrant absurdity, and he was now surrounded by traitors who, by giving him conflicting counsel, augmented his own indecision. James resolved to get the main army at Salisbury ready to march against the enemy. Father Petre strongly dissuaded him from quitting the capital at all advice of the very worst character, because it would allow the disaffected both north and south to gather under their heads unmolested. Lord Feversham and the count de Roye, two foreigners whom he had most unadvisedly, under the circumstances, placed at the head of the army, also protested against fixing his head-quarters so far from the capital. James, therefore, divided his forces, ordering twenty battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of horse to march for Sahsbury, and Marlborough and six battalions of infantry, and the same number of squadrons of horse, to protect London.
The prince of Orange during this time had landed at Torbay, the weather continuing rainy and bad, but so far favourable that it still defied all the efforts of lord Dartmouth to pursue him. The people declared that it was the evident will of Providence that the prince should deliver the country from popery; for just a century before, the Spanish Armada, coming to destroy protestantism, had been destroyed itself by tempests; and now the fleet which was intended to intercept the landing of Wlliam was not allowed to approach him. Most monarchs would have suspected the zeal of Dartmouth; but James, with all his follies and crimes, was only too unsuspicious, and he listened to his representations, and, as a naval man himself, fully excused him. Yet it is notorious that, whatever was the loyalty of Dartmouth, the greater part of his officers were in perfect understanding with admiral Herbert, who was even now at the head of William's fleet; and it is as doubtful whether the sailors themselves would have fought for the popish tyrant, numbers of them being also in the Dutch fleet.
William took up his quarters in a cottage whilst his troops were landing, and from its thatched roof waved the flag of Holland, bearing the significant motto, "I will maintain the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England." Burnet was one of the first to congratulate William on his landing on English soil; and, at the recommendation of Carstairs, the first thing on the complete disembarkation was to collect the troops, and return public thanks to Heaven for the successful transit of the armament. The next day William marched in the direction of Exeter; but the rains continued, and the roads were foul, so that he made little progress. It was not till the 9th that he appeared before the city. The people received him with enthusiasm, but the magistracy shrank back in terror, and the bishop Lamplugh and the dean had fled to warn the king of the invasion. The city was in utter confusion, and at first shut its gates; but as ​quickly agreed to open them, and William was accommodated in the vacated deanery. But the people of the west had suffered too much from the support of Monmouth not to have learnt caution. A service was ordered in the cathedral to return thanks for the safe arrival of the prince; but the canons absented themselves, and only some of the prebendaries and choristers attended, and, as soon as Burnet began to read the prince's declaration, these hurried out as fast as they could. On Sunday, which was the 11th, Burnet was the only clergyman that could begot to preach before the prince, and the dissenters refused admittance to the fanatic Ferguson to their chapel. That extraordinary person, however, who appears to have been one-third enthusiast and two-thirds knave, called for a hammer, and exclaiming, "I will take the kingdom of heaven by storm!" broke open the door, marched to the pulpit with his drawn sword in his hand, and delivered one of those wild and ill-judged philippics against the king which did so much mischief in the cause of Monmouth.
Altogether, so far the cause of William appeared as little promising as that of Monmouth had done. Notwithstanding the many and earnest entreaties from men of high rank and of various classes, nobles, bishops, officers of army and navy, a week had elapsed, and no single person of influence had joined him. The people only, as in Monmouth's case, had crowded about him with acclamations of welcome. William was extremely disappointed and chagrined; he declared that he was deluded and betrayal, and he vowed that he would reimbark, and leave those who had called for him to work out their own deliverance, or receive their due punishment. But on Monday, the 12th, his spirits were a little cheered by a gentleman of Crediton, named Burrington, attended by a few followers, joining his standard. This was immediately followed, however, by the news that lord Lovelace, with about seventy of his tenants and neighbours, had been intercepted by the militia at Cirencester, taken prisoners, and sent to Gloucester castle. The slow movement of the disaffected appears to have originated in Williams not having landed in Yorkshire, as was expected, but in the west, where he was not expected. In the north, lord Delamere and Brandon in Cheshire, Danby and Lumley in Yorkshire, Devonshire and Chesterfield in Derbyshire: in Lancashire the earl of Manchester, in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire Rutland and Stamford, and others were all waiting to receive him. The very army which had been encamped on Hounslow Heath was the seat of secret conspiracy of officers, with Churchill himself at their head, who kept up constant communication with the club at the Rose tavern, in Covent Garden, of which lord Colchester was president. But all this concert was paralysed for a time by William's appearance in so distant a quarter.
But the elements of revolt which had suffered a momentary shock now began to move visibly. The very day that lord Lovelace was captured, lord Colchester marched into Exeter, attended by about seventy horse, and accompanied by the hero of Lillibullero, Thomas Wharton. They were quickly followed by Russell, the son of the duke of Bedford, one of the earliest promoters of the revolution, and still more significantly by the earl of Abinmlon, a stanch tory, who had supported James till be saw that nothing but the reign of popery would satisfy him. A still more striking defection from the king immediately followed. Lord Cornbury, the eldest son of the earl of Clarendon, pretended to have received orders to march with three regiments of cavalry stationed at Salisbury moor to the enemy in the west, He was a young man, entirely under the influence of lord Churchill, having been brought up in the household of his cousin, the princes; Anne, where Churchill and his wife directed everything; and there can be no doubt that this movement was the work of Churchill was the cavalry proceeded from place to place by a circuitous route to Axminster, the officers became suspicious, and demanded to see the orders. Cornbury replied that his orders wore to beat up the quarters of the army in the night near Honiton. The loyal officers, who had received hints that all was not right, demanded to see the written orders; but Cornbury, who had none to produce, stole away in the dark with a few followers who were in the secret, and got to the Dutch camp. His regiment, and that of the duke of Berwick, James's own son, with the exception of about thirty troops, returned to Salisbury; but the third regiment, the duke of St. Alban's, followed the colonel, Langton, to Honiton, where general Talmash received them; and most of the officers and a hundred and fifty privates declared for the prince, the rest being made prisoners, but soon afterwards discharged.
The news of this defection of one so near to the king's family created the greatest consternation in the palace. The king rose from table without finishing his dinner, and there were terror and tears amongst the queen's ladies, the queen herself appearing quite prostrated. What made the matter the more alarming was the undisguised joy which appeared amongst the king's most trust officers. Clarendon pretended to be overwhelmed at so unlooked-for a calamity as the treason of his son.
"O God! "he exclaimed, "that a son of mine should be a rebel!" But subsequent events soon showed that this was mere affectation; in another fortnight he became a rebel himself. He was not long in discovering that there were plenty of people about the court who applauded his son's conduct, and the princess Anne herself asked why he made trouble of it. "People," she niavely remarked, "are very uneasy about popery, and there are plenty more in the army who will do the same." In fact, it is not to be forgotten that, though the Hydes were nearly related by marriage to the throne, they were still more nearly related to the invading party by blood. Both Clarendon and Rochester had been disgraced and dismissed for their unbending protestantism; and they had no hope whatever from the popish prince, but every expectation from the protestant aspirants.
In his terror, James summoned a military council. He was anxious to receive the assurances of fidelity from his other officers—as if any assurances, under the circumstances, anything but leading them against the enemy, could test the loyalty of these men. He told them that he wished to be satisfied that there were no more Cornburys amongst them; and that, if any present had any scruple about fighting for him, he was ready to receive back their commissions. Of course they all protested the most ardent devotion to his cause, though not a man of them but was not already pledged to desert him. There were Churchill, recently made ​a lieutenant-general, and the duke of Grafton, the king's nephew, especially fervid in their expressions of loyalty; there were Trelawuey, smarting secretly over the persecution of his brother, the bishop of Bristol—and the savage Kirke, who, when James had importuned him to turn papist, had replied that he was sorry, but he had already engaged to the grand Turk that if he changed his religion he would become a mussulman. Reassured by these hollow professions, James gave orders for joining the camp at Salisbury; but the next morning, before he could set out, he was waited on by a numerous deputation of lords spiritual and temporal, with Bancroft at their head, praying that a free parliament might be immediately called, and a communication opened with the prince of Orange.
Queen of James II. concealed at Gravesend.
THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN OF JAMES II.
Scarcely had this impediment occurred when news came that the king's forces had been attacked at Wincanton, and worsted by some of the division of General Mackay. James was now assured that, had he gone to Warminster, he would have been seized by traitors near his person, and carried off to the enemy's quarters. He was advised to arrest Churchill and Grafton; but, with his usual imprudence, he refused, and summoned them along with the other officers to a military council, to decide whether they should advance or retreat. Feversham, Roye, and Dumbarton argued for a retreat; Churchill persisted in his recommendation of an advance to the post at Warminster. The council lasted till midnight, when Churchill and Grafton, seeing that their advice was not followed, felt the time was come to throw off the mask, and therefore rode directly away to the prince's lines. The next morning the discovery of this desertion filled the camp with consternation, and this was at its height when it was known that Churchill's brother, a colonel, Trelawny, Barclay, and about twenty privates had ridden after the fugitives. It was said that Kirke was gone too, but it was not the fact; and he was now arrested for having disobeyed orders sent to him from Salisbury; but he professed such indignation at the desertion of Churchill and the others, that the shallow-minded king set him again at liberty. The deserters were received by William, with a most gracious welcome, though Schomberg remarked of Churchill that he was the first lieutenant-general that he bad ever heard of running away from his colours.
In James's camp all was confusion, suspicion, and dismay. There was not a man who was sure of his fellow, and the retreat which commenced more resembled a flight. Numbers who would have fought had they been led at once to battle, now lost heart, and stole away on all sides. The news that found its way every hour into the demoralised camp was enough to ruin any army. From every quarter came tidings of insurrection. The earl of Bath, the governor of Plymouth, had surrendered the place solemnly to William; Sir Edward Seymour, Sir William Portmau, Sir Francis Warre—men of immense influence in Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, were already with William at Exeter; a paper had been drawn up and signed by the leading persons there to stand by the prince, and, whether he succeeded or whether he fell, never to cease till they had obtained all the objects in his declaration; Delamere had risen in Chester, and had reached Manchester on his way south; Danby had surprised the garrison at York; the town had warmly welcomed him, and a great number of peers, baronets, and gentlemen were in arms with him. Devonshire was up in Derbyshire; he had been amongst the very earliest movers in the invitation to William; and there still stands a little thatched cottage at Whittington, betwixt Chesterfield and Chatsworth, where he and the other signers of the invitation had first planned the resistance to James, whence it bears to this day the name of the "Revolution House;" and where, in 1788, the centenary of this great national event was celebrated by the descendants of the chief actors, amid a great assembly of the gentry of the neighbouring counties. Devonshire had called together the authorities and people of Derby, and published his reason for appearing in arms, calling on them to assist all true men in obtaining a settlement of the public rights in a free parliament. At Nottingham he was met by the earls of Rutland, Stamford, Manchester, Chesterfield, and the lords Cholmondeley and Grey de Ruthyn.
These were tidings of a reaction as determined as James's headstrong career had been; but the worst had not yet overtaken him. On the evening of November 24th he had retreated towards London as far as Andover. Prince George of Denmark, the husband of the princess Anne, and the duke of Ormond, supped with him. Prince George was a remarkably stupid personage, whose constant reply to any news was, "Est-il possible?" When the intelligence of one desertion after another came he had exclaimed, "Est-il possible?" But the moment supper was over and the king gone to bed, prince George and Ormond mounted and rode off to the enemy too. When James the next morning was informed of this mortifying news, he coolly replied, "What, is Est-il-possible gone too? were he not my son-in-law, a single trooper would have been a greater loss." With the prince and Ormond had also fled lord Drumlaurig, the eldest son of the duke of Queensberry, Mr. Boyle, Sir George Hewit, and other persons of distinction. The blow was severe; and though James at the first moment, being stunned, as it were, seemed to bear it with indifference, he pursued his way to London in a state of intense exasperation. There the first news that met him was the flight of his own daughter, Anne. Anne was bound up, soul and body, with the Churchills, and it had no doubt been for some time settled amongst them that they should all get away to the prince her brother-in-law. Her correspondence with her sister, the princess of Orange, pretty well indicated this conclusion. Accordingly, on hearing that the Churchills and her own husband had deserted, and the king was coming back to London, says lady Churchill in her own account, "This put the princess into a great fright. She sent for me, told me her distress, and declared that, rather than see her father, she would out at window. This was her expression. A little before a note had been left with me to inform me where I might find the bishop of London—who in that critical time absconded—if her royal highness should have occasion for a friend. The princess, in her alarm, immediately sent me to the bishop. I acquainted him with her resolution to leave ​the court, and to put herself under his care. It was hereupon agreed that when he had advised with his friends in the day, he should come about midnight, in a hackney-coach, to the neighbourhood of the Cockpit, in order to convey the success to some place where she might be private and safe. The princess went to bed at the usual time, to prevent suspicion. I came to her soon after; and, by the back-stairs which went down from her closet, her royal highness, my lady Fitzharding, and I, with one servant, walked to the coach, where we found the bishop and the earl of Dorset, They conducted us that night to the bishop's house in the city, and the next day to my lord Dorset's, at Copt Hall."
Some apprehension of such a flight, it would seem, had been entertained, for, by orders of the queen, Anne's apartments had been closely guarded, but Sarah Churchill had been too adroit for them. From Copt Hall, in Epping Forest, it was deemed safest to go northward and join the insurgents at Nottingham. Bishop Compton mounted buff coat and jack boots, and rode all the way beside the princess's carriage. Volunteer gentleman gathered round them on the road, and the bishop acted as their commander till they reached Nottingham. Anne left a letter addressed to the queen, saying that, finding her husband was gone, she could not bear to meet her father in the flush of his anger against him, and, therefore, thought it better to withdraw till a reconciliation could be effected. She declared that her husband was only gone to make terms for her father's safety, and that, for herself, she should be the most unhappy woman till all was made right betwixt her husband and her father.
It was towards evening of the same day that Anne fled that James arrived at Whitehall, agitated by the awful desertions of his highest officers and his nearest relatives. This announcement put the climax to his torture. He exclaimed, "God help me I my very children have forsaken me." Severe as the punishment of his desperate treason against his people deserved to be, this certainly was a cruel fate. For some days a lady near his person records that she thought she saw in him occasional aberrations of intellect. That night he sat late in council, and it was urged on him to call together such peers and prelates as were in London, to consult on the necessary steps in this crisis. The next day came together nearly fifty peers and bishops, and James asked their advice as to calling a parliament. On this head there appeared no difference of opinion; but Halifax, Nottingham, and others, urged with equal earnestness that all catholics should be dismissed from office, and a general amnesty published for all in arms against him. James assented to the calling a parliament, but his eyes were still not opened to the folly of his past conduct, and he would give no assurance of dismissing the papists, and broke out into vehement language at the proposal to pardon his enemies. "My lords," he said, "you are wonderfully anxious for the safety of my enemies, but none of you troubles himself about my safety." And he vowed that he would yet take vengeance on those who had deserted him, and above all on Churchill. Clarendon, who was on the eve of running off to William, took the opportunity to utter the bitter feelings which his dismissal from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland to make way for Tyrconnel had no doubt long left in his mind. He upbraided James with his dogged and incurable popery; with sacrificing everybody and everything for it; declaring that, even at that moment, James with raising a regiment from which protestants were rigorously excluded. He taunted him with running away from the enemy, and asked him who was likely to fight for him when he himself was the first to flee.
After this severe treatment by his closest connections, James appeared to comply with the advice of the lords. He sent for Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin, and informed them that he had appointed them commissioners to treat with William. He dismissed Sir Edward Hales from the Tower, and placed Bevil Skelton, a protestant, there. But the nature or the intention of this most obtuse of bigots was by no means changed; he was internally as determined as ever to reverse every concession on the first possible occasion. Barillon tells us that he assured him that all this was a mere feint; that he only sent the commissioners to William in order to gain time for sending his wife and child into France; that as to calling a parliament, that would only be to put himself into their power, and compel him to submit to their conditions; that he had no faith in his troops, except the Irish; none of the rest would fight for him; and, therefore, as soon as the queen and young prince were safe, he should get away to Ireland, Scotland, or France, and await the turn of events. Such was the utterly hopeless character of the Stuart race!
To clear the way for the escape of the royal infant, lord Dover was put in command at Portsmouth, and James sent. orders to lord Dartmouth to see that the child was safely convoyed to the French coast. In anticipation of the accomplishment of this object, he made every preparation for his own flight. He sent to Jeffreys to bring the great seal, and take up his quarters with it in the palace, lest by any means it should fall into the bands of the invader, and thus give an air of authority to his proceedings. But this escape was delayed by unpleasant news from lord Dartmouth. The announcement of the calling of a parliament, and of attempted agreement with the prince of Orange, had spread exultation through the navy, and the officers had dispatched an address of fervent thanks to James, when the arrival of the infant prince awoke a general suspicion that all was still hollow, and that James meant nothing but escape. The officers were in great agitation, and plainly pointed out to Dartmouth his heavy responsibility if he allowed the prince to quit the kingdom. Dartmouth, therefore, wrote James, declaring that he would risk his fife for the support of the crown, but that he dared not undertake to facilitate the escape of the prince of Wales. This was confounding news, and James took instant measures for the return of his son to London, and for his escape by another means to France.
There was no time to be lost, as town and country were growing every day more violently disaffected. There was a furious cry against the papists; they were accused of all sorts of designs—of firing the city, blowing up the churches; the earl of Salisbury was indicted for becoming a catholic; father Petre was denounced and hunted after; and "Lillibullero" was sung about the streets by excited mobs. In the midst of this ferment there appeared a proclamation, purporting to be from the prince of Orange, calling on the protestants of London to treat all papists having arms in their houses as ​robbers, freebooters, and bandits; ordering all magistrates to seek out, seize, and disarm them; for a certain king was in league with the king of France for the extirpation of the protestant religion, and London would soon be burned or its inhabitants massacred if the papists were not secured. William afterwards disowned this atrocious manifesto, which indeed bore no resemblance to his temperate and politic proclamations; and it was more than twenty years after claimed by one Hugh Speke, a violent incendiary. For the time, however, it had its effect. The fury of the populace was roused to delirium against the catholics and the king, and from the country still came news of defection on all sides. Lord Lumley had seized Newcastle; the people there had thrown down the king's statue and hurled it into the Tyne; the garrison at Hull had risen against its catholic commander, lord Langdale, and imprisoned him; Norfolk was up under its duke; Worcestershire under lord Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Edward Harlty; Bristol received the prince's forces under the earl of Shrewsbury; Gloucester rose and liberated lord Lovelace; and even the most loyal of cities, Oxford, the seat of the non-resistance doctrine, declared for William, and the university offered him its plate to coin, if necessary.
Meantime William was gradually advancing towards the capital, and, on the 6th of December, the king's commissioners met him at Hungerford, where they found the earls of Clarendon and Oxford already swelling the court of the invader. They were received with much respect, and submitted their master's proposal that all matters in dispute should be referred to the parliament for which the writs were ordered, and that, in the meantime, the Dutch army should not advance nearer than forty miles from London. The whigs in William's court were decidedly averse to reconcilement with the king, whose implacable nature they knew; but William insisted on acceding to the terms, on condition that the royal forces should remove the same distance from the capital, and that the Tower of London and Tilbury Fort should be put into the keeping of the city authorities. If it were necessary for the king and prince to proceed to Westminster during the negotiations, they should go attended only by a small and determinate guard. Nothing could be fairer; but Willam knew well the character of his father-in-law, and felt assured that he would by some means shuffle out of the agreement, and throw the odium of failure on himself; and he was not deceived. Never had James so fair an opportunity for recovering his position and securing his throne, under constitutional restraints, for his life; but he was totally incapable of such wisdom and honesty.
On the very day that the royal commissioners reached William's camp, James received the prince of Wales back from Portsmouth, and prepared to send him off to France by another route. On the night of the 10th of December he sent the queen across the Thames in darkness and tempest, disguised as an Italian lady and attended by two Italian women, one of whom was the child's nurse, and the other carried the boy in her arms. They were guarded by two French refugees of distinction—Antonine, count of Lauzun, and his friend Saint Victor. They arrived safely at Gravesend, where a yacht awaited them, on board of which were lord and lady Powis. Saint Victor returned to inform James that they had got clear off, and in a few hours they were safely in Calais. Scarcely did Saint Victor bring the cheering news of the auspicious sailing of the yacht, when the commissioners arrived with the conditions agreed upon by William. Here was the guarantee for a speedy adjustment of all his difficulties; but the false and distorted-minded James only saw in the circumstance a wretched means of further deceit an contempt of his people and of all honourable negotiation. He pretended to be highly satisfied, summoned for the morrow: meeting of all the peers in town, and of the lord mayor and aldermen, and directed that they should deliberate freely and decide firmly for the good of the country. This done, he retired to rest, ordered Jeffreys to be with him early in the morning, said to lord Mulgrave, as he bade him good night, that the news from William was most satisfactory, and, before morning, had secretly decamped, leaving his capital and kingdom to take care of themselves rather than condescend to a pacification with his son-in-law and his subjects, which should compel him to rule as a constitutional king.
But James was not satisfied with this contemptible conduct; he indulged himself before going with creating all the confusion to the nation that he could. Had the writs which were preparing been left for issue on the 15th of January, a new parliament would be in existence, ready to settle the necessary measures for future government; he therefore collected the writs and threw them into the fire with his own hands, and annulled a number which were already gone out by an instrument for the purpose. He also left a letter for lord Feversham, announcing his departure from the kingdom, and desiring him no longer to expose the lives of himself and his soldiers "by resistance to a foreign army and a poisoned nation;" then, taking the great seal in his hand, he bade the earl of Northumberland, who was the lord of the bed-chamber on duty, and lay on a pallet bed in the king's room, not to unlock the door till the usual hour in the morning, and then, disguised as a country gentleman, disappeared down the back-stairs. He was waited for by Sir Edward Hales, whom he afterwards treated earl of Tenterden, and they proceeded in a hackney-coach to Millbank, where they crossed the river in a boat to Vauxhall. When in mid-stream, he flung the great seal into the water, trusting that it would never be seen any more; but it was afterwards dragged up by a fishing-net. James, attended by Hales and Sheldon, one of the royal equeries, drove at a rapid pace for Emley Ferry, near the isle of Sheppey, having relays of horse ready engaged. They reached that place at ten in the morning, and got on board the custom-house hoy which was waiting for them, and dropped down the river.
In the morning, when the duke of Northumberland opened the king's chamber door, and it was discovered that James had fled, the consternation in the palace may be imagined. The courtiers and the numbers of persons who were waiting to fulfil their morning duties, and the lords who had been summoned to council, spread the exciting tidings, and the capital became a scene of the wildest and most alarming confusion. Feversham obeyed the orders of the king left in his letter, without pausing to ask any advice, or to calculate what might be the consequences. The symptoms of ​insubordination in London had been for some time growing even more menacing with the display of James's weakness; and the effect of a huge mob of Irish troops being let loose on the public was frightful in the extreme. This was a circumstance that William extremely resented, both because it endangered the public safety, and prevented that quiet transfer of the allegiance of the army to himself which would undoubtedly for the most part have taken place. He ordered Churchill and Grafton, in whom the English army had great reliance, to proceed to the head-quarters of the different regiments, and, by proclamation, to recall the soldiers to their standards. They were very successful; the majority of the men and officers re-assembled, and the Irish were ordered to deliver up their arms and disband, being offered their maintenance on their way to their own country. The bulk of them complied, but at Tilbury Fort they showed resistance, and a sentinel snapped his pistol at the duke of Grafton; it missed fire, and the man was instantly shot dead by an English soldier. About two hundred of the Irish garrison endeavoured to seize a vessel at Gravesend to make their escape in, but soon ran aground, and were secured.
In London the consequences of Feversham's act were as fearful as might have been expected. There was no government, no constituted authority to appeal to. Lord Rochester had continued loyal to the last; but the base desertion of James and the imminent danger at once decided him. He bade the duke of Northumberland muster the guards, and declare for William. The officers of the other regiments in London followed the advice, and endeavoured to keep together their men, declaring for the prince of Orange. The lords who had been summoned to council hastened into the city to concert measures with the lord mayor and aldermen for the public safety. A meeting was hastily called in Guildhall, where the peers, twenty-five in number, and five bishops, with Sancroft and the new archbishop of York at their head, formed themselves into a provisional council to exercise the functions of government till the prince of Orange should arrive, for whom they sent a pressing message, praying him to hasten and unite with them for the preservation of the constitution and the security of the church. The two secretaries of state were sent for, but Preston only came; Middleton denied the authority of the self-created council. The lieutenant of the Tower, Bevil Skeltor., was ordered to give up the keys to lord Lucas, and an order was sent to lord Dartmouth, desiring him to dismiss a11 popish officers from the fleet, and attempt nothing against the Dutch fleet. But no measures could prevent the outbreak of the mob in London. The animus against the catholics displayed itself on all sides. Under pretence of searching for papists, the hordes of blackguards from every low purlieu of London swarmed forth and broke into houses and plundered them at their pleasure. The office of Hills, the king's printer, whence had issued a constant stream of popish tracts, in recommendation of confession, image worship, and the supremacy of the Pope, was one of the first places ransacked and laid in ruins. Then the fury of the mob was turned against the catholic chapels in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Lime Street, St. John's, and Clerkenwell. They tore down the altars, shrines, pictures, confessionals, and benches, and male bonfires of them in the streets. Lime Street chapel was pulled down stick and stone. The crucifixes, pixes, and relics were paraded along the streets by the light of the tapers from the altars, amid the obscenest mockery and ribaldry; whilst thousands of sticks, swords, and poles were pointed with oranges.
In this style the mob next marched to demolish the houses of the catholic ambassadors. Barillon, in St. James's Square, they found well guarded by troops, and so marched forward to the Venetian envoy's, but found it equaly protected. The house of Ronquillo, however, the Spanish ambassador, was defenceless, and there they were fortunate enough to find the plate of the royal chapel, which James had sent thither, as well as that of many catholic families. They carried off the whole, destroyed the interior of his chapel, and set fire to the house, consuming a splendid library and many valuable manuscripts. It weighed nothing with the marauding herd that Ronquillo was an advocate of the prince of Orange, and his master in strict alliance with him, nor that the elector palatine was a protestant prince—enough that he was a cousin of James's; they destroyed the house of his ambassador, and that of the grand duke of Tuscany.
All this took place on the night of the 11th and on the 12th of December. As the night of the 13th set in, there arose a cry that the Irish were up, and were going to cut the throats of all the protestants. The disbanded Irish soldiers, it was said, were hastening towards the metropolis, tracking their way in carnage and robbery. The drums beat at one in the morning to collect the militia and train bands; lights were placed in all windows, and the streets bristled with pikes and bayonets. It was a night of unexampled horror. An attack was made on the house of lord Powis, in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and mobs and soldiers, to the number of a hundred thousand, kept the streets in a perpetual state of terror and anarchy. This acquired the name of the " Irish night," though no Irish made their appearance; and the same infamous Hugh Speke afterwards claimed the honour or the infamy of planning this attempt to procure a massacre of the catholics. To the honour of the English name, however, the fell purpose failed, and, in all this confusion, robbery, and spoliation, not a single catholic is said to have lost his life.
The mob, indeed, cried lustily for the Jesuit, father Petre, and, had he been found, he would probably have been pulled limb from limb; but, with Jesuit caution, he had taken care to get on the other side of the channel ten days before, as had also lord Melford, the Scottish secretary. Thousands, in fact, were up and flying for their lives on the discovery of James's escape; and many of these were stopped and brought back, as Mr. justice Jenner; the king's solicitors, Barton and, Graham; the two vicars-apostolic, Giffard and Leyburn; Obadiah Walker, of Oxford notoriety, and many others. The pope's nuncio was discovered mounted as a servant behind the carriage of the ambassador of Savoy, and was detained along with that minister and his whole suite till the will of the prince of Orange should be known, who granted them all passports.
But one trembling fugitive did not so easily evade his doom. The lord chancellor Jeffreys, baron of Wem, a man loaded with wealth, the wages of the most devilish wickedness, insolence, and cruelty, was now fleeing in mortal terror ​for his life. His conscience—no, conscience he had none—but his base, craven soul told him what he deserved at the hands of the people; and, disguised in the dress of a common sailor, his huge, lowering eyebrows shaven off, he was skulking in a low public-house in Wapping, watching an opportunity to make his escape, when his former villainy sealed his doom. He was looking out of the window, when a scrivener of the place, who had once been before him on a charge of usury, and who was so terrified at his looks and language that he declared that face would haunt him to his dying day, was passing. One glance at the horrible countenance of Jeffreys was enough; the terrified man hastened away and roused the neighbourhood. In a few minutes the house was surrounded by a raging mob, who demanded that he should be given up to them. But Jeffreys had observed the recognition of the scrivener. The train bands were sent hastily for, and he was conveyed before the lord mayor amid the howls and execrations of the mob. The lord mayor himself was so terrified at the sight of the crouching chancellor and the raging sea of people around the mansion-house, that he was borne away in convulsions, and never again recovered. Meantime the concourse of infuriated people had been so immense and so terrible in its rage, that two regiments of militia were added to guard him to the Tower; and such was the howling fury of the mob, that Jeffreys, terrified almost to death, kept constantly crying to the officers around him, "Keep them off, gentlemen! for God's sake keep them off!" No more fitting retribution could have reached this man-monster—who had so recklessly spilled the blood of the subjects, violated all the laws at the will of a tyrant, and terrified every one who came before him by the diabolical fury of his looks and language—than that he should perish in his cell, of terror and shame, which he did soon after.
James, his heartless master, was also seized. The custom-house hoy in which he embarked was found wanting of ballast, and the captain was obliged to run her ashore near Sheerness. About eleven at night of the 12th of December, before the hoy could be floated again by the tide, she was boarded by a number of fishermen who were on the look-out for fugitives, and the appearance of the king immediately attracted their notice. "That is father Petre," cried one fellow; "I know him by his hatchet face." He was immediately seized and searched; but, though he had his coronation ring in his pocket, besides other jewels, they missed them, and did not recognise him. But they carried him ashore at Feversham, where, at the inn, amid the insults of this rabble, he declared himself their king. The earl of Winchester, hearing of the king's detention, hastened to his assistance, had him removed to the house of the mayor, and sent word of his capture to London.
James exhibited the most miserable spectacle. It was clear that his mind, which had appeared going before, was now quite gone. He had all the symptoms of a maniac. The house was surrounded by a dense crowd of militia and fishermen, and he insisted notwithstanding that those who were about him should let him go. At one moment he assumed an air of haughty command, at another he had recourse to the most piteous entreaties, telling the people that the prince of Orange was seeking his life, and they must get him a boat to escape; at the same time he wept bitterly and was inconsolable, because, in the rude search of the rabble, he had lost a bit of the true cross, which had belonged to Edward the Confessor.
When the countryman who carried the messages from lord Winchelsea arrived at Whitehall, the news of the king's detention occasioned the greatest embarrassment. The lords had sent for the prince, and hoped that they were well rid of the foolish old king. Nothing could be easier than their course if James had got over to the continent. The throne could be declared vacant, and the prince and princess of Orange invited to occupy it on giving the necessary guarantees for the maintenance of the constitution. But now the whole question was involved in difficulties. If James persisted in his right to the throne, in what capacity was William to be received? Could any safe measures be arranged with a man like James? Was he to be deposed, and his son-in-law and daughter forcibly placed on his throne? The dilemma was equally embarrassing to the lords and prelates, and to the prince himself. When the messenger was introduced, and delivered a letter from James, but without any address, Halifax moved that they should instantly adjourn, and thus leave the letter unnoticed. Halifax was deeply incensed at the trick which James had played off upon him in sending him to negotiate with William merely that he might get away, and was now resolved to adhere to the prince; but lord Mulgrave prevailed on the lords to retain their seats, and obtained from them an order that lord Feversham should take two hundred life guards and protect the king from insult. Feversham demanded the precise powers of his order, and was told that he must defend the king from insult, but by no means impede the freest exercise of his personal freedom. That meant that they would be glad if he facilitated his escape. Halifax immediately left London and joined the prince of Orange, who was now at Henley-on-Thames. Sancroft and the clergy, as soon as they were aware that the king had not left the country, retired from any further participation in the council. William and his adherents were extremely chagrined at this untoward turn of affairs. When the messenger arrived at Henley he was referred to Burnet, who said, "Why did you not let the king go?"
ATTACK ON JAMES II. AT THE ISLE OF SHEPPEY.
James, however, was now bent on returning to London. He had not waited for the prince's answer, but on Sunday, the 16th of December, he entered his capital in a sort of triumphal procession. He was preceded by a number of gentlemen, bareheaded. Immense crowds assembled as if to welcome him back again. They cheered him as he rode along. The bells were rung, and bonfires were lit in the streets. Elated by these signs, as he imagined them, of returning popularity, he no sooner reached Whitehall than he called around him the Jesuits who had hidden themselves, stationed Irish soldiers as guards around his palace, had grace said at his table by a Jesuit priest, and expressed his high indignation at the lords and prelates who had presumed to usurp his functions in his absence—who had, in fact, saved the capital from destruction when he had abandoned it. His folly, however, received an abrupt check. Zulestein was announced, and delivered the stern message of William. James was confounded, but again repeated his invitation for his nephew to come to town, that they might settle all differences in a personal conference. Zulestein coldly assured him that William would not enter London whilst it contained troops not under his orders. "Then," aaid James, "let him bring his own guards, and I will dismiss mine, for I am as well without any as such that I dare not trust." Zulestein, however, retired without further discussion, and the moment he was gone, James was informed of the arrest of Feversham.
Alarmed at these proofs of the stern spirit of William, James sent in haste to Stamps and Levis, leading members of the city council—the lord mayor had never recovered his terror of Jeffreys' presence—to offer to place himself under their protection till all necessary guarantees for the public liberties had been given and accepted. But the common council had not forgotten his seizure of their charter, and the execution of Cornish; and they declined to enter into an engagement which, they said, they might not be able to fulfil. Whilst James was thus learning that though the city acclamations might be proofs of regret for his misfortunes, they were by no means proofs of a desire for his continuing to reign, William, on the same day, the 17th, bade all his leading adherents hold a solemn council, to consider what steps should be taken in this crisis. It was understood that he would never consent to enter London whilst James was there, and it was resolved that he should be removed to Ham House, near Richmond, which the brutal Lauderdale had built out of the bribes of Louis XIV. and the money wrung from the ravaged people of Scotland. Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delaraere were dispatched to James with this intimation, though Clarendon had done all in his power to have James seized and confined in some foreign fortress till Tyrconnel surrendered Ireland to the prince's party.
Simultaneously with the three lords, William ordered his forces to advance towards London. In the evening of the 17th James heard that the Dutch soldiers had occupied Chelsea and Kennington. By ten o'clock at night Solmes, at the head of three battalions of infantry, was already making across St. James's Park, and sent word that his orders were to take possession of Whitehall, and advised the earl of Craven, who commanded the Coldstream guards, to retire. Craven, though now in his eightieth year, had lost none of the courage and chivalry which he had displayed in the wars of Germany, and which had won him the heart of Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was said to be married to him— declared that, so long as he retained life, no foreign prince should make a king of England a prisoner in his own palace. James, however, ordered him to retire. The Coldstream guards withdrew, and the Dutch guards surrounded the palace. James, as if there were no danger to his person, went composedly to bed, but only to be roused out of his first sleep to receive the deputation from the prince. On reading the letter proposing his removal to Ham, which Halifax informed him must be done before ten o'clock in the morning, James seems to have taken a final resolve to got away. He protested against going to Ham, as a low, damp place in winter, but offered to retire to Rochester. This was a pretty clear indication of his intention to flee—the very object desired. A messenger was dispatched in all speed to the prince, who returned with his full approbation before daybreak.
The morning of the 18th was miserably wet and stormy, but a barge was brought to Whitehall stairs, and the wretched monarch went on board, attended by the lords Arran, Dumbarton, Dundee, Lichfield, and Aylesbury. The spectators could not behold this melancholy abdication—for such it was—of the last potentate of a most unwise line, who had lost a great empire by his incurable infatuation, without tears. Even Shrewsbiuy and Delamere showed much emotion, and endeavoured to soothe the fallen king; but Halifax, incurably wounded in his diplomatic pride by the hollow mission to the prince at Hungerford, stood coldly apart. Boats containing a hundred Dutch soldiers surrounded his barge as it dropped down the river. James landed and slept at Gravesend, and then proceeded to Rochester, where he remained four days.
If anything was still wanted to prove that James's mind was utterly incapable of conceiving that no king could reign in England who would not conform to its ancient constitution, it was his conduct during these days. He learned that as he issued from London, William marched in; that he had taken up his abode at St. James's palace; that the nobles had flocked thither to congratulate him on his arrival; that the next day the duke of Norfolk, who had secured the eastern counties for him, was received with high honour; that the aldermen and common councilmen of the city had waited on him with a zealous address; and that he was urged by the lawyers to assume the crown and summon a parliament. At the same time he saw himself carefully guarded on all sides except that leading to the river, where vessels ​ere lying ready to convoy him away if he so willed. He was openly invited, as it were, to go away, and strictly prevented from going back or into bis kingdom. To a man of any intellect, nothing could be clearer than that, because his enemies so anxiously wished him to depart, it was his interest to stay; and this lord Middleton and his other friends earnestly impressed upon him. They assured him that still he had only to declare that he submitted himself to his parliament and people, was prepared to enter into the most solemn engagements to rule according to law, and that nothing could prevent him regaining his throne and the love of his people. The catholics themselves sent entreaties for him to yield, for it was clear that his endeavours for their supremacy were hopeless. Middleton supported this view by telling him that if he once quitted England he could never again set foot in it.
But James had now sunk the last manly feeling of a monarch who would dare much and sacrifice more to retain a noble empire for his family. A dastardly fear that if he remained he would be put to death like his father took possession of him. He made a last offer to the bishops, through the bishop of Winchester, as he had done to the city of London, to put himself into their hands for safety, but they also declined the responsibility, and he then gave all over as lost. On the evening of the 22nd of December he sat down before supper, and wrote a declaration of his motives for quitting the kingdom. He declared that his life was in danger from a nephew who had invaded his kingdom, thrown him from his palace and his capital, and had blackened his character by representing him as having imposed a supposititious child on the country, and was designing to destroy the constitution of the realm. He declared that he only retired till the country opened its eyes to the false pretences of liberty and religion with which it had been deluded, when he should be ready at its call. About midnight he stole quietly away with the duke of Berwick, his natural son, and, after much difficulty, through storm and darkness, reached a fishing smack hired for the purpose, which, on Christmas-day, landed him at Arableteuse, on the coast of France. Thence he hastened to the castle of St. Germains, which Louis had appointed for his residency, and where, on the 28th, he found his wife and child awaiting him. Louis also was there to receive him, and settled on him a revenue of forty-five thousand pounds sterling yearly, besides giving him ten thousand pounds for immediate wants. The conduct of Louis was truly princely, not only in thus conferring on the fallen monarch a noble and delightful residence, with an ample income, but in making it felt by his courtiers and by all France, that he expected the exiled family to be treated with all the respect due to the sovereigns of England.
Perhaps the reception of the fallen king was the warmer, because the most determined enemy of Louis was the man who had now occupied his seat. William had not concealed his imperishable hostility to Louis even in his lowest and weakest condition, and he now did not lose a moment in testifying that he still remembered his aggressions and insults in his new pride of place. True, he was not yet king, but exercising a kingly power, and Barillon, the French ambassador, was ordered to quit the kingdom in four-and-twenty hours. It was in vain that the wily Frenchman pretended to rejoice at the success of William, to throw money amongst the populace, and to drink the prince's health; though he begged earnestly for a little delay, it was refused.
The flight of James had removed the great difficulty of William—that of having recourse to some measure of harshness towards him, as imprisonment, or forcible deposition and banishment, which would have greatly lowered his popularity. The adherents of James felt all this, and were confounded at the advantage which the impolitic monarch had given to his enemies. The joy of William's partisans was great and unconcealed. In France the success of William was beheld with intense mortification, for it was the death-blow to the ascendancy of Louis in Europe, which had been the great object of all his wars, and the expensive policy of his whole life. In Holland the elevation of their stadtholder to the head of the English realm was beheld as the greatest triumph of their nation; and Dykvelt and Nicholas Witsen were deputed to wait on him in London and congratulate him on his brilliant success. But, notwithstanding all these favourable circumstances, there were many knotty questions to be settled before William could be recognised as sovereign. The country was divided into various parties, one of which, including the tories and the church, contended that no power or law could affect the divine right of kings; and that, although a king by his infamy, imbecility, or open violation of the laws might be restrained from exercising the regal functions personally, those rights remained untouched, and must be invested for the time in a regent chosen by the united parliament of the nation. Others contended that James's unconstitutional conduct and subsequent flight amounted to an abdication, and that the royal rights had passed on to the next heir; and the only question was, which was the true heir—the daughter of James, the wife of William, or the child called the prince of Wales? The more determined whigs contended that the arbitrary conduct of the house of Stuart, and especially of James, who attempted both to destroy the constitution and the church, had abrogated the original compact betwixt prince and people, and returned the right of electing a new monarch into the hands of the people; and the only question was, who should that choice be? There were not wanting some who advised William boldly to assume the crown by right of conquest; but he was much too wise to adopt this counsel, having already pledged himself to the contrary in his declaration, and also knowing how repugnant such an assumption would be to the proud spirit of the nation.
To settle all these points he called together, on the 23rd of December, the peers, all the members of any parliament summoned in the reign of Charles. II. who happened to be in town, and the lord mayor and aldermen, with fifty other citizens of London, at St. James's, to advise him as to the best mode of fulfilling the terms of his declaration. The two houses, thus singularly constituted, proceeded to deliberate on the great question in their own separate apartments. The lords chose Halifax as their speaker; the commons, Henry Powle. The lords came to the conclusion that a convention was the only authority which could determine the necessary measures; that in the absence of Charles II. a convention had called him back to the throne and ​fore a convention in the absence of James might exercise the same legitimate function. When the lords presented an address to this effect on the 25th, William received it, but said it would be necessary to receive the conclusion of the commons before any act could take place. On the 27th the commons came to the same conclusion, and William was requested to exercise the powers of the executive till the convention should assemble.
In issuing orders for the election of the members of the convention, William displayed a most politic attention to the spirit of the constitution. He gave direction that no compulsion or acts of undue persuasion should be exercised for the return of candidates; no soldiers should be allowed to be present in the boroughs where the elections were proceeding; for, unlike James, William knew that he had the sense of the majority of the people with him. The same measure was adopted with regard to Scotland. There, no sooner had William arrived in England, than the people rose against James's popish ministers, who were glad to flee or conceal themselves. Perth, the miserable renegade and tyrant, endeavoured to escape by sea; he was overtaken, brought ignominiously back, and flung into the prison of Kirkaldy. The papists were everywhere disarmed, the popish chapels were attacked and ransacked. Holyrood House, which swarmed with Jesuits, and with their printing presses, was not exempt from this summary visitation; and bonfires of all sorts of popish paraphernalia —crosses, books, images, and pictures—were made. William now called together such Scottish noblemen and gentlemen as were in London, who adopted a resolution requesting him to call a convention of the estates of Scotland, to meet on the 14th of March, and in the meantime that he would take on himself the same executive authority as in England. William was, therefore, the elected rider of the whole kingdom for the time. This power he proceeded to exercise with a prudence and wisdom in striking contrast to the idiotic antagonism of James. All parties and religions were protected as subjects; Feversham was released, and the administration of justice proceeded with a sense of firmness and personal security which gave general confidence.
On the 22nd of January, 1689, the convention met. The lords again chose Halifax as speaker, the commons, Powle. The catholic lords had not been summoned, and were not there. In the lords, bishop Sherlock and a small knot of tories were for recalling James, and attempting the impossible thing of binding him to the constitution; another party, of which Sancroft was known to be the head, though he had not the courage to go there and advocate it, were for a regency; whilst Danby contended for proclaiming the princess Mary in her own right; and the whigs were for nominating William as an elective prince. In the commons, similar parties appeared; but the great majority were for declaring the throne vacant, and, on the 28th, they passed a resolution to that effect, and the next day another, that no popish king could possess the throne. These carried up to the lords were, after a debate of two days, also adopted, but only by small majorities.
James now sent a letter to each house, declaring that he had not abdicated, but had been compelled to withdraw by necessity; and he offered to return and redress every grievance. Both houses refused to receive the letters; but in both the question as to who should be the successor to the throne was violently debated. Lord Lovelace and William Killigrew presented a petition to the commons, demanding that the crown should be given to the prince and princess of Orange jointly. A member asked if the petition was signed, and Lovelace replied No, but that he would soon procure signatures enough. In fact, there were great and noisy crowds about the house; and Lovelace was suspected of having brought the mob from the city to intimidate the opponents. His proceedings were strongly protested against, and William himself sent for him and expressed his disapprobation of bringing any such influence to force the deliberations of the convention. The earl of Devonshire then gathered a meeting of the advocates of the prince and princess at his house, there the question was discussed, and where Halifax concluded for William, and Danby for Mary. To obtain, if possible, some idea of the leaning of William, who had preserved the most profound silence during the debates, Danby put the question to a friend and countryman of William's present, what was the real wish of William? He replied that it was not for him to say, but that, if he must give an opinion, he did not believe that the prince would consent to be gentleman-usher to his wife. This opened the eyes of Danby, who said, "Then you all know enough, and I far too much." In fact, blind must all have been who had studied the character of William not to have seen from the first that he came there to be king, and that on equal terms at least with his wife. The man who had for years brooded in jealous secrecy over the idea that his wife would one day be raised over his own head by her claim on the British crown, was not likely to accept less than an equal throne with her.
Whilst this question was still agitating both houses, Mary herself settled it by a letter to Danby, in which she thanked him for his zeal in her behalf; she declared that she was the wife of William, and had long resolved, if the throne fell to her, to surrender her power, by consent of parliament, into his hands. This was decisive, and the enemies of William had only the hope left that the princess Anne might protest against William, and take precedence of her rights and those of her issue. But Anne had long been perfectly accordant with William and Mary on this head, and declared herself entirely willing that William should hold the throne for his life. Mary and Anne having spoken out, William now sent for Halifax, Dandy, Shrewsbury, and the other leaders, and told them that, having come for the good of the nation, he had thought it right to leave the nation to settle its election of a ruler, and that he had still no desire to interfere, except to clear their way so far as he himself was concerned. He wished therefore to say that, if they decided to appoint a regent, he declined to be that man. On the other hand, if they preferred placing the princess his wife on the throne, he had nothing to object; but, if they offered to give him during his life the nominal title of king, he could not accept it; that no man respected or esteemed the princess more than he did, but that he could never consent to be tied to the apron-strings of any woman, even the very highest and best of her sex; that if they chose to offer him the crown for life, he would freely accept it; if not, he would return ​cheerfully to his own country, having done that which he had promised. He added that he thought, in any case, the rights of Anne and her issue should be carefully protected.
This left no doubt as to what must be the result. A second conference was held on the 5th of February betwixt the two houses, where the contest was again renewed as to whether the throne was actually vacant, and they parted without coming to any agreement; but the lords, on returning to their own house, yielded, and sent down to the commons the new oaths, and the resolution that the prince and princess should be declared king and queen. The commons, who had already come to this conclusion, would not, however, formally pass it till they had taken measures for securing the rights of the subject before finally conferring the crown. They therefore drew up what was called the "Declaration of Right," by which, while calling William and Mary to the throne, they enumerated the constitutional principles on which the crown should be held. This declaration was passed on the 12th of February, and about a year afterwards was more formally enacted, under the title of the "Bill of Right,"' which contains the great charter of our liberties.
The declaration stated that, whereas the late king, James II., had assumed and exercised a power of dispensing with, and suspending laws without consent of parliament, and had committed and prosecuted certain prelates because they had refused to concur in such arbitrary powers; had erected an illegal tribunal to oppress the church and the subject; had levied taxes, and maintained a standing army in time of peace without consent of parliament; had quartered soldiers contrary to law; had armed and employed papists contrary to law; had violated the freedom of election, and prosecuted persons in the King's Bench for causes only cognisable by parliament; and whereas, besides these, the personal acts of the late king, partial and corrupt juries had been returned, excessive fines had been imposed, illegal and cruel punishments inflicted, the estates of persons granted away before forfeiture or judgment; all these practices being utterly contrary to the known laws, statutes, and freedom of the realm:
And whereas the said king, having abdicated the throne, and the prince of Orange, who under God had delivered the realm from this tyranny, had invited the estates of the realm to meet and secure the religion and freedom of the kingdom; therefore, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons in parliament assembled, did, for the vindication and assertion of their ancient rights, declare—That to suspend the execution of the laws, or to dispense with the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of parliament, that to erect boards of commissioners, and levy money without parliament, to keep a standing army in time of peace without the will of parliament, are all contrary to law. That the election of members of parliament ought to be free, speech in parliament free, and to be impeached nowhere else; no excessive bail, or excessive fines, nor cruel or unjust punishments can be awarded; that jurors ought to be duly impanelled, and, in trials for high treason, be freeholders; that grants and promises of fines before conviction are illegal and void; and that, for redress of grievances and the amendment of laws, parliaments ought to be frequently held. All these things are claimed by the declaration as the undoubted rights and inheritance of Englishmen; and, believing that William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, will preserve from violation all these rights and all other their rights, they resolve and declare them to be king and queen of England, France, and Ireland for their joint and separate lives, the full exercise of the administration being in the prince; and, in default of heirs of the princess Mary, to two princess Anne of Denmark; and, in the default of such issue to the princess Anne of Denmark, the succession to fall to the posterity of William.
On the same 12th of February on which this most important document was passed, the princess Mary landed at Greenwich. She was joyfully welcomed, but soon shocked the public sense of propriety by the light and even giddy manner in which she took possession of her fathers house and kingdom. It was expected that a daughter, though looking after her natural rights, and obeying the will of the nation, would feel the delicacy of her situation in taking up her abode in the seat of a father who was just expelled from his throne by her husband. But, on the contrary, Mary exhibited an air of thoughtless gaiety and even exultation. On reaching Whitehall, no sense of the exiled father and the ruined dynasty of her paternal race seemed to visit her, but a childish delight in talking possession of a new fortune and a fine house. She hurried about from apartment to apartment, examined into everything, even the closets and the furniture, and was so unnaturally merry as to shock even her stanch armour, Burnet. Afterwards, when she became aware of the unpleasant impression which her conduct had made, she excused herself by saying that her husband had informed her that a large section of the people believed that she was dissatisfied with the share which he had received in the throne, and that if she looked gloomy it would confirm the idea; that she therefore affected to be blithe when her heart was really sad. But, taking a general view of the conduct of Mary and Anne, we can see no evidence of any deep filal feeling throughout. Their father appears to have won as little of their affections as that of his subjects. Anne was in a hurry to declare her adhesion to the scheme of William's invasion, and to desert her father; and where crowns are concerned, the ties of consanguinity are seldom found to be very tenacious.
The next morning, Wednesday, the 13th of February, 1689, the two houses waited on William and Mary, who received them in the banqueting-room at Whitehall. The prince and princess entered, and stood under the canopy of state side by side. Halifax was speaker on the occasion. He requested their highnesses to hear a resolution of both houses, which the clerk of the house of lords then read. It was the declaration of right. Halifax then, in the name of all the estates of the realm, requested them to accept the crown. William, for himself and Ms wife, accepted the offer, declaring it the more welcome that it was given in proof of the confidence of the whole nation. He then added for himself, "And as I had no other intention in coming hither than to preserve your religion, laws, and liberties, so you may be sure that I shall endeavour to support them, and be willing to concur in anything that shall be for the good ​of the kingdom, and to do all that is in my power to advance the welfare and the glory of the nation."
This declaration was no sooner brought to an end than it was received with shouts of satisfaction by the whole assembly, and, being heard by the crowds without, was re-echoed by one universal "Hurrah!" The lords and commons,,as in courtesy bound, then retired; and, at the great gate of the palace, the heralds and pursuivants, clad in their quaint tabards, proclaimed William and Mary king and queen of England, at the same time praying for them, according to custom, "a long and happy reign."
The Princess Anne.
WILLIAM OF ORANGE AND HIS CONSORT MARY INVITED BY PARLIAMENT TO ACCEPT THE CROWN.
​miseries, pitiable idolatries, prostrate meanness, fantastic assumptions, horrible outrages, and moral slaveries. From that day the eternal struggle of English kings to make themselves demi-gods and their people hereditary puppets, was at an end. The block at Whitehall in 1049, and the heralds at the same place in 1689 proclaiming an elective king and queen, are beacon-lights in history on which the most aspiring monarchs cannot turn their gaze without becoming sobered, nor any people, however distant, or trodden down, without feeling in their secret souls that their oppressions are but of human, not divine origin, and that there is a remedy for them when they can gather into the national heart the spirit and the political union of England.