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 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ACCESSION OF JAMES THE SECOND. 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD MACAULAY. 
 
 EIGHT VOUBIES IN FOUR. 
 VOLS. I. & II. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 
 
 (JCanibriUflc: ISlfbersflie ^tess. 
 
 1876.
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 H. 0. UOOaHTON AKB COMPANY. 
 
 I
 
 
 Clje OTorfi^ of iLorD itiacaula^* 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 rAcn 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 Britain under tUe Romans 4 
 
 Britain under the iSaxons ...... 5 
 
 Effect of the Conversion of the Saxons to Chinstianity . 6 
 
 Danish Invasions . . . . . . . . 10 
 
 The Normans 11 
 
 The Norman Conquest and its Effects .... 14 
 
 Effects of the Separation of England and Normandy . .16 
 Amalgamation of Races . . . . . . . 17 
 
 Conquests of the English on the Continent . . . .20 
 
 Wars of the Roses ........ 28 
 
 Extinction of Villenage ....... 24 
 
 Beneficial Operation of the Roman Catholic Religion . 25 
 The Nature of the ancient English Government often mis- 
 represented, and why . • . . . .27 
 
 Description of the liniitcid IMonarchies of the Middle Ages 81 
 
 Prerogatives of the ancient English Kings how limited . 82 
 The Limitations not always strictly observed, and why . 33 
 
 Resistance an ordinary Check on Tyranny in the JSIIddle 
 
 A<ies . . . . . . . . . 37 
 
 Peculiar Character of the English Aristocracy . . .41 
 The Covcnuncnt of the Tudors . . . . . 43 
 
 The limited I\Ionarchi(>s of the Middle Ages generally turned 
 
 into absolute Monarchies, and why . . . .46 
 
 The English Monarchy a singular Exception, and why . 47 
 The Reformation and its EO'ects ...... 49
 
 VI CONTENXa 
 
 Origin of the Church of England 66 
 
 Her peculiar Character . . . . . . .57 
 
 The Relation in which she stood to the Crown ... 59 
 The Puritans .... .... 64 
 
 Their Republican Spirit ....... 66 
 
 No systematic Parliamentary Opposition offered to the Gov- 
 ernment of Elizabeth, and why . . . .67 
 
 The Question of the Monopolies ..... 69 
 
 Scotland and Ireland become Parts of the same Empire with 
 
 England 70 
 
 Diminution of the Importance of England after the Accession 
 
 of James the First ....... 76 
 
 The Doctrine of Divine Right . . . . . .77 
 
 The Separation between the Church and the Puritans be- 
 comes wider ........ 82 
 
 Accession and Character of Charles the First . . .91 
 Tactics of the Opposition in the House of Commons . 92 
 
 Petition of Right 93 
 
 The Petition of Right violated ; Character and Designs of 
 
 Wentworth 95 
 
 Character of Laud ........ 96 
 
 The Star Chamber and High Commission • ... 98 
 Shipmoney .......... 99 
 
 Resistance to the Liturgy in Scotland . . . . 101 
 
 A Parliament called and dissolved . . . . . 1 04 
 
 The Long Parliament . . . . . . .106 
 
 The first Appearance of the two great English Parties . 108 
 
 The Irish Rebellion 115 
 
 The Remonstrance . . . . . . . .117 
 
 The Impeachment of the Five Members . . . . 119 
 
 Departure of Charles from London . . . . .120 
 
 Commencement of the Civil War 1 24 
 
 Successes of the Royalists . . . . . . .127 
 
 Rise of the Independents . . .... 128 
 
 Oliver Cromwell 129 
 
 The Self-denying Ordinance ; Victory of the Parliament . 130 
 Domination and Character of the Army . . . .132 
 Risings against the Military Government suppressed . . 135 
 The Proceeding against the King . . . . .136 
 
 His Execution ... ..... 140
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VU 
 
 Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland . . . 
 Expulsion of the Long Parliament \ . . 
 The Protectorate of Oliver ..... 
 
 Oliver succeeded by Richard .... 
 
 Fall of Richard and Revival of the Long Parliament 
 
 Second Expulsion of the Long Parliament . 
 
 Monk and the Army of Scotland march into England 
 
 Monk declares for a free Parliament 
 
 General Election of 1660. . . . . . 
 
 The Restoration ....... 
 
 PAQI 
 
 142 
 144 
 148 
 153 
 157 
 158 
 159 
 162 
 163 
 164 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 The Conduct of those who restored the House of Stuart un- 
 justly censured . . . . . . .166 
 
 Abolition of the Tenures by Knight Service . . .168 
 
 Disbanding of the Army . . . . . . ■ . 169 
 
 Disputes between the Roundheads and Cavaliers renewed . 170 
 Religious Dissension . . . . . . .173 
 
 Uni)opularity of the Puritans . . . . . .176 
 
 Character of Charles the Second ..... 184 
 
 Characters of the Duke of York and Earl of Clarendon . 1 88 
 
 General Election of 1661 192 
 
 Violence of the Cavaliers in the new Parliament . . .193 
 Persecution of the Puritans . . . . . .194 
 
 Zeal of the Church for Iiereditary Monarchy . . .195 
 
 Change in the Morals of the Coummnity .... 197 
 
 Prodigacv of the Politicians of that Age . . . .199 
 
 State of Scotland 202 
 
 State of Ireland 205 
 
 The Government becomes unpopular in England . . 206 
 
 War with the Dutch 210 
 
 Opposition in the House of Commons . . . .212 
 
 Fall of Clarendon 213 
 
 State of European Politics, and Ascendency of France . 217 
 
 Character of Lewis the Fourteenth 219 
 
 The Triple Alliance 222 
 
 The Country Party 223 
 
 Connc(;tion between Charles the Second and France . 225 
 Views of Lewis with respect to England . . . 227
 
 ♦ffi CONTENTS. 
 
 risi 
 
 Treaty of Dover .230 
 
 Nature of the Englisli Cabinet ...... 232 
 
 The Cabal 233 
 
 Shutting of the Exchequer . . . . • .237 
 War with the United Provinces and their extreme Danger 238 
 
 William Prince of Orange 239 
 
 Meeting of the Parliament : Declaration of Indulgence . 242 
 It is cancelled, and the Test Act passed .... 244 
 
 The Cabal dissolved ; Peace with the United Provinces . 246 
 Administration of Danby . . . . . . .247 
 
 Embarrassing Situation of the Country Party . . . 250 
 Dealings of that Party with the French Embassy . .251 
 
 Peace of Nimeguen ........ 252 
 
 Violent Discontents in England ...... 253 
 
 Fall of Dauby 255 
 
 The Popish Plot 256 
 
 First General Election of 1679 260 
 
 Violence of the new House of Commons . . . .202 
 Temple's Plan of Government . . . . .263 
 
 Character of Halifax 267 
 
 Character of Sunderland ....... 271 
 
 Prorogation of the ParHament ; Habeas Corpus Act . . 273 
 Second General Election of 1679 ; Popularity of Monmouth 274 
 Lawrence Hyde ........ 279 
 
 Sidney Godolphin . . . . . . . .281 
 
 Violence of Factions on the Subject of the Exclusion Bill ; 
 
 Names of Whig and Tory 282 
 
 Meeting of Parliament; the Exclusion Bill passes the Com- 
 mons ......... 284 
 
 Exclusion Bill rejected by the Lords .... 285 
 
 Execution of Stafford ; General Election of 1681 . . 286 
 
 Parliament held at Oxford and dissolved . . . .287 
 
 Tory Reaction 288 
 
 Persecution of the Whigs 29^ 
 
 The Charter of the City confiscated; Whig Conspiracies . 292 
 Detection of the Whig Conspiracies ; Severity of the Gov- 
 ernment ........ 2(K5 
 
 Seizure of Charters . . . . . . . ,296 
 
 Tnlluence of the Duke of York 298 
 
 He is opposed by Halifax 299
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 IZ 
 
 PAGI 
 
 301 
 
 Lord Keeper Guildford . . . 
 
 Policy of Lewis ......... 304 
 
 State of Factions in the Court of Charles at the Time of his 
 
 Death 305 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Grnat Change in the State of Eniijland since 1685 
 
 Population of England in 1685 
 
 The Increase of Population greater in the 
 
 South ..... 
 
 Revenue in 1685 .... 
 Military System ..... 
 The Navy ..... 
 
 The Ordnance ..... 
 Noneffective Charge 
 Charge of Civil Government 
 Great Gains of Courtiers and Ministers 
 State of Agriculture .... 
 Mineral Wealth of the Country 
 Increase of llent .... 
 The Country Gentlemen . 
 
 The Clergy 
 
 The Yeomanry 
 
 Growth of the Towns; Bristol 
 
 Norwich ..... 
 
 Other County Towns . 
 Manchester .... 
 
 Leeds . ..... 
 
 Shcfiield 
 
 Birmingham .... 
 
 Liverpool ..... 
 Watering places : Cheltenham 
 Brighton, Buxton, Tunbridge Wells 
 
 Bath 
 
 London ..... 
 
 Tlie City 
 
 The Fashionable Part of the Capital 
 Police of London .... 
 The Lighting of London . 
 
 North than in the 
 
 309 
 310 
 
 312 
 315 
 318 
 327 
 .S35 
 336 
 337 
 338 
 341 
 347 
 349 
 350 
 356 
 367 
 368 
 370 
 372 
 373 
 374 
 375 
 376 
 377 
 378 
 379 
 381 
 382 
 384 
 390 
 396 
 397
 
 Z CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 White Friars 398 
 
 The Court 399 
 
 The Coffeehouses 402 
 
 Difficulty of Travelling . . , . . . .407 
 
 Badness of the Roads 409 
 
 Stage Coaches 414 
 
 Highwaymen . . . . . . . . .418 
 
 Inns 421 
 
 The Post Office . .423 
 
 The Newspapers 425 
 
 The Newsletters 427 
 
 The Observator 429 
 
 Scarcity of Books in Country Places .... 430 
 
 Female Education . . . . . . . .431 
 
 Literary Attainments of Gentlemen .... 433 
 
 Influence of French Literature . . . . • .434 
 
 Immorality of the Polite Literature of England . . 436 
 State of Science in England ...... 444 
 
 State of the Fine Arts . . . . . . .451 
 
 State of the Common People ; Agricultural Wages . . 454 
 Wages of Manufacturers . . . . . . .457 
 
 Labour of Children in Factories ; Wages of different Classes 
 
 of Artisans ........ 459 
 
 Number of Paupers . . . . . . - .401 
 
 Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of 
 
 Civilisation . . . . . . . .463 
 
 Delusion which leads Men to overrate the Happiness of pre- 
 ceding Generations ...... 466 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Cranmer and the Church of England 469 
 
 A pure Church without a Bishop 478 
 
 Synod of Dort 479 
 
 Act of Uniformity 479 
 
 Nagpore and Oude 480 
 
 Population 480 
 
 Revenue in 1863 481 
 
 Coal 481 
 
 The Clergy plebeian 48!
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Death of Cbarles the Second .9 
 
 Suspicions of Poison ........ 22 
 
 Speech of James the Second to the Privy Council . . 25 
 
 James proclaimed ........ 26 
 
 State of the Administration 28 
 
 New Arrangements ........ 30 
 
 Sir George Jeffreys ........ 32 
 
 The Revenue collected without an Act of Parliament . 38 
 A Parliament called ; Transactions between James and the 
 
 French King 39 
 
 Churchill sent Ambassador to France ; his History . . 43 
 
 Feelings of the Continental Governments towards England 47 
 
 Policy of the Court of Rome ...... 50 
 
 Struggle in the Mind of James ..... 53 
 
 Fluctuations of his Policy 54 
 
 Public Celebration of the Roman Catholic Rites in the Palace 56 
 
 His Coronation ...... 
 
 Enthusiasm of the Tories' Addresses . 
 The Elections ...... 
 
 Proceedings against Gates . . . , 
 Proceedings against Dangerlield 
 Proceedings against Baxter 
 Meeting of the Parliament of Scotland 
 Feeling of James towards the Puritans 
 Cruel Treatment of thc^ Scotch Covenanters 
 Feeling of James towards the Quakers 
 
 58 
 61 
 63 
 68 
 75 
 77 
 81 
 83 
 85 
 90
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 William Penn 93 
 
 Peculiar Favour shown to Roman Catholics and Quakers . 97 
 Meeting of the English Parliament; Trevor chosen Speaker 100 
 Character of Seymour . . . . . . .101 
 
 The King's Speech to the Parliament . . . . 103 
 
 Debate in the Commons ; Speech of Seymour . . .104 
 The Revenue voted ; Proceedings of the Commons concern- 
 ing Religion . . . . . . . . 106 
 
 Additional Taxes voted ; Sir Dudley North . . .108 
 
 Proceedings of the Lords . . . . . . 110 
 
 Bill for reversing the Attainder of Stafford . • . .112 
 
 o 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Whig Refugees on the Continent 114 
 
 Their Correspondents in England . . * . . .115 
 Characters of the Leading Refugees . . . . 116 
 
 Ayloffe; Wade 117 
 
 Goodenough ; Rumbold . . . . . . . 118 
 
 Lord Grey 119 
 
 Monmouth 121 
 
 Ferguson . . .122 
 
 Scotch Refugees ; Earl of Argyle 1 28 
 
 Sir Patrick Hume 131 
 
 Sir John Cochrane ; Fletcher of Saltoun . . . 132 
 
 Unreasonable Conduct of the Scotch Refugees . . .133 
 Arrangements for an Attempt on England and Scotland 135 
 
 John Locke 137 
 
 Preparations made by the Government for the Defence of 
 Scotland ; Conversation of James with the Dutch 
 Ambassadors . . . . . . . .139 
 
 Ineffectual Attempts of the Prince of Orange and of the 
 
 States General to prevent Ai-gyle from sailing . 140 
 Departure of Argyle from Holland ; he lands in Scotland 143 
 His Disputes with his Followers ...... 145 
 
 Temper of the Scotch Nation ..... 147 
 
 Argyle's Forces dispersed ....... 151 
 
 Argyle a Prisoner 152 
 
 His Execution 159 
 
 Execution of Rumbold 160
 
 CONTENTS. xn 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Death of Ayloffe 162 
 
 Devastation of Argyleshire ....... 163 
 
 Ineffectual Attempts to prevent Monmouth from leaving 
 
 Holland 164 
 
 His Arrival at Ljine 168 
 
 His Declaration 169 
 
 His Popularity in the West of England . . . .170 
 Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Bi-idport . 173 
 Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Axminster . 174 
 News of the Rebellion carried to London . . . 175 
 
 Loyalty of the Parliament 176 
 
 Reception of Monmouth at Taunton . . . . 180 
 
 He takes the Title of King . . . . . .184 
 
 His Reception at Bridgewater ..... 188 
 
 Preparations of the Government to oppose him . . .189 
 His Design on Bristol ....... 193 
 
 He Relinquishes that Design . . . . . .195 
 
 Skirmish at Philip's Norton . . . . . . 197 
 
 Despondency of Monmouth . . . . • .198 
 
 He returns to Bridgewater ; the Royal Army encamps at 
 
 Sedgemoor ........ 200 
 
 Battle of Sedgemoor 205 
 
 Pursuit of the Rebels 212 
 
 Military Executions ; Flight of Monmouth . . .213 
 
 His Capture 216 
 
 His Letter to the King 218 
 
 He is carried to London , . . . . . . 219 
 
 His Interview with the King ...... 220 
 
 His Execution 224 
 
 His Memory cherished by the Common People . . .229 
 Cruelties of the Soldiers in the West; Kirke . • . 232 
 Jeffreys sets out on the Western Circuit .... 238 
 
 Trial of Alice Lisle 239 
 
 The Bloody Assizes 244 
 
 Abraham Ilohncs 248 
 
 Christopher Battiscombe ; the Hewlinga .... 249 
 
 Punishment of Tutchin 251 
 
 Rebels trans])orted 252 
 
 Confiscation and Extortion ...... 254 
 
 Rapacity of the (iueen and of her Ladies . . 255
 
 Via CONTENTS. 
 
 PASS 
 
 Cases of Grey and Cochrane ...... 259 
 
 Cases of Storey, Wade, Goodenough, and Ferguson . . 260 
 Jeffieys made Lord Chancellor ; Trial and Execution of Cor- 
 nish 263 
 
 Trials and Executions of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt . 266 
 
 Trial and Execution of Bateman ..... 268 
 
 Cruel Pei-secution of the Protestant Dissenters . . .270 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Power of James at the Height in the Autumn of 1685 273 
 His Foreign Policy . . . . , . . .274 
 
 His Plans of Domestic Government; the Habeas Corpus Act 275 
 
 The Standing Army 276 
 
 Designs in favour of the Roman Catholic Religion . . 278 
 Violation of the Test Act ...... 283 
 
 Disgrace of Halifax 284 
 
 General Discontent ....... 285 
 
 Persecution of the French Huguenots .... 286 
 
 Effect of that Persecution in England .... 290 
 
 Meeting of Parliament ; Speech of the King . . . 291 
 An Opposition formed in the House of Commons . . 292 
 Sentiments of i'oreign Governments ..... 294 
 
 Committee of the Commons on the King's Speech . . 296 
 Defeat of the Government ....... 300 
 
 Second Defeat of the Government ..... 302 
 
 The King reprimands the Commons ..... 303 
 
 Coke committed by the Commons for Disrespect to the King 304 
 Opposition to the Government in the Lords ; the Eai-l of 
 
 Devonshire ........ 305 
 
 The Bishop of London ; Viscount Mordaunt . . . 307 
 Prorogation . . . . . . . . . 310 
 
 Trials of Lord Gerard and of Hampden . . . .311 
 
 Trial of Delamcre . . . . . . . . 313 
 
 Effect of his Acqiiittal . . . . • . .316 
 
 Parties in the Court ; Feeling of the Protestant Tories . 317 
 Publication of Papers found in the Strong Box of Charles the 
 
 Second . . .319 
 
 Feeling of the respectable Roman Catholics . . . 321 
 Cabal of violent Roman Catholics ; Castelmaine ; Jermyn . 323
 
 CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 White; Tyrconnel 324 
 
 Feeling of the Ministers of Foreign Governments . . 327 
 The Pope and the Order of Jesus opjDosed to each other . 329 
 The Order of Jesus ....... 330 
 
 Father Petre ; the King's Temper and Opinions . . 338 
 
 The King encouraged in his Erroi'S by Sunderland . . 341 
 
 Perfidy of Jeffreys 344 
 
 Godolphin ; the Queen ....... 345 
 
 Amours of the King ; Catharine Sedley .... 346 
 
 Intrigues of Rochester in favour of Catharine Sedley . 348 
 
 Decline of Rochester's Influence 352 
 
 Castelmaine sent to Rome 355 
 
 The Huguenots ill treated by James 356 
 
 The Dispensing Power 359 
 
 Dismission of refractory Judges . . . . . .361 
 
 Case of Sir Edward Hales 363 
 
 Roman Catholics authorised to hold Ecclesiastical Benefices ; 
 
 Sclater 365 
 
 Walker 366 
 
 The Deanery of Christchurch given to a Roman Catholic ; 
 
 Disposal of Bishoprics 367 
 
 Resolution of James to use his Ecclesiastical Supremacy 
 
 against the Church 368 
 
 His Difficulties 369 
 
 He creates a new Court of High Commission . . . 373 
 Proceedings against the Bishop of London . . . .37 7 
 Discontent excited by the public Display of Roman Catholic 
 
 Rites and Vestments 379 
 
 Riots 380 
 
 A Camp formed at Hounslow 383 
 
 Samuel Johnson ......... 385 
 
 Hugh Speke 386 
 
 Proceedings against Johnson ...... 387 
 
 Zeal of the Anglican Clergy against Popery ; Controversial 
 
 Writings 389 
 
 The Roman Catholic Divines overmatched . . . .391 
 
 State of Scotland 393 
 
 Queensberry ; Perth ; Melfort . . ... 395 
 Their Apostasy 396
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Favour shown to the Roman Catholic Religion in Scotland ; 
 
 Riots at Edinburgh ... ... 397 
 
 Ansier of the King ; his Plans concerning Scotland . 399 
 
 Deputation of Scotch Privy Councillors sent to London . 400 
 
 Their Negotiations with the King . . . . . 401 
 
 Meeting of the Scotch Estates ; they prove refi-actory . 402 
 They are adjourned ; Arbitrary System of Government in 
 
 Scotland 407 
 
 Ireland 409 
 
 State of the Law on the Subject of Religion . . .410 
 
 Hostility of Races . . . . . . . . 411 
 
 The aboriginal Peasantry . . . . . . .412 
 
 The aboriginal Aristocracy , . . . . ". 413 
 
 State of the English Colony 415 
 
 Course which James ought to have followed . . . 417 
 
 His Errors 420 
 
 Clarendon arrives in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant ; his Morti- 
 fications ........ 423 
 
 Panic among the Colonists . . . .^ . . . 424 
 
 Arrival of Tyrconnel at Dublin as General . . . 427 
 
 His Partiality and Violence ...... 428 
 
 He is bent on the Repeal of the Act of Settlement ; he re- 
 turns to England . . . . . . . 430 
 
 The King displeased with Clarendon ..... 431 
 
 Rochester attacked by the Jesuitical Cabal . . . 432 
 
 Attempts of James to convert Rochester .... 435 
 
 Dismission of Rochester ....... 440 
 
 Dismission of Clai-endon ; Tyrconnel Lord Deputy . . 442 
 
 Dismay of the English Colonists in Ireland . . . 445 
 
 Effect of the Fall of the Hydes 446 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Despatches of the Dutch ministers 449 
 
 The ChurchiUs 449 
 
 Wodrow's authority . . . . . . , 449 
 
 Graham, of Claverhouse 450 
 
 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary ....*.. 450 
 
 William's complicity with Monmouth . . . 451
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I PURPOSE to write the history of England from tho 
 accession of King James the Second down to imroduc- 
 a time whicli is within the memory of men *''"'• 
 still livino;. I shall recount the errors whi'jh, in a few 
 months, alienated a loyal gentxy and priesthood from 
 the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that 
 revolution which terminated the long struggle between 
 our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up 
 together the rights of the people and the title of 
 the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new 
 settlement was, during many troubled years, success-^ 
 fully defended against foreign and domestic enemies ; 
 how, under that settlement, the authority of law and 
 the security of property were found to be compatible 
 with a liberty of discussion and of individual action 
 never befoi'e known ; how, from the auspicious union 
 of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which 
 tlie annals of human affairs had furnished no example ; 
 how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, 
 rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European 
 powers ; how her opulence and her martial glory grew 
 together ; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was 
 vor,. I. 1
 
 2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 gradually established a pul)lic credit fruitfid of marvels 
 which to the statesmen of any former ao;e would have 
 seemed incredible : how a irisantic commerce gave 
 birth to a maritime power, compared with which every 
 other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into 
 insignificance ; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was 
 at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, 
 but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection ; how, 
 in America, the British colonies rapidly became far 
 miohtier and wealthier than the realms which Cortea 
 and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the 
 Fifth ; how, in Asia, British adventurers founded an 
 empire not less splendid and more durable than that of 
 Alexander. 
 
 Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disas- 
 ters mingled with triumphs, and great national crimes 
 and follies far more humiliating than any disaster. It 
 will be seen that even what we justly account our 
 chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen 
 that the system which effectually secured our liberties 
 against the encroachments of kingly power gave birth 
 to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarch- 
 ies are exempt. It will be seen that, in consequence 
 partly of unwise interference, and partly of unwise neg- 
 lect, the increase of wealth and the extension of trade 
 produced, together with immense good, some evils from 
 which poor and rude societies are free. It will be 
 seen how, in two important dependencies of the crown, 
 wrong was followed by just retribution ; how imj)ru- 
 dence and obstinacy broke the ties which bound the 
 North American colonies to the parent state ; how Ire- 
 land, cursed by the domination of race over race, and 
 of relio-ion over religion, remained indeed a member 
 of the empire, but a withered and distorted member.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 3 
 
 adding no strength to tlie body politic, and reproach- 
 fully pointed at by all who feared or envied the great- 
 ness of Enjrland. 
 
 Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general 
 effect of this chequered narrative will be to excite 
 thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the 
 breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country 
 during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently 
 the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual 
 improvement. Those who compare the age on which 
 their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only 
 in their imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay : 
 but no man who is correctly informed as to the past 
 will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view 
 of the present. 
 
 I should very imperfectly execute the task which I 
 have undertaken if I were merely to treat of battles 
 and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of in- 
 trigues in the palace, and of debates in the parhament. 
 It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the peo- 
 ple as well as the history of the government, to trace 
 the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe 
 the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary 
 taste, to portray the manners of successive generations, 
 and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions 
 which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and 
 public amusements. I shall cheerfully bear the re- 
 proach of having descended beloAv the dignity of his- 
 tory, if I can succeed in placing before the English of 
 the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their 
 ancestors. 
 
 The events which I propose to relate form only a 
 sino-le act of a ixreat and eventful drama extending 
 through ages, and must be very imperfectly understood
 
 4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 unless the plot of the preceding acts be well known. 
 I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight 
 sketch of the history of our country from tlie earliest 
 times. I shall pass very rapidly over many centuries : 
 but I shall dwell at some length on the vicissitudes of 
 that contest which the administration of King James 
 the Second brono;ht to a decisive crisis.^ 
 
 Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated 
 Britain un- tlic grcatuess which she was destined to at» 
 mans. tain. Her inhabitants, when first they be- 
 
 came known to the Tyrian mariners, were little supe- 
 rior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands. She was 
 subjugated by the Roman arms ; but she received only 
 a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. Of the 
 western provinces which obeyed the Ceesars she was 
 the last that was conquered, and the first that was 
 flung away. No magnificent remains of Latian porches 
 and aqueducts are to be found in Britain. No writer 
 of British birth is reckoned among the masters of La- 
 tian poetry and eloquence. It is not probable that the 
 islanders were at any time generally familiar with the 
 tonfjue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to 
 the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many 
 centuries, been ^predominant. It drove out the Celtic ; 
 it was not driven out by the Teutonic ; and it is at this 
 day the basis of the French, Spanisli, and Portuguese 
 languages. In our island the Latin appears never to 
 have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not 
 stand its ground against the German. 
 
 1 In this, and in the next chapter, I have ven- selJom thoun;ht it neces- 
 eaiy to cite authorities: for, in tliese chapters, I iiave not detailed events 
 minutelj', or used recondite materials; and the facts which I mention are for 
 tiie most part sucli tliat a person tolerably well read in English history, if 
 not already apprised of them, will at least know where to look for evidence 
 of them. In the subsequent chapters I shall carefull)' indicate the sources 
 of my information.
 
 Ch. I.] fiEFORE THE RESTORATION. 6 
 
 The scanty and superficial civilisation wliich tlie 
 Britons had derived from their southern masters was 
 effaced by the calamities of the fifth century. In tlie 
 continental kingdoms into vs^hich the Roman empire 
 was then dissolved, the conquerors learned much from 
 the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race 
 became as barbarous as the conquerors. 
 
 All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in 
 the continental provinces of the Roman em- Britain un- 
 pire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin, were ous. 
 zealous Christians. Tlie followers of Ida and Cerdic, 
 on the other hand, brought to their settlements in Brit- 
 ain all the superstitions of the Elbe. While the Ger- 
 man princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries, and 
 Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions 
 of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part 
 eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the 
 rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing 
 savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden. 
 
 The continental kino;doms which had risen on the 
 ruins of the Western Em})ire kept up some intercourse 
 with those eastern provinces where the ancient civili- 
 sation, though slowly fading away under the inlWence 
 of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct bar- 
 barians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of 
 Diocletian and Constantino, where the public buildings 
 were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus 
 and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious })ed- 
 ants, themselves destitute of taste, sense, and spirit, 
 could still read and interpret the masterpieces of Soph- 
 ocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From this com- 
 munion Britain was cut oil". Her shores were, to the 
 polished race which dwelt by the Bosporus, objects of 
 a mysterious horror, such as that with which the lo-
 
 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, tCn. L 
 
 nians of the age of Homer had resarded the Straits 
 of Scylla and the city of the Lfestrvgonian cannibals. 
 There was one province of our island in which, as 
 Procopius had been told, the ground was covered with 
 serpents, and the air was such that no man could in- 
 hale it and live. To this desolate region the spirits of 
 the departed were ferried over from the land of tlie 
 Franks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen per- 
 formed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was 
 distinctly heard by the boatmen : their weight made 
 the keel sink deep in the water ; but their forms wei'e 
 invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which 
 an able historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of 
 Simplicius, and of Tribonian, gravely related in the 
 rich and polite Constantinople, touching the country in 
 which the founder of Constantinople had assumed the 
 imperial purple. Concerning all the other provinces 
 of the Western Empire we have continuous informa- 
 tion. It is only in Britain that an age of fable com- 
 pletely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and To- 
 tila, Euric and Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and 
 Brunechild, are historical men and women. But Hen- 
 gist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and 
 Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence 
 may be questioned, and whose adventures must be 
 classed with those of Hercules and Romulus. 
 
 At length the darkness begins to break ; and the 
 Conversion of couutrv which had been lost to view as Brit- 
 
 the Saxons to . _, , . _^. 
 
 Christianity, aui rcappears as England, ilie conversion 
 of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a 
 long series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the 
 Church had been deeply corrupted both by that super 
 itition and by that philosophy against which she haa 
 tong contended, and over which she had at last tri-
 
 fjH. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. T 
 
 nm})lied. She had given a too easy admission to doc- 
 trines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites 
 borrowed from the ancient tem})Ies. Roman policy 
 and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Synan 
 asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she 
 retained enough of the sublime theology and benevo- 
 lent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intel- 
 lects, and to purify many hearts. Some things also 
 which at a later period were justly regarded as among 
 her chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and 
 long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the 
 sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of 
 the civil magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. 
 But that which hi an age of good government is an 
 evil may, in an age of grossly bad government, be a 
 blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed 
 by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened 
 ])ublic opiiu'on, than by priestcraft : but it is better that 
 men should be governed by priestcraft tlian by brute 
 violence, by such a prelate as Dunstnn than by such a 
 warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and 
 ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to re- 
 joice when a class, of which the influence is intellect- 
 ual and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class will 
 doubtless abuse its power : but mental power, even 
 when abused, is still a nobler and better power than 
 that which consists merely in corporeal strength. We 
 read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at 
 tne height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, 
 who abhorred the ]ileasures and dignities which they 
 had purchased by guilt, who abdicated their crowns, 
 and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel 
 penances and incessant prayers. These stories have 
 drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some
 
 8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn I. 
 
 writers wlio, wliile they boasted of liberality, were in 
 truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, 
 and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history 
 of the world the standard received in the Parisian society 
 of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, 
 however deformed by superstition, introduced strong 
 moral restraints into communities previously governed 
 only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a 
 system which taught the tiercest and mightiest ruler 
 that he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible 
 being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful 
 mention from philosophers and philanthropists. 
 
 The same observations will apply to the contempt 
 with which, in the last century, it was fashionable to 
 speak of the pilgrimages, the sanctuaries, the crusades, 
 and the monastic institutions of the middle ages. In 
 times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel 
 by liberal curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was 
 better that the rude inhabitant of the North should 
 visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he 
 should never see anything but those squalid cabins and 
 uncleared woods amidst Avhich he was born. In times 
 when life and when female honour were exposed to 
 daily risk from tyrants and marauders, it was better 
 that the precinct of a shrine should be regarded with 
 an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge 
 inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness. In times 
 w^lien statesmen were incapable of forming extensive 
 political combinations, it was better that the Christian 
 nations should be roused and united for the recovery 
 of the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one hy 
 one, be overwhelmed by the Mahometan power. What- 
 ever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly 
 thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders,
 
 Ch, I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 9 
 
 it was surely good that, in an age of ignorance and 
 violence, tliere should be quiet cloisters and gardens. 
 in which the aits of peace coidd be safely cultivated, 
 in which gentle and contemplative natures could tind 
 an asylum, in Avhich one brother could employ himself 
 in transcribing the jEneid of Virgil, and another in 
 meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in which he who 
 had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology or 
 carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for 
 natural philosophy might make experiments on the 
 properties of plants and minerals. Had not such re- 
 treats been scattered here and there, amono; the huts 
 of a miserable peasantiy, and the castles of a ferocious 
 aristocrac}^ Euro])ean society would have consisted 
 merely of beasts of burden and beasts of i)rey. Tlie 
 Church has many times been compared by divines to 
 the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis : but 
 never was the resemblance more perfect than dunng 
 that evil time when she alone rode, amidst darkness 
 and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great 
 works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bear- 
 ing within her that feeble germ from which a second 
 and more glorious civilisation Avas to spring. 
 
 Even the s])iritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope 
 was, in the dark ages, ])roductive of far more good than 
 evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of Western 
 Europe in one great commonwealth. What the Olym- 
 pian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to all 
 the Greek cities, from Trcbizond to Marseilles, Rome 
 and her Bishop were to all Christians of the Latin com- 
 munion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. Thus grew 
 up sentiments of enlarged benevolence. Races sepa- 
 rated from each other hy seas and mountains acknowl- 
 edged a fraternal tie and a common code of jiublic law.
 
 10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I- 
 
 Even in war, the cruelty of the conqueror was not sel- 
 dom mitigated by the recollection that he and his van- 
 quished enemies were all members of one great feder- 
 ation. 
 
 Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now 
 admitted. A regular communication was opened be- 
 tween our shores and that part of Europe in which the 
 traces of ancient power and policy were yet discerni- 
 ble. Many noble monuments which have since been 
 destroyed or defaced still retained their pristine magnif- 
 icence ; and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were 
 unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts 
 and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The 
 dome of Agrippa, still glittering with bronze, the mau- 
 soleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and 
 statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded 
 into a quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some 
 part of the story of that great civilised world which 
 had passed away. The islanders returned, with awe 
 deeply impressed on their half opened minds, and told 
 the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of London and 
 York that, near the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty 
 race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would 
 never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning 
 followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and 
 eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied 
 in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names 
 of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout 
 Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in 
 the ninth century, began the last great migration of 
 the northern barbarians. 
 
 During many years Denmark and Scandinavia con- 
 Danish inva- tiuucd to pour forth innumerable pirates, dis- 
 Bioiis tinguished by strength, by valour, by merci-
 
 Cii. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 11 
 
 less ferocity, and by liatred of tlie Christian naine. 
 No country suffered so much from these invaders as 
 England. Her coast lay near to tlie ports whence 
 tliey sailed ; nor was any shire so far distant from the 
 sea as to be secure from attack. The same atrocities 
 which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the 
 Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the 
 Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilisation, just as 
 it began to rise, was met l)y this blow, and sank down 
 once more. Laro;e colonies of adventurers from the 
 Baltic established themselves on the eastern shores 
 of our island, spread gradually westward, and, suj)- 
 ported by constant reinforcements from beyond the 
 sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The 
 struiTiile between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted 
 through six generations. Each was alternately para- 
 mount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, 
 provinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased 
 to the ground, make up the greater part of the history 
 of those evil days. At length the North ceased to send 
 forth a constant stream of fresh de{)redators, and from 
 that time the mutual aversion of the races beoan to 
 subside. Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes 
 learned the religion of the Saxons ; and thus one cause 
 of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and 
 Saxon tongues, l)oth dialects of one widespread lan- 
 guage, were blended together. But the distinction be- 
 tween the two nations was by no means effaced, when 
 an event took place which prostrated both, in common 
 slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people. 
 
 The Normans were then the foremost race of Chris- 
 ttndom. Their valour and ferocity had made ji^g jjor- 
 them conspicuous among the rovers whom '"'"*'• 
 Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe,
 
 12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. 1. 
 
 Their sails were loner the terror of botli coasts of tjie 
 channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into 
 the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victo- 
 rious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At 
 length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemasne ceded 
 to the strangers a fertile province, watered by a noble 
 river, and contiguous to the sea which was their favour- 
 ite element. In that province they founded a mighty 
 state, which gradually extended its influence over the 
 neighbouring principalities of Britanny and Maine. 
 Without laying aside that dauntless valour which had 
 been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the 
 Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more 
 than all, the knowledge and refinement which they 
 found in the country where they settled. Their cour- 
 age secured their territory against foreign invasion. 
 They established internal order, such as had long been 
 unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Chris- 
 tianity, and with Christianity they learned a great part 
 of what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned 
 their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, 
 in which the Latin was the predominant element. 
 They speedily raised their new language to a dignity 
 and importance which it had never before possessed. 
 They found it a barbarous jargon ; they fixed it in 
 Avriting ; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, 
 and in romance. They renounced that brutal intem- 
 perance to which all the other branches of the great 
 German family w^ere too much inclined. The polite 
 luxury 01 the Norman presented a striking contrast to 
 the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and 
 Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnifi- 
 cence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong 
 drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gal-
 
 Cii. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 13 
 
 lant horses, choice falcons, well-ordered tournaments, 
 banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines 
 remarkable rather for their exquisite flavour than for 
 their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which 
 has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, 
 morals, and manners of all the European nations, was 
 found in the highest exaltation among the Norman 
 nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by their 
 graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were 
 distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by 
 a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. 
 It was the boast of one of theu* historians that the Nor- 
 man gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But 
 their chief fame was derived from their military exploits. 
 Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead 
 Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and 
 valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful 
 of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught. Another 
 founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the 
 emperors both of the East and of the West fly before his 
 arms. A third, the Ulysses of the first crusade, was 
 invested by his fellow soldiers with the sovereignty of 
 Antioch ; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name lives 
 in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated through 
 Christendom as the bravest and most generous of the 
 deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 The vicinity of so remarkable a people earl\' began 
 to produce an effect on the public mind of England. 
 Before the Conquest, English princes received their 
 education in Normandy. English sees and English 
 estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of 
 Normandy was familiarly sj)oken in the palace of West- 
 minster. The court of Rouen seems to have been to 
 the court of Edward the Confessor what the court of
 
 14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 V^ersailles lono; afterwards was to the court of Charles 
 the Second. 
 
 The battle of Hastings, and the events which fo!- 
 The Norman lowcd it, not Only placed a Duke of Nor- 
 conquest. mandy on the English throne, but gave up 
 the whole population of England to the tyranny of 
 the Norman race. The subjugation of a nation by a 
 nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. 
 The country was poi'tioned out among the captains 
 of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely 
 connected Avith the institution of property, enabled the 
 foreigii conquerors to oppress the children of the soil. 
 A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the priv- 
 ileges, and even the sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet 
 the subject race, though beaten down and trodden un= 
 der foot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the 
 favounte heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves 
 to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws and 
 forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppress- 
 ors. Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. 
 Many Normans suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. 
 The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of 
 violence. Death by torture was denounced against the 
 murderers, and strict search was made for them, but 
 generally in vain ; for the whole nation was in a con- 
 spiracy to screen them. It was at length thought neces- 
 sary to lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a 
 person of French extraction should be found slain ; and 
 this regulation was followed up by another regulation, 
 providing that every person who was found slain should 
 be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless he were proved 
 to be a Saxon. 
 
 During the century and a half which followed the 
 Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 15 
 
 The French Kiags of England rose, Indeed, to an emi- 
 nence wliich was the wonder and dread of all neighbour- 
 ing nations. They conquered Ireland. They recei-s'ed 
 the homage of Scotland. B}^ their valour, by their pol- 
 icy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they be- 
 came far more powerful on the Continent than their 
 liege lords the Kings of France. Asia, as well as En- 
 rope, was dazzled by the power and glory of our tyrants. 
 Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling admiration 
 the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victori- 
 ous march to x\scalon ; and Arabian mothers long awed 
 their infants to silence with the name of the lion hearted 
 Plantan-enet. At one time it seemed that the line of 
 Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and 
 Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great 
 monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the Pyre- 
 nees. So stronjr an association is established in most 
 minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the 
 greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost 
 every historian of England has expatiated with a senti- 
 ment of exultation on the power and splendour of her 
 foreio-n masters, and has lamented the decay of tliat 
 power and splendour as a calamity to our country. 
 This is, in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian 
 negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the 
 greatness of T^ewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of 
 Blenheim and Ramilieswith patriotic regret and shame. 
 The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth gen- 
 eration were not Englishmen : most of them were born 
 in France : they si)ent the greater part of their lives 
 in France : their ordinary speech was French : almost 
 eveiy high office in their gift was filled by a French- 
 man : every acquisition which they made on the Con- 
 tinent estranged them more and more from the popu-
 
 16 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. 1. 
 
 iation ot our island. One of the ablest amoncr tliem 
 indeed attempted to win the hearts of his English sub- 
 jects by espousmg an English princess. But, by many 
 of his barons, this marriage was reo;arded as a mannage 
 between a white jjlanter and a quadroon girl would now 
 be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by 
 the honourable surname of Beauclerc ; but, in his own 
 time, his own countrymen called him by a Saxon nick- 
 name, in contemptuous allusion to his Saxon connection. 
 
 Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, 
 succeeded in uniting all France under their government, 
 it is probable that England would never have had an 
 independent existence. Her princes, her lords, her 
 prelates, would have been men differing in race and lan- 
 guage from the artisans and the tillers of the earth. The 
 revenues of her great proprietors would have been spent 
 in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine. 
 The noble language of Milton and Bui-ke would have 
 remained a rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed 
 grammar, or a fixed orthogi-aphy, and would have been 
 contemptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man 
 of English extraction would have risen to eminence, ex- 
 cept by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman. 
 
 England owes her escape from such calamities to an 
 Separation of cvcut wliicli licr historiaus have fjenerallv 
 
 England and it tt • 
 
 Normandy, represented as disastrous. Her interest was 
 so directly opposed to the interest of her rulers that .she 
 had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The 
 talents and even the virtues of her six first French 
 Kinrjs were a curse to her. The follies and vices of 
 the seventh were her salvation. Had John inherited 
 the great qualities of his father, of Henry Beauclerc, 
 or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even possessed the 
 martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had the
 
 Ch 1.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 17 
 
 King of France at the same time been as incapable as 
 all the other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the 
 House of Plantagenet must have risen to unrivalled 
 ascendency in Europe. But, just at this conjuncture, 
 France, for the first time since the death of Charle- 
 magne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and 
 ability On the other hand England which, since the 
 battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise 
 statesmen, always by brave soldiei-s, fell under the 
 dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that mo- 
 ment her prospects brightened. John was driven from 
 Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to 
 make their election between the island and the conti- 
 nent. Shut up by the sea with the peoj)le whom they 
 had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually 
 came to regard England as their comitry, and the 
 English as their couutrvmen. The two races so long 
 hostile, soon found that they had common interests and 
 common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the 
 tyranny of a bad king. Both were alike indignant at 
 the favour shown by the court to the natives of Foitou 
 and Aquitaine. Tiie great grandsons of those who had 
 fought under William and the great grandsons of those 
 who had fonn;ht under Harold began to draw near to 
 each other in friendship ; and the first pledge of their 
 reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their 
 united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. 
 Here commences the history of the English nation. 
 The history of the preceding events is the Amaigama- 
 history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by ^'"" "' ■""''"•" 
 various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, 
 but which regarded each other with aversion such as 
 has scarcely ever existed between communities sei)a- 
 rated by physical barriers. For even the mutual ani- 
 voi.. , 2
 
 1» HISTORY OF ENGLAND, {Ch. L 
 
 mosity of countries at war with each otlier is lanoniid 
 when compared witli tlie animosity of nations which, 
 morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no 
 country has the enmity of race been carried farther than 
 in England. In no countiy has that enmity been more 
 completely effaced. The stages of the process by which 
 the hostile elements were melted down into one homo- 
 geneous mass are not accurately known to us. B.it it 
 is certain that, when John became king, the distinction 
 between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, 
 and that before the end of the reio-n of his m'andson it 
 had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard the 
 First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman 
 was " May I become an Englishman ! " His ordinary 
 form of indignant denial was " Do you take me for an 
 Eno-lishman ? " The descendant of such a oentleman 
 a hundred years later was proud of the English name. 
 
 The sources of the noblest rivers wdiich spread fer- 
 tility over continents, and bear richly laden fleets to 
 the sea, are to be sought in wild and barren mountain 
 tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and rarely ex- 
 plored by travellers. To such a tract the history of 
 our country dui'ing the thirteenth century may not 
 unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that 
 portion of our annals, it is there that we must seek 
 for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and 
 our glory. Then it was that the great English peo- 
 ple was formed, that the national character began to 
 exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since re- 
 tained, and that our fathers became emphatically isl- 
 anders, islanders not merely in geographical position, 
 but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. 
 Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution 
 which has ever since, through all changes, preserved
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE EESTORATION. 19 
 
 its identity ; that constitution of wliich all the other 
 fi-ee constitutions in the world ai'e copies, and which, 
 in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the 
 best under which any great society has ever yet existed 
 during many ages. Then it was that tlie House of 
 Commons, the archetype of all the representative as- 
 semblies which now meet, either in the old or in the 
 new world, held its first sittings. Then it was that the 
 common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rap- 
 idly became a not unworthy rival of the imperial juris- 
 prudence. Then it was that the courage of those 
 sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports 
 fii'st made the flao- of England terrible on the seas. 
 Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still 
 exist at both the great national seats of learnino; M^ere 
 founded. Then was formed that lanmiao-e, less musi- 
 cal indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, 
 in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of 
 the poet, the ]iliilosopher, and the orator, inferior to 
 the tongue of Greece alone. Then too appeared the 
 first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most splen- 
 did and the most durable of the many glories of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Early in the fourteenth centurv the amalgamation 
 of the races was all but complete ; and it was soon 
 made manifest, by signs not to be mistaken, that a 
 people inferior to none existing in the world had been 
 formed by the mixture of three branches of the great 
 Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal 
 Britons. There was, indeed, scarcely any thing in com- 
 mon between the England to which John had been 
 chased by Pliilip Augustus, and the England from 
 which the armies of Edward the Thii-d went forth to 
 conquer France.
 
 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 A period of more than a hundred years followed, 
 English con- during whicli the chief object of the Encrlish 
 
 quests on the i v i i r- c 
 
 Continent, was to establish, by force of arms, a great 
 empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward 
 to the inheritance occupied by the House of Valois 
 was a claim in which it might seem that his sub- 
 jects were little interested. But the passion for con- 
 quest spread fast fi'om the prince to the people. The 
 war differed widely from the wars which the Plantage- 
 nets of the twelfth century had waged against the de- 
 scendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry 
 the Second, or of Richard the First, would have made 
 England a province of France. The effect of the suc- 
 cesses of Edward the Third and of Henry the Fifth 
 was to make France, for a time, a province of England. 
 The disdain with which, in the twelfth century, the 
 conquerors from the Continent had regarded the isl- 
 anders, was now retorted by the islanders on the 
 people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent 
 to Northumberland valued himself as one of a race 
 born for victory and dominion, and looked down with 
 scorn on the nation before which his ancestors had trem- 
 bled. Even those knights of Gascony and Guienne 
 who had foxight gallantly under the Black Prince were 
 regarded by the English as men of an inferior breed, 
 and were contemptuously excluded from honourable and 
 lucrative commands. In no long time our ancestors 
 altogether lost sight of the oi'iginal ground of quarrel. 
 They began to consider the crown of France as a mere 
 appendage to the crown of England ; and when, in 
 violation of the ordinary law of succession, they trans- 
 ferred the crown of England to the House of Lancas- 
 ter, they seem to have thought that the right of Rich- 
 ard the Second to the crown of France passed, as of
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 21 
 
 course, to tliat house. The zeal and vigour which they 
 dis])Iayed present a remarkable contrast to the torpor 
 of the French, who Avere far more deeply interested in 
 the event of the struggle. The most splendid victories 
 recorded in the history of the middle ages were gained 
 at this time, against great odds, by the English armies. 
 Victories indeed they were of which a nation may justly 
 be proud ; for they are to be attributed to the moral 
 superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most 
 strikino; in the lowest ranks. The knights of Eng- 
 land found worthy rivals in the knights of France. 
 Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. 
 But France had no intiuitry that dared to face the 
 Enolish bows and bills. A French Kino; was broujiht 
 prisoner to London. An Englisli King was crowned 
 at Paris. The banner of Saint George was carried 
 far beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps. On the south 
 of the Ebro the English won a great battle, Avhich for 
 a time decided the fate of Leon and Castile ; and the 
 English Companies obtained a terrible preeminence 
 among the bands of warriors who let out their weapons 
 for hire to the princes and commonwealths of Italy. 
 
 Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers 
 during that stirring period. While Finance was wasted 
 by war, till she at length found in her own desolation 
 a miserable defence against invaders, the Eno-lish ci'^th- 
 ered in their harvests, adorned their cities, pleaded, 
 traded, and studied in security. INfany of our noblest 
 architectural monuments beh^ng to that Age. Then rose 
 the fair chapels of New College and of Saint George, 
 the nave of Winchester and the choir of York, the 
 spire of Salisbury and the majestic towers of liincoln. 
 A copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion 
 of French into German, was now the connnon property
 
 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, |Ch. I. 
 
 of the aristocracy and of the people. Nor was it long 
 before genius began to apply that admirable machine 
 to worthy purposes. While English warriors, leav- 
 ing behind them the devastated provinces of France, 
 entered Valladolid in triumph, and vspread terror to 
 the gates of Florence, English poets depicted in vi\ iil 
 tints all the wide variety of human manners and for- 
 tunes, and English thinkers aspired to know, or dared 
 to doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and 
 to believe. The same age which produced the Black 
 Prince and Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood, produced 
 also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe. 
 
 In so splendid and imperial a manner did the Eng- 
 lish people, properly so called, first take place among 
 the nations of the world. Yet while we contemplate 
 with pleasure the high and commanding qualities wdiich 
 our forefathers displayed, we cannot but admit that the 
 end which they pursued was an end condemned both 
 by humanity and by enlightened policy, and that the 
 reverses wnich compelled them, after a long and bloody 
 struggle, to relinquish the hope of establishing a great 
 continental empire, were really blessings in the guise 
 of disasters. The spirit of the French was at last 
 aroused : they began to oppose a vigorous national 
 resistance to the foreign conquerors ; and from that 
 time the skill of the English captains and the courage 
 of the English soldiers were, happily for mankind, ex- 
 erted in vain. After many desperate struggles, and 
 with many bitter regrets, our ancestors gave up the 
 contest. Since that ao;e no British government has 
 ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of mak- 
 ing great conquests on the Continent. The people, 
 indeed, continued to cherish with pride the recollection 
 of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt. Even after
 
 '^H. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. Zd 
 
 the lapse of many years it was easy to fire their blood 
 and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them 
 an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily 
 the energies of our country have been directed to bet- 
 ter objects ; and she now occupies in the history of 
 mankind a place far more glorious than if she had, as 
 at one time seemed not improbable, acquired by the 
 sword an ascendency similar to that which formerly 
 behmged to the Roman republic. 
 
 Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, 
 the warlike people employed in civil strife y^^^^ ^f t,,g 
 those arms which had been the terror of ^''*^^- 
 Evirope. The means of ))rofuse expenditure had long 
 been drawn by the English barons from the oppressed 
 provinces of France. That source of supply was gone ; 
 but the ostentatious and luxurious habits which pros- 
 perity had engendered still remained ; and the great 
 lords, unable to gratify their tastes by plundering the 
 French, were eager to plunder each other. The realm 
 to which they were now confined would not, in the 
 phrase of Comines, the most judicious observer of that 
 time, suffice for them all. Two aristocratical factions, 
 headed by two branches of the royal family, engaged 
 in a long and fierce struggle for supremacy. As the 
 animosity of those factions did not really arise from the 
 dispute aboiit the succession, it lasted long after all 
 groimd of disj)ute about the succession was removed. 
 The party of the Red Rose survived the last prince 
 who claimed the crown in right of Henry the Fourth. \ 
 The party of the White Rose survived the marriage 
 of Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who 
 had any decent show of right, the adherents of Lan- 
 caster rallied round a line of bastards, and the adhe- 
 rents of York set up a succession of impostors. When,
 
 24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 at length, many aspiring nobles had perished on the 
 field of battle or by the hands of the executioner, when 
 many illustrious houses had disappeared for ever from 
 history, when those great families which remained had 
 been exhausted and sobered by calamities, it was uni- 
 versally acknowledged that the claims of all the con- 
 tending Plantagenets were united in the house of 
 Tudor. 
 
 Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more 
 Extinction of momcntous than the acquisition or loss of 
 ▼iiieuage. ^^^y. province, than the rise or fall of any 
 dynasty. Slavery and the evils by which slavery is 
 everywhere accompanied were fast disappearing. 
 
 It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salu- 
 tary social revolutions which have taken place in Eng- 
 land, that revolution which, in the thirteenth century, 
 put an end to the tyranny of nation over nation, and 
 that revolution which, a few generations later, put an 
 end to the property of man in man, were silently and 
 imperceptibly effected. They struck contemporary ob- 
 servers with no surprise, and have received fi'om his- 
 torians a very scanty measure of attention. They 
 were brought about neither by legislative regulation 
 nor by physical force. Moral causes noiselessly effaced 
 first the distinction between Noi^man and Saxon, and 
 then the distinction between master and slave, None 
 can venture to fix the precise moment at which either 
 distinction ceased. Some faint traces of the old Nor- 
 man feeling might perhaps have been found late in the 
 fourteenth century. Some fl^int traces of the institu- 
 tion of villenage were detected by the curious so late 
 as the days of the Stuarts ; nor has that institution 
 ever, to this hour, been abolished by statute. 
 
 It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE TilK REbTOUATION. 25 
 
 chief agent in tliese two great deliverances was relig- 
 ion ; and it may perhaps be doubted whether Beneficial op- 
 
 ,. . . 1 , ,1 I p I eratioQ of the 
 
 a purer religion might not liave been tound a uoman cath- 
 less efficient agent. The benevolent spirit "^^ '''"«'""• 
 of the Christian morality is undoubtedly adverse to dis- 
 tinctions of caste. But to the Church of Rome such 
 distinctions are peculiarly odious ; for they are incom- 
 patible with other distinctions which are essential to her 
 system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious dig- 
 nity ^vhich entitles him to the reverence of every lay- 
 man ; and she does not consider any man as disquali- 
 fied, by reason of his nation or of his family, for the 
 priesthood. Her doctrines res])ecting the sacerdotal 
 character, however erroneous they may be, have re- 
 peatedly mitigated some of the worst evils which can 
 affiict society. That superstition cannot be regarded 
 as unmixedly noxious which, in regions cursed by the 
 tyranny of race over race, creates an aristocracy alto- 
 gether, indejiendent of race, inverts the relation be- 
 tween the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels 
 the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tri- 
 bunal of the hereditary bondman. To this day, in some 
 countries where negro slavery exists. Popery appears 
 in advantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. 
 It is notorious that the antipathy between the Euro- 
 pean and African races is by no means so strong at 
 Rio Janeiro as at Washington. In our own country 
 this peculiarity of the Roman Catholic system produced, 
 durino- the middle aires, many salutary effects. It is 
 true that, shortly after the battle of Hastings, Saxon 
 i;>relates and abbots Mere violently deposed, and that 
 ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continent were in- 
 truded by hundreds into lucrative benefices. Yet even 
 then pious divines of Norman blood raised their voices
 
 26 HISTOKY OP ENGLAND, [Cn. ) 
 
 acrainst such a violation of the constitution of the 
 Church, refused to accept mitres from the hands o\ 
 William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, 
 not to forget that the vanquished islanders were his 
 fellow Christians. The first {)rotector whom the Eng- 
 lish found among the dominant caste was Archbishop 
 Anselm. At a time when the English name was a 
 reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities 
 of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively 
 to the countrymen of the Conqueror, the despised 
 race learned, with transports of delight, that one of 
 themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated 
 to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be 
 kissed by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses 
 of Normandy. It was a national as well as a religious 
 feelincp that drew o;reat multitudes to the shrine of 
 Becket, whom they regarded as the enemy of their 
 enemies. Whether he was a Norman or a Saxon may 
 be doubted : but there is no doubt that he perished 
 by Norman hands, and that the Saxons cherished his 
 memory Avith peculiar tenderness and veneration, and, 
 in their popular poetry, represented him as one of 
 their own race. A successor of Becket was foremost 
 amono; those who obtained that charter which secured 
 at once the privileges of the Norman barons and of 
 the Saxon yeomanry. How great a part the Roman 
 Catholic ecclesiastics subsequently had in the abolition 
 of villenage we learn from the unexceptionable testi- 
 mony of Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest Prot- 
 estant counsellors of Elizabeth. When the dying 
 slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his spiritual 
 attendants reijularlv adjured him, as he loved his soul, 
 to emancipate his brethren for whom Christ had died. 
 So successfully had the Church used her formidable 
 machinery that, before the Reformation came, she had
 
 Ch. I.l BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 27 
 
 enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom 
 except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have 
 been very tenderly treated. 
 
 There can be no doubt, that, when these two great 
 revolutions had been effected, our forefathers were by 
 far tl)2 best governed people in Europe. During three 
 hundred years the social system had been in a constant 
 course of improvement. Under the first Plantagenets 
 there had been barons able to bid defiance to the sov- 
 ereign, and peasants degraded to the level of the swine 
 and oxen which they tended. The exorbitant power 
 of the baron had been gradually reduced. The con- 
 dition of the peasant had been gradually elevated. Be- 
 tween the aristocracy and the working people had 
 sprung up a middle class, agricultural and commercial. 
 There was still, it may be, more inequality than is fa- 
 vourable to the happiness and virtue of our species : but 
 no man was altogether above the restraints of law ; 
 and no man was altogether below its protection. 
 
 That the political institutions of England were, at 
 this early period, regarded by the English with pride 
 and affection, and by the most enlightened men of 
 neighbouring nations with admiration and envy, is 
 proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the 
 nature of those institutions, there has been much dis- 
 honest and acrimonious controversy. 
 
 The historical literature of England has indeed suf- 
 fered grievously from a circumstance which The eariy 
 lias not a little contributed to her prosj)erity. ^y^oftcn mis- 
 The change, great as it is, which her polity «p'-««'>"">'»- 
 has undergone during the last six centuries, has been 
 the effect of gradual develo])mcnt, not of demolition 
 and reconstruction. The present constitution of our 
 country is, to the constitution under which she flour- 
 ished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to the
 
 28 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ce. I 
 
 sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration 
 has been great. Yet there never was a moment at 
 which the chief part of what existed was not old. A 
 polity thus formed must abound in anomahes. But for 
 the evils arising from mere anomalies we have ample 
 compensation. Other societies possess written consti- 
 tutions more symmetrical. But no other society has 
 yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescription, 
 progress with stability, the energy of youth with the 
 majesty of immemorial antiquity. 
 
 This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks : 
 and one of those drawbacks is, that every source of in- 
 formation as to our early history has been poisoned by 
 party spirit. As there is no country where statesmen 
 have been so much under the influence of the past, so 
 there is no country where historians have been so much 
 under the influence of the present. Between these two 
 things, indeed, there is a natural connection. Where 
 history is regarded merely as a picture of life and man- 
 ners, or as a collection of experiments from which gen- 
 eral maxims of civil wisdom may be drawn, a wi'iter 
 lies under no very pressing temptation to misrepresent 
 transactions of ancient date. But where history is re- 
 garded as a repository of titledeeds, on which the rights 
 of governments and nations depend, the motive to falsi- 
 fication becomes almost irresistible. A Frenchman is 
 not now impelled by any strong interest either to ex- 
 aggerate or to underrate the power of the kings of the 
 house of Valois. The privileges of the States General, 
 of the States of Britanny, of the States of Burgundy, 
 are to him matters of as little practical importance as the 
 constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim, or of the Am- 
 jihictyonic Council. The gulph of a great revolution 
 completely separates the new from the old system. No 
 such chasm divides the existence of tiie English nati(m
 
 Ch. I.] BEFOEE THE RESTORATION. 29 
 
 into two distinct pai'ts. Our laws and customs liave 
 never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With 
 us the precedents of the middle ages are still valid jn-e- 
 cedents, and are still cited, on the gravest occasions, 
 by the most eminent statesmen. For example, when 
 King George the Third was attacked by the malady 
 which made him incapable of performing his regal 
 functions, and when, the most distinguished law^^^-rs 
 and politicians differed widely as to the course which 
 ought, in such circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses 
 of Parliament would not proceed to discuss any plan 
 of regency till all the precedents which were to be 
 found in our annals, from the earliest times, had been 
 collected and arranged. Committees were appointed 
 to examine the ancient records of the realm. The first 
 case reported was that of the year 1217 : much impor- 
 tance was attached to the cases of 182(>, of 1377, and 
 of 1422 : but the case which was justly considered as 
 most in point was that of 1455. Thus in our country 
 the dearest interests of parties have frequently been 
 staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries. 
 The inevitable consequence was, that our antiquaries 
 conducted their researches in the spirit of partisans. 
 It is therefore not surprising that those who have 
 written concerning the limits of prerogative and liberty 
 in the old polity of England should generally have 
 shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and 
 uncandid advocates. For they wei'e discussing, not a 
 speculative matter, but a matter which had a direct 
 and practical connection with the most momentous :iiid 
 exciting disputes of their own day. From the com- 
 mencement of the long contest between the Parliament 
 and the Stuarts down to the time when the pretensions 
 of the Stuarts ceased to be formidable, few questions 
 were practically more important than tho question
 
 30 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 whether the administration of tliat family had or had 
 not been in accordance witli the ancient constitution 
 of tlie kingdom. This question could be decided only 
 by reference to the records of preceding reigns. Brac- 
 ton and Fleta, the Mirror of Justice and the Rolls of 
 Parliament, were ransacked to find pretexts for the 
 excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and of the 
 High Court of Justice on the other. During a long 
 course of years every Whig historian was anxious to 
 prove that the old English government was all but 
 republican, every Tory historian to prove that it was 
 all but despotic. 
 
 With such feelings, both parties looked into the chron- 
 icles of the middle ages. Both readily found what they 
 sought ; and both obstinately refused to see anything 
 but what they sought. The champions of the Stuarts 
 could easily point out instances of oppression exercised 
 on the subject. The defenders of the Roundheads 
 could as easily produce instances of determined and 
 successflil resistance offered to the Crown. The Tories 
 quoted, from ancient writings, expressions almost as 
 servile as were heard from the pulpit of Mainwaring. 
 The Whigs discovered expressions as bold and severe 
 as any that resounded from the judgment seat of Brad- 
 shaw. One set of writers adduced numerous instances 
 in which Kings had extorted money without the au- 
 thority of Parliament. Another set cited cases in 
 which the Parliament had assumed to itself the power 
 of inflicting punishment on Kings. Those who saw 
 only one half of the evidence would have concluded 
 Uiat the Plantagenets were as absolute as the Sultans 
 '^)f Turkey : those who saw only the other half would 
 ^lave concluded that the Plantag-enets had as little real 
 ^)ower as the Doges of Venice ; and both conclusions 
 would have l>een equally remote from the truth.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 31 
 
 The old English government was one of a class of 
 limited monarchies which sprang np in West- Mature of the 
 ern Europe during tlie nn'ddle ages, and archils oTthe 
 which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore ""J'^'«''se»- 
 to one another a strong familv likeness. That th.ere 
 should have been such a likeness is not strange. The 
 countries in which those monarchies arose had lu'en 
 provinces of the same great civilised empire, and had 
 been overrun and conquered, about the same time, by 
 tribes of the same rude and warlike nation. Tiu'y 
 were members of the same great coalition against Is- 
 lam. They were in communion with the same sujierb 
 and ambitious Church. Their polity naturally took the 
 same form. They had institutions derived partly from 
 imperial Rome, partly from pajial Rome, partly fr<im 
 the old Germany. All had Kings ; and in all the 
 kingly office became by degrees strictly hereditary. 
 All iiad nobles bearing titles which had originallv indi- 
 Gated military rank. The dignity of knighthood, the 
 rules of heraldry, were common to all. All had richly 
 endowed ecclesiastical establishments, municipal cor- 
 porations enjoying large franchises, and senates whose 
 consent was necessary to the validity of some public 
 acts. 
 
 Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from 
 an early period, justly reputed the best. The pr^roRatiTea 
 prei'ogatives of the sovereign were undoubt- ]^,gi\gi,'^'^'-^ 
 edly extensive. 'J'he spirit of religion, and ^''"''^' 
 the spirit of chivalry, concurred to exalt his dignity. 
 The sacred oil had been poured on his head. It was 
 no dis|)aiagement to the bravest and noblest knights to 
 kneel at his feet. His jierson was inviolal)le. He alone 
 was entitled to convoke the Estates of the realm : he 
 could at his pleasure dismiss them ; and his assent was
 
 82' HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 necessary to all their legislative acts. He was the chief 
 of the executive administration, the sole organ of com- 
 munication with foreign powers, the captain of the 
 military and naval forces of the state, the fountain of 
 justice, of mercy, and of honour. He had large powers 
 for the regulation of trade. It was by him that money 
 was coined, that weights and measures were fixed, that 
 marts and havens were appointed. His ecclesiastical 
 patronage was immense. His hereditary revenues, 
 economically administered, sufficed to meet the ordi- 
 nary charges of government. His own domains were 
 of vast extent. He was also feudal lord paramount of 
 the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity, 
 possessed many lucrative and many formidable riglits, 
 which enabled him to annoy and depress those who 
 thwarted him, and to enrich and aggrandise, without 
 any cost to hnnself, those who enjoyed his favour. 
 
 But his power, though ample, was limited by three 
 Limitations great Constitutional orinciples, so ancient that 
 
 of the pre- i 'i i 
 
 rogative. iioue Can Say wlien they began to exist, so po- 
 tent that their natural development, continued through 
 many generations, has produced the order of things 
 under which we now live. 
 
 First, the King could not legislate without the con- 
 sent of his Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no 
 taxes without the consent of his Parliament. Thirdly, 
 he was bound to conduct the executive administration 
 according to the laws of the land, and, if he broke those 
 laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible. 
 
 No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, 
 five hundred years ago, acquired the authority of fun- 
 damental rules. On the other hand, no candid Whig 
 will affirn: that they were, till a later period, cleared 
 from all ambiguity, or followed out to all their conse-
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 83 
 
 quences. A constitution of the middle ages was not, 
 like a constitution of the eighteenth or nineteenth cen- 
 tury, created entire by a single act, and fully set forth 
 in a single document. It is only in a refined and spec- 
 ulative ago that a polity is constructed on system. In 
 rude societies the progress ot government resembles 
 the progi'ess of language and of versification. Rude 
 societies have language, and often copious and ener- 
 getic language : but they have no scientific grammar, 
 no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declen- 
 sions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have 
 versification, and often versification of great powder and 
 sweetness : but they have no metrical canons ; and the 
 minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, 
 are the delight of his audience, would himself be unable 
 to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his 
 lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and 
 song before prosody, so government may exist in a 
 hio-h decree of excellence lono; before the limits of 
 legislative, executive, and judicial power have been 
 traced with precision. 
 
 It was thus in our country. The line which bounded 
 the royal prerogative, though in general sufficiently 
 clear, had not everywhere been drawn with accuracy 
 and distinctness. There was, therefore, near the bor- 
 der some debatable ground on which incursions and re- 
 prisals continued to tiike ])lacc, till, after ages of strife, 
 plain and durable landmarks were at length set up. It 
 may be instructive to note in what way, and to what 
 extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of 
 violating the three great principles by which the liber- 
 ties of the nation were protected. 
 
 No English King has ever laid claim to the general 
 legislative power. The most violent and imperious 
 
 VOL. t. 3
 
 34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Oh. L 
 
 Planlagenet never fancied himself competent to enact, 
 vvithout the consent of his great council, that a jury 
 should consist of ten persons instead of twelve, that a 
 widow's dower should be a fourth part instead of a 
 third, that perjury should be a felony, or that the cus- 
 tom of gavelkind should be introduced into Yorkshire.^ 
 But the King had the power of pardoning offenders ' 
 and there is one point at which the power of pardoning 
 and the power of legislating seem to fade into each 
 (^ther, and may easily, at least in a simple age, be con- 
 founded. A penal statute is virtually annulled if the 
 penalties which it imposes are regularly remitted as 
 often as they are incurred. The sovereign was un- 
 doubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit. 
 He was therefore competent to annul virtually a penal 
 statute. It mio-ht seem that there could be no serious 
 objection to his doing formally what he might do virtu- 
 ally. Thus, with the help of subtle and courtly law- 
 yers, grew up, on the doubtful fi'ontier which separates 
 executive from legislative functions, that great anomaly 
 known as the dispensing power. 
 
 That the King could not impose taxes without the 
 consent of Parliament is admitted to have been, from 
 time immemorial, a fundamental law of England. It 
 was among the articles which John was compelled by 
 the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to 
 break through the rule : but, able, powerful, and popu- 
 lar as he was, he encountered an opposition to which 
 he found it expedient to yield. He covenanted accord- 
 ingly in express terms, for himself and his heirs, that 
 ihey would never again levy any aid without the assent 
 und good- will of the Estates of the realm. His power- 
 
 i This is excellently put by Mr. Hallam in the first chapter of his Con- 
 Blitutional History.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTOEATION. 35 
 
 fill and victorious grandson attempted to violate tins 
 solemn compact : but the attempt was strenuously w^ith- 
 stood. At length the Plantagenets gave up the point 
 in despair ; but though they ceased to infringe tlie law 
 openly, they occasionally contrived, by evading it, to 
 procure an extraordinary su]:)j)ly for a temporary pur- 
 pose. They were interdicted from taxing ; but they 
 claimed the right of begging and borrowing. They 
 therefore sometimes begged in a tone not to be distin- 
 guished from that of command, and sometimes borrowed 
 with small thought of repaying. But the fact that it 
 was thought necessary to disguise these exactions under 
 the names of benevolences and loans sufficiently proves 
 that the authority of the great constitutional rule was 
 universally recognised. 
 
 The princij)le that the King of England was bound 
 to conduct the administration according to law, and 
 that, if he did anything against law, his advisers and 
 agents were answerable, was established at a very 
 early period, as the severe judgments pronounced and 
 executed on many royal favourites sufficiently prove. It 
 is, however, certain that the riglits of individuals were 
 often violated by the Plantagenets, and that the in- 
 jured ])arties were often unable to obtain redress. Ac- 
 cording to law no Englishman could be arrested or 
 detained in confinement merely by the mandate of the 
 sovereign. In fact, i)ersons obnoxious to the govern- 
 ment were frequently imprisoned without any other 
 authority than a royal order. According to law, tor- 
 ture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could 
 not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an Enolisli 
 subject. Nevertheless, during the troubles of the fif- 
 teenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, 
 and was occasionally used under tlw plea of political
 
 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, LCh. L 
 
 necessity. But it Avould be a oreat error to infer from 
 such iiu-egularities that the EngHsh monarchs were, 
 either in theory or in practice, absolute. We live in 
 a highly civilised society, in which intelligence is so 
 rapidly diffused by means of the press and of the post 
 office, that any gross act of oppression committed in 
 any part of oar island is, in a few hours, discussed by 
 millions. If the sovereign were now to immure a sub- 
 ject in defiance of the writ of Habeas Corpus, or to put 
 a conspirator to the torture, the whole nation would be 
 instantly electrified by the news. In the middle ages 
 the state of society was widely different. Rarely and 
 with great difficulty did the wrongs of individuals come 
 to the knowledge of the public. A man might be ille- 
 gally confined during many months in the castle of 
 Carlisle or Norwich ; and no whisper of the transac- 
 tion might reach London. It is highly probable that 
 the rack had been many years in use before the great 
 majority of the nation had the least suspicion that it 
 was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any 
 means so much alive as we are to the importance of 
 maintaining great general rules. We have been taught 
 by long expei'ience that we cannot without danger suf- 
 fer any breach of the constitution to pass unnoticed. It 
 is therefore now universally held that a government 
 which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to be 
 visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a 
 government which, under the pressure of a great exi- 
 gency, and with pure intentions, has exceeded its pow- 
 ers, ought without delay to apply to Parliament for an 
 act of indemnity. But such were not the feelings of the 
 Euiilishmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 They were little disposed to contend for a princij)le 
 merely as a principle, or to cry out against an iri'egu-
 
 Ch. I,] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 37 
 
 larlty which was not also felt to be a grievance. As 
 long as the general spirit of the administration was mild 
 and popular, they were Avilling to allow some latitude 
 to their sovereign. If, for ends generally acknowledged 
 to be good, he exerted a vigour beyond the law, they 
 not only forgave, but applauded him, and, while tliey 
 enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but 
 too ready to believe that whoever had incurred his dis- 
 pleasure liad deserved it. But to this indulgence there 
 was a limit : nor was that King wise who presumed far 
 on the forbearance of the English people. They might 
 sometimes allow him to overstep the constitutional line ; 
 but they also claimed the privilege of overstepping that 
 line themselves, whenever his encroachments were so 
 serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occa- 
 sionally oppressing individuals, he dared to oppress 
 great masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the 
 laws, and, that ai)peal failing, appealed as promptly to 
 the God of battles. 
 
 Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a kmg 
 in a few excesses ; for they had in reserve a Resistance 
 check which soon brouiiht the fiercest and !^,""I!'''""'""^ 
 
 ^^ * 11(31 K UIl 
 
 proudest king to reason, the check of physi- the'm'uidic 
 cal force. It is difhcult for an Eno;lisliman '**'''"*■ 
 of the nineteenth century to image to himself the fa- 
 cilitv and rapidity with which, four hundred years ago, 
 this check was a})plied. The people have long un- 
 learned the use of arms. The art of war has been ear- 
 ned to a perfection unknown to former ages, and the 
 knowledge of that art is confined to a ])articnlar class. 
 A hundred thousand soldiers, well disciplined and com- 
 manded, will keep down ten millions of ploughmen and 
 artisans. A few regiments of household troops are 
 sufiicient to overawe all the discontented spirits of a
 
 S8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I 
 
 large capital. In the meajitime tlie effect of the con- 
 stant progress of weahh has been to make insurrection 
 far more terrible to thinking men than maladministra- 
 tion. Immense sums have been expended on works 
 Avhich, if a rebellion broke out, might perish in a few 
 hours. The mass of moveable wealth collected in the 
 shops and warehouses of London alone exceeds five- 
 hundredfold that which the Avhole island contained in 
 the days of the Plantagenets ; and, if the government 
 were subverted by physical force, all this moveable 
 wealth would be exposed to imminent risk of spolia- 
 tion and destruction. Still greater would be the risk 
 to public credit, on which thousands of families directly 
 depend for subsistence, and with which the credit of 
 the whole commercial world is inseparably connected. 
 It is no exaggeration to say that a civil war of a week 
 on English ground would now ])roduce disasters which 
 would be felt from the Hoangho to the Missouri, and 
 of which the traces would be discernible at the dis- 
 tance of a century. In such a state of society resist- 
 ance must be regarded as a cure more desperate than 
 almost any malady which can afflict the state. In the 
 middle ages, on the contrary, resistance was an ordi- 
 nary remedy for political distempers, a remedy which 
 was always at hand, and which, though doubtless sharp 
 at the moment, produced no deep or lasting ill effects. 
 If a popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, 
 an irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regu- 
 lar armv there was none. Every man had a slio;ht 
 tincture of soldiership, and scarcely any man more 
 than a slight tincture. The national Avealth consisted 
 chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the year, 
 and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. 
 All the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery
 
 Ch I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 39 
 
 wliith could be found in the realm was of less value 
 than the property which some single parishes now con- 
 tain. Manufactures were rude, credit almost unknown. 
 Society, therefore, recovered from the shock as soon as 
 the actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil 
 war were confined to the slauo;hter on the field of bat- 
 tie. and to a few subsequent executions and confisca- 
 tions. In a week the peasant was driving his team and 
 the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton, 
 or of liosworth, as if no extraordinary event had inter- 
 nipted the regular course of human life. 
 
 More than a hundred and sixty years have now 
 elapsed since the English people have by force subverted 
 a government. During the hundred and sixty years 
 which preceded the union of the Roses, nine Kings 
 reiffued in Eujrlund. Six of these nine Kings were 
 dei)osed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. 
 It is evident, tlierefoi'e, that any comparison between 
 our ancient and our modern polity must lead to most 
 erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made 
 for the eft^ect of that restraint which resistance and the 
 fear of resistance constantly imj)osed on the Plantage- 
 nets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most 
 nnportant security which we Avant, they migiit safely 
 disj)ense with some securities to which we justly attach 
 the highest importance. As we cannot, without the 
 risk of evils from wiiich the imagination recoils, employ 
 physical force as a check on misgovernment, it is evi- 
 dently our wivdom to keep all the constitutional checks 
 on misgovernment in the highest state of efficiency, to 
 watch with jealousy the first beginnings of encroacli- 
 ment, and never to suffer irregularities, even when 
 harmless in themselves, to pass unchallenged, lest they 
 acquire the force of precedents. Four hundred years
 
 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 ago sucli minute vigilance might well seem unnecessary. 
 A nation ot hardy archers and spearmen might, with 
 small risk to its liberties, connive at some illegal acts 
 on the part of a prince whose general administration 
 was good, and whose throne was not defended by a 
 single company of regular soldiers. 
 
 Under this system, rude as it may appear when com- 
 pared with those elaborate constitutions of which the 
 last seventy years have been fruitful, the English long 
 enjoyed a large measure of freedom and happiness. 
 Though during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth 
 the state was torn first by factions, and at length by 
 civil war, though Edward the Fourth was a prince of 
 dissolute and imperious character, though Richard the 
 Third has generally been represented as a monster of 
 depravity, though the exactions of Henry the Seventh 
 caused great repining, it is certain that our ancestors, 
 under those Kings, were far better governed than the 
 Belgians under Philip, surnanied the Good, or the 
 French under that Lewis who was styled the Father 
 of his peoj)le. Even while the wars of the Roses were 
 actually raging, our country appears to have been in a 
 happier condition than the neighbouring realms during 
 years of profound peace. Comines was one of the most 
 enlightened statesmen of his time. He had seen all the 
 richest and most highly civilised parts of the Continent. 
 He had lived in the opulent towns of Flanders, the 
 Manchesters and Liverpools of the fifteenth century. 
 He had visited Florence, recently adorned by the mag- 
 nificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet humbled by 
 the confederates of Canibray. This eminent man de- 
 liberately pronounced England to be the best governed 
 country of which he had any knowledge. Her consti- 
 tution he emphatically designated as a just and holy
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 41 
 
 thing, wliicli, while it protected tlie people, really 
 strengthened the hands of a jn'ince who respected it. 
 In no other country, he said, were men so effectually 
 secured from wrong. The calamities produced by our 
 intestine wars seemed to him to be confined to the 
 nobles and the fighting men, and to leave no traces 
 such as he had been accustomed to see elsewhere, no 
 ruined dwellings, no depopulated cities. 
 
 It was not only by the efficiency of the restraints 
 imposed on the royal preroo;ative that Ena;- Peculiar 
 
 ^ ... . clKinicter 
 
 land was advantaoeously distincniished from of the 
 most or the neighbourmg countries. A pecu- aristocracy. 
 harity equally important, though less noticed, was the 
 relation in which the nobility stood here to the com- 
 monalty. There was a strong hereditary aristoc- 
 racy : but it was of all hereditary aristocracies the 
 least insolent and exclusive. It had none of the in- 
 vidious character of a caste. It was constantly receiv- 
 ing members from the people and constantly sending 
 down members to mingle with the people. Any gen- 
 tleman might become a peer. The younger son of a 
 peer was but a gentleman. Grandsons of peers yielded 
 precedence to newly-made knights. The dignity of 
 knio-hthood was not bevond the reach of anv man who 
 could by diligence and thrift realise a good estate, or 
 who could attract notice by his valour in a battle or a 
 siege. It was regarded as no disparagement for the 
 daughter of a Duke, nay of a royal Duke, to espouse 
 a distinguished commoner. Thus, Sir John Howard 
 married the daughter of Thomas Mowbray Duke of 
 Norfolk. Sir Richard Pole married the Countess of 
 Salisburv, dauiihter of Georo;e Duke of Clarence. 
 Good blood was indeed held in high respect : but 
 between good blood and the privileges of peerage
 
 43 niKTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 there was, most fortunately for our country, no neces- 
 sary connection. Pedigrees as long, and scutclieons 
 as old, were to be found out of the House of Lords as 
 in it. There were new men who bore the highest 
 titles. There were untitled men well known to be 
 descended from knights who had broken the Saxon 
 ranks at Hastings, and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. 
 Theie were Bohuns, Mowbrays, De Veres, nay kins- 
 men of the House of Plantagenet, with no higher ad- 
 dition than that of esquire, and with no civil privileges 
 beyond those enjoyed by every farmer and shopkeeper. 
 There was therefore here no line like that which in 
 some other countries divided the patrician from the 
 plebeian. The yeoman was not inclined to murmur 
 at dififnities to which his own children might rise. The 
 grandee was not inclined to insult a class into which 
 his own children must descend. 
 
 After the wars of York and Lancaster, the links 
 which connected the nobility and the commonalty 
 became closer and more numerous than ever. The 
 extent of the destruction M'hich had fallen on the old 
 aristocracy may be inferred from a single circumstance. 
 In the year 1451 Henry the Sixth summoned fifty- 
 three temporal Lords to parliament. The temporal 
 Lords summoned by Henry the Seventh to the parlia- 
 ment of 1485 were only twenty-nine, and of these 
 twentv-nine several had recently been elevated to the 
 peerage. During the following century the ranks of 
 the nobility were largely recruited from among the 
 gentry. The constitution of the House of Commons 
 tended greatly to promote the salutary intermixture of 
 classes. The knight of the shire was the connecting 
 link between the baron and the shopkeeper. On the 
 same benches on which sate the goldsmiths, drapers,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 48 
 
 and grocers who had been returned to parliament by 
 the commercial towns, sate also members Avho, in any 
 other country, would have been called noblemen, he- 
 reditary lords of manors, entitled to hold courts and to 
 bear coat armour, and able to trace back an honourable 
 descent through many generations. Some of them 
 were younscer sons and brothers of lords. Others could 
 boast even of royal blood. At length the eldest son 
 of an Earl of Bedford, called in courtesy by the sec- 
 ond title of his father, offered himself as candidate for 
 a seat in the House of Commons, and his example 
 was followed by others. Seated in that house, the 
 heirs of the great peers naturally became as zealous 
 for its privileges as any of the humble burgesses witli 
 whom they were mingled. Thus our democracy was, 
 fi'om an early period, the most aristocratic, and our 
 aristocracy tlie most democratic in the world ; a pecu- 
 liarity which has lasted down to the present day, and 
 "which has produced many important moral and polit- 
 ical effects. 
 
 The government of Henry the Seventh, of his son, 
 and of his grandchildren was, on the whole, Qovernment 
 more arbitrary'' than that of the Plantagenets. Tudors. 
 Personal character may in some degree explain the 
 difference ; for courage and force of will were com- 
 mon to all the men and women of the House of Tudor. 
 They exercised their power during a period of a hun- 
 dred and twenty years, always with vigour, often with 
 violence, sometimes with cruelty. They, in imitation 
 of the dynasty which had preceded them, occasionally 
 invaded the rights of the subject, occasionally exacted 
 taxes under the name of loans and gifts, and occasion- 
 ally dispensed with penal statutes ; nay, though they 
 oever presumed to enact any permanent law by their
 
 14 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [On. I 
 
 own authority, they occasionally took upon themselves, 
 when Parliament was not sitting, to meet temporary 
 exigencies by temporary edicts. It was, however, im • 
 possible for the Tudors to carry oppression beyond a 
 certain point : for they had no armed force, and they 
 were surrounded by an armed people. The palace was 
 guarded by a few domestics whom the array of a single 
 shire, or of a single ward of London, could with ease 
 have overpowered. These haughty princes were there- 
 fore under a restraint stronger than any whii;h mere 
 laws can impose, under a restraint which did not, indeed, 
 prevent them from sometimes treating an individual in 
 an arbitrary and even in a barbarous manner, but which 
 effectually secured the nation against general and long 
 continued oppression. They might safely be tyrants 
 within the precinct of the court : but it was necessary 
 for them to watch with constant anxiety the temper of 
 the country. Henry the Eighth, for example, encoun- 
 tered no opposition when he wished to send Bucking- 
 ham and Surrey, Anne Boleyn and Lady Salisbury, to 
 the scaffold. But when, without the consent of Par- 
 liament, he demanded of his subjects a conti'ibution 
 amounting to one sixth of their goods, he soon fovxnd 
 it necessary to retract. The cry of hundreds of thou- 
 sands was that they were English and not French, 
 freemen and not slaves. In Kent the royal commis- 
 sioners fled for their lives. In Suffolk four thousand 
 men appeared in arms. The King's lieutenants in that 
 county vainly exerted themselves to raise an army. 
 Those who did not join in the insurrection decl ired 
 that they would not fight against their brethren in 
 such a quarrel. Henry, proud and selfwilled as he 
 was, shrank, not without reason, fi-om a conflict with 
 the roused spirit of the nation. He had before his 
 
 1
 
 Ch I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 46 
 
 eyes tlie fate of his predecessors who had perished at 
 Berkeley and Pomfret. He not only cancelled his 
 illegal commissions ; he not only granted a general 
 pardon to all the malecontents ; but he publicly and 
 solemnly apologized for his infraction of the laws. 
 
 His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the 
 whole policy of his house. The temper of the princes 
 of that line was hot, and their spirit high : but they 
 understood the character of the nation which they gov- 
 erned, and never once, like some of their predecessors, 
 and some of their successors, cai'ried obstinacy to a fatal 
 point. The discretion of the Tudors was such, that 
 their power, though it was often resisted, was never 
 subverted. The reign of every one of them was dis- 
 turbed by formidable discontents : but the government 
 was always able either to sooth the mutineers, or tc 
 conquer and punish them. Sometimes, by timely con- 
 cessions, it succeeded in averting civil hostilities ; but in 
 general it stood firm, and called for help on the nation. 
 The nation obeyed the call, rallied round the sovereign, 
 and enabled him to quell the disaffected minority. 
 
 Thus, from the age of Henrv the Third to the ao-e of 
 Elizabeth, England grew and flourished under a polity 
 which contained the germ of our present institutions, 
 and which, though not very exactly defined, or very 
 exactly observed, was yet effectually prevented from 
 degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the 
 governors stood of the spirit and strength of the gov- 
 erned. 
 
 But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage 
 in the progress of society. The same causes which pro- 
 duce a division of labour in the peaceful arts must at 
 length make war a distinct science and a distinct trade. 
 A time arrives when the use of arms begins to occupy
 
 46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, IGn. I. 
 
 the entire attention of a separate class. It soon a})pears 
 that peasants and burghers, however bi'ave, are unable 
 to stand their ground against veteran soldiers, whose 
 whole life is a preparation for the day of battle, whose 
 nerves have been braced by long familiarity with dan- 
 ger, and whose movements have all the precision of 
 clockwork. It is found that the defence of nations can 
 no longer be safely entrusted to wari'iors taken from 
 the plough or the loom for a campaign of forty days. If 
 any state forms a great regular army, the bordering 
 states must imitate the example, or must submit to a 
 foreign yoke. But, where a great regular army exists, 
 hmited monarchy, such as it was in the middle ages, 
 can exist no longer. The sovereign is at once emanci- 
 pated from what had been the chief restraint on his 
 power ; and he inevitably becomes absolute, unless he 
 is subjected to checks such as would be superfluous in 
 a society where all are soldiers occasionally, and none 
 permanently. 
 
 With the danger came also the means of escape. In 
 Limited mon- the monarchies of the middle ages the power 
 middle ages of the sword belonged to the prince, but the 
 
 generally r>i ii ii 
 
 turned into powcr ot the pursc belonged to the nation ; 
 monarchies, and the progrcss of civilisation, as it made the 
 sword of the prince more and more formidable to the 
 nation, made the purse of the nation more and more 
 necessary to the prince. His hereditary revenues would 
 no longer suffice, even for the expenses of civil goveini- 
 ment. It was utterly impossible that, without a regu- 
 lar and extensive system of taxation, he could keep in 
 constant efficiency a great body of disciplined troops. 
 The policy which the parliamentary assemblies of 
 Europe ought to have adopted was to take their stand 
 firmly on their constitutional right to give or withhold
 
 ch. l] before the uestoration. 47 
 
 money, and resolutely to refuse funds for the support 
 of armies, till ample securities had been provided against 
 despotism. 
 
 This wise policy was followed in our country alone. 
 In the neiffhbourins; kingdoms great military establish- 
 ments were formed ; no new safeguards for public lib- 
 erty were devised ; and the consequence was, that the 
 old parliamentary institutions everywhere ceased to 
 exist. In France, where they had always been feeble, 
 they languished, and at length died of mere weakness. 
 In Sjjain, where they had been as strong as in any part 
 of Euroj)e, they struggled fiercely for life, but struggled 
 too late. The mechanics of Toledo and Valladolid 
 vainly defended the j)rivileges of the Castilian Cortes 
 against the veteran battalions of Charles the Fifth. 
 As vainly, in the next generation, did the citizens of 
 Saragossa stand up against Philip the Second, for the 
 old constitution of Aragon. One after another, the 
 great national councils of the continental monarchies, 
 councils once scarcely less proud aiid powerful than 
 those which sate at Westminster, sank into utter insig- 
 nificance. If they met, they met merely as our Con- 
 vocation now meets, to go through some venerable 
 forms. 
 
 In England events took a different course. This sin- 
 gular felicity she owed chiefly to her insular j^^ Ent'iidh 
 situation. Before the end of the fifteenth l°;:,=;[^i'-L*. 
 century great military establishments were <^«p"°°- 
 indispensable to the dignity, and even to the safety, of 
 the French and Castilian monarchies. If either of those 
 two powers had disarmed, it Avoxdd soon have been 
 compelled to submit to the dictation of the other. But 
 England, protected by the sea against invasion, and 
 rarely engaged in warlike operations on the Continent.
 
 i8 
 
 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 was not, as yet, under the necessity of employing reg- 
 ular troops. The sixteenth century, the seventeenth 
 century, found her still witliout a standing army. At 
 the commencement of the seventeenth century political 
 science had made considerable progress. The fate of 
 the Spanish Cortes and of the French States General, 
 had given solemn warning to our Parliaments ; and our 
 Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude 
 of the danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tactics 
 which, after a contest protracted through three genera- 
 tions, was at length successful. 
 
 Almost every writer who has treated of that contest 
 has been desirous to show that his own party was the 
 party which was struggling to preserve the old consti- 
 tution unaltered. The truth however is that the old 
 constitution could not be preserved unaltered. A law, 
 beyond the control of human wisdom, had decreed that 
 there should no longer be governments of that peculiar 
 class which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
 had been common throughout Europe. The question, 
 therefore, was not whether our polity should undergo 
 a change, but Avhat the nature of the change should be. 
 The introduction of a new and mighty force had dis- 
 turbed the old equilibrium, and had turned one limited 
 monarchy after another into an absolute monarchy. 
 What had happened elsewhere would assuredly have 
 happened here, unless the balance had been redressed 
 by a great transfer of power fi-om the crown to the par- 
 liament. Our princes were about to have at their com- 
 mand means of coercion such as no Plantao-enet or 
 Tudor had ever possessed. They must inevitably have 
 become despots, unless they had been, at the same time, 
 placed under restraints to wliich no Plantagenet or 
 Tudor had ever been subject.
 
 Ch. 1.] BEFORE TUE KESTORATION. 49 
 
 It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but polit- 
 ical causes been at work, the seventeenth century 
 would not have passed away without a fierce conflict 
 between our Kings and their Parliaments. But other 
 causes of perhaps greater potency contributed to pro- 
 duce the same effect. While the government The Refor- 
 
 n 1 n^ I • • 1 • 1 ■ 1 Diation and 
 
 01 the iudors was ni its hisuest vio;our took its effects. 
 place an event which has coloured the destinies of all 
 Christian nations, and in an especial manner the des- 
 tinies of England. Twice during the middle ages the 
 mind of Europe had risen up against the domination of 
 Rome. The first insurrection broke out in the south 
 of France. The energy of Innocent the Third, the 
 zeal of the young orders of Francis and Dominic, and 
 the ferocity of the Crusaders whom the priesthood let 
 loose on an unwarlike populati(.)n, crushed the Albigen- 
 sian churches. The second reformation had its origin 
 in England and spread to Bohemia. The Council of 
 Constance, by removing some ecclesiastical disorders 
 which had given scandal to Christendom, and the 
 princes of Europe, by unsparingly using fire and sword 
 against the heretics, succeeded in ax'resting and turning 
 back the movement. Nor is this much to be lamented. 
 The sympathies of a Protestant, it is true, will natu- 
 rally be on the side of the Albigensians and of the Lol- 
 lards. Yet an enlightened and temperate Protestant 
 will pei-haps be disposed to doubt whether the success, 
 either of the Albigensians or of the Lollards, would, on 
 the whole, have promoted the happiness and virtue of 
 mankind. Corru})t as the Church of Rome was, there 
 is reason to believe that, if that Church had been 
 overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth 
 century, the vacant space would have been occupied 
 by some system more corrupt still. There was then, 
 
 VOL. I 4
 
 50 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 througli the greater part of Europe, very little knowl- 
 edge, and tliat little was confined to the clergy. Not 
 one man in five hundred could have spelled his way 
 through a psalm. Books were few and costly. The 
 art of printing M'as unknown. Copies of the Bible, in- 
 ferior in beauty and clearness to those which every 
 cottager may now command, sold for prices which many 
 priests could not afford to give. It was obviously im- 
 possible that the laity should search the Scriptures for 
 themselves. It is pi'obable therefore, that, as soon as 
 they had put off one spiritual yoke, they would have 
 put on another, and that the power lately exercised by 
 the clergy of the Church of Rome would have jDassed 
 to a far worse class of teachers. The sixteenth century 
 was comparatively a time of light. Yet even in the 
 sixteenth century a considerable number of those wlio 
 quitted the old religion followed the first confident and 
 ])lausible guide who offered himself, and were soon led 
 into errors far more serious than those which they had 
 renounced. , Thus Matthias and Kniperdoling, apostles 
 of lust, robbery, and murder, were able for a time to 
 rule great cities. In a darker age such false prophets 
 might have founded empires ; and Chnstianity might 
 have been distorted into a cruel and licentious super- 
 stition, more noxious, not only than Popery, but even 
 than Islamism. 
 
 About a hundred years after the rising of the Council 
 of Constance, that great change emphatically called the 
 Reformation began. The fulness of time was now 
 come. The clergv were no lono;er the sole or the chief 
 depositories of knowledge. The invention of printing 
 had furnished the assailants of the Church with a 
 mighty weapon which had been wanting to their pred- 
 ecessors. The study of the ancient writers, tlie rapid
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 61 
 
 development of the powers of the modern languages, 
 the unprecedented activity which was displayed in 
 every department of literature, the political state of 
 Europe, the vices of the Roman court, the exactions 
 of the lioman chancery, the jealousy with which the 
 wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally re- 
 garded by laymen, the jealousy with which the Italian 
 ascendency w^as naturally regarded by men born on our 
 side of the Alps, all these things gave to the teachers 
 of the new theology an advantage which they perfectly 
 understood how to use. 
 
 Those who hold that the influence of the Church of 
 Rome in the dark ages was, on the whole, beneficial to 
 mankind may yet with perfect consistency regard the 
 Reformation as an inestimable blessing. The leading 
 strings, which preserve and uphold the infant, would 
 impede the full grown man. And so the very means 
 by which the human mind is, in one stage of its prog- 
 ress, supported and propelled, may, in another stage, 
 be mere hindrances. There is a point in the life both 
 of an individual and of a society, at which submission 
 and faith, such as at a later period would be justly 
 called servility and credulity, are usefol qualities. The 
 child who teachably and undoubtingly listens to the in- 
 structions of his elders is likely to improve rapidly. 
 But the man who should receive with childlike docility 
 every assertion and dogma uttered by another man no 
 wiser than himself would become contemptible. It is 
 the same with communities. The childhood of the 
 European nations was passed under the tutelage of the 
 clergy. The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was 
 long the ascendency which naturally and properly be- 
 longs to intellectual superiority. The priests, with all 
 their faults, wen; by far the wisest portion of society.
 
 52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch, I 
 
 It was, therefore, on the whole, good that they should 
 be respected and obeyed. The encroachments of the 
 ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power 
 produced much more happiness than misery, while the 
 ecclesiastical power was in the hands of the only class 
 that had studied history, philosophy, and public law, 
 and while the civil power was in the hands of savage 
 chiefs, who could not read their own grants and edicts. 
 But a change took place. Knowledge gradually spread 
 among laymen. At the commencement of the six- 
 teenth century many of them were in every intellectual 
 attainment fully equal to the most enlightened of their 
 spiritual pastors. Thenceforward that dominion, which, 
 during the dark ages, had been, in spite of many abuses, 
 a legitimate and a salutary guardianship, became an 
 unjust and noxious tyranny. 
 
 From the time when the barbarians overran the 
 Western Empire to the time of the revival of letters, 
 the influence of the Church of Rome had been gener- 
 ally favourable to science, to civilisation, and to good 
 government. But during the last three centuries, to 
 stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief 
 object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance 
 has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, 
 and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, 
 and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her 
 power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of 
 Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in 
 political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while 
 Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility anfl 
 barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into 
 gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and 
 statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing 
 what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four
 
 Oh. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 63 
 
 hundred years ago, tliey actually were, shall now com- 
 pare the country round Rome with the country round 
 Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to 
 the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of 
 Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest 
 depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in s])ite 
 of many natural disadvantages, to a position such as no 
 commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the 
 same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Ro- 
 man Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzer- 
 land from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in 
 Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, 
 finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade 
 of civilisation. On the other side of the Atlantic the 
 same law prevails. The Pr-Otestants of the United 
 States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics 
 of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics 
 of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole conti- 
 nent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity 
 and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an 
 energy and an intelligence which, even when misdi- 
 rected, have justly entitled them to be called a great 
 people. But this apparent exception, when examined, 
 will be found to confirm the rule ; for in no country 
 that is called Roman Catholic has the Roman Catholic 
 Church, during several generations, possessed so little 
 authority as in France. 
 
 It is difiicult to say whether Enoland owes more to 
 the Roman Catholic religion or to the Reformation. 
 For the amalgamation of races and for the abolition of 
 villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the influence which 
 the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the 
 laity. For political and intellectual freedom, and for 
 all the blessings which political and intellectual free-
 
 64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I 
 
 dom have brought in their train, she is chiefly indebted 
 to the great rebelhon of the laity against the priesthood. 
 The sti-uggle between the old and the new theology 
 in our country was long, and the event sometimes 
 seemed doubtful. There were two extreme parties, 
 prepared to act with violence or to suffer with stubborn 
 resolution. Between them lay, during a conjiderable 
 time, a middle party, which blended, very illogically, 
 but by no means unnaturally, lessons learned in the 
 nursery with the sermons of the modern evangelists, 
 and, while clinging with fondness to old observances, 
 yet detested abuses with which those observances were 
 closely connected. Men in such a frame of mind were 
 w^illing to obey, almost with thankfulness, the dicta- 
 tion of an able ruler who spared them the trouble of 
 judging for themselves, and, raising a firm and com- 
 manding voice above the uproar of controversy, told 
 them how to worship and what to believe. It is not 
 strano-e, therefore, that the Tudors should have been 
 able to exercise a great influence on ecclesiastical af- 
 fairs ; nor is it strange that their influence should, for 
 the most part, have been exercised with a view to their 
 own interest. 
 
 Henry the Eighth attempted to constitute an Angli- 
 can Chui'ch differing from the Roman Catholic Church 
 on the point of the supremacy, and on that point alone. 
 His success in this attempt was extraordinary. The 
 force of his character, the singularly favourable situation 
 in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the 
 immense wealth which the spohation of the abbeys 
 placed at his disposal, and the support of that class 
 whicli still halted between two opinions, enabled him 
 to bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as 
 heretics those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 65 
 
 and to liang as traitors those who owned the author- 
 ity of tlie Pope. But Henry's system died with him. 
 Had liis life been prolonoed, he would have found it 
 dithcidt to maintain a position assailed with equal fury 
 by all who were zealous either for the new or for the 
 old opijiions. The ministers wlio held the royal pre- 
 rogatives in trust for his infant son could not ventui-e 
 to persist in so hazardous a policy ; nor could Ehzabeth 
 Venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a 
 choice. The government must either submit to Rome, 
 or nuist obtain the aid of the Protestants. The irov- 
 ernment and the Protestants had only one thiwy in 
 common, hatred of the Papal power. The English 
 reformers were eager to go a.s far as tlieir brethren on 
 tlie Continent. They unanimously condemned as An- 
 tichristian numerous dogmas and practices to which 
 Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth 
 reluctantlv abandoned. Many felt a strono- repno-nance 
 even to things indifterent which had formed part of the 
 j)()lity or ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop 
 Hooper, wlio died manfully at Gloucester for his re- 
 ligion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. 
 Bislioj) Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled 
 down the ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the 
 Eucharist to be administered in the middle of churches, 
 at tables Avhich the Papists irreverently termed oyster 
 boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb to 
 be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites, 
 and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate 
 such degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long 
 hesitated about accepting a mitre from dishke of what 
 Ik- regarded as thi> mununery of ccmsecratioji. Bislioj; 
 Paikhurst uttered a fervent ])rayer that the Church 
 of England would propose to herself the Church of Zu«
 
 56 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [('n. L 
 
 rich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. 
 Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop 
 should be abandoned to the Papists, and tliat the chief 
 officers of the purified church should be called Super- 
 intendents. When it is considered that none of these 
 prelates belonged to the extreme section of the Protes- 
 tant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general 
 sense of that party had been followed, the work of re- 
 form would have been carried on as unsparingly in 
 England as in Scotland. 
 
 But, as the government needed the support of the 
 Origin of the Protcstauts, SO the Protestants needed the pro- 
 
 Cluirch of . , ^ 
 
 England. tcctiou of the government. Much was there- 
 fore given up on both sides ; an union was effected ; and 
 the fruit of that union was the Church of England. 
 
 To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to 
 the strong passions which it has called forth in the 
 minds both of friends and of enemies, are to be attrib- 
 uted many of the most important events which have, 
 since the Reformation, taken place in our country ; nor 
 can the secular history of England be at all understood 
 by us, unless we study it in constant connection with 
 the history of her ecclesiastical polity. 
 
 The man who took the chief part in settling the con- 
 ditions of the alliance which produced the Anglican 
 Church was Archbishop Cranmer. He was the repre- 
 sentative of both the parties which, at that time, needed 
 each other's assistance. He was at once a divine and 
 a courtier. In his character of divine he was perfectly 
 ready to go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or 
 Scottish reformer. In his character of coartier he was 
 desirous to preserve that organization which had, dur- 
 mg many ages, admirably served the purposes of the 
 Bishops of Rome, and might be expected now to serve
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 57 
 
 equally well the purposes of the English Kings and of 
 their ministers. His temper and his understanding 
 eminently fitted him to act as mediator. Saintly in his 
 professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for 
 nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver 
 in action, a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he 
 was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the 
 coalition between the religious and the worldly enemies 
 of Popery. 
 
 To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the 
 services of the Church, retain the visible Her peculiar 
 marks of the compromise from which she " ^^^'^ "' 
 sj)rang. She occupies a middle position between the 
 Churches of Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal con- 
 fessions and discourses, composed by Protestants, set 
 forth principles of theology in wliich Calvin or Knox 
 would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her 
 prayers and thanksgivings, derived from the ancient 
 Breviaries, are very generally such that Cardinal 
 Fisher or Cardinal Pole mifdit have heartily joined in 
 them. A controversialist who puts an Arminian sense 
 on her Articles and Homilies will be pronounced by 
 candid men to be as unreasonable as a controversialist 
 who denies that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration 
 can be discovered in her Liturgy. 
 
 The Church of Rome held that episcopacy was of 
 divine institution, and that certain supernatural graces 
 of a high order had been transmitted by the imposition 
 of hands through fifty generations, from the Eleven 
 who received their commission on the Galilean momit, 
 to the bisliops who met at Trent. A large body of 
 Protestants, on the other hand, regarded prelacy as 
 positively unlawful, and persuaded themselves that they 
 f^onnd a A^cry different form of ecclesiasticaJ government
 
 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 prescribed in Scripture. The founders of the Angli- 
 can Church took a middle course. They retained epis- 
 copacy ; but they did not declare it to be an institution 
 essential to the welfare of a Christian society, or to the 
 efficacy of tlie sacraments. Cranmer, indeed, on one 
 important occasion, plainly avowed his conviction that, 
 in the primitive times, there was no distinction between 
 bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was 
 altogether superfluous. 
 
 Among the Presbyterians, the conduct of public wor- 
 ship is, to a great extent, left to the minister. Their 
 prayers, therefore, are not exactly the same in any two 
 assemblies on the same day, or on any two days in the 
 same assembly. In one parish they are fervent, elo- 
 quent, and full of meaning. In the next parish they 
 may be languid or absurd. The priests of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, on the other hand, have, during many 
 generations, daily chaunted the same ancient confes- 
 sions, sup])lications, and thanksgivings, in India and 
 Lithuania, in Ireland and Peru. The service, being in 
 a dead language, is intelligible only to the learned ; and 
 the great majority of the congregation may be said to 
 assist as spectators rather than as auditors. Here, 
 again, the Church of England took a middle course. 
 She copied the Roman Catholic forms of prayer, but 
 translated them into the vulgar tongue, and invited the 
 illiterate multitude to join its voice to that of the min- 
 ister. 
 
 In every part of her system the same policy may be 
 traced. Utterly rejecting the doctrine of transubstan- 
 tiation, and condemning as idolatrous all adoration paid 
 to the sacramental bread and wine, she yet, to the dis- 
 gust of the Puritan, required her children to receive 
 the memorials of divine love, meekly kneehng upon
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 69 
 
 their knees. Discarding many ric-h vestments which 
 surrounded the altars of the ancient faith, she yet re- 
 tained, to the liorror of weak minds, a rohe of white 
 Hnen, typical of the purity which belonged to her as the 
 mystical s])Ouse of Christ. Discarding a crowd of panto- 
 mimic gestures which, in tlie Roman Catholic worship, 
 are substituted for intelligible words, she yet shocked 
 many rigid Protestants by marking the infant just 
 s])rinkled from the font with the sign of the cross. 
 The Roman Catholic addressed his prayers to a mul- 
 titude of Saints, among whom were numbered many 
 men of doubtful, and some of hateful, character. The 
 Puritan refused the addition of Saint even to the apostle 
 of the Gentiles, and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. 
 The Church of England, though she asked for the in- 
 tercession of no created being, still set apart days for 
 the commemoration of some who had done and suffered 
 great things for the faith. She retained confirmation 
 and ordination as edifying rites ; but she degraded them 
 from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her 
 system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to 
 confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her min- 
 isters to sooth the departing soul by an absolution, 
 which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In 
 genei-al it may be said, that she appeals more to th(} 
 understandinir, and less to the senses and the imagi- 
 nation, than the Church of Rome, and that she appeals 
 less to the understanding, and more to the senses and 
 imagination, than the Pi'otestant Churches of Scotland, 
 France, and Switzerland. 
 
 Nothing, however, so stronfjlv distinrruished the 
 Church of England from other Churches as R,.i,,tJon i„ 
 the relation in which she stood to the mon- atood^toThe 
 archy. The King was her head. The limits '^^°'^'^-
 
 60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 of the authority Avliich he possessed, as such, were not 
 traced, and indeed have never yet been traced, with 
 precision. The laws which declared him supreme in 
 ecclesiastical matters were drawn rudely and in gen- 
 eral terms. If, for the purpose of ascertaining the sense 
 of those laws, we examine the books and lives of those 
 who founded the English Church, our perplexity will 
 be increased. For the founders of the English Church 
 wrote and acted in an age of violent intellectual fermen- 
 tation, and of constant action and reaction. They there- 
 fore often contradicted each other, and sometimes con- 
 tradicted themselves. That the King was, under Christ, 
 sole head of the Church, was a doctrine Avhich they all 
 with one voice affirmed : but those words had very 
 different significations in different mouths, and in the 
 same mouth at different conjunctures. Sometimes an 
 authority which would have satisfied Hildebrand was 
 ascribed to the sovereign : then it dwindled down to 
 an authority little more than that which had been 
 claimed by many ancient English princes, who had 
 been in constant communion with the Church of Rome. 
 What Henry and his favourite counsellors meant, at one 
 time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less 
 than the whole power of the kevs. The Kino- was 
 to be the Pope of his kingdom, the vicar of God, the 
 expositor of Catholic verity, the channel of sacramental 
 graces. He arrogated to himself the right of decidino- 
 dogmatically what was orthodox doctrine and what 
 was heresy, of drawing up and imposing confessions of 
 faith, and of giving religious instruction to his people. 
 He proclaimed that all jurisdiction, spiritual as well as 
 temporal, was derived from him alone, and that it was 
 in his power to confer episcopal authority, and to take 
 it away. He actually ordered his seal to be ]mt to
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 61 
 
 commissions by which bishops were appointed, wlio 
 were to exercise their functions as his deputies, and 
 during his pleasure. According to this system, as ex- 
 pounded by Cranmer, the King was the spiritual as 
 well as the temporal chief of the nation. In both ca- 
 pacities His Highness must have lieutenants. As ho 
 appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to collect his 
 revenues, and to dispense justice in his name, so he 
 appointed divhies of various ranks to preach the gospel, 
 and to administer the sacraments. It was unnecessaiy 
 that there should be any imposition of hands. The 
 King — such was the opinion of Cranmer given in the 
 plainest words — might, in virtue of authority derived 
 from God, make a priest ; and the priest so made 
 needed no ordination whatever. These opinions tlie 
 Archbishop, in spite of the opposition of less courtly 
 divines, followed out to every legitimate consequence. 
 He held that his own spiritual functions, like the secular 
 functions of the Chancellor and Treasurer, were at once 
 determined by a demise of the crown. When Heniy 
 died, therefore, the Primate and his suffragans took 
 Hit fresh commissions, empowering them to ordain and 
 to govern the Church till the new sovereign should 
 think fit to order otherwise. AVhen it was objected 
 that a power to bind and to loose, altogether distinct 
 from temporal ])Ower, had been given by our Lord to 
 his apostles, some theologians of this school replied that 
 the power to bind and to loose had descended, not to 
 the clergy, but to the whole body of Christian men, 
 and ought to be exercised by the chief magistrate, as 
 the representative of the society. When it was ob- 
 jected that Saint Paul had spoken of certain persons 
 vs'hom the Holy Ghost had made overseers and shep- 
 herds of the faithful, it was answered that King Henry
 
 62 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. 1, 
 
 was the very overseer, the very shepherd, wh(.'m the ■ 
 
 Holy Ghost had appointed, and to whom the expres- 1 
 
 sions of Saint Paul applied.^ 
 
 These high j)retensions gave scandal to Protestants 
 as well as to Catholics ; and the scandal was greatly 
 increased when the supremacy, which Mary had re- 
 signed back to the Pope, was again annexed to the 
 crown, on the accession of Elizaheth. It seemed mon- 
 strous that a woman should be the chief bishop of a 
 Church in which an apostle had forbidden her even to 
 let her voice be heard. The Queen, therefore, found it 
 necessaiy expressly to disclaim that sacerdotal charac- 
 ter which her father had assumed, and which, accord- 
 ing to Cranmer, had been inseparably joined, by divine 
 ordinance, to the regal function. When the Anglican 
 confession of faith was revised in her reign, the suprem- 
 acy was explained in a manner somewhat difterent 
 from that which had been fashionable at the court of 
 Henry. Cranmer had declared, in em})hatic terms, 
 that God had immediately connnitted to Christian 
 princes the whole cure of all their subjects, as well 
 concerning the administration of God's word for the 
 cure of souls, as concerning the administration of things 
 political.^ The thirty-seventh article of religion, framed 
 under Elizabeth, declares, in terms as emphatic, that 
 the ministerinop of God's word does not belong to 
 princes. The Queen, however, still had over the 
 Church a visitatorial power of vast and undefined ex- 
 tent. She was entrusted bv Parliament with the office 
 of restraining and jDunishing heresy and every sort of 
 ecclesiastical abuse, and was permitted to delegate her 
 
 1 See a very curious paper which Stiype believed to be in Gardiner's 
 handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book I. Chap. xvii. 
 
 2 These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's His- 
 tory of tbs Reformation, Part I. Book IIL No. 21. Question 9.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 63 
 
 authority to commissioners. The Bisliops were little 
 more than her ministers. Rather tlian grant to the civil 
 magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual 
 })astors, the Church of Rome, in the eleventh century, 
 set all Europe on fire. Rather than grant to the civil 
 magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual 
 pastors, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in otu' 
 own time, resigned their livings by hundreds. The 
 Church of England had no such scruples. By the 
 royal authoi'ity alone her prelates were appointed. By 
 the royal authority alone her Convocations were sum- 
 moned, regulated, prorogued, and dissolved. Without 
 the royal sanction her canons had no force. One of 
 the articles of her faith was that without the royal con- 
 sent no ecclesiastical council could lawfully assemble. 
 From all her judicatures an appeal lay, in the last 
 resort, to the sovereign, even when the question Avas 
 whether an opinion ought to be accounted heretical, or 
 whether the administration of a sacrament had been 
 valid. Nor did the Church grudge this extensive 
 power to our princes. By them she had been called 
 into existence, nursed, through a feeble infancy, guarded 
 from Papists on one side, and from Puritans on the 
 other, protected against Parliaments which bore her 
 no good will, and avenged on literary assailants whom 
 she found it hard to answer. Thus gratitude, hope, 
 fear, connnon attachments, common enmities, bound 
 her to the throne. All her traditions, nil her tastes 
 wcire monarchical. Loyalty became a jioint of profes- 
 sional honoiir among her clergy, the ])eculiar badge 
 which distinguished them at once from Calvinists and 
 from Papists. Both the Calvinists and the Papists, 
 widely as they diftered in other respects, regarded 
 with e.Ntrenie jealousy ;ill encroachments of the tem-
 
 64 HISTORl OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 poral power on the domain of the sph-Itual power. 
 Both Calvinists and Papists maintained that subjects 
 might justifiably draw the sword against ungodly rulers. 
 In France Calvinists resisted Charles the Ninth : Pa- 
 pists resisted Henry the Fourth : both Papists and Cal- 
 vinists resisted Henry the Third. In Scotland Calvin- 
 ists led Mary captive. On the north of" the Trent 
 Papists took arms against the English throne. The 
 Church of Encrland meantime condemned both Calvin- 
 ists and Papists, and loudly boasted that no duty was 
 more constantly or earnestly inculcated by her than 
 that of submission to ])rinces. 
 
 The advantao;es which the crown derived from this 
 close alliance with the Established Church were great ; 
 but they were not without serious drawbacks. The 
 compromise arranged by Cranmer had from the first 
 been considered by a large body of Protestants as a 
 scheme for serving two masters, as an attempt to unite 
 the worship of the Lord with the worship of Baal. In 
 the days of Edward the Sixth the scruples of this party 
 had repeatedly thrown great difficulties in the way of 
 the government. When Elizabeth came to the throne, 
 these difficulties were much increased. Violence natu- 
 rally engenders violence. The spirit of Protestantism was 
 therefore far fiercer and more intolerant after the cruel- 
 The Puri- ^^^^ ^^ Mary than before them. Many persons 
 ^^- -who were warmly attached to the new opinions 
 
 had, durinof the evil days, taken refuge in Switzerland 
 and Germany. They had been hospitably received by 
 their brethren in the faith, had sate at the feet of the 
 great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich, and Geneva, and 
 had been, durino; some years, accustomed to a more 
 simple worship, and to a more democratical form of 
 church government than England had yet seen. These
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 65 
 
 men returned to their country, convinced that the re- 
 form which had been effected under King Edward had 
 been far less searching and extensive than the interests 
 of pure religion required. But it was in vain that 
 they attempted to obtain any concession from Eliza- 
 beth. Indeed her system, wherever it differed from 
 lier brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. 
 Tliey were little disposed to submit, in matters of 
 faith, to any human authority. They had recently, in 
 reliance on their own interpretation of Scripture, risen 
 up against a Church strong in immemorial antiquity 
 and catholic consent. It was by no common exertion 
 of intellectual energy that they had thrown off" the 
 yoke of that gorgeous and imperial superstition ; and 
 it was vain to expect that, immediately after such an 
 emanci])ation, they would patiently submit to a new 
 spiritual tyranny. Long accustomed, when the priest 
 lifted up the host, to bow down with their faces to the 
 earth, as before a present God, they had learned to 
 treat the mass as an idolatrous mummery. Lono; ac- 
 customed to regard the Pope as the successor of the 
 chief of the apostles, as the bearer of the keys of 
 earth and heaven, thev had learned to reirard him a? 
 the Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. It was 
 not to be expected that they would immediately trans- 
 fer to an upstart authority tlie homage which they had 
 withdrawn from the Vatican ; that tliey Avould submit 
 their private judgment to the authority of a Church 
 founded on private judgment alone ; that they would 
 be afraid to dissent from teachers who themselves dis- 
 sented from what had lately been the universal faith 
 of western Christendom. It is easy to conceive t1i'3 
 indio;nation which must have been felt by bold and 
 inquisitive spirits, glorying in newly acquired freedom, 
 
 vol.. I.
 
 66 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 when an institution younger by many years than them- 
 selves, an institution wliich had, under their own eyes, 
 gradually received its form from the passions and in- 
 terests of a court, began to mimic the lofty style of 
 Rome. 
 
 Since these men could not be convinced, it was de- 
 termined tliat they should be persecuted. Persecution 
 produced its natural eifects on them. It found them 
 Their a scct : it made them a faction. To their 
 
 spirit. hatred of the Chm-ch was now added hatred 
 
 of the crown. The two sentiments were intermingled ; 
 and each embittered the other. The opinions of the 
 Puritan concerning the relation of ruler and subject 
 were widely different from those whicli were incul- 
 cated in the Homilies. His favourite divines had, both 
 by precept and by example, encouraged resistance to 
 tyrants and persecutors. His fellow Calvinists in 
 France, in Holland, and in Scotland, were in arms 
 against idolatrous and cruel princes. His notions, too, 
 respecting the government of the state took a tinge 
 fi'om his notions respecting the government of the 
 Church. Some of the sarcasms which were popularly 
 thrown on episcopacy might, without much diiticulty, 
 be turned against royalty ; and many of the arguments 
 which were used to prove that spiritual power was best 
 lodo-ed in a synod seemed to lead to the conclusion that 
 temporal power was best lodged in a parliament. 
 
 Thus, as the priest of the Established Church was, 
 from interest, from principle, and from passion, zealous 
 for the royal pi^erogatives, the Puritan was, from inter- 
 est, from princi})le, and from passion, hostile to them. 
 Tlie power of the discontented sectaries was great. 
 Thcv were found in every rank ; but they were 
 stronwst among the mercantile classes in the towns,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 67 
 
 and among the small jTropi'ietors in the countiy. Early 
 in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a ma- 
 jority of the House of Commons. And doubtless, had 
 our ancestors been then at liberty to fix their ^^ system- 
 attention entirely on domestic questions, the u'e^ii^fr^"' 
 strife between the crown and the Parliament oiJj!r,^j't°" 
 would instantly have commenced. But that „'ent°oT'^'*' 
 was no season for internal dissensions. It ^''^'''•^t'l- 
 might, indeed, well be doubted, whether the firmest 
 union amono; all the orders of the state could avert the 
 common danger by which all were threatened. Roman 
 Catholic Europe and reformed Europe were struggling 
 for death or life. France, divided against herself, had, 
 for a time, ceased to be of any account in Christendom. 
 The En<rlish government was at the head of tlie Prot- 
 estant interest, and, while persecuting Presbyterians 
 at home, extended a powerful protection to Presby- 
 terian Churches abroad. At the head of the opposite 
 party was tlie mightiest prince of the age, a prince 
 who ruled Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, the 
 East and the West Indies, whose armies repeatedly 
 marched to Paris, and whose fleets kept the coasts of 
 Devonshire and Sussex in alarm. It lonix seemed 
 probable tliat Englislimen would have to fight des- 
 perately on EngUsh ground for their religion and inde- 
 pendence. Nor were they ever for a moment free 
 from apprehensions of some great treason at home. 
 For in that ag(> it had become a point of conscience 
 and of honour with many men of generous natures to 
 sacrifice their country to their rehgion. A succession 
 of dark jilots, formed by Roman Catholics against the 
 life of tlie Queen and the existence of tlie nation, ke[)t 
 society in constant alarm. Wliatever might be the 
 faults of Eliziibeth, it was i)lain that, to speak humanly,
 
 68 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I 
 
 the fate of the reahn and of all reformed Churches 
 was staked on the securitj of her person and on the 
 success of her administration. To sti'eno-then her hands 
 was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Prot- 
 estant ; and that duty was well performed. The Puri- 
 tans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had 
 sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that 
 she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, 
 that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and 
 that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. 
 One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, imme- 
 diately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence 
 into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, 
 waved his hat Avith the hand which was still left him, 
 and shouted " God save the Queen ! " The sentiment 
 with which these men regarded her has descended 
 to their posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as 
 she treated them, have, as a body, always venerated 
 her memory.-^ 
 
 During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the 
 Puritans in the House of Commons, though sometimes 
 mutinous, felt no disposition to ari'ay themselves in 
 systematic opposition to the government. But, when 
 the defeat of the Armada, the successful resistance of 
 the United Provinces to the Spanish power, the firm 
 establishment of Henry the Fourth on the throne of 
 France, and the death of Philip the Second, had se- 
 
 1 The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty with which she 
 treated the sect to which he belonged, conehides thus: "However, not- 
 withstanding all these blemishes. Queen Elizabeth stands upon'reoord as a 
 wise and politic princess, for delivering her kingdom from the difficulties 
 in which it was involved at her accession, for preserving the Protestant 
 reformation against the potent attempts of the Pope, the Emperor, and 
 King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her Popish sulyects 
 at home. . . . She was the glory of the age in which she lived, and will ba 
 the admiration of posterity.'" — Hi.story of the Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii. 
 
 I
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE EESTORATION. SO' 
 
 cured the State and the Church against all danger 
 from abroad, an obstinate struggle, destined to last 
 during several generations, instantly began at home. 
 It was in the Parliament of IGOl that the opposi- 
 tion which had, during forty years, been Question 
 
 111- of the 
 
 silently gathering and husbandmg strengtli, monopolies. 
 fouglit its first great battle and won its first victory. 
 The ground was well chosen. The English sovereigns 
 had always been entrusted with the supreme direction 
 of commercial police. It was their undoubted pre- 
 roirative to regulate coin, weights, and measures, and 
 to appoint fairs, markets, and ports. The Ime which 
 bounded their authority over trade had, as usual, 
 been but loosely drawn. They therefore, as usual, 
 encroached on the province which rightfully belonged 
 to tlio legislature. The encroachment was, as usual, 
 patiently borne, till it became serious. But at length 
 the Queen took upon herself to grant patents of mo- 
 nopoly by scores. There was scarcely a family in the 
 realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppres- 
 sion and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. 
 Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, 
 skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exorbitant 
 prices. The House of Commons met in an angry and 
 determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minor- 
 ity blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the 
 Queen's Highness to be called in question. The lan- 
 guage- of the discontented party Avas high and menac- 
 ing, and was echoed by the voice of the whole nation. 
 The coach of the chief minister of the crown was sur- 
 rounded by an indignant populace, who cursed the 
 monopolies, and exclaimed that the prerogative should 
 jiot be suffered to touch the old liberties of England. 
 There seemed for a moment to be some danger that
 
 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I 
 
 the long and glorious reign of Elizabeth would have a 
 shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with ad- 
 mirable judgment and temper, dechned tiie contest, put 
 hei'self at the head of the reforming party, redressed 
 the grievance, thanked the Conmions, in touching and 
 dignified language, for their tender care of the general 
 weal, brought back to herself the hearts of the people, 
 and left to her successors a memorable example of the 
 way in which it behoves a ruler to deal with pubhc 
 movements which he has not the means of resistinir. 
 
 In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year 
 Scotland and ^^^ ou many accounts, one of the most impor- 
 comTparts of ^^^^^ cpochs iu our history. It Avas then that 
 pire wUh ''°^" ^oth Scotlaud aud Ireland became parts of 
 England. ^j^^ ^^^^ empire with England. Both Scot- 
 land and Ireland, indeed, had been subjugated by the 
 Plantagenets ; but neither country had been patient 
 under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy, 
 vindicated her independence, had, from the time of 
 Robert Bruce, been a separate kingdom, and was now 
 joined to the southern part of the island in a manner 
 wdiich rather gratified than wounded her national pride. 
 Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, 
 been able to expel the foreign invaders ; but she had 
 struggled against them long and fiercely. During the 
 fourteentli and fifteenth centuries the English power in 
 that island was constantly declining, and, in the days 
 of Henry the Seventh, had sunk to the lowest point. 
 The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of 
 tlie counties of Dubhn and Louth, of some parts of 
 INIeath and- Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered 
 along the coast. A large portion even of Leinster was 
 not yet divided into counties. Munster, Ulster, and 
 Connaught were ruled by petty sovereigns, partly
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 71 
 
 Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgot- 
 ten their origin and had adopted the Celtic language 
 and manners. But, during the sixteenth century, the 
 English power had made great progress. The half 
 savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale had 
 submitted one after another to the lieutenants of the 
 Tudors. x\t length, a few weeks before the death of 
 Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been begun more 
 than four humlred years before by Strongbow, was 
 completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had James the First 
 mounted the English throne Avhen the last O'Donnell 
 and O'Neill who have held the raid-c of independent 
 princes kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward 
 his writs ran and his judges held assizes in every part 
 of Ireland ; and the English law superseded the cus- 
 toms which had prevailed among the aboriginal tribes. 
 
 In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to 
 each other, and were together nearly equal to England, 
 but were much less thickly peopled than England, and 
 were very far behind England in wealth and civilisa- 
 tion. Scotland had been kept back by the sterility of 
 her soil ; and, in the midst of light, the thick darkness 
 of the middle aires still rested on Ireland. 
 
 The ])opulation of Scotland, with the excc})tion of 
 the Celtic tribes which were thinly scattered over the 
 Hebrides and over the mountainous ])arts of the north- 
 ern shires, was of the same blood with the population 
 of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ 
 from the purest English more than the dialects of Som-l 
 ersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. In 
 Ireland, on the contrary, the population, Avith the ex- 
 ception of the small English colony near the coast, was 
 Celtic, and still kept the Celtic speech and maimers. 
 
 In natural courage and intellitrence both the nations
 
 72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 which now became connected with England ranked 
 high. In perseverance, in selfcommand, in forethought, 
 in all the virtues which conduce to sviccess in life, the 
 Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish, on tlip 
 other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend 
 to make men interesting rather than prosperous. They 
 were an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to 
 tears or to luugliter, to fury or to love. Alone among 
 the nations of northern Europe they had the suscep- 
 tibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and 
 rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean Sea. In mental cultivation Scotland 
 had an indisputable superiority. Though that king- 
 dom was then the poorest in Christendom, it already 
 vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured 
 countries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food 
 were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our 
 time, Avrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy 
 of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would 
 have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could 
 boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The genius, with 
 which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed, 
 showed itself as yet only in ballads which, wild and 
 rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of 
 Spenser to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry. 
 Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, 
 preserved all her dignity. Having, during many gen- 
 erations, courageously withstood the English arms, she 
 was now joined to her stronger neighbour on the most 
 honourable terms. She gave a King instead of receiv- 
 mcr one. She retained her own constitution and laws. 
 Her tribunals and parliaments remained entirely inde- 
 pendent of the tribunals and parliaments which sate at 
 Westminster. The administration of Scotland was in
 
 Cii. 1] BEFORE TIIK RESTORATION. 73 
 
 Scottish hands ; for no Enghshman had any motive to 
 emigrate northward, and to contend with the slirewd- 
 est and most pertinacious of all races for what was to 
 be scraped together in the poorest of all treasuries.^ 
 Nevertheless Scotland by no means escaped the fate 
 ordained for every country which is connected, but not 
 incorporated, with another country of greater resources. 
 Though in name an independent kingdom, she was, 
 during more than a century, really treated, in many 
 respects, as a subject province. 
 
 Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency 
 won by the sword. Her rude national institutions had 
 perished. The English colonists submitted to the dic- 
 tation of the mother country, without whose support 
 they could not exist, and indemnified themselves by 
 trampling on the people among whom they had settled. 
 The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no 
 law which had not previously been approved by the 
 English Privy Council. The authority of the English 
 Icsislature extended over Ii'eland. The executive ad- 
 ministration was intrusted to men taken either from 
 England or from the English pale, and, in either case, 
 regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the 
 Celtic ]>oi)ulation. 
 
 But the circumstance which, more than any other, 
 has made Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to 
 be noticed. Scotland was Protestant. In no part of 
 Europe had the movement of the popular mind against 
 the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. 
 The reformers had vanquished, deposed, and impris- 
 
 1 Tlie curlier editions contain this sentence omitted on the final revision: 
 " Meanwhile Scottish advinturors poured .southward, and obtained in all 
 the walks of life a prosperity which excited much envy, but which was in 
 (general only the just reward of prudence and industry."
 
 
 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 oned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not en- 
 dure even such a com])romise as had been effected in 
 England. They had established the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine, discipline, and worship ; and they made little 
 distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the 
 Mass and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately 
 for Scotland, the prince whom she sent to govern a 
 fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the 
 pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted 
 against him the privileges of the synod and the pulpit 
 that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was 
 fondly attached as much as it was in his effeminate na- 
 ture to hate anything, and had no sooner mounted the 
 English throne than he beffan to show an intolerant 
 zeal for the g-overnment and ritual of the Eng-lish 
 Church. 
 
 The Irish were the only people of northern Europe 
 who had remained true to the old relio-ion. This is 
 to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that they 
 were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowl- 
 edge. But other causes had cooperated. The Refor- 
 mation had been a national as well as a moral revolt. 
 It had been, not only an insurrection of the laity against 
 the clergy, but also an insurrection of all the branches 
 of the great German race against an alien domination. 
 It is a most sionificant circumstance that no large so- 
 ciety of which the tong-ue is not Teutonic has ever 
 turned Protestant, and that, wherever a language de- 
 rived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the religion 
 of modern Rome to this day prevails. The patriotism 
 of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object 
 of their animosity was not Rome, but England ; and 
 they had especial reason to abhor those English sov- 
 ereigns who had been the chiefs of the great schism,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 76 
 
 Heni'v the Eighth and Ehzabeth. Durino; the vain 
 struggle which two generations of Milesian princes 
 maintained against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm 
 and national enthusiasm became inseparably blended 
 in the minds of the vanquished race. The new feud 
 of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of Saxon 
 and Celt. The Enghsh conquerors, meanwhile, neg- 
 lected all legitimate means of conversion. No care 
 ■was taken to provide the vanquished nation with in- 
 structors capable of making themselves understood. 
 No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Irish 
 language. The government contented itself with set- 
 ting up a vast hierarchy of Protestant archbishops, 
 bishops, and rectors, who did nothing, and who, for 
 doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church 
 loved and revered by the great body of the people. 
 
 There was much in the state both of Scotland and 
 of Ireland which might well excite the painful appre- 
 hensions of a farsighted statesman. As yet, however, 
 there was the appearance of tranquillity. For the first 
 time all the British isles were peaceably united under 
 one sceptre. 
 
 It should seem that the weight of England among 
 Euro])ean nations ought, from this epoch, to have 
 greatly increased. The territory which her new King 
 governed was, in extent, nearly double that which 
 Elizabeth had inherited. His empire was also the most 
 complete within itself and the most secure from attack 
 that was to be found in the world. The Plantagenets 
 and Tudors had been repeatedly under the necessity of 
 defending themselves against Scotland while they were 
 engaged in continental war. The long conflict in Ire- 
 land had been a severe and perpetual drain on their 
 resources. Yet even under such disadvantages those
 
 76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 sovereigns had been higMy considered throughout 
 Chi'istendom. It miglit, therefore, not unreasonably 
 be expected that England, Scotland and Ireland com- 
 bined would form a state second to none that then ex- 
 isted. 
 
 All such expectations were strangely disappointed. 
 Diminution O^^ ^^^^ '^^7 of the accession of James the First 
 tau.''eofEng"- England descended fi'om the rank which 
 ^cessfonVf'^ shc had hitherto held, and began to be re- 
 james I. gardcd ^s a power hardly of the second order. 
 During many years the great British monarchy, under 
 four successive princes of the House of Stuart, was 
 scarcely a more important member of the European 
 system than the little kingdom of Scotland had pre- 
 viously been. This, however, is little to be regretted. 
 Of James the First, as of John, it may be said that, 
 if his administration liad been able and splendid, it 
 would probably have been fatal to our country, and 
 that we owe more to his weakness and meanness than 
 to the wisdom and couracve of much better sovereigns. 
 He came to the throne at a critical moment. The time 
 was fast approaching when either the King must be- 
 come absolute, or the Parliament must control the 
 whole executive administration. Had James been, 
 hke Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of Nassau, or like 
 Gustavus Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic raler, 
 had he put himself at the head of the Protestants of 
 Europe, had he gained great victories over Tilly and 
 Spinola, had he adorned Westminster with the sj^oils 
 of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish cathedrals, had 
 he hung Austrian and Castilian banner* in St. Paul's, 
 and had he found himself, after great achievements, at 
 the head of fifty thousand troops, brave, well disci- 
 plined, and devotedly attached to his person, the Eng-
 
 Ch. l] before the restoration. 77 
 
 lish Parliament would soon have been nothing more 
 than a name. Happily he was not a man to play such 
 a part. He began his administration by putting an end 
 to the war which had raged during many years between 
 England and Spain ; and from that time he shunned 
 hostilities with a caution which was proof against the in- 
 sults of his neighbours and the clamours of his subjects. 
 Not till the last year of his life could the influence of 
 his son, his favourite, his Parliament and his people com- 
 bined, induce him to strike one feeble blow in defence 
 of his family and of his religion. It was well for those 
 whom he governed, that he in this matter disregarded 
 their wishes. The effect of his pacific poHcy was that, 
 in his time, no regular troops were needed, and that, 
 while France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Germany 
 swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence of our 
 island was still confided to the militia. 
 
 As the King had no standing army, and did not even 
 attempt to form one, it would have been wise in him to 
 avoid any conflict with his peo]»le. But such was his 
 indiscretion that, while he altogether neglected the 
 means which alone could make him really absolute, he 
 constantly put forward, in the most offensive form, 
 claims of which none of his predecessors had ever 
 dreamed. It was at this time tlint those Doctnneof 
 strano;e theories which Filmer afterwards '""^'^ "^'^'' 
 formed into a system, and which became the badge 
 of the most violent class of Tories and high church- 
 men, first emerged into notice. It was gravely main- 
 tained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary 
 monarchy, as opjiosed to other forms of government, 
 with peculiar favour ; that the rule of succession in order 
 of primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to 
 the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation ;
 
 78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cii. 1. 
 
 that no human power, not even that of the whole legis- 
 lature, no length of adverse possession, though it ex- 
 tended to ten centuries, could deprive a legitimate 
 prince of his rights ; that the authority of such a prince 
 was necessarily always despotic ; that the laws by which, 
 in England and in other countries, the prerogative was 
 limited were to be regarded merely as concessions 
 which the sovereign had freely made and miglit at his 
 pleasure resume ; and that any treaty which a king 
 might conclude with his people was merely a declara- 
 tion of his present intentions, and not a contract of 
 which the performance could be demanded. It is evi- 
 dent that this theory, though intended to strengthen 
 the foundations of government, altogether unsettles 
 them. Does the divine and immutable law of primo- 
 geniture admit females, or exclude them ? On either 
 supposition lialf the sovereigns of Europe must be usurp- 
 ers, reionins in defiance of the law of God, and liable 
 to be dispossessed by the rightful heirs. The doctrine 
 that kingly government is peculiarly fivoured by Heaven 
 received no countenance from the Old Testament ; for 
 in the Old Testament we read that the chosen people 
 were blamed and punished for desiring a king, and that 
 they were afterwards commanded to withdraw their 
 allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from 
 countenancincT the notion that succession in order of 
 primogeniture is of divine institution, would rather seem 
 to indicate that younger brothers are under the especial 
 protection of heaven. Isaac was not the eldest son of 
 Abraham, nor Jacob of Isaac, nor Judah of Jacob, nor 
 David of Jesse, nor Solomon of David. Nor does the 
 system of Filmer receive any countenance from those 
 passages of the New Testament which describe govern-
 
 Oh. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 79 
 
 merit as an ordinance of God : for tlie goveniment un- 
 der wliicli the writers of tlie New Testament lived was 
 not a hereditary monarchy. The Roman Emperors 
 were republican magistrates, n.-nned by the Senate. 
 None of them pretended to rule by right of birth ; and, 
 in flict, both Tiberius, to wliom Christ commanded that 
 tribute should be given, and Nero, whom Paul directed 
 the Romans to obey, were, according to the patriarchal 
 theory of government, usurpers. In the middle ages 
 the doctrine of mdefeasible hereditary right wonld have 
 been reo-arded as heretical : for it was altogether in- 
 compatible with the high pretensions of the Church of 
 Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders 
 of the Church of England. The Homily on Wilful 
 Rebellion had strongly, and indeed too strongly, incul- 
 cated submission to constituted authority, but had made 
 no distinction between hereditary and elective monar- 
 chies, or between monarchies and republics. Indeed 
 most of the predecessors of James would, from personal 
 motives, have regarded the pati-iarchal theory of gov- 
 ernment with aversion. William Rufus, Henry the 
 First, Stephen, John, Henry the Fourth, Henry the 
 Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry 
 the Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict 
 rule of descent. A grave doubt hung over the legiti- 
 macy both of ]\Iary and of Elizabeth. It was impossi- 
 ble that both Catliarine of Aragon and Anne Boleyii 
 could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth ; 
 and the highest authority in the realm had pronounced 
 that neither was so. The Tudors, far from consider- 
 ing the law of succession as a divine and iuicliann;eal)le 
 institution, were constantly tampering with it. Hein-y 
 the Eighth obtained an act of parliament, giving him 
 power to leave the crown by will, and actually mad(! a
 
 80 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 will to the prejudice of the royal family of Scotland. 
 Edward the Sixth, unauthorised by parliament, assumed 
 a similar power, with the full approbation of the most 
 eminent Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own 
 title was open to grave objection, and unwilling to ad- 
 mit even a reversionary right in her rival and enemy 
 the Queen of Scots, induced the Parliament to pass a 
 law, enacting that whoever should deny the compe- 
 tency of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the 
 Estates of the realm, to alter the succession, should 
 suffer death as a traitor. But the situation of James 
 was widely different from that of Elizabeth. Far infe- 
 rior to her in abilities and in popularity, regarded by 
 the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne 
 by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of 
 Scots was yet the undoubted heir of William the Con- 
 queror and of Egbert. He had, therefore, an obvious 
 mterest in inculcating the superstitious notion that 
 birth confers rights anterior to law, and unalterable 
 by law. It was a notion, moreover, well suited to 
 his intellect and temper. It soon found many advo- 
 cates among those who aspired to his favour, and made 
 rapid progress among the clergy of the Established 
 Church. 
 
 Thus, at the very moment at which a republican 
 spirit began to manifest itself strongly in the Parlia- 
 ment and in the country, the claims of the monarch 
 took a monstrous form which would have disg-usted the 
 proudest and most arbitrary of those who had preceded 
 him on the throne. 
 
 James was always boasting of his skill in what he 
 called kingcraft ; and yet it is hardly possible even to 
 imagine a course more directly opposed to all the rules 
 of kingcraft thar. that which he followed. The policy
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 81 
 
 of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts 
 under popular forms. It was thus that Augustus and 
 Napoleon established absolute monarchies, while the 
 public regarded them merely as eminent citizens in- 
 vested with temporary magistracies. The policy of 
 James was the direct reverse of theirs. He enraged 
 and alarmed his Parliament by constantly telling them 
 that they held their privileges merely during his pleas- 
 ure, and that they had no more business to inquire 
 what he might lawfully do than what the Deity might 
 lawfully do. Yet he quailed before them, abandoned 
 minister after minister to their vengeance, and suffered 
 them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his 
 strongest inclinations. Thus the indio-nation excited 
 by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions 
 went on growiu"; together. Bv his fondness for worth.- 
 less minions, and by the sanction which he gave to 
 their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent con- 
 stantly ahve. His cowardice, his childishness, his 
 pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his pro- 
 vincial accent made him an object of derision. Even 
 in his virtues and accomplishments there was something 
 eminently mikiugly. Throughout the whole course of 
 his reign, all the venerable associations by which the 
 throne had long been fenced were gradually losing 
 their strength. During two hundred years all the 
 sovereigns who had ruled England, with the single ex- 
 ception of the unfortunate Henry the Sixth, had been 
 Sitrongminded, highsj)irited, courageous, and of princely 
 Ijearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above the 
 ordinary level. It was no light thing that, on the very 
 eve of the decisive struggle between our Kings and 
 their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the 
 world stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, IGn. I. 
 
 trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the stylo 
 alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue. 
 
 In the meantime the religious dissensions, by which, 
 The separa- fi'oni the days of Edward the Sixth, the Prot- 
 the^cwch"* estant body had been distracted, had become 
 tims becomes moi'^ formidable than ever. The interval 
 wider. which had separated the first generation of 
 
 Puritans from Cranmer and Jewel was small indeed 
 when compared with the interval which separated the 
 third generation of Puritans from Laud and Hammond. 
 While the recollection of Mary's cruelties was still fresh, 
 while the power of the Catholic party still inspired ap- 
 prehension, while Spain still retained ascendency and 
 aspired to universal dominion, all the reformed sects 
 knew that they had a strong common interest and a 
 deadly common enemy. The animosity which they 
 felt towards each other was languid when compared 
 with the animosity which they all felt toAvards Rome. 
 Conformists and Nonconformists had heartily joined in 
 enacting penal laws of extreme severity against the 
 Papists. But when more than half a century of un- 
 disturbed possession had given confidence to the Estab- 
 lished Church, when nine tenths of the nation had 
 become heartily Protestant, when England was at 
 peace with all the world, when there was no danger 
 that Popery would be forced by foreign arms on the 
 nation, when the last confessors who had stood before 
 Bonner had passed away, a change took place in the 
 feeling of the Anglican clergy. Their hostility to the 
 Roman Catholic doctrine and discipline was consider- 
 ably mitigated. Their, dislike of the Puritans, on the 
 other hand, increased daily. The controversies which 
 nad fi'om the beginning divided the Protestant party 
 took such a form as made reconciliation hopeless ; and
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 83 
 
 new controversies of still greater importance were added 
 to the old subjects of dispute. 
 
 The founders of the Anglican Church had retained 
 episcopacy as an ancient, a decent, and a convenient 
 ecclesiastical polity, but had not declared that form of 
 church government to be of divine institution. We 
 have already seen how low an estimate Cranmer had 
 formed of the office of a Bishop. In the reign of Eliz- 
 abeth, Jewel, Cooper, Whitgift, and other eminent 
 doctors defended prelacy as innocent, as useful, as what 
 the state might lawfully establish, as what, when estab- 
 lished by the state, was entitled to the resi)ect of every 
 citizen. But they never denied that a Christian com- 
 munity without a Bishop might be a pure Church. 
 On the contrary, they regarded the Protestants of the 
 Continent as of the same household of faith with them- 
 selves. Eno-lislunen in Eno-land were indeed bound to 
 acknowledge the authority of the Bishop, as they were 
 bound to acknowledge the authority of the Sheriff and 
 of the Coroner : but the obligation was j)urely local. 
 An English churchman, nay even an English prelate, 
 if he went to Holland, conformed without scruple to 
 the established religion of Holland. Abroad the ambas- 
 sadors of Elizabeth and James went in state to the very 
 worshi]) which Elizabeth and James persecuted at home, 
 and carefully abstained from decorating their private 
 chapels after the Anglican fashion, lest scandal should 
 be ffiven to weaker brethren. An instrument is still 
 extant bv wliich the Primate of all England, in tiie 
 year 1582, authorised a Scotch minister, ordained, 
 according to the laudable forms of the Scotch Church, 
 by the Synod of East Lothian to preach and admin- 
 ister the Sacraments in any part of the province of 
 Canterbury.^ In the year IGOo, the Ccivocation of 
 
 1 Strypc's I<il'c of {{riiulal. Appendix to Book II. No. .Nvii.
 
 8i HISTORY OF ENGLA>{D, [Ch. I. 
 
 the province of Canterbury solemnly recognised the 
 
 Church of Scotland, a Church in which episcopal 
 
 control and episcopal ordination were then unknown, 
 
 as a branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ.^ 
 
 It was even held that Presbyterian ministers were 
 
 entitled to place and voice in oecumenical councils. 
 
 When the States General of the United Provinces 
 
 convoked at Dort a synod of doctors not episcopally 
 
 ordained, an English Bishop and an English Dean, 
 
 commissioned by the head of the English Church, sate 
 
 with those doctors, preached to them, and voted with 
 
 them on the gravest questions of theology. Nay, 
 
 many English benefices were held by divines who 
 
 had been admitted to the ministry in the Calvinistic 
 
 form used on the Continent ; nor was reordination by 
 
 a Bishop in such cases then thought necessary, or even 
 
 lawful. 
 
 But a new race of divines was already rising in the 
 Church of England. In their view the episcopal office 
 was essential to the welfare of a Christian societv and 
 to the efficacy of the most solemn ordinances of religion. 
 To that office belonged certain high and sacred privi- 
 leges, which no human power could give or take away. 
 A church mio-ht as well be without the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, or the doctrine of the Incarnation, as Avithout 
 the apostolical orders ; and the Church of Rome, which, 
 in the midst of all her corruptions, had retained the 
 apostolical orders, was nearer to primitive purity than 
 those reformed societies which had rashly set up, in 
 opposition to the divine model, a system invented by 
 men. 
 
 In the days of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth, the 
 defenders of the Anglican ritual had generally contented 
 themselves with saying that it might be used without 
 
 1 Canon 55. of 1005.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 85 
 
 sin, and tliat, therefore, none bnt a perverse and vnidu- 
 tiful subject would refuse to use it when enjoined to do 
 so by the niaoistrate. Now, however, that rising party 
 whicl claimed for the poHty of the Church a celestial 
 origin began to ascribe to her services a new dignity 
 and importance. It was hinted that, if the established 
 worship had any fault, that fault was extreme simplicity, 
 and that the Reformers had, in the heat of their quarrel 
 with Rome, abolished many ancient ceremonies which 
 might with advantao;e have been retained. Davs and 
 places were again held in mysterious veneration. Some 
 practices which had long been disused, and which were 
 commonly regarded as superstitious mummeries, were 
 revived. Paintings and carvings, which had escaped 
 the fury of the first generation of Protestants, became 
 the objects of a respect such as to many seemed idola- 
 trous. 
 
 No part of the system of the old Church had been 
 more detested by the reformers than the honour paid 
 to celibacy. They held that the doctrine of Rome on 
 this subject had been prophetically condemned by the 
 Apostle Paul, as a doctrine of devils ; and they dwelt 
 much on the crimes and scandals which seemed to prove 
 the justice of this awful denunciation. Luther had 
 evinced his own opinion in the clearest manner, by 
 espousing a nun. Some of the most illustrious bishops 
 and priests who had died bv fire durino- the reitm of 
 Mary had left wives and children. Now, however, it 
 began to be rumoured that the old monastic spirit had 
 reappeared in the Church of England ; that there was 
 in high quarters a prejudice against married priests ; 
 that even laymcMi, who called themselves Protestant';, 
 had made resolutions of celibacy which almost amounted 
 to vows ; nay, that a minister of the established relig- 
 ion had set up a nunnery, in which the psalms Avere
 
 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 chaunted at midnight, by a company of virgins dedi- 
 cated to God.^ 
 
 Nor was this alL A class of questions as to whicii 
 the founders of tiie Anohcan Church and the first gen- 
 eration of Puritans had differed httle or not at all began 
 to furnish matter for fierce disputes. The controversies 
 which had divided the Protestant body in its infancy 
 had related almost exclusively to church government 
 and to ceremonies. There had been no serious quarrel 
 between the contending parties on points of metaphys- 
 ical theology. The doctrines held by the chiefs of the 
 hierarchy touching original sin, faith, grace, predestina- 
 tion, and election, were those which are popularly called 
 Calvinistic. Towards the close of Elizabeth's reijni 
 her favourite prelate. Archbishop Whitgift, drew up, 
 in concert witli the Bishop of London and other theo- 
 logians, the celebrated instrument known by the name 
 of the Lambeth Articles. In that instrument the most 
 startling of the Calvinistic doctrines are affirmed with 
 a distinctness which would shock many who, in our age, 
 are reputed Calvinists. One clergyman, who took the 
 opposite side, and spoke harshly of Calvin, was arraigned 
 for his pi'esumption by the University of Cambridge, 
 and escaped punishment only by expressing his firm be- 
 lief in the tenets of reprobation and final perseverance, 
 and his sorrow for the offence which he had given to 
 pious men by reflecting on the great French reformer. 
 The school of divinity of which Hooker was the chief 
 occupies a middle place between the school of Cranmer 
 and the school of Laud ; and Hooker has, in modern 
 times, been claimed by the Arminians as an ally. Yet 
 
 1 Peckard's Life of Ferrar. The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief Descrip- 
 tion of the late erected monastical Place called the Arminian Nunnery, lit 
 Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1041.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 87 
 
 Hooker pronounced Calvin to have been a man supe- 
 rior in wisdom to any other divine that France had 
 produced, a man to whom thousands were indebted for 
 the knowledi>;e of divine truth, but who was himself 
 indebted to God alone. When the Arminian contro- 
 versy arose in Holland, the English government and 
 the English Church lent strong support to the Calvin- 
 istic party ; nor is the English name altogether free 
 from the stain which has been left on that party by 
 the imprisonment of Grotius and the judicial murder 
 of Barne veldt. 
 
 But, even before the meeting of the Dutch synod, 
 that part of the Anglican clergy which was peculiarly 
 hostile to the Calvinistic church government and to the 
 Calvinistic worship had begun to regard with dislike 
 the Calvinistic metaphysics ; and this feeling was very 
 naturally strengthened by the gross injustice, insolence, 
 and cruelty of the party which was prevalent at Dort. 
 The Arminian doctrine, a doctrine less austerely logical 
 than that of the earlv reformers, but more agreeable to 
 the popular notions of the divine justice and benevolence, 
 spread fast and wide. The infection soon reached the 
 court. Opinions which, at the time of the accession of 
 James, no clergyman could have avowed without immi- 
 nent risk of being stripped of his gown were now the 
 best title to preferment. A divine of that age, wh'^ 
 was asked by a simple country gentleman what the 
 Arminians held, answered, with as much truth as wit, 
 that they held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in 
 England. 
 
 Wiiilc the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in 
 one direction, the position wliicli they had oviginally oc- 
 cupied, the majority of the Puritan body departed, in a 
 direction diametrically (>p})osite, from the ])rinciples and
 
 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I, 
 
 practices of their fathers. The persecution which the 
 separatists liad undergone had been severe enough to 
 irritate, but not severe enough to destroy. They had 
 been not tamed into submission, but baited into savage- 
 ness and stubbornness. After the fashion of oppressed 
 sects, they mistook their own vindictive feehngs for emo- 
 tions of piety, encouraged in themselves by reading and 
 meditation a disposition to brood over their wrongs, and, 
 when they had worked themselves up into hating their 
 enemies, imagined that they were only hating the ene- 
 mies of heaven. In the New Testament there was 
 little indeed which, even when perverted by the most 
 disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance the 
 indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testa- 
 ment contained the history of a race selected by God to 
 be witnesses of his unity and ministers of his vengeance, 
 and specially commanded by him to do many things 
 which, if done without his special command, would have 
 been atrocious crimes. In such a history it was not 
 difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that 
 might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme 
 Puritans therefore beo;an to feel for the Old Testament 
 a preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly 
 avow even to themselves ; but which showed itself in 
 all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the He- 
 brew language a respect which they refused to that 
 tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the ep:stles 
 of Paul have come down to us. They baptized their 
 children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of 
 Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. In defiance of the 
 express and reiterated declarations of Luther and Cal- 
 vin, they turned the weekly festival by Avhich the Church 
 had, from the primitive times, commemorated the res- 
 urrection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath. They
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 89 
 
 souglit for principles of jurispriulence in the Mosaic law, 
 and for precedents to guide their ordinary conduct in 
 the books of Judo-es and Kino-s. Their thoiiohts and 
 discourse ran much on acts which were assuredly not 
 recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet 
 who hewed in pieces a captive king, the rebel general 
 who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs, the matron 
 who, in defiance of plighted faith, and of the laws of 
 eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the 
 fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who 
 was sleeping under the shadow of her tent, were pro- 
 posed as models to Christians suffering under the tyranny 
 of princes and prelates. Morals and manners were sub- 
 jected to a code resembling that of the synagogue, when 
 the synagogue was in its worst state. The dress, the 
 de])ortment, the language, the studies, the amusements 
 of the rigid sect were regulated on principles not unlike 
 those of the Pharisees who, proud of their washed hands 
 and broad phylacteries, taunted the Redeemer as a sab- 
 bathbreaker and a winebibber. It was a sin to hang 
 garlands on a Maypole, to drink a friend's health, to 
 fly a hawk, to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear love- 
 locks, to put starch into a ruff, to touch the virginals, 
 to read the Fairy Queen, Rules such as these, rules 
 which would have appeared insupportable to the free 
 and joy(5us spirit of Luther, and contemptible to the 
 serene and ])hiloso])hical intellect of Zwingle, threw over 
 all life a more than monastic gloom. The learnino- and 
 eloquence by which the great reformers had been emi- 
 nently distinguished, and to which they had been, in no 
 small measure, indebted for their success, were regarded 
 by the new school of Protestants with suspicion, if not 
 with aversion. Some precisians had scruples about 
 teaching the Latin grammar because the names of Mars,
 
 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ca, I, 
 
 Bacchus, and Apollo occuiTed in it. The fine arts were 
 all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was 
 superstitious. The light music of Ben Jonson's masqvies 
 was dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were 
 idolatrous, and the other half indecent. The extreme 
 Puritan was at once known from other men by his gait, 
 his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, 
 the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with 
 which he spoke, and, above all, by his peculiar dialect. 
 He employed, on every occasion, the imagery and style 
 of Scripture. Hebraisms violently introduced into the 
 English language, and metaphors borrowed from the 
 boldest lyric poetry of a remote age and country, and 
 applied to the common concerns of English life, were 
 the most striking peculiarities of this cant, which moved, 
 not without cause, the derision both of prelatists and 
 libertines. 
 
 Thus the political and religious schism which had 
 originated in the sixteenth century was, during the 
 first quarter of the seventeenth century, constantly 
 widening. Theories tending to Turkish despotism 
 were in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to 
 republicanism were in favour with a large portion of 
 the House of Commons. The violent Prelatists who 
 were, to a man, zealous for prerogative, and the vio- 
 lent Puritans who were, to a man, zealou? for the 
 privileges of Parliament, regarded each other with 
 animosity more intense than that which, in the pre- 
 ceding generation, had existed between Catholics and 
 Protestants. 
 
 While the minds of men were in this state, the coun- 
 try, after a peace of many years, at length engaged in 
 a war which required strenuous exertions. This war 
 hastened the approach of the great constitutional crisis.
 
 C«. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 91 
 
 It was necossaiy that the King should have a large 
 military force. He could not have such a force with- 
 out money. He could not legally raise money without 
 the consent of Parliament. It followed, therefore, that 
 he must either administer the government in conform- 
 ity with the sense of the House of Commons, or must 
 venture on such a violation of the fundamental laws 
 of the land as had been unknown during several cen- 
 turies. The Plantagenets and the Tudors had, it is 
 true, occasionally supphed a deficiency in their revenue 
 bv a benevolence or a forced loan : but these expe- 
 dients were always of a temporary nature. To meet 
 the regular charge of a long war by regular taxation, 
 imposed without the consent of the Estates of the 
 realm, was a course which Henry the Eighth himself 
 would not have dared to take. It seemed, therefore, 
 that the decisive hour was approaching, and that the 
 En^dish Parliament would soon either share the fate of 
 the senates of the Continent, or obtain supreme ascen- 
 dency in the state. 
 
 Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the 
 First succeeded to the throne. He had re- Accogaion 
 ceived from nature a far better understand- '"''* '''*"■ 
 
 acter of 
 
 ing, a far stronger will, and a far keener and •^'^'^'"''^ ^■ 
 firmer temper than his father's. He had inherited his 
 father's political theories, and was much more disposed 
 than his father to carry them into practice. He was, 
 like his father, a zealous episcopalian. He was, more- 
 over, what his father had never been, a zealous Armin- 
 ian, and, though no Papist, liked a Paj)ist much better 
 than a Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that 
 Charles had some of the qualities of a good, and even 
 of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his 
 father, with the exactness of a professor, but after the
 
 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 fashion of intelliirent and well educated gentlemen. 
 His taste in literature and art was excellent, his man- 
 ner dio-nified thouoh . not ffi-acious, his domestic life 
 without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of 
 his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He 
 was, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to 
 dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his 
 conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was 
 sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached 
 him with this great vice. But there is reason to be- 
 hevfi that he was perfidious, not only from constitution 
 and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to 
 have learned from the theolon-ians whom he most es- 
 teemed that between him and his subjects there could 
 be nothing of the nature of mutual contract ; that he 
 could not, even if he would, divest himself of his des- 
 potic authority ; and that, in every promise which he 
 made, there was an implied reservation that such 
 promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that 
 of the necessity he was the sole judge. 
 
 And now began that hazardous game on which were 
 Tactics of staked the destinies of the Eno-lish people. It 
 
 the opposi- , P y-^ 
 
 tion iu the was played on the side of the House of Com- 
 
 House of * \ 
 
 Commons, mous witli keenncss, but with admirable dex- 
 terity, coolness, and perseverance. Great statesmen 
 who looked far behind them and far before them were 
 at the head of that assembly. They were resolved to 
 place the King in such a situation that he must either 
 conduct the administration in conformity with the 
 wishes of his Parliament, or make outrageous attacks 
 on the most sacred principles of the constitution. They 
 accordingly doled out supplies to him very sparingly. 
 He found that he must govern either in harmony with 
 the House of Commons, or in defiance of all law. His
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 93 
 
 choice was soon made. He dissolved his first Parha- 
 ment, and levied taxes by his own authority. He con- 
 voked a second Parliament, and found it more intrac- 
 table than the first. He again resorted to the expedient 
 of dissolution, raised fresh taxes without any show of 
 legal right, and threw the chiefs of the opposition into 
 prison. At the same time a new grievance, which the 
 peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation made 
 msupportably painful, and which seemed to all discern- 
 ing men to be of fearful augury, excited general dis- 
 content and alarm. Companies of soldiers were bil- 
 leted on the people ; and martial law was, in some 
 places, substituted for the ancient jurisprudence of the 
 realm. 
 
 The King called a tliird Parliament, and soon per- 
 ceived that the oj)position was stronger and fiercer than 
 ever. He now determined on a change of tactics. In- 
 stead of opposing an inflexible resistance to the de- 
 mands of the Commons, he, after much altercation and 
 many evasions, agreed to a compromise which, if he 
 had faithfully adhered to it, would have averted a long 
 series of calamities. The Parliament granted an ample 
 supply. The King ratified, in the most solemn ,,,.fitio„ of 
 manner, that celebrated law, which is known '"^'^'• 
 by the name of the Petition of Right, and which is the 
 second Great Charter of the liberties of England. By 
 ratifying that law he bound himself never again to 
 raise money without the consent of the Houses, never 
 again to imprison any person, except in due course of 
 law, and never again to subject his people to the juris- 
 diction of courts martial. 
 
 The day on which the royal sanction was, after many 
 delays, solemnly given to this great act, was a day of 
 joy and hope. The Commons, who crowded the bar
 
 94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn. I 
 
 of the House of Lords, broke forth uito loud acclama- 
 tions as soon as the clerk had pronounced the ancient 
 form of words by which our princes have, during many 
 ages, signified tlieir assent to the wishes of the Estates 
 of the realm. Those acclamations were reechoed by 
 the voice of the capital and of the nation ; but within 
 three weeks it became manifest that Chai'les had no 
 intention of observing the compact into which he had 
 entered. The supply given by the representatives of 
 the nation was collected. The promise by which that 
 supply had been obtained was broken. A violent con- 
 test followed. The Parliament was dissolved with every 
 mark of royal displeasure. Some of the most distin- 
 guished members were imprisoned ; and one of them. 
 Sir John Eliot, after years of suffering, died in con- 
 finement. 
 
 Charles, however, could not venture to raise, by his 
 own authority, taxes sufficient for carrying on war. He 
 accordingly hastened to make peace with his neigh- 
 bours, and thenceforth gave his whole mind to British 
 politics. 
 
 Now commenced a new era. ]Many English Kings 
 had occasionally committed unconstitutional acts: but 
 none had ever systematically attempted to make him- 
 self a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. 
 Such was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to 
 himself. From March 1629 to April 16-10, the Houses 
 were not convoked. Never in our history had there 
 been an interval of eleven years between Parliament 
 and Parliament. Only once had there been an inter- 
 val of even half that length. This fact alone is suffi- 
 cient to refute those who represent Charles as having 
 merely trodden in the footstej)s of the Plantagenets 
 ftnd Tudors.
 
 C3h. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 95 
 
 It is proved, by the testimony of the Kino's most 
 strenuous supporters, that, durino- this part of Petition of 
 his reign, the provisions ot the petition oi lated. 
 Riglit were violated by him, not occasionally, but con- 
 stantly, and on system ; that a large part of the rev- 
 enue was raised without any legal authority ; and that 
 persons obnoxious to the government languished for 
 years in prison, without being ever called upon to plead 
 before any tribunal. 
 
 For these things history must hold the King himself 
 chiefly responsible. From the time of his third Parlia- 
 ment he was his own ])rime minister. Several persons, 
 however, whose temper and talents were suited to his 
 purposes, were at the head of different departments of 
 the administration. 
 
 Thomas Wentwortli, successively created Lord Went- 
 wortli and Earl of Strafford, a man of great ('i,aract«r 
 abilities, elotpience, and courage, but of a cruel o"vvent-^°^ 
 and imperious nature, was the counsellor most ^"'''"*" 
 trusted in political and military affairs. He had been 
 one of the most distinguished members of the opposi- 
 tion, and felt towards those whom he had deserted that 
 peculiar malignity which has, in. all ages, been charac- 
 teristic of apostates. He ])erfbctly understood the feel- 
 ings, the resources, and the jiolicy of the party to which 
 he had lately belonged, and had formed a vast and 
 deeply meditated scheme which very nearly confounded 
 even the able tactics of the statesmen by whom the 
 House of Commons had been directed. To this scheme, 
 in his confidential correspondence, he gave the expres- 
 sive name of Thorough. His object was to do in Eng- 
 land all, and more than all, that Richelieu was doing 
 in France ; to make Charles a monarch as absolute as 
 any on the Continent ; to put the estates and the per-
 
 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch, I. 
 
 sonal liberty of tlie Avliole people at the disposal of tlie 
 crown ; to deprive the courts of law of all independent 
 authority, even in ordinary questions of civil right be- 
 tween man and man ; and to punish with merciless 
 rigour all who murmured at the acts of the govern- 
 ment, or who applied, even in the most decent and reg- 
 ular manner, to any tribunal for relief against those 
 acts.^ 
 
 This was his end ; and he distinctly saw in what 
 manner alone this end could be attained. There was, 
 in truth, about all his notions a clearness, coherence, 
 and precision which, if he had not been pursuing an 
 object pernicious to his country and to his kind, would 
 have justly entitled him to high admiration. He saw 
 that there was one instrument, and only one, by which 
 his vast and daring projects could be carried into exe- 
 cution. That instrument was a standino; army. To 
 the forming of such an army, therefore, he directed all 
 the energy of his strong mind. In Ireland, where he 
 was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing a 
 military despotism, not only over the aboriginal popula- 
 tion, but also over the English colonists, and was able 
 to boast that, in that island, the King was as absolute 
 as any prince in the whole world could be.'"^ 
 
 The ecclesiastical administration was, in the mean- 
 Characterof time, principally directed by William Laud, 
 laud. Archbishop of Canterbury. Of all the prel- 
 
 1 The con-espondence of Wentworth seems to me full}' to bear out what 
 1 have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages which have led me 
 to the conclusion at which I have arrived, would be impossible; nor would 
 it be easy to make a better selection than has already been made by Mr. 
 Hallam. I may, however, direct the attention of the reader paiticularly to 
 the very abls paper which Wentworth drew up respecting the affairs of the 
 Palatinate. Tiie date is March -31. lt)37. 
 
 * These are Wentwortn's own words. See his letter to Laud, dated Dec. 
 16. 1634.
 
 Cii. r.l BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 97 
 
 ates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed far- 
 tliest from the principles of the Reformation, and had 
 drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more re- 
 mote than even that of the Dutch Arminians from the 
 theology of the Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, 
 his reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his 
 ill concealed dislike of the marriage of ecclesiastics, the 
 ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with which 
 he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of 
 the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to 
 the Puritans, even if he liad used only legal and gentle 
 means for the attainment of his ends. But his under- 
 standing was narrow, and his commerce with the world 
 had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, 
 (juick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathize 
 with tbe sufferings of others, and prone to the error, 
 common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own 
 peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. 
 Under his direction every corner of the realm was sub- 
 jected to a constant and minute inspection. Every 
 little congregation of separatists was tracked out and 
 broken up. Even the devotions of private families could 
 not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did liis 
 rigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, 
 which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally 
 disguised under an outward show of conformity. On 
 the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and to his or- 
 der, the Bishops of several extensive dioceses were able 
 to report to him that not a single dissenter was to be 
 found within their jurisdiction.^ 
 
 The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject 
 against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that pe- 
 riod. The judges of the common law, holding iheir 
 
 1 See liis report to Charles for the year 1639. 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Gh. t 
 
 situations during the ])leasiire of the King, were scan* 
 dalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, 
 they were less ready and efficient instruments of arbi- 
 trary power tiian a class of courts, the memory of which 
 is still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held 
 in deep abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among 
 star Cham- tlicse courts iu uowcr and in infamy were the 
 Commission. Star Chamber and the High Commission, the 
 former a poHtical, the latter a religious inquisition. 
 Neither was a part of the old constitution of England. 
 The Star Chamber had been remodelled, and the High 
 Commission created by the Tudors. The power which 
 these boards had possessed before the accession of 
 Charles had been extensive and formidable, but had 
 been small indeed when compared with that which they 
 now usurped. Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of 
 the primate, and freed from the control of Parliament, 
 they dis))layed a rapacity, a violence, a malignant en- 
 ergy, which had been unknown to any former age. The 
 government was able, through their instramentality, to 
 line, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without restraint. 
 Al separate council which sate at York, under the pres- 
 idency of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of laAV, 
 by a pure act of prerogative, with almost boundless 
 power over the northern counties. All tjiese ti'ibunals 
 insulted and defied the authority of Westminster Hall, 
 and daily committed excesses which the most distin- 
 gu.ished Royalists have warmly condemned. We are 
 informed by Clarendon that tliei'e was hardly a man 
 of note in the realm who had not personal expe- 
 rience of the harshness and greediness of the Star 
 Chamber, that the High Commission had so con- 
 ducted itself that it had scarce a friend left in the 
 kingdom, an,d that the tyranny of the Council of
 
 Ch. I ] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 99 
 
 York had made the Great Charter a dead letter north 
 of the Trent. 
 
 The government of England was now, in all points 
 but one, as despotic as that of France. But that one 
 point was all important. There was still no standing 
 army. There was, therefore, no security that the 
 whole fabric of tyranny might not be subverted in a 
 single day ; and, if taxes were imposed by the royal 
 authority for the support of an army, it was probable 
 that there would be an immediate and irresistible ex- 
 plosion. This was the difficulty which more than any 
 other perplexed Wentworth. The Lord Keeper Finch, 
 in concert with other lawyers who were employed by 
 the government, recommended an expedient, which 
 was eagerly adopted. The ancient princes of England, 
 as thev called on the inhabitants of the counties near 
 Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence 
 of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime 
 counties to furnish ghips for the defence of the coast. 
 In the room of ships money had sometimes 
 been accepted. This old practice it was now 
 determined, after a long interval, not only to revive but 
 to extend. Former princes had raised shipmoncy only 
 in time of war ; it was now exacted in a time of pro- 
 found i)eace. Former jn'inces, even in the most peril- 
 ous wars, had raised shipmoney only along the coasts ; 
 it was now exacted from the inland shires. Former 
 princes had raised shipmoney only for the maritime 
 defence of the country ; it was now exacted, by the 
 admission of the Royalists themselves, with the object, 
 not of maintaining a navy, but of furnisliing the King 
 with supplies which might be increased at his discre- 
 tion to any amount, and expended at his discretion foj 
 any purpose.
 
 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 Tlie whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John 
 Hampden, an opulent and well born gentleman of 
 Buckinghamshire, highly considered in his own neigh- 
 bourliood, but as yet little known to the kingdom gen- 
 erally, had the courage to step forward, to confront the 
 wliole power of the government, and take on liim- 
 self the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative 
 to which the King laid claim. The case was argued 
 before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber. So 
 strong were the arguments against the pretensions of the 
 crown that, dependent and servile as the judges were, 
 the majority against Hampden was the smallest possi- 
 ble. Still there was a majority. The interpreters of 
 tlie law had pronounced that one great and productive 
 tax might be imposed by the royal authority. Went- 
 worth justly observed that it was impossible to vindi- 
 cate their judgment except by reasons directly leading 
 to a conclusion wliich they had not ventured to draw. 
 If money might legally be raised without the consent 
 of Parliament foi' tlie support of a fleet, it was not easy 
 to deny that money might, without consent of Parlia- 
 ment, be legally raised for the support of an army. 
 
 The decision of the judges increased the irritation of 
 the people. A century earlier, irritation less serious 
 would have produced a general rising. But discontent 
 did not now so readily as in an earlier ao;e take the form 
 of rebellion. The nation had been lono; steadily ad- 
 vancing in Avealth and in civilisation. Since the groat 
 northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy 
 years had elapsed ; and during those seventy years 
 there had been no civil war. Never, during the whole 
 existence of the English nation, had so long a period 
 passed without intestine hostilities. Men had become 
 accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful industry, and,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 101 
 
 exasperated as they were, hesitated long before they 
 drew the sword. 
 
 This was the conjuncture at wliich the liberties of 
 the nation were in the greatest peril. The opponents 
 of the government began to despair of the destiny of 
 their country ; and many looked to the American wil- 
 derness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy 
 civil and spiritual freedom. There a few resolute Puri- 
 tans, who, in the cause of their religion, feared neither 
 the rage of the ocean nor the hardships of uncivilised 
 hfe, neither the fangs of savao;e beasts nor the toma- 
 hawks of more savage men, had built, amidst the pri- 
 meval forest, villages which are now great and opulent 
 cities, but which have, through every change, retained 
 some trace of the character derived from their founders. 
 The government regarded these infant colonies with 
 aversion, and attempted violently to stop the stream of 
 emigration, but could not prevent the popiilation of 
 New England from being largely recruited by stout- 
 hearted and Godfearing men from every part of the 
 old England. And now Wentworth exulted in the 
 near prospect of Thorough. A few years might prob- 
 ably suffice for the execution of his great design. If 
 strict economy were observed, if all collision with for- 
 eign powers were carefully avoided, the debts of the 
 crown would be cleared off: there would be funds avail- 
 able for the support of a large military force ; and that 
 fox'ce would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation. 
 
 At this crisis an act of insane bij^otry suddenly 
 chanoed the whole face of public affairs. Resisunre to 
 
 ,. . , the I.iturtcy 
 
 Had the King been wise, he would have in scotiiuid. 
 pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scot- 
 land till he w;is master in the South. For Scotland 
 was of all his kinirdoms that in wliich there was the
 
 102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 greatest risk that a spark might produce a flame, and 
 that a flame might become a conflagration. Constitu- 
 tional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered 
 at Westminster, he had not to appreliend at Edinburgh. 
 Tlie Parhament of his northern kingdom was a very 
 different body from that which bore the same name in 
 England. It was ill constituted; it was little consid- 
 ered ; and it had never imposed any serious restraint 
 on any of his predecessors. The three Estates sate in 
 one house. The commissioners of the burghs w^ere 
 considered merely as retainers of the great nobles. 
 No act could be introduced till it had been approved 
 by the Lords of Articles, a committee which was 
 really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. 
 But, though the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, 
 the Scottish people had always been singularly turbu- 
 lent and ungovernable. They had butchered their first 
 James in his bedchamber : they had repeatedly arrayed 
 themselves in arms against James the Second : they 
 had slain James the Third on the field of battle : their 
 disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth : 
 they had deposed and imprisoned Mary : they had led 
 her son captive ; and their temper was still as intracta- 
 ble as ever. Their habits were rude and martial. All 
 along the southern border, and all along the line be- 
 tween the highlands and the lowlands, raged an in- 
 cessant predatory war. In every part of the ccuntry 
 men were accustomed to redress their wrongs by the 
 strong hand. Whatever loyalty the nation had an- 
 ciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled during their 
 long absence. The supreme influence over the public 
 mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, 
 the lords of the soil and the preachers ; lords animated 
 by the same spirit which had often impelled the old
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 103 
 
 Douglasses to witlistand the roval house, auJ preach- 
 ers Avho liad inherited the republican opinions and the 
 nnconquerahle spirit of Knox. Both the national and 
 religious feelings of the population had been wounded. 
 All orders of men complained that their country, that 
 country which had, with so much glory, defended her 
 independence against the ablest and bravest Plantag- 
 enets, had, through the instrumentality of her native 
 princes, become in eflPect, though not in name, a prov- 
 ince of England. In no part of Europe had the Cal- 
 vinistic doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold 
 on the ])ublic mind. The Church of Rome was re- 
 garded by the great body of the people with a hatred 
 which miiiht justly be called ferocious ; and the Church 
 of England, which seemed to be every day becoming 
 more and more like the Church of Rome, was an object 
 of scarcely less aversion. 
 
 The government had lono- wished to extend the An- 
 glican system over the whole island, and had already, 
 with this view, made several changes highly distasteful 
 to ever}' Presbyterian. One innovation, however, tlio 
 most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognisa- 
 ble by the senses of the common people, had not yet 
 been attempted. The public worship of God was still 
 conducted in the manner accejitable to the nation. 
 Now, however, Charles and Laud determined to force 
 on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a liturgy 
 which, wherever it differed ft-om that of England, dif- 
 fered, in the judgment of all I'igid Protestants, for the 
 worse. 
 
 To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyr- 
 anny, and in criminal ignorance or more criminal con- 
 t(>mpt of public feeling, our coinitry owes her freedom. 
 The first performance of the foreign ceremonies pro-
 
 1C4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 duced a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution. 
 Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one 
 headlono- torrent. The whole nation was in arms. 
 The power of England was indeed, as appeared some 
 years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland : but a large 
 \>i\rt of the English people sympathized with the relic;- 
 ious feelings of the insurgents ; and many Englishmen 
 who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, 
 altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of 
 a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the arbi- 
 trary projects of the court, and to make the calhng of 
 a Parliament necessary. 
 
 For the senseless freak which had produced these 
 effects Wentworth is not responsible.' It had, in fact, 
 thrown all his plans into confusion. To counsel sub- 
 mission, however, was not in his nature. An attempt 
 was made to put down the insurrection by the sword : 
 but the King's military means and military talents were 
 unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on Eng- 
 land in defiance of law would, at this conjuncture, have 
 A Parliament been maducss. No resource was left but a 
 
 called and 
 
 dissolved. Parliament ; and in the spring of 1640 a Par- 
 liament was convoked. 
 
 The nation had been put into good humour by the 
 prospect of seeing constitutional govei'nment restored, 
 and grievances redressed. The new House of Com- 
 mons was more temperate and more respectful to the 
 throne than any which had sate since the death of 
 Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been 
 highly extolled by the most distinguished royalists, and 
 seems to have caused no small vexation and disappoint- 
 ment to the chiefs of the opposition : but it was the 
 uniform practice of Charles, a practice equally impol- 
 
 1 See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July 30. 1638.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. lOo 
 
 itic and ungenerous, to refuse all compliance with the 
 desires of liis people, till those desires were expressed 
 in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed 
 a disposition to take into consideration the grievances 
 under which the country had suffered during eleven 
 years, the King dissolved the Parliament with every 
 mark of displeasure. 
 
 Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly 
 and the meeting of that ever memorable body known 
 by the name of the Long Parliament, intervened a few 
 months, during which the yoke was j)ressed down more 
 severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the 
 nation rose up more angrily than ever against the yoke. 
 Members of the House of Commons were questioned 
 by the Privy Council touching their parliamentary 
 conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. 
 Shipmoney was levied with increased rigour. The 
 Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were threat- 
 ened with imprisonment for remissness in collecting the 
 payments. Soldiers were enlisted by force. Money 
 for their support was exacted from their counties. Tor- 
 ture, which had always been illegal, and which had re- 
 cently been declared illegal even by the servile judges 
 of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England 
 in the month of May, 1G40. 
 
 Everything now dei)ended on the event of the King's 
 military o[)erations against the Scots. Among his 
 troops there was little of that feeling which sej>arates 
 professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and at- 
 taches them to their leaders. His army, composed for 
 the most part of recruits who regretted the plough from 
 which they had been violently taken, and who were 
 imbued with the religious ^nd political sentiments then 
 prevalent throughout the country, was more formi*
 
 106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 dable to liimself than to the enemy. The Scots, en- 
 couraged by the heads of the EngHsh opposition, and 
 feebly resisted by tlie Enghsh forces, marched across 
 the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped on the borders 
 of Yorksliire. And now the murmurs of discontent 
 swelled into an uproar by which all spirits save one 
 were overawed. But the voice of Strafford was still 
 for Thorough ; and he, even in this extremity, showed 
 a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen 
 were ready to tear him in pieces. 
 
 There was yet one last expedient w^hich, as the King 
 flattered himself, might save him from the misery of 
 facino; another House of Commons. To the House of 
 Lords he was less averse. The Bishops were devoted 
 to him ; and, though the temporal peers were gener- 
 ally dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a 
 class, so deeply interested in the maintenance of order, 
 and in the stability of ancient institutions, that they 
 were not likely to call for extensive reforms. Depart- 
 ing from the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he 
 called a Great Council consistino- of Lords alone. But 
 the Lords were too prudent to assume the unconstitu- 
 tional functions with which he wished to invest them. 
 Without money, without credit, without authority even 
 in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of neces- 
 sity. The Houses were convoked ; and the elections 
 proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred 
 with which the government was regarded had made 
 fearful progress. 
 
 In November 1640 met that renowned Parliament 
 The Long wlucli, in Spite of many errors and disasters, 
 Parliament. -^ justly entitled to the reverence and grati- 
 tude of all who, in any part of the world, enjoy the 
 blessinos of constitutional o-overnment.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 107 
 
 Duriiif the year which followed, no very important 
 division of o])inion appeared in the Houses. The civil 
 and ecclesiastical administration had, through a period 
 of near twelve years, been so oppressive and so uncon- 
 stitutional that even those classes of which the inclina- 
 tions are generally on the side of order and authority 
 wex-e eager to promote popular reforms, and to bring 
 the instruments of tvrannv to justice. It was enacted 
 that no interval of more than three years should ever 
 elapse between Parliament and Parliament, and tliat, 
 if writs under the Great Seal were not issued at the 
 proper time, the returning officers should, without such 
 writs, call the constituent bodies together for the choice 
 of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Com- 
 mission, the Council of York were swept away. Men 
 who, after suffering cniel mutilations, had been con- 
 fined hi remote dungeons, regained their liberty. On 
 the chief ministers of the crown the vengeance of the 
 nation was unsparingly Avreaked. The Lord Keeper, 
 the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached. 
 Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into 
 tiie Tower, Straflbrd was put to death by act of 
 attainder. On the same day on which this act passed, 
 the Kiuf' o-ave his assent to a law bv which he bound 
 himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the exist- 
 hm Parliament without its own consent. 
 
 After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in 
 September 1641, adjourned for a short vacation, and 
 the King visited Scotland. He with difficulty pacified 
 that kingdom by consenting not only to relinquish his 
 plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a 
 very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was 
 contrary to t)ic word of God.
 
 108 HISTORY OP EN(?LAND, [Ch. L 
 
 The recess of the Eno;hsh Parliament lasted six 
 First appear- weeks. The day on which the Houses met 
 
 anee of the . . pi i i i i • 
 
 two great apaui IS One of tiie most remarkable epochs m 
 
 English par- ^ i i i i 
 
 ties. our history, t rom that day dates tlie corpo- 
 
 rate existence of the two great parties which have ever 
 since alternately governed the country. In one sense, 
 indeed, the distinction which then became obvious had 
 always existed, and always must exist. For it has its 
 origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and 
 of interest, which are found in all societies, and which 
 will be found till the human mind ceases to be drawn 
 in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the 
 charm of novelty. Not only in politics, but in litera- 
 ture, in art, in science, in surgery and mechanics, in 
 navigation and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, 
 we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class 
 of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, 
 and who, even when convinced by overpowering rea- 
 sons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it 
 with mau}^ misgivings and forebodings. We find also 
 everywhere another class of men sanguine in hope, bold 
 in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern 
 the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think 
 lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend 
 improvements, and disposed to give every change credit 
 for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both 
 classes there is something to approve. But of both the 
 best specimens will be found not far from the common 
 frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of 
 bigoted dotards : the extreme section of the other con- 
 sists of shallow and reckless empirics. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in our very first Parlia- 
 ments might have been discerned a body of members 
 anxious to preserve, and a body eager to reform. But,
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 109 
 
 while the sessions of the legislature were short, these 
 bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array 
 themselves under recognised leaders, or assume distin- 
 guishing names, badges, and war cries. During the 
 Hrst months of the Long Parliament, the indignation 
 excited by many years of lawless oppression was so 
 strono- and general that the House of Commons acted 
 as one man. Abuse after abuse disappeared without 
 a struggle. If a small minority of the representative 
 body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High 
 Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm 
 and by the numerical superiority of the reformers, con- 
 tented itself with secretly regretting institutions which 
 could not, with any hope of success, be openly defended. 
 At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to 
 antedate the separation between themselves and their 
 o])ponenrts, and to attribute the Act which restrained 
 the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, 
 the Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, 
 and the attainder of Strafford, to the fiction which af- 
 terwards made war on the King. But no artifice 
 could be more disingenuous. Eveiy one of those 
 strong measures was actively promoted by the men 
 who were afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. 
 No republican spoke of the long mi.^government of 
 Charles more severely than Colepepper. The most 
 remarkable s|)eech in favour of the Triennial Bill was 
 made by Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper 
 was moved by Falkland. The demand that tlie Lord 
 Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at 
 the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law at- 
 tainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious 
 disunion become visible. Even against that law, a law 
 which nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only
 
 no HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cii. I 
 
 about sixty members of the House of Commons voted. 
 It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and 
 that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but 
 spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who enter- 
 tained a scruple about inflicting death by a retrospective 
 enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost 
 abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration. 
 
 But under this apparent concord a great schism was 
 latent ; and when, in October 1(341, the Parliament 
 reassembled after a short recess, two hostile parties, 
 essentially the same with those which, under different 
 names, have ever since contended, and are still con- 
 tending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared 
 confronting each other. During some years they were 
 designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. Thev were 
 subsequently called Tories and Whigs ; nor does it 
 seem that these appellations are likely soon to become 
 obsolete. 
 
 It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or a 
 panegyric on either of these renowned factions. For 
 no man not utterly destitute of judgment and candour 
 will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame 
 of the party to M^hich he belongs, or that the ])arty to 
 which he is opposed may justly boast of many illus- 
 trious names, Of many heroic actions, and of many 
 great services rendered to the State. The truth is 
 that, though both parties have often seriously erred, 
 England could have spared neither. If, in her institu- 
 tions, freedom and order, the advantaoes arisino; fi-om 
 innovation and the advantages arising fi*om prescrip- 
 tion, have been combined to an extent elsewhere un- 
 known, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the 
 strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival 
 confederacies of statesmen, a confederacy zealous for
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. Ill 
 
 autlioritj and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for 
 liberty and progress. 
 
 It ouc-lit to be remembered that the difference be- 
 tween the two great sections of English politicians has 
 always been a difference ratlier of degree than of prin- 
 ciple. There were certain limits on the right and on 
 the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few 
 enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws 
 and franchises at the feet of our Kings. A few enthu- 
 siasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through 
 endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a repub- 
 lic. But the great majorit}' of those who fought for the 
 crown were averse to despotism ; and the great major- 
 ity of the champions of popular rights were averse to 
 anarchy. Twice, in the course of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and 
 united their strength in a common cause. Their first 
 coalition restored hereditarv numarchv. Their second 
 coalition rescued constitutional freedom. 
 
 It is also to be noted that these two parties have 
 never been the whole nation, nay, that they have 
 never, taken together, made up a majority of the na- 
 tion, lietween them has always been a great mass, 
 which has not steadfastly adhered to either, whicli has 
 sometimes remained inertly neutral, and has sometimes 
 oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once 
 passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, 
 and back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, 
 merely because it was tired of supporting the same 
 men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its own 
 excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossi- 
 bilities, and had been disaiipointcd. But, whenever it 
 has leaned with its whole weight in either direction, 
 that wcitdit has, fur the time, been irresistible.
 
 112 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Cii. I. 
 
 When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct 
 form, they seemed to be not unequally matched. On 
 the side of the government was a large majoiity of the 
 nobles, and of those opulent and well descended gentle- 
 men to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the 
 name. These, with the dependents whose support 
 they could command, were no small power in the state. 
 On the same side were the great body of the clergy, 
 both the Universities, and all those laymen who were 
 strongly attached to episcopal government and to the 
 Anglican ritual. These respectable classes found them- 
 selves in the company of some allies much less decoi'ous 
 than themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the 
 King's faction all who made pleasure their business, 
 who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or taste in 
 the lighter arts. With these went all who live by 
 amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the 
 comic poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry 
 Andrew. For these artists well knew that they might 
 thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, but 
 must starve under the rigid rule of the px-ecisians. In 
 the same interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. 
 The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own 
 faith. Her husband was known to be strongly attached 
 to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though un- 
 doubtedly a Protestant on conviction, he regarded the 
 professors of the old religion with no ill will, and would 
 gladly have granted them a much larger toleration than 
 he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If 
 the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable 
 that the sanguinary laws enacted against Papists, in 
 the reign of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. 
 The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the 
 strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court.
 
 Ch. I-l BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 113 
 
 They ill general acted with a caution Avliicli brought 
 on them the reproach of cowardice and hd<e\varmness : 
 but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve, 
 they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. 
 It was not for liis service that they should be conspicu- 
 ous amono; his friends. 
 
 The main strength of the opposition lay among the 
 small freeholders in the country, and among the mer- 
 chants and shopkeepers of the towns. But these were 
 headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a 
 minority which included the rich and powerful Earls 
 of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and 
 Essex, and several other Lords of great wealth and 
 influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body 
 of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those mem- 
 bers of the Established Church who still adhered to the 
 Calvinistic ()i)inions which, forty years before, had been 
 generally held by the prelates and clergy. The mu- 
 nicipal corporations took, Avith few excei)tions, the same 
 side. In the House of Commons the opposition pre- 
 ponderated, but not very decidedly. 
 
 Neither party wanted strong arguments for the 
 course which it was disposed to take. The reasonings 
 of the most enlightened Royalists may be summed up 
 thus : — "It is true that great abuses have existed ; 
 but they have been redressed. It is true that precious 
 rights have been invaded ; but they have been vindi- 
 cated and surrounded with new securities. The sit- 
 tings of the Estates of the realm liave been, in defiance 
 of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, 
 intermitted during eleven years ; but it has now been 
 provided that henceforth three years shall never elapse 
 without a Parliament. The Star Chamber, the High 
 Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and plun- 
 
 VOL. I 8
 
 114 HISTORY OF l:NGLAKD, [Ch. L 
 
 dered us ; but those hateful courts have now ceased to 
 exist. The Loi-d Lieutenant aimed at establishino; mih- 
 taiy despotism ; but he has answered for his treason 
 with his head. The Primate tainted our worship witli 
 Popish rites, and punished our scruples with Popisn 
 cruelty ; but lie is awaiting in the Tower tbe judgment 
 of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan, by 
 which the i roperty of every man in England was 
 placed at the mercy of the crown : but he has been 
 disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take reftige in a 
 foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated 
 their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been com- 
 pensated for their suffei-ings. It would therefore be 
 most unwise to persevere further in that course which 
 was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after 
 a long interval, and found the whole administraaon 
 one mass of abuses. It is time to take heed thai we 
 do not so pursue our victory over despotism as to lan 
 into anarchy. It was not in our power to overtx^rn 
 the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, 
 without shocks which have loosened the foundations 
 of government. Now that those institutions have fallen 
 we must hasten to prop the edifice which it was lately 
 our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom 
 to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to 
 guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with 
 which the law has, for the public good, armed the 
 sovereign." 
 
 Such were the views of those men of wdiom the 
 excellent Falkland may be regarded as the leader. It 
 w'as contended on the other side with not less force, by 
 men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which 
 the liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather 
 apparent than real, and tliat the arbitrary projects of
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 115 
 
 the court would be resumed as soon as the vio-ilance 
 of the Commons was relaxed. True it was, — such 
 was the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden, 
 — that many good laws had been passed : but, if good 
 laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his sub- 
 jects would have had little reason ever to complain of 
 his administration. The recent statutes were siu'ely 
 not of more authority than the Great Charter or the 
 Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, 
 hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the 
 Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, 
 and for valuable consideration, by Charles himself, had 
 been found effectual for the protection of the people. 
 If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the 
 spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the 
 securities for Enolish freedom resolved themselves into 
 a single one, the royal word ; and it had been proved 
 by a long and severe experience that the royal word 
 could not be trusted. 
 
 The two parties were still regarding each other v\'ith 
 cautious hostility, and had not yet measiU'ed r^^^ ^^^^ 
 their strength, when news arrived which in- '^^•''^i'"^"- 
 flamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. 
 The great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the 
 accession of James, had, after a long struggle, submit- 
 ted to the royal authority, had not long brooked the 
 humiliation of dependence. They had conspired against 
 the English government, and had been attainted of 
 treason. Their immense domains had been fori'eited 
 to the crown, and had soon been peojiled by thousands 
 of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers 
 were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the 
 native y)opulation, and sometimes abused their superi- 
 ority. The animosity produced by ditference of race
 
 116 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 was iiicreasecl by difference of religion. Under the 
 iron rule of Wentwortli, scarcely a murmur was heard : 
 but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when 
 Scotland had set the example of successful resistance, 
 when England was distracted by internal quarrels, the 
 smothered rase of the Irish broke forth into acts of 
 fearful violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal popula- 
 tion rose on the colonists. A war to which national 
 and theological hatred gave a character of peculiar 
 ferocity desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbour- 
 ing provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely 
 thought secure. Every post brought to London exag- 
 gerated accounts of outrages which, without any ex- 
 aggeration, were sufficient to move pity and horror. 
 These evil tidings roused to the heio-ht tlie zeal of both 
 the great parties which were marshalled against each 
 other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that 
 it was the first duty of every good Englishman and 
 Protestant, at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of 
 the sovereign. To the opposition it seemed that there 
 were now stronger reasons than ever for thwarting and 
 restraining him. That the commonwealth was in dan- 
 ger was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large 
 powers to a trustworthy magistrate : but it was a good 
 reason for taking away powers from a magistrate who 
 was at heart a public enemy. To raise a gi*eat army 
 had always been the King's first object. A great arm}' 
 must now be raised. It was to be feared that, unless 
 some new secmnties were devised, the forces lev^ied for 
 the reduction of Ireland would be employed against 
 the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible 
 suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, 
 had arisen in many minds. The Queen was an avowed 
 Roman Catholic : the King was not regarded by the
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 
 
 Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a 
 sincere Protestant ; and so notorious was his duplicity, 
 that there was no treachery of vvhic^h his subjects might 
 not, with some show of reason, believe him capable. It 
 was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman 
 ('atholics of Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness 
 which had been planned at Whitehall. 
 
 After some weeks of prelude, the first great parlia- 
 mentaiy conflict between the parties which Theremon- 
 have ever since contended, and are still con- 
 tending, for the government of the nation, took place 
 on the twenty -second of November 1641. It was 
 moved by the opposition, that the House of Commons 
 should present to the King a remonstrance, enumerat- 
 ing the faults of his administration from the time of 
 his accession, and expressing the distrust with which 
 his policy was still regarded by his people. That as- 
 sembly, which a few months before had been unani- 
 mous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now di- 
 vided into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal 
 streno-th. After a hot debate of many hours, the re- 
 monstrance was carried by only eleven votes. 
 
 The result of this struggle was highly favourable to 
 the conservative party. It could not be doubted that 
 only some great indiscretion could prevent them fi'om 
 shortly obtaining the ])redominance in the Lower House. 
 The Upper House was already their own. Nothing 
 was wanting to insure their success, but that the King 
 slumld, in all his conduct, show respect for the laws and 
 scrupulous good faith towards his subjects. 
 
 His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, 
 at last discovered that an entire change of system was 
 necessary, and had wisely made up his mind to what 
 could no lonjxer be avoided. He declared his deter-
 
 118 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [C.H. i 
 
 mination to govern in harmony with tlie Commons, and, 1 
 
 for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents 
 and character the Commons might place confidence, 
 Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and 
 Colepepper, all three distinguished hy the part which 
 they had taken in reforming abuses and in punishing 
 evil ministers, were invited to become the confidential 
 advisers of the crown, and were solemnly assured by 
 Charles that he would take no step in any way affect- 
 ing the Lower House of Parliament without their 
 privity. 
 
 Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that 
 tlie reaction which was already in progress would very 
 soon have become quite as strong as the most respect- 
 able Royalists would have desired. Already the vio- 
 lent members of the opposition had begun to despair of 
 the fortunes of their party, to ti-emble for their own 
 safety, and to talk of selling their estates and emigrat- 
 ing to America. That the fair prospects which had 
 begun to open before the King were suddenly overcast, 
 that his life was darkened by adversity, and at length 
 shortened by violence, is to be attributed to his own 
 faithlessness and contempt of law. 
 
 The truth seems to be that he detested both the par- 
 ties into which the House of Commons Avas divided ; 
 nor is ; this strange ; for in both those parties the love 
 of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though 
 in different ])roportions. The advisers whom necessity 
 had compelled him to call round him were by no means 
 men after his own heart. They had joined in con- 
 demning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in 
 punishing his instruments. They were now indeed pre- 
 pared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly leo;al 
 prerogative ; but they would have recoiled with hor
 
 Cif. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 119 
 
 ror from tlie tlionglit of reviving Weritwortli's projects 
 of Thorough. They were, tlierefore, in the King's 
 opinion, traitors who differed only in the degree of their 
 seditious mah'gnity from Pym and Hampden. 
 
 He accordingly, a few days after he had promised 
 tlie chiefs of the constitutional Royalists that jn,pgacb. 
 no step of importance should be taken with- g^'g^'nf/i^^® 
 out their knowledge, formed a resolution the ^^'^■ 
 most momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that 
 resolution from them, and executed it in a manner which 
 overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. He sent 
 the Attorney General to im])each Pym, Hollis, Hamp- 
 den, and other members of the House of Connnons of 
 liiiih treason at the bar of the House of Lords. Not 
 content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter 
 and of the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went 
 in person, accompanied by armed men, to seize the lead- 
 ers of the opposition within the walls of Parliament. 
 
 The attempt failed. The accused members had left 
 the House a short time before Charles entered it. A 
 sudden and violent revulsion of feeling, both in the 
 Parliament and in the coi^ntry, followed. The most 
 favourable view that has ever bden taken of the King's 
 conduct on this occasion by his most partial advocates 
 is that he had weakly suffered himself to be hurried 
 into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife 
 aTid of his courtiers. But the general A'oice loudly 
 charged him with far deeper guilt. At the very mo- 
 ment at which his subjects, after a long estrangement 
 produced by his maladministration, were returning to 
 him with feelings of confidence and affection, he had 
 aimed a deadly bloAv at all their dearest rights, at the 
 privileges of Parliament, at the very princi])lc of trial 
 by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition
 
 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only 
 by blood. He had broken faith, not only with his 
 Great Council and with his people, but with his own 
 adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen 
 accident, would probably have produced a bloody con- 
 flict round the Speaker's chair. Those who had tlie 
 chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not only 
 their power and popularity, but their lands and their 
 necks, were staked on the event of the struffo-le in Avhich 
 they were engaged. The flagging zeal of the party 
 opposed to the court revived in an instant. During the 
 night which followed the outrao;e the whole Citv of 
 London was in arms. In a few hours the roads lead- 
 ing to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeo- 
 men spurring hard to Westminster with the badges of 
 the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House 
 of Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, 
 and carried, by more than two votes to one, resolutions 
 of unprecedented violence. Strong bodies of the train- 
 bands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round West- 
 minster Hall. The gates of the King's palace were 
 daily besieged by a furious multitude whose taunts and 
 execrations were heard even in the presence chamber, 
 and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal apart- 
 ments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles 
 remained much longer in his stormy capital, it is prob- 
 able that the Commons would have found a plea for 
 making him, under outward forms of respect, a state 
 prisoner. 
 
 He quitted London, never to return till the day of a 
 Departure of tcrHble aud memorable reckoning had arrived. 
 
 Charles from . , , i • i ^ • i 
 
 London. A negotiation began which occupied many 
 months. Accusations and recriminations passed back- 
 ward and forward between the contending parties. AD
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 121 
 
 accommodation had become impossible. The sure pun- 
 ishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length 
 overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now 
 pawned his royal word, and invoked heaven to witness 
 the sincerity of his professions. The distrust with wdiich 
 his adversaries regarded him was not to be removed by 
 oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could 
 be safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their de- 
 mand, therefore, was, that he should surrender, not 
 only those prerogatives which he had usurped in viola- 
 tion of ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but 
 also other prerogatives which the English Kings had 
 possessed from time immemorial, and continue to pos- 
 sess at the present day. No minister must be appointed, 
 no peer created without the consent of the Houses. 
 Above all, the sovereign must resign that su])reme mil- 
 itary authority wdiich, from time beyond all memory, 
 liad appertained to the regal office. 
 
 That Charles would comply with such demands while 
 he had any means of resistance was not to be expected. 
 Yet it will be difficult to show that the Houses could 
 safely have exacted less. They were truly in a most 
 embarrassing position. The great majorit}' of the na- 
 tion was firmly attached to hereditary monarchy. Those 
 who held republican opinions were as yet few, and did 
 not venture to s])eak out. It was therefore impossible 
 to abolish kingly government. Yet it was ])lain that 
 no confidence could be placed in the King. It would 
 have been absurd in those who knew, by recent proof, 
 that he was bent on destroying them, to content them- 
 selves with presenting to him another Petition of Right, 
 and receiving from him fresh ])r()mises similar to those 
 which he had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing 
 but the want of an army had prevented him from en-
 
 122 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Oh. I. 
 
 tirely subverting the old constitution of the realm. It 
 was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the 
 conquest of Ireland ; and it would therefore have been 
 mere insanity to leave him in possession of that pleni- 
 tude of military authority which his ancestors had en- 
 joyed. 
 
 When a country is in the situation in which England 
 then was, when the kingly office is regarded with love 
 and veneration, but the person who fills that office is 
 hated and distrusted, it should seem that the course 
 which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of 
 the office should be preserved ; the person should be 
 discarded. Thus our ancestors acted in 1399 and in 
 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any man occupying u 
 position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occu- 
 pied at the time of the deposition of Richard the Sec- 
 ond, and which William of Orange occupied at the 
 time of the deposition of James the Second, it is prob- 
 able that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, 
 and would have made no formal change in the consti- 
 tution. Tlie new King, called to the throne by their 
 choice, and dependent on their support, would have 
 been under the necessity of governing in conformity 
 with their wishes and opinions. But there was no 
 prince of the blood royal in the parliamentary party ; 
 and, though that party contained many men of high 
 rank and many men of eminent ability, there was none 
 who towered so conspicuously above the rest that he 
 could be proposed as a candidate for the crown. As 
 there was to be a King, and as no new King was to 
 be found, it was necessary to leave the regal title to 
 Charles. Only one course, therefore, was left : and that 
 was to disjoin the regal title fi-om the regal prerogatives. 
 
 The change which the Houses proposed to make in
 
 C5h. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 123 
 
 our institutions, though it seems exorbitant, when dis- 
 tinctly set forth and digested into articles of capitula- 
 tion, really amounts to little more than the change 
 which, in the next generation, was effected by the 
 Revolution. It is true that, at the Revolution, the 
 sovereign was not deprived by law of the power of 
 namuig his ministers : but it is equally true that, since 
 the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain 
 office six months in opposition to the sense of the House 
 of Commons, It is true that the sovereign still pos- 
 sesses the power of creating peers, and the more im- 
 portant power of the sword : but it is equally true that 
 in the exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever 
 since the Revolution, been guided by advisers who pos- 
 sess the confidence of the representatives of the nation. 
 In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead party in 1642, 
 and the statesmen who, about half a century later, 
 effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in 
 view. That object was to terminate the contest be- 
 tween the crown and the Parliament, by giving to the 
 Parliament a supreme control over the executive ad- 
 ministration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected 
 this indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Round- 
 heads of 1G42, being unable to change the dynasty, 
 were compelled to take a direct course towards their 
 end. 
 
 We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of 
 the opposition, importing as they did a complete and 
 foi-mal transfer to the Parliament of powers which hud 
 always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked 
 that great party of which the characteristics are respect 
 for constituted authority and dread of violent innova- 
 tion. That party had recently been in hojies of obtain- 
 ing by peaceable means the ascendency in the House
 
 124 fflSTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 of Commons ; but every such hope had been bhghted. 
 The duphcity of Charles had made his old enemies ir- 
 reconcileable, had driven back into the ranks of the dis- 
 affected a crowd of moderate men who were in the very 
 act of coming over to his side, and had so cruelly mor- 
 tified his best friends that they had for a time stood 
 aloof in silent shame and resentment. Now, however, 
 the constitutional Royalists were forced to make their 
 choice between two dangers ; and they thought it their 
 duty rather to rally round a prince whose past conduct 
 they condemned, and whose word inspired them with 
 little confidence, than to suffer the regal ofiice to be 
 degraded, and the polity of the realm to be entirely 
 remodelled. With such feelin<is, many men whose vir- 
 tues and abilities would have done honour to any cause 
 rano-ed themselves on the side of the Kino;. 
 
 In August 1(342 tjie sword was at length drawn ; 
 Commence- and soou, iu almost every shire of the kinor- 
 
 menf, ofthe i -i • • 
 
 civil war. dom, two hostile factions appeared in arms 
 against each other. It is not easy to say Avhich of the 
 contending parties was at first the more formidable. 
 The Houses commanded London and the counties 
 round London, the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, 
 and most of the large towns and seaports. They had 
 at their disposal almost all the military stores of the 
 kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on goods 
 imported from foreign countries, and on some important 
 products of domestic industry. The- King was ill pro- 
 vided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which 
 he laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops pro- 
 duced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which the 
 Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He 
 rehed, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munifi- 
 cence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mort-
 
 Ch. 1.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 125 
 
 gaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up 
 their silver chargers and christening bowls, in order to 
 assist him. But experience has fully proved that the 
 voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times of the 
 greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource when 
 compared with severe and methodical taxation, which 
 presses on the willing and unwilling alike. 
 
 Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he 
 had used it well, would have more than compensated 
 for the want of stores and money, and which, notwith- 
 standing his mismanagement, gave him, during some 
 months, a superiority in the war*. His troops at first 
 fought much better than those of the Parliament. Both 
 armies, it is true, were almost entirely composed of 
 men who had never seen a field of battle. Never- 
 theless, the difference was great. The parliamentary 
 ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idle- 
 ness had induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was 
 regarded as one of the best ; and even Hampden's regi- 
 ment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of 
 tapsters and serving men out of place. The royal 
 army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of 
 gentlemen, high spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider 
 dishonour as more terrible than death, accustomed to 
 fencing, to the use of fire arms, to bold riding, and 
 to manly and perilous sport, which has been well 
 called the image of war. Such gentlemen, mounted 
 on their favourite horses, and commanding little bands, 
 composed of their younger brothers, grooms, game- 
 keepers and huntsmen, were, from the very first day 
 on which they took the field, qualified to play their 
 part with credit in a skirmish. The steadiness, the 
 promi)t obedience, the mechanical ])recision of move- 
 ment, which are Characteristic of the regular soldier,
 
 126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch I. 
 
 these gallant volunteers never attained. But they 
 were at first opposed to enemies as undisciplined as 
 themselves, and far less active, athletic, and daring. 
 For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were successful in 
 almost every encounter. 
 
 The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice 
 of a general. The rank and wealth of the Earl of 
 Essex made him one of the most important members of 
 the parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the 
 Continent with credit, and, when the war began, had 
 as high a military reputation as any man in the coun- 
 try. But it soon appeared that he was unfit for the 
 post of Commander in Chief. He had little energy and 
 no originality. The methodical tactics which he had 
 learned in the war of the Palatinate did not save him 
 from the disgrace of being surprised and baffled by 
 such a Captain as Rupert, who could claim no higher 
 fame than that of an enterprising partisan. 
 
 Nor were the officers who held the chief commis- 
 sions under Essex qualified to suj)]ily what was want- 
 ing in him. For this, indeed, the Houses are scarcely 
 to be blamed. In a country which had not, within the 
 memory of the oldest person living, made Avar on a 
 great scale by land, generals of tried skill and valour 
 were not to be found. It was necessary, therefore, in 
 the first instance, to trust untried men ; and the pref- 
 erence was naturally given to men distinguished either 
 by their station, or by the abilities which they had dis- 
 played in parliament. In scarcely a single instance, 
 however, was the selection fortunate. Neither the 
 grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The 
 Earl of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of Eng- 
 land, was routed by the Royalists at Stratton. Na- 
 thaniel Fiennes, inferior to none of his contemporaries 
 
 I
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 127 
 
 in talents for civil business, disgraced himself by the 
 pusillanimous surrender of Bristol. Indeed, of all the 
 statesmen who at this juncture accepted high military 
 commands, Hamj)den alone appears to have carried 
 mto the camp the ca]iacity and strength of mind which 
 had made him eminent in ])olitic§. 
 
 When the Avar had lasted a year, the advantage 
 was decidedly Avith the Royalists. They succosses 
 
 .■,,.," ^ . of the 
 
 were victorious, botli m the western and in Rcyaitsts. 
 the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, 
 the second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament. 
 They had won several battles, and had not sustained 
 a sinirle serious or ignominious defeat. Among the 
 Roundheads adversity had begun to produce dissension 
 and discontent. The Parliament was kept in alarm, 
 sometimes by ])lots, and sometimes by riots. It was 
 thought necessary to fortify London against the royal 
 army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their 
 own doors. Several of the most distinguished ])eers 
 who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the 
 court at Oxlbi-d ; nor can it be doubted that, if the 
 o])erations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been 
 directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles 
 would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. 
 
 But the King sulFei*ed the auspicious moment to 
 pass aAvay ; and it never returned. In August 1643 
 he sate down before the city of Gloucester. That 
 city Avas defended by the inhabitants and by the gar- 
 rison, Avith a determinati(m such as had not, since the 
 commencement of the Avar, been shown by the ad- 
 herents of the Parliament. The emulation of London 
 was excited. Tin? trainbands of the City volunteered 
 to march Avherever their services might be required. 
 A great force Avas speedily collected, and began to
 
 128 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [C't. I. 
 
 move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raued. 
 The Royalists in every part of the kingdom were dis- 
 heartened : the spirit of the parliamentary party re- 
 vived ; and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled 
 from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back fi'om Ox- 
 ford to Westminster. 
 
 And now a new and alarming class of symptoms 
 Rise of the beo;an to appear in the distempered body 
 denta. politic. 1 here had been, from the hrst, m 
 
 the parliamentary party, some men whose minds were 
 set on objects from which the majority of that party 
 would have shrunk with horror. These men were, 
 in religion, Independents. They conceived that every 
 Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme 
 jurisdiction in things spiritual ; that appeals to provin- 
 cial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural 
 than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the Vatican ; 
 and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were 
 merely three forms of one great apostasy. In }»olitics 
 the Independents were, to use the plu'ase of their time, 
 root and branch men, or, to use the kindred i)hrase of 
 our own time, radicals. Not content with limiting the 
 power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a 
 commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity. 
 At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers 
 and in weight ; but before the war had lasted two 
 years they became, not indeed the largest, but the 
 most powerful faction in the country. Some of the old 
 parliamentary leaders had been removed by death ; and 
 others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had 
 been borne, with princely honours, to a grave among 
 the Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as became him, 
 >vhile vainly endeavouring, by his hei'oic example, to 
 inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cav-
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 129 
 
 airy of Rupert. Bedford liad been untrue to the cause. 
 Northumberland was known to be lukewarm. Essex 
 and his lieutenants had shown little vigour and ability 
 in the conduct of military operations: At such a con- 
 juncture it was that the Independent party, ardent, 
 resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, 
 both in the camp and in the House of Commons. 
 
 The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred 
 to peaceful occupations, he had, at more q^^^^. 
 than forty years of age, accepted a commis- ^'■'''"^'■«i^- 
 sion in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he 
 become a soldier than he discerned, with the keen 
 glance of genius, what Essex and men like Essex, with 
 all their experience, were unable to perceive. He 
 saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, 
 and by what means alone that strength could be over- 
 powered. He saw that it was necessary to i-econstruct 
 the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there 
 were aiiundant and excellent materials for the purpose, 
 materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those 
 of which the gallant squadrons of the King were com- 
 posed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were 
 not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and 
 grave character, fearing God and zealous for public 
 liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, 
 and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid 
 than had ever before been known in England, he ad- 
 ministered to their intellectual and moral nature stimu- 
 lants of fearful ])otency. 
 
 The events of the year 1644 fully proved the supe- 
 riority of his abilities. In the south, where Essex held 
 the command, the jiarliamentary forces underwent a 
 succession of sh.ameful disasters; but in the north the 
 victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that 
 vol,. I. y
 
 130 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Cn. L 
 
 had been lost elsewhere. That victory was not a more 
 serious blow to the Royalists tlian to the party which 
 had hitherto been dominant at Westminster ; for it was 
 notorious that the* day, disgracefully lost by the Pres- 
 byterians, had been retrieved by the energy of Crom- 
 well, and by the steady valour of the warriors whom 
 he had trained. 
 
 These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance 
 Seifdenying ^ud the ncw modcl of the army. Under 
 Ordinance. (Jecorous pretexts, and with every mark of 
 respect, Essex and most of those who had held high 
 posts under him were removed ; and the conduct 
 of the war was intrusted to very different hands. 
 Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding 
 and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General 
 of the forces ; but Cromwell was their real head. 
 
 Cromwell made haste to organize the whole army on 
 the same principles on which he had organized his own 
 regiment. As soon as this process was complete, the 
 event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now 
 to encounter natural courage equal to their own, en- 
 thusiasm stronger than their own, and discipline such 
 as was utterly wanting to them. It soon became a 
 proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were 
 men of a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. 
 Victory of At Nascbv toolv placc the first great encoun- 
 
 the Parlia- */ i o 
 
 meut. ter between the Royalists and the remodelled 
 
 army of the Houses. The victory of the Roundheads 
 was complete and decisive. It was followed b}'- other 
 triumj^hs in rapid succession. In a few months the 
 authorit}'' of the Parliament was fully established over 
 the whole kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and 
 was by them, in a manner which did not much exalt 
 their national character, delivered up to his English 
 subjects.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 131 
 
 While tlie event of the war was still doubtful, the 
 Houses had put the Primate to death, had interdicted, 
 within the sphere of their authority, the use of the 
 Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that re- 
 nowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn 
 League and Covenant. Covenanting work, as it was 
 called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands affixed 
 their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up 
 toward heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect 
 of persons, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, 
 heresy and schism, and to bring to public trial ami 
 condign punishment all who should hinder the refor- 
 mation of religion. When the struggle was over, 
 the work of innovation and revenge was pushed on 
 with still greater ardour. The ecclesiastical polity of 
 the kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy 
 were ejected from their benefices. Fines, often of 
 ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already 
 impoverished by large aids furnished to the King. 
 Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed 
 Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enor- 
 mous cost, the protection of eminent members of the 
 victorious party. Large domains belonging to the 
 crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters were seized, 
 and either gi-anted away or put up to auction. In con- 
 sequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of 
 England was at once ofiered for sale. As money was 
 scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was 
 insecure, and as the awe inspired by powerful bid- 
 ders prevented free competition, the prices were often 
 merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable fami- 
 lies disappeai'ed and were heard of no more ; and many 
 new men rose rapidly to affluence. 
 
 But, while the Houses were enH)lovino: their author- 
 ity thus, it suddenly ]nissed out of their hands. It had
 
 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn. I 
 
 been obtained by calling into existence a power which 
 could not be controlled. In the summer of 1647, about 
 twelve months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers 
 had submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was 
 compelled to submit to its own soldiers. 
 
 Thirteen years followed, during which England was, 
 under various names and forms, really governed by the 
 DominatioQ sword. Ncvcr bcfove that time, or since that 
 
 and character . 
 
 Of the army, time, was the civil power in our country sub- 
 jected to military dictation. 
 
 The army which now became supreme in the State 
 was a^. army very different from any that has since 
 been seen among us. At present the pay of the com- 
 mon soldier is not such as can seduce any but the 
 humblest class of English labourers from their callino;. 
 A barrier almost impassable separates him from the 
 commissioned officer. The great majority of those 
 who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So 
 numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies 
 of England, that every man who enlists in the line 
 must expect to pass many yeai's in exile, and some 
 years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour 
 of the European race. The army of the Long Parha- 
 ment was raised for home service. The pay of the 
 private soldier was much above the wages earned by 
 the great body of the people ; and, if he distinguished 
 himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to 
 attain high commands. The ranks were accordingly 
 composed of persons superior in station and education 
 to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, dili- 
 gent, and accustomed to reflect, had been induced to 
 take up arms, not by the pressure of want, not by the 
 love of novelty and license, not by the arts of recruit- 
 ing officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled 
 with the desire of distinction and promotion. Hie
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. V6<i 
 
 boast of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in tlieir 
 solemn resolutions, was, that they had not been forced 
 into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake 
 of lucre, that they were no janissaries, but freeborn 
 Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their 
 lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of Eng- 
 land, and whose right and duty it was to watch over 
 the welfare of the nation which they had saved. 
 
 A force thus composed might, without injury to its 
 efficiency, be indulged in some liberties which, if al- 
 lowed to any other troops, would have proved subver- 
 sive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who should 
 form themselves nito political clubs, elect delegates, and 
 pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon 
 break loose from all control, would cease to form an 
 army, and woukl become the worst and most dangerous 
 of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time;, to tolerate 
 in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal 
 versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less 
 gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But 
 such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the selfcom- 
 mand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that 
 in their camp a ]K>litical organization and a religious 
 organization could exist without destroying military 
 organization. The same men, who, off duty, were 
 noted as demagogues and Held preachei's, were dis- 
 tinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and 
 by ]n-om])t obedience on watch, on drill, and on the 
 field of battle. 
 
 In war this stranfje force was irresistible. The 
 stubborn courage characteristic of the English peoj)le 
 was, by the system of Cromwell, at once regulated 
 and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained order 
 as strict. Other leaders have insjiircd their followers 
 with zeal as ardent. But in his camp alone the most
 
 1S4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I, 
 
 rigid discipline was found in company with the fiercest 
 enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the 
 precision of machines, while burning with the wildest 
 fanaticism of Crusaders. From the time when the 
 army was remodelled to the time when it was dis- 
 banded, it never found, either in the British islands or 
 on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. 
 In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan 
 warriors, often suiTounded by difficulties, sometimes 
 contending against threefold odds, not only never failed 
 to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in 
 pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They 
 at length came to regard the day of battle as a day 
 of certain triumph, and marched against the most 
 renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confi- 
 dence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern 
 exultation with which his English allies advanced to 
 the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, 
 when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Crom- 
 well's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the 
 enemy ; and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of 
 national pride, when they saw a brigade of their coun- 
 trymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, 
 drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of 
 Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which 
 had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest 
 of the Marshals of France. 
 
 But that which chiefly distinguished the army of 
 Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality 
 and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is 
 acknoAvledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in 
 that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness 
 ^r gambling was seen, and that, during the long domin- 
 ion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen 
 and the honour of woman were held sacred. If out-
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 135 
 
 rao;es were committed, tliey were outi'ages of a very 
 dilierent kind from those of which a victorious army is 
 generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the 
 rough gallantly of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate 
 was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a 
 Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and 
 Child were painted, produced in the Pvn-itan ranks an 
 excitement whicli it required the utmost exertions of 
 the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief diffi- 
 culties was to restrain his musketeers and dragoons 
 from invailing by main force the puljnts of ministers 
 whose discourses, to use the language of that time, 
 were not savoury ; and too many of our cathedrals still 
 bear the marks of the hatred witli which those stern 
 spirits regarded every vestige of Popery. 
 
 To keep down the English people was no light task 
 even for that army. No sooner was tlie first uisinKs 
 
 _ _ ■ .11 Mg.iiiist the 
 
 pi'essure of military tyranny felt, than the na- military 
 
 •^ , I'll goveruuient 
 
 tion, unbroken to such servitude, began to suppressed. 
 stru^sle fiercely. Insurrections broke out even in those 
 counties which, during the recent war, had been the 
 most submissive to tlie Parliament. Indeed, the Par- 
 liament itsL'lf abhorred its old defenders more than ita 
 old enemies, and was desirous to come to terms of ac- 
 commodation with Charles at the expense of the troops. 
 In Scotland, at the same time, a coalition was formed 
 between the Royalists and a large body of Presbyte- 
 rians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents 
 with detestation. At length the storm burst. There 
 were risings in Norfolk, Suffi)lk, Essex, Kent, Wales. 
 The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal 
 colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern 
 coast. A o-reat Scottish force crossed the frontier and 
 advanced into Lancashire. It might well be suspected 
 that these moveiiu'iits were contenipluted with secret
 
 136 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ck. I. 
 
 complacency by a majority both of the Lords and of 
 the Commons. 
 
 But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. 
 While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbour- 
 hood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, 
 and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the 
 Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the 
 invaders ; but he was little in the habit of counting his 
 enemies. The Scottish army was utterly destroyed. 
 A change in tha Scottish government followed. An 
 administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edin- 
 burgh ; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of 
 his soldiers, returned in triumph to London. 
 
 And now a design, to which, at the commencement 
 Proceedings of the civil War, no man would have dared to 
 
 against the u i i i • i i 
 
 King. allude, and which was not less mconsistent 
 
 with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the 
 old law of England, besan to take a distinct form. The 
 austere warriors who ruled the nation had, durino; some 
 months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive 
 King. When and how the scheme originated ; whether 
 it sj)read fi*om the general to the ranks, or from the ranks 
 to the general ; whether it is to be ascribed to policy 
 using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing down 
 policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even 
 at this day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence. 
 It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who 
 seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on 
 this occasion, as on another great occasion a few years 
 later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own in- 
 clinations to the wishes of the army. For the power 
 which he had called into existence was a power which 
 even he could not always control ; and, that he might 
 ordinarily command, it was necessary that he shoidd 
 sometimes obey. He publicly protested tluvt he was no
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 137 
 
 mover in tlie matter, that the first steps had been taken 
 without liis privity, that he could not advise the Par- 
 liament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his 
 own feelings to the force of circumstances which seemed 
 to him to indicate the purposes of providence. It has 
 been the flishion to consider those professions as instances 
 of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But 
 even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely 
 venture to call him a fool. They are therefore bound 
 to show that he had some purpose to serve by secretly 
 stimulating the army to take that course which he did 
 not venture openly to recommend. It Avould be absurd 
 to suppose that he, who was never by his respectable 
 enemies represented as wantonly cruel or implacably 
 vindictive, would have taken the most important step of 
 his life under the influence of mere malevolence. He 
 was far too wise a man not to know, when he consented 
 to shed that august blood, that he was doing a deed 
 which was ine.\j)iable, and which would move the grief 
 and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths 
 of those who had stood by the rarliament. Whatever 
 visions may have deluded others, he was assuredly 
 dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern, 
 nor of the millemiial reign of the saints. If he already 
 aspired to be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it 
 was i)lain that Charles the First was a less formidable 
 competitor than Charles the Second would be. At the 
 moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty 
 of every Cavalier would be transferred, unim])aii-ed, to 
 Charles the Second. Charles the First was a captive ; 
 Charles the Second would be at liberty. Charles the 
 First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large 
 proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of 
 slaying him ; Charles the Second Avould excite all the in- 
 terest which belongs to distressed youth and innocence.
 
 138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 It is impossible to believe that considerations so obvious, 
 and so important, escaped the most profound politician 
 of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one 
 time, meant to mediate between the throne and the Par- 
 liament, and to reorganize the distracted State by the 
 power of tlie sword, under the sanction of the royal 
 name. In this design he persisted till he was compelled 
 to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, 
 and by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in 
 the camp began to clamour for the head of the traitor, 
 who was for treating with Agag. Conspiracies were 
 formed. Threats of impeach-ment were loudly uttered. 
 A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolu- 
 tion of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a 
 judicious mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded 
 in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the high- 
 est degree difficult and perilous to contend against the 
 rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tvrant as their 
 foe, and as the foe of their God. 
 
 At the same time it became more evident than ever 
 that the King could not be trusted. The vices of 
 Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, 
 vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring 
 out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural de- 
 fence of the weak. A prince, therefore, who is habitu- 
 ally a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely 
 to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and 
 distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous 
 but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was a 
 politician to whom so many ft'auds and falsehoods were 
 brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly 
 recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Par- 
 liament, and, at the same time, made a private minute 
 in council, declaring the recognition null. He publicly
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE EESTORATION. 139 
 
 disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against 
 his people : he privately solicited aid from France, from 
 Denmark, and from Loraine. He publicly denied that 
 he employed Papists : at the same time he privately 
 sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist 
 that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at 
 Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive 
 at Popeiy : he privatel}^ assured his wife, that he in- 
 tended to tolerate Popery in England ; and he author- 
 ised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should 
 be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear 
 himself at his agent's expense. Glamorgan received, in 
 the royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read 
 by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by 
 himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity 
 now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most 
 devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to 
 each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked 
 politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than 
 his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there was 
 no section of the victorious party which had not been 
 the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations : 
 but never was he more unfortunate than when he at- 
 tempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. 
 Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to 
 hazard the attachment of his party, the attachment of 
 his army, his own greatness, nay his own life, in an 
 attempt, which would probably have been vain, to save 
 a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many 
 struggles and misgivings, and probably not without 
 many prayers, the decision was made. Charles was 
 left to his fate. The military saints resolved that, in 
 defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of tlie almost 
 universal sentiment of the nation, the King should ex
 
 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 piate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected 
 a death hke that of his unhai)i)y predecessors, Edward 
 the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in 
 no danger of such treason. Tliose who had him in 
 their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What they 
 did they did in order that it miglit be a spectacle to 
 heaven and earth, and tliat it might be held in ever- 
 lasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very 
 scandal which they gave. That the ancient constitu- 
 tion and the public opinion of England were directly 
 opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fas- 
 cinating to a party bent on effecting a complete po- 
 litical and social revolution. In order to accomplish 
 their purpose, it was necessary that they should first 
 break in pieces every part of the machinery of the 
 government ; and this necessity Avas rather agreeable 
 than painful to them. The Commons passed a vote 
 tending to accommodation with the Kino-. The soldiers 
 excluded the majority by force. The Lords unani- 
 mously rejected the proposition that the King should 
 be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed. 
 No court, knoAvn to the law, would take on itself the 
 office of judging the fountain of justice. A revolution- 
 ary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced 
 Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public 
 His execu- enemy ; and his head was severed from his 
 *""*• shoulders before thousands of spectators, in 
 
 front of the banqueting hall of his own palace. 
 
 In no long time it became manifest that those politi- 
 cal and religious zealots, to whom this deed is to be 
 ascribed, had committed, not only a crime, but an error. 
 They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his peo- 
 ple chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displajnng, 
 on a great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and alJ
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 141 
 
 ages, some qualities which irresistil)ly call forth the ad- 
 miration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gal- 
 lant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent 
 Christian. Nay, they had so contri^^ed their revenge 
 that the very man whose whole life had been a series 
 of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to 
 die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No dema- 
 gogue ever produced such an impression on the public 
 mind as the captive King who, retaining in that extrem- 
 ity all his regal dignity, and confronting death with 
 dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of 
 his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before 
 a court unknown to the law, appealed from military 
 violence to the principles of the constitution, asked by 
 what right the House of Commons had been purged of 
 its most respectable members and the House of Lords 
 deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping 
 hearers that he was defending not only his own cause, 
 but theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable 
 perfidies, were forgotten. His memory AAas, in the 
 minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated 
 with those free institutions which he had, during many 
 years, laboured to destroy : for those free institutions 
 had perished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence 
 of a community kept down by arms, had been defended 
 by liis voice alone. From that day began a reaction in 
 favour of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction 
 which never ceased till the throne had again been set 
 up in all its old dignity. 
 
 At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to 
 have derived new energy from that sacrament of blood 
 bv which they had bound themselves closely together, 
 and separated tiiemselves for ever from the great body 
 of their countrymen. England was declai'ed a common-
 
 142 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 wealth. The House of Commons, reduced to a small 
 number of members, was nominally the supremtj power 
 in the State. In fact, the army and its great chief 
 governed every thing. Oliver had made his choice. 
 He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken 
 with almost every other class of his fellow-citizens. Be- 
 yond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could 
 scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of 
 force which, when the civil war broke out, had appeared 
 arrayed against each other, were combined against him ; 
 all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, 
 the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the 
 Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. 
 Yet such was his genius and resolution that he was 
 able to overpower and crush everything that crossed 
 his path, to make himself more absolute master of his 
 country than any of her legitimate Kings had been, 
 and to make his country more dreaded and respected 
 than she had been during many generations under the 
 rule of her legitimate Kings. 
 
 England had already ceased to struggle. But the 
 two other kingdoms which had been governed by the 
 Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The Inde- 
 pendent party was equally odious to the Roman Catho- 
 lics of Ireland, and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. 
 Both those countries, lately in rebellion against Charles 
 the First, now acknowledged the authority of Charles 
 the Second. 
 
 But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of 
 Subjuga- Cromwell. In a few months he subjugated 
 Ireland and Ii'claud, as Ireland had never been subjugated 
 Scotland. cluring the five centuries of slaughter which 
 had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman set- 
 tlers. He resolved to put an end to that conflict of
 
 Ch. l] before the restoration. 1-1 8 
 
 races and religions which had so lonr>; distracted the 
 island, by making the English and Protestant popnla- 
 tion decidedly predominant. For this end he gave the 
 rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged 
 war resemblino; that which Israel Avao;ed on the Ca- 
 naanites, smote the idolaters with the edge of the 
 sword, so that great cities were left without inhabi- 
 tants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped 
 off many tliousands to the West Indies, and supplied 
 the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, 
 of Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to 
 say, under that iron rule, the conquered country began 
 to wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts which 
 had recently been as wild as those where the first white 
 settlers of Connecticut were contendinfj with the red 
 men Avere in a few years transformed into the likeness 
 of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and })h\n- 
 tations were everywhere seen. The rent of estates 
 rose fast ; and soon the English landowners beoan to 
 complain that they were met in every market by the 
 products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting 
 laws. 
 
 From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in 
 name, as he had long been in reality, Lord Gen(n-al of 
 the armies of tlie Commonwealth, turned to Scotland. 
 The young King was there. He had consented to 
 profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the 
 Covenant ; and, in return for these concessions, the 
 austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had 
 permitted liim to assume the crown, and to hold, under 
 their insj)ection and control, a solemn and melancholy 
 court. This mock loyalty was of short duration. In 
 two great battles Cromwell annihilated the militiiry 
 force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with
 
 144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 extreme difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The 
 ancient kino;dum of the Stuarts was reduced, for the 
 first time, to profound submission. Of that indepen- 
 dence, so manfully defended against the mightiest and 
 ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige Avas left. The 
 English Parliament made laws for Scotland. English 
 judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that stubborn 
 Church, which has held its own against so many gov- 
 ernments, scarce dared to utter an audible murmur. 
 
 Thus far there had been at least the semblance ol 
 Expulsion harmony between the warriors who subju- 
 Pariiamenf. gated Ireland and Scotland and the poHti- 
 cians who sate at Westminster : but the alliance which 
 had been cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. 
 The Parliament forgot that it was but the creature of 
 the army. The army was less disposed than ever to 
 submit to the dictation of the Parliament. Indeed the 
 few members who made up what was contemptuously 
 called the Rump of the House of Commons had no 
 more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the 
 representatives of the nation. The dispute was soon 
 brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell filled the House 
 with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his 
 chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, 
 and the door locked. The nation, which loved neither 
 of the contending parties, but which was forced, in its 
 own despite, to respect the capacity and resolution of 
 the General, looked on with patience, if not with com- 
 j)lacency. 
 
 King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been 
 vanquished and destroyed ; and Cromwell seemed to 
 be left the sole heir of the powers of all three. Yet 
 were certain limitations still imposed on him by the 
 very army to which he owed his immense authority.
 
 Cif. I.J BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 145 
 
 Tliat singular body of men was, for tlie most part, com- 
 posed of zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving 
 their country, they had deceived themselves into the 
 belief that they were emancipating her. The book 
 which they most venerated furnished them with a pre- 
 cedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was 
 true that the ignorant and uno;rateful nation murmured 
 against its deliverers. Even so had another chosen na- 
 tion murmured against the leader who brought it, by 
 painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage 
 to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had 
 that leader rescued his brethren in spite of themselves ; 
 nor had he shrunk from making terrible examples of 
 those who contemned the proffered freedom, and pined 
 for the fleshpots, the taskmasters, and the idolatries of 
 Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who sui'- 
 rounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and 
 pious commonwealth. For that end they were ready 
 to employ, without scruple, any means, however vio- 
 lent and lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to 
 establish by their aid a dictatorship such as no Kino- 
 had ever exercised : but it was probable that their aid 
 would be at once withdrawn from a niler who, even 
 under strict constitutional restraints, should venture 
 to assume the regal name and dignity. 
 
 The sentiments of Cromwell wore widely different. 
 He was not what he had been ; nor would it be just to 
 consider the change whi(^h his views had undergone as 
 the effect merely of selfish ambition. When he came 
 up to the Long Parliament, he brought with him from 
 his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no expe- 
 rience of gr(;at affnirs, and a temper galled by the long 
 tyranny of the government and of the hierarchy. He 
 had, din-inn; the thii-teen vears Avhich followed, crone 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. L 
 
 through a pohtical education of no common kind. He 
 had been a chief actor in a succession of revohitions. 
 He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of a 
 party. He had commanded armies, won battles, nego- 
 tiated treaties, subdued, pacified, and regulated king- 
 doms. It would have been strange indeed if his notions 
 had been still the same as in the days when his mind 
 was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, 
 and when the greatest events which diversified the 
 course of his life were a cattle fair or a prayer meeting 
 at Huntino;don. He saw that some schemes of inno- 
 vation for which he had once been zealous, whether 
 good or bad in themselves, were opposed to the general 
 feeling of the country, and that, if he persevered in 
 those schemes, he had nothing before him but constant 
 troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant use 
 of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all 
 essentials, that ancient constitntion which the majority 
 of the people had always loved, and for which they now 
 pined. The course afterAvards taken by Monk was not 
 open to Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day 
 separated the great regicide for ever from the House 
 of Stuart. What remained was that he should mount 
 the ancient English throne, and reign according to the 
 ancient English polity. If he could effect this, he 
 might hope that the Avounds of the lacerated State 
 would heal fast. Great numbers of honest and quiet 
 men would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists 
 whose attachment was rather to institutions than to 
 persons, to the kingly office than to King Charles the 
 First or King Charles the Second, would soon kiss the 
 hand of King Ohver. The peers, who now remained 
 sullenly at their country houses, and refused to take 
 any part in public affairs, would, when summoned to
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 147 
 
 their House by the writ of a King in possession, gladly 
 resume their ancient functions. Northumberland and 
 Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, Avould be proud 
 to bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the 
 globe before the restorer of aristocracy. A sentiment 
 of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new 
 dynasty ; and, on the decease of the founder of that 
 dynasty, the royal dignity might descend with general 
 acquiescence to his posterity. 
 
 The ablest Royalists were of opinion that tliese views 
 were correct, and that, if Cromwell had been permitted 
 to follow his own judgment, the exiled line would never 
 have been restored. But his plan was directly opposed 
 to the feelings of the only class which he dared not 
 offend. The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. 
 Some of them were indeed unwilling to see the admin- 
 istration in the hands of any single person. The great 
 majority, however, were disposed to support their gen- 
 eral, as elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, 
 against all factions which might resist his authority : 
 but they would not consent that he should assume the 
 regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just 
 reward of his pei'sonal merit, should be declared hered- 
 itary in his family. All that was left to him was, to 
 give to the new republic a constitution as like the con- 
 stitution of the old monarchy as the army Avould bear. 
 That his elevation to power might not seem to be his 
 own mere act, he convoked a council, composed partly 
 of persons on whose support he could depend, and 
 partly of persons whose o])positlon he might safely 
 defy. This assembly, which he called a Parliament, 
 and which the populace nicknamed, from one of the 
 most conspicuous membm-s, Barebone's Parliament, 
 after exposing itself during a short time to the public
 
 148 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, (Ch. I. 
 
 contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers 
 which it had received from him, and left him at liberty 
 to frame a plan of government. 
 
 His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resem- 
 The Protec- blancc to the old English constitution ; but, 
 o^iwer crom- i" ^ f^w jcars, hc thouglit it safe to proceed 
 further, and to restore almost every part of 
 the ancient system under new names and forms. The 
 title of King was not revived ; but the kingly preroga- 
 tives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector. The 
 sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His High- 
 ness. He was not crowned and anointed in West- 
 minster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with 
 a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple, and pre- 
 sented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His 
 office was not declared hereditary : but he was per- 
 mitted to name his successor ; and none could doubt 
 that he would name his son. 
 
 A House of Commons was a necessary part of the 
 new polity. In constituting this body, the Protector 
 showed a wisdom and a public spirit which were not 
 duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices of 
 the old representative system, though by no means so 
 serious as they afterwards became, had already been 
 remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell reformed that 
 system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a 
 hundred and thirty years later, attempted to reform it, 
 and on which it was at length I'eformed in our own 
 times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even more 
 unsparingly than in 1832 ; and the number of county 
 members was greatly increased. Very few unrepre- 
 sented towns had yet grown into importance. Of those 
 towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds, 
 and Halifax. Representatives were given to all three.
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 149 
 
 An addition Avas made to the number of the members 
 for the capital. The elective franchise was placed on 
 such a footing that every man of substance, whether 
 possessed of freehold estates in laud or not, had a 
 vote for the county in which he resided. A few 
 Scotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled 
 in Ireland, were summoned to the assembly which 
 was to legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the 
 British isles. 
 
 To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. 
 Democracy does not require the support of prescrip- 
 tion. Monarchy has often stood without that supjwrt. 
 But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver 
 found already existing a nobility, opulent, highly con- 
 sidered, and as popular with the commonalty as any 
 nobility has ever been. Had he, as King of England, 
 commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament ac- 
 cording to the old usage of the realm, many of them 
 would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he 
 could not do ; and it was to no purpose that he offered 
 to the chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new 
 senate. They conceived that they could not accept a 
 nomination to an uj)start assembly without renouncing 
 their birthright and betraying their order. The Pro- 
 tector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his 
 Upper House with new men who, during the late stir- 
 ring times, had made themselves conspicuous. This was 
 the least happy of his contx'ivances, and displeased all 
 parties. The Levellers were angry with him for insti- 
 tuting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt 
 respect and fondness for the great historical names of 
 the land, laughed without restraint at a House of Lords, 
 in which lucky draymen and shoemakers were seated, 
 to which few of the old nobles Avere invited, and from
 
 150 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 which almost all those old nobles who were invited 
 turned disdainfully away. 
 
 How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, how- 
 ever, was practically of little moment : for he possessed 
 the means of conducting the administration without 
 their support, and in defiance of their opposition. His 
 wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, 
 and to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the 
 sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was, both 
 by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only 
 by being absolute. The first House of Commons 
 which the people elected by his command, questioned 
 his authority, and was dissolved without having passed 
 a single act. His second House of Commons, though 
 it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have 
 made him King, obstinatelv refused to acknowledcre his 
 new Lords. He had no course left but to dissolve the 
 Parliament. "' God," he exclaimed, at parting, " be 
 judge between you and me ! " 
 
 Yet was the energy of the Protector's administra- 
 tion in nowise relaxed by these dissensions. Those 
 soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the kingly 
 title stood by him when he ventured on acts of power, 
 as high as any English King has ever attempted. The 
 government, therefore, though in form a republic, was 
 in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, 
 the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The 
 country was divided into military districts. Those 
 districts were placed under the command of Major 
 Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was 
 promptly put down and punished. The fear inspired 
 by the power of the sword in so strong, steady, and 
 expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of Cavaliers and 
 Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 151 
 
 Btill as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old gov- 
 ernment and the old dynasty, if there were the slight- 
 est hope of success : but to rush at the head of their 
 servino- men and tenants on the i)ikes of brigades vie- 
 torious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a 
 fi-antic waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both 
 Royalists and Republicans, having no hope in open 
 resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassina- 
 tion : but the Protector's intelligence was good: his 
 vioilance was unremitting ; and, whenever he moved 
 beyond the walls of his palace, the drawn swords and 
 cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards encompassed him 
 thick on every side. 
 
 Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious 
 prince, the nation might have found courage in de- 
 spair, and might have made a convulsive effort to free 
 itself from military dominaticm. liut the grievances 
 which the country suffered, though such as excited 
 serious discontent, were by no means such as imi)el 
 great masses of men to stake their lives, their fortunes, 
 and the welfare of their families against fearful odds. 
 The taxation, though heavier than it had been under 
 the Stuarts, was not heavy when com|)ared with that 
 of the neio-hboiu-inn; states and with the resources of 
 England. Property w^as secure. Even the Cavalier, 
 who refrained I'rom giving disturbance to the new set- 
 tlement, enjoyed in ])eace whatever the civil troubles 
 had left him. The laws were violated only in cases 
 where the safety of the Protector's person and govern- 
 ment was concerned. Justice was administered be- 
 tween man and man with an exactness and purity not. 
 before known. Under no English government, smce 
 the Reformation, had there been so little religious j)er- 
 secution. The unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed,
 
 152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 were lielJ to be scarcely within the pale of Christian 
 charity. But the clergy of the fallen Anglican Church 
 wei-e suffered to celebrate their worship on condition 
 that they would abstain from preaching about politics. 
 Even the Jews, whose public worship had, ever since 
 the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were, in spite 
 of the strong opposition of jealous traders and fanatical 
 theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London. 
 The Protector's foreign policy at the same time ex- 
 torted the ungracious approbation of those who most 
 detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain 
 from wishing that one who had done so much to raise 
 the fame of the nation had been a leo-itimate Kino; : 
 and the Republicans were forced to own that the t}''- 
 rant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, 
 and that, if he had robbed her of libertv, he had at 
 least given her glory in exchange. After half a cen- 
 tury during which England had been of scai'cely more 
 weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, 
 she at once became the most formidable power in the 
 world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, 
 avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the 
 pirates of Barbaiy, vanquished the Sj)aniards by land 
 and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian islands, 
 and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which 
 consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She 
 was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the 
 Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scat- 
 tered over Roman Catholic king-doms acknowledo-ed 
 Cromwell as their miardian. The Husnenots of Lan- 
 guedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, 
 professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, 
 were secured from oppression by the mere terror of 
 his great name. The Pope himself was forced to
 
 Ch. I.] before; the restoration. 153 
 
 preach humanity and moderation to Popish pnnces. 
 For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had de- 
 clared that, unless favour were shown to the people 
 of God, the English guns should be heard in the 
 Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothino- 
 which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his 
 family, so much reason to desire as a o-eneral relioious 
 war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the 
 captain of the Protestant armies. The heart of Eng- 
 land would have been with him. His victories would 
 have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm un- 
 known in the country since the rout of the Armada, 
 and would have effaced the stain which one act, con- 
 demned by the general voice of the nation, has left on 
 his splendid fame. Uidiappily for hlin lie had no op- 
 portunity of disjilaying his admirable military talents, 
 except against the inhabitants of the British i^les. 
 
 While he lived his power stood firm, an object of 
 mingled aversion, admiration, and dread to his sub- 
 jects. Few indeed loved his government ; but those 
 who hated it most hated it less than they feared it. 
 Had it been a worse government, it might perha])s 
 have been overthrown in spite of all its strength. 
 Had it been a weaker government, it would certainly 
 have been overthrown in spite of all its merits. But 
 it had moderation enough to abstain from those op- 
 pressions wliich drive men mad; and it had a force and 
 energy which none but men driven mad by oppressicm 
 would venture to encounter. 
 
 It has often been affirmed, but ap))arently with little 
 reason, that Oliver died at a time fortunate Oliver suc- 
 for his renown, and tliat, if his life had been Ri'diani."^ 
 prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst dis* 
 graces and disasters. It is certain that he was, to the
 
 154 HISTOEY OP ENGLAND, fCn. L 
 
 last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed by the whole 
 population of the British islands, and dreaded by all 
 foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sov 
 ereigns of England with funeral pomp such as London 
 had never before seen, and that he was succeeded by 
 his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been 
 succeeded by any Prince of Wales. 
 
 Durino; five months, the administration of Richard 
 Cromwell went on so trancjuilly and regularly that all 
 Europe believed him to be firmly established on the 
 chair of state. In truth his situation was in some re- 
 spects much more advantageous than that of his father. 
 The young man had made no enemy. His hands Avere 
 unstained by civil blood. The Cavaliers themselves 
 allowed him to be an honest, goodnatured gentleman. 
 The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers and 
 in wealth', had been at deadly feud with the late Pro- 
 tector, but was disposed to regard the present Protector 
 with favour. That party had always been desirous to 
 see the old civil polity of the realm restored with some 
 clearer definitions and some stronger safeguards for 
 public liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the 
 restoration of the old family. Richard was the very 
 man for politicians of this description. His humanity, 
 ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his abil- 
 ities, and the docility with which he submitted to the 
 guidance of persons wiser than himself, admirably qual- 
 ified him to be the head of a limited monarchy. 
 
 For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, 
 under the direction of able advisers, eifect what his 
 father had attempted in vain. A Parliament was called, 
 and the writs were directed after the old fashion. The 
 small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised 
 regained their lost privilege : INIanchester, Leeds, and
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 165 
 
 Halifax ceased to return members ; and the coimty of 
 York was again limited to two knights. It may seem 
 strancre to a generation which has been excited almost 
 to madness by the question of parliamentary reform that 
 great shires and towns should have submitted with j)a- 
 tience, and even with complacency, to this change : but 
 though speculative men might, even in that age, discern 
 the vices of the old representative system, and pre- 
 dict that those vices would, sooner or later, produce se- 
 rious practical evil, the practical evil had not yet been 
 felt. Oliver's representative system, on the other hand, 
 though constructed on the soundest principles, was not 
 popular. Both the events in which it originated, anil 
 the effects which it had produced, prejudiced men 
 against it. It had sprung from military violence. It 
 had been fruitful of nothing but dls[)utes. The whole 
 nation was sick of government by the sword, and pined 
 for government by the law. The restoration, therefore, 
 even of anomalies and abuses, Avhich were in strict con- 
 formity with the law, and which had been destroyed by 
 the sword, gave general satisfaction. 
 
 Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, 
 consisting partly of avowed Republicans, and partly of 
 concealed Royalists : but a large and steady majority 
 appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving the 
 old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Richard 
 was solemnly recognised as first magistrate. The Com- 
 mons not only consented to transact business with Oli- 
 ver's Lords, but passed a vote acknowledging the right 
 of those nobles who had in the late troubles taken the 
 side of public lilicrty, to sit in the Upper House of Par- 
 liament without any new creation. 
 
 Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard 
 acted had been successful. Almost all the parts of thfl
 
 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 government were now constituted as they had been 
 constituted at the commencement of the civil war. 
 Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered 
 to proceed undisturbed, there can be little doubt that 
 an order of thinjis similar to that which was afterwards 
 established under the House of Hanover Avould have 
 been established under the House of Cromwell. But 
 there was in the State a power more than sufficient to 
 deal with Protector and Parliament together. Over 
 tlie soldiers Richard had no authority except that which 
 he derived from the great name which he had inherited. 
 He had never led them to victory. He had never even 
 borne arms. All his tastes and habits were pacific. 
 Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects 
 approved by the military saints. That he was a good 
 man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep 
 groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity wlien 
 he Avas at the height of human greatness, and by cheer- 
 ful resio-nation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes : but 
 the cant then common in every guardroom gave him a 
 disgust which he had not always the prudence to con- 
 ceal. The officers who had the principal influence 
 among the troops stationed near London were not his 
 friends. They were men distinguished by valoiir and 
 conduct in the field, but destitute of the wisdom and 
 i'lvW courage which had been conspicuous in their de- 
 ceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanati- 
 cal. Independents and Republicans. Of this class Fleet- 
 wood was the representative. Others were impatient 
 to be what Oliver had been. His rapid elevation, his 
 prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the Hall, and 
 his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their 
 imagination. They were as well born as he, and as 
 well educated : they could not understand why tliey
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 157 
 
 were not as worthy to wear the purple robe, and to 
 wield the sword of state ; and they pursued the objects 
 of their wild ambition, not, like him, with patience, 
 vigilance, saeacitv, and determination, but with the 
 restlessness and irresolution characteristic of aspiring 
 mediocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great orig- 
 inal the most conspicuous was Lambert. 
 
 On the very day of Richard's accession the officers 
 beixan to conspire axrainst their new master. FaiiofKuh- 
 
 ~ I ^ ^ ^ ^ ard, and re- 
 
 The ffood understandino; which existed be- ^'vai of tiie 
 
 O r^ Long I'arlia- 
 
 tween him and his Parliament hastened the ment. 
 crisis. Alarm and resentment spread through the 
 camp. Both the religious and the professional feelings 
 of the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the 
 Independents were to be subjected to the Presbyterians, 
 and that the men of the sword were to be subjected to 
 the men of the gown. A coalition was formed betAveen 
 the military malecontents and the republican minority 
 of the House of Connnons. It may well be doubted 
 whether Richard could have triumphed over that coa- 
 lition, even if he had inherited his father's clear judg- 
 ment and iron courage. It is cei'tain that simplicity 
 and meekness like his were not the qualities which the 
 conjuncture required. He fell ingloriously, and with- 
 out a struggle. He was used by the army as an in- 
 strument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, 
 and was then contemptuously thrown aside. Tiie offi- 
 cers gratified their republican allies by declaring that 
 the expulsion of the JIuinp had been illegal, and hv in- 
 viting that assembly to I'csume its functions. The old 
 Speaker and a ipiorum of the old members came to- 
 gether and were prociainied, amidst the scarcely stifii'd 
 derision and execration of the whole nation, the supreme 
 power in the Conunonwealth. It was at the same time
 
 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, |Ci. } 
 
 expressly declared that there should be no first magis- 
 trate, and no House of Lords. 
 
 But this state of tilings could not last. On the day 
 on which the Long Parliament revived, revived also its 
 old quarrel vv^ith the army. Again the Rump forgot 
 that it owed its existence to the pleasui'e of the soldiers, 
 Second expui- ^^^*-^ bcgaii to treat them as subjects. Again 
 Lon<'°Pariia- ^^^^ doors of the House of Commons were 
 went. closed by military violence ; and a provisional 
 
 government, named by the officers, assumed the direc- 
 tion of affairs. 
 
 Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong 
 apprehension of still greater evils close at hand, had at 
 length produced an alliance between the Cavaliers and 
 the Presbyterians. Some Pi'esbyterians had, indeed, 
 been disposed to such an alliance even before the death 
 of Charles the First : but it was not till after the fall 
 of Richard Cromwell that the whole party became eager 
 for the restoration of the royal house. There was no 
 longer any reasonable hope that the old constitution 
 could be reestablished under a new dynasty. One 
 choice only was left, the Stuarts or the army. The 
 banished family had committed great faults ; but it had 
 dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, 
 and, it might be hoped, a salutary training in the school 
 of adversity. It was probable that Charles the Second 
 would take warning by the fate of Charles the First. 
 But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened 
 the country were such that, in order to avert them, 
 some opinions might well be compromised, and some 
 risks might well be incurred. It seemed but too likely 
 that England would fall under the most odious and de- 
 grading of all kinds of government, under a govern- 
 ment uniting all the evils of despotism to all the evils 
 
 I
 
 Ch. I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 159 
 
 of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the yoke of a 
 succession of incaj^able and inglorious tyrants, raised to 
 power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolu- 
 tions recurring at short intervals. Lambert seemed 
 likely to be the first of these rulers : but within a year 
 Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Des- 
 borough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was 
 transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation 
 would be pillaged for the purpose of bestowing a fresh 
 donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians obsti- 
 nately stood aloof from the Royalists, the State was lost ; 
 and men might well doubt whether, by the combined 
 exertions of Presbyterians and Royalists, it could be 
 saved. For the dread of that invincible army was on all 
 the inhabitants of the island ; and the Cavaliers, taught 
 by a hundred disastrous fields how little numbers can 
 effect against discij)line, were even more completely 
 cowed than the Roundheads. 
 
 While the soldiers ivmained united, all the j)lots and 
 risings of the malecontents were ineffectual. T^,g .^.^^ . 
 But a few days after the second expulsion of of •■^'•""">;'i 
 
 .' I niarclu-s in- 
 
 the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the *° Kngiaua 
 hearts of all who were attached either to monarchy oi" 
 to liberty. That mighty force which had, during many 
 years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, 
 had been found irresistible, was at lenolh divided 
 ao-.ainst itself The army of Scotland had done eood 
 service to the Connnonwealth, and was in the hi<rhest 
 state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late 
 revolutions, and had seen them with indignation re- 
 scmblinjT the indiirnation which the Roman lemons 
 posted on the Danube and tht' Eui)lirates felt, when 
 they learned that the empire had been ])ut up to sale 
 by the Praetorian Guards. It was intolerable that cer-
 
 160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, fCn. I. 
 
 tain regiments should, merely because they happened 
 to be quartered near Westminster, take on themselves 
 to make and unmake several governments in the course 
 of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be 
 regulated by the soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the 
 English ascendency on the north of the Tweed were as 
 well entitled to a voice as those who garrisoned the 
 Tower of London. There appears to have been less 
 fanaticism among the troops stationed in Scotland 
 than in any other part of the army ; and their general, 
 George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a 
 zealot. He had, at the commencement of the civil 
 war, borne arms for the King, had been made prisoner 
 by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commission 
 fi'om the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions 
 to saintship, had raised himself to high commands by 
 his courage and professional skill. He had been an 
 useful servant to both the Protectors, had quietly acqui- 
 esced when the officers at Westminster pulled down 
 Richard and restored the Long Parliament, and would 
 perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second expul- 
 sion of the Long Parliament, if the provisional govern- 
 ment had abstained from giving him cause of offence 
 and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and 
 somewhat sluggish ; nor was he at all disposed to haz- 
 ard sure and moderate advantages for the chance of ob- 
 taining even the most splendid success. He seems to 
 have been impelled to attack the new rulers of the 
 commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew 
 them, he should become great, than by the fear that, 
 if he submitted to them, he should not even be secure. 
 Whatever were his motives, he declared himself the 
 champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to ac- 
 knowledge the usurped authority of the provisional
 
 Ch- I.] BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 161 
 
 government, and, at the head of seven thousand veter- 
 ans, marched into England. 
 
 This step was the signal for a general explosion. 
 The people everywhere refused to pay taxes. The 
 apprentices of the City assembled by thousands and 
 clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed up 
 the Thames, and declared against the tyranny of the 
 soldiers. The soldiers, no longer under the control of 
 one commanding mind, separated into factions. Every 
 regiment, afraid lest it should be left alone a mai'k for 
 the vengeance of the oppressed nation, hastened to 
 make a separate })eace. Lambert, who had hastened 
 northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was 
 abandoned by his troops, and became a prisoner. Dui'- 
 ing thirteen years the civil power had, in every conflict, 
 been compelled to yield to the military power. The 
 military power now humbled itself before the civil 
 power. The Rmnp, generally hated and despised, but 
 still the only body in the country which had any show 
 of legal authority, returned again to the house from 
 which it had been twice ignominiously expelled. 
 
 In the mean time Monk was advancinji towards 
 London. Wherever he came, the gentry flocked round 
 him, imploring him to use his power for the ])iu-pose of 
 restoring peace and lilierty to the distracted nation. 
 The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no 
 polity and for no religi(m, maintained an impenetra- 
 ble reserve. What were at this time his plans, and 
 whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His 
 great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long 
 as possible, free to choose between several lines of 
 action. Such, indeed, is commonly the policy of men 
 who are, like him, distinguished rather by wariness 
 than by farsightedness. It was probably not till he liad 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 been some days in the capital that he made up his 
 mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free 
 Parliament ; and thei*e could be no doubt that a Par- 
 liament really free would instantly restore the exiled 
 family. The Rump and the soldiers were still hostile 
 to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was univer- 
 sally detested and despised. The power of the soldiers 
 was indeed still formidable, but had been greatly dr- 
 minished by discord. They had no head. They hau 
 recently been, in many parts of the country, arrayed 
 against each other. On the very day before Monk 
 reached London, there was a fight in the Strand be- 
 tween the cavalry and the infantry. An united army 
 had long kept down a divided nation : but the nation 
 was now united, and the army was divided. 
 
 During a short time, the dissimulation or irresolu- 
 Monk de- tion of Mouk kept all parties in a state of 
 frerparui paluful suspcusc. At length he broke si- 
 ment. lence, and declared for a free Parliament. 
 
 As soon as his declaration was known, the whole na- 
 tion was wild with delight. Wherever he appeared 
 thousands thronged round him, shouting and blessing 
 his name. The bells of all England rang joyously : the 
 gutters ran with ale : and, night after night, the sky 
 five miles round London was reddened by innumer- 
 able bonfires. Those Presbyterian members of the 
 House of Commons who had many years before been 
 expelled by the army, returned to their seats, and were 
 hailed with acclamations by great multitudes, which 
 filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The Inde- 
 pendent leaders no longer dared to show their faces in 
 the streets, and were scarcely safe within their own 
 dwellings. Temporary provision was made for the 
 government : writs were issued for a general election ,
 
 Ch. I.J BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 1G3 
 
 and then that memorable ParHament, which liad, dur- 
 ing twenty eventful years, experienced every variety 
 of fortune, which had triumphed over its sovereign, 
 which liad been enslaved and degraded by its servants, 
 which had been twnce ejected and twice restored, sol- 
 emnly decreed its own dissolution. 
 
 The result of the elections was such as might have 
 been expected from the temper of the nation. General c-iec 
 The new House of Commons consisted, with *'f"» of i^-'^o. 
 few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. 
 The Presbyterians formed the majority. 
 
 That there would be a restoration now seemed al- 
 most certain ; but whether there would be a peaceable 
 restoration was matter of painful doubt. The soldiers 
 were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the 
 title of King. They hated the name of Stuart. They 
 hated Presbytcrianism much, and Prelacy more. They 
 saw with bitter indignation that the close of their loner 
 domination was approaching, and that a life of inglo- 
 rious toil and penury was before them. They attrib- 
 uted their ill fortune to the weakness of some generals, 
 and to the treason of others. One hour of their be- 
 loved Oliver might even now restore the glory which 
 had departed. Betrayed, disunited, and left without 
 any chief in whom they could confide, they were yet 
 to be dreaded. It was no liiilit thinn- to encounter the 
 rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose 
 backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with 
 whom he acted, were well aware that the crisis Avas 
 most perilous. They employed every art to sooth and 
 to divide the discontented warriors. At the same time 
 vigorous pre})nration was made for a conflict. The 
 army of Scotland, now quartered in London, was kept 
 in good humour by bribes, praises, and promises. The
 
 164 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. I. 
 
 wealthy citizens grudged nothing to a red coat, and 
 were indeed so liberal of their best wine', that warlike 
 saints were sometimes seen in a conditi<:)n not very 
 honourable either to their religious or to their military 
 character. Some refractory regiments Monk ventured 
 to disband. In the meantime the greatest exertions 
 were made by the provisional goA^ernment, with the 
 strenuous aid of the whole body of the gentry and 
 magistracy, to organize the militia. In every county 
 the trainbands were held ready to march ; and this 
 force cannot be estimated at less than a hundred and 
 twenty thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty thousand 
 citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in review, 
 and showed a spirit which justified the hope that, in 
 case of need, they would fight manfully for their shops 
 and firesides. The fleet was heartily with the nation. 
 It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, yet of hope. 
 The prevailing opinion was that England would be de- 
 livered, but not without a desperate and bloody strug- 
 gle, and that the class which had so long ruled by the 
 sword would perish by the sword. 
 
 Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. 
 There was indeed one moment of extreme peril. Lam- 
 bert escaped from his confinement, and called his com- 
 rades to arms. The flame of civil war was actually 
 rekindled ; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was 
 trodden out before it had time to spread. The luckless 
 imitator of Cromwell was again a prisoner. The fail- 
 ure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers; 
 and they sullenly resigned themselves to their fate. 
 
 The new Parliament, which, having been called 
 TheRestora, without the royal writ, is more accurately 
 *'°°* described as a Convention, met at Westmin- 
 
 ster. The Lords repaired to the hall, from which they
 
 Cn. 1. 1 BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 166 
 
 had, during more than eleven years, been excluded by 
 force. Botli Houses instantly invited the King to re- 
 turn to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp 
 never before known. A gallant fleet convoyed him 
 from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed, 
 the cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, 
 among whom scarcely one could be found who was not 
 weeping with delight. The journey to London was a 
 continued tiuumph. The whole road from Rochester 
 was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an 
 interminable fair. Everywhere flags were flying, bells 
 and music sounding, wine and ale flowing in rivers to 
 the health of him whose return was the return of peace, 
 of law, and of freedom. But in the midst of the gen- 
 eral joy, one sj)ot })resented a dark and threatening 
 aspect. On Blackheath tlie army was drawn up to 
 welcome the sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and ex- 
 tended his hand graciously to the lips of the colonels 
 and majors. Bift all his courtesy was vain. The coun- 
 tenances of the soldiers wex'e sad and lowering ; and, 
 had they given way to their feelings, the festive pag- 
 eant of which they reluctantly made a part would have 
 had a mournful and bloodv end. But there was no 
 concert among; them. Discord and defection had left 
 them no confldence in their chiefs or in each other. 
 The whole array of the City of London was inider 
 aiTns. Numerous companies of militia had assembled 
 from various parts of the realm, under the command of 
 loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome the King. 
 That great day closed in peace ; and the restoi'ed wan- 
 derer reposed safe in the palace of his ancestors.
 
 166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fCn. H 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The history of England, during the seventeenth 
 Conductor century, is the history of the transformation 
 restored the of a hmitcd monarchy, constiruted after the 
 Stuart un- fashiou of the middle ages, into a limited 
 gurcd."''^ monarchy suited to that more advanced state 
 of society in which the public charges can no longer 
 be borne by the estates of the crown, and in which the 
 public defence can no longer be entrusted to a feudal 
 militia. We have seen that the politicians who were 
 at the head of the Long Parliament made, in 1642, 
 a great effort to accomplish this change by transferring, 
 directly and formally, to the Estates of the realm the 
 choice of ministers, the command of the army, and the 
 superintendence of the whole execvitive administra- 
 tion. This scheme was, perhaps, the best that could 
 then be contrived : but it was completely disconcerted 
 by the course which the civil war took. The Houses 
 triumphed, it is true ; but not till after such a struggle 
 as made it necessary for them to call into existence a 
 power which they could not control, and which soon 
 began to domineer over all orders and all parties. Dur- 
 ing a few years, the evils inseparable from military gov- 
 ernment were, in some degree, mitigated by the wisdom 
 and magnanimity of the great liian who lield the supreme 
 command. But, when the sword which he had wiehled, 
 with energy indeed, but with energy always guided by 
 good sense and generally tempered by good nature, 
 had passed to captains who possessed neither his abili-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 167 
 
 ties nor his virtues, it seemed too probable that order 
 and liberty would perish in one ignominious ruin. 
 
 That ruin was happily averted. It has been too 
 much the practice of" writers zealous for freedom to 
 represent the Restoration as a disastrous event, and 
 to condenni the folly or baseness of that Convention 
 which recalled the royal family without exacting new 
 securities airainst maladministration. Those who hold 
 this langiiage do not comprehend the real nature of the 
 crisis which followed the deposition of Richard Crom- 
 well. Enjiland was in innninent danger of sinkino; un- 
 der the tyrann}' of a succession of small men raised up 
 and pulled down by military caprice. To deliver the 
 country from the domination of the soldiers was the 
 first object of every enlightened patriot : but it was an 
 object which, while the soldiers were imited, the most 
 sanguine could scarcely expect to attain. On a sud- 
 den a gleam of hope appeared. General was o])[)osed 
 to general, army to army. On the use which might be 
 made of one auspicious moment depended the future 
 destiny of the nation. Our ancestors used that moment 
 well. They forgot old injuries, waved petty scruples, 
 adjourned to a more convenient season all dispute about 
 the reforms which oui" institutions needed, and stood 
 together. Cavaliers and Roundheads, E])iscopalians and 
 Presbyterians, in firm xuiion, for the old laws of the 
 land against militai'v despotism. The exact partition of 
 power among King, J^ords, and Commons, might well 
 he postponed till it had been decided whether England 
 shovdd be governed by King, Lords, and Commons, or 
 by cuirassiers and pikemcn. Had the statesmen of the 
 Convention taken a different course, had they held 
 long debates on the principles of goverimicnt, had they 
 drawn np a new constitution and sent it to Charles, had
 
 168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. H. 
 
 conferences been opened, had couriers been passing and 
 repassing during some weeks between Westminster and 
 the Netlierlands, with projects and counterprojects, re- 
 phes by Hyde and rejoinders by Prynne,'the coahtion 
 on which the pubhc safety depended would have been 
 dissolved : the Presbyterians and Royalists would cer- 
 tainly have quarrelled : the military fiictions might pos- 
 sibly have been reconciled : and the misjudging friends 
 of liberty might long have regretted, under a rule worse 
 than that of the worst Stuart, the golden opportunity 
 which had been suffered to escape. 
 
 The old civil polity was, therefore, by the general 
 AboiitioQof consent of both the great parties, reestab- 
 tenuresby lished. It was ao;ain exactly what it had 
 
 knight ser- » J 
 
 Vice. been when Charles the First, eighteen years 
 
 before, withdrew from his capital. All those acts of 
 the Long Parliament which had received the royal 
 assent were admitted to be still in full force. One 
 fresh concession, a concession in which the Cavaliers 
 were even more deeply interested than the Round- 
 heads, was easily obtained from the restored King. 
 The military tenure of land had been originally created 
 as a means of national defence. But in the course 
 of ages whatever was useful in the institution had dis- 
 appeared ; and nothing was left but ceremonies and 
 grievances. A landed proprietor who held an estate 
 under the crown by knight service, — and it was thus 
 that most of the soil of England was held, — had to 
 pay a large fine on coming to his property. He could 
 not alienate one acre without purchasing a license. 
 When he died, if his domains descended to an infant, 
 the sovereign was guardian, and was not only entitled 
 to great part of the rents during the minority, but could 
 reqvaire the ward, nnder heavy penalties, to marry any
 
 Cb. II.] UNDER CUARLES THE SECOND. 169 
 
 person of suitable rank. The chief bait which attracted 
 a needy sycophant to the court was the hope of obtain- 
 ing as the reward of serviHty and flattery, a royal letter 
 to an heiress. These abuses had perished with the 
 monarchy. That they should not revive with it was 
 the wish of every landed gentleman in the kingdom. 
 They were, therefore, solemnly abolished by statute ; 
 and no relic of the ancient tenures in chivalry was suf- 
 fered to remain, except those honorary services Avhich 
 are still, at a coronation, rendered to the person of the 
 sovereign by some lords of manors. 
 
 The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thou- 
 sand men, accustomed to the profession of pi<,bandin 
 arms, were at once thrown on the world : and °f the army, 
 experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change 
 would j)roduce much misery and crime, that the dis- 
 chai-ged veterans would be seen begging in everv street, 
 or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage. But 
 no such result followed. In a few months there re- 
 mained not a trace indicating that the most formidable 
 army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass 
 of the community. The Royalists themselves confessed 
 that, in every department of honest industry, the dis- 
 carded warriors ])rospered beyond other men, that none 
 was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was 
 heard to ask an alms, and that, if a baker, a mason, 
 or a waogoni'r attracted notice by his dilio-ence and 
 sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver's old 
 soldiers. 
 
 The military tyranny had passed away ; but it had 
 left deep and enduring traces in the public mind. The 
 name of a standing army was long held in abhorrence : 
 and it is remarkable th:it this feeling was even stronger 
 among the Cavaliers than among the Roundheads. It
 
 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. H 
 
 ought to be considered as a most fortunate circumstance 
 that, when our country was, for the first and last time, 
 ruled by the sword, the sword was in the hands, not of 
 her legitimate princes, but of those rebels who slew the 
 King and demolished the Church. Had a prince, with 
 a title as good as that of Charles, commanded an army 
 as good as that of Cromwell, there Avould have been 
 little hope indeed for the liberties of England. Happily 
 that instrument by which alone the monarchy could be 
 made absolute became an object of peculiar horror and 
 disgust to the monarchical party, and long continued to 
 be inseparably associated in the imagination of Royal- 
 ists and Prelatists with regicide and field preaching. 
 A century after the death of Cromwell, the Tories still 
 continued to clamour against every augmentation of 
 the regular soldiery, and to sound the praise of a 
 national militia. So late as the year 1786, a minister 
 who enjoyed no common measure of their confidence 
 found it impossible to overcome their aversion to his 
 scheme of fortifying the coast : nor did they ever look 
 with entire complacency on the standing army, till the 
 French Revolution gave a new direction to their appre- 
 hensions. 
 
 The coalition which had restored the King termi- 
 DLsputes be- natcd with the danger from which it had 
 
 tween the ., i m 
 
 Roundheads spruug ; and two hostile parties again ap- 
 liers renewed, pearcd ready for conflict. Both indeed were 
 agreed as to the propriety of inflicting punishment 
 on some unhappy men who were, at that moment, 
 objects of almost universal hatred. Cromwell was no 
 more ; and those who had fled before him were forced 
 to content themselves with the miserable satisfiiction 
 of digging up, hanging, quartering, and burning the 
 remains of the greatest prince that has ever ruled Eng-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 171 
 
 land. Otlier objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too 
 many, were found among the republican chiefs. Soon, 
 however, the conquerors, glutted with the blood of the 
 regicides, turned against each other. The Roundheads, 
 while admitting the virtues of the late King, and while 
 condemning the sentence passed upon him by an illegal 
 tribunal, yet maintained that his administration had 
 been, in many things, unconstitutional, and that the 
 Houses had taken arms against him from cjood motives 
 and on strong grounds. The monarchy, these poli- 
 ticians conceived, had no worse enemy than the flat- 
 terer who exalted the prerogative above the law, who 
 condemned all opposition to regal encroachments, and 
 who reviled, not only Cromwell and Harrison, but Pyra 
 and Hampden, as traitors. If the King wished for a 
 quiet and prosperous reign, he must confide in those 
 who, though they had drawn the sword in defence of 
 the invaded privileges of Parliament, had yet exposed 
 themselves to the rage of the soldiers in order to save 
 his father, and had taken the chief part in bringing 
 back the royal family. 
 
 The feeling of the Cavaliers was widely different. 
 During eighteen years they had, through all vicissi- 
 tudes, been faithful to the crown. Having shared the 
 distress of their prince, were they not to share his 
 triumph ? Was no distinction to be made between 
 them and the disloyal subject who had fought against 
 his rightful sovereio;n, who had adhered to Richard 
 Cromwell, and who had never concurred in the resto- 
 ration of the Stuarts, till it ap])eared that nothing else 
 could save the nation from the tyranny of the army ? 
 Grant that such a man had, by his recent services, 
 fairly earned his pardon. Yet were his services, ren- 
 dered at the eleventh hour, to be put in comparison
 
 172 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. H 
 
 with the toils and sufferings of those who had borne 
 the burden and heat of the day ? Was he to be ranked 
 with men who had no need of the royal clemency, with 
 men who had, in every part of their lives, merited the 
 royal gratitude ? Above all, was he to be suffered to 
 retain a fortune raised out of the substance of the 
 ruined defenders of the thi'one ? Was it not enoujrh 
 that his head and his patrimonial estate, a hundred 
 times forfeited to justice, were secure, and that he 
 shared, with the rest of the nation, in the blessings of 
 that mild government of which he had long been the 
 foe ? Was it necessary that he should be rewarded for 
 his treason at the expense of men whose only crime was 
 the fidelity with which they had observed their oath of 
 allegiance ? And what interest had the King in gorg- 
 ing his old enemies with prey torn from his old friends ? 
 What confidence could be placed in men who had op- 
 posed their sovereign, made war on him, imprisoned 
 him, and who, even now, instead of hann-ino; down 
 their heads in shame and contrition, vindicated all that 
 they had done, and seemed to think that they had given 
 an illustrious proof of loyalty by just stopping short of 
 regicide ? It was true that they had lately assisted to 
 set up the throne : but it was not less true that they 
 had previously pulled it down, and that they still 
 avowed principles which might impel them to pull it 
 down again. Undoubtedly it might be fit that marks 
 of royal approbation should be bestowed on some con- 
 verts who had been eminently useful : but policy, as 
 well as justice and gratitude, enjoined the King to give 
 the highest place in his regard to those who, from first 
 to last, through good and evil, had stood by his house. 
 On these grounds the Cavaliers very naturally de- 
 manded indemnity for all that they had sxiffered, and 
 
 I
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 173 
 
 preference in the distribution of the favours of the 
 crown. Some violent members of the party went fur- 
 ther, and clamoured for large categories of proscrij)tion. 
 The political feud was, as usual, exasperated by a 
 religious feud. The King found the Church Religious 
 in a sincrular state. A short time before the 'i^'^'^ension. 
 commencement of the civil war, his father had mven a 
 reluctant assent to a bill, strongly supj)orted by Falk- 
 land, which deprived the Bishops of their seats in the 
 House of Lords : but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had 
 never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, 
 however, had passed ordinances which had made a com- 
 plete revolution in Church government and in public 
 worship. The new system was, in princi])le, scarcely 
 less Erastian than that which it dis])laced. Tiie Houses, 
 guided chiefly by the counsels of the accomplished Sel- 
 den, had determined to keep the spiritual power strictly 
 subordinate to the temporal power. They had refused 
 to declare that any form of ecclesiastical polity was of 
 divine origin ; and they had provided that, from all the 
 Church courts, an appeal should lie in the last resort to 
 Tarliament. With this highly imj)ortant reservation 
 it had been resolved to set up in England a hierarchy 
 closely resembling that wliich now exists in Scotland. 
 The authority of councils, rising one above another in 
 regular gradation, was substituted for the authority of 
 Bishops and Archbishops. The Liturgy gave place to 
 the Presbyterian directory. But scarcely had the new 
 regulations been framed, when the Indejiendents rose 
 to supreme influence in the state. Tiie Iude])endents 
 had no disposition to enforce the ordinances touching 
 classical, provincial, and national synods. Those orth- 
 nances, therefore, were never carried into full execu- 
 tion. The Presbyterian system was fully established
 
 174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cii. II 
 
 nowhere but in Middlesex and Lancashire. In the 
 other fifty counties, almost eveiy parish seems to have 
 been unconnected with the neighbouring parishes. In 
 some districts, indeed, the ministers formed themselves 
 into voluntary associations, for the purpose of mutual 
 help and counsel ; but these associations had no coer- 
 cive power. The patrons of livings, being now checked 
 by neither Bishop nor Presbytery, would have been at 
 liberty to confide the cure of souls to the most scanda- 
 lous of mankind, but for tlie arbitrary intervention of 
 Oliver. He established, by his own authority, a board 
 of commissioners, called Triers. Most of these persons 
 were Independent divines ; but a few Presbyterian min- 
 isters and a few laymen had seats. The certificate of 
 the Triers stood in the place both of institution and of 
 induction ; and without such a certificate no person 
 could hold g, benefice. This was undoubtedly one of 
 the most despotic acts ever done by any English ruler. 
 Yet, as it was generally felt that, without some such 
 precaution, the country would be overrun by ignorant 
 and drunken reprobates, bearing the name and receiv- 
 ing the pay of ministers, some highly respectable per- 
 sons, who were not in general friendly to Cromwell, 
 allowed that, on this occasion, he had been a public 
 benefactor. The presentees whom the Triers had ap- 
 proved took possession of the rectories, cultivated the 
 glebe lands, collected tlie tithes, prayed without book 
 or suii)lice, and administered the Eucharist to commu- 
 nicants seated at loner tables. 
 
 Thus the ecclesiastical polity of the realm was in 
 inextricable confusion. Episcopacy was the form of 
 government prescribed by the old law which was still 
 unrepealed. The form of government prescribed by 
 parliamentary ordinance was Presbyterian. But neither
 
 Ch. II.] under CHARLES THE SECOND. 175 
 
 the old law nor the parliainentary oi'dinance was prac- 
 tically in force. The Church actually established may 
 be described as an irregular body made up of a few 
 Presbyteries, and of many Independent connregations, 
 which were all held down and held tojxether by the 
 authority of the government. 
 
 Of those who had been active in brino-inir back the 
 King, many were zealous for synods and for the direc- 
 tory, and many were desirous to terminate by a com- 
 promise the religious dissensions which had long agitated 
 England. Between the bigoted followers of Laud and 
 the bigoted followers of Knox there could be neither 
 peace nor truce : but it did not seem im|)ossible to effect 
 an accommodation between the moderate Episcopalians 
 of the school of Usher and the moderate Presbyterians 
 of the school of Baxter. The moderate Episcopalians 
 would admit that a Bishop might lawfully be assisted 
 by a council. The moderate Presbyterians would not 
 deny that each provincial assembly might lawfully have 
 a permanent president, and that this president mi<T;ht 
 lawfully be called a Bishop. There might be a revised 
 Liturgy which should not exclude extemporaneous 
 prayer, a baptismal service in which the sign of the 
 cross might be used or omitted at discretion, a com- 
 munion service at which the faithful might sit if their 
 consciences forbade tlieni to kneel. But to no such 
 plan could tlio great body of the Cavaliers listen with 
 patience. The religious members of that party were 
 ^conscientiously attached to the whole system of their 
 Church. She had been dear to their nunxlered King. 
 She had consoled them in defeat and ]K'nury. Her 
 service, so often whisj)ered in an inner cliamber during 
 the season of trial, had such a charm for them that they 
 were unwilling to part with a single response. Other
 
 176 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 Royalists, who made little pretence to piety, yet loved 
 the episcopal Church because she was the foe of their 
 foes. They valued a pi-ayer or a ceremony, not on ac- 
 count of the comfort which it conveyed to themselves, 
 but on account of the vexation which it gave to the 
 Roundheads, and were so far from being disposed to 
 purchase union by concession that they objected to con* 
 cession chiefly because it tended to pi'oduce union. 
 
 Such feelings, though blamable, were natuial and not 
 Unpopularity whollv incxcusable. The Puritans in the day 
 
 of the Puri- PI. 111111- 1 
 
 tans. or their power had undoubteclly given cruel 
 
 provocation. They ought to have learned, if from 
 nothing else, yet from their own discontents, from their 
 own straggles, from their own victory, fi*om the fall of 
 that proud hierarchy by which they had been so heavily 
 opj)ressed, that, in England, and in the seventeenth 
 century, it was not in the power of the civil magistrate 
 to drill the minds of men into conformity with his own 
 system of theology. They proved, however, as intol- 
 erant and as meddling as ever Laud had been. They 
 interdicted under heavy penalties the use of the Book 
 of Common Prayer, not only in churches, but even in 
 private houses. It was a crime in a child to read by 
 the bedside of a sick parent one of those beautiful col- 
 lects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations 
 of Christians. Severe punishments were denounced 
 against such as should presume to blame the Calvinistic 
 mode of worship. Clergymen of respectable character 
 were not only ejected from their benefices by thou- 
 sands, but were frequently exposed to the outrages of a 
 fanatical rabble. Churches and sepulchres, fine works 
 of art and curious remains of antiquity, were brutally 
 defaced. The Parliament resolved that all pictures in 
 the royal collection which contained representations
 
 Ch. D.] under CHARLES THE SECOND. 177 
 
 of Jesus or of the Virgin Mother should bu burned. 
 Sculpture tared as ill as painting. Nymphs and Graces, 
 the work of Ionian chisels, were delivered over to Pu- 
 ritan stonemasons to be made decent. Ao-ahist the 
 lighter vices the ruling faction waged war with a zeal 
 little tempered by humanity or by common sense. 
 Sharp laws were passed against betting. It was en- 
 acted that adultery should be punished with death. 
 The illicit intercourse of the sexes, even where neither 
 violence nor seduction was imputed, where no public 
 scandal was given, where no conjugal right was vio- 
 lated, was made a misdemeanour. Public amusements, 
 from the masques which were exhibited at the man- 
 sions of the great down to the wrestling matches and 
 grinning matches on village greens, were vigorously 
 attacked. One ordinance dii-ected that all the May- 
 poles in England should forthwith be hewn down. 
 Another proscribed all theati-ical diversions. The j)Iay- 
 houses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the 
 actors whipped at the cart's tail. Roj)edancing, pup- 
 petshows, bowls, horseracing, were regarded with no 
 friendly eye. But bearbaiting, then a favourite diver- 
 sion of high and low, was the abomination which most 
 strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is 
 to be remarked that their antii)athy to this sport had noth- 
 ing in conunon with the feeling which has, in our own 
 time, induced the legislature to interfere for the purpose 
 of protecting beasts against the wanton cruelty of men. 
 The Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain 
 to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the specta- 
 tors. Indeed, he generally contrived to enjoy the double 
 pleasure of tormenting both s[)ectators and bear.' 
 
 1 IIow little compassion for the bear had to do with the matter is suffi- 
 ciently proved by the Cullowiii^ extract from a paper entitled A perfect 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 ^ HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illus- 
 trates the temper of the precisians than their conduct 
 respecting Christmas day. Cliristmas h.ad been, from 
 time immemorial, the season of joy and domestic affec- 
 tion, the season when families assembled, when children 
 came home from school, when quarrels were made up. 
 when carols were heard in every street, when every 
 house was decorated with evergreens, and every table 
 was loaded with good cheer. At that season all hearts 
 not utterly destitute of kindness were enlarged and 
 softened. At that season the poor were admitted to 
 partake largely of the overflowings of the wealth of the 
 rich, whose bounty was peculiarly acceptable on ac- 
 count of the shortness of the days and of the severity 
 of the weather. At that season the intei'val between 
 landlord and tenant, master and servant, was less 
 marked than through the rest of the year. Where 
 there is much enjoyment there will be some excess : 
 yet, on the whole, the spirit in which the holiday was 
 kept was not unworthy of a Christian festival. The 
 
 Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and from other Parts of the King- 
 dom, from Monday July 24th, to Jlonday July 31st, 1643. " Upon the 
 queen's coming from Holland, slie brought with her, besides a company of 
 savagelike ruilians, a company of savage bears, to what purpose vou may 
 judge by the sequel. Those bears were left about Newark, and were 
 brought into country towns constantly on the Lord's day to be baited, such 
 is the religion those here related would setlle amongst us; and, if any went 
 about to hinder or but speak against their damnable profanations, they were 
 presently noted as Roundheads and Puritans, and sure to be plundered for 
 it. But some of Colonel Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Upping- 
 ham town, in Rutland, on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there 
 in the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, caused them to be 
 seized upon, tied to a tree and shot." This was by no means a solitary in- 
 stance. Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the 
 bear garden of Southwark to be killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist 
 as defending the act thus: — " The tirst thing that is upon my spirits is the 
 killing of tiie bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the names 
 in the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord Deputy 
 Ireton kill a bear? Did not another lord of ours kill five bears? " — Last 
 Speech and dying Words of Thomas Pride.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 179 
 
 Long rarliainent gave orders, in 1044, that the twenty- 
 fifth of December sJioukl be strictly observed as a fast, 
 and that all men should pass it in humbly bemoaning 
 the great national sin which they and their fathers had 
 so often committed on that day by romping under the 
 mistletoe, eating boar's head, and drinking ale flavoured 
 with roasted aj)ples. No public act of that time seems 
 to have irritated the common people more. On the 
 next anniversary of the festival formidable riots broke 
 out in many places. The constables were resisted, the 
 maoistrates insulted, the houses of noted zealots at- 
 tacked, and the proscribed service of the day openly 
 read in the churches. 
 
 Such was the sj)irit of the extreme Puritans, both 
 Presbyterian and Independent. Oliver, indeed, was 
 little disposed to be either a persecutor or a meddler. 
 But Oliver, the head of a party, and consequently, to 
 a great extent, the slave of a party, could not govern 
 altoirether accordino; to his own inclinations. Even 
 under his administration many magistrates, witliin their 
 own jurisdiction, made themselves as odious as Sir Hu- 
 dibras, interfered with all the pleasures of the neigh- 
 bourhood, dispersed festive meetings, and j)ut fiddlers 
 in the stocks. Still more formidable was the zeal of 
 the soldiers. In every village where they appeared 
 there was an end of dancing, bellringing, and hockey. 
 In London they several times interrupted theatrical 
 performances at which the Protector had the judgment 
 and eood nature to coimive. 
 
 With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyranny 
 contem])t was largely mingled. The peculiarities of 
 the Puritan, his look, his dress, his dialect, his strange 
 scruj)les, had been, ever since the time of Elizabeth, 
 favourite subjects with mockers. But these peculiar!-
 
 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch, II. 
 
 ties appeared far more grotesque in a faction Avliich 
 ruled a great empire than in obscure and persecuted 
 congregations. The cant which had moved laughter 
 when it was heard on the stage from Tribulation 
 Wholesome, and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more 
 laughable when it proceeded fi'om the lips of Generals 
 and Councillors of state. It is also to be noted that 
 during the civil troubles several sects had sprung into 
 existence, whose eccentricities surpassed anything that 
 had before been seen in England. A mad tailor, 
 named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse 
 to pothouse, tippling ale, and denouncing eternal tor- 
 ments against those who refused to believe, on his tes- 
 timony, that the Supreme Being was only six feet high, 
 and that the sun was just four miles from the earth. ^ 
 George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by pro- 
 claiming that it was a violation of Christian sincerity 
 to designate a single person by a plural pronoun, and 
 that it was an idolatrous homage to Janus and Woden 
 to talk about January and Wednesday. His doctrine, 
 a few years later, was embraced by some eminent 
 men, and rose greatly in the public estimation. But 
 at the time of the Restoration the Quakers were popu- 
 larly regarded as the most despicable of fanatics. By 
 the Puritans they were treated with severity here, 
 and were persecuted to the death in New England. 
 Nevertheless the public, which seldom makes nice 
 distinctions, often confounded the Puritan with the 
 Quaker. Both were schismatics. Both hated episco- 
 pacy and the Liturgy. Both had what seemed ex- 
 travagant whimsies about dress, diversions, and pos- 
 tures. Widely as the two differed in opinion, they 
 
 1 See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and Muggleton'i 
 worlis, 2>(tssini.
 
 Ch. II] under CHARLES THE SECOND. 181 
 
 were popularly classed together as canting schismat- 
 ics ; and whatever was ridiculous or odious in either 
 increased the scorn and aversion which the nmltitude 
 felt for both. 
 
 Before the civil wars, even those who most disliked 
 the opinions and manners of the Puritan were forced 
 to admit that his moral conduct was generally, in es- 
 sentials, blameless ; but this praise was now no longer 
 bestowed, and, unfortunately, was no longer deserved. 
 The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation 
 for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to lose it as 
 soon as they become powerful : and the reason is 
 obvious. It is seldom that a man in rolls himself in a 
 proscribed body from any but conscientious motives. 
 Such a body, therefore, is composed, with scarcely 
 an exception, of sincere persons. The most rigid dis- 
 cipline that can be enforced within a religious society 
 is a very feeble instrument of purification, when com- 
 pared with a little sharp persecution from without. 
 We may be certain that very few persons, not seri- 
 ously impressed by religioiis convictions, applied for 
 baptism while Diocletian was vexing the Church, or 
 ioined themselves to Protestant conirreirations at the 
 risk of being burned by Bonner. But, Avhen a sect 
 becomes ])owerful, when its favour is the road to riches 
 and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, 
 talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic; 
 its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest 
 members in all the outward indications of zeal. No 
 discernment, no watchfulness, on the part of ecclesias- 
 tical rulers, can prevent the intrusion of such false 
 brethren. The tares and the wheat must o;row to- 
 gether. Soon the world begins to find out that the 
 godly are not better than other men, and argues, with
 
 182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 some justice, tliat, if not better, they must be much 
 worse. In no lone; time all those signs which were 
 formerlv regarded as cliaracteristic of a saint are re- 
 garded as characteristic of a knave. 
 
 Thus it was with the English Nonconformists. They 
 had been oppressed ; and oppression had kept them a 
 pure body. They then became supreme in the state. 
 No man could hope to rise to eminence and command 
 but by their favour. Their favour was to be gained 
 only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords 
 of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions 
 adopted by Barebone's Parliament, the most intensely 
 Puritanical of all our political assemblies, was that no 
 person should be admitted into the public service till 
 the House should be satisfied of his real godliness. 
 What were then considered as the signs of real godli- 
 ness, the sad coloured dress, the sour look, the straight 
 hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with 
 quaint texts, the Sunday, gloomy as a Pliarisaicid 
 Sabbath, were easily imitated by men to whom all 
 religions were the same. The sincere Puritans soon 
 found themselves lost in a multitude, not merely of 
 men of the world, but of the very worst sort of men 
 of the world. For the most notorious libertine who 
 had fought under the royal standard might justly be 
 thought virtuous when compared with some of those 
 who, while they talked about sweet experiences and 
 comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice 
 of fraud, rapacity, and secret debauchery. The peo- 
 ple, with a rashness which we may justly regret, but 
 at which we cannot wonder, formed their estimate of 
 the whole body from these hypocrites. The theology, 
 the manners, the dialect of the Puritan were thus as- 
 sociated in the public mind with the darkest and mean-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 183 
 
 est vices. As soon as the Restoration liad made it safe 
 to avow enmity to the party which had so long been 
 predominant in the state, a general outcry against Pu- 
 ritanism rose from every corner of the kingdom, and 
 was often swollen by the voices of those very dissem- 
 blers whose villany had brought disgrace on the Puri- 
 tan name. 
 
 Thus the two great parties, which, after a long con- 
 test, had for a moment concurred in restoring mon- 
 archy, were, both in politics and in religion, again op- 
 posed to each other. The great body of the nation 
 leaned to the Royalists. The crimes of Strafford and 
 Laud, the excesses of the Star Chamber and of the 
 Hio'h Commission, the m'^^at services which the Long 
 Parliament had, during the first year of its existence, 
 rendered to the state, had faded from the minds of men. 
 The execution of Charles the First, the sullen tyranny 
 of the Rumj), the violence of the army, were remem- 
 bered with loathing ; and the multitude was inclined to 
 hold all who had withstood the late King responsible 
 for his death and for the subsequent disasters. 
 
 The House of Commons, having been elected "w hile 
 the Presbyterians were dominant, by no means repre- 
 sented the general sense of the })eo])le. Most of the 
 members, while execrating Cromwell and Bradshaw, 
 reverenced the memory of Essex and of Pym. One 
 sturdy Cavalier, who ventured to declare that all who 
 luul drawn the sword against Charles the First were 
 as much traitors as those who cut oif his head, was 
 called to order, placed at the bar, and rejirimanded 
 by the Speaker. The general wish of tlie House un- 
 doubtedly was to settle the ecclesiastical disputes in a 
 maimer satisfactory to the moderate Puritans. But to 
 such a settlement both the court and the luition were 
 averse.
 
 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 The restored King was at this time more loved by 
 Character of ^^^^ people than any of his predecessors had 
 Charles 11. ^^^^^, ^^^^^^ rpj^^ Calamities of his house, the 
 
 heroic death of his father, his own long sufferings and 
 romantic adventures, made him an object of tender in- 
 terest. His return had delivered the country from an 
 intolerable bondage. Recalled by the voice of both the 
 contending factions, he was in a position which enabled 
 him to arbitrate between them ; and in some respects 
 he was well qualified for the task. He had received 
 from nature excellent parts and a hap]:>y temper. His 
 education had been such as might have been expected to 
 develope his understanding, and to form him to the prac- 
 tice of every public and private virtue. He had passed 
 through all varieties of fortune, and had seen both sides 
 of human nature. He had, Avhile very young, been 
 driven forth from a palace to a life of exile, penury, and 
 danger. He had, at the age when the mind and body 
 are in their highest perfection, and when the first effer- 
 vescence of boyish passions should have subsided, been 
 recalled from his wanderings to wear a crown. He 
 had been taught by bitter experience how much base- 
 ness, perfidy, and ingratitude may lie hid under the 
 obsequious demeanour of courtiers. He had found, on 
 the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility 
 of soul. When wealth was offered to any who would 
 betray him, when death was denounced against all who 
 should shelter him, cottagers and serving men had kept 
 his secret truly, and had kissed his hand under his 
 mean disguises with as much reverence as if he had 
 been seated on his ancestral throne. From ;ach a 
 school it might have been expected that a young man 
 who wanted neither abilities nor amiable qualities would 
 have come forth a great and good King. Charles came
 
 Cn. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 185 
 
 forth from that school with social habits, with pohte 
 and engaging manners, and with some talent for lively 
 conversation, addicted beyond measure to sensual in- 
 dulgence, fond of sauntering and of frivolous amuse- 
 ments, inca[)able of selfdenial and of exertion, without 
 fiiith in human virtue or in human attachment, with- 
 out desire of renown, and without sensibility to re- 
 j)roach. According to him, every person was to be 
 bought : but some people haggled more about their 
 price than others ; and Avhen this hagghng was very 
 obstinate and very skilful it was called by some fine 
 name. The chief trick by which clever men kept up 
 the j)rice of their abilities was called integrity. The 
 chief trick by which handsome women kept up the 
 price of their beauty Avas called modesty. Tiie love 
 of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love 
 of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and 
 convenient synonymes for the love of self. Thinking 
 thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very little 
 A^hat they thought of him. Honour and shame were 
 scarcely more to him than light and darkness to the 
 blind. His contempt of flattery has been highly com- 
 mended, but seems, when viewed in connection with 
 tlie rest of his character, to deserve no commendation. 
 It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. 
 One who trusts nobody will not trust syco})hants. One 
 who does not value real glory will not value its coun- 
 terfeit. 
 
 It is creditable to Charles's temper that, ill as he 
 thought of his species, he never became a misanthrope. 
 He saw little in men but what was hateful. Yet he 
 did not Jiate them. Nay, he was so for humane tliat it 
 was highly disagreeable to him to see their suflerings 
 or to hear their complaints. This however is a sort of
 
 186 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ck. II 
 
 hump.nity whicli, tliougli amiable and laudable in a pri- 
 vate man whose power to help or hurt is bounded by 
 a narrow circle, has in ])rinces often been rather a vice 
 than a virtue. More than onfr-well disposed ruler has 
 given up whole provinces to rapine and oppression, 
 merely from a wish to see none but happy faces round 
 his own board and in his own walks. No man is fit to 
 govern great societies who hesitates about disobliging 
 the few who have access to him for the sake of the 
 many whom he will never see. The facility of Charles 
 was such as has perhaps never been found in any man 
 of equal sense. He was a slave without being a dupe. 
 Worthless men and women to the very bottom of whose 
 hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute of 
 affection for him and undeserving of his confidence, 
 could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, 
 state secrets and pardons. He bestowed much ; yet he 
 neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquii'ed the fame of 
 beneficence. He never gave spontaneously ; but it was 
 painful to him to refuse. The consequence Avas that 
 his bounty generally went, not to those who deserved 
 it best, nor even to those whom he liked best, but to 
 the most shameless and importunate suitor who could 
 obtain an audience. 
 
 The motives which governed the political conduct 
 of Charles the Second differed widely from those by 
 which his predecessor and his successor were actuated. 
 He was not a man to be imposed upon by the patri- 
 archal theory of government and the doctrine of divine 
 right. He was utterly without ambition. He detested 
 business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown 
 than have undergone the trouble of really directing 
 the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, and 
 such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who
 
 Ch. II j UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 187 
 
 attended hiin when he sate in council could not re- 
 frain from sneering at his frivolous remarks, and at 
 his childish impatience. Neither gratitude nor revenge 
 had anv share in determinino; liis course : for never 
 was there a mind on which both services and injuries 
 left such faint and transitory impressions. He wished 
 merely to be a King such as Lewis tlie Fifteenth of 
 France afterwards was ; a King who could draw with- 
 out limit on tlie treasurv for tlie eratification of liis 
 private tastes, who could hire with wealth and honours 
 persons capable of assisting him to kill the time, and 
 who, even when the state was brought by maladminis- 
 tration to the deptlis of humiliation and to the brink 
 of ruin, covdd still exclude unwelcome truth from the 
 purlieus of his own seraglio, and refuse to see and hear 
 whatever might disturb his luxurious repose. For 
 these ends, and for these ends alone, he wished to 
 obtain arbitrary power, if it could be obtained without 
 risk or trouble. In the religious disputes which di- 
 vided his Protestant subjects his conscience was not at 
 all intei-ested. For his opinions oscillated in a state 
 of contented suspense between hifidelity and Popery. 
 But, though his conscience Avas neutral in the quarrel 
 between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, his 
 taste was by no means so. His favourite vices were 
 precisely those to which the Puritans were least in- 
 dulgent. He could not get through one day without 
 the help of diversions which the Puritans regarded as 
 sinful. As a man eminently well bred, and keenly 
 sensible of the ridiculous, he was moved to contempt- 
 nous mirth by the Puritan oddities. He had indeed 
 some reason to dislike the rigid sect. He had, at the 
 age Avhen the passions are most impetuous and when 
 levity is most pardonable, spent some months in Scot-
 
 188 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. U. 
 
 land, a King in name, but in fact a state prisoner in the 
 hands of austere Presbyterians. Not content with re- 
 quiring him to conform to their worship and to subscribe 
 their Covenant, they had watched all his motions, and 
 lectured him on all his youthful follies. He had been 
 compelled to give reluctant attendance at endless pray- 
 ers and sermons, and might think himself fortunate 
 when he was not insolently reminded from the pulpit 
 of his own frailties, of his father's tyranny, and of his 
 mother's idolatry. Indeed he had been so miserable 
 during this part of his life that the defeat which made 
 him again a wanderer might be regarded as a deliver- 
 ance rather tlian as a calamity. Under the influence 
 of such feelings as these Charles was desirous to de- 
 press the party which had resisted his father. 
 
 The King's brother, James Duke of York, took the 
 Characters same side. Though a libertine, James was 
 
 of the Duke . . , ^ ' 
 
 of York and diligent, methodical, and fond of authority 
 
 Earl of Clar- ^ . . . - 
 
 endon. and busiucss. His understanding was sin- 
 
 gularly slow and narrow, and his temper obstinate, 
 harsh, and unforgiving. That such a prince should 
 have looked with no good will on the free institutions 
 of England, and on the party which was peculiarly 
 zealous for those institutions, can excite no surprise. 
 As yet the Duke professed himself a member of the 
 Anglican Church : but he had already shown inclina- 
 tions which had seriouslv alarmed good Protestants. 
 
 The person on whom devolved at this time the 
 greatest part of the labour of governing was Edward 
 Hyde, Chancellor of the realm, who was soon created 
 Earl of Clarendon. The respect which we justly feel 
 for Clarendon as a writer must not blind us to the 
 faults which he committed as a statesman. Some of 
 those faults, however, are explained and excused b^
 
 Ch. II.l UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 189 
 
 the unfortunate position in wliich he stood. He had, 
 during the first year of the Long Parhament, been 
 honorably distinguished among the senators who la- 
 boured to redress the grievances of the nation. One 
 of the most odious of those grievances, the Council of 
 York, had been removed in consequence chiefly of 
 liis exertions. When the great schism took place, 
 when the reforming party and the conservative party 
 tirst appeared marshalled against each other, he Avith 
 many wise and good men took the conservative side. 
 He thenceforward followed the fortunes of the court, 
 enjoyed as large a share of the confidence of Charles 
 the First as the reserved nature and tortuous policy 
 of that prince alloAved to any minister, and subsequently 
 shared the exile and directed the political conduct of 
 Charles the Second. At the Restoration Hyde became 
 chief minister. In a few months it Avas announced 
 that he was closely related by affinity to the royal 
 house. His daughter had become, by a secret mar- 
 riage, Duchess of York. His grandchildren might 
 perhaps wear the crown. He was raised by this illus- 
 trious connection over the heads of the old nobility 
 of the land, and was for a time supposed to be all 
 powerful. In some respects he was well fitted for his 
 great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No 
 man spoke with more weight and dignity in Council 
 and in Parliament. No man was better acquainted 
 with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed 
 the varieties of character with a more discriminating 
 eye. It must be added that he had a strong sense 
 of moral and relimous obli<ration, a sincere reverence 
 for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard 
 lor the honor and interest of the crown. But his 
 temper was sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition.
 
 190 fflSTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. 11 
 
 Above all, he had been long an exile ; and this cir- 
 cumstance alone would have completely disqualified 
 him for the supreme direction of affairs. It is scarcely 
 possible that a poHtician, who has been comjielled by 
 civil troubles to go into banishment, and to pass many 
 of the best years of his life abroad, can be fit, on the 
 day on which he returns to his native land, to be at 
 the head of the government. Clarendon was no ex- 
 ception to this rule. He had left England with a 
 mind heated by a fierce confhct which had ended in 
 the downfall of his party and of his own fortunes. 
 From 1646 to 1660 he had lived beyond sea, looking 
 on all that passed at home from a great distance, and 
 through a false medium. His notions of public affairs 
 were necessarily derived from the reports of plotters, 
 many of whom were ruined and desperate men. Events 
 naturally seemed to him auspicious, not in proportion as 
 they increased the prosperity and glory of the nation, 
 but in proportion as they tended to hasten the hour of 
 his own return. His wish, a wish which he has not 
 disguised, was that, till his countrymen brought 1 ack 
 the old line, they might never enjoy quiet or freedom. 
 At length he returned ; and, without having a single 
 week to look about him, to mix with society, to note 
 the changes which fourteen eventful years had pro- 
 duced in the national character and feelings, he was 
 at once set to rule the state. In such circumstances, 
 a minister of the greatest tact and docility would prob- 
 ably have fallen into serious errors. But tact and 
 docility made no part of the character of Clarendon. 
 To him England was still the England of his youth ; 
 and he sternly frowned down every theory and every 
 practice which had sprung up during his own exile. 
 Though he was far from meditating any attack on the
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 191 
 
 ancient and undoubted power of the House of Com- 
 mons, lie saw with extreme uneasiness the growth of 
 that power. The royal prerogative, for which he had 
 long suffered, and by which he had at length been 
 raised to wealth and dignity, was sacred in his eyes. 
 The Roundlicads he regarded both with political and 
 with personal aversion. To the Anglican Church he 
 had always been strongly attached, and had repeatedly, 
 where her interests were concerned, separated himself 
 with regret from his dearest friends. His zeal for 
 E])iscopacy and for the Book of Common Prayer was 
 now more ardent than ever, and was mingled with a 
 vindictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little 
 honour either as a statesman or as a Christian. 
 
 While the House of Commons which had recalled 
 the royal family Avas sitting, it was impossible to effect 
 the reestablishment of the old ecclesiastical system. 
 Not only were the intentions of, the court strictly con- 
 cealed, but assurances which quieted the minds of the 
 moderate Presbyterians were ffiven by the Kinjx in the 
 most solemn maimer. He had promised, before his 
 restoration, that he would gi\ant liberty of conscience 
 to his subjects. He now repeated that promise, and 
 added a promise to use his best endeavours for the 
 pui'pose of effecting a compromise between the con- 
 tending sects. He wished, he said, to see the spiritual 
 jurisdiction divided between bishops and synods. The 
 Liturgy should be revised by a body of learned divines, 
 one half of whom should be Presbyterians. The ques- 
 tions respecting the suri)lice, the posture at the Eu- 
 charist, and the sign of the cross in bajjtism, should be 
 settled in a Avay which would set tender consciences 
 at ease. When the King had thus laid asleep the 
 vigilance of those whom he most feared, he dissolved
 
 192 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, iCh. II. 
 
 the Parliament. He had ah'eady given his assent tc 
 an act by which an amnesty was granted, with few 
 exceptions, to all who, during the late troubles, had 
 been guilty of political offences. He had also obtained 
 from the Commons a grant for life of taxes, the annual 
 produce of which was estimated at twelve hundred 
 thousand pounds. The actual income, indeed, during 
 some years, amounted to little more than a million : 
 but this sum, together with the hereditaiy revenue of 
 the crown, was then sufficient to defray tlie ex])enses 
 of the government in time of peace. Nothing was 
 allowed for a standing army. The nation was sick of 
 the very name ; and the least mention of such a force 
 would have incensed and alarmed all parties. 
 
 Early in 1(361 took place a general election. The 
 General eiec- pooplc wcrc mad with loyal enthusiasm. 
 tionofi66i. rpj^g capital Avas excited by preparations for 
 the most splendid corojiation that had ever been knoAvn. 
 The result was that a body of representatives was re- 
 turned, such as England had never yet seen. A large 
 proportion of the successful candidates were men who 
 had fouo-ht for the crown and the Church, and whose 
 minds had been exasperated by many injuries and in- 
 sults suffered at the hands of the Roimdheads. When 
 the members met, the passions which animated each 
 individually acquired new strength from sympathy. 
 The House of Commons was, during some years, 
 more zealous for royalty than the King, more zealous 
 for episcopacy than the Bishops. Charles and Claren- 
 don were almost terrified at the completeness of their 
 own success. They found themselves in a situation 
 not unlike that in which Lewis the Eighteenth and the 
 Duke of Richelieu were placed while the Chamber of 
 1815 was sitting. Even if the King had been desirous
 
 Cn II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 193 
 
 tf) ftilfil the promises which he had made to the Pres- 
 byterians, it woukl liave been out of his power to do 
 so. It was indeed only by the strong exertion of his 
 influence that he could prevent the victorious Cava- 
 liers from rescinding the act of indemnity, and retali- 
 atinor without mercy all that they had suffered. 
 
 Tlie Commons began by resolving that every member 
 should, on pain of expulsion, take the sacra- violence of 
 ment according to the form prescribed by the in^the m*^" 
 old Liturgy, and that the Covenant should I'^'-i''^'"*'^* 
 be burned by the hangman in Palace Yard. An act 
 was passed, which not only acknowledged the power 
 of the sword to be solely in the King, but declared 
 that in no extremity whatever could the two Houses 
 be justified in withstanding him by force. Another 
 act was passed which required every officer of a corpo- 
 ration to receive the Eucharist accordino- to the rites 
 of the Churcli of England, and to swear that he licld 
 resistance to the King's authority to be in all cases un- 
 lawful. A few hotheaded men wished to bring in a 
 bill, which should at once annul all the statutes passed 
 by the Long Parliament, and should restore the Star 
 Chamber and the High Commission ; but the reaction, 
 violent as it Avas^ did not proceed quite to this lengtii. 
 It still continued to be the law that a Parliament should 
 be held every three years : but the stringent clauses 
 which dii-ected the returning officers to proceed to elec- 
 tion at the proper time, even without the royal writ, 
 were repealed. The Bishops were restored to their 
 seats in the Upj^er House. The old ecclesiastical polity 
 and the old Iviturgy were revived without any nK)difi- 
 cation which had any tendency to conciliate even the 
 most reasojiable Presbyterians. Episcopal ordination 
 was now, for the first time, made an indispensable qual- 
 
 voi.. I. 13
 
 194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. II. 
 
 ification for churcli preferment. About two thousand 
 ministers of religion, whose conscience did not suffer 
 tliem to conform, were driven from tlieir benefices in 
 one day. The dominant party exultingly reminded 
 the sufferers that the Long Parhament, when at tlie 
 height of power, had turned out a still greater num- 
 ber of Royalist divines. The reproach was but too 
 well founded : but the Lono; Parliament had at least 
 allowed to the divines whom it ejected a provision 
 sufficient to keep them fi'om starving ; and this ex- 
 ample the Cavaliers, intoxicated with animosity, had 
 not the justice and humanity to follow. 
 
 Then came penal statutes against Nonconformists, 
 Persecution statutes for whicli precedents might too easi- 
 
 of the _ ^ , , ", 
 
 Puritans. ]y \)q fouiul iu the Puritan legislation, but to 
 which the King could not give his assent without a 
 breach of promises publicly made, in the most impor- 
 tant crisis of his life, to those on whom his fate de- 
 pended. The Presbyterians, in extreme distress and 
 terror, fled to the foot of the throne, and pleaded their 
 recent services and the royal faith solemnly and repeat- 
 edly plighted. The King wavered. He could not deny 
 his own hand and seal. He could not but be conscious 
 that he owed much to the petitioners. He was little 
 in the habit of resisting importunate solicitation. His 
 temper was not that of a persecutor. He disliked the 
 Puritans indeed ; but in him dislike was a languid 
 feelincr, very little resemblino; the enerfjetic hatred 
 which had burned in the heart of Laud. He was, 
 moreover, partial to the Roman Catholic religion ; and 
 he knew that it would be impossibly to grant liberty 
 of v^orship to the ])rofessors of that religion without 
 extendincp the same indulcrence to Protestant dissenters. 
 He therefore made a feeble attempt to restrain the 
 intolerant zeal of the House of Commons ; but that
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 195 
 
 House was under the influence of far deeper convic- 
 tions, and far stronger passions than liis own. After a 
 faijit struggle he yielded, and passed, with the show of 
 alacrity, a series of odious acts against the separatists. 
 It was made a crime to attend a dissenting place of 
 worship. A single justice of the peace might convict 
 without a jury, and might, for the third offence, pass 
 sentence for transportation beyond sea for seven years. 
 With refined cruelty it was provided that the offender 
 should not be transported to New England, where he 
 was likely to find sympathizing friends. If he returned 
 to his own country before the expiration of his term of 
 exile, he was liable to capital punishment. A new and 
 most unreasonable test was imposed on divines who had 
 been deprived of their benefices for nonconformity ; and 
 all wlio refused to take that test were prohibited from 
 coming within five miles of any town which was gov- 
 erned by a corporation, of any town which was repre- 
 sented in Parliament, or of any town where they had 
 themselves resided as ministers. The magistrates, by 
 wiiom these rigorous statutes were to be enforced, were 
 in general men inflamed by party spirit and b}^ the re- 
 membrance of wrongs suflered in the time of the Com- 
 monweahh. The gaols were therefore soon crowded 
 with dissenters ; and, among the sufferers, were some 
 of whose genius and virtue any Christian society might 
 well be proud. 
 
 The Church of England was not uncrrateflil for the 
 protection which she received from the gov- z,..,, ^f 0,^ 
 ernment. From the first day of her exist- her^dHary 
 ence, she had been attaciied to monarchy, "'""'^''chy. 
 But, during the quarter of a century wliicli followed 
 the Restoration, her zeal iur royal authority and he- 
 reditary right passed all bounds. She had suftered
 
 198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 with the House of Stuart. She had been restored with 
 that House, She was connected with it by common 
 interests, fi'iendships, and enmities. It seemed im- 
 possible that a day could ever come when the ties 
 which bound her to the children of her august martyr 
 would be sundered, and when the loyalty in which 
 she gloried would cease to be a pleasing and pi'ofitable 
 duty. She accordingly magnified in fulsome phrase 
 that prerogative which Avas constantly employed to 
 defend and to aggrandise her, and reprobated, much 
 at her ease, the depravity of those whom oppression, 
 from which she was exempt, had goaded to rebellion. 
 Her favourite theme was the doctrine of nonresistance. 
 That doctrine she taught without any qualification, and 
 followed out to all its extreme consequences. Her dis- 
 ciples were never weary of repeating that in no con- 
 ceivable case, not even if England were cursed with a 
 King resembling Busiris or Phalaris, who, in defiance 
 of law, and without the pretence of justice, should daily 
 doom hundreds of innocent victims to torture and death, 
 would all the Estates of the realm united be justified 
 in withstanding his tyranny by physical force. Hap- 
 pily the principles of human nature afford abundant 
 security that such theories will never be more than 
 theories. The day of trial came : and the very men 
 who had most loudly and most sincerely professed this 
 extravagant loyalty were, in every county of England, 
 arrayed in arms against the throne. 
 
 Property all over the kingdom was now again chaiig- 
 ino- hands. The national sales, not havina; been con- 
 firmed by Act of Parliament, were regarded by the 
 tribunals as nullities. The bishops, the deans, the 
 ehajiters, the Royalist nobility and gentry, reentered on 
 their confiscated estates, and ejected even purchasers who
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 197 
 
 had given fair prices. The losses which the Cavaliers 
 had sustained dnring the ascendency of their op})onents 
 were thus in part repaired ; but in part only. All actions 
 for mesne profits were effectually barred by the general 
 amnesty ; and the numerovis Royalists who, in order to 
 discharge fines imposed by the Parliament, or in oi-der to 
 purchase the favour of powerful Roundheads, had sold 
 lands for much less than the real value, were not re- 
 lieved from the legal consequences of their own acts. 
 
 While these changes were in progress, a change still 
 more important took place in the morals and change in 
 manners of the community. Those passions of'^thTcom- 
 and tastes which, under the rule of the Puri- ™"°''y- 
 tans, had been sternly repressed, and, if gratified at 
 all, had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with 
 ungovernable violence as soon as the check was with- 
 drawn. Men flew to frivolous amusements and to 
 criminal jileasares with the greediness which long and 
 enforced abstinence naturally produces. Little re- 
 straint was imposed by public opinion. For the nation, 
 nauseated with cant, suspicious of all pretensions to 
 sanctity, and still smarting from the recent tyranny 
 of rulers austere in life and powerful in prayer, looked 
 for a time with complacency on the softer and gayer 
 vices. Still less restraint was imposed by the govern- 
 ment. Indeed there was no excess which was not 
 encouraged by the ostentatious profligacy of the king 
 and of his favourite courtiers. A few coinisellors of 
 Charles the First, who were now no longer young, 
 retained the decorous gravity which had been thirty 
 years before in flishion at Whitehall. Such were Clar- 
 endon himself, and his friends, Thomas Wriothesley, 
 Earl of Southam])ton, Lord Treasurer, and James But- 
 ler, Duke of Ormond, who, having through many vicis-
 
 198 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 situdes struggled gallantly for the royal cause in Ire- 
 land, now governed tliat kingdom as Lord Lieutenant. 
 But neither the memory of the services of these men, 
 nor their great power in the state, could protect them 
 from the sarcasms which modish vice loves to dart at 
 obsolete virtue. The praise of politeness and vivacity 
 could now scarcely be obtained except by some vio- 
 lation of decorum. Talents great and various assisted 
 to spread the contagion. Ethical philosophy had re- 
 cently taken a form well suited to please a generation 
 equally devoted to monarchy and to vice. Thomas 
 Hobbes had, in langiiage more precise and luminous 
 than has ever been em])loyed by any other metaphys- 
 ical writer, maintained that the will of the prince was 
 the standard of right and wrong, and that every sub- 
 ject ought to be ready to profess Popery, Mahome- 
 tanism, or Paganism at the royal command. Thou- 
 sands who were incompetent to appreciate what was 
 really valuable in his speculations, eagerly welcomed 
 a theory whicli, while it exalted the kingly office, re- 
 laxed the obligations of morality, and degraded relig- 
 ion into a mei'e affiiir of state. Hobbism soon became 
 an almost essential part of the character of the fine 
 gentleman. All the lighter kinds of literature were 
 deeply tainted by the prevailing licentiousness. Poetry 
 stooped to be the pandar of every low desire. Ridi- 
 cule, instead of putting guilt and error to the blush, 
 turned her formidable shafts against innocence and truth. 
 The restored Church contended indeed against the pre- 
 vailing immorality, but contended feebly, and with 
 half a heart. It was necessary to the decorum of her 
 character that she should admonish her erring chil- 
 dren. But her admonitions were given in a somewhat 
 perfunctory manner. Her attention was elsewhere
 
 Cn. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 199 
 
 engaged. Her whole soul was in tlie work of crushing 
 the Puritans, and of teaching her disciples to give unto 
 C;esar the things which were Ca3sar's. She had been 
 pillaged and oppressed by the party which preached an 
 austere morality. She had been restored to opulence 
 and honour by libertines. Little as the men of mirth 
 and fashion were disposed to shape their lives according 
 to her ))rece])ts, they were yet ready to fight knee deep 
 in blood for her cathedrals and palaces, for every line 
 of her rubric and every thread of her vestments. If 
 the debauched Cavalier haunted brothels and irambling: 
 houses, he at least avoided conventicles. If he never 
 spoke without uttering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made 
 some amends by his eagerness to send Baxter and Howe 
 to gaol for preaching and praying. Thus the clergy, 
 for a time, made war on schism with so much vigour 
 that they had little leisure to make war on vice. The 
 ribaldry of Etherege and Wycherley was, in the pres- 
 ence and under the special sanction of the head of the 
 Church, ])ublicly recited by female lips in female ears, 
 while the author of the Pilgrim's Progress languished 
 in a dungeon for the crime of proclaiming the gospel to 
 the poor. It is an uncpiestionable and a most instruc- 
 tive fact that the years during which the political power 
 of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were pre- 
 cisely the years during which national virtue was at the 
 lowest point. 
 
 Scarcely any rank or profession escaped the infection 
 of the ])revailing immorality ; but those per- Profligacy of 
 sons who made politics their business were p°'"""''»*- 
 perhaps the most corrupt ])art of the con-upt society. 
 For they were exposed not only to the same noxious 
 influences which afl'ected the nation generally, but also 
 to a taint of a ju'culiar and of a most malignant kind.
 
 200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 Their character liad been formed amidst fi-equent and 
 violent revolutions and comiterrevolutions. In the 
 course of a few years they had seen the ecclesiastical 
 and civil jiolity of their country repeatedly changed. 
 They had seen an Episcopal Church persecuting Puri- 
 tans, a Puritan Church persecuting Episcopalians, and an 
 E])iscoj)al Church persecuting Puritans again. They had 
 seen hereditary monarchy abolished and restored. They 
 had seen the Long Parliament thrice supreme in the 
 state and thrice dissolved amidst the curses and lauphter 
 of millions. They had seen a new dynasty rapidly ris- 
 ing to the height of power and glory, and then on a 
 sudden luirled down from the chair of state without a 
 struggle. They had seen a new representative system 
 devised, tried, and abandoned. They had seen a new 
 House of Lords created and scattei-ed. They had seen 
 great masses of property violently transferred from 
 Cavaliers to Roundheads, and from Roundheads back 
 to Cavaliers. During these events no man could be a 
 stirring and thriving politician who was not prepared 
 to change Avith every change of fortune. It was only 
 in retirement that any person could long keep the 
 character either of a steady Royalist or of a steady 
 Republican. One who, in such an age, is determined 
 to attain civil greatness must renounce all thought of 
 consistency. Instead of affecting immutability in the 
 midst of endless mutation, he must be always on the 
 watch for the indications of a comino; reaction. He 
 must seize tlie exact moment for deserting a fallinsr 
 cause. Having gone all lengths with a faction while 
 it was uppermost, he must suddenly extricate himself 
 from it when its difficulties begin, must assail it, must 
 persecute it, must enter on a new career of power and 
 prosperity in company with new associates. His situa-
 
 Ch. 11] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 201 
 
 tion naturally devclopes in hini to the highest degree a 
 pecuhar class of abilities and a peculiar class of vices. 
 He becomes quick of observation and fertile of resource. 
 He catches without effort the tone of any sect or party 
 with which he chances to mingle. He discerns the 
 signs of the times with a sagacity which to ihe mul- 
 titude appears miraculous, with a sagacity resembling 
 that with which a veteran police officer pursues the 
 faintest indications of crime, or with which a Mohawk 
 warrior follows a track through the woods. But we 
 shall seldom find in a statesman so trained, integrit}.-, 
 constancy, any of tiie virtues of the noble family of 
 Truth. He has no faith in any doctrine, no zeal for 
 any cause. He has seen so many old institutions swept 
 away, that he has no reverence for prescription. He 
 has seen so many new institutions from which much 
 had been expected produce mere disappointment, that he 
 has no hope of improvement. He sneers alike at those 
 who are anxious to preserve and at those who are 
 eatrer to reform. There is nothing in the state which 
 he could not, without a scrujjle or a blush, join in de- 
 fending or in destroying. Fidelity to opinions and to 
 friends seems to him mere dulness and wrongheaded- 
 nevSs. Politics he regards, not as a science of which the 
 object is the l)a[)j)iness of mankind, but as an exciting 
 game of mixed chance and skill, at which a dexterous 
 and lucky player may win an estate, a coronet, perhaps 
 a crown, and at which one rash move may lead to the 
 loss of fortune and of life. Ambition, which, in good 
 times, and in good minds, is half a virtue, now, dis- 
 joined from every elevated and philanthropic sentiment, 
 becomes a selfish cui)idity scarcely less ignoble than ava- 
 rice. Among those politicians who, from the Restora- 
 tion to the accession of the House of Hanover, wei*e at
 
 202 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 the head of the great parties in the state, very few can 
 be named whose reputation is not stained by what, in 
 our age, would be called gross perfidy and corruption. 
 It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the most un- 
 principled public men who have taken part in affairs 
 within our memory would, if tried by the standard 
 which was in fashion during the latter part of the seven- 
 teenth century, deserve to be regarded as scrupulous 
 and disinterested. 
 
 While these political, religious, and moral changes 
 state of were taking place in England, the royal au- 
 scotiand. thority had been without difficulty reestab- 
 lished in every other part of the British islands. In 
 Scotland the restoration of the Stuarts had been hailed 
 with deliorht : for it was regarded as the restoration of 
 national independence. And true it was that the yoke 
 which Cromwell had imposed was, in appearance, taken 
 away, that the Scottish Estates again met in their old 
 hall at Edinburgh, and that tlie Senators of the Col- 
 lege of Justice again administered the Scottish law 
 according to the old forms. Yet was the independence 
 of the little kingdom necessarily rather nominal than 
 real : for, as long as the King had England on his side, 
 he had nothing to apprehend from disaffection in his 
 other dominions. He was now in such a situation that 
 he could renew the attempt which had proved destruc- 
 tive to his father without any danger of his father's fate. 
 Charles the First had tried to force his own religion by 
 his regal power on the Scots at a moment when both 
 his religion and his regal power were unpopular in Eng- 
 land ; and he had not only failed, but had raised troubles 
 which had ultimately cost him his crown and his head. 
 Times had now changed : Enoland was zealous for mon- 
 archy and prelacy ; and therefore the scheme which had
 
 Cii. II. J UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 208 
 
 formerly been in the higiiest degree Imprudent might be 
 resumed with Httle risk to the throne. The government 
 resolved to set up a prelatical church in Scotland. The 
 design was disapproved by every Scotchman whose judg- 
 ment was entitled to respect. Some Scottish statesmen 
 who Avere zealous fur the king's prerogative had been 
 bred Presbyterians. Though little troubled with scru- 
 ples, they retained a preference for the religion of their 
 childhood ; and they well knew how strong a hold that 
 religion had on the hearts of their countrymen. They 
 remonstrated strongly: but, when they found that they 
 remonstrated in vain, they had not virtue enough to per- 
 sist in an opposition which would have given offence to 
 their master ; and several of them stooped to the wick- 
 edness and baseness of persecuting what in their con- 
 sciences they believed to be the purest form of Christi- 
 anity. The Scottish Parliament was so constituted that 
 it had scarcely ever offered an^ serious opposition even 
 to Kings much weaker than Charles then was. Episco- 
 pacy, therefore, was established by law. As to the form 
 of worshij), a large discretion was left to the clerg}''. In 
 some churches the English Lituro-v was used. In othei's, 
 the ministers selected fi'om that Liturgy such prayers 
 and thanksgivings as were likely to be least ofiensive to 
 the ])eople. But in general the doxology was sung at 
 the close of public worship, and the Apostles' Creed was 
 recited when baptism was administered. By the great 
 body of the Scottish nation the new Church was detested 
 both as superstitious and as foreign ; as tainted with the 
 corruptions of Rome, and as a mark of the predominance 
 of England. There was, however, no general insur- 
 rection. The country was not what it had been twenty- 
 two years before. Disastrous war and alien domination 
 had tamed the spirit of the people. The aristocracy,
 
 204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 which was held in great honour hy the niicklle class and 
 bj the pojjulace, had put itself at the head of the move- 
 ment against Charles the First, but proved obsequious 
 to Charles the Second. From the English Puritans no 
 aid was now to be expected. They were a feeble party, 
 ])roscnbed both by law and by public opinion. The 
 bulk of the Scottish nation, therefore, sullenly submitted, 
 and, with many misgivings of conscience, attended the 
 ministrations of the Episcopal clergy, or of Presbyterian 
 divines who had consented to accept from the govern- 
 ment a half toleration, known by the name of the In- 
 dulgence. But there were, particularly in the western 
 lowlands, many fierce and resolute men, who held that 
 the obligation to observe the Covenant was paramount 
 to the obligation to obey the magistrate. These people, 
 in defiance of the law, persisted in meeting to worship 
 God after their own fashion. The Indulgence they 
 regarded, not as a partial reparation of the wrongs 
 infiicted by the State on the Church, but as a new 
 wrong, the more odious because it was disguised under 
 the appearance of a benefit. Persecution, they said, 
 could only kill the body ; but the black Indulgence was 
 deadly to the soul. Driven from the towns, they as- 
 sembled on heaths and mountains. Attacked by the 
 civil power, they without scruple repelled force by force. 
 At every conventicle they mustered in arms. They 
 repeatedly broke out into open rebellion. They were 
 easily defeated, and mercilessly punished : but neither 
 defeat nor punishment could subdue their spirit. Hunted 
 down like Avild beasts, tortured till their bones were 
 beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, hanged by scores, 
 exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from Eng- 
 land, abandoned at another time to the mercy of troops 
 of marauders from the Highlands, they still stood at
 
 Ch. IL] under CHARLES THE SECOND. 205 
 
 bav in a mood so savage that the boldest and miohtiest 
 oppressor could not but dread the audacity of then* de- 
 spair. 
 
 Such was, during the reign of Charles the Second, 
 the state of Scotland. Ireland was not less gty^te of ire- 
 distracted. In that island existed feuds, com- ''*°''- 
 pared with which the hottest animosities of English poli- 
 ticians were lukewarm. The enmity between the Irish 
 Cavaliers and the Irish Roundheads was almost for- 
 gotten in the fiercer enmity which raged between the 
 English and the Celtic races. The interval between 
 the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian seemed to van- 
 ish, when compared with the interval which separated 
 both from the Papist. During the late civil troubles 
 the greater pai't of the Irish soil had been transferred 
 from the vanquished nation to the victors. To the 
 favour of the crown few either of the old or of the 
 new occupants had any pretensions. The despoilers 
 and the despoiled had, for the most part, been rebels 
 alike. The government was soon perplexed and weax*ied 
 b}^ the conflicting claims and mutual accusations of the 
 two incensed factions. Those colonists amon<i whom 
 Cromwell had portioned out the conquered territory, 
 and whose descendants are still called Cromwellians, 
 represented that the aboriginal inhabitants were deadly 
 enemies of the English nation under every dynasty, and 
 of the Protestant religion in every form. They described 
 and exagrrerated the atrocities which had disgraced the 
 insurrection of Ulster : they urged the King to follow 
 up with resolution the ])()licy of the Pi-otector ; and they 
 were not ashamed to hint tiiat there would never be 
 peace in Ireland till the old Irish race should be extir- 
 pated. The Roman Catholics extenuated their oflfence 
 as they best might, and expatiated in piteous languaiie
 
 206 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Cii. II. 
 
 Oil the severity of their punishment, which, in trutli, 
 had not been lenient. They implored Charles not to 
 confound the iriuocent with the guilty, and reminded 
 liim that many of the guilty had atoned for their fault 
 by returning to their allegiance, and by defending his 
 rights against the murderers of his father. The court, 
 sick of the importunities of two parties, neither of which 
 it had any reason to love, at length relieved itself from 
 trouble by dictating a compromise. That system cruel, 
 but most complete and energetic, by which Oliver 
 had proposed to make the island thoroughly English, 
 was abandoned. The Cromwellians were induced to 
 relinquish a third part of their acquisitions. The land 
 thus surrendered was capriciously divided among claim- 
 ants whom the government chose to favour. But great 
 numbers who protested that they were innocent of all 
 disloyalty, and some persons who boasted that their 
 loyalty had been signally displayed, obtained neither 
 restitution nor compensation, and filled France and 
 Spain with outcries against the injustice and ingratitude 
 of the House of Stuart. 
 
 Meantime the government had, even in England, 
 ceased to be popular. The Royalists had be- 
 
 The govern- i • i i i • t i 
 
 merit be- guu to quarrcl With the court and with each 
 popular in Other; and the party which had been van- 
 quished, trampled down, and, as it seemed, 
 annihilated, but which had still retained a strong prin- 
 ciple of life, again raised its head, and renewed the in- 
 terminable war. 
 
 Had the administration been faultless, the enthusiasm 
 with which the return of the King and the termination 
 of the military tyranny had been hailed could not have 
 been permanent. For it is the law of our nature that 
 such fits of excitement shall always be followed by re-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 207 
 
 missions. The manner in which the court abused its 
 victory made the remission speedy and complete. Every 
 moderate man was shocked by the insolence, cruelty and 
 perfidy with which the Nonconformists were treated. 
 The penal laws had effectually purged the oppressed 
 party of those insincere members whose vices had dis- 
 graced it, and had made it again an honest and pious 
 body of men. The Puritan, a conqueror, a ruler, a 
 persecutor, a sequestrator, had been detested. The 
 Puritan, betrayed and evil intreated, deserted by all the 
 timeservers who, in his prosperity, had claimed brother- 
 hood with liim, hunted from his home, forbidden under 
 severe penalties to pray or receive the sacrament ac- 
 cording to his conscience, yet still firm in his resolution 
 to obey God rather than man, was, in spite of some un- 
 pleasing recollections, an object of pity and respect to 
 well constituted minds. These feelinfrs became stronger 
 when it was noised abroad that the court was not dis- 
 posed to treat Papists Avith the same rigour which had 
 been shown to Presbyterians. A vague suspicion that 
 the King and the Duke were not sincere Protestants 
 sprang uj) in many (juarters. Many persons too wlio 
 had been disgusted by the austerity and hypocrisy of 
 the Saints of tiie Commonwealth began to be still more 
 disgusted by the open profligacy of the court and of the 
 Cavaliers, and were disposed to doubt whether the sul- 
 len ])reciseness of Praise God Barebone might not be 
 preferable to the outrageous profaneness and licentious- 
 ness of the Buckinghams and Sedleys. Even immoral 
 meii, who were not utterly destitute of sense and pub- 
 lic spirit, complainea tliat the govenmient treated the 
 most serious matters as trifles, and made trifles its seri- 
 ous business. A King might be })ardoned for amusing 
 his leisure with wine, wit, and beauty. But it was ill-
 
 208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, JCh. II. 
 
 tolerable that he should sink into a mere lounger and 
 voluptuary, that the gravest atfau's of state should be 
 neglected, and that the public service should be starved 
 and the finances derano-ed in order that harlots and 
 parasites might grow rich. 
 
 A large body of Royalists joined in these complaints, 
 and added many sharp reflections on the King's mgrat- 
 itude. His whole revenue, indeed, would not have 
 sufficed to reward them all in proportion to their own 
 consciousness of desert. For to every distressed gen- 
 tleman who had fought under Rupert or Derby his 
 own services seemed eminently meritorious, and his 
 own sufferings eminently severe. Every one had flat- 
 tered himself that, whatever became of the rest, he 
 should be largely recompensed for all that he had lost 
 during the civil troubles, and that the restoration of 
 the monarchy would be folloAved by the restoration of 
 his own dilapidated fortunes. None of these expect- 
 ants could restrain his indignation, when he found 
 that he was as poor under the King as he had been 
 under the Rump or the Protector. The negligence 
 and extravagance of the court excited the bitter indig- 
 nation of these loyal veterans. They justly said that 
 one half of what His Majesty squandered on concu- 
 bines and buffoons would gladden the hearts of hun- 
 dreds of old Cavaliers who, after cutting down their 
 .:aks and melting their plate to help his father, now 
 wandered about in threadbare suits, and chd not know 
 where to turn for a meal. 
 
 At the same time a sudden fall of rents took place. 
 The income of every landed proprietor was diminished 
 by five shillings in the pound. The cry of agricultural 
 distress rose from every shire in the kingdom ; and 
 for that distress the government was, as usual, held
 
 Ch. IL] under CHARLES THE SECOND. 209 
 
 accountable. The gentry, compelled to retrench their 
 expenses for a period, saw with indignation the increas- 
 ing splendour and profusion of Whitehall, and were 
 immovably fixed in the belief that the money which 
 ought to have supported their households had, by 
 some inexplicable process, gone to the favourites of the 
 kino;. 
 
 The minds of men were now in such a temper that 
 every public act excited discontent. Charles liad taken 
 to Avife Catharine Princess of Portun;al. The marriafTe 
 was generally disliked ; and the murmurs became loud 
 when it appeared that the King was not likely to have 
 any legitimate posterity. Duidiirk, won by Oliver 
 fi'om Sj)ain, was sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King 
 of France. This bargain excited general indignation. 
 Englishmen were already beginning to observe with 
 uneasiness the progress of the French power, and to 
 regard the House of Bourbon with the same feeling 
 with Avhich their grandfathers had regarded the House 
 of Austria. Was it wise, men asked, at such a time, to 
 make any addition to the sti'ength of a monarchy al- 
 ready too formidable ? Dunkirk was, moreover, prized 
 by the people, not merely as a place of arms, and as a 
 key to the Low Countries, but also as a trophy of Eng- 
 lish valour. It was to the subjects of Charles what 
 Calais had been to an earlier generation, and what the 
 rock of Gibraltar, so manfully defended, through tlis- 
 astrous and perilous years, against the fleets and armies 
 of a mighty coalition, is to ourselves. The ])lea of 
 economy might have had some weight, if it had been 
 urged by an economical government. But it was no- 
 torious that the charges of Dunkirk fell far short of the 
 sums which were wasted at court in vice and folly. It 
 seemed insujjportable that a sovereign, profuse beyond 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. It 
 
 example in all that regarded his own pleasures, should 
 be niggardly in all that regarded the safety and honour 
 of the state. 
 
 The public discontent was heightened, when it was 
 found that, while Dunkirk was abandoned on the plea 
 of economy, the fortress of Tangier, which was part of 
 the dower of Queen Catharine, was repaired and ke{)t 
 up at an enormous charge. That jjlace was associated 
 with no recollections gratifying to the national pride : 
 it could in no way promote the national interests : it 
 involved us in inglorious, unprofitable, and intermi- 
 nable wars with tribes of half savao;e Mussvilmans ; and 
 it was situated in a climate singularly unfavourable to 
 the health and vicjour of the Enolish race. 
 
 But the murmurs excited by these eri'ors were faint, 
 War with the wlicu Compared with the clamours which soon 
 Dutch. broke forth. The government eno-aged in 
 
 war with the United Provinces. The House of Com- 
 mons readily voted sums unexampled in our history, 
 sums exceeding those which had supported the fleets 
 and armies of Cromwell at the time when his power 
 was the terror of all the world. But such was the 
 extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those who 
 had succeeded to his authority, that this liberality 
 proved worse than useless. The sycophants of the 
 court, ill qualified to contend against the great men 
 who then directed the arms of Holland, against such a 
 statesman as De Witt, and such a commander as De 
 Ruyter, made fortunes rapidly, while the sailors mu- 
 tinied from very hunger, while the dockyards were 
 unguarded, w^hile the ships were leaky and w'ithout 
 ' rigging. It was at length determined to abandon 
 all schemes of offensive war ; and it soon appeared 
 that even a defensive war was a task too hard for
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 211 
 
 that administration. The Dutch fleet sailed up the 
 Tliames, and burned the ships of war which lay at 
 Chatham. It was said that, on the very day of tliat 
 great humiliation, the King feasted with the ladies of 
 his seraglio, and amused himself with hunting a moth 
 about the supper room. Then, at length, tardy justice 
 was done to the memory of Oliver. Everywhere men 
 magnified his valour, genius, and patriotism. Every- 
 where it was remembered how, when he ruled, all 
 foreign powers had trembled at the name of England, 
 how the States General, now so haughty, had crouched 
 at his feet, and how, when it was known that he was 
 no more, Amsterdam was lighted up as for a great 
 deliverance, and children ran along the canals, shout- 
 ing for joy that the devil was dead. Even Royalists 
 exclaimed that the State could be saved only by call- 
 ino; the old soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. 
 Soon the capital began to feel the miseries of a block- 
 ade. Fuel was scarcely to be procured. Tilbury Fort, 
 the place where Elizabeth had, with manly spirit, 
 hurled foul scorn at Parma and Spain, was insulted by 
 the invaders. The roar of foreign guns was heard, 
 for the first and last time, by the citizens of London. 
 In the Council it was seriously proposed that, if the 
 enemy advanced, the Tower should be abandoned. 
 Great multitudes of people assembled in the streets 
 crying out that England was bought and sold. The 
 houses and carriages of the ministers were attacked by 
 the populace ; and it seemed likely that the govern- 
 ment would have to deal at once with an invasion and 
 with an insurrection. The extreme danger, it is tnie, 
 soon passed by. A treaty was concluded, very different 
 from the treaties which Oliver had been in the liabit 
 of signing ; and the nation was once more at pear.p
 
 212 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 but was in a mood scarcely less fierce and sullen than 
 in the days of shipinoney. 
 
 The discontent engendered by maladministi-ation was 
 heightened by calamities which the best administration 
 could not have averted. While the ignominious war 
 with Holland was raging, London suffered two great 
 disasters, such as never, in so short a space of time, 
 befell one city. A pestilence, surpassing in horror 
 any that during three centux'ies had visited the island, 
 swept away, in six months, more than a hundred thou- 
 sand human beings. And scarcely had the dead cart 
 ceased to go its rounds, when a fire, such as had not 
 been known in Europe since the conflagration of Rome 
 under Nero, laid in ruins the whole City, fi'om the 
 Tower to the Temple, and from the river to the pur- 
 lieus of Smithfield. 
 
 Had there been a general election while the nation 
 Opposition "^^^ Smarting under so many disgraces and 
 iiou'^se of misfortunes, it is probable that the Roundheads 
 Commons. -vvould havc regained ascendency in the state. 
 But the Parliament was still the Cavalier Parliament, 
 chosen in the transport of loyalty which had followed 
 the Restoration. Nevertheless it soon became evident 
 that no English legislature, however loyal, would now 
 consent to be merely what the legislature had been 
 under the Tudors. From the death of Elizabeth to the 
 eve of the civil war, the Puritans, who predominated 
 in the representative body, had been constantly, by a 
 dexterous use of the power of the purse, encroaching 
 on the province of the executive government. The 
 gentlemen who, after the Restoration, filled the Lower 
 House, though they abhorred the Puritan name, Mere 
 well pleased to inherit the fruit of the Puritan policy. 
 They were indeed most willing to employ the power
 
 Ch. n.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 213 
 
 which they possessed in the state for the purpose of mak- 
 ing- tlieir Kiiic: inio;hty and lionoiired, both at home and 
 abroad : but with the power itself they w^ere resolved 
 not to part. The great English revolution of the 
 seventeenth century, that is to say, the transfer of the 
 supreme control of the executive administration from 
 the crown to the House of Commons, was, through 
 the whole long existence of this Parliament, jn-oceeding 
 noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles, kept poor 
 by his follies and vices, wanted money. The Commons 
 alone could legally grant him money. They could not 
 be prevented from putting their own price on their 
 grants. The price which they put on their grants 
 was this, that they should be allowed to interfere with 
 every one of the King's prerogatives, to wring from 
 him his consent to laws which he disliked, to break up 
 cabinets, to dictate the coui'se of foreign policy, and 
 even to direct the administration of war. To the royal 
 office, and the royal person, they loudly and sincerely 
 professed the strongest attachment. But to Clarendon 
 they owed no allegiance ; and they fell on him as furi- 
 ously as their predecessors had fallen on Straf- p.^ji ^f 
 ford. The minister's virtues and vices alike ciarenaon. 
 contributed to his ruin. He was the ostensible head 
 of the administi-ation, and was therefore held resjH)n- 
 sible even for those acts which he had strongly, but 
 vainly, opposed in Council. He was regarded by the 
 Puritans, and by all who ])itied them, as an implacable 
 bigot, a second Land, with much more than Laud's 
 understandin<i. He had on all occasions maintained 
 that the Act of Indemnity ought to l)e strictly ob- 
 served ; and this part of his conduct, though highly 
 honourable to him, made him hateful to all those Roy- 
 alists who wished to repair their ruined fortunes by
 
 214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 suing the Roundheads for damages and mesne profits. 
 The Presbyterians of Scotland attributed to him the 
 downfall of their Church. The Papists of Ireland at- 
 tributed to him the loss of their lands. As father of 
 the Duchess of York, he had an obvious motive for 
 wishing that there might be a barren Queen ; and he 
 "was therefore suspected of liaving purposely recom- 
 mended one. The sale of Dunkirk was justly im- 
 puted to him. For the war with Holland he was, with 
 less justice, held accountable. His hot temper, his ar- 
 rogant deportment, the indelicate eagerness with which 
 he grasped at riches, the ostentation w^ith which he 
 squandered them, his picture gallery, filled with mas- 
 terpieces of Vandyke w^hich had once been the property 
 of ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which reared its long 
 and stately front right opposite to the humbler resi- 
 dence of our Kings, dre^v on him much deserved, and 
 some undeserved, censure. When the Dutch fleet was 
 in the Thames, it was against the Chancellor that the 
 rage of the populace was chiefly directed. His windows 
 were broken, the trees of his garden cut down, and a 
 gibbet set up before his door. But nowhere was he more 
 detested than in the House of Commons. He was unable 
 to perceive that the time was fast approaching when 
 that House, if it continued to exist at all, must be su- 
 preme in the state, when the management of that House 
 would be the most important department of politics, 
 and when, Avithout the help of men possessing the ear 
 of that House, it would be impossible to carry on the 
 government. He obstinately persisted in considering 
 the Parliament as a body in no respect differing from 
 the Parliament which had been sitting when, forty years 
 before, he first began to study law at the Temple. He 
 did not wish to depi-ive the legislature of those powers
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 215 
 
 wliich were inherent in it by the old constitution of 
 the realm : but the new development of those powers, 
 though a development natural, inevitable, and to be 
 j)revented only by utterly destroying the powers them- 
 selves, disiiusted and alarmed him. Nothino; would 
 have induced him to put the great seal to a writ for 
 raising shipmoney, or to give his voice in Council for 
 committing a member of Parliament to the Tower, on 
 account of words spoken in debate : but, when the Com- 
 mons began to inquire in what manner the money voted 
 for tlie war had been wasted, and to examine into the 
 malachninistration of the navy, he flamed with indigna- 
 tion. Such inquiry, according to him, was out of their 
 province. He admitted that the House was a most 
 loyal assembly, that it had done good service to the 
 crown, and that 'ts intentions were excellent. But, 
 both in ])ublic and in the closet, he, on every occasion, 
 expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely at- 
 tached to monarchy should unadvisedly incroach on the 
 prerogative of the monarch. Widely as they differed 
 in spirit from the members of the Long Parliament, 
 they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament in meddling 
 Avith matters which lay beyond the sphere of the Es- 
 tates of the realm, and which were subject to the au- 
 thority of the crown alone. The country, he main- 
 tained, would never be well governed till the knio;hts 
 of shires and the burgesses were content to be what 
 their ])redecessors had been in the days of Elizabeth. 
 All the plans which men more observant than himself 
 of the signs of that time proposed, for the purj)ose of 
 maintaining a good understanding between the Court 
 and the Commons, he disdainfully rejected as crude 
 projects, inconsistent witli the old polity of Emrland. 
 Towards the young orators, Avho were rising to distinc-
 
 216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. U. 
 
 tion and authority in the Lower House, his deportment 
 was ungracious ; and he succeeded in making them, 
 with scarcely an exception, his deadly enemies. In- 
 deed one of his most serious faults was an inordinate 
 contempt for youth : and this contempt was the more 
 unjustifiable, because his own experience in English 
 politics was by no means proportioned to his age. For 
 so great a part of his life had been passed abroad that 
 he knew less of that world in which he found himself on 
 his return than many who might have been his sons. 
 
 For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. 
 For very different reasons he was equally disliked by 
 the Court. His morals as well as his politics M'ere 
 those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a 
 young law student, living much with men of wit and 
 pleasure, his natural gravity and his religious principles 
 had to a great extent preserved him from the contagion 
 of fashionable debauchery ; and he was by no means 
 likely, in advanced years and in declining health, to 
 turn libertine. On the vices of the young and gay he 
 looked with an aversion almost as bitter and contempt- 
 uous as that which he felt for the theological errors of 
 the sectaries. He missed no oppoi'tnnity of showing 
 his scorn of the mimics, revellers, and courtesans who 
 croAvded the palace ; and the admonitions which he ad- 
 dressed to the King himself were very sharp, and, what 
 Charles disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any 
 voice was raised in favour of a minister loaded with the 
 double odium of faults Avhich roused the fury of the 
 people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned 
 the sovereign. Southampton was no more. Ormond 
 performed the duties of friendship manfully and faith- 
 fully, but in vain. The Chancellor fell with a great 
 ruin. The seal was taken from him : the Commons
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 217 
 
 impeached liim : his head was not safe : he fled from 
 the country : an act was passed wliich doomed him to 
 perpetual exile ; and those who had assailed and un- 
 dermined him began to struggle for the fragments of 
 his power. 
 
 The sacrifice of Clarendon in some decree took off 
 the edge of the public appetite for revenge. Yet was 
 the anger excited by the profusion and negligence of 
 the government, and by the miscarriages of the late 
 war, by no means extinguished. The counsellors of 
 Charles, with the fete of the Chancellor before their 
 eyes, were anxious for their own safety. Tliey accord- 
 ingly advised their master to soothe the irritation which 
 prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout the 
 country, and for that end, to take a step which has no 
 parallel in the history of the House of Stuart, and which 
 was worthy of the prudence and magnanimity of Oliver. 
 
 We have now reached a point at which the histoiy 
 of the great English revolution begins to be state of 
 complicated with the history of foreign poli- politics, and 
 tics. The power of Spain had, during many oV France, 
 years, been declining. Siie still, it is true, held in 
 Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies, Belgium, 
 and Franche Comt^. In America her dominions still 
 spread, on both sides of the equator, far beyond the 
 limits of the torrid zone. But this great body had been 
 smitten with palsy, and was not only incapable of giv- 
 ing molestation to other states, but could not, without 
 assistance, repel aggression. France was now, beyond 
 all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her re- 
 sources have, since those days, absolutely increased, 
 but have not increased so fast as the resources of En<:- 
 land. It must also be remembered that, a hundred 
 and eighty years ago, the empire of Russia, now a mon-
 
 218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 archy of tlie first class, was as entirely out of the sys- 
 tem of European politics as Abyssinia or Siani, that 
 the House of Brandenburg was then hardly more 
 powerful than the House of Saxony, and that the re- 
 public of the United States had not then begun to 
 exist. The weight of France, therefore, though still 
 very considerable, has relatively diminished. Her ter- 
 ritory was not in the days of Lewis the Fourteenth 
 quite so extensive as at present : but it was large, com- 
 pact, fertile, well placed both for attack and for defence, 
 situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, 
 active, and ingenious people. The state implicitl^^ 
 obeyed the direction of a single mind. The great fiefs 
 which, three hundred years before, had been, in all but 
 name, independent princij)alities, had been amiexed to 
 the crown. Only a few old men could remember the 
 last meeting of the States General. The resistance 
 which the Huguenots, the nobles, and the parliaments 
 had offered to the kingly power, had been put down 
 by the two great Cardinals who had ruled the nation 
 during forty years. The government was now a des- 
 potism, but, at least in its dealings with the upper 
 classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by 
 courteous manners and chivalrous sentiments. The 
 means at the disposal of the sovereign were, for that 
 age, truly formidable. His revenue, raised, it is true, 
 by a severe and unequal taxation which pressed heavily 
 on the cultivators of the soil, far exceeded that of any 
 other potentate. His army, excellently disciplined, and 
 commanded by the greatest generals then living, al- 
 ready consisted of more than a hundred and twenty 
 thousand men. Such an array of regular troops had 
 not been seen in Europe since the do^vnfall of the Ro- 
 man empire. Of maritime powers Fi'ance was not the
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 219 
 
 first. But, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not 
 yet a superior. Such was her strength during the last 
 forty years of the seventeenth century, that no enemy 
 could singly withstand her, and that two great coali- 
 tions, in which half Christendom was united ao-fvinst 
 her, failed of success. 
 
 The personal qualities of the French King added to 
 the res])ect inspired by the power and impor- character 
 tance of his kino;dom. No sovereign has ever xiv. 
 represented the majesty of a great state with more dig- 
 nity and grace. He was his own prime minister, and 
 performed the duties of a jirinie minister with an 
 ability and an industry which could not be reasonably 
 expected from one who had in infancy succeeded to a 
 crown, and who had been surrounded by flatterers 
 before he could speak. He had shown, in an eminent 
 degree, two talents invaluable to a prince, the talent 
 of choosing his servants well, and the talent of appro- 
 priating to himself the chief part of the credit of their 
 acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some 
 generosity, but no justice. To unhappy allies who 
 threw themselves at his feet, and had no hope but in 
 his compassion, he extended his protection with a ro- 
 mantic disinterestedness, which seemed better suited to 
 a knight errant than to a statesman. But he broke 
 through the most sacred ties of pubhc faith without 
 scruple or shame, whenever they interfered with his 
 interest, or with what he called his glory. His perfidy 
 and violence, however, excited less enmity than the 
 insolence with which he constantly reminded his neigh- 
 bours of his own greatness and of their littleness. He 
 did not at this time profess the austere devotion wJiicn, 
 at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a mon- 
 astery. On the contrary, he was as hcentious, though
 
 220 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. H. 
 
 by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brotlier 
 of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic ; 
 and botli his conscience and his vanity impelled him to 
 use his power for the defence and propagation of the 
 true faith, after the example of his renowned predeces- 
 sors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and Saint Lewis. 
 
 Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on 
 the growing power of France. This feeling, in itself 
 perfectly reasonable, was mingled with other feelings 
 less praiseworthy. France was our old enemy. It was 
 against France that the most glorious battles recorded 
 in our annals had been fought. The conquest of France 
 had been twice effected by the Plantagenets. The loss 
 of France had been long remembered as a great national 
 disaster. The title of King of France was still borne 
 by our sovereigns. The lilies of France still appeared, 
 mingled with our own lions, on the shield of the House 
 of Stuart. In the sixteenth century the dread inspired 
 by Spain had suspended the animosity of which France 
 had anciently been the object. But the dread inspired 
 by Spain had given place to contemptuous compassion ; 
 and France was again regarded as our national foe. 
 The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most gen- 
 erally unpopular act of the restored King. Attachment 
 to France had been prominent among the crimes im- 
 puted by the Commons to Clarendon. Even in trifles the 
 pubhc feeling showed itself When a brawl took place 
 in the streets of Westminster between the retinues of 
 the French and Spanish embassies, the populace, though 
 forcibly prevented from interfei'ing, had given unequiv- 
 ocal proofs that the old antipathy was not extinct, 
 
 France and Spain were now engaged in a more seri- 
 ous contest. One of the chief objects of the ]iolicy of 
 Lewis throughout his life was to extend his dominions
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 221 
 
 towards the Rhine. For tliis end he had engao-ed in 
 war with Spain, and he was now in the full career of 
 conquest. The United Provinces saw Avith anxiety the 
 progress of his arms. That renowned federation liad 
 reached the height of power, prosperity, and glory. 
 The Batavian territory, conquered from the waves, and 
 defended against them by human art, was in extent 
 little superior to the principality of Wales. But all that 
 narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which 
 new wealth was every day created, and in which vast 
 masses of old wealth were hoarded. The aspect of 
 Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, 
 the ever whirling mills, tlie endless fleets of barges, the 
 quick succession of great towns, the ports bristling with 
 thousands of masts, the largo and stately mansions, the 
 trim villas, the richly furnislied apartments, the picture 
 galleries, the summer houses, the tulip beds, produced 
 on Englisli travellers in that age an eflect similar to the 
 effect which the first sight of England now produces on 
 a Norwegian or a Canadian. The States General had 
 been compelled to humble themselves before Cromwell. 
 But after the Restoration they had taken their revenge, 
 had waged war with success against Charles, and had 
 concluded peace on honourable terms. Rich, however, 
 as the Republic was, and highly considered in Europe, 
 she was no match for the i)ower of Lewis. She appre- 
 hended, not without good cause, that his kingdom might 
 soon be extended to her frontiers ; and she mio-ht well 
 dread the immediate vicinity of a monarch so great, so 
 ambitious, and so unscrupulous. Yet it was not easy 
 to devise any expedient whicii might avert the danger. 
 The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against France. 
 On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expected. 
 Several German princes had been gained by Lewis ; and
 
 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. H 
 
 the Emperor himself was embarrassed by the discon- 
 tents of Hungary. England was separated from the 
 United Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries 
 recently inflicted and endured ; and her policy had, 
 since the Restoration, been so devoid of wisdom and 
 spirit, that it was scarcely possible to expect from her 
 any valuable assistance. 
 
 But the fate of Clarendon and the growing ill hu- 
 mour of the Parliament determined the advisers of 
 Charles to adopt on a sudden a policy which amazed 
 and dehghted the nation. 
 
 The English resident at Brussels, Sir William Tem- 
 The Triple V^^i ^^^ ^^ the most cxpert diplomatists and 
 AUiance. most plcasiug wHtcrs of that age, had already 
 represented to his court that it was both desirable and 
 practicable to enter into engagements with the States 
 General for the purpose of checking the progress of 
 France. For a time his suggestions had been slighted; 
 but it was now thought expedient to act on them. He 
 was commissioned to negotiate with the States General. 
 He proceeded to the Hague, and soon came to an un- 
 derstanding with John De Witt, then the chief minis- 
 ter of Holland. Sweden, small as her resources were, 
 had, forty years before, been raised by the genius of 
 Gustavus Adolphus to a high rank among European 
 powers, and had not yet descended to her natural po- 
 sition. She was induced to join on this occasion with 
 Enrrland and the States. Thus was formed that coali- 
 tion known as the Triple Alhance. Lewis showed signs 
 of vexation and resentment, but did not think it politic 
 to draw on himself the hostility of such a confederacy 
 in addition to that of Spain. He consented, therefore, 
 to relinquish a large part of the territory which his 
 armies had occupied. Peace was restored to Europe ;
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 223 
 
 and the English government, lately an object of gen- 
 eral contempt, was, during a few months, regarded by 
 foreign powers with res})ect scarcely less than that 
 which the Protector had inspired. 
 
 At home tiie Triple Alliance was popular in the 
 hiohest deo-ree. It gratified alike national animosity 
 
 kT< <^ <-* * 
 
 and national ])ride. It put a Ihnit to the encroach- 
 ments of a ])owerful and ambitious neighbour. It 
 bound the leading Protestant states together in close 
 union. Cavaliers and Roundheads rejoiced in com- 
 mon : but the joy of the Roundhead was even greater 
 than that of the Cavalier. For England had now allied 
 herself strictly with a country re))ublican in govern- 
 ment and Presbyterian in religion, against a country 
 ruled bv an arbitrarv prince and attached to the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church. The House of Commons loud- 
 ly aj)j)lauded the treaty ; and some uucourtly grumblers 
 described it as the only good thing that had been done 
 since the King came in. 
 
 The King, however, cared little for the approbation 
 of his Pai-liameut or of his people. The Triple t^^ country 
 Alliance he regarded merely as a temporary ^'*'''^" 
 expedient for quieting discontents which luul seemed 
 likely to become serious. The independence, the safety, 
 the dignity of the nation over which he presided were 
 nothing to him. He had begun to find constitutional 
 restraints ffidlinir- Already had been formed in the 
 Parliament a strong connection known by the name 
 of the Country Party. That party included all the 
 public men who leaned towards Puritanism and Re- 
 j)ublicanism, and many who, though attached to the 
 Church and to hereditary monarchy, had been driven 
 into o})position by dread of Poj)ery, by dread of France, 
 and b}' disgust at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and
 
 2'Z4: HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 faitlilessiiess of the court. The power of this band of 
 politicians was constantly growing. Every year some of 
 those members who had been returned to Parliament 
 during the loyal excitement of 1661 had dropped off; 
 and the vacant seats had generally been filled by per- 
 sons less tractable. Charles did not think himself a 
 King while an assembly of subjects could call for his 
 accounts before paying his debts, and could insist on 
 knowing which of his mistresses or boon companions 
 had intercepted the money destined for the equipping 
 and manning of the fleet. Though not very studious 
 of fame, he was galled by the taunts which were some- 
 times uttered in the discussions of the Commons, and 
 on one occasion attempted to restrain the freedom of 
 speech by disgraceful means. Sir John Coventry, a 
 country gentleman, had, in debate, sneered at the prof- 
 ligacy of the court. In any former reign he would 
 probably have been called before the Privy Council 
 and committed to the Tower. A diflerent course was 
 now taken. A gang of bullies was secretly sent to slit 
 the nose of the offender. This ignoble reveno-e, in- 
 stead of quelling the spirit of opposition, raised such a 
 tempest that the King was compelled to submit to the 
 cruel humiliation of passing an act which attainted the 
 instruments of his revenge, and which took from him 
 the power of pardoning them. 
 
 But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, 
 how was he to emancipate himself from them ? He 
 could make himself despotic only by the help of a great 
 standing army ; and such an army was not in exist- 
 ence. His revenues did indeed enable him to keep 
 up some regular troops : but those troops, though 
 numei'ous enough to excite great jealousy and appre- 
 hension in the House of Commons and in the coun-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 225 
 
 try, were scarcely numerous enough to protect Wliite- 
 hall aticl the Tower against a rising of the mob of 
 London. Such risings were, indeed, to be dreaded; 
 for it was calculated that in the capital and its sub- 
 urbs dwelt not less than twenty thousand of Oliver's 
 old soldiers. 
 
 Since the King was bent on emancipating himself 
 from the control of Parliament, and since, in connection 
 such an enterprise, he could not hope for ef- ^hirHe^ir 
 fectual aid at home, it followed that he must ^""^ *'"'^"'=*- 
 look for aid abroad. The power and wealth of the 
 King of France might be equal to the arduous task of 
 establishing absolute monarchy in England. Such an 
 ally would undoubtedly expect substantial proofs of 
 gratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to 
 the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace and 
 war according to the directions of the government 
 which protected him. His relation to Lewis would 
 closely resemble that in Avhich the Rajah of Nagpore 
 and the King of Oude now stand to the British oov- 
 ernment. Those piinces are bound to aid the East 
 Lidia Company in all hostilities, defensive and offen- 
 sive, and to have no diplomatic relations but such as 
 the East Lidia Company shall sanction. The Com- 
 pany in return guarantees them against insurrection. 
 As long as they faithfully discharge their obligations to 
 the ])aram()unt power, they ai'e ])ermitted to dispose 
 of large revenues, to fill their jialaces with beautiful 
 women, to besot themselves in the company of their 
 favourite revellers, and to oppress with impunity any 
 subject who may incui their dis]ileasure. Such a life 
 woidd oe insupportable to a man of high spirit and 
 of powerful understanding. But to Charles, sen- 
 sual, indolent, unequal to any strong intellectual ex 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 ertion, and destitute alike of all patriotism and of all 
 sense of personal dignity, the prospect had nothing un- 
 pleasing. 
 
 That the Duke of York should have concurred in 
 the design of degrading that crown which it was prob- 
 able that he would himself one day wear may seem 
 more extraordinary. For his nature was haughty and 
 imperious ; and, indeed, he continued to the very last 
 to show, by occasional starts and struggles, his impa- 
 tience of the French yoke. But he was almost as much 
 debased by superstition as his brother by indolence and 
 vice. James was now a Roman Catholic. Religious 
 bigotry had become the dominant sentiment of his nar- 
 row and stubborn mind, and had so mingled itself with 
 his love of rule, that the two passions could hardly be 
 distino-uished from each other. It seemed hio-hly im- 
 probable that, without foreign aid, he would be able to 
 obtain ascendency or even toleration for his own ftiith : 
 and he was in a temper to see nothing humiliating in 
 any step which might promote the interests of the true 
 Church. 
 
 A negotiation was opened which lasted during sev- 
 eral months. The chief ao-ent between the English 
 and French courts was the beautiful, graceful, and 
 intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of 
 Charles, sister in law of Lewis, and a favourite with 
 both. The King of England offered to declare himself 
 a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alliance, and 
 to join with France against Holland, if France would 
 engage to lend him such military and pecuniary aid as 
 might make him independent of his Parliament. Lewis 
 at first affected to receive these propositions coolly, and 
 at length agreed to them with the air of a man who is 
 conferring a great favour: but in truth, the course
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 227 
 
 wliicli he had resolved to take was one by which he 
 miii'lit gain and could not lose. 
 
 It seems certain that he never seriously thought of 
 establishino; despotism and Popery in Eng- views of 
 land by force of arms. He nuist have been J;^speirto'^ 
 aware that such an enterprise -would be in i^"*''''^"'^- 
 the hio-hest degree arduous and liazardous, that it would 
 task to the utmost all the energies of France during 
 many years, and that it Avould be altogether incompati- 
 ble with more promising schemes of aggrandisement, 
 which were dear to his heart. He would indeed will- 
 ingly have acquired the merit and the glory of doing 
 a great service on reasonable terms to the Church of 
 which he was a member. But he was little disposed 
 to imitate his ancestors who, in the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries, had led the flower of French chiv- 
 alry to die in Syria and Egypt ; and he well knew 
 that a crusade against Protestantism in Great Britain 
 would not be less perilous than the expeditions in which 
 the armies of Lewis the Seventh and of Lewis the 
 Ninth had perished. He had no motive for wishing 
 the Stuarts to be absolute. He did not regard the 
 English constitution with feelings at all resembling 
 those which have in later times induced princes to 
 make war on the free institutions of neighbouring na- 
 tions. At present a great party zealous for popular 
 government has ramifications in every civilised coun- 
 try. Any ini])ortant advantage gained anyAvhere by 
 that party is almost certain to be the signal for gen- 
 ei'al commotion. It is not wonderful that govern- 
 ments threatened by a common danger should com- 
 bine for the purpose of mutual insurance. But in the 
 seventeenth century no such danwr existed. Between 
 the public mind of England and the public mind of
 
 228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 France, there was a great gulpli. Our institutions and 
 our factions were as little understood at Paris as at 
 Constantinople. It may be doubted whether any one 
 of the forty members of the French Academy had an 
 English volume in his library, or knew Shakspeare, 
 Jonson, or Spenser, even by name. A few Hugue- 
 nots, who had inherited the mutinous spirit of their an- 
 cestors, might perhaps have a fellow feeling with their 
 brethren in the faith, the English Roundheads : but the 
 Huguenots had ceased to be formidable. The French, 
 as a people, attached to the Church of Rome, and proud 
 of the greatness of their King and of their own loyalty, 
 looked on our struggles against Popery and ai'bitrary 
 power, not only without admiration or sympathy, but 
 with strong disapprobation and disgust. It would there- 
 fore be a great error to ascribe tlie conduct of Lewis to 
 apprehensions at all resembling those which, in our age, 
 induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal 
 troubles of Naples and Spain. 
 
 Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of 
 Whitehall were most welcome to him. He already 
 meditated piffantic designs, which were destined to 
 keep Europe in constant fermentation during more 
 than forty years. He wished to humble the United 
 Provinces, and to annex Belgium, Franche Comt^, 
 and Loraine to his dominions. Nor was this all. The 
 King of Spain was a sickly child. It was likely that he 
 would die without issue. His eldest sister was Queen 
 of France. A day would almost certainly come, and 
 might come very soon, when the House of Bourbon 
 might lay claim to that vast empire on which the sun 
 never set. The union of two great monarchies under 
 one head would doubtless be opposed by a continental 
 coalition. But for any continental cc»alition France
 
 Ch. II.J UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 229 
 
 single handed was a match. England could turn the 
 scale. On the course which, in such a crisis, England 
 might pursue, the destinies of the world would depend ; 
 and it was notorious that the English Parliament and na- 
 tion were strongly attached to the ])olicy which had dic- 
 tated the Triple Alliance. Nothing, therefore, could be 
 more gratifying to Lewis than to learn that the princes 
 of the House of Stuart needed his help, and were willing 
 to purchase that help by unbounded subserviency. He 
 determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid down 
 for himself a plan to which, Avithout deviation, he ad- 
 hered, till the Revolution of 1G88 disconcerted all his 
 politics. He professed himself desirous to promote the 
 designs of the English court. He promised large aid. 
 He from time to time doled out such aid as might serve 
 to keep hope alive, and as he could without risk or in- 
 convenience spare. In this way, at an expense very 
 much less than that which he incurred in buildino; and 
 decorating Versailles or Marli, he succeeded in making 
 England, during nearly twenty years, almost as insig- 
 nificant a member of the political system of Europe as 
 the republic of San Marino. 
 
 His object was not to destroy our constitution, but 
 to keep the various elements of which it was composed 
 in a perpetual state of conflict, and to set irreconcihxble 
 enmity between those who had the power of the purse 
 and those who had the ])ower of the sword. With 
 this view he bribed and stinudated both parties in turn, 
 pensioned at once the ministers of the crown and the 
 chiefs of the opposition, encouraged the court to with- 
 stand the seditious encroachments of the Parliament, 
 and conveyed to the Parliament intimations of the arbi- 
 trary designs of the court. 
 
 One of the devices to which he resorted for the pur-
 
 230 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. li. 
 
 pose of obtaining an ascendency in the English counsels 
 deserves especial notice. Charles, though incapable of 
 love in the highest sense of the word, was the slave of 
 any woman whose person excited his desires, and whose 
 airs and prattle amused his leisure. Indeed a husband 
 would be justly derided who should bear from a wife 
 of exalted rank and spotless virtue half the insolence 
 which the King of England bore from concubines who, 
 while thev owed evervthino; to his bounty, caressed his 
 courtiers almost before his face. He had patiently en- 
 dured the termagant passions of Barbara Palmer and 
 the pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis thought 
 that the most useful envoy who could be sent to Lon- 
 don, would be a handsome, licentious, and crafty 
 Frenchwoman. Such a Avoman was Louisa, a lady of 
 the House of Querouaille, whom our rude ancestors 
 called Madam Carwell, She was soon triumj)hant over 
 all her rivals, was created Duchess of Portsmouth, was 
 loaded with wealth, and obtained a dominion which 
 ended only with the life of Charles. 
 
 The most important conditions of the alliance be- 
 Treaty of twccn the crowHS were digested into a secret 
 Dover. treaty which was signed at Dover in May 
 
 1670, just ten years after the day on which Charles 
 had landed at that very port amidst the acclamations 
 and joyful tears of a too confiding people. 
 
 By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public 
 profession of the Roman Catholic religion, to join his 
 arms to those of Lewis for the purpose of destroying 
 the power of the United Provinces, and to employ the 
 whole strength of England, by land and sea, in support 
 of the rights of the House of Bourbon to the vast 
 monarchy of Spain. Lewis, on the other hand, en- 
 gaged to pay a large subsidy, and promised that, if any
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 231 
 
 insurrection should break out in England, he would 
 send an anny at his own charge to support his ally. 
 
 This compact was made with gloomy auspices. Six 
 weeks after it had been sicrned and sealed, the charm- 
 ing princess, whose influence over her brother and 
 brother in law had been so pernicious to her country, 
 was no more. Her death gave rise to horrible sus- 
 picions which, for a moment, seemed likely to interrupt 
 the newly formed friendship between the Hovises of 
 Stuart and Bourbon : but in a short time fresh assur- 
 ances of undiminished good will were exchanged be- 
 tween the confederates. 
 
 The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or 
 too fanatical to care about it, was impatient to see the 
 article touching the Roman Catholic relioion carried 
 into immediate execution : but Lewis had the wisdom 
 to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would 
 be such an explosion in England as would probably 
 frustrate those parts of the plan which he had most at 
 heart. It was therefore determined that Charles shoidd 
 still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high 
 festivals, receive the sacrament accordino; to the ritual 
 of the Church of England. His more scrupulous 
 brother ceased to appear in the royal chapel. 
 
 About this time died the Duchess of York, daughter 
 of the banished Earl of Clarendon. She had been, 
 during some years, a concealed Roman Catholic. She 
 leil two daughters, Mary and Anne, afterwards suc- 
 cessively Queens of Great Britain. They were bred 
 Protestants by the positive command of the King, who 
 knew that it woidd be vain for him to jn'ofess himself 
 a member of the Church of England, if children who 
 seemed likely to inherit his throne were, by his permis- 
 sion, brought uj)as members of the Church of Rome.
 
 232 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 The principal servants of the crown at this time 
 were men whose names have justly acquired an unen- 
 viable notoriety. We must take heed, however, that 
 we do not load their memory with infamy which of 
 right belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover 
 the King himself is chiefly answerable. He held con- 
 ferences on it with the French agents : he wrote many 
 letters concerning it with his own hand: he was the 
 person who first suggested the most disgraceful articles 
 which it contained ; and he carefully concealed some 
 of those articles from the majority of his Cabinet. 
 
 Few things in our history are more curious than the 
 Nature of ^ origin and growth of the power now possessed 
 Cabinet. by the Cabinet. From an early period the 
 Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Coun- 
 cil to which the law assigned many important functions 
 and duties. During several centuries this body de- 
 liberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But 
 by degrees its character changed. It became too large 
 for despatch and secrecy. The rank of Privy Coun- 
 cillor was often bestowed as an honorary distinction on 
 persons to whom nothing was confided, and whose 
 opinion was never asked. The sovereign, on the most 
 important occasions, resorted for advice to a small knot 
 of leading ministers. The advantages and disadvan- 
 tages of this course were early pointed out by Bacon, 
 with his usual judgment and sagacity : but it was not 
 till after the Restoration that the interior council began 
 to atti-act general notice. During many years old fash- 
 ioned politicians continued to regard the Cabinet as an 
 unconstitutional and dangerous board. Nevertheless, 
 it constantly became more and more important. It at 
 length drew to itself the chief executive power, and 
 has now been regarded, during several generations, as
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 233 
 
 an essentiiil part of our polity. Yet, strange to say, it 
 still continues to be altogether unknown to the law. 
 The names of the noblemen and oentlemen who com- 
 pose it are never officially announced to the public. 
 No record is kept of its meetings and resolutions ; nor 
 has its existence ever been recognised by any Act of 
 Parliament. 
 
 During some years the word Cabal was popitlarly 
 used as synonvmous with Cabinet. But it 
 
 •^ •' , . . . . The Cabal. 
 
 happened by a whimsical coincidence that, in 
 1671, the Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial 
 letters of whose names made up the word Cabal, Clif- 
 ford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. 
 These ministers were therefore emphatically called the 
 Cabal ; and they soon made that appellation so infa- 
 mous that it has never since their time been used ex- 
 cept as a term of reproach. 
 
 Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the 
 Treasury, and had greatly distinguished himself in the 
 House of Commons. Of the members of the Cabal he 
 was the most respectable. For, with a fiery and im- 
 perious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably 
 perverted sense of duty and honour. 
 
 Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of 
 State, had, since he came to manhood, resided princi- 
 pally on the Continent, and had learned that cosmo- 
 politan indifference to constitutions and religions which 
 is often observable in persons whose life has been passed 
 in vagrant diplomacy. If there was any form of gov- 
 ernment which he liked, it was that of France. If 
 there was any Chiu'ch for which he felt a preference, it 
 was that of Rome. He had some talent for conversa- 
 tion, and some talent also for transacting the ordinary 
 business of office. He had learned, during a life passed
 
 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 in travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating 
 his language and deportment to the society in which he 
 found himself. His vivacity in the closet amused the 
 King : his gravity in debates and conferences imposed 
 on the public : and he had succeeded in attaching to 
 himself, partly by services and partly by hopes, a con- 
 siderable number of personal retainers. 
 
 Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, were men in 
 whom the immorality which was epidemic among the 
 politicians of that age appeared in its most malignant 
 type, but variously modified by great diversities of 
 temper and understanding. Buckingham was a sated 
 man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as to a 
 pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with archi- 
 tecture and music, with writinjT farces and with seeking 
 for the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse 
 himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war. He 
 had already, rather from fickleness and love of novelty 
 than from any deep design, been faithless to every 
 party. At one time he had ranked among the Cava- 
 liers. At another time warrants had been out against 
 him for maintaining a treasonable correspondence with 
 the remains of the Republican party in the city. He 
 was now again a courtier, and was eager to win the 
 favour of the King by services from which the most 
 illustrious of those who had fought and suffered for the 
 royal house would have recoiled with horror. 
 
 Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far 
 fiercer and more earnest ambition, had been equally 
 versatile. But Ashley's versatility was the effect, not 
 of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had served 
 and betrayed a succession of governments. But he 
 had timed all his treacheries so well that, through all 
 revolutions, his fortunes had constantly been rising.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 235 
 
 The multitude, struck witli admiration by a pros})erity 
 which, while everything else was constantly changing, 
 remained unchangeable, attributed to him a prescience 
 almost miraculous, and likened him to the Hebrew- 
 statesman of whom it is written that his counsel was 
 as if a man had inquired of the oi-acle of God. 
 
 Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and an- 
 ger, was perhaps, under the outward show of boisterous 
 frankness, the most dishonest man in the whole Cabal. 
 He had made himself conspicuous among the Scotch 
 insurgents of 1638, by his zeal for the Covenant. He 
 was accused of having been deeply concerned in the 
 sale of Charles the First to the Eniilish Parliament, 
 and was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, 
 a traitor, if possible, of a worse description than those 
 who had sate in the High Court of Justice. He often 
 talked with noisy jocularity of the days when he was a 
 canter and a rebel. He was now the chief instrument 
 employed by the court in the work of forcing epis- 
 copacy on his reluctant countrymen ; nor did he in 
 that cause siirink from the unsparing use of the sword, 
 the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew him 
 knew that thirty years had made no change in his real 
 sentiments, that he still hated the memory of Charles 
 the First, and that he still preferred the Presbyterian 
 form of church government to every other. 
 
 Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauder- 
 dale were, it was not thought safe to entrust to them 
 the King's intention of declaring himself a Roman 
 Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article concern- 
 ing religion was omitted, was shoAvn to them. Hk" 
 names and seals of Clifford and Arlington are affixed 
 to the gemiine treaty. Both these statesmen had a 
 partiality for the old Church, a partiality which the
 
 236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 brave and vehement Cliftbrd in Jio long time manfully 
 avowed, but which the colder and meaner Arlington 
 concealed, till the near approach of death scared liim 
 into sincerity. The three other cabinet ministers, how- 
 ever, were not men to be easily kept in the dark, and 
 probably suspected more than was distinctly avowed to 
 them. They were certainly privy to all the political 
 engagements contracted with France, and were not 
 ashamed to receive large gratifications from Lewis. 
 
 The first object of Charles was to obtain from the 
 Commons supplies which might be employed in execut- 
 ing the secret treaty. The Cabal, holding power at a 
 time when our government was in a state of transition, 
 united in itself two different kinds of vices belono-ino; 
 to two different ages and to two different systems. As 
 those five evil counsellors were amono; tlie last Eno;- 
 lish statesmen who seriously thought of destroying the 
 Parliament, so they were the first English statesmen 
 who attempted extensively to corrupt it. We find in 
 their policy at once the latest trace of the Thorough 
 of Strafford, and the earliest trace of that methodical 
 bribery which was afterwards practised by Walpole. 
 They soon perceived, however, that, though the House 
 of Commons was chiefly composed of Cavahers, and 
 though places and French gold had been lavished on 
 the members, there was no chance that even the least 
 odious parts of the scheme arranged at Dover would 
 be supported by a majority. It was necessaiy to have 
 recourse to fraud. The King accordingly professed 
 great zeal for the principles of the Triple Alliance, 
 and pretended that, in order to hold the ambition of 
 France in check, it would be necessary to augment the 
 fleet. The Commons fell into the snare, and voted a 
 grant of eight hvindred thousand pounds. The Par-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 237 
 
 liament was instantly prorogued ; and the court, thus 
 emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution 
 of the gTeat design. 
 
 The financial difficulties were serious. A war with 
 Holland could be carried on only at enor- shutting 
 mous cost. The ordmary revenue was not chequer. 
 more than sufficient to support the government in time 
 of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of 
 which the Commons had just been tricked would not 
 defray the naval and military charge of a single year 
 of hostilities. After the terrible lesson given by the 
 Lono; Parliament, even the Cabal did not venture to 
 recommend benevolences or shipmoncy. In this per- 
 plexity Ashley and CliflFord proposed a flagitious breach 
 of public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then 
 not only dealers in the precious metals, but also bankers, 
 and were in the habit of advancing large sums of money 
 to the government. In return for these advances they 
 received assignments on the revenue, and were repaid 
 with interest as the taxes came in. About thirteen 
 hundred thousand pounds had been in this way en- 
 trusted to the honour of the state. On a sudden it 
 was annoiuiced that it was not convenient to pay the 
 principal, and that the lenders must content themselves 
 with interest. They were consequently unable to meet 
 their own euiiao-ements. The Exchange was in an 
 uproar : several great mercantile houses broke ; and 
 dismay and distress spread through all society. Mean- 
 while rapid strides were made towards despotism. 
 Proclamations, dis])ensing with Acts of Parliament or 
 enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully enjoin, 
 appeared in raj)id succession. Of these edicts the 
 most important was the Declaration of Indulgence. By 
 this instrument the penal laws against Roman Cath*
 
 238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn. IL 
 
 olics were set aside by royal autliority ; and, that the 
 real object of the measure might not be perceived, the 
 laws against Protestant Nonconformists were also sus- 
 pended. 
 
 A few days after the appearance of the Declaration 
 War with "^ Indulgence, Avar was proclaimed against 
 f^^nces, t^ie United Provinces. By sea the Dutch 
 exfreme"^ maintained the struggle with honour ; but 
 danger. ^^^ ]g^j^^ thcv wcrc at first borne down by ir- 
 
 resistible force. A great Fi'ench army passed the 
 Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three 
 of the seven provinces of the federation were occupied 
 by the invaders. The fires of tlie liostile camp were 
 seen fi'om the top of the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. 
 The Republic, thus fiercely assailed from without, was 
 torn at the same time b}^ internal dissensions. The 
 government was in the hands of a close oligarchy of 
 powerful burghers. There were numerous self-elected 
 town councils, each of which exercised, within its own 
 sphere, many of the rights of sovereignty. These 
 councils sent delegates to the Provincial States, and 
 the Provincial States again sent delegates to the States 
 General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essen- 
 tial part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, sin- 
 gularly fertile of great men, had gradually obtained a 
 large and somewhat indefinite authority. William, first 
 of the name, Prince of Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder 
 of Holland, had headed the memorable insurrection 
 against Spain. His son Maurice had been Captain 
 General and first minister of the States, had, by emi- 
 nent abilities and public services, and by some treacher- 
 ous and cruel actions, raised himself to almost kingly 
 power, and had bequeathed a great part of that power 
 to his family. The influence of the Stadtholders was
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND 289 
 
 an object of extreme jealousy to tlie municipal oli- 
 garchj. But the army, and that great body of citizens 
 which was excluded fi'om all share in the government, 
 looked on tlie Burgomasters and Deputies with a dis- 
 like resembling the dislike with which the legions and 
 the common people of Rome regarded the Senate, and 
 were as zealous for the House of Orang-e as the legions 
 and the common people of Rome for the House of 
 Cocsar. The Stadtliolder commanded the forces of the 
 commonwealth, disposed of all military commands, had 
 a large share of the civil patronage, and was sur- 
 rounded by ))omp almost regal. 
 
 Prince William the Second had been strongly op- 
 posed by the oligarchical party. His life had termi- 
 nated in the year 1650, amidst great civil troubles. He 
 died chikllcss : the adherents of his house were left for 
 a short time without a head ; and the powers which he 
 liad exercised were divided among the town councils, 
 the Provincial States, and the States General. 
 
 But, a few days after William's death, his widow, 
 Mary, daughter of Charles the First, King of Great 
 Britain, gave birth to a son, destined to raise the glory 
 and authority of the House of Nassau to the highest 
 point, to save the United Provinces from slaverv, to 
 ciu-b the power of France, and to establish the English 
 constitution on a lasting foundation. 
 
 This Prince, named William Henry, was from his 
 birth an object of serious apprehension to the wminm, 
 
 . prince of 
 
 party now sujireme in Holland, and of loval oiLn-e. 
 attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoved 
 high consideration as the possessor of a splendid for- 
 tune, as the chief of one of the most ilhistrious houses 
 ill Europe, as a Ma<i;nate of the (lerman em])ire, as 
 a prince of the blood royal of England, and, above
 
 240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 all, as the descendant of the founders of Batavian lib- 
 erty. But the high office which had once been con- 
 sidered as hereditary in his family, remained in abey- 
 ance ; and the intention of the aristocratical party was 
 that there should never be another Stadtholder. The 
 want of a first magistrate was, to a great extent, sup- 
 plied by the Grand Pensionary of the Province of 
 Holland, John de Witt, whose abilities, fii'mness, and 
 integrity had raised him to unrivalled authority in the 
 counsels of the municipal oligarchy. 
 
 The French invasion produced a complete change. 
 The suffering and terrified people raged fiercely against 
 the government. In their madness they attacked the 
 bravest captains and the ablest statesmen of the dis- 
 tressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by 
 the rabble. De Witt was torn in pieces before the 
 gate of the palace of the States General at the Hague. 
 The Prince of Orange, who had no share in the guilt 
 of the murder, but w^ho, on this occasion, as on another 
 lamentable occasion twenty years later, extended to 
 crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which 
 has left a stain on his glory, became chief of the gov- 
 ernment without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent 
 and unconquerable spirit, though disguised by a cold 
 and sullen manner, soon roused the courage of his dis- 
 mayed countrymen. It was in vain that both his uncle 
 and the French King attempted by splendid offers to 
 seduce him from the cause of the repubhc. To the 
 States General he spoke a high and inspiriting lan- 
 guage. He even ventxired to suggest a scheme which 
 has an aspect of antique heroism, and which, if it had 
 been accomplished, would have been the noblest sub- 
 ject for epic song that is to be found in the whole com- 
 pass of modern history. He told the deputies that,
 
 Ch. II 1 UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 241 
 
 even if their natal soil and the marvels with which 
 human industry liad covered it were buried under the 
 ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders might survive 
 Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by tyrants 
 and bigots from Eurojie, might take refuge in the far- 
 thest isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the 
 republic would suffice to carry two hundred thousand 
 emigrants to the Indian Archipelago. There the Dutch 
 commonwealth might commence a new and more glo- 
 rious existence, and might i*ear, under the Southern 
 Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the 
 Exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools 
 of a more learned Leyden. The national spirit swelled 
 and rose high. The terms offered by the allies were 
 firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole 
 couiiti'y was turned into one great lake, from which 
 the cities, with their ramparts and steeples, rose like 
 islands. The invaders were forced to save themselves 
 from destruction by a precipitate retreat. Lewis, who, 
 though he sometimes thought it necessary to appear at 
 the head of his troo]>s, greatly preferred a palace to a 
 camp, had already returned to enjoy the adulation of 
 poets and the smiles of ladies in the newly planted 
 alleys of Versailles. 
 
 And now the tide turned fast. The event of the 
 maritime war had been doubtful : by land the United 
 Provinces had obtained a respite ; and a respite, though 
 short, was of infinite importance. Alarmed by the vast 
 desio;ns of Lewis, both the branches of the creat House 
 of Austria sprang to arms. Spaiu and Holhmd, divided 
 by the memory of ancient wrongs and humiliations, 
 were reconciled by the nearness of the common danger. 
 From every [)art of Germany troo})S poured towards 
 the Rhine. The English government had already ex- 
 
 YOL. I. 16
 
 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cii. IT. 
 
 pended all the funds which had been obtained by pil- 
 laging the public creditor. No loan could be expected 
 from the City. An attempt to raise taxes by the royal 
 authority Avould have at once produced a rebellion ; and 
 Lewis, who had now to maintain a contest against half" 
 Europe, was in no condition to furnish the means of 
 coercing the people of England. It was necessary to 
 convoke the Parliament. 
 
 In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassem- 
 Meetitigoftiif ^Icd after a recess of near two years. CHUoi-d, 
 ParUament. j^^^ ^ p^^^. ^^^^^ Lord Treasurer, and Ashley, 
 
 now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor, were the 
 [tersons on whom the Kmg princi])ally relied as Parlia- 
 iiivMitary managers. The Country Pai'ty instantly began 
 to attack the policy of the Cabal. Tlie attack was made, 
 not in the way of storm, but by slow and scientific 
 approaches. The Commons at first held out hopes 
 tliat they would give support to the King's foreign 
 policy, but insisted that he should purchase that sup- 
 port by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. 
 Declaration Their chiefobjcct was to obtain the revocation 
 of iuduigence. ^f ^jj^ Declaration of Indulgence. . Of all the 
 many unpopular steps taken by the government the 
 most unpopular was the publishing of this Declaration. 
 The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by an 
 act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All the 
 enemies of religious freedom, and all the friends of civil 
 freedom, found themselves on the same side ; and these 
 two classes made up nineteen twentieths of the nation. 
 The zealous Churchman exclaimed against the favour 
 which had been shown both to the Papist and to the 
 Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice in the 
 suspension of the persecution by which he had been 
 harassed, felt little gi'atitude for a toleration which he
 
 Ch. n.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 243 
 
 was to share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who 
 valued liberty and law, saw with uneasiness the deep 
 inroad which the prerogative had made into the prov- 
 ince of the legislature. 
 
 It must in candour be admitted that the constitu- 
 tional question was then not quite free from obscurity. 
 Our ancient Kings had undoubtedly claimed and ex- 
 ercised the right of suspending the operation of penal 
 laws. The tribunals had recognised that right. Par- 
 liaments had suffered it to pass unchallenged. That 
 some such right was inherent in the crown, few even of 
 the Country Party ventured, in the face of precedent 
 and authority, to deny. Yet it was clear that, if this 
 prerogative were without limit, the English govern- 
 ment could scarcely be distinguished from a pure des- 
 potism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by 
 the King and his ministers. Whether the Declaration 
 of Indulgence lay within or without the limit was the 
 question ; and neither party could succeed in tracing 
 any line which would bear examination. Some oppo- 
 nents of the government complained that the Declara- 
 tion sus])ended not less than forty statutes. But why 
 not forty as well as one ? There was an orator who 
 gave it as his opinion that the King might constitution- 
 ally dispense with bad laws, but not with good laws. 
 The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to 
 expose. The doctrine which seems to have been gen- 
 erally received in the House of Commons was, that the 
 tlispensing power was confined to secular matters, and 
 did not extend to laws enacted for the security of the 
 established religion. Yet, as the King Avas supreme 
 head of the Church, it should seem that, if he possessed 
 the dispensing power at all, lie might well i)Ossess that 
 power where the Church was concerned. When the
 
 244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the 
 bounds of this prerogative, they were not more success- 
 ful than the opposition had been.^ 
 
 The truth is that the dispensing power was a great 
 anomaly in politics. It was utterly inconsistent in 
 theory with the principles of mixed government : but 
 it had grown up in times when people troubled them- 
 selves little about theories. It had not been veiy 
 grossly abused in practice. It had therefore been tol- 
 erated, and had gradually acquired a kind of prescrip- 
 tion. At length it was employed, after a long interval, 
 in an enlightened age, and at an important conjuncture, 
 to an extent never before known, and for a pui-pose gen- 
 erally abhorred. It was instantly subjected to a severe 
 scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first, venture to pro- 
 nounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they began 
 to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit 
 of the constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn 
 the English government from a limited into an absolute 
 monarchy. 
 
 Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Com- 
 itiscan- mons denied the King's right to dispense, not 
 the*re'st A^t hideed with all penal statutes, but with penal 
 passed. statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him 
 
 plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that 
 right, they would grant no supply for the Dutch war. 
 He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put 
 everything to hazard : but he was strongly advised by 
 Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better 
 times, when the Fi-ench armies, now employed in an 
 arduous struggle on the continent, might be available 
 
 1 The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on this sub- 
 ject, came from Sir William Coventry: — " Our ancestors never did draw 
 a line to circumscribe prerogative and libertj'."
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 245 
 
 for the purpose of suppressing discontent in England. 
 In the Cabal itself the signs of disunion and treachery 
 began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial 
 sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and 
 that all things were tendino; towards a crisis resembling 
 that of 1640. He was determined that such a crisis 
 sliouH not find him in the situation of Strafford. He 
 therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in 
 the House of Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. 
 The King, thus deserted by his ally and by his Chan- 
 cellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly 
 promised that it should never be drawn into precedent. 
 Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, 
 not content with having forced their sovereimi to annul 
 the Indulo;ence, next extorted his unwillincr assent to 
 a celebrated law, which continued in force down to the 
 reign of George the Fourth. This law, known as the 
 Test Act, provided that all persons holding any office, 
 civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy, 
 should subscribe a declaration against transubstantia- 
 tion, and should publicly receive the sacrament according 
 to the rites of the Church of England. The preamble 
 expressed hostility only to the Papists : but the enact- 
 ing clauses were scarcely more unfavourable to the 
 Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The Puritans, 
 however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court 
 towards Poj)erv, and encouraged bv some churchmen 
 to hope that, as soon as the Rouian Catholics siioidd 
 liave been etfectually disarmed, relief would be extended 
 to Protestant Nonconformists, made little opposition ; 
 nor could the King, who was in extreme want of 
 money, venture to withhold his sanction. The act 
 was passed; and the Duke of York was consequently 
 iiiulcr the necessity of resigning the great place of 
 Lord High Admiral.
 
 246 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 Hitherto the Comm«jiis had not declared against the 
 The Cabal Dutch War. But, when the King had, in re- 
 (iissoived. tum for Hioney cautiously doled out, relin- 
 quished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell 
 impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him 
 to dismiss Buckingham and Lauderdale from his coun- 
 cils for ever, and appointed a committee to consider the 
 propriety of impeachhig Arlington. In a short time the 
 Cabal was no more. Cliiford, who, alone of the five, 
 had any claim to be regarded as an honest man, refused 
 to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and i-e- 
 tired to his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of 
 Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment 
 in the royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham 
 made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at 
 the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Lauder- 
 dale, however, still continued to be minister for Scotch 
 affairs, with which the English Parliament could not 
 interfere. 
 
 And now the Commons urged the Kino- to make 
 peace with Holland, and expressly declared that no 
 more supplies should be granted for the war, unless it 
 should appear that the enemy obstinately refused to 
 consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it neces- 
 sary to postpone to a more convenient season all 
 thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole 
 the nation by pretending to retui^n to the policy of the 
 Triple Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascendency 
 of the Cabal, had lived in seclusion among his books 
 and flower beds, was called forth from his hermitage. 
 Peace with By his instrumentality a separate peace was 
 
 the United "iii • i -i tt'Iti • J 
 
 Provinces coucluded With the United rrovinces ; and 
 he again became ambassador at the Hague, where his 
 presence was regarded as a sure pledge for the sincerity 
 of his court.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 247 
 
 The chief direction of affairs was now entrusted to 
 Sir Thomas Osborn, a Yorkshire baronet, who Administra- 
 
 . tiou of Dan 
 
 had, in the House of Commons, sliown emi- by. 
 nent talents for business and debate. Osborn became 
 Lord Treasui'er, and was soon created Earl of Danby. 
 He was not a man whose character, if tried by any high 
 standard of morality, would appear to merit a])probation. 
 He was ereedv of wealth and honours, corrui)t himself, 
 and a corrupter of others. The Cabal had bequeathed 
 to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art still rude, 
 and giving little promise of the rare perfection to which 
 it was brought in the following century. He improved 
 o-reatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had 
 merely purchased orators : but every man who had a 
 vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new min=- 
 ister must not be confounded with the negotiators of 
 Dover. He was not without the feelings of an English- 
 man and a Protestant ; nor did he, in his solicitude for 
 liis own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his 
 country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, 
 to exalt the prerogative : but the means by which he 
 proposed to exalt it were widely different from those 
 which had been contemplated by Arlington and Clif- 
 ford. The thought of estabhshing arbitrary power, by 
 callino- in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the 
 kingdom to the rank of a dependent principality, never 
 entered into his mind. His j)lan was to rally round the 
 monarchy those classes which had been the firm allies 
 of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding 
 o-eneration, and which had been disgusted by the recent 
 crimes and errors of the court. With the help of the 
 old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country gen- 
 tlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, 
 he conceived, be })ossible to make Charles, not indeed
 
 248 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 an absolute sovereign, but a sovereign scai-cely less 
 powerful than Elizabeth had been. 
 
 Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design 
 of securing to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession 
 of all political power, both executive and legislative. 
 In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was offered to the 
 Lords which provided that no person should hold any 
 office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, with- 
 out first declarincp on oath that he considered resistance 
 to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that he 
 would never endeavour to alter the government either 
 in Church or State. During several weeks the debates, 
 divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept 
 the country in a state of excitement. The opposition 
 in the House of Lords, headed by two members of the 
 Cabal who were desirous to make their peace with the 
 nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all 
 precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length 
 proved successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, 
 but was retarded, mutilated, and at length suffered to 
 drop. 
 
 So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of 
 domestic policy. His opinions touching foreign policy 
 did him more honour. They were in truth directly 
 opposed to those of the Cabal, and differed little from 
 those of the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the 
 degraded situation to which Eno-land was reduced, and 
 declared, with more energy than politeness, that his 
 dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper 
 respect for her. So little did he disguise his feelings, 
 that, at a great banquet where the most illustrious 
 dignitai'ies of the State and of the Church were assem- 
 oled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the con- 
 fusion of all who were against a war with France. He
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 249 
 
 would indeed most gladly have seen his comitiy united 
 with the powers which were then combined against 
 Lewis, and was for that end bent on placing Temi)le, 
 the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head of the 
 department which directed foreign affairs. But the 
 power of the jn-ime minister was limited. In his most 
 confidential letters he complained that the infatuation 
 of his master prevented England from taking her proper 
 place among European nations. Charles was insatiably 
 greedy of French gold : he had by no means relin- 
 quished the hope that he might, at some future day, be 
 able to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the 
 French arms ; and for both reasons he wished to main- 
 tain a good understanding with the Court of Versailles. 
 Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of 
 foreign politics, and the minister towards a system dia- 
 metrically opposite. Neither the sovereign nor the 
 minister, indeed, was of a temper to j)ursue any object 
 with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded 
 to the importunity of the other ; and their jarring in- 
 clinations and mutual concessions cave to the Avhole 
 administration a strangely capricious character. Chailes 
 sometimes, from levity and indolence, sufi'ered Dan by 
 to take steps which Lewis resented as mortal injuries. 
 Danby, on the other hand, rather than relinquish his 
 great place, sometimes stooped to com])liances which 
 caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was 
 brought to consent to a marriage between the Lady 
 Mary, eldest daughter and presum])tive heiress of the 
 Duke of York, and William of Orange, the deadly 
 enemy of France, and the hereditary cham])ion of the 
 Relbrmation. Nay, the brave Earl of Ossory, son of 
 Onnond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some British 
 troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war,
 
 250 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 signally vincUcated the national reputation for stubborn 
 courage. The Treasurer, on the other hand, was in- 
 duced, not only to connive at some scandalous pecuni- 
 ary transactions which took place between his master 
 and the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly 
 indeed and ungraciously, an agent in those transactions. 
 Meanwhile, the Country Party was driven by two 
 Embarrass- stroug feelings in two opposite directions. 
 o""the coun^ The popular leaders Avere afraid of the great- 
 try Party. j^^^g ^^ Lcwis, wlio was uot Only making head 
 against the whole strength of the continental alliance, 
 but was even gaining ground. Yet they were afraid 
 to entrust their own King with the means of curbing 
 France, lest those means should be used to destroy the 
 liberties of England. The conflict between these ap- 
 prehensions, bofli of which were perfectly legitimate, 
 made the policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and 
 fickle as that of the Court. The Commons called for 
 a war with France, till the King, pressed by Danby to 
 comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield, and 
 began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw that 
 the recruiting had commenced, their dread of Lewis 
 gave place to a nearer dread. They began to fear that 
 the new levies might be employed on a service in which 
 Charles took much more interest than in the defence 
 of Flanders. They therefore reftised supplies, and 
 clamoured for disbanding as loudly as they had just 
 before clamoured for arming. Those historians who 
 have severely reprehended this inconsistency do not 
 appear to have made sufficient allowance for the em- 
 barx'assing situation of subjects who have reason to 
 believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign 
 and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse 
 him military resources is to leave the state defenceless.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 251 
 
 Yet to give liim militaiy resources may be only to arm 
 him against the state. In such circumstances vacil- 
 lation cannot be considered as a proof of dishonesty or 
 even of weakness. 
 
 These jealousies were studiously fomented by the 
 French King. He had lono; kept En<>;land Dealings of 
 passive by promismg to support the throne with uie 
 
 i ii' n !• , TT 1 1 French em- 
 
 agamst tlie rarliament. He now, alarmed at bassy. 
 finding that the })atriotic counsels of Danby seemed 
 likely to prevail in the closet, began to inflame the Par- 
 liament against the throne. Between Lewis and the 
 Country Party there was one thing, and one only, 
 in common, j)rofound distrust of Charles. Could the 
 Country Party have been certain that their sovereign 
 meant only to make war on France, they would have 
 been eager to support him. Could Lewis have been 
 certain that the new levies were intended oidy to make 
 war on the constitution of England, he would have 
 made no attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness 
 and faithlessness of Charles were such that the French 
 government and the English opposition, agreeing in 
 nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, 
 and were equally desirous to keep him poor and with- 
 out an army. Communications were opened between 
 Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English 
 politicians who had always professed, and who indeed 
 sincerely felt, the greatest dread and dislike of the 
 French ascendency. The most upright member of the 
 Country Party, ^ViIliam Lord Russell, son of the Earl 
 of Bedford, did not scrui)le to concert with a forcMon 
 mission schemes for embarrassing his own sovereio-n. 
 Tiiis was the whole extent of Russell's offence. His 
 principles and his fortune alike raised him above all 
 temptations of a sordid kind : but there is too much
 
 252 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 reason to believe that some of his associates were less 
 scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the 
 extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their 
 coimtry. On the contrary, they meant to serve her : 
 but it is impossible to deny that they were mean and 
 indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them for 
 serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted 
 of this degrading charge was one man who is popularly 
 considered as the personification of public spirit, and 
 who, in spite of some great moral and intellectual faults, 
 has a just claim to be called a hero, a philosopher, and 
 a patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a 
 name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is 
 some consolation to reflect that, in our time, a public 
 man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and 
 of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation 
 which conquered the virtue and the pride of Algernon 
 Sidney. 
 
 The effect of these intrigues was that England, though 
 Peace of she occasioually took a menacing attitude, re- 
 Nimeguen. j^aiued inactive till the continental war, hav- 
 ing lasted near seven years, was terminated, in 1678, 
 by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, 
 which in 1672 had seemed to be on the verge of utter 
 ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous terms. 
 This naiTow escape was generally ascribed to the abil- 
 ity and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame 
 was great throughout Europe, and especially among the 
 liinglish, who regarded him as one of their own princes, 
 and rejoiced to see him the husband of their future 
 Queen, France retained many important towns in 
 the Low Countries and the great province of Franche 
 Comt6. Almost the whole loss was borne by the de- 
 caying monarchy of Spain.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 253 
 
 A few months after the termination of hostilities on 
 the continent came a great crisis in Enolish violent dis- 
 
 ~ . . , . T 1 contents in 
 
 politics. Towards such a crisis tlnngs had Eu-'aua. 
 been tendins: during; eiohteen years. The whole stock 
 of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had 
 commenced his administration, had long been expended. 
 To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaftection. 
 The public mind had now measured back again the 
 space over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, 
 and was once more in the state in which it had been 
 when the Long Parliament met. 
 
 The prevailing discontent was compounded of many 
 feelings. One of these was wounded national pride. 
 That generation had seen England, during a few years, 
 allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Hol- 
 land and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of 
 Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her re- 
 sources had not diminished ; and it might have been 
 expected that she would have been at least as highly 
 considered in Europe under a legitimate King, strong 
 in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as 
 she had been under an usurper Avhose utmost vigilance 
 and energy were required to keep down a mutinous 
 people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility 
 and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any Ger- 
 man or Italian ])rincipality which bnmght five thousand 
 men into the field was a more important member of the 
 commonwealth of nations. 
 
 With the sense of national humiliation was mingled 
 anxiety for civil liberty, Rmnours, indistinct indeed, 
 but perhaps the more alarming by reason of their in- 
 distinctness, ini])uted to the court a deliberate design 
 against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It 
 had even been whispered that this design was to be
 
 254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 carried into efFuct by the intervention of foreign arms. 
 The thought of sue] i intervention made t]ie blood, even 
 of the Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had 
 always professed the doctrine of nonresistance in its fiill 
 extent were now heard to mutter that there was one 
 limitation to that doctrine. If a foreign force were 
 brought over to coerce the nation, they would not an- 
 swer for their own patience. 
 
 But neither national pride nor anxiety for public 
 liberty had so great an influence on the popular mind 
 as hatred of the Roman Catholic religion. That hatred 
 had become one of the ruling passions of the com- 
 munity, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane 
 as in those who were Protestants from conviction. 
 The cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in 
 the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detes- 
 tation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly 
 related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies 
 against Elizabeth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, 
 had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter 
 feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations, 
 prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added 
 that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished 
 by attachment to the throne, the clei'gy and the landed 
 gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church 
 of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their 
 benefices ; the landed gentry for their abbe;ys and great 
 tithes. While the memor}^ of the reign of the Saints 
 was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree 
 given place to hatred of Puritanism : but, during the 
 eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, 
 the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of 
 Popery had increased. The stipulations of the treaty 
 of Dover were accurately known to very few : but
 
 Ch. Il.J UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 255 
 
 some hints had got abroad. The general impression 
 was tliat a great blow was about to be aimed at the 
 Protestant religion. The king was suspected by many 
 of a leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir 
 presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Cath- 
 olic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman 
 Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remon- 
 strances of the House of Commons, taken to wife the 
 Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. 
 If there should be sons by this marriage, there was 
 reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Cath- 
 olics, and that a long succession of princes, hostile to 
 the established faith, might sit on the English throne. 
 The constitution had recently been violated for the 
 purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the 
 penal laws. The allv by whom the policv of Eno-land 
 had, during many years, been chiefly go\erned was not 
 only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the re- 
 formed Churclies. Under such circumstances it is not 
 strange that the common people should have been in- 
 clined to api)reheiid a return of the times of her whom 
 tliey called Bloody Mary. 
 
 Thus the nation was in such a temper that the 
 smallest spark might raise a flame. At this conjuncture 
 fire was set in two places at once to the vast mass of 
 comlustible matter; and in a moment the whole was 
 in a blaze. 
 
 The French court, which knew Danby to be its 
 mortal enemy, artfully contrived to ruin him paii of Dan- 
 by making him ))ass for its friend. Lewis, ''^■• 
 by the instrumenrality of Ral])li Montague, a faithless 
 and shameless man who had resided in France as min- 
 ister from England, laid before tlu; House of Commons 
 proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an
 
 256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, ICh. II. 
 
 application made by the court of Whitehall to the court 
 of Versailles for a sum of money. This discovery 
 produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was, in 
 truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on 
 account of his delinquencies, but on account of his 
 merits ; not because he had been an accomplice in a 
 criminal transaction, but because he had been a most 
 unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the 
 circumstances, which have, in the judgment of pos- 
 terity, greatly extenuated his fault, his contemporaries 
 were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who 
 had sold England to France. It seemed clear that his 
 greatness was at an end, and doubtful whether his head 
 could be saved. 
 
 Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, 
 The Popish whcu Compared with the commotion which 
 P^°'' arose when it Avas noised abroad that a great 
 
 Popish plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, had, by his dis- 
 orderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on himself 
 the censure of his spiritual superiors, had been com- 
 pelled to quit his benefice, and had ever since led an 
 infamous and vagrant life. He had once professed 
 himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time 
 on the Continent in English colleges of the order of 
 Jesus. In those seminaries he had heard much wild 
 talk about the best means of brino-ing England back to 
 the true Church. From hints thus furnished he con- 
 structed a hideous romance, resemblino; rather the 
 dream of a sick man than any transaction which ever 
 took place in the real world. The Pope, he said, had 
 entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. 
 The Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their 
 society, a]>poiiited Ron)an Catliolie clergymen, n(jble-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 257 
 
 men, and gentlemen, to jill tlie highest offices in Church 
 and State, The Papists liad burned down London once. 
 They had tried to burn it down again. Tliey were at 
 that moment planning a scheme for setting fire to all 
 the shipping in the Thames. They were to rise at a 
 signal and massacre all their Protestant neiohbours. A 
 French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. 
 All the leading statesmen and divines of England were 
 to be murdered. Three or four schemes had been 
 fonned for assassinatino; the Kino;. He was to be stab- 
 bed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine. He 
 was to be shot with silver bullets. The public mind 
 was so sore and excitable that these lies readily found 
 credit with the vulgar ; and two events which speedily 
 took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that 
 the tale, though evidently distorted and exaggerated, 
 mio;ht have some foundation. 
 
 Edward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, 
 Roman Catholic intriguer, had been among the persons 
 accused. Search was made for his papers. It was 
 found that he had just destroyed the greater part of 
 them. But a few which had escaped contained some 
 passages such as, to minds strongly prepossessed, mio-lit 
 seem to confirm the evidence of Gates. Those pas- 
 sages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to ex 
 ])ress little more than the hopes which the posture of 
 aflairs, the predilections of Charles, the still stronger 
 predilections of James, and the relations existing be- 
 tween the French and English courts, might naturally 
 excite in the mind of a Roman Catholic strouirlv at- 
 tached to the interests of his Church. But the country 
 was not then inclined to construe the letters of Papists 
 candidly ; and it was urged, with some show of reason, 
 
 that, if papers which had been passed over as unimpor- 
 VOI-. I. 17
 
 258 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. H. 
 
 tant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great 
 mystery of iniquity must have been contained in those 
 documents, which had been carefully committed to the 
 flames. 
 
 A few days later it was known that Sir Edmonds- 
 bury Godfrey, an eminent justice of the peace who had 
 taken the depositions of Oates against Coleman, had 
 disappeared. Search was made ; and Godfrey's corpse 
 was found in a field near London. It was clear that 
 he had died by violence. It was equally clear that he 
 had not been set upon by robbers. His fate is to this 
 day a secret. Some think that he perished by his own 
 hand ; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. 
 The most improbable supposition is that he was mur- 
 dered by the party hostile to the court, in order to give 
 colour to the story of the plot. The most probable 
 supposition seems, on the Avhole, to be that some hot- 
 headed Roman Catholic, driven to frenzy by the lies of 
 Oates and by the insults of the multitude, and not 
 nicely distinguishing between the perjured accuser and 
 the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which 
 the history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many 
 examples. If this were so, the assassin must have after- 
 wards bitterly execrated his own wickedness and folly. 
 The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred 
 and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose 
 something of their edge, were sharpened anew. Every- 
 where justices were busied in searching houses and 
 seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. 
 London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. 
 The trainbands were under arms all night. Prepara- 
 tions were made for barricadinfj the o-reat thorouirh- 
 fares. Pati'oles marched up and down the streets. 
 Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 259 
 
 thouo-lit himself safe unless he carried under his coat 
 a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish as- 
 sassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was 
 exhibited during several days to the gaze of great mul- 
 titudes, and was then committed to the grave with 
 strange and terrible ceremonies which indicated rather 
 fear and the thirst of vengeance than sorrow or relig- 
 ious hope. The Houses insisted that a guard should 
 be placed in the vaults over which they sate, in order 
 to secure them against a second Gunpowder Plot. All 
 their proceedings were of a ])iece with this demand. 
 Ever since the reign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy 
 had been exacted from members of the House of Com- 
 mons. Some Roman Catholics, however, had contrived 
 so to interpret this oath that they could take it without 
 scruple. A more stringent test was now added : every 
 member of Parliament was required to make tlie Dec- 
 laration against Trausubstantiation ; and thus the Ro- 
 man Catholic Lords were for the first time excluded 
 from their seats. Strong resolutions were adopted 
 against the Queen. The Commons threw one of the 
 Secretaries of State into px-ison for having counter- 
 sij^ned connnissions directed to gentlemen who were 
 not good Protestants. They imj)eached the Lord 
 Ti'easurer of high treason. Nay, they so far forgot 
 the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil 
 war was still recent, they had loudly professed, that 
 they even attemjjted to wrest the command of the mili- 
 tia out of the King's hands. To such a temper had 
 eighteen years of misgovernment brought the most 
 loyal Parliament that had ever met in Eiigla)id. 
 
 Yet it may seem strange that, even in tliat extrem- 
 ity, the King should have ventured to a])peal to the 
 people ; for the people were more excited than their 
 representatives. The Lower House, discontented as it
 
 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 was, contained a larger number of Cavaliers than were 
 likely to find seats again. But it was thought that a 
 dissolution would put a stop to the prosecution of the 
 Lord Treasurer, a prosecution which might probably 
 bring to light all the guilty mysteries of the French 
 alliance, and might thus cause extreme personal an- 
 noyance and embarrassment to Charles. Accordingly, 
 in January 1679, the Parliament, which had been in 
 existence ever since the beginning of the year 1661, 
 was dissolved ; and writs were issued for a general 
 election. 
 
 During some weeks the contention over the whole 
 
 o 
 
 First general couutry was ficrcc and obstinate beyond ex- 
 
 election of , ' _^ . '' 
 
 1679. ample. Unprecedented sums were expended. 
 
 New tactics were employed. It was remai'ked by the 
 pamphleteers of that time as something extraordinary 
 that horses Avere hired at a wreat charo-e for the con- 
 veyance of electors. The practice of splitting free- 
 holds for the purpose of multijilying votes dates from 
 this memorable struggle. Dissenting preachers, who 
 had long hidden themselves in quiet nooks from per- 
 secution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode 
 from village to village, for the purpose of rekindling the 
 zeal of the scattered people of God. The tide ran 
 strong against the government. Most of the new mem- 
 bers came up to Westminster in a mood little differing 
 from that of their predecessors who had sent Strafford 
 and Laud to the Tower. 
 
 Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, 
 in the midst of political commotions, sure places of 
 refuge for the innocent of every party, w^ere disgraced 
 by wilder passions and fouler corruptions than were 
 to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Gates, 
 though it had sufficed to convulse the whole realm, 
 would not, unless confirmed by other evidence, suffice
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 261 
 
 to destroy the huiiiblest of those whom he had accuseds 
 For, by the old law of England, two witnesses are 
 necessary to establish a charge of treason. But the 
 success of the first impostor produced its natural con- 
 sequences. In a few weeks he had been raised from 
 penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made 
 him the dread of princes and nobles, and to notoriety 
 such as has for low and bad minds all the attractions of 
 glory. He was not long without coadjutors and rivals. 
 A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood 
 in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then 
 informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, 
 a noted swindler, followed ; and soon, from all the 
 brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of 
 London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away 
 the lives of Roman Catholics. One came with a story 
 about an army of thirty thousand men who were to 
 muster in the disguise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to 
 sail thence to Wales. Anotlv" had been promised 
 canonization and five hundred pounds to murder the 
 Kino-. A third had stepped into ar eating house in 
 Covent Garden and had there heard a great Roman 
 Catholic banker vow, in the hearing of all the guests 
 and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant. Gates, that he 
 might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a largo 
 supplement to his original nai'rative. He had the por- 
 tentous impudence to affirm, amcmg other things, that 
 he had once stood behind a door which was ajar, and 
 had there overheard the Queen declare that she had 
 resolved to mve her consent to the assassination of her 
 husband. The vulgar believed, and the highest magis- 
 trates pretended to believe, even such fictions as these. 
 The chief judges of the realm were corrupt, cruel, and 
 timid. The leaders of the Country Party encouraged
 
 262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn. II. 
 
 the prevailing delusion. The most respectahle among 
 them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to be- 
 lieve the greater part of the evidence of the plot to be 
 true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubt- 
 less perceived that the whole was a romance. But it 
 was a romance which served their turn ; and to their 
 seared consciences the death of an innocent man gave 
 no more uneasiness than the death of a partridge. The 
 juries partook of the feelings then common throughout 
 the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to in- 
 dulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude 
 applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted and 
 pelted the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the 
 accused, and shouted with joy when the verdict of 
 Guilty was pronounced. It was in vain that the suf- 
 ferers appealed to the respectability of their past lives : 
 for the public mind was possessed with a belief that 
 the more conscientious a Papist was, the more likely 
 he must be to plot against a Protestant government. 
 It was in vain that, just before the cart passed from 
 under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their inno- 
 cence : for the general opinion was that a good Papist 
 considered all lies which were serviceable to his Church 
 as not only excusable but meritorious. 
 
 While innocent blood was shedcUnij; under the forms 
 Violence of of justicc, the uew Parliament met; and such 
 HousHf "^'^s the violence of the predominant party 
 Commons. ^^^^ even men whose youth had beeji passed 
 amidst revolutions, men who remembered the attainder 
 of Strafford, the attempt on the five members, the abo- 
 lition of the House of Lords, the execution of the King, 
 stood aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The im- 
 peachment of Danby was resumed. He pleaded the 
 voyal pardon. But the Commons treated the plea with
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 263 
 
 contempt, and insisted tliat the trial shoiild proceed. 
 Danby, hoM'ever, was not their chief object. They 
 were convinced that the only effectual way of securing 
 the liberties and religion of the nation was to exclude 
 the Duke of York from the throne. 
 
 Tlie King was in great perplexity. He had insisted 
 that his brotlier, the sight of whom inflamed the popu- 
 lace to madness, should retire for a time to Bi-ussels : 
 but this concession did not seem to have produced any 
 favourable eifect. The Roundhead party was now de- 
 cidedly preponderant. Towards that party leaned mill- 
 ions who had, at the time of the Restoration, leaned 
 towards the side of prerogative. Of the old Cavaliers 
 many participated in the prcA^ailing fear of Popeiy, 
 and many, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the 
 prince for whom they had sacrificed so m.uch, looked 
 on his distress as carelessly as he had looked on theirs. 
 Even the Anglican clergy, mortified and alarmed by 
 the apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced 
 the opposition as to join cordially in the outcry against 
 the Roman Catholics. 
 
 The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir Wil- 
 liam Temi)le. Of all the official men of that Tcmpie-a 
 age Temple iiad preserved the fairest charac- emmeut. 
 ter. The Trij)le Alliance had been his work. He 
 had refused to take any part in the ])olitics of the Ca- 
 bal, and had, while that administration directed affairs, 
 lived in strict privacy. He had quitted his retreat at 
 the call of Dauby, had made peace between England 
 and Holland, and had borne a chief part in bringing 
 about the marriage of the Lady Mar}' to her cousin the 
 Prince of Orange. Thus he had the credit of every 
 one of the few good things wliich had been done by 
 the government since the Restoration. Of the numer*
 
 264 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 ons crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years none 
 could be imputed to him. His private life, though not 
 austere, was decorous : his manners were popular ; and 
 he was not to be corrupted either by titles or by money. 
 Somethino;. however, was wantincr to the character of 
 this respectable statesman. The temperature of his 
 patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his 
 ])ersonal dignity too much, and shrank from responsi- 
 bility with a pusillanimous fear. Nor indeed had his 
 habits fitted him to bear a part in the conflicts of our 
 domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth year 
 without having sate in the English Parliament ; and 
 his official experience had been almost entirely acquired 
 at foreign courts. He was justly esteemed one of the 
 first diplomatists in Europe : but the talents and ac- 
 complishments of a diplomatist are widely different 
 from those Avhich qualify a politician to lead the House 
 of Commons in agitated times. 
 
 The scheme which he proposed showed considerable 
 ingenuity. Though not a profound philosopher, he 
 had thought more than most busy men of the world on 
 the general principles of government ; and his mind had 
 been enlarged by historical studies and foreign travel. 
 He seems to have discerned more clearly than most of 
 his contemporaries one cause of the difficulties by which 
 the government was beset. The character of the Eng- 
 lish polity was gradually changing. The Parliament 
 was slowly, but constantly, gaining ground on the pre- 
 rogative. The line between the legislative and execu- 
 tive powers was in theory as strongly marked as ever, 
 but in practice was daily becoming fainter and fainter. 
 The theory of the constitution was that the King might 
 name his own mim'sters. But the House of Commons 
 had driven Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby succes-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 265 
 
 sively from the direction of affairs. The theory of th.e 
 constitution was tliat the King alone had the power of 
 making peace and war. But the House of Commons 
 liad forced him to make peace with Holland, and had 
 all but forced him to make war M'ith France. The 
 theory of the constitution was that the King was the 
 sole judge of the cases in which it might be proper to 
 pardon offenders. Yet he was so much in dread of the 
 House of Commons that, at that moment, he could not 
 venture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well 
 knew to be the innocent victims of perjuiy. 
 
 Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the 
 legislature its undoubted constitutional ])owers, and yet 
 to prevent it, if possible, from encroaching further on 
 tlie province of the executive administration. With 
 this view he determined to interpose between the sov- 
 ereign and the Parliament a body which might break 
 the shock of their collision. There was a body, ancient, 
 highly honourable, and recognised by the law, which, 
 he thought, might be so remodelled as to serve this 
 -purpose. He determined to give to the Privy Coun- 
 cil a new character and office in the government. The 
 number of Councillors he fixed at thirty. Fifteen of 
 them were to be the chief ministers of state, of law, 
 and of religion. The other fifteen were to be unplaced 
 noblemen and gentlemen of ample fortune and high 
 character. There was to be no interior cabinet. All 
 the thirty were to be entrusted with every political se- 
 cret, and summoned to every meeting ; and the King 
 was to declare that he would, on every occasion, be 
 guided by their advice. 
 
 Temple seems to have thought that, by this contriv- 
 ance, he could at once secure the nation against the 
 tyranny of the crown, and the crown against the en-
 
 266 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, I Eh. II. 
 
 croachments of the Parliament. It was, on one hand, 
 highly improbable that schemes such as had been 
 formed by the Cabal would be even propounded for 
 discussion in an assembly consisting of thirty eminent 
 men, fifteen of whom were bound by no tie of interest 
 to the court. On the other hand, it might be hoped 
 that the Commons, content with the guarantee against 
 misgovernment which such a Privy Council fornished, 
 would confine themselves more than they had of late 
 done to their strictly legislative functions, and would 
 no longer think it necessary to pry into every part of 
 the executive administration. 
 
 This plan, though in some respects not unworthy of 
 the abilities of its author, was in principle vicious. The 
 new board was half a cabhiet and half a Parliament, 
 and, like almost every other contrivance, whether me- 
 chanical or political, which is meant to serve two pur- 
 poses altogether different, fiiiled of accomplishing either. 
 It was too large and too divided to be a good admin- 
 istrative body. It was too closely connected with the 
 crown to be a good checking body. It contained just- 
 enough of popular ingredients to make it a bad council 
 of state, unfit for the keeping of secrets, for the con- 
 ducting of delicate negotiations, and for the adminis- 
 tration of war. Yet were these popular ingredients 
 by no means sufficient to secure the nation against 
 misgovernment. The plan, therefore, even if it had 
 been fairly tried, could scarcely have 'succeeded ; and 
 it was not fairly tried. The' King was fickle and per- 
 fidious : the Parliament was excited and unreasonable ; 
 and the materials out of which the new Council was 
 made, though perhaps the best which that age afforded, 
 were still bad. 
 
 The commencement of the new system was, how-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. x67 
 
 ever, liailed with general delight ; for the people were 
 in a temper to think any change an improvement. 
 They were also pleased by some of the new nomina- 
 tions. Shaftesbury, now their favourite, was appointed 
 Lord President. Russell and some other distinguished 
 members of the Country Party were sworn of the 
 Council. But in a few days all was again in confusion. 
 The inconveniences of having so numerous a cabinet 
 were such that Temple himself consented to infringe 
 one of the fundamental rules which he had laid down, 
 and to become one of a small knot which really di- 
 rected everything. With him were joined three other 
 ministers, Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, George Savile, 
 Viscount Halifax, and Robert Spencer, Earl of Sun- 
 derland. 
 
 Of the Earl of Essex, then First Commissioner of 
 the Treasury, it is sufficient to say that he was a man 
 of solid, though not brilliant parts, and of grave and 
 melancholy character, that he had been connected 
 with the Country Party, and that he was at this time 
 honestly desii'ous to effect, on terms beneficial to the 
 State, a rtJconciliation between that party and the throne. 
 
 Among the statesmen of those times TTalifax was, in 
 genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, (;.i,,iracter of 
 subtle, and capacious. His polished, lumi- "aiuax. 
 nous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones 
 of his voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. 
 His conversation overflowed with thought, fancy, and 
 wit. His political tracts well deserve to be studied 
 for their litei'ary merit, and fully entitle him to a place 
 among English classics. To the weight- derived from 
 talents so great and various he united all the influ- 
 ence which belongs to rank and ample possessions. 
 Yet he was less successful in politics than many who
 
 268 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed, those intellect- 
 ual peculiarities which make his writings valuable fre- 
 quently impeded him in the contests of active life. 
 For he always saw passing events, not in the point of 
 view in which they commonly appear to one who bears 
 a part in them, but in the point of view in which, 
 after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philo- 
 sophic historian. With such a turn of mind, he could 
 not long continue to act cordially with any body of 
 men. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations of both 
 the great parties in the State moved his scorn. He 
 despised the mean arts and unreasonable clamours of 
 demagogues. He despised still more the doctrines of 
 divine right and passive obedience. He sneered im- 
 partially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the 
 bigotry of the Puritan. He was eqiially unable to com- 
 prehend how any man should object to Saints' days and 
 surplices, and how any man should persecute any other 
 man for objecting to them. In temper he was what, in 
 our time, is called a Conservative. In theory he was a 
 Republican. Even when his dread of anarchy and his 
 disdain for vuloar delusions led him to side for a time 
 with the defenders of arbitrary power, his intellect was 
 always with Locke and Milton. Indeed, his jests upon 
 hereditary monarchy were sometimes such as 5yould 
 have better become a member of the Calf's Head Club 
 than a Privy Councillor of the Stuarts. In religion he 
 was so far from being a zealot that he was called by the 
 uncharitable an atheist : but this imputation he vehe- 
 mently repelled ; and in truth, though he sometimes 
 gave scandal by the way in which he exerted liis rare 
 powers both of reasoning and of ridicule on serious 
 subjects, he seems to have been by no means unsus- 
 ceptible of religious impressions.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 269 
 
 He was the chief of those politicians whom the two 
 great parties contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead 
 of quarrelling with this nickname, he assumed it as a 
 title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity, the 
 dignity of the appellation. Every thing good, he said, 
 trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims 
 between tlie climate in which men are roasted and the 
 climate in which they are frozen. The English Church 
 trims between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist 
 lethargy. The English constitution trims between 
 Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is 
 nothing but a just temper between propensities any one 
 of Avhich, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, 
 the perfection of the Supreme Being himself consists in 
 the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which 
 could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral 
 and physical order of the world. ^ Thus Halifax was 
 a Trimmer " on principle. He was also a Trimmer 
 by the constitution both of his head and of his heart. 
 His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly 
 fertile in distinctions and objections ; his taste refined ; 
 his sense of the ludicrous exquisite ; his temper placid 
 and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone 
 either to malevolence or to enthusiastic adnn'ration. 
 Such a man could not long be constant to any band 
 of political allies. He must not;, however, be con- 
 founded with the vuln-ar crowd of renegades. For 
 though, like them, he passed from side to side, his 
 transition was always in the dii^ction opposite to theirs. 
 He had nothing in common with those who fly front 
 extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which 
 
 1 Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the " Character of a Trim- 
 mer, ' which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsuiau, Sir William 
 Coventry.
 
 270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 they have deserted with an animosity far exceeding 
 that of consistent enemies. His place was on the 
 debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the 
 community, and he never wandered far beyond the 
 frontier of either. The party to which he at any mo- 
 ment belonged was the party which, at that moment, 
 he liked least, because it was the party of which at 
 that moment he had the nearest view. He was there- 
 fore always severe upon his violent associates, and was 
 always in friendly relations with his moderate oppo- 
 nents. Every faction in the day of its insolent ani^ 
 vindictive triumph incurred his censure ; and every 
 faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him 
 a protector. To his lasting honour it must be men- 
 tioned that he attempted to save those victims whose 
 fate has left the deepest stain both on the Whig and 
 on the Tory name. 
 
 He had greatly distinguished himself ill opposition, 
 and had thus drawn on himself the royal displeasure, 
 which was indeed so strong, that he was not admitted 
 into the Council of Thirty without much difficulty and 
 long altercation. As soon, however, as he had obtained 
 a footing: at court, the charms of his manner and of his 
 conversation made him a favourite. He was seriously 
 alarmed by the violence of the public discontent. He 
 thought that liberty was for the present safe, and that 
 order and legitimate authority were in danger. He 
 therefore, as was his fashion, joined himself to the 
 weaker side. Perhaps 'his conversion was not wholly 
 disinterested. For study and reflection, though they 
 had emancipated him from many vulgar prejudices, had 
 left him a slave to vulgar desires. Money he did not 
 want ; and there is no evidence that he ever obtained 
 it by any means which, in that age, even severe censors 
 considered as dishonourable ; but rank and power had
 
 Cn. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 271 
 
 strong attractions for him. He pretended, indeed, tliat 
 he considered titles and great offices as baits whicli 
 could allure none but fools, that he hated business, 
 pom}), and pageantry, and that his dearest wish was to 
 escape from the bustle and glitter of Whitehall to the 
 quiet woods which surrounded his ancient mansion in 
 Nottinohamshire: but his conduct was not a little at 
 variance with his professions. In truth he wished to 
 command the respect at once of courtiers and of phi- 
 losophers, to be admired for attaining high dignities, and 
 to be at the same time admired for despising them. 
 
 Sunderland was Secretary of State. In this man the 
 political immorality of his age was personified character of 
 in the most lively manner. Nature had given Sunderland. 
 him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous 
 temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind 
 had undergone a training by whicli all his vices had 
 been nursed up to the rankest maturity. At his en- 
 trance into public life, he had passed several years in 
 diplomatic posts abroad, and had been, during some 
 time, mini.ster in France. Every calling has its pecu- 
 liar temptations. There is no injustice h\ saying that 
 diplomatists, as a class, have always been more dis- 
 tinguished by their address, by the art with which 
 they win the confidence of those with whom they have 
 to deal, and by the ease with which they catch the 
 tone of every society into which they are admitted, 
 than by generous enthusiasm or austere rectitude ; 
 and the relations between Charles and Lewis were 
 such that no English nobleman could long reside in 
 France as envoy, and retain any patriotic or honour- 
 able sentiment. Sunderland came forth from tin- bad 
 school in which he had been brought up, cunning, 
 supple, shameless, free from all ])rejudices, and des-
 
 272 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. [L 
 
 titute of all principles. He was, by liereditaiy con- 
 nection, a Cavalier: but with the Cavaliers he had 
 nothing in common. They were zealous for monarchy, 
 and condemned in theory all resistance. Yet they had 
 sturdy English hearts which would never have endured 
 real despotism. He, on the contrary, had a languid 
 speculative liking for republican institutions, which was 
 compatible with perfect readiness to be in practice the 
 most servile instrument of arbitrary power. Like many 
 other accomplished flatterers and negotiators, he was 
 far more skilful in the art of reading the characters 
 and practising on the weaknesses of individuals, than in 
 the art of discerning the feelings of great masses, and 
 of foreseeing the approach of great revolutions. He 
 was adroit in intrigue ; and it was difBcult even for 
 shrewd and experienced men who had been amply 
 forewarned of his perfidy to withstand the fascination 
 of his manner, and to refuse credit to his professions of 
 attachment. But he was so intent on observine: and 
 courting particular persons, that he often forgot to study 
 the temper of the nation. He therefore miscalculated 
 grossly with respect to all the most momentous events 
 of his time. More than one important movement and 
 rebound of the public mind took liim by surprise ; and 
 the world, unable to understand how so clever a man 
 could be blind to what was clearly discerned by the 
 politicians of the coffee houses, sometimes attributed to 
 deep design what were in truth mere blunders. 
 
 It was only in private conference that his eminent 
 abilities displayed themselves. In the royal closet, or 
 in a very small circle, he exercised great influence. 
 But at the Council board he was taciturn ;*and in the 
 House of Lords he never opened his lips. 
 
 The four confidential advisers of the crown soon found
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 273 
 
 that their position was embarrassing; and invidious. The 
 other members of the Council murmured at a distinc- 
 tion inconsistent with the King's promises ; and some 
 of them, witli Shaftesbury at tlieir head, again betook 
 themselves to strenuous opposition in Parliament. The 
 agitation, which had been suspended by the late changes, 
 speedily became more violent than ever. It was in vain 
 that Charles offered to grant to the Commons any secu- 
 rity for the Protestant religion which they could devise, 
 provided only that they would not touch the order of 
 succession. They would hear of no compromise. They 
 would have the Exclusion Bill and nothino; but the Ex- 
 elusion Bill. The King, therefore, a few weeks after 
 he had publicly promised to take no step without the 
 advice of his new Council, went down to the House of 
 Lords without mentionino- his intention in Council, and 
 prorogued the Parliament. 
 
 The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of 
 JMav 1G79, is a great era in our history. Prorogation 
 
 _, " , , 1 XT 1 r^ 4 of the I'ar- 
 
 Jbor on that day tlie Habeas Corpus Act re- iwmeut. 
 ceived the royal assent. From the time of the Great 
 Charter, the substantive law respecting the personal 
 liberty of Englishmen had been nearly the same as at 
 present : but it had been inefficacious for want of a 
 stringent system of procedure. What was needed was 
 not a new right, but a prompt and searching remedy ; 
 and such a nnnedy the Habeas Corf)Us Act nabeM 
 supplied. The King would gladly have re- "^^^ 
 fused his consent to that measure : but he was about 
 to appeal from his Parliament to his people on the 
 question of the succession ; and he coidd not venture, 
 at so critical a moment, to reject a bill which was in 
 the highest degree popidar. 
 
 On the same day, the press of England became for a 
 vol.. I. 18
 
 274 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 short time free. In old times printers had been strictly 
 controlled by the Court of Star Chamber. The Long 
 Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had, 
 in spite of the philosophical and eloquent expostulation 
 of Milton, established and maintained a censorship. 
 Soon after the Restoration, an Act had been passed 
 which prohibited the printing of unlicensed books ; and 
 it had been provided that this Act should continue in 
 force till the end of the first session of the next Par- 
 liament. That moment had now arrived ; and the 
 King, in the very act of dismissing the Houses, eman- 
 cipated the press. 
 
 Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution 
 Second gen- and auothcr genei'al election. The zeal and 
 
 eral election t p i • • 
 
 of 1679. sti'ength of the opposition were at the height. 
 The cry for the Exclusion Bill was louder than ever ; 
 and with this cry was mingled another Cry, which fired 
 the blood of the multitude, but which was heard with 
 regret and alarm by all judicious friends of freedom. 
 Not only the rights of the Duke of York, an avowed 
 Papist, but those of his two daughters, sincere and 
 zealous Protestants, were assailed. It was confidently 
 afiirmed that the eldest natural son of the Kino; had 
 been born in wedlock, and was lawful heir to the 
 crown. 
 
 Charles, while a wanderer on the Continent, had 
 Popularity of fallen ill at the Hague with Lucy Walters, a 
 Monmouth, ^y^jg^^ gj^.j ^f ^^^^^ beauty, but of weak un- 
 derstanding and dissolute manners. She became his 
 mistress, and presented him with a son. A suspicious 
 lover might have had his doubts ; for the lady had sev- 
 eral admirers, and was not supposed to be cruel to any. 
 Charles, however, readily took her word, and poured 
 forth on little James Crofts, as the boy was then called,
 
 Ch. II-l UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 275 
 
 an overflowing fondness, such as seemed hardly to he- 
 long to that cool and careless nature. Soon after the 
 Restoration, the young favourite, who liad learned in 
 France the exercises then considered necessary to a 
 fine gentleman, made his appearance at Whitehall. He 
 was lodged in the palace, attended by pages, and per- 
 mitted to enjoy several distinctions which had till then 
 been confined to princes of the blood royal. He was 
 married, while still in tender youth, to Anne Scott, 
 heiress of the noble house of Buccleuch. He took her 
 name, and received with her hand possession of her 
 ample domains. The estate which he had acquired by 
 this match was popularly estimated at not less than ten 
 thousand pounds a year. Titles, and favours rrtore sub- 
 stantial than titles, were lavished on him. He was 
 made Duke of Monmouth in Enoland, Duke of Buc- 
 clench in Scotland, a Knight of the Garter, Master of 
 the Horse, Commander of the first troop of Life Guards, 
 Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent, and Chancellor 
 of the University of Cambridge. Nor did he appear to 
 the public unworthy of his high fortunes. His coun- 
 tenance was eminently handsome and engaging, his 
 temper sweet, his manners polite and afiable. Though 
 a libertine, he won the hearts of the Puritans. Though 
 he was known to have been privy to the shameful 
 attack on Sir John Coventry, he easily obtained the 
 forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere mor- 
 alists owned that, in such a court, strict conjugal fidelity 
 was scarcely to be expected fx-om one who, Avhile a 
 child, had been married to another child. Even ])atri- 
 ots were willing to excuse a headstrong boy for visiting 
 with innnoderate vengeance an insult offered to his 
 fatlier. And soon the stain left by loose amours and 
 midnight brawls was eflfacetl by honourable exi)loits.
 
 276 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 When Charles and LeAvis united their forces against 
 Holland, Monmouth commanded the English auxiharies 
 who were sent to the Continent, and approved himself 
 a gallant soldier and a not unintelligent officer. On his 
 return he found himself the most popular man in the 
 kingdom. Nothing was withheld from him but the 
 crown ; nor did even the crown seem to be absolutely 
 beyond his reach. The distinction which had most in- 
 judiciously been made between him and the highest 
 nobles had produced evil consequences. When a boy 
 he had been invited to put on his hat in the presence 
 chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncov- 
 ered round him. When foreign princes died, he had 
 mourned for them in the long purple cloak, which no 
 other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince 
 Rupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that 
 these things should lead him to regard himself as a 
 legitimate prince of the House of Stuart. Charles, 
 even at a ripe age, was devoted to his pleasures and 
 regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought 
 incredible that he should at twenty have secretly gone 
 through the form of espousing a lady whose beauty had 
 fascinated him. Wiiile Monmouth was still a child, 
 and while the Duke of York still passed for a Protes- 
 tant, it was rumoured throughout the country, and even 
 in circles which ought to have been well informed, that 
 the King had made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, 
 if every one had his right, her son would be Prince of 
 Wales. Much was said of a certain black box which, 
 according to the vulvar belief, contained the contract 
 of marriage. When Monmouth had returned from the 
 Low Countries with a high character for valour and 
 conduct, and when the Duke of York was known to
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 2T7 
 
 be a member of a cliurch detested by tlie great majority 
 of the nation, this idle story became im[)ortant. For it 
 there was not the shghtest evidence. Against it tliere 
 was the solemn asseveration of the King, made before 
 his Council, and by his order communicated to his 
 people. But the multitude, always fond of romantic 
 adventures, drank in eagerly the tale of the secret es- 
 pousals and the black box. Some chiefs of the oppo- 
 sition acted on this occasion as they acted with res])ect 
 to the more odious fable of Oates, and countenanced a 
 story which they must have despised. The interest 
 which the populace took in him .whom they regarded as 
 the champion of the true religitjn, and the rightful heir 
 of the British throne, was kept up by every artifice. 
 When Monmouth arrived in London at midnight, the 
 watchmen were ordered by the magistrates to proclaim 
 the joyful event through the streets of the City : the 
 people left their beds : bonfires were lighted : the win- 
 dows were illuminated : the churches were opened ; and 
 a merry peal rose from all the steeples. When he trav- 
 elled, he was everywhere received with not less pomp, 
 and with far more enthusiasm, than had been displayed 
 when Kings had made progres^s through the realm. 
 He was escorted from mansion to mansion by long 
 cavalcades of armed gentlemen and yeomen. Cities 
 poured forth their whole population to receive him. 
 Electors thronged round him, to assure him that their 
 votes were at his disposal. To such a height were his 
 pretensions carried, that he not only exhibited on his 
 es(nitcheon the lions of England and the lilies of France 
 without the baton sinister under which, according to the 
 law of heraldry, they should have been debruised in 
 token of his illegitimate birth, but ventured to touch 
 for the kino-'s evil. At the same time, he neiilected no
 
 278 HISTORY OF EN(}LAND, [Cii. fl. 
 
 art of condescension by wliicli the love of the multi- 
 tude could be conciliated. He stood godfather to the 
 children of the peasantry, mingled in every rustic 
 sport, wrestled, played at quarterstaff, and won foot- 
 races in his boots against fleet runners in shoes. 
 
 It is a curious circumstance that, at two of the great- 
 est conjunctures in our history, the chiefs of the Protes- 
 tant party should have committed the same error, and 
 should by that error have greatly endangered their 
 country and their religion. At the death of Edward 
 the Sixth they set up the Lady Jane, without any show 
 of birthright, in opposition, not only to their enemy 
 Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the true hope of England 
 and of the Reformation. Thus the most respectable 
 Protestants, with Elizabeth at their head, Avere forced 
 to make common cause with the Papists. In the same 
 manner, a hundred and thirty years later, a part of 
 the opposition, by setting up Monmouth as a claimant 
 of the crow^n, attacked the rights, not only of James, 
 whom they justly regarded as an implacable foe of 
 their faith and their liberties, but also of the Prince 
 and Princess of Orange, who were eminently marked 
 out, both by situation ^nd by personal qualities, as the 
 defenders of all free governments and of all reformed 
 Churches. 
 
 The folly of this course speedily became manifest. 
 At present the popularity of Monmouth constituted 
 a great part of the strength of the opposition. The 
 elections went against the court : the day fixed for the 
 meeting of the Houses drew near ; and it was neces- 
 sary that the King should determine on some line of 
 conduct. Those who advised him discerned the first 
 faint signs of a change of public feeling, and hoped that, 
 by merely postponing the conflict, he would be able to
 
 Ch. II.J under CHARLES THE SECOND. 27l:» 
 
 secure the victory. He tlierefore, without even askinji 
 the opinion of the Council of the Thirty, resolved to pro- 
 rogue the new Parliament before it entered on business. 
 At the same time the Duke of York, who had returned 
 from Brussels, was ordered to retire to Scotland, and 
 was placed at the head of the administration of that 
 kingdom. 
 
 Temple's plan of government was now avowedly 
 abandoned and very soon forgotten. The Privy Coun- 
 cil again became what it had been. Shaftesbury and 
 those who were connected with him in politics resigned 
 their seats. Temple himself, as was his wont in unquiet 
 times, retired to his garden and his library. Essex 
 quitted the board of Treasury, and cast in his lot with 
 the oi)position. But Halifax, disgusted and alarmed 
 by the violence of his old associates, and Sunderland, 
 who never quitted place while he could hold it, remained 
 in the Kin<»;'s service. 
 
 In consecjuence of the resignations which took place 
 at this conjuncture, the way to greatness was left clear 
 to a new set of aspirants. Two statesmen, who sid)se- 
 quently rose to the highest eminence which a British 
 subject can reach, soon began to attract a large share 
 of the public attention. These were Lawrence Hyde 
 and Sidney Godolpliin, 
 
 Lawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor 
 Clarendon, and was brother of the first Duch- j,.,,vrcnco 
 ess of York. He had excellent j^arts, which "^''''• 
 had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic 
 ex|)erience ; but the infirmities of his temper detracted 
 •much from the effective strenoth of his abilities. Ne- 
 gotiator and courtier as he was, he never learned the 
 art of governing or of concealing his emotions. When 
 prosperous, he was insolent and boastful : when he sus-
 
 280 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 tained a check, his undiso-uised mortification doubled 
 the triumph of his enemies : very slight provocations 
 sufficed to kindle his anger ; and when he was angry- 
 he said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was 
 pacified, but which others remembered many years. 
 His quickness and peneti'ation would have made him a 
 consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency 
 and impatience. His writings pi'ove that he had many 
 of the qualities of an orator : but his irritability pre- 
 vented him from doing himself justice in debate : for 
 nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion ; and, 
 from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at 
 the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in capacity. 
 
 Unlike most of the leading politicians of that genera- 
 tion he was a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party 
 man, a Cavalier of the old school, a zealous champion 
 of the crown and of the Church, and a hater of Re- 
 publicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a 
 great body of personal adherents. The clergy especially 
 looked on him as their own man, and extended to his 
 foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he 
 stood in some need : for he drank deep ; and when he 
 was in a rage, — and he very often was in a rage, — 
 he swore like a porter. 
 
 He now succeeded Essex at the Treasury. It is to 
 be observed that the place of First Lord of the Treasury 
 had not then the importance and dignity which now 
 belong to it. When there was a Lord Treasurer, that 
 o-reat officer was generally prime minister : but, when 
 the white staff was in commission, the chief commis- 
 sioner hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It ■ 
 was not till the time of Walpole that the First Lord of 
 the Treasury was considered as the head of the execu- 
 tive administration.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHAELES THE SECOND. 281 
 
 Goclol])liin had been bred a page at Whiteliall, and 
 had early acquired all the flexibility and the gj^^^^ q^^ 
 self'posscssion of a veteran courtier. He was '^o'p'^'"- 
 laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in the 
 details of finance. Every government, therefore, found 
 him an useful servant : and there v^^as nothino; in his 
 opinions or in his character which could prevent him 
 from serving any government. " Sidney Godolphin," 
 said Charles, " is never in the way, and never out of 
 the way." This pointed remark goes far to explain 
 Godolphin's extraordinary success in life. 
 
 He acted at different times with both the great po- 
 litical parties : but he never shared in the passions of 
 either. Like most men of cautious tempers and pros- 
 perous fortunes, he had a strong disposition to support 
 whatever existed. He disliked revolutions ; and, for 
 the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he 
 disliked counterrevolutions. His deportment was re- 
 markably grave and reserved : but his personal tastes 
 •were low and frivolous ; and most of the time which he 
 could save from ])ublic business was spent in racing, 
 cardplaying, and cockfighting. He now sate below 
 Rochester at the board of Treasury, and distinguished 
 himself there by assiduity and intelligence. 
 
 Before the new Parliament was suffered to meet for 
 despatch of business, a whole year elapsed, an eventful 
 year, which has left lasting traces in our manners and 
 language. Never before had i)olitical controversy been 
 carried on with so much freedom. Never before had 
 political clubs existed with so elaborate an organisation, 
 or so formidable an influence. The one question of the 
 exclusion occupied the jniblic mind. All the presses 
 and pulpits of the realm tot)k part in the conflict. On 
 one side it was maintained that the constitution and
 
 282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 reliirioii of tlie State would never be secure under a 
 Popish King ; on the other, tliat the right of James to 
 wear the crown in his turn was derived from God, and 
 could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the 
 Violence of brauclies of the legislature. Every county, 
 
 factions on on . . . ' 
 
 tiie subject evcry town, every tamily, was m agitation. 
 Bioniiiii. The civilities and hospitalities of neighbour- 
 hood were interi'upted. The dearest ties of friendship 
 and of blood were sundered. Even schoolboys were 
 divided into angry parties ; and the Duke of York and 
 the Earl of Shaftesbury had zealous adherents on all the 
 forms of Westminster and Eton. The theatres shook 
 with the roar of the contending factions. Pope Joan 
 was brought on the stage by the zealous Protestants. 
 Pensioned poets filled their prologues and epilogues 
 with eulogies on the King and the Duke. The male- 
 contents besieged the throne with petitions, demanding 
 that Parliament might be forthwith convened. The 
 loyalists sent up addresses, expressing the utmost ab- 
 horrence of all who presumed to dictate to the sover- 
 eign. The citizens of London assembled by tens of 
 thousands to burn the Pope in effigy. The government 
 posted cavalry at Temple Bar, and placed ordnance 
 round Whitehall. In that year our tongue was en- 
 riched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable 
 memorials of a season of tumult and imposture.^ Oppo- 
 nents of the court were called Birminghams, Petition- 
 ers, and Exclusionists. Those who took the King's 
 , side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers, and Tantivies. 
 These appellations soon became obsolete : but at this 
 Names of time wei'O first heard two nicknames which. 
 
 Whig and , , . . ,, . . . ,, 
 
 Tory. though oi'igmally given m insult, were soon 
 
 assumed with pride, which are still in daily use, which 
 
 1 North's Exanien, 231. 574.
 
 Ch. II.J under CHARLE3 THE SECOND, 283 
 
 have spread as widely as the English race, and which 
 will last as long as the English literature. It is a curi- 
 ous circumstance that one of these nicknames was of 
 Scotch, and the other of Irish, origin. Both in Scot- 
 land and in Ireland, misgovernment had called into 
 existence bands of desperate men whose ferocity w:is 
 heightened by religious enthusiasm. In Scotland, some 
 of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by oppres 
 sion, had lately murdered the Primate, had taken arms 
 against the government, had obtained some advantages 
 against the King's forces, and had not been put down 
 till Monmouth, at the head of some troops from Eng- 
 land, had routed them at Bothwell Bridoe. These 
 zealots were most numerous among the rustics of the 
 western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. 
 Thus the appellation of Whig was fastened on the Pres- 
 byterian zealots of Scotland, and was transferred to 
 those Englisii politicians who showed a disposition to 
 opj)ose the court, and to treat Protestant Nonconform- 
 ists with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same 
 time, afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, much resem- 
 bling those who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. 
 These men were then called Tories. The name of 
 Tory was therefore given to Englishmen who refused 
 to concur in excluding a Roman Catholic prince from 
 the throne. 
 
 The rage of the hostile factions would have been 
 sufficiently violent, if it had been left to itself. But it 
 was studiously exasperated by the common enemy of 
 both. Lewis still continued to bribe and flatter both 
 the court and the oi)i)()sition. He exhorted Charles to 
 be firm : he exhorted James to raise a civil war in 
 Scotland : he exhorted tjie Wliigs not to ilincli, and to 
 rely with cuidideiKe on the protection of France.
 
 284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. H. 
 
 Through all this agitation a discerning eye might 
 have perceived that the public opinion was gradually 
 changing. The persecution of the Roman Catholics 
 went on ; but convictions were no longer matters of 
 course. A new brood of false witnesses, among whom 
 a villain named Dangerfield was the most conspicuous, 
 infested the courts : but the stories of these men, though 
 better constructed than that of Oates, found less credit. 
 Juries were no longer so easy of belief as during the 
 panic which had followed the murder of Godfrey ; and 
 Judges who, while the popular frenzy was at the height, 
 had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured 
 to express some part of what they had from the first 
 thought. 
 
 At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. 
 Meeting of The Whigs had so great a majority in the 
 ttie Kx"Tu-' ' Commons that the Exclusion Bill went through 
 paSesthe ^^^ ^ts stagcs there without difficulty. The 
 Commons. j^^jj^g scarccly knew on what members of his 
 own cabinet he could reckon. Hyde had been true to 
 his Tory opinions, and had steadily supported the cause 
 of hereditary monarchy. But Godolphin, anxious for 
 quiet, and believing that quiet could be restored only 
 by concession, wished the bill to pass. Sunderland, 
 ever false and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the 
 signs of approaching reaction, and anxious to conciliate 
 the party which he believed to be irresistible, deter- 
 mined to vote against the court. The Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth implored her royal lover not to rush headlong 
 to destruction. If there were any point on which he 
 had a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the 
 question of the succession ; but during some days it 
 seemed that he would submit. He wavered, asked 
 what sum the Commons would give him if he yielded,
 
 Ch. n.] UNDER CHAELES THE SECOND. 285 
 
 and suffered a negotiation to be opened with the lead- 
 ing Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust which had 
 been many years growing, and wliicli had been care- 
 i'ully nursed by the arts of France, made a treaty im- 
 possible. Neither side would place confidence in the 
 other. The whole nation now looked with breathless 
 anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of 
 ])eers was large. The King himself was present. The 
 delate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. 
 Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords, in 
 a manner which revived the recollection of the stormy 
 Parliaments of Henry the Third and Richard the Sec- 
 ond. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treach- 
 erous Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax Exclusion 
 
 C^ 111- ^'" ''«'Je«'«d 
 
 bore down all opposition. Deserted by his by the Lords. 
 
 most important colleagues, and opposed to a crowd of 
 able antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke of 
 York, in a succession of speeches which, many years 
 later, were remembered as masterpieces of reasoning, 
 of wit, and of eloquence. It is seldom that oratory 
 changes votes. Yet the attestation of contemporaries 
 leaves no doubt that, on this occasion, votes were 
 changed by the oratory of Halifax. The Bishops, true 
 to their doctrines, supported the principle of hereditaiy 
 right, and the bill was rejected by a great majority.^ 
 
 1 A peer who wiis proscnt lias described the effect of Halilax's oratory in 
 words which I will quote, because, thou};h the}' have been long iu print, 
 tliey arc probably known to few even of the most curious and diligent read- 
 ers of history. 
 
 " Of powerful eloquence and grejit parts were the Duke's enemies who 
 did assert the bill; but a noble Lord appeared against it who, that day, in 
 all the force of .spcecli, in reason, in arguments of what could concern the 
 public or the private interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, 
 did outdo himsolf ami every oilier man; and in fine his conduct and his 
 parts were both victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of that party 
 was overthrown." 
 
 This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of Peterborough, in
 
 286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Cn. II 
 
 The i)arty which preponderated in the House of 
 Execution of Commoiis, bitterly mortified by this defeat, 
 Stafford. fouiid some consolation in shedding the blood 
 of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Staf- 
 ford, one of the unhapjiy men who had been accused 
 of a share in the plot, was impeached ; and on the tes- 
 timony of Gates and of two other false witnesses. Dug- 
 dale and Turberville, was found guilty of high treason, 
 and suffered death. But the circumstances of his trial 
 and execution ought to have given an useful warning 
 to the Whig leaders. A large and respectable minor- 
 ity of the House of Lords pronounced the prisoner not 
 guilty. The multitude, which a few months before 
 had received the dying declarations of Oates's victims 
 with mockery and execrations, now loudly expressed a 
 belief that Stafford was a murdered man. When he 
 with his last breath protested his innocence, the cry 
 was, " God bless you, my Lord ! We believe you, my 
 Lord." A judicious observer might easily have pre- 
 dicted that the blood then shed would shortly have 
 blood. 
 
 The King determined to try once more the experi- 
 Generai eiec mcut of a dissolutiou. A ucw Parliament was 
 tion of 1681. gunjn^oned to meet at Oxford, in March 168 L 
 Since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses had con- 
 stantly sate at Westminster, except Avhen the plague 
 was raging in the capital : but so extraordinary a con- 
 juncture seemed to require extraordinary precautions. 
 If the Parliament were held in its usual place of assem- 
 blino-, the House of Commons might declare itself per- 
 
 a volume entitled " Succinct Genealogies, bj' Kobert Halstead," foi. 1G85. 
 The name of Halstead is fictitious. The real authors were the Earl of Peter- 
 borough himself and his chnplaiu. The book is extremely rare. Only 
 twentv-four copies were printed, two of which are now in the British Mu- 
 seum. Of these two one belonged to George the Fourth, and the other to 
 Mr. Grenville.
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOl^D. 287 
 
 manent, and might call for aid on the magistrates and 
 citizens of London. The trainbands might rise to de- 
 fend Shaftesbury as they liad risen forty years before 
 to defend Pym and Hampden. The Guards might be 
 overpowered, the palace forced, the King a jirisoner in 
 the hands of his mutinous subjects. At Oxford there 
 was no such danger. The University was devoted to 
 the crown ; and the gentry of the neighbourhood were 
 generally Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition had 
 more reason than the King to apprehend violence. 
 
 The elections were sharply contested. The Whigs 
 still comj)osed a majority of the House of Commons : 
 but it was plain that th,e Tory spirit was fast rising 
 throughout the country. It should seem that the sa- 
 gacious and versatile Shaftesbury ought to have fore- 
 seen the cominii; chano;e, and to have consented to the 
 compromise which the court offered : but he a]i))ears to 
 have utterly forgotten his old tactics. Instead of mak- 
 ing dispositions whicli, in the worst event, would have 
 secured his retreat, he took up a position in which it 
 was necessary that he should either conquer or perish. 
 Perhaps his head, strong as it was, had been turned by 
 ])opularity, by success, and by the excitement of con- 
 flict. Perliaps he had spurred his party till lie could 
 no longer curb it, and was really hurried on headlong 
 by those whom he seemed to guide. 
 
 The eventful day arrived. The meeting at Oxford 
 resembled rather that of a Polish Diet than i.,.,riia,ii(nt 
 that of an English Parliament. The Whig ^^'^tui^' 
 members were escorted by great numbers of <i^''''o'^'*^^'^- 
 their armed and mounted tenants and serving men, 
 who exchanged looks of defiance willi the royal Guards. 
 The slightest provocation might, mider such circum- 
 stances, have produced a civil war ; but neither side
 
 288 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 dared to strike the first blow. Tlie King again of- 
 fered to consent to any thing but the Exclusion Bill. 
 The Commons were , determined to accept nothing but 
 the Exclusion Bill. In a few days the Parliament was 
 ao;ain dissolved. 
 
 The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had 
 TiTvreac- bcguu somc months before the meeting of 
 *'°°- the Houses at Oxford, now went rapidly on. 
 
 The nation, indeed, was still hostile to Popery : but, 
 when men reviewed the whole history of the plot, they 
 felt that their Protestant zeal had hurried them into 
 folly and crime, and could scarcely believe that they 
 had been induced by nursery tales to clamour for the 
 blood of fellow subjects and fellow Christians. The 
 most loyal, indeed, covdd not deny that the administra- 
 tion of Charles had often been highly blamable. But 
 men who had not the full information Avhich we possess 
 touchino; his dealings with France, and who were dis- 
 gusted by the violence of the Whigs, enumerated the 
 large concessions which, during the last few years, he 
 had made to his Parliaments, and the still larger con- 
 cessions which he had declared himself willing to make. 
 He had consented to the laws which excluded Roman 
 Catholics from the House of Lords, from the Privy 
 Council, and from all civil and military offices. He 
 had passed the Habeas Corpus Act. If securities yet 
 stronger had not been pro\aded against the dangers to 
 which the constitution and the Church might be ex- 
 posed under a Roman Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, 
 not with Charles who had invited the Parliament to 
 propose such securities, but with those Whigs who had 
 refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion Bill. 
 One thing only had the Khig denied to his people. He 
 had refused to take away his brother's birthright. And
 
 Ch. II.l UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 289 
 
 was there not good reason to believe that this refusal 
 was prompted b}- laudable feelings ? What selfish mo- 
 tJA'e could faction itself impute to the royal mind ? The 
 Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reigning King's pre- 
 rogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing 
 it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to 
 his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled 
 after him? Nay, if he had personal predilections, they 
 were kr.own to be rather in favour of the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural ex- 
 planation of the King's conduct therefoi-e seemed to be 
 that, careless as was iiis temper, and loose as were his 
 morals, he had, on this occasion, acted from a sense of 
 duty and honour. And, if so, would the nation compel 
 him to do what he thought criminal and disjiraceful ? 
 To apply, even by strictly constitutional means, a violent 
 pressure to his conscience, seemed to zealous Royalists 
 ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly constitutional 
 means were not the only means which the Whirrs were 
 disposed to employ. Signs were already discernible 
 which portended the approach of great troubles. Men, 
 who in the time of the civil war and of the Common- 
 wealth had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged 
 from the obscuritv in which, after the Restoration, thev 
 had hidden themselves from the general hatred, showeil 
 their confident and busy faces everywhere, and aj)- 
 peared to anticipate a second reign of the Saints. An- 
 other Naseby, another High Court of Justice, another 
 usurper on the throne, the Lords again ejected from 
 their hall by violence, the Universities again purged, 
 the Church again robbed and persecuted, the Puritans 
 again donnnant, to such results did the desperate pol- 
 icy of the opposition seem to tend. 
 
 Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority 
 
 vol,. I. 19
 
 290 HISTORY OP ENGLANH, [Ch. II. 
 
 of the upper and middle classes hastened to rally round 
 the throne. The situation of the King bore, at this 
 time, a great resemblance to that in which his father 
 stood just after the Remonstrance had been voted. 
 But the reaction of 1G41 had not been suflPered to run 
 its course. Charles the First, at the very moment 
 when his people, long estranged, w^ere returning to hint 
 witli hearts disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfid- 
 ious violation of the fundamental laws of the realm, 
 forfeited their confidence for ever. Had Charles the 
 Second taken a similar course, had lie arrested the 
 Whig leaders in an irregular manner, and impeached 
 them of high treason before a tribunal which had no 
 legal jurisdiction over them, it is highly probable 
 that they would speedily have regained the ascen- 
 dency which they had lost. Fortunately for himself 
 he was induced, at this crisis, to adopt a policy sino-u- 
 larly judicious. He determined to conform to the law, 
 but at the- same time to make vigorous and iinsparino- 
 use of the law against his adversaries. He was not 
 bound to convoke a Parliament till three years should 
 have elapsed. He was not much distressed for money. 
 The produce of the taxes which had been settled on 
 him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace 
 with all the world. He could retrench his expenses 
 by giving up the costly and useless settlement of Tan- 
 gier ; and he might hope for pecuniary aid from Fraiice. 
 He had, therefore, ample time and means for a system- 
 atic attack on the opposition under the forms of the 
 constitution. The Judges were removable at his 
 pleasure : the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs ; 
 and, in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriffs 
 were nominated by himself. Witnesses, of the same 
 class with those who had recently sworn away the
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 291 
 
 lives of Papists, Avere ready to swear away the lives 
 of Whio-s. 
 
 The first victim was College, a noisy and violent 
 demagogue of mean birth and education. He Persecution 
 was by trade a joiner, and was celebrated as °f''^«="'"es 
 the inventor of the Protestant flail.^ He had been at 
 Oxford when the Parliament sate there, and was ac- 
 cused of having planned a rising and an attack on the 
 King's guards. Evidence was given against him by 
 Dugdale and Turberville, the same infamous men who 
 had, a few months earlier, borne false witness against 
 Stafford. In the sight of a jury of country squires no 
 Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was 
 convicted. The verdict was received by the crowd 
 which filled the court house of Oxford with a roar of 
 exultation, as barbarous as that which he and his friends 
 had been in the habit of raising when innocent Papists 
 were doomed to the gallows. His execution was the 
 beginning of a new judicial massaci*e, not less atrocious 
 than that in which he had himself borne a share. 
 
 The government, emboldeped by this first victory, 
 now aimed a blow at an enemv of a very different class. 
 It was resolved that Shaftesbury sliould be brought to 
 trial for his life. Evidence was collected which, it was 
 thouglit, would support a charge of treason. But the 
 facts wliich it was necessary to prove were alleged to 
 have been committed in London. The Sheriffs of 
 London, chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. 
 They named a Wiiig grand jury, which threw out the 
 bill. This defeat, fiir from discouran-ino; those Avho ad- 
 vised the King, suggested to them a new and daring 
 
 1 Tliis is mciitionod in the curious work entitled " Rn<^rrniiglio della 
 lolenne Coiiip:irs;i fntta in Roma gli otto di Geiinaio, 1G87, dull' illustris- 
 limo et excellentissiino signor Conte di Castlemaine."
 
 292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, \Ch. II. 
 
 scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their 
 Charter of waj, tliat charter must be annulled. It was 
 confiscated, pretended, therefore, that the City of London 
 had by some irregularities forfeited its municipal privi- 
 leges ; and proceedings were instituted against the cor- 
 poration in the Court of King's Bench. At the same 
 time those laws which had, soon after the Restora- 
 tion, been enacted against Nonconformists, and which 
 had remained dormant during the ascendency of the 
 Whio-s, were enforced all over the kingdom with ex- 
 treme rigour. 
 
 Yet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. 
 Whig conspir- Thougli in evil plight, they were still a nu- 
 **^'*^' nierous and powerful party ; and, as they 
 
 mustered strong in the large towns, and especially in 
 the capital, they made a noise and a show more than 
 proportioned to their real force. Animated by the 
 recollection of past triumphs, and by the sense of pres- 
 ent oppression, they overrated both their strength and 
 their wrongs. It was not in their power to make out 
 that clear and overwhelming case which can alone 
 justify so violent a remedy as resistance to an estab- 
 lished government. Whatever they might suspect, 
 they could not prove that their sovei'eign had entered 
 into a treaty with France against the religion and 
 liberties of England. What was apparent was not suf- 
 ficient to warrant an appeal to the sword. If the 
 Lords had thrown out the Exclusion Bill, they had 
 thrown it out in the exercise of a right coeval with 
 the constitution. If the King had dissolved the Ox- 
 ford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of a preroga- 
 tive which had never been questioned. If the court 
 had, since the dissolution, done some harsh things, still 
 those things were in strict conformity with the letter
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 293 
 
 of the law, and with the recent practice of the male- 
 contents tliemselves. If the King had prosecuted liis 
 opponents, he had prosecuted them according to the 
 proper forms, and before the proper tribunals. The 
 evidence now produced for the crown was at least 
 as worthy of credit as the evidence on which the no- 
 blest blood of England had lately been shed by the op- 
 position. The treatment which an accused Whig had 
 now to expect from judges, advocates, sheriffs, jui'ies, 
 and spectators, was no worse than the treatment which 
 had lately been thought by the Whigs good enough 
 for an accused Papist. If the privileges of the City of 
 London were attacked, they were attacked, not by 
 military violence or by any disputable exercise of pre- 
 rogative, but according to the regular practice of West- 
 minster Hall. No tax was imposed by royal authority. 
 No law was suspended. The Habeas Corpus Act Avas 
 respected. Even the Test Act was enforced. The 
 opposition therefore could not bring home to the King 
 that species of misgovernment which alone could jus- 
 tify insurrection. AnjI, even had his misgovernment 
 been more flagrant than it was, insurrection would 
 still have been criminal, because it was almost certain 
 to be unsuccessful. The situation of the Whigs in 
 1682 differed widely fi-om tliat of the Roundheads forty 
 years before. Those who took up arms against Charles 
 the First acted under the authority of a Parliament 
 which had been legally assembled, and which could 
 not, without its own consent, be legally dissolved. The 
 opponents of Charles the Second were private men. 
 Almost all the military and naval resources of the king- 
 dom had been at the disj)0sal of those who resisted 
 Charles the First. All the mihtary and naval resources 
 of the kingdom were at the disposal of Charles the
 
 294 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 Second. The House of Commons had been supported 
 by at least half the nation against Charles the First. 
 But those who were disposed to levy war against 
 Charles the Second were certainly a minority. It 
 could hardly be doubted, therefore, that, if they at- 
 tempted a rising, they would fail. Still less could it 
 be doubted that their failure would aggravate every 
 evil of which they complained. The true policy of 
 the Whigs was to submit with patience to adversity 
 which was the natural consequence and the just pun- 
 ishment of their errors, to wait patiently for that turn 
 of pubUc feeling which must inevitably come, to observe 
 the law, and to avail themselves of the protection, im- 
 perfect indeed, but by no means nugatory, which the 
 law afforded to innocence. Unhap])ily they took a 
 very different course. Unscrupulous and hotheaded 
 chiefs" of the party formed and discussed schemes of re- 
 sistance, and were heard, if not with approbation, yet 
 with the show of acquiescence, by much better men 
 than themselves. It was proposed that there should 
 be simultaneous insurrections in London, in Cheshire, 
 at Bristol, and at Newcastle. Communications were 
 opened with the discontented Presbyterians of Scotland, 
 who were suflPering under a tyranny such as England, 
 in the worst times, had never known. While the 
 leaders of the opposition thus revolved plans of open 
 rebellion, but were still restrained by fears or scruples 
 from taking any decisive step, a design of a very dif- 
 ferent kind was meditated by some of their accomplices. 
 To fierce spirits, unrestrained by principle, or mad- 
 dened by fanaticism, it seemed that to waylay and 
 murder the Kino- and his brother was the shortest and 
 surest way of vindicating the Protestant religion and 
 the liberties of England. A place and a time were
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 295 
 
 named ; and the details of the butclieiy were frequently 
 discussed, if not detinitively arranged. This scheme was 
 known but to few, and Avas concealed with especial care 
 from the upright and humane Russell, and from Mon- 
 mouth, who, though not a man of delicate conscience, 
 would have recoiled with horror from the guilt of par- 
 ricide. Thus there were two plots, one within the other. 
 The object of the great Whig plot was to raise the nation 
 in arms anainst the government. The lesser plot, com- 
 rnonlv called the Rye House Plot, in which only a few 
 desperate men were concerned, had for its object the 
 assassination of the King and of the heir presumptive. 
 
 Both plots were soon discovered. Cowardly traitors 
 hastened to save themselves, by divulging all, Detection of 
 and more than all, that had passed m the conspiracies, 
 deliberations of the party. That only a small minority 
 of those who meditated resistance had admitted into 
 their minds the thought of assassination is fully estab- 
 lished : but, as the two conspiracies ran into each other, 
 it was not ditHcult for the government to confound 
 them together. The just indignation excited by the 
 Rye House Plot was extended for a time to Seventy of 
 
 . the govern- 
 
 the whole Whig body. The Ivmg was now ment. 
 at liberty to exact full vengeance for years of restraint 
 and humiliation. Shaftesbury, indeed, had escaped the 
 fate which his manifold perfidy had well deserved. He 
 had seen that the ruin of his party was at hand, had 
 in vain endeavoured to make his peace with the royal 
 brothers, had fled to Holland, and had died there, under 
 the generous protection of a government which he had 
 cruelly wron<red. Monmouth threw himself at his 
 father's feet and found mercy, but soon gave.new offence, 
 and thought it jirudent to go into voluntary exile. Essex 
 perished bv his own hand in the Tower Russell, who
 
 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. IL 
 
 appears to liave been guilty of no offence falling witliin 
 the definition of high treason, and Sidney, of whose guilt 
 no legal evidence could be produced, Avere beheaded in 
 defiance of law and justice. Russell died with the forti- 
 tude of a Christian, Sidney with the fortitude of a Stoic. 
 Some active politicians of meaner rank were sent to the 
 gallows. Many quitted the country. Numerous prose- 
 cutions for mispnsion of treason, for libel, and for con- 
 spiracy were instituted. Convictions were obtained 
 without diflSculty from Tory juries, and rigorous pun- 
 ishments were inflicted by courtly judges. With these 
 criminal proceedings were johied civil jDroceedings 
 scarcely less formidable. Actions were brought against 
 persons who had defamed the Duke of York ; and dam- 
 ages tantamount to a sentence of perpetual imprison- 
 ment were demanded by the plaintiff, and Avithout 
 difficulty obtained. The Court of King's Bench pro- 
 nounced that the franchises of the City of London were 
 Seizure of forfeited to the crown. Flushed with this 
 charters. gi'eat victory, the government proceeded to 
 attack tJie constitutions of. other corporations which 
 were cpoverned bv Whio; officers, and which had been 
 in the habit of returnino; Whio; members to Parliament. 
 Borough after borough was compelled to surrender its 
 privileges ; and new charters wei'e granted which gave 
 the ascendency everywhere to the Tories. 
 
 These proceedings, however reprehensible, had yet 
 the semblance of legality. They were also accompanied 
 by an act intended to quiet the uneasiness with which 
 many loyal men looked forward to the accession of a 
 popish sovereign. The Lady Anne, younger daughter 
 of the Duke of York by his first wife, was married to 
 George, a prince of the orthodox House of Denmark. 
 The Tory gentry and clergy might now flatter them-
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 207 
 
 selves that the Churcli of Enoland had been eftectually 
 secured without any violation of the order of succession. 
 The King and the heir presumptive were nearly of the 
 same ao-e. Both were aj^proaching the decline of life. 
 The King's health was good. It was therefore probable 
 that James, if he ever came to the throne, would have 
 but a short reign. Beyond his reign there was the 
 gratifying prospect of a long series of Protestant sov- 
 
 ereigns. 
 
 The liberty of unlicensed printing was of little or 
 no use to the vanquished party ; for the temper of 
 judges and juries was such that no writer whom the 
 govennnent prosecuted for a libel had any chance of 
 escaping. The dread of punishment therefore did all 
 that a censorship could have done. Meanwhile, the 
 pulpits resounded with harangues against the sin of 
 rebellion. The treatises in which Filmer maintained 
 that hereditary des])otism was the form of government 
 ordained by God, and that limited monarchy was a per- 
 nicious absurdity, had i-ecently appeared, and had been 
 favourably received by a large section of the Tory 
 party. The University of Oxford, on the very day on 
 which Russell was put to death, adopted by a solemn 
 public act these strange doctrines, and ordered the 
 political works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be 
 publicly burned in the court of the Schools. 
 
 Thus emboldened, the Kinji at lenoth ventured to 
 overstep the bounds which he had during some years 
 observed, and to violate the plain letter of the law. 
 The law was that not more than three years should pass 
 between the dissolving of one Parliament and the con- 
 voking of another. But, when three years had elapsed 
 after the dissolution of the Parliament which sate at 
 Oxford, no writs were issued for an election. This in- 
 fi'action of the constitution was the more reprehensible,
 
 298 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 because tlie King had little reason to fear a meeting 
 with a new House of Commons. The counties were 
 generally on his side ; and many boroughs in which the 
 Whigs had lately held sway had been so remodelled 
 that they were certain to return none but courtiers. 
 
 In a short time the law was again violated in order 
 Influence of to gratify the Duke of York, That prince 
 
 the Duke of "^ , ^ 
 
 York. was, partly on account of his religion, and 
 
 partly on account of the sternness and harshness of his 
 nature, so unpopular that it had been thought neces- 
 sary to keep him out of sight while the Exclusion 
 Bill was before Parliament, lest his public appear- 
 ance should give an advantage to the party which was 
 struggling to deprive him of his birthright. He had 
 therefore been sent to govern Scotland, where the sav- 
 age old tyrant Lauderdale was sinking into the grave. 
 Even Lauderdale was now outdone. The administra- 
 tion of James was marked by odious laws, by barbar- 
 ous punishments, and by judgments to the iniquity of 
 which even that age furnished no parallel. The Scottish 
 Privy Council had power to put state prisoners to the 
 question. But the sight was so dreadful that, as soon 
 as the boots appeared, even the most servile and hard- 
 hearted courtiers hastened out of the chamber. The 
 board was sometimes quite deserted : and it was at 
 length found necessary to make an order that the mem- 
 bers should keep their seats on such occasions. The 
 Duke of York, it was remarked, seemed to take pleasure 
 in the spectacle which some of the worst men then liv- 
 ing were unable to contemplate without pity and horror. 
 He not only came to Council when the torture was to 
 be inflicted, but watched the agonies of the sufferers 
 with that sort of interest and complacency with which 
 men observe a curious experiment in science. Thua
 
 Ch. ii.) under chaeles the second. 299 
 
 he employed himself at Edhiburoh, till the event of 
 the conflict between the court and the Whigs was no 
 longer doubtful. He then returned to England : but 
 he was still excluded by the Test Act from all public 
 employment ; nor did the King at first think it safe to 
 violate a statute which the great majority of his most 
 loyal subjects regarded as one of the chief securities of 
 their religion and of their civil rights. When, how- 
 ever, it appeared, from a succession of trials, tliat the 
 nation had })atience to endure almost anything that the 
 government had courage to do, Charles ventured to 
 dispense with the law in his brother's favour. The 
 Duke again took his seat in the Council, and resumed 
 the direction of naval affairs. 
 
 These breaches of the constitution excited, it is true, 
 some murmurs amono; the moderate Tories, iieisop- 
 
 . = posed by 
 
 and were not unanunously approved even by iLUif^ix. 
 the King's ministers. Halifax in particular, now a 
 Marquess and Lord Privy Seal, had, from the very day 
 on which the Tories had by his helj) gained the ascend- 
 ant, begun to turn Whig. As soon as the Exclusion 
 Bill had been thrown out, he had pressed the House of 
 Lords to make })rovision against the danger to which, in 
 the next reio-n, the liberties and religion of tl^e nation 
 miglit be exposed. He now saw with alarm the vit)- 
 lence of that reaction which was, in no small measure, 
 his own work. He did not try to conceal the scorn 
 which he felt for the servile doctrines of the University 
 of Oxford. He detested the French alliance. He dis- 
 >ipj)r()ved ofnhe long intermission of Parliaments. He 
 regretted the severity with which the vanquished i)arty 
 was treated. He who, when the Wln'gs were predomi- 
 nant, had ventured to pronounce Stafford not guilty, 
 ventured, when they were vanquished and helpless, to
 
 300 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II 
 
 intercede for Russell. At one of the last councils which 
 Charles held a remarkable scene took place. The char- 
 ter of Massachusetts had been forfeited. A question 
 arose how, for the future, the colony should be gov- 
 erned. The general opinion of the board was that the 
 whole power, legislative as well as executive, should 
 abide in the crown. Halifax took the opposite side, and 
 argued with great energy against absolute monarchy, 
 and in favour of representative government. It was 
 vain, he said, to think that a population, sprung from 
 the English stock, and animated by English feelings, 
 would long bear to be deprived of English institutions. 
 Life, he exclaimed, would not be worth having in a 
 country where liberty and property were at the mercy 
 of one despotic master. The Duke of York was greatly 
 incensed by this language, and represented to his brother 
 the danger of retaining in office a man who ap])eared to 
 be infected with all the worst notions of Marvell and 
 Sidney. 
 
 Some modern writers have blamed Halifax for con- 
 tinuing in the ministry while he disapproved of the 
 manner in wdiich both domestic and foreign affairs were 
 conducted. But this censure is unjust. Indeed it is 
 to be remarked that the word ministry, in the sense 
 in which we use it, was then unknown.^ The thing 
 itself did not exist ; for it belongs to an age in which 
 parliamentary government is fully established. At 
 present the chief servants of the crown form one body. 
 They are understood to be on terms of friendly con- 
 fidence with each other, and to agree as [o the main 
 principles on which the executive administration ought 
 to be conducted. If a slight difference of opinion arises 
 among them, it is easily compi'omised : but, if one of 
 
 ' North's Examen, 69.
 
 Cb. II. J UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 301 
 
 them differs from the rest on a vital point, it is his 
 duty to resimi. While he retains his office, he is held 
 responsible even for steps which he has tried to dis- 
 suade his colleagues from taking. In the seventeenth 
 century, the heads of the various branches of the ad- 
 ministration were bound together in no such partnership. 
 Each of them was accountable for his own acts, for the 
 use which he made of his own official seal, for the docu- 
 ments which he signed, for the counsel which he gave 
 to the Kinff. No statesman was held answerable for 
 what he had not himself done, or induced others to do. 
 If he took care not to be the agent in what was wrong, 
 and if, when consulted, he recommended what was 
 right, he was blameless. It would have been thought 
 strange scrui)ulosity in him to quit his post, because his 
 advice as to matters not strictly within his own depart- 
 ment was not taken by his master ; to leave the board 
 of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were 
 in disorder, or the board of Treasury because the for- 
 eimi relations of the kino-dom were in an unsatisfactory 
 state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see 
 in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly dif- 
 fered from one another as widely as ever Pulteney dif- 
 fered from Walpole, or Fox from Pitt. 
 
 The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax 
 were timidly and feebly seconded by Francis j^^^,, 
 North, Lord Guildford, who had kitely been """J^"!- 
 made Keeper of the Great Seal. The chai'acter of 
 Guildford has been drawn at full length bv his brother 
 Roger North, a most intolerant Tory, a most affected 
 and pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer of all those 
 minute circumstances which throw light on the disposi- 
 tions of men. It is remarkable that the biogra})her, 
 though he was under the influence of the strongest
 
 302 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. II. 
 
 fraternal partiality, and though he was evidently anx- 
 ious to produce a flattering likeness, was yet unable to 
 portray the Lord Keeper otherwise than as the most 
 icrnoble of mankind. Yet the intellect of Guildford 
 was clear, his industry great, his proficiency in letters 
 and science respectable, and his legal learning more 
 than respectable. His faults were selfishness, coward- 
 ice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power 
 of female beauty, nor averse ft-om excess in wine. Yet 
 neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious 
 and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one 
 fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, 
 he rose in his profession by paying ignominious homage 
 to all who possessed influence in the courts. He be- 
 came Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and as such 
 was party to some of the foulest judicial murders re- 
 corded in our history. He had sense enough to per- 
 ceive from the first that Gates and Bedloe were impos- 
 tors : but the Parliament and the country were greatly 
 excited; the government had yielded to the pressure ; 
 and North was not a man to risk a good place for the 
 sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he 
 was in secret drawing up a refutation of the whole 
 romance of the Popish plot, he declared in public that 
 the truth of the story was as plain as the sun in heaven, 
 and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of 
 judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were 
 arraio-ned before him for their lives. He had at length 
 reached the highest post in the law. But a lawyer, 
 who, after many years devoted to professional labour, 
 engages in politics for the first time at an advanced 
 period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a states- 
 man, and Guildford was no exception to the general 
 rule. He was indeed so sensible of his deficiencies
 
 Ch. II.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 303 
 
 tliat he never attended the meetings of his colleagues 
 on foreign affairs^ Even on questions relating to his 
 own profession his opinion had less weight at the 
 Council board than that of any man who has ever held 
 the Great Seal. Such as his influence was, however, 
 he used it, as far as he dared, on the side of the laws. 
 
 The chief opponent of Halifax was Lawrence Hyde, 
 who had recently been created Earl of Rochester. Of 
 all Tories, Rochester was the most intolerant and un- 
 compromising. The moderate members of his party- 
 complained that the whole pati'onage of the Treasury, 
 while he was First Commissioner there, went to noisy 
 zealots, whose only claim to promotion was that they 
 wei'e always drinking confusion to Whiggery, and 
 lighting bonfires to burn the Exclusion Bill. The Duke 
 of York, pleased with a s[)irit which so much resembled 
 his own, supported his brother in law passionately and 
 obstinately. 
 
 The attemj)ts of the rival ministers to surmount and 
 su])plant each other kept the court in incessant agita- 
 tion. Halifax pressed the King to summon a ParHa- 
 ment, to grant a general amnesty, to deprive the Duke 
 of York of all share in the government, to recall Mon- 
 mouth from banishment, to break with Lewis, and to 
 form a close union with Holland on the principles of 
 the Triple Alhance. The Duke of York, on the other 
 hand, dreaded tlie meeting of a Parliament, regarded 
 the vanquislied Whigs with undiminished hatred, still 
 flattered himself that the design formed fourteen years 
 before at Dover might be accomplished, daily repre- 
 sented to his brother the impropriety of suffering one 
 who was at heart a Republican to hold the Privy Seal, 
 and strongly recommended Rochester for the great 
 place of T^ord Treasurer.
 
 304 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. H. 
 
 While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, 
 cautious, silent, and laborious, observed a neutrality 
 between them. Sunderland, with his usual restless 
 perfidy, intrigued against them both. He had been 
 turned out of office in disgrace for having voted in 
 favour of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his peace 
 by employing the good offices of the Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was 
 once more Secretary of State. 
 
 Nor was Lewis neo-liffent nr inactive. Every thing 
 Policy of ^t t^^t moment favoured his designs. He had 
 "^'"^" nothing to apprehend from the German em- 
 
 pire, which was then contending against the Turks 
 on the Danube. Holland could not, unsupported, ven- 
 ture to op})Ose him. He was therefore at liberty to 
 indulge his ambition and insolence without restraint. 
 He seized Strasburg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He ex- 
 acted from the republic of Genoa the most humiliat- 
 uicT submissions. The power of France at that time 
 reached a higher point than it ever before or ever after 
 attained, during the ten centuries which separated the 
 reign of Charlemagne and the reign of Napoleon. It 
 was not easy to say where her acquisitions would stop, 
 if only England could be kept in a state of vassalage. 
 The first object of the court of Versailles was there- 
 fore to ])revent the calling of a Parliament and the 
 reconciliation of English parties. For this end bribes, 
 promises, and menaces were unsparingly employed. 
 Charles was sometimes allured by the hope of a sub- 
 sidy, and sometimes frightened by being told that, if 
 he convoked the Houses, the secret articles of the 
 treaty of Dover should be published. Several Privy 
 Councillors were bought ; and attempts were made to 
 buy Halifax, but in vain. When he had been found
 
 Ch. n.] UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 305 
 
 incorruptible, all the art and influence of the French 
 embassy were employed to drive him from office : but 
 his polished wit and his various accomj)lishraents had 
 made him so agreeable to his master, that the design 
 failed.^ 
 
 Halifax was not content with standing on the defen- 
 sive. He openly accused Rochester of malversation. 
 An inquiry took place. It appeared that forty thou- 
 sand pounds had been lost to the i)ublic by the mis- 
 management of the First Lord of the Treasury. In 
 consequence of this discovery he was not only forced 
 to relinquish his hopes of the white staff, but was re- 
 moved from the direction of the finances to the more 
 dignified but less lucrative and important post of Lord 
 President. " I have seen people kicked down stairs 
 before," said Halifax ; " but my Lord Rochester is the 
 first person that I ever saw kicked up stairs." Go- 
 dolphin, now a peer, became First Commissioner of the 
 Treasury. 
 
 Still, however, the contest continued. The event 
 depended wholly on the will of Charles ; and state of fac- 
 Charles could not come to a decision. In co^t'oV"'* 
 his ])erplexity he promised everything to [i|e'j|uteof 
 everybody. He would stand by France : he ^'^ '^'"'^^• 
 would break with France : he would never meet an- 
 other Parliament : ho would order writs for a Par- 
 
 1 Lord Preston, who was envoy at Paris, wrote thence to Halifax as fol- 
 lows: — " I find tliat Vdiir lonUliip lies still under the same niisAirtune of 
 beinj; no favourite to this lourt; and Monsieur Barillun dare not do j-on the 
 honour to shine upon you, since his master frowneth. They know very 
 well your lordsliip's (lualilieations. which make them fear and consequently 
 hate you : and lie assured, my lord, if ail their strenf^th can send you to 
 KulVord, it shall be employed for that end. Two thinjis, I hear, they jiar- 
 licularly object against you, your secrecy, and your being incajiable of 
 \)eing corrupted. .Against these two things I know they have declared." 
 The date of the letter is October 5. n. s. 1G83. 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IL 
 
 lianient to be issued witliout delay. He assured the 
 Duke of York that Halifax should be dismissed from 
 office, and Hahfax that the Duke should be sent to 
 Scotland. In public he affected implacable resentment 
 against Monmouth, and in private conveyed to Mon- 
 moiTth assurances of unalterable affection. How long, 
 if the King's life had been protracted, his hesitation 
 mioht have lasted, and what would have been his re- 
 solve, can only be conjectured. Early in the year 
 1685, while hostile parties were anxiously awaiting his 
 determination, he died, and a new scene opened. In a 
 few months the excesses of the government obliterated 
 the impression which had been made on the public 
 mind by the excesses of the opposition. The violent 
 reaction which had laid the Whig party prostrate was 
 followed by a still more violent reaction in the opposite 
 direction ; and signs not to be mistaken indicated that 
 the great conflict between the prerogatives of the 
 crown and the privileges of the Parliament, was about 
 to be brought to a final issue.
 
 Ch. IIl.l STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 307 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I INTEND, in tliis chapter, to give a description of tlie 
 state in which Enoland was at the time when the crown 
 passed from Charles the Second to his brother. Such 
 a description, composed from scanty and dispersed ma- 
 terials, must necessarily be very imperfect. Yet it 
 may perhaps correct some false notions which would 
 make the subsequent narrative unintelligible or unin- 
 structive. 
 
 If we would study with profit the history of our an- 
 cestors, we must be constantly on our guard against 
 that delusion which the well known names of families, 
 places, and offices naturally produce, and must never 
 forget that the country of which we read was a very 
 different country from that in which we live. In every 
 experimental science there is a tendency towards per- 
 fection. In every human being there is a wish to amel- 
 iorate his own condition. These two principles have 
 often sufficed, even when counteracted by great public 
 calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilisation 
 rapidly forward. No ordinaiy misfortune, no ordi- 
 nary misgovernment, will do so much to make a nation 
 wretched, as the constant progress of physical knowl- 
 edge and the constant effort of every man to better 
 himself will do to make a nation prosperous. It has 
 often been found that profuse expenditure, heavy taxa- 
 tion, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, 
 disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, 
 inundations, have not been aljle to destroy capital so
 
 308 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IU. 
 
 fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able 
 to create it. It can easily be proved that, in our own 
 land, the national wealth has, during at least six cen- 
 turies, been almost uninterruptedly increasing ; that it 
 was greater under the Tudors than under the Plan- 
 tagenets ; that it was greater under the Stuarts than 
 under the Tudors ; that, in spite of battles, sieges, and 
 confiscations, it was greater on the day of the Resto- 
 ration than on the day when the Long Parliament 
 met ; that, in spite of maladministration, of extrava- 
 gance, of public bankruptcy, of two costly and unsuc- 
 cessful wars, of the pestilence and of the fire, it was 
 greater on the day of the death of Charles the Second 
 than on the day of his Restoration. This progress, 
 having continued during many ages, became at length, 
 about the middle of the eighteenth century, porten- 
 tously rapid, and has proceeded, during the nineteenth, 
 with accelerated velocity. In consequence partly of 
 our geographical and partly of our moral position, we 
 have, during several generations, been exempt from 
 evils which have elsewhere impeded the efforts and de- 
 stroyed the fruits of industry. While every part of the 
 Continent, from Moscow to Lisbon, has been the theatre 
 of bloody and devastating Avars, no hostile standard has 
 been seen here but as a trophy. While revolutions 
 have taken place all around us, our government has 
 never once been subverted by violence. During more 
 than a hundred years there has' been in our island no 
 tumult of sufficient importance to be called an insurrec- 
 tion ; nor has the law been once borne down either by 
 po])ular fury or by regal tyranny : public credit has been 
 held sacred: the administration of justice has been pure: 
 even in times which might by Englishmen be justly 
 called evil times, we have enjoyed what almost every
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 309 
 
 other nation in the world would have considered as an 
 ample measure of civil and religious freedom. Every 
 man has felt entire confidence that the state would pro- 
 tect him in the possession of what had been earned by 
 his diligence and hoarded by his selfdenial. Under the 
 benignant influence of peace and liberty, science has 
 flourished, and has been applied to practical purposes 
 on a scale never before known. The conse- Great change 
 quence is that a change to which the history o'TEngfand 
 of the old world furnishes no parallel has taken ^"^'^^ ^^' 
 place in our country. Could the England of 1685 be, 
 by some magical process, set before our eyes, we should 
 not know one landscape in a hundred or one building 
 in ten thousand. The country gentleman would not 
 recoo-nise his own fields. The inhabitant of the town 
 would not recognise his own street. Everything has 
 been changed, but the great features of nature, and a 
 few massive and durable works of human art. We 
 might find out Snowdon and Windermere, the Cheddar 
 Cliffs and Bcachy Head. We might find out here and 
 there a Norman minster, or a castle which witnessed 
 the wars of the Roses. But, with such rare excep- 
 tions, everything would be strange to us. Many thou- 
 sands of square miles which are now I'ich com land 
 and meadow, intersected by green hedgerows, and 
 dotted with villages and pleasant country seats, would 
 appear as moors overgrown with furze, or fens aban- 
 doned to wild ducks. We should see straggling huts 
 built of wood and covered with thatch, where we now 
 see manufacturing towns and seaports renowned to the 
 farthest ends of the world. The capital itself would 
 shrink to dimensions not much exceeding those of its 
 present suburb on the south of the Thames. Not less 
 strange to us would be the garb and manners of the
 
 810 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 people, the furniture and the equipages, the interior of 
 the shops and dwelKngs. Such a change in the state 
 of a nation seems to be at least as well entitled to the 
 notice of a historian as any change of the dynasty or of 
 the ministry. 
 
 One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to 
 Population fbmi a corrcct notion of the state of a com- 
 
 ofEuglai.d ... 
 
 in 1685. munity at a given time, must be to ascertain 
 of how many persons that community then consisted. 
 Unfortunately the population of England in 1685 can 
 not be ascertained with perfect accuracy. For no great 
 state had then adopted the wise course of periodically 
 numbering the people. All men were left to conject- 
 ure for themselves ; and, as they generally conjectured 
 without examining facts, and under the influence of 
 strong passions and prejudices, their guesses were often 
 ludicrously absurd. Even intelligent Londoners ordi- 
 narily talked of London as containing several millions of 
 souls. It was confidently asserted by man}'- that, dur- 
 ing the thirty-five years which had elapsed between the 
 accession of Charles the First and the Restoration, the 
 population of the city had increased by two millions.^ 
 Even while the ravages of the plague and fire were 
 recent, it was the fashion to say that the capital still 
 had a million and a half of inhabitants.'"^ Some per- 
 sons, disgusted by these exaggerations, ran violently 
 into the opposite extreme. Thus Isaac Vossius, a 
 man of undoubted parts and learning, strenuously 
 maintained that there were only two millions of hu- 
 
 1 Observations on the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John Graunt (Sil 
 William Petty), chap. xi. 
 
 '■^ " Slxe doth comprehend 
 
 Full fifteeu hnmlred thousand which do spend 
 Their days witliiu." 
 
 Groat Britain's Beauty, 1671.
 
 Cir. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 311 
 
 man beings in England, Scotland, and Ireland taken 
 together.^ 
 
 We are not, however, left without the means of cor- 
 rectiniJ: the wild blunders into which some minds were 
 hurried by national vanity and others by a morbid love 
 of paradox. There are extant three computations which 
 seem to be entitled to y)eculiar attention. Tliey are 
 entirely independent of each other : they proceed on 
 different principles ; and yet there is little difference in 
 the results. 
 
 One of these computations was made in the year 1696 
 by Gregory King, Lancaster herald, a political arithme- 
 tician of great acuteness and judgment. The basis of 
 his calculations was the number of houses returned in 
 1690 by the officers who made the last collection of the 
 hearth money. The conclusion at which he arrived was 
 that the population of England was nearly five millions 
 and a half.'^ 
 
 About the same time Kino; William the Tliird was 
 desirous to ascertain the comparative strength of the 
 religious sects into which the community was divided. 
 An inquiry was instituted ; and reports were laid before 
 him from all the dioceses of the realm. Accordino; to 
 these reports the number of his English subjects must 
 have been about five million two hundred thousand.^ 
 
 Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of 
 
 1 Isaac Vossius, l)e Magnitudiiie Urbium Sinarum, 1C85. Vossius, as we 
 learn from St. E\roiiiiiM(l, talked on this suhji'ct ol'tuiier and longer tliau 
 fashionable circles cared to li.sten. 
 
 ■•^ King's Natural and Political Observation.s, 169(5. This valuable trea- 
 tise, which ought to be read as the author wrote it, and not as garbled by 
 Davcnant, will be tbund in some editions of Chalincrs's I'.stimate. 
 
 " Dali-ymple's Appendix to Part II. Book I. The practice of reckoning 
 the pf)pulation by sects was long fashionable. Gulliver says of the King 
 of I?robdiiign;ig, " He laughed at my odd arithmetic, as he was pleased to 
 call it, in reckoning the numbers of our ]KM)ple hy a computation drawn from 
 the several sects among us in religion and politics."
 
 312 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 eminent skill, subjected the ancient pai'ochial registers 
 of baptisms, marriages and burials to all the tests which 
 the modern improvements in statistical science enabled 
 him to api)ly. His opinion was, that, at the close of the 
 seventeenth century, the population of England Avas a 
 little under five million two hundred thousand souls.^ 
 
 Of these three estimates, framed without concert by- 
 different persons from different sets of materials, the 
 highest, which is that of King, does not exceed the 
 lowest, which is that of Finlaison, by one twelfth. We 
 may, therefore, with confidence pronounce that, when 
 James the Second reigned, England contained between 
 five million and five million five hundred thousand in- 
 habitants. On the very highest supposition she then 
 had less than one third of her present population, and 
 less than three times the population which is now col- 
 lected in her gigantic capital. 
 
 The increase of the people has been great in every 
 , part of the kingdom, but generally much 
 
 Increase of r e^ ' r>^ •> 
 
 population o-reater in the northern than in the southern 
 
 greater mo n ^ 
 
 the north sliircs. In truth a large part of the countiy 
 
 than lu the i i • i i 
 
 wuth. beyond Trent was, down to the eighteenth 
 
 century, in a state of barbarism. Physical and moral 
 causes had concurred to prevent civilisation from spread- 
 ing to that region. The air was inclement ; the soil 
 was generally such as required skilful and industrious 
 cultivation ; and there could be little skill or industry 
 in a tract which was often the theatre of war, and which, 
 even when there was nominal peace, was constantly 
 desolated by bands of Scottish marauders. Before the 
 union of the two British crowns, and long after that 
 union, there was as great a difference between Middle- 
 sex and Northumberland as there now is between Mas- 
 
 1 Preface to the Population Returns of 1831.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 313 
 
 sachiisetts and the settlements of those squatters who, 
 far to the west of the Mississippi, administer a rude 
 justice with the rifle and the dagger. In the reign of 
 Charles the Second, the traces left by ages of slaughter 
 and pillage were still distinctly perceptible, many miles 
 south of the Tweed, in the face of the country and in 
 the lawless manners of the people. There was still a 
 large class of mosstroopers, whose calling was to plunder 
 dwellings and to drive away whole herds of cattle. It 
 was found necessary, soon after the Restoration, to 
 enact laws of great severity for the prevention of these 
 outrages. The magistrates of Northumberland and 
 Cumberland were authorised to raise bands of armed 
 men for the defence of property and order ; and pro- 
 vision was made for meeting the expense of these levies 
 by local taxation.^ The parishes were required to keep 
 bloodhounds for the purpose of hunting the freebooters. 
 Many old men who were living in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century could well remember the time when 
 those ferocious dogs were common.^ Yet, even with 
 such auxiliaries, it was often found impossible to track 
 the robbers to their retreats among the hills and mo- 
 rasses. For the geography of that wild country'- was 
 very imperfectly known. Even after the accession of 
 George the Third, the path over the fells from Borrow- 
 dale to Ravenglas was still a secret carefully kept by 
 the dalesmen, some of whom had probably in their 
 youth escaped from the pursuit of justice by that road.^ 
 The seats of the gentry and the larger farmhouses were 
 fortified. Oxen were penned at night beneath the 
 overhanging battlements of the residence, which was 
 
 1 Statutes U Car. U. c. 22.; 18 & 19 Car. II. c. 3.; 29 & 30 Car. 11. c. 2. 
 
 2 Nicholson and Bourne, Discourse on the Ancient State of the Border, 
 1777. 
 
 * Gray's Journal of a Tour in tlie Lakes, Oct. 3. 1769.
 
 314 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ICii. HI. 
 
 known by the name of the Peel. The inmates slept 
 with arms at their sides. Huo;e stones and boiling 
 water were in readiness to crush and scald the plun- 
 derer who might venture to assail the little garrison. 
 No traveller ventured into that country without making 
 his will. The Judges on circuit, with the Avhole body 
 of barristers, attorneys, clerks, and serving men, rode 
 on horseback from Newcastle to Carlisle, armed and 
 escorted by a sti'ong guard under the command of the 
 Sheriffs. It was necessary to carry provisions ; for the 
 country was a wilderness which afforded no supplies. 
 The spot where the cavalcade halted to dine, under an 
 immense oak, is not yet foi'gotten. The irregular vigour 
 with which criminal justice was administered shocked 
 observers whose life had been passed in more tranquil 
 districts. Juries, animated by hatred and by a sense 
 of common danger, convicted housebreakers and cattle 
 stealers with the promptitude of a court martial in a 
 mutiny ; and the convicts were hurried by scores to 
 the gallows.^ Within the memory of some whom this 
 generation has seen, the sportsman who wandered in 
 pursuit of game to the sources of the Tyne found the 
 heaths round Keeldar Castle peopled by a race scarcely 
 less savage than the Indians of California, and heard 
 with surjn'ise the half naked women channting a M'ild 
 measure, while the men with brandished dirks danced 
 a war dance.^ 
 
 Slowly and with difficulty peace Avas established on 
 the border. In the train of peace came industry and 
 all the arts of life. Meanwhile it was discovered that 
 the regions north of the Trent possessed in their coal 
 
 1 North's Life of Guildford. Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, parish 
 of Brampton. 
 
 3 See Sir Walter Scott's Journal, Oct. 7. 1827, in his Life by Mr, Lock- 
 hart.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 315 
 
 beds a source of wealth far more precious than the gold 
 mines of Peru. It was found that, in the neighbour- 
 hood of these beds, almost every manufacture miglit be 
 most profitably carried on. A constant stream of emi- 
 grants began to roll northward. It appeared by tin 
 returns of 1841 that the ancient archiepiscopal province 
 of York contained two sevenths of the population of 
 England. At the time of the Revolution that prov- 
 ince was believed to contain only one seventh of the 
 population. 1 In Lancashire the number of inhabi- 
 tants appears to have increased ninefold, while in 
 Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northamptonshire it has hardly 
 doubled.^ 
 
 Of the taxation we can speak with more confidence 
 and precision than of the population. The „ 
 
 ^ r J Revenue m 
 
 revenue of England, when Cliarles the Second 1685. 
 died, was small, when compared witli the resources 
 which she even then possessed, or with the sums which 
 were raised by the governments of the neighbouring 
 countries. It had, from the time of the Restoration, 
 been almost constantly increasing : yet it was little 
 more than three fourtlis of the revenue of the Unitec 
 Provinces, and was hardly one fifth of the revenue of 
 France. 
 
 The most important head of receipt was the excise, 
 wliich, in the last year of the reign of Charles, pro- 
 duced five hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds, 
 clear of all deductions. Tlie net proceeds of the cus- 
 
 1 Dalrymple, Appendix to Part II. Book I. The returns of the hearth 
 nionoy lead to nearly the same conclusion. The hearths in the province 
 of York were not a sixth of the hearths of England. 
 
 2 I do not, of course, pretend to strict accuracy hero; but I believe that 
 whoever will take tin- trouhle to compare the last returns of hearth nuincy 
 in the reii,^n of William the Third with the census of 1841, will come to a 
 conclusion not verv ditVurcnt from mine.
 
 316 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. Ill 
 
 toms amounted in the same year to five hundred and 
 thirty thousand pounds. These burdens did not He 
 very heary on the nation. The tax on chimneys, 
 though less productive, called forth far louder nuirmurs. 
 The discontent excited by direct imposts is, indeed, 
 almost always out of proportion to the quantity of 
 money which they bring into the Exchequer ; and the 
 tax on cliimneys was, even among direct imposts, pecu- 
 liarly odious : for it could be levied only by means of 
 domiciliary visits ; and of such visits the English have 
 always been impatient to a degree which the people of 
 other countries can but faintly conceive. The poorer 
 householders were frequently unable to pay their hearth 
 money to the day. When this happened, their furniture 
 was distrained without mercy : for the tax was farmed ; 
 and a farmer of taxes is, of <all creditors, proverbially the 
 most rapacious. The collectors were loudly accused 
 of performing their unpopular duty with harshness and 
 insolence. It was said that, as soon as they appeared 
 at the threshold of a cottage, the children besan to 
 wail, and the old women ran to hide their earthen- 
 ware. Nay, the single • bed of a poor family had some- 
 times been carried away and sold. The net annual re- 
 ceipt from this tax was two hundred thousand pounds. ^ 
 
 1 There are in the Pepysian Library, some ballads of that age on the 
 chimney money. I will give a specimen or two: — 
 
 " The good old dames, whenever they the chimney man espied, 
 Unto their nooks they haste away, their pots and pipkins hide. 
 There is not one old dame in ten, and search the nation through, 
 But, if you talk of chimney men, will spare a curse or two." 
 
 Again, 
 
 " Like plundering soldiers they 'd enter the door, 
 And make a distress on the goods of the poor, 
 While frighted poor children distractedly cried : 
 This nothing abated their insolent pride." 
 
 In the British Museum there are doggerel verses composed on the Sftnie 
 subject and in the same spirit:
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 317 
 
 When to tlie three great sources of income wliich 
 have been mentioned we add the royal domains, then 
 far more extensive than at present, the first fruits and 
 tenths, which had not yet been surrendered to the 
 Chiu'ch, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, the 
 forfeitures and the fines, we shall find that the whole 
 annual revenue of the crown may be fairly estimated 
 at about fourteen hundred thousand pounds. Of this 
 revenue part was hereditary : the rest had been granted 
 to Charles for life ; and he was at liberty to lay out the 
 whole exactly as he thought fit. Whatever he could 
 save by retrenching the expenditure of the public de- 
 partments was an addition to his privy purse. Of the 
 Post Office, more will hereafter be said. The profits 
 of that establishment had been appropriated by Parlia- 
 ment to the Duke of York. 
 
 The King's revenue was, or rather ought to have 
 been, charged with the payment of about eighty thou- 
 sand pounds a year, the interest of the sum fraudu- 
 lently detained in the Exchequer by the Cabal. While 
 Danby was at the head of the finances, the creditors 
 had received their dividends, though not with the strict 
 punctuality of modern times: but those who had suc- 
 ceeded him at the Treasury had been less expert, or less 
 solicitous to maintain public faith. Since the victoiy 
 won by the court over the Whios, not a fartliinji had 
 been paid ; and no redress was granted to the sufferers, 
 till a new dvnastv had been many years on the throne. 
 There can be no greater error tiian to imagine that the 
 
 " Or. If through poverty it be not paid, 
 For rrui'lty to tear away the Kinfjle lied, 
 Ou which the poor luaii rests his wenry head, 
 At once deprives him of his rent and broad." 
 
 I take this opportunity, the tirst wliicli occurs, of acknowledging most 
 gratefully the kind ;ind libtrai niaiuior in whicli the .Master and Vicemaslef 
 of Maf^dnlene College, Cambridge, gave me access to the valuable collec- 
 tions of Pepj's.
 
 318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ICn. III. 
 
 device of meeting the exigencies of the state by loans 
 was imported into our island by William the Third. 
 What really dates from his reign is not the system of 
 borrowing, but the system of funding. From a period 
 of immemorial antiquity it had been the practice of 
 every English government to contract debts. What 
 the Revolution introduced was the practice of honestly 
 paying them.^ 
 
 By plundering the public creditor, it was possible to 
 make an income of about fourteen hundred thousand 
 pounds, with some occasional help from France, support 
 the necessary charges of the government and the waste- 
 ful expenditure of the court. For that load which 
 pressed most heavily on the finances of the great con- 
 tinental states was here scarcely felt. In France, Ger- 
 many, and the Netherlands, armies, such as Henry the 
 Fourth and Philip the Second had never employed in 
 time of war, were kept up in the midst of peace. Bas- 
 tions and ravelins were everywhere rising, constructed 
 on principles unknown to rarma or Spinola. Stores 
 of artillery and ammunition were accumulated, such as 
 even Richelieu, whom the preceding generation had re- 
 garded as a worker of prodigies, would have pronounced 
 fabulous. No man could journey many leagues in those 
 countries without hearino; the drums of a remment on 
 march, or being challenged by the sentinels on the 
 Military sys- drawbridge of a fortress. In our island, on 
 ^^'^- the contrary, it was possible to live long and 
 
 to travel far, without being once reminded, by any 
 martial sight or sound, that the defence of nations 
 had become a science and a calling. The majority 
 of Englishmen who were under twenty-five years of 
 age had probably never seen a company of regular 
 
 1 My chief authorities for this financial statement will be found in the 
 Commons' Journals, March 1. and March 20. 168|.
 
 Cli. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 310 
 
 soldiers. Of the cities wliicli, in the civil war, had 
 valiantly repelled hostile armies, scarce one was now 
 capable of sustuininjjj a siege. The gates stood open 
 night and day. The ditches were dry. The ram- 
 parts had been suffered to fall into decay, or were re- 
 paired only that the townsfolk might have a pleasant 
 walk on summer evenings. Of the old baronial keeps 
 many had been shattered by the cannon of Fairfax 
 and Cromwell, and lay in heaps of ruin, overgrown 
 with ivy. Those which remained had lost their mar- 
 tial character, and were now rural palaces of the aris- 
 tocracy. The moats were turned into preserves of carp 
 and })ike. The mounds were planted with fragrant 
 shrubs, through which spiral walks ran up to summer 
 houses adorned with mirrors and paintings.^ On the 
 ca])es of the sea coast, and on many inland hills, were 
 still seen tall posts, surmounted by barrels. Once those 
 barrels had been filled with pitch. Watchmen had been 
 set round them in seasons of danger ; and, within a few 
 hours after a Spanish sail had been discovered in the 
 Cluuniel, or after a thousand Scottish mosstrooj)ers had 
 ?rossed the Tweed, the signal fires were blazing fifty 
 miles off, and whole counties were risinn; in arms. But 
 many yaavs had now elapsed since the beacons had been 
 lighted ; and they were regarded rather as curious 
 relics of ancient manners than as parts of a machinery 
 necessary to the safety of the state.^ 
 
 The oidy arn)y which the law recognised was the 
 militia. That force had been remodelled by two Acts 
 of Parliament passed shortly after the Restoration. 
 Every man who possessed five hundred j)ounds a year 
 
 1 See for exiiiniile tlio picdire of the inouiid at Marlborough, in Stuke- 
 ley's Itinorariiim Ciiriosum. 
 * Cliaiuberlayne's Slate of England, 1084.
 
 320 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 derived from land, or six thousand pounds of personal 
 estate, was bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his 
 own charge, one horseman. Every man who had fifty 
 pounds a year derived from land, or six hundred pounds 
 of ])ersonal estate, was charged in like manner with one 
 pikeman or musketeer. Smaller proprietors were joined 
 together in a kind of society, for which our language 
 does not afford a special name, but which an Athenian 
 would have called a Synteleia ; and each society was 
 required to furnish, according to its means, a horse sol- 
 dier or a foot soldier. The whole number of cavalry 
 and infantry thus maintained was popularly estimated 
 at a hundred and thirty thousand men.^ 
 
 The King was, by the ancient constitution of the 
 realm, and by the recent and solemn acknowledgment 
 of both Houses of Parliament, the sole Captain General 
 of this large force. The Lords Lieutenants and their 
 Deputies held the command under him, and appointed 
 meetings for dx'illing and inspection. The time occu- 
 pied by such meetings, however, was not to exceed 
 fourteen days in one year. The Justices of the Peace 
 were authorised to inflict slight penalties for breaches 
 of discipline. Of the ordinary cost no part was paid 
 by the crown : but, wdien the trainbands were called 
 out against an enemy, their subsistence became a charge 
 on the general revenue of the state, and they were sub- 
 ject to the utmost rigour of martial law. 
 
 There were those who looked on the militia with no 
 friendly eye. Men who had travelled much on the 
 Continent, who had marvelled at the stern precision 
 with which every sentinel moved and spoke in the 
 citadels built by Vauban, who had seen the mighty 
 
 1 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 3.; 15 Car. II. c. 4. Chamberlayne's State of 
 England, 1084.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 821 
 
 armies wliicli poured along all the roads of Germany 
 to chase tlie Ottoman from the gates of Vienna, and 
 who had been dazzled by the well ordered pomp of 
 the household troops of Lewis, sneered mucli at the 
 way in whieli the peasants of Devonshire and York- 
 shire marched and wheeled, shouldered muskets and 
 ported pikes. The enemies of the liberties and religion 
 of England looked with aversion on a force which could 
 not, without extreme risk, be employed against those 
 liberties and that religion, and missed no opportunity 
 of throwing ridicule on the rustic soldiery.^ Enlight- 
 ened patriots, when they contrasted these rude levies 
 with tlie battalions which, in time of war, a few hours 
 might bring to the coast of Kent or Sussex, were forced 
 to acknowledge that, dangerous as it might be to keep 
 up a permanent military establishment, it might be 
 more dangerous still to stake the honour and indepen- 
 dence of the country on the result of a contest between 
 ploughmen officered by Justices of the Peace, and vet- 
 eran warriors led by Marshals of France. In Parlia- 
 ment, however, it was necessary to express such o})in- 
 ions with some reserve ; for the militia was an institu- 
 tion eminently popular. Every reflection thrown on it 
 excited the indignation of both the great parties in 
 the state, and especially of that party which was dis- 
 tinguished by peculiar zeal for monarchy and for the 
 
 1 Drj-den, in his Cyiiion and Iphifrcnia, expressed, with his usual keen- 
 ness and encrpy, tho. sentiments whicli had been fashionable among the 
 Bycojihants of James tlie Second: — 
 
 "The coiinfrv rings nround with loud alarms, 
 And raw in fields the rude militia swarms ; 
 Mouths without hanils, mainfaiiird at vast expense, 
 In peace a ehar^re, iu war a weak defenre. 
 Stout ome a month tliey niarcli. a hlustering band, 
 And ever, hut in time of need, at hand. 
 This was the morn when, issuinjr on the guard, 
 Drawn up in rauk and file, they stood jirepared 
 Of seemiii); arms to make a short essay, 
 Theu hasten to be drunk, the business of the day " 
 ▼OL. I. 21
 
 822 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cn. III. 
 
 Anglican Church. Tlie array of" the counties was 
 commanded, almost exclusively by Tory noblemen and 
 gentlemen. They were proud of their military rank, 
 and considered an insult offered to the service to which 
 they belonged as offered to themselves. They were 
 also perfectly aware that whatever was said against a 
 militia was said in favour of a standing army ; and the 
 name of standing army was hateful to them. One 
 such army had held dominion in England ; and under 
 that dominion the King had been murdered, the nobil- 
 ity degraded, the landed gentry plundered, the Church 
 persecuted. There was scarcely a rural grandee wdio 
 could not tell a story of wrongs and insults suffered by 
 himself, or by his father, at the hands of the Parlia- 
 mentary soldiers. One old Cavalier had seen half his 
 manor house blown up. The hereditary elms of an- 
 other had been hewn down. A third could never 20 
 into his parish church without being reminded by the 
 defaced scutcheons and headless statues of his ancestry, 
 that Oliver's redcoats had once stabled their horses 
 there. The consequence was that those very Royal- 
 ists, who were most readv to fio-ht for the Kino- them- 
 selves, were the last persons whom he could venture to 
 ask for the means of hiring regular troops. 
 
 Charles, however, had, a few months after his resto- 
 ration, begun to form a small standing army. He felt 
 that, without some better protection than that of the 
 trainbands and beefeaters, liis palace and person would 
 hardly be secure, in the vicinity of a great city swarm- 
 ing with warlike Fifth Monarchy men who had just 
 been disbanded. He therefore, careless and profuse as 
 he was, contrived to spare from his pleasures a sum 
 sufficient to keep up a body of guards. With the in- 
 crease of trade and of public wealth his revenues in-
 
 Ch. hi.) state op England in 1685. 323 
 
 creased ; and he was thus enabled, in spite of the oc- 
 casioiial muvnmrs of the Commons, to make gradual 
 additions to his regular forces. One considerable ad- 
 dition was made a few months before tlie close of his 
 reign. The costly, useless, and pestilential settlement 
 of Tangier was abandoned to the barbarians who dwelt 
 around it ; and the garrison, consisting of one regiment 
 of horse and two regiments of foot, was brought to 
 England. 
 
 The little army thus formed by Charles the Second 
 was the germ of that great and renowned army Avhich 
 has, in the present century, marched triumphant into 
 Madrid and Paris, into Canton and Candahar. The 
 Life Guards, who now form two regiments, were then 
 distributed into three troops, each of which consisted 
 of two hundred carabineers, exclusive of officers. This 
 corjjs, to which the safety of the King and royal fam- 
 ily was confided, had a very peculiar character. Even 
 the privates were designated as gentlemen of the Guard. 
 Many of them were of good families, and had held com- 
 missions in the civil war. Their pay was far higher 
 than that of the most favoured regiment of our time, 
 and would in that age have been thought a respectable 
 pi'ovision for the younger son of a country squire. 
 Their fine horses, their rich housings, their cuirasses, 
 and their buff coats adorned with ribands, velvet, and 
 golc. lace, made a s})lendid appearance in St. James's 
 Park. A small body of grenadier dragoons, who came 
 from i lower class and received lower pay, Avas at- 
 tached to each troop. Another body of household 
 cavalry distinguished by blue coats and cloaks, and 
 still called the Blues, was generally quartered in the 
 neighbourhood of the capital. Near the capital lay 
 also the corps which is now designated as the first
 
 324 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. Ch. ITI.] 
 
 regiment of dragoons, but wliich was then the only 
 regiment of dragoons on the Enghsh estahhshment. 
 It had recently been formed out of the cavahy wlio 
 had returned from Tangier. A single troop of dra- 
 goons, which did not form part of any regiment, was 
 stationed near Berwick, for the purpose of keeping the 
 peace among the mosstroopers of the border. For this 
 species of service the dragoon was then thought to be 
 peculiarly qualified. He has since become a mere 
 horse soldier. But in the seventeenth century he was 
 accurately described by Montecuculi as a foot soldier 
 who used a horse only in order to arrive with more 
 speed at the place where military service was to be 
 performed. 
 
 The household infantiy consisted of two regiments, 
 which were then, as now, called the first regiment of 
 Foot Guards, and the Coldstream Guards. - They gen- 
 erally did duty near Whitehall and St. James's Palace. 
 As there were then no barracks, and as, by the Peti- 
 tion of Right, it had been declared unlawful to quarter 
 soldiers on private families, the redcoats filled all the 
 alehouses of Westminster and the Strand. 
 
 There were five other regiments of foot. One of 
 these, called the Admiral's Regiment, was especially 
 destined to service on board of the fleet. The remain- 
 ino; four still rank as the first four regiments of the line. 
 Two of these represented two brigades Avhich had long 
 sustained on the Continent the fame of British valour. 
 The first, or Royal regiment, had, under the great 
 Gustavus, borne a conspicuous part in the deliverance 
 of Germany. The third regiment, distinguished by 
 flesh coloured facings, from which it derived the well 
 known name of the Buffs, had, under Maurice of Nas- 
 sau, fought not less bravely for the deliverance of the
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 325 
 
 Netherlands. Both these gallant bands had at length, 
 after many vicissitudes, been recalled from foreign ser- 
 vice by Charles the Second, and had been placed on 
 the Eno;lish establishment. 
 
 The resriments which now rank as the second and 
 fourth of the hne had, in 1685, just returned from 
 Tano-ier, brinoino- with them cruel and licentious habits 
 contracted in a long course of warfare with the Moors. 
 A -few companies of infantry which had not been regi- 
 mented lay in garrison at Tilbury Fort, at Portsmouth, 
 at Plymouth, and at some other important stations on 
 or near the coast. 
 
 Since the beoinnino; of the seventeenth century a 
 great change had taken place in the arms of the in- 
 fantry. The pike had been gradually giving place to 
 the musket ; and, at the close of the reign of Charles 
 the Second, most of his foot were musketeers. Still, 
 however, there was a large intermixture of pikemen. 
 Each class of troops was occasionally instructed in the 
 use of the weapon which peciiliarly belonged to the 
 other class. Every foot soldier had at his side a sword 
 for close fight. The musketeer was generally provided 
 with a weapon which had, during many years, been 
 gradually coming into use, and which the English then 
 cailetl a daf>'<''er, but which, from the time of our revo- 
 lution, has been known among us by the French name 
 of bayonet. The bayonet seems not to have been so 
 I'ormidable an instrument of destruction as it has since 
 become ; for it was inserted in the muzzle of the gun ; 
 nnd in action much time was lost while the soldier 
 .infixed his bayonet in order to fire, and fixed it again 
 in order to charjie. The drao;oon, when dismounted, 
 foiioht as a musketeer. 
 
 The regular army which was kept up in England at
 
 326 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii. III. 
 
 the beginning of tlie year 1685 consisted, all ranks in- 
 cluded, of" about seven thousand foot, and about seven- 
 teen hundred cavalry and dragoons. The whole charge 
 amounted to about two hundred and ninety thousand 
 pounds a year, less than a tenth part of what the mili- 
 tary establishment of France then cost in time of peace. 
 The daily pay of a private in the Life Guards was four 
 shillings, in the Blues two shillings and sixpence, hi 
 the Dragoons eighteenpence, in the Foot Guards ten- 
 pence, and in the line eightpence. The discipline was 
 lax, and indeed could not be otherwise. The common 
 law of England knew nothing of coiirts martial, and 
 made no distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier 
 and any other subject ; nor could the government then 
 venture to ask even the most loyal Parliament for a 
 Mutiny Bill. A soldier, therefore, by knocking down 
 his colonel, incurred only the ordinary penalties of as- 
 sault and battery, and by refiising to obey orders, by 
 sleeping on guard, or by deserting his colours, incurred 
 no legal penalty at all. Military punishments were 
 doubtless inflicted during the reign of Charles the 
 Second ; but they were inflicted very sparingly, and 
 in such a manner as not to attract public notice, or to 
 })roduce an appeal to the courts of Westminster Hall. 
 
 Such an army as has been described was not very 
 likely to enslave five millions of Englishmen. It would 
 indeed have been unable to suppress an insuiTection 
 in London, if the trainbands of the City had joined 
 the insurgents. Nor could the King expect that, if a 
 rising took place in England, he would be able to ob- 
 tain help from his other dominions. For, though both 
 Scotland and Ireland supported separate military es- 
 tablishments, those establishments were not more than 
 sufficient to keep down the Puritan malecontents of
 
 Ch. in.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 327 
 
 tl e former kingdom, and the Popish malecontents of 
 the latter. The government had, however, an impor- 
 ta)it miHtary resource which must not be left uimo- 
 ticed. There were in the ])ay of the United Prov- 
 inces six fine regiments, of which three had been raised 
 in England and three in Scotland. Their native prince 
 had reserved to himself the power of recalling them, 
 if he needed their help against a foreign or domestic 
 enemy. In the meantime tiiey were maintained with- 
 out any charge to him, and were kept under an excel- 
 lent discipline, to which he could not have ventured to 
 subject tiiem.^ 
 
 If the jealousy of the Parliament and of the nation 
 made it impossible for the King to maintain a 
 formidable standing army, no similar impedi- ®"*'y- 
 ment prevented him from making England the first of 
 maritime powers. Both Whigs and Tories were ready 
 to applaud every step tending to increase the efficiency 
 of that force which, while it was the best protection of 
 the island against foreign enemies, was powerless against 
 civil liberty. All the greatest exploits achieved within 
 the memory of that generation by English soldiers had 
 been acliieved in war against English princes. The 
 victories of our sailors had been won over foreiffn foes, 
 and had averted havoc and rapine from our own soil. 
 By at least half the nation the battle of Naseby Avas re- 
 membered with hoi-ror, and the battle of Dunbar with 
 ])):de chequered by many painful feelings: but the 
 
 1 51cm, c'. the materials wliicli I have used for this account of the regular 
 arinv t.li be found in the Historical Records of Reffinients, pulilished by- 
 command of King William the Fourth, and under the direction of the Ad- 
 jutant General. See also ("lianiltorlayne's Slate of KnglaiKl, lfi84; Ahridg- 
 fuent of the English Military Discipline, printed by especial command, 
 16S5; Exercise of Foot, by tluMr Majesties' command, 1690.
 
 328 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cn. III. 
 
 defeat of the Armada, and tlie encounters of Blake with 
 the Hollanders and Spaniards, were recollected with 
 unmixed exultation hy all parties. Ever since the Res- 
 toration, the Commons, even when most discontented 
 and most parsimonious, had always been bountiful even 
 to profusion where the interest of the navy was con- 
 cerned. It had been represented to them, while Danby 
 was minister, that many of the vessels in the royal fleet 
 were old and unfit for sea ; and, although the House 
 was, at that time, in no giving mood, an aid of near six 
 hundred thousand pounfls had been granted for the 
 building of thirty new men of war. 
 
 But the liberality of the nation had been made fruit- 
 less by the vices of the government. The list of the 
 King's ships, it is true, looked well. There were nine 
 first rates, fourteen second rates, thirty-nine third rates, 
 and many smaller vessels. The first rates, indeed, were 
 less than the third rates of our time; and the third 
 rates would not now rank as verv laro;e frio;ates. This 
 force, however, if it had been efficient, would in those 
 days have been regarded by the greatest potentate as 
 formidable. But it existed only on paper. When the 
 reign of Charles terminated, his navy had sunk into 
 degradation and decay, such as would be almost incred- 
 ible if it were not certified to us by the independent and 
 concurring evidence of witnesses whose authority is be- 
 yond exception. Pepys, the ablest man in the English 
 Admiralty, drew up, in the year 1684, a memorial on 
 the state of his department, for the information of 
 Charles. A few months later Bonx'epaux, the ablest 
 man in the French Admiralty, havino- visited En Hand 
 for the especial purpose of ascertaining her maritime 
 strength, laid the result of his inquiries before Lewis. 
 The two reports are to the same effect. Bonrepaux
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 329 
 
 declared that he found everything in disorder and in 
 miserable condition, that the superioi'ity of the French 
 marine was acknowledged with shame and envy at 
 Whitehall, and that the state of our shipping and dock- 
 yards Avas of itself a sufficient guarantee that we should 
 not meddle in the disputes of Europe.^ P^pys informed 
 his master that the naval administration was a prodigy 
 of wastefuhiess, corruption, ig-norance, and indolence, 
 that no estimate could be trusted, that no contract was 
 performed, that no check was enforced. The vessels 
 which the recent liberality of Parliament had enabled 
 the government to build, and which had never been out 
 of harbour, had been made of such wretched timber 
 that they were more unfit to go to sea than the old hulls 
 which had been battered thirty years before by Dutch 
 and Spanish broadsides. Some of the new men of war, 
 indeed, were so rotten that, unless speedily repaired, 
 they would go down at their moorings. The sailors 
 were paid with so little punctuality that they were glad 
 to find some usurer who would purchase their tickets 
 at forty per cent, discount. The commanders who had 
 not powerful friends at court were even worse treated. 
 Some officers, to whom hii'ge arrears were dvie, after 
 vainly importuning the government during many years, 
 had died for want of a morsel of bi'eid. 
 
 Most of the ships wliich were afloat were commanded 
 by men who had not been bred to the sea. This, it is 
 true, was not an abuse introduced by the government 
 
 1 I refer to a despatdi of nonrepaux to Scifinelay, datetl Feb. _."_. ]68G. 
 It was transcribed for Mr. Fox from the French arcliivcs, durint; the peace 
 of Amiens, and, wiiii the otiier niateiials broufjlit together by tliat great 
 man, was iiitrii.-ted to nio In- the kindness of the late I.adv Ilolhuid, and 
 of the present Lord Holland. 1 (uight to add that, even in tlie midst of 
 the troubles which have latily agitated Paris, I havi; found i.o diHieulty in 
 obtaining, fmni the liberaliiy of the functionaries there, extracts suiiplyiny 
 some chasms in Mr. Fox's collection. (1848.)
 
 380 HISTCilY OF ENGLAND. [Cn. III. 
 
 of Charles. No state, ancient or modern, had, before 
 that time, made a complete separation between the 
 naval and military services. In the great civilised 
 nations of antiquity, Cimon and Lysander, Pompey 
 and Agrippa, had fought battles by sea as well as b}' 
 land. Nor had the impulse which nautical science 
 received at the close of the fifteenth century produced 
 any new division of labour. At Flodden the right 
 wing of the victorious army was led by the Admiral 
 of Eno'land. At Jarnac and Moncontour the Huoue- 
 not ranks were marshalled by the Admiral of France. 
 Neither John of Austria, the conqueror of Lepanto, 
 nor Lord Howard of Effingham, to whose direction 
 the marine of England was confided when the Span- 
 ish invaders were approaching our shores, had re- 
 ceived the education of a sailor. Raleigh, highly cel- 
 ebrated as a naval commander, had served durino- 
 
 ' CI? 
 
 many years as a soldier in France, the Netherlands, 
 a)id Ireland. Blake had distinguished himself by his 
 skilful and valiant defence of an inland town before he 
 humbled the pride of Holland and of Castile on the 
 ocean. Since the Restoration the same system had been 
 followed. Great fleets had been entrusted to the di- 
 rection of Rupert and Monk ; Rupert, who was re- 
 nowned chiefly as a hot and daring cavalry officer, and 
 Monk, who, when he wished his ship to change her 
 course, moved the mirth of his crew by calling out, 
 " Wheel to the left ! " 
 
 But aboiat this time wise men began to perceive that 
 the rapid improvement, both of the art of Avar and of 
 the art of navigation, made it necessary to draw a line 
 between two professions which had hitherto been con- 
 founded. Either the command of a regiment or the 
 command of a ship was now a matter quite sufficient to
 
 Ch. III.] STATE Of ENGLAND IN 1685. 331 
 
 occupy the attention of a single mind. In the year 
 1672 the French government determined to educate 
 young men of good family from a very early age spe- 
 cially for the sea service. But the English govern- 
 ment, instead of following this excellent example, not 
 only continued to distribute high naval commands 
 among landsmen, but selected for such commands lands- 
 m3n who, even on land, could not safely have been put 
 in any imj^ortant trust. Any lad of noble birth, any 
 dissolute courtier for whom one of the King's mistresses 
 would speak a word, might hope that a ship of the line, 
 and with it the honour of the country and the lives of 
 hundreds of brave men, would be committed to his 
 care. It mattered not that he had never in his life 
 taken a voyage except on the Thames, that he could 
 not keep his feet in a breeze, tliat he did not know the 
 difference between latitude and longitude. No previous 
 training was thought necessaiy ; or, at most, he was 
 sent to make a short trip in a man of war, where he 
 was subjected to no discipline, where he was treated 
 with marked respect, and where he lived in a round of 
 revels and amusements. If, in the intervals of feastin<>-, 
 drinking and gambling, he succeeded in learning the 
 meaning of a few technical phrases and the names of the 
 points of the compass, he was thought fullv qualiHed to 
 take charge of a threedecker. This is no imaginary de- 
 scription. In 1666, Joim Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, 
 at seventeen years of age, volunteered to serve at sea 
 against the Dutch. He passed six weeks on board, di- 
 verting himself, as well as he could, in the society of 
 some young libertines of rank, and then returned home 
 to take the command of a troop of horse. After tliis 
 he was never on the water till the year 1672, when he 
 again joined the fleet, and was almost immediately ap-
 
 332 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 pointed Captain of a ship of eighty-four guns, reputed 
 the finest in the navy. He was then twenty-three 
 years old, and had not, in the whole course of his life, 
 been three months afloat. As soon as he came back 
 from sea he was made Colonel of a regiment of foot. 
 This is a specimen of the manner in which naval com- 
 mands of the highest importance were then given ; and 
 a favourable specimen ; for Mulgrave, though he wanted 
 experience, wanted neither parts nor courage. Others 
 were promoted in the same way who not only were not 
 good officers, but who were intellectually and morally 
 incapable of ever becoming good officei's, and whose 
 only recommendation was that they had been ruined by 
 folly and vice. The chief bait which allured these men 
 into the ser\ace was the profit of conveying bullion and 
 other valuable commodities from port to port ; for both 
 the Atlantic and the Mediterranean were then so much 
 infested by pirates from Barbary that merchants were 
 not willing to trust precious cargoes to any custody but 
 that of a man of war. A Captain might thus clear 
 several thousands of pounds by a short voyage ; and 
 for this lucrative business he too often neolected the 
 interests of his country and the honour of his flag, made 
 mean submissions to foreign powers, disobeyed the most 
 direct injunctions of his superiors, lay in port when he 
 was ordered to chase a Sallee rover, or ran A\ith cUA- 
 lars to Leghorn when his instructions directed him to 
 repair to Lisbon. And all this he did with im})unity. 
 The same interest which had placed him in a post for 
 which he was unfit maintained him there. No Ad- 
 miral, bearded by these corrupt and dissolute millions 
 Ltf the palace, dared to do more than mutter something 
 about a court martial. If any officer showed a higher 
 sense of duty than his fellows, he soon found that he
 
 Ch. m.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 333 
 
 lost money without acquiring honour. One Captain, 
 who, by strictly obeying the orders of the Admiralty, 
 missed a caro-o which would have been worth four thou- 
 sand pounds to him, was told by Charles, with ignoble 
 levity, that he was a great fool for his pains. 
 
 The discipline of the navy was of a piece throughout. 
 As the courtly Captain despised the Admiralty, he was 
 in turn despised by his crew. It could not be concealed 
 that he was inferior in seamanship to every foremast 
 man on board. It was idle to expect that old sailors, 
 familiar with the hurricanes of the tropics and with the 
 icebergs of the Arctic Circle, would pay prompt and 
 respectful obedience to a chief who knew no more of 
 winds and waves than could be learned in a gilded 
 barge between Whitehall Stairs and Hampton Court. 
 To trust such a novice with the working of a shi|) was 
 evidently impossible. The direction of the navigation 
 was therefore taken from the Captain and given to the 
 Master: but this partition of authority produced in- 
 numerable inconveniences. The line of demarcation 
 was not, and perhaps could not be, drawn Avith precision. 
 There was therefore constant wrangling. The Captain, 
 confident in proportioi\ to his ignorance, treated the 
 Master with lordly contempt. The Master, well aware 
 of the danger of disobliging the powerful, too often, 
 after a struggle, yielded against his better judgment ; 
 and it was well if the loss of ship and crew was not the 
 consequence. In general the least mischievous of the 
 aristocratical Cajitains were those who completely aban- 
 doned to others tlie direction of the vessels, and thought 
 only of making money and spending it. The way in 
 which these men lived was so ostentatious and voluj>- 
 tuous that, greedy as they were of gain, they seldom 
 became rich. They dressed as if for a gala at Versailles,
 
 334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND- [Ch. HI; 
 
 ate off plate, drank the richest wines, and kept hararaa 
 on board, while hunger and scurvy raged among the 
 crews, and while corpses were daily flung out of the 
 portholes. 
 
 Such was tlie ordinary character of those who were 
 then called gentlemen Captains. Mingled with them 
 were to be found, happily for our country, naval com- 
 manders of a very different description, men whose 
 whole life had been passed on the deep, and who had 
 worked and fought their way from the lowest offices of 
 the forecastle to rank and distinction. One of the most 
 eminent of these officers was Sir Christopher Mings, 
 who entered the service as a cabin boy, who fell fighting 
 bravely against the Dutch, and whom his crew, weep- 
 ing and vowino; vengeance, carried to the o;rave. From 
 him sprang, by a singular kind of descent, a line of 
 valiant and expert sailors. His cabin boy was Sir John 
 Narborough ; and the cabin boy of Sir John Narborough 
 was Sir Cloudesley Shovel. To the strong natural sense 
 and dauntless courage of this class of men England owes 
 a debt never to be forgotten. It was by such resolute 
 hearts that, in spite of much maladministration, and in 
 s])ite of the blunders and treasons of more courtly ad- 
 mirals, our coasts were protected and the reputation of 
 our flag upheld during many gloomy and perilous years. 
 But to a landsman these tarpaulins, as they were called, 
 seemed a strange and half savage race. All their knowl- 
 edge was professional ; and their professional knowl- 
 edge was practical I'ather than scientific. Off their 
 own element they were as simple as children. Their 
 deportment was uncouth. There was roughness in 
 their very good nature ; and their talk, where it.was not 
 made up of nautical phrases, was too commonly made 
 up of oaths and curses. Suclrwere the chiefs in whose
 
 Ch. Ill] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1G85. 335 
 
 rude school were formed those sturdy warriors from 
 whom Smollet, in the next age, drew Lieutenant Bowl- 
 ing and Commodore Trunnion. But it does not ap- 
 pear that there was in tlie service of any of the Stuarts 
 a single naval officer such as, according to the notions 
 of our times, a naval officer ought to be, that is to say, 
 a man versed in tlie theory and pi'actice of his calling, 
 and steeled a<i;ainst all the danoers of battle and tern- 
 pest, yet of cultivated niiud and polished manners. 
 There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the 
 navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were 
 not gentlemen ; and the gentlemen were not seamen. 
 
 The English navy at that time might, according to 
 the most exact estimates which have come down to us, 
 have been kept in an efficient state for three hundred 
 and eighty thousand pounds a year. Four lumdred 
 thousand pounds a year was the sum actually expended, 
 but expended, as we have seen, to very little purpose. 
 The cost of the French marine was nearly the same ; 
 the cost of the Dutch marine considerably more.' 
 
 The cliaro;e of the Eno;lish ordnance in the seven- 
 teenth century was, as compared with other .,,,j,. 
 military and naval charges, much smaller than "'■'""<«• 
 at ])rescnt. At most of the garrisons there were gunnel's, 
 and here and there, at an important post, an engineer was 
 
 1 My ■.nfnrniatioii ri-spei-tiiif; the cniKlition of the navy, at tliis time, is 
 chicfi" derived iVom l'e|))s. Ills rep<ir(, presented to Charles the Second 
 in May 1084, has never, I believe, been i)nnted. The manuscript is at 
 ]\Iaf;dalene Colh>f;c, Canibridfje. At Magdalene Colicf^c is also a valuable 
 manuscript contaiiiinj; a lietailed account of the maritime establisliments 
 of the country in Decemlier 1G84. I'cpys's " .Meumirs rclatiiifj to the State 
 of tlie Koyal Navy for Ten Years, determined l>ecemher 1688," and his 
 diary and correspondence during his mission to Tangier, are in print. I 
 have made large nse of them. Sec also Sheffield's Memoirs, Te( nge'ft 
 Diary, Aulirey's Life of Monk, the Life of Sir Cloudusley Shovel, 1704: 
 Commons" .lournals, March 1. and .March 20. 168|.
 
 3BG HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 to be found. But there was no regiment of artillery, 
 no brigade of sappers and miners, no college in whicli 
 vouno; soldiers could learn the scientific part of the art 
 of war. The difiiculty of moving field pieces was ex- 
 treme. When, a few years later, William marched 
 from Devonshire to London, the apparatus which he 
 brought with him, though such as had long been in 
 constant use on the Continent, and such as would now 
 be i-egarded at Woolwich as rude and cumbrous, ex- 
 cited in our ancestors an admiration resembling that 
 which the Indians of America felt for the Castilian 
 harquebusses. The stock of gunpowder kept in the 
 English forts and arsenals was boastfully mentioned by 
 patriotic writers as something which might well impress 
 neiirhbouring nations with awe. It amounted to four- 
 teen or fifteen thousand barrels, about a twelfth of the 
 quantity which it is now thought necessary to have 
 always in store. The expenditure under the head of 
 ordnance was on an average a little above sixty thou- 
 sand pounds a year.^ 
 
 The whole effective charge of the army, navy, and 
 oi'dnance, was about seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 Noneffective pouuds. The noueffectiA'^e charge, which is 
 charge. j^q^^ j^ hcavy part of our public burdens, can 
 
 hardly be said to have existed. A very small number 
 of naval officers, who were not employed in the pub- 
 lic service, drew half pay. No Lieutenant was on the 
 list, nor any Captain who had not commanded a ship 
 of the first or second rate. As the country then pos- 
 sessed only seventeen ships of the first and second rate 
 that had ever been at sea, and as a large proportion 
 
 1 Chamberlayne's State of Eii.i;land, 1G84; Commons' Journals, March 
 1. and March 20. 168|. In 1833, it was determined, after full enquiry, 
 that a hundred and seventy thousand barrels of gunpowder should con- 
 stantly be kept in store.
 
 C«. III.] STA'xE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 337 
 
 of the persons who had commanded such ships had 
 good posts on shore, the expenditure under this head 
 must have heen small indeed.^ In the army, half pay 
 was given merely as a special and temporary allowance 
 to a small number of officers belonojino; to two rem- 
 iTients, Avhich were peculiarly situated. ^ " Greenwich 
 Hospital had not been founded. Chelsea Hospital was 
 building : but tire cost of that institution was defrayed 
 partly by a deduction from the pay of the troops, and 
 partly by private subscription. The King promised to 
 contribute only twenty thousand pounds for architec- 
 tural expenses, and five thousand a year for the main- 
 tenance of the invalids.^ It was no part of the plan 
 that there should be outpensioners. The Avhole non- 
 effective charge, military and naval, can scarcely have 
 exceeded ten thousand pounds a year. It now exceeds 
 ten thousand pounds a day. 
 
 Of the expense of civil government only a small por- 
 tion was defrayed bv the crown. The great charge of 
 majority ot ttie tunctionanes wliose busmess n:cnt. 
 was to administer justice and preserve order either gave 
 their services to the public gratuitously, or were remu- 
 nerated in a manner which caused no drain on the 
 revenue of the state. The sheriffs, mayors, and alder- 
 men of the towns, the country gentlemen who were in 
 the comnn'ssion of the peace, the headboroughs, bailiffs, 
 and petty constables, cost the king nothing. The supe- 
 rior courts of law were chieflv supported by fees. 
 
 Our relations with foreign courts had been put on 
 
 1 It appears from ttie rcrords of the Admiralty, that Flag oflficers were 
 allowed hiilfpay in 1668, Captnins of first and second rate? not till 1674. 
 
 '^ Warrant in the War Ofliee Records, dated March 26. 1678. 
 
 8 Kvelyn'.s Dinry, Jan. 27. lf;82. I have seen a privy seal, dated May 
 17. 1G8.3. which confirms ICveJj-n's testimony. 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 838 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 the most economical footing. The only diplomatic agent 
 who had the title of Ambassador resided at Constanti- 
 nople, and was partly supported by the Turkey Com- 
 pany. Even at the court of Versailles England had 
 only an Envoy ; and she had not even an Envoy at the 
 Spanish, Swedish, and Danish courts. The whole ex- 
 pense under this head cannot, in the last year of the 
 reign of Charles the Second, have much exceeded 
 twenty thousand pounds.^ 
 
 In this frugality there was nothmg laudable. Charles 
 Great gains "^^^' ^^ usual, niggardly in the wrong place, 
 and court-" ^"^ munificent in the wrong place. The pub- 
 ""• lie service was starved that courtiers mioht 
 
 be pampered. The expense of the navy, of the ord- 
 nance, of pensions to needy old officers, of missions to 
 foreign courts, must seem small indeed to the present 
 generation. But the personal favourites of the sover- 
 eign, his ministers, and the creatvires of those minis- 
 ters, were goi'ged with public money. Their salaries 
 and pensions, when compared with the incomes of the 
 nobility, the gentry, the commercial and professional 
 men of that age, will appear enormous. The greatest 
 estates in the kingdom then very little exceeded twenty 
 thousand a year. The Duke of Ormond had twenty- 
 two thousand a year.^ The Duke of Buckingham, be- 
 fore his extravagance had impaired his great property, 
 had nineteen thousand six hundred a year.^ George 
 Monk, Duke of Albemarle, who had been rewarded for 
 his eminent services with immense grants of crown land, 
 
 1 James the Second sent Envoys to Spain, Sweden, and Denmark; yet 
 in his reign the diplomatic expenditure was little more than 30,000^. a 
 year See the Commons' Journals, March 20. 168|. Chamberlayne'e 
 St&V. of Enpcland, 1084, 1686. 
 
 2 Carte's Lite of Ormond. 
 
 « Pepys's Diary, Feb. U. lfi(i|.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 168"). 339 
 
 and wlio liad been notorious both for covetousness and 
 for parsimony, left fifteen thousand a year of real estate, 
 and sixty thousand pounds in money which probably 
 yielded seven per cent.^ These three Dukes were sup- 
 posed to be three of the very richest subjects in Eng- 
 land. The Archbishop of Canterbury can hardly have 
 had five thousand a year.^ The average income of a 
 temporal peer was estimated, by the best informed per- 
 sons, at about three thousand a year, the average in- 
 come of a bai'onet at nine hundred a year, the average 
 income of a member of the House of Commons at less 
 than eioht hundred a vear.^ A thousand a. year was 
 thoujiht a laro;e revenue for a barrister. Two thousand 
 a year was hardly to be made in the Court of King's 
 Bench, except by the crown lawyers.^ It is evident, 
 therefore, that an official man would have been well 
 paid if he had received a fourth or fifth part of what 
 would now be an adequate stipend. In fact, however, 
 the stipends of the higher class of official men were as 
 large as at present, and not seldom larger. The Lord 
 Treasurer, for example, had eight thousand a year, and, 
 when the Treasury was in commission, the junior Lords 
 had sixteen hundred a year each. The Paymaster of 
 the Forces had a poundage, amounting in time of peace 
 to about five thousand a year, on all the money which 
 
 1 Sec the IJeport of tlic Bath and Montague case, which was decided by 
 Lord Keeper Somers, in December, 1693. 
 
 2 Duririfi three quarters of a year, bcginninpf from Christmas 1680, the 
 revenues of the see of Canterbury were received bv an officer appointed by 
 the crown. That officer's accounts are now in the liritish Museum. (Lans- 
 downe MSS. 885.) Tiie gross revenue for the three quarters was not quite 
 four thousand pounds; and the difference between tlie gross and the net 
 revenue was evidently sometiiiug considerable. 
 
 * King's Natural and I'dlitical Conclusions. Davenanton the Balance of 
 Trade. Sir W. Temple says, " The revenues of a House of Commons liave 
 wtdom exceeded four hundred thousand pounds." Memoirs, Third Part. 
 
 * Langton's Conversations with Chief Justice Hale, 1672.
 
 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cm. HI. 
 
 passed through his hands. The Groom of the Stole 
 liad five thousand a year, the Commissioners of the Cus- 
 toms twelve hundred a year each, the Lords of the Bed- 
 chamber a thousand a year each.^ The regular salary, 
 however, was the smallest part of the gains of an offi- 
 cial man of that age. From the noblemen who held 
 the white staff and the great seal, down to the hvun- 
 blest tidewaiter and ganger, what would now be called 
 gross corru})tion was practised without disguise and 
 without reproach. Titles, places, connnissions, pardons, 
 weve daily sold in market overt by the great dignitaries 
 of the ryaim ; and every clerk in every department 
 imitated, to the best of his power, the evil example. 
 
 During the last century no prime minister, however 
 powerful, has become rich in office ; and several prime 
 ministers have impaired their private fortune in sustain- 
 ing their public character. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, a statesman who was at the head of affairs might 
 easily, and without giving scandal, accumulate in no 
 long time an estate amply sufficient to support a duke- 
 dom. It is probable that the income of the prime min- 
 ister, during his tenure of power, far exceeded that of 
 any other subject. The place of Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland Avas popularly reported to be worth forty thou- 
 sand pounds a year.^ The gains of the Chancellor Clar- 
 endon, of Arlington, of Lauderdale, and of Danby, were 
 certainly enormous. The sumptuous palace to which the 
 populace of London gave the name of Dunkirk Rouse, 
 the stately pavilions, the fishponds, the deer park and 
 the orangery of Euston, the more than Italian luxury 
 of Ham, with its busts, fountains, and aviaries, were 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, April 27. 1689; Chamberlayne's State of England 
 1684. 
 
 2 See the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 341 
 
 among the many signs which indicated what was the 
 shortest road to boundless wealth. This is the true 
 explanation of the unscrupulous violence with which 
 the statesmen of that day struggled for office, of the 
 tenacity with which, in spite of vexations, humiliations 
 and dangers, they clung to it, and of the scandalous 
 compliances to which they stooped in order to retain it. 
 Even in our own age, formidable as is the power of 
 opinion, and high as is the standard of integrity, there 
 would be crreat risk of a lamentable chance in the 
 character of our public men, if the place of First Lord 
 of the Treasuiy or Secretary of State were worth a 
 hundred thousand pounds a year. Happily for our 
 comitry the emoluments of the highest class of func- 
 tionaries have not only not grown in proportion to the 
 general growth of our opulence, but have positively 
 diminished. 
 
 The fact that the sum raised in England by taxation 
 has, in a time not exceeding two long lives, g^^^g ^f 
 been multiplied fortyfold, is strange, and »e"<^"''">*- 
 may at first sight seem appalling. But those who are 
 alarmed by the inci*ease of the public burdens may 
 perhaps be reassured when they have considered the 
 increase of the public resources. In the year 1685, 
 the value of the produce of the soil far exceeded the 
 value of all the other fruits of human industry. Yet 
 agriculture was in what would now be considered as a 
 very rude and imperfect state. The arable land and 
 pasture land were not supposed by the best ])olitical 
 arithmeticians of that age to amount to much more 
 than half the area of the kinmlom.^ The remainder 
 was believed to consist of moor, forest, and fen. These 
 
 ^ Kinp^'8 Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance 
 tf Trade.
 
 342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. IIL 
 
 computations are strongly confirmed by the road books 
 and maps of the seventeenth century. From those 
 books and maps it is clear that many routes which now 
 pass through an endless succession of orchards, hay- 
 fields, and beanfields, then i-an through nothing but 
 heath, swamp, and warren.^ In the drawings of English 
 landscapes made in that age for the Grand Duke Cosmo, 
 scarce a hedge-row is to be seen, and numerous tracts, 
 now rich with cultivation, appear as bare as Salisbury 
 Plain. ^ At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke 
 of the capital, was a region of five and twenty miles in 
 circumference, which contained only three houses and 
 scarcely any inclosed fields. Deer, as free as in an 
 American forest, wandered there by thousands.^ It is 
 to be remarked, that wild animals of large size were 
 then far more numerous than at present. The last wild 
 boars, indeed, which had been preserved for the royal 
 diversion, and had been allowed to ravage the cultivated 
 land with their tusks, had been slaughtered by the ex- 
 asperated rustics during the license of the civil war. 
 The last wolf that has roamed our island had been 
 slain in Scotland a short time before the close of the 
 reign of Charles tlie Second. But many breeds, now 
 extinct or rare, both of quadrupeds and birds, were still 
 common. The fox, whose life is now, in many counties, 
 
 1 See the Itinerarium Angliaj, 1675, b}' John Ogilby, Cosmographer 
 Royal. He describes great part of the hind as wood, fen, heath on both 
 sides, marsh on both sides. In some of his maps the roads througli in- 
 closed country are marked by lines, and the roads through unenclosed coun- 
 try by dots. The proportion of imenclosed country, which, if cultiTated, 
 must have been wretchedly cultivated, seems to have been very great. 
 From Abingdon to Gloucester, for example, a distance of forty or fiftj' miles, 
 there was not a single enclosure, and scarcely one enclosure between Big- 
 gleswade and Lincoln. 
 
 2 Large copies of these highly interesting drawings are in the noble col- 
 lection bequeathed by Mr. Grenville to the British Museum. 
 
 8 Evelyn's Diary, June 2. 1675.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 343 
 
 held almost as sacred as that of a human being, was 
 considered as a mere nuisance. Oliver Saint John told 
 the Long Parliament that Strafford was to be regarded, 
 not as a stag or a hare, to whom some law was to be 
 given, but as a fox, who was to be snared by any means, 
 and knocked on the head without pity. This illustra- 
 tion would be by no means a happy one, if addressed 
 to country gentlemen of our time: but in Saint John's 
 days there were not seldom great massacres of foxes 
 to which the peasantry thronged with all the dogs that 
 could be mustered : traps were set ; nets were sjH'ead ; 
 no quarter was given ; and to shoot a female with cub 
 was considered as a feat which merited the warmest 
 gratitude of the neighbourhood. The red deer were 
 then as common in Gloucestershire and Hampshire as 
 they now are among the Grampian Hills. On one occa- 
 sion Queen Anne, on her way to Portsmouth, saw a 
 herd of no less than five hundred. The wild bull with 
 his white mane was still to be found wanderino; iu a few 
 of the southern forests. The badger made his dark 
 and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the 
 copsewood grew thick. The wild cats were frequently 
 hoard by night wailino- round the lodijes of the rano-ers 
 of Whittlebury and Needwood. The yellow-breasted 
 martin was still pursued in Cranbourne Chase for his 
 fur, reputed inferior only to that of the sable. Fen 
 eagles, measuring more than nine feet between the ex- 
 tremities of the wings, preyed on fish along the coast 
 of Norfolk. On all the downs, from the British Chan- 
 nel to Yorkshire, huge bustards strayed in troops of 
 fifty or sixty, and were often hunted with greyhounds. 
 The marshes of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire were 
 covered during some months of everv year by immense 
 clouds of cranes. Some of these races the progress of
 
 344 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 cultivation lias extirpiited. Of others the numbers are 
 so much diminished that men crowd to gaze at a speci- 
 men as at a Bengal tiger, or a Polar bear.^ 
 
 The progi'ess of this great change can nowhere be 
 more clearly traced than in the Statute Book. The 
 number of inclosure acts passed since King George the 
 Second came to the throne exceeds four thousand. The 
 area inclosed under the authority of those acts exceeds, 
 on a moderate calculation, ten thousand square miles. 
 How many square miles, which were formerly unculti- 
 vated or ill cultivated, have, during the same period, 
 been fenced and carefully tilled by the proprietors, 
 without any application to the legislature, can only be 
 conjectured. But it seems highly probable that a 
 fourth part of England has been, in the course of 
 little more than a century, turned from a wild into a 
 garden. 
 
 Even in those parts of the kingdom which at the 
 close of the reign of Charles the Second were the best 
 cultivated, the farming, though greatly im})roved since 
 the civil war, was not such as would now be thought 
 skilful. To this day no effectual steps have been taken 
 by public authority for the purpose of obtaining accu- 
 rate accounts of the produce of the English soil. The 
 historian must therefore follow, with some misgivings, 
 the guidance of those writers on statistics whose reputa- 
 tion for diligence and fidelity stands highest. At pres- 
 ent an average crop of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and 
 beans, is supposed considerably to exceed thirty mill- 
 ions of quarters. The crop of wheat would be thought 
 
 1 See White's Selhorne ; Bell's History of British Quadrupeds; Gentle- 
 man's Rccreatinii, 1086; Aul)ie_v's Natural Histor}- of Wiltshire, 1G85; Mor- 
 ton's History of Norlhainptoushire, 1712; Willougliby's Ornitholog}-, by 
 Ray, 1678; Latham's General Synopsis of Birds; and Sir Thomas Browne's 
 Accoimt of 15irds found in Norfolk.
 
 C«. m.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 845 
 
 wretched if it did not exceed twelve millions of quar- 
 ters. According to the computation made in the year 
 1696 by Gregory King, the whole quantity of wheat, 
 rye, barley, oats, and beans, then animally grown in 
 the kingdom, was somewhat less than ten millions of 
 quarters. The wheat, which was then cultivated only 
 "on the strongest clay, and consumed only by those who 
 were in easy circvimstances, he estimated at less than 
 two millions of quarters. Charles Davenant, an acute 
 and well informed though most unprincipled and ran- 
 corous politician, diftered from King as to some of the 
 items of the account, but came to nearly the same gen- 
 eral conclusions.^ 
 
 The rotation of crops was very imperfectly under- 
 stood. It was known, mdeed, that some vegetables 
 lately introduced into our island, particularly the turnip, 
 afforded excellent nutriment in winter to sheep and 
 oxen : but it was not yet the practice to feed cattle in 
 this manner. It was therefore by no means easy to 
 keep them alive during the season when the grass is 
 scanty. They were killed and salted in great numbers 
 at the bemnnino; of the cold weather ; and, durinfj 
 several months, even the gentry tasted scarcely any 
 fresh animal food, except game and river fish, which 
 were consequently much more important articles in 
 housekeeping than at ^ircsent. It ap))ears from the 
 Northumbei-Jand Household Book that, in the reign of 
 Henry the Seventh, fresh meat was never eaten even 
 by the gentlemen attendant on a great Earl, exce])t 
 ilurin<T the short interval between Midsummer and 
 Michaelmas. But in tln" course of two centuries an 
 improvement had taken jtlaro ; and under Charles the 
 
 i Kin<;'8 Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance 
 of Trade.
 
 346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch III. 
 
 Second it was not till the bepinnino- of November that 
 families laid in their stock of salt provisions, then called 
 Martinmas beef.^ 
 
 The sheep and the ox of that time were diminutive 
 when compared with the sheep and oxen which are 
 now driven to our markets. ^ Our native horses, though 
 serviceable, were held in small esteem, and fetched low 
 prices. Tliey were valued, one with another, by the 
 ablest of those who computed the national w^ealth, at 
 not more than fifty shillings each. Foreign breeds 
 were greatly preferred. Spanish jennets were regarded 
 as the finest chargers, and Avere imported for purposes 
 of pageantry and war. The coaches of the aristocracy 
 were drawn by grey Flemish mares, which trotted, as 
 it was thought, with a peculiar grace, and endured 
 better than any cattle reared in our island the work 
 of dragging a ponderous equipage over the rugged 
 pavement of London. Neither the modern dray horse 
 nor the modern race horse was then known. At a 
 much later period the ancestors of the gigantic quad- 
 rupeds, which all foreigners now class among the chief 
 wonders of London, were brought from the marshes 
 of Walcheren ; the ancestors of Childers and Eclipse 
 from the sands of Arabia. Alreadv, however, there 
 was among our nobility and gentry a passion for the 
 amusements of the turf. The importance of improving 
 our studs by an infusion of new blood was strongly 
 felt ; and with this view a considerable number of barbs 
 had lately been brought into the country. Two men 
 wdiose aiuthority on such subjects was held in great 
 esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir- John Fenwick, 
 
 1 See the Almanacks of 1684 and 1685. 
 
 2 See Mr. M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire, Part III 
 vhap. i. sec. 6.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 347 
 
 pronounced that the meanest liack ever imported fi'om 
 Tangier would produce a finer progeny than could be 
 expected from the best sire of our native breed. Tliey 
 would not readily liave believed that a time would come 
 when the princes and nobles of neighbouring lands 
 would be as eao-er to obtain horses from England as ever 
 the English had been to obtain horses from Bai'bary.^ 
 
 The increase of vegetable and animal produce, though 
 great, seems small when comi^ared with the Mineral 
 
 • f • 1 1 1 T ^ T n r i wealth of 
 
 nicrease or our mineral wealth, in Iboo the the country. 
 tin of Cornwall, which had, more than two thousand 
 years before, attracted the Tyrian sails beyond the 
 pillars of Hercules, was still one of the most valuable 
 subterranean productions of the island. The quantity 
 annually extracted from the earth was found to be, 
 some years lyter, sixteen hundred tons, probably about 
 a third of what it now is.^ But the veins of copper 
 which lie in the same region were, in the time of 
 Charles the Second, altogether neglected, nor did any 
 landowner take tliem into the account in estimating 
 the value of his property. Cornwall and Wales at 
 present yield annually near fifteen thousand tons of 
 copper, worth near a million and a half sterling; that 
 is to say, worth about twice as much as the annual 
 produce of all Englisli mines of all descriptions in the 
 seventeenth century .^ The first bed of rock salt had 
 
 ' King and Davenaiit as before; The Duke of Newcastle on Horseman- 
 sliij); (Icntleinan'p IJccrcatinn, 108G. The " dappled Flanders mares" were 
 marks of p-ealncss in the time of Pope, and even later. 
 
 The vulfjar proverb, that the fjrey mare is the better horse, orifjinated, I 
 suspect, in the preference Kenerally given to the grey mares of Flanders over 
 the finest coach horses of Kngland. 
 
 2 See a curious note by Tonkin, in Lord De Dunstanville's edition of 
 vlarew's Survey of (^irnwiill. 
 
 8 Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall, 1758. The quantity of copper 
 now produced, I have taken from parliamentary returns. Davenant, iu
 
 848 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 been discovered not long after the Restoration in Chesh- 
 ire, but does not appear to have been worked in that 
 ae:e. The salt which was obtained by a rude in'ocess 
 from brine pits was held in no high estimation. The 
 pans in which the manufacture was carried on exhaled 
 a sulphurous stench; and, when the evaporation was 
 complete, the substance which was left was scarcely 
 lit to be used with food. Physicians attributed the 
 scorbutic and pulmonary complaints which were com- 
 mon amontr the English to this unwholesome condi- 
 ment. It was therefore seldom used by the upper and 
 middle classes ; and there was a regular and considera- 
 ble importation from France. At present our springs 
 and mines not only supi)ly our own immense demand, 
 but send annually more than seven Irandred millions 
 of pounds of excellent salt to foreign countries.^ 
 
 Fi\Y more important has been the improvement of 
 our iron works. Such works had long existed in our 
 island, but had not ])rospered, and had been regarded 
 with no favourable eye by the government and by the 
 public. It was not then the practice to employ coal 
 for smelting the ore ; and the rapid consumption of 
 wood excited the alarm of politicians. As early as 
 the reign of Elizabeth there had been loud complaints 
 that whole forests were cut down for the purpose of 
 feeding the furnaces : and the parliament had inter- 
 fered to prohibit the manuficturers from burning tim- 
 ber. The manufacture consequently languished. At 
 the close of the reign of Charles the Second, great part 
 of the ircm which was used in the country was imported 
 from abroad ; and the whole quantity cast here annu- 
 
 1700, estimated the annual produce of all the mines of England at between 
 jeven and eight hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 1 Philosophical Transactions, No. 53. Nov. 1069, No. 66. Dec. 1670, No 
 X03. May 1674, No. 156. Feb. 168|.
 
 Ch. ni.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 849 
 
 ally seems not to have exceeded ten thousand tons. 
 At present the trade is thought to be in a depressed 
 state if less than a million of tons are produced in a 
 year.^ 
 
 One minei'al, perhaps more important than iron it- 
 self, remains to be mentioned. Coal, though very little 
 used in -any species of manufacture, was already the 
 ordinary fuel in some districts which were fortunate 
 enough to possess large beds, and in the capital, which 
 could easily be supplied by water carriage. It seems 
 reasonable to believe that at least one half of the 
 quantity then extracted from the pits was consumed 
 in London. The consumption of London seemed to 
 the writers of that age enormous, and was often men- 
 tioned by them as a proof of the greatness of the im- 
 perial city. They scarcely hoped to be believed when 
 they affirmed that two luuulred and eighty thousand 
 chaldrons, that is to say, about three hundred and fifty 
 thousand tons, were, in the last year of the reign of 
 Charles the Second, brought to the Thames. At 
 pi'esent three millions and a half of tons are recjuircd 
 yearly by the metropolis ; and the whole annual pr(»(i- 
 uce cannot, on the most moderate computation, by 
 estimated at less than thirty millions of tons.^ 
 
 While these great changes have been in progress, 
 the rent of land has, as might be expected, increase of 
 been almost constantly rising. In some dis- '^""" 
 tricts it has multiplied more than tenfold. In some it 
 
 1 Yarraiiton, Eiifjland's Improvement by Sea and Land, 1G77; I'orter's 
 I'rogress of the Nation. See also a reniaikahly perspicuous history, in 
 small compass, of the Knf;lish iron works, in Mr. M'Cullocirs Statistical 
 Account of the British Kinpire. 
 
 2 See Chunibfrlayiie's Stale of England, 1G84, IGST; An<;li;e Mctro])<iIis, 
 Ifi'Jl; M't'nlloch's Statistical Account of the lirilish Kni[)ire, Part 111. 
 chap. ii. (edition of 1847). In 1845 the quantity of coal brought into Lon- 
 don appeared, by the parliamentary returns, to be 3,400 000 tons. J 848.
 
 850 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cif. HI. 
 
 has not more tlian doubled. It has probably, on the 
 average, quadrupled. 
 
 Of the rent, a large proportion was divided among 
 the country gentlemen, a class of persons whose posi- 
 tion and character it is most important that we should 
 clearly understand ; for by their inflvience and by their 
 passions the fate of the nation was, at several important 
 conjunctures, determined. 
 
 We should be much mistaken if we pictured to our- 
 The count sclves the squires of the seventeenth century 
 gentlemen, jjg j^q^ bearing; a close resemblance to their 
 descendants, the county members and chairmen of 
 quarter sessions with whom we are familiar. The 
 modern country gentleman generally receives a liberal 
 education, passes from a distinguished school to a dis- 
 tinguished college, and has every opportunity to be- 
 come an excellent scholar. He has generally seen 
 something of foreign countries. A considerable part 
 of his life has generally been passed in the capital ; and 
 the refinements of the capital follow him into the coun- 
 try. There is perhaps no class of dwellings so pleasing 
 as the rural seats of the English gentry. In the parks 
 and pleasure grounds, nature, dressed yet not disguised 
 by art, wears her most alluring form. In the build- 
 ings, good sense and good taste combine to produce a 
 happy union of the comfortable and the graceful. The 
 pictures, the musical instruments, the library, would 
 in any other country be considered as proving the 
 owner to be an eminently polished and accomplished 
 man. A country gentleman who witnessed the Revo- 
 lution was probably in receipt of about a fourth part 
 of the rent which his acres now yield to his posterity. 
 He was, therefore, as compared with his posterity, a 
 poor man, and was generally under the necessity of
 
 Ch. HI] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1G85. 351 
 
 residing, witli little interruption, on his estate. To 
 travel on the Continent, to nuiintain an establishment 
 in London, or even to visit London frequently, were 
 pleasures in which only the great jjroprietors could 
 indulge. It may be confidently affirmed that of the 
 squires whose names were then in the Commissions 
 of Peace and Lieutenancy not one in twenty went 
 to town once in fi:ve years, or had ever in his life 
 wandered so far as Paris. Many lords of manors 
 had received an education differing little from that 
 of their menial servants. The heir of an estate of- 
 ten passed his boyhood and youth at the seat of his 
 family with no better tutors than grooms and game- 
 keepers, and scarce attained learning enough to sign 
 his name to a Mittimus. If he went to school and to 
 college, he generally returned before he was twenty 
 to the seclusion of the old hall, and there, unless his 
 mind were very happily constituted by nature, soon 
 forgot his academical pursuits in rural business and 
 pleasures. His chief serious employment was the care 
 of his property. He examined samples of grain, han- 
 dled pigs, and, on market days, made bargains over a 
 tankard with drovers and hop merchants. His chief 
 pleasures were commonly derived from field sports and 
 from an unrefined sensnalitv. His lano-uage and pro- 
 nunriation were such as we should now expect to hear 
 only from the most ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse 
 jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, were uttered with 
 the broadest accent of his ])rovince. It was easy to 
 discern, from the first Avords which he spoke, whether 
 he came from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troub- 
 led himself little iibout decorating his abode, and, if he 
 attempted decoration, seldom jM'oduced anything but 
 d(!formitv. Tlie litter of a farmvard gathered under
 
 352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 the windows of his bedchamher, and the cabbages and 
 gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His 
 table was loaded with coarse plenty ; and guests were 
 cordially Avelcomed to it. But, as the habit of drink- 
 incj to excess was general in the class to which he be- 
 lono;ed, and as his fortune did not enable him to in- 
 toxicate large assemblies daily with claret or canary, 
 strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity 
 of beer consumed in those days was indeed enormous. 
 For beer then was to the middle and lower classes, 
 not only all that beer now is, but all that wine, tea, and 
 ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses, 
 or on great occasions, that foreign drink was placed 
 on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business 
 it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired 
 as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left 
 the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse 
 jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the 
 revellers were laid under the table. 
 
 It was very seldom that the country gentleman caught 
 glimpses of the great world ; and what he saw of it 
 tended rather to confuse than to enlio-hten his under- 
 standing. His opinions respecting religion, govern- 
 ment, foreign countries and former times, having been 
 derived, not from study, from observation, or from con- 
 versation with enlightened companions, but from such 
 traditions as were current in his own small circle, were 
 the opinions of a child. He adhered to them, how- 
 ever, with the obstinacy which is generally found in 
 ignoi'ant men accustomed to be fed with flattery. His 
 animosities w^ere numerous and bitter. He hated 
 Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irishmen, 
 Papists and Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, 
 Quakers and Jews. Towards London and Londoners
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 353 
 
 he felt an aversion which more than once produced 
 important political effects. His wife and daughter 
 Avere in tastes and acquirements below a housekeeper 
 or a stillroom maid of the present day. They stitched 
 and spun, brewed gooseberry wine, cured marigolds, 
 and made the crust for the venison pasty. 
 
 From this description it might be supposed that the 
 English esquire of the seventeenth century did not ma- 
 terially differ from a rustic miller or alehouse keeper 
 of our time. There are, however, some important parts 
 of his character still to be noted, which will ffreatlv 
 modify this estimate. Unlettered as he was and un- 
 polished, he was still in some most important points a 
 gentleman. He was a member of a proud and power- 
 ful aristocracy, and was distinguished by many both 
 of the good and of the bad qualities which belong to 
 aristocrats. His flimily pride was beyond that of a 
 Talbot or a Howard. He knew the genealogies and 
 coats of arms of all his neighbours, and could tell 
 which of them had assumed supporters without any 
 right, and which of them Avere so unfortmiate as to bo 
 great grandsons of aldermen. He was a magistrate, 
 and, as such, administered gratuitously to those who 
 dwelt around him a rude patriarchal justice, which, in 
 spite of inmuncrable blunders and of occasional acts 
 of tyranny, was yet better than no justice at all. He 
 was an officer of the trainbands ; and his military dig- 
 nity, though it might move the mirth of gallants who 
 had served a camj)aign in Flanders, raised his charac- 
 ter in his own eyes and in the eyes of his neighbours. 
 Nor indeed was his soldiership justly a subject of deri- 
 sion. In every coimty there Avere elderly gentlemen 
 who had seen service which Avas no chihrs l)lay. One 
 had been knighted by Charles the First, after th»« 
 
 VOL. I. 23
 
 354 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. rCn. Ill 
 
 battle of Edgehill. Another still wore a patch over the 
 scar which he had received at Naseby. A third had 
 defended his old house till Fairfax had blown in the 
 door with a petard. The presence of these old Cava- 
 liers, with their old swords and holsters, and with their 
 old stories about Goring and Lunsford, gave to the 
 musters of militia an earnest and warlike aspect which 
 would otherwise have been wanting. Even those 
 country gentlemen who were too young to have them- 
 selves exchanged blows Avith the cuirassiers of the Par- 
 liament had, from childhood, been suri'ounded by the 
 traces of recent war, and fed with stories of the mar- 
 tial exploits of their fathers and uncles. Thus the 
 character of the English esquire of the seventeenth 
 century was compounded of two elements which we are 
 not accustomed to find united. His ignorance and un- 
 couthness, his low tastes and gross plu^ases, would, in 
 our time, be considered as indicating a nature and a 
 breeding thoroughly plebeian. Yet he was essentially 
 a patrician, and had, in large measure, both the virtues 
 and the vices which floui'ish amono; men set from their 
 birth in high place, and used to respect themselves 
 and to be resj)ected by others. It is not easy for a 
 generation which is accustomed to find chivalrous sen- 
 timents only in company with liberal studies and pol- 
 ished manners to image to itself a man with the de- 
 portment, the vocabulary, and the accent of a carter, 
 yet punctilious on matters of genealogy and pi-ecedence, 
 and ready to risk his life rather than see a stain cast on 
 the honour of his house. It is however only by thus 
 j.oining together things seldom or never found together 
 in our own experience, that we can form a just idea of 
 that rustic aristocracy which constituted the main 
 strength of the armies of Charles the First, and which
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 355 
 
 long supported, with strange fidelity, the interest of 
 his descendants. 
 
 Tlie gross, uneducated, untravelled country gentle- 
 man was commonly a Tory : but, though devotedly 
 attached to hereditary monarchy, he had no partiality 
 for courtiers and ministers. He thought, not without 
 reason, that Whitehall was filled with the most corrupt 
 of mankind ; that of the great sums which the House 
 of Commons had voted to the crown since the Resto- 
 ration part had been embezzled by cunning politicians, 
 and part squandered on buffoons and foreign courtesans. 
 His stout English heart swelled with indio-nation at the 
 thought that the government of his country should be 
 subject to French dictation. Being himself generally 
 an old Cavalier, or the son of an old Cavalier, he re- 
 flected with bitter resentment on the in£i;ratitude with 
 which the Stuarts had requited their best friends. 
 Those who heard him grumble at the nearlect with 
 which he was treated, and at the jirofusion with which 
 wealth was lavished on the bastards of Nell Gwynn 
 and Madam Carwell, would have supposed him ripe 
 for rebellion. But all this ill humour lasted only till 
 the throne was really in danger. It was precisely when 
 those whom the sovereign had loaded with wealth and 
 honours shrank from his side that the country gentle- 
 men, so surly and mutinous in the season of his pros- 
 j)erity, rallied round him in a body. Thus, after mur- 
 muring twenty years at the misgovernment of Charles 
 the Second, they came to his rescue in his extremity, 
 when his own Secretaries of State and Lords of the 
 Treasury had deserted him, and enabled him to gain a 
 c()m])lete victory over the o])position ; nor can there be 
 any doubt that they would have shown equal loyalty 
 to his brother James, if James would, even at the last
 
 356 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 moment, have refrained from outragino; their strono-est 
 feeling. For there was one institution, and one only, 
 which they prized even more than hereditary mon- 
 archy ; and that institution was the Church of England. 
 Their love of the Church was not, indeed, the effect 
 of study or meditation. Few among them could have 
 given any reason, drawn from Scriptui'e or ecclesiasti- 
 cal history, for adhering to her doctrines, her ritual, 
 and her polity ; nor were they, as a class, by any 
 means strict observers of that code of morality which 
 is common to all Christian sects. But the experience 
 of many ages proves that men may be ready to fight 
 to the death, and to persecute without pity, for a re- 
 ligion Avhose creed they do not understand, and whose 
 precepts they habitually disobey.^ 
 
 The rural clergy were even more vehement in Tory- 
 ism than the rural o-entry, and were a class 
 
 The clergy. _ _ o .' ' ^ 
 
 scarcely less important. It is to be observed, 
 however, that the individual clergyman, as compared 
 with the individual gentleman, then ranked much lower 
 than in our days. The main support of the Church 
 was derived from the tithe ; and the tithe bore to 
 the rent a much smaller ratio than at present. King 
 estimated the whole income of the parochial and col- 
 legiate clergy at only four liundred and eighty thou- 
 sand pounds a year ; Davenant at only five hundred 
 and forty-four thousand a year. It is certainly now 
 more than seven times as great as the larger of these 
 two sums. The average rent of the land has not, 
 according to any estimate, increased proportionally. 
 It follows that rectors and vicars must have been, as 
 
 1 My notion of the country gentleman of the seveiiteentli century has 
 been derived from sources too numerous to be recapitulated. I must leave 
 my description to the judgment of those who have studied the history and 
 the lighter literature of that age.
 
 Ch in.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 357 
 
 compared with the nciglibouring knights and squires, 
 much poorer in the seventeenth than in tlie nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The place of the clergyman in society had been com- 
 pletely changed by the Reformation. Before that event, 
 ecclesiastics had formed tlie majority of the House of 
 Lords, had, in wealth and splendour, equalled, and 
 sometimes outsljone, the greatest of the temporal bar- 
 ons, and had generally held the highest civil offices. 
 Many of the Treasurers, and almost all the Chancel- 
 lors of the Plantagenets were Bishops. The Lord 
 Keei)er of the Privy Seal and the Master of the Rolls 
 wcri' ordinarily churchmen. Churchmen ti'ansacted 
 the most inqjortant diplomatic business. Indeed, all 
 that large portion of the administration which rude 
 and wailike nobles were incompetent to conduct was 
 considered as especially belonging to divines. Men, 
 therefore, who were averse to the life of camps, and 
 who were, at the same time, desirous to rise in the 
 state, connnonly received the tonsure. Among them 
 were sons of all the most illustrious families, and near 
 kinsmen of the throne. Scroops and Nevilles, Bour- 
 chiers, Staffords, and Poles. To the religious houses 
 belonged the rents of immense domains, and all that 
 lai'ge poi'tioii of the tithe which is now in the hands 
 of laymen. Down to the middle of the reign of Henry 
 the Eighth, tlierefore, no line of life bore so inviting an 
 aspect to ambitious and covetous natures as the priest- 
 hood. Then came a violent revolution. The abolition 
 of the monasteries deprived the Church at once of the 
 greater part of her wealth, and of her predominance in 
 the Upper House of Parliament. There was no longer 
 an Abbot of Glastonbury or an Abbot of Reading seated 
 among the peers, and possessed of revenues equal to
 
 358 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 those of a powerfiil Earl. The princely splendour of 
 William of Wykehani and of William of Waynflete had 
 disappeared. The scarlet hat of the Cardinal, the sil- 
 ver cross of the Legate, were no more. The clergy 
 had also lost the ascendency which is the natural re- 
 ward of superior mental cultivation. Once the cir- 
 cumstance that a man could read had raised a presump- 
 tion that he was in orders. But, in an age which 
 produced such laymen as William Cecil and Nicholas 
 Bacon, Roger Ascham and Thomas Smith, Walter 
 Mildmay and Francis Walsingham, there was no reason 
 for calling away prelates from their dioceses to negoti- 
 ate treaties, to superintend the finances, or to administer 
 justice. The spiritual cliaracter not only ceased to be 
 a qualification for high civil office, but began to be re- 
 garded as a disqualification. Those worldly motives, 
 therefore, which had formerly induced so many able, 
 aspirmg, and liigh born youths to assume the ecclesi- 
 astical habit, ceased to operate. Not one parish in two 
 hundred then afforded what a man of family considered 
 as a maintenance. There were still indeed prizes in 
 the Church : but thev were few ; and even the highest 
 were mean, when compai'ed with the glory which had 
 once surrounded the princes of the hierarchy. The 
 state kept by Parker and Grindal seemed beggarly to 
 those who remembered the imperial pomp of Wolsey, 
 his palaces, which had become the favourite abodes 
 of royalty, Whitehall and Hampton Court, the three 
 sumptuous tables daily spread in his refectory, the 
 forty-four gorgeous copes in his chapel, his running 
 footmen in rich liveries, and his body guards with 
 gilded poleaxes. Thus the sacerdotal office lost its 
 attraction for the higher classes. During the century 
 which followed the accession of Elizabeth, scarce a
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 359 
 
 single person of noble descent took orders. At tiie 
 close of the reign of Charles the Second, t<vo sons of 
 peers were Bishops ; four or five sons of peers were 
 priests, and held valuable preferment ; but these rare 
 exceptions did not take away the reproach Vhich lay 
 on the body. The clergy were regarded as, on the 
 whole, a plebeian class. And, indeed, for one who 
 made the figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial 
 servants. A large proportion of those divines who had 
 no benefices, or whose benefices were too small to afford 
 a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of laymen. 
 It had long been evident that this practice tended to 
 degrade the priestly character. Laud had exerted 
 himself to effect a change ; and Charles the First had 
 repeatedly issued positive orders that none but men of 
 high rank should presume to keep domestic chaplains.^ 
 But these injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed, 
 during the domination of the Puritans, many of the 
 ejected ministers of the Church of England could ob- 
 tain bread and shelter only by attaching themselves to 
 the households of royalist gentlemen ; and the habits 
 which had been formed in those times of trouble con- 
 tinued long after the reestablishment of monarchy and 
 episcopacy. Jn the mansions of men of liberal senti- 
 ments and cultivated understandings, the chaplain Avas 
 doubtless treated witli urbanity and kindness. His 
 conversation, his literary assistance, his sj)iritual ad- 
 vice, were considered as an amj^le return for his food, 
 his lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the gen- 
 eral feeling of the country gentlemen. The coarse and 
 iunoi-ant sfinire who tiioun-Jit that it belouired to his 
 dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an 
 ecclesiastic in fiill canonicals, found means to I'econcile 
 1 See Heylin's Cj'prianus Anglicus.
 
 360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 dignity with economy. A young Levite — such Avas 
 the phrase then in use — might be had for his board, 
 a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not 
 only perform his own professional functions, might not 
 only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might 
 not only be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and 
 in rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save 
 the expense of a gardener, or of a groom. Sometimes 
 the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and some- 
 times he curried the coach horses. He cast up the 
 farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message 
 or a parcel. He was permitted to dine with the fam- 
 ily ; but he was expected to content himself with the 
 plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned 
 beef and the carrots : but, as soon as the tarts and 
 cheesecakes made their a])pearance, he quitted his 
 seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return 
 thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he 
 had been excluded. ^ 
 
 Perhaps, after some years of service, he was pre- 
 sented to a living sufficient to support him : but he 
 often found it necessary to purchase his preferment by 
 a species of Simony, which furnished an inexhaustible 
 subject of pleasantry to three or four generations of 
 scoffers. With his cure he Avas expected to take a 
 wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron's 
 service ; and it was Avell if she was not suspected of 
 standing too high in the patron's favour. Indeed, the 
 nature of the matrimonial connections Avhich the clei'gy- 
 men of that age were in the habit of forming is the most 
 certain indication of the place which the order held in 
 
 1 Eachard, Causes of tlie Contempt of the Clergy; Oldham, Satire ad- 
 dressed to a Friend about to leave the University; Tatler, 255. 258. That 
 the English clergy were a lowborn class, is remarked in the Travels of the 
 Grand Duke Cosmo. Appendix A.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 361 
 
 the social system. An Oxonian, writino; a few montlis 
 after the death of Charles the Second, complained bit- 
 terly, not only that the countr}'' attorney and the coun- 
 try apothecary looked down with disdain on the country 
 clergyman, but that one of the lessons most earnestly 
 inculcated on every girl of honourable family was to 
 give no encouragement to a lover in orders, and that, 
 if any young lady forgot this precept, she was almost as 
 liiuch disgraced as by an illicit amour.^ Clarendon, who 
 assuredly bore no ill will to the priesthood, mentions 
 it as a sign of the confusion of I'anks which the great 
 rebellion had produced, that some damsels of noble 
 families had bestowed themselves on divines. ^ A wait- 
 ing W(ini;'.n was generally considered as the most suit- 
 able helpmate for a parson. Qneen Elizabeth, as head 
 of the Church, had given what seemed to be a formal 
 sanction to this prejudice, by issuing special orders that 
 no clergyman should })resurae to espouse a servant girl, 
 without the consent of the master or mistress."^ During 
 several generations accordingly the relation between 
 divines and handmaidens was a theme for endless jest ; 
 nor would it be easy to find, in the comedy of the sev- 
 enteenth century, a single instance of a clergyman who 
 wins a spouse above the rank of a cook.'' 'Even so late 
 
 1 " A cansidico, niedicastro, ipsaque artificiim farragine, ecclesiaj rector 
 aut vicariiis coiitciiwiitur et lit ludibrio. Geiitis et fainiliiu iiitor ?acris ordi- 
 niiiiit; ppllutus ct'iisctiir: iVjeniiiii.siiue natalitio iiisif^nibiis uiiicuiii inculcatur 
 sippius pra-ceptuni, ne modesfias naufriigiuin faciant, aut, (quod idem auri- 
 l)iis laui delitntulis sonat,) ne rlcrico se nuptas d;tri jiatiautur." Angliaj 
 Niititia, Ijy T. \\'(i<jd. of New College, Oxford, lG3ii. 
 
 ■•^ Ciarrndon's Lil'e, ii. 21. 
 
 8 Ssc the Injunctions of 1559, iu Bislinp Sjiarrow's Collocfion. Jeremy 
 Collier, in his Kssay on Pridi-, speaks of this injunction with a bitterness 
 which proves that his own pride had not been cflcitually tamed. 
 
 ■i Uoger and .\bigaii in IMctclier's Scornful I-ady, Bull and the Nurse in 
 Vanbrugh 8 Kelapse. Smirk and Susan in Shadwell's Lancashire Witches, 
 live instaiucs.
 
 362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIT 
 
 as the time of George the Second, the keenest of all 
 observers of h'fe and manners, himself a jiriest, re- 
 marked that, in a great household, the chaplain was the 
 resource of a lady's maid whose character had been 
 blown upon, and who was therefore forced to give up 
 hopes of catching the steward.^ 
 
 In general the divine who quitted his chaplainship 
 for a benefice and a Avife found that he had only ex- 
 changed one class of vexations for anothei". Hardly 
 living in fifty enabled the incumbent to bring up a 
 family comfortably. As children multiplied and grew, 
 the household of the priest became more and more beg- 
 garly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the 
 thatch of his parsonage and in his single cassock. Often 
 it was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, 
 and by loading dungcarts, that he could obtain daily 
 bread ; nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the 
 bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkstand in 
 execution. It Avas a white day on which he w^as ad- 
 mitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by 
 the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were 
 brought up like the children of the neighbouring peas- 
 antry. His boys folloAved the plough ; and his girls 
 went out to service. Study he found impossible : for 
 the advowson of his livino; would hardly have sold for a 
 sum sufficient to purchase a good theological library ; 
 and he might be considered as unusually lucky if he 
 had ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots 
 and pans on his shelves. Even a keen and strong in- 
 tellect might be expected to rust in so unfavourable a 
 situation. 
 
 Assuredly there was at that time no lack in the 
 English Church of ministers distinguished by abilities 
 
 1 Swift's Directions to Servants.
 
 Ch. hi.] state op ENGLAND IN 1685. 363 
 
 and learnino;. But it is to be observed that tliese min- 
 isters were not scattei'cd among tlie rural population. 
 They were brought together at a few places where the 
 means of acquiring knowledge were abundant, and 
 where the opportunities of vigorous intellectual exercise 
 were frequent.^ At such places were to be found di- 
 vines qualified by parts, by eloquence, by wide knowl- 
 edge of literature, of science, and of life, to defend their 
 Church victoriously against heretics and sceptics, to 
 command the attention of frivolous and worldly congre- 
 gations, to guide the deliberations of senates, and to 
 make religion respectable, even in the most dissolute of 
 courts. Some laboured to fathom the abysses of meta- 
 physical theology ; some were deeply versed in biblical 
 criticism ; and some threw light on the darkest parts 
 of ecclesiastical history. Some proved themselves con- 
 summate masters of logic. Some cultivated rhetoric 
 with such assiduity and success that their discourses are 
 still justly valued as models of style. These eminent 
 men were to be found, with scarcely a single exception, 
 at the Universities, at the great Cathedrals, or in the 
 capital. Barrow had lately died at Cambridge ; and 
 Pearson had gone thence to the episcopal bench. Cud- 
 worth and Heiu'v More were still living there. South 
 and Pocockc, Jane and Aldrich, were at Oxford. Pri- 
 deaux was in the close of Norwich, and Whitby in the 
 close of Salisbury. But it was cliiefly by the London 
 clergy, who were always spoken of as a class apart, that 
 the fame of their profession for learning and eloqiience 
 was upheld. The principal pulpits of the metropoHs 
 were occupied abovit this time by a croAvd of distin- 
 
 1 This distinction between onuiitry clerpy ami town clergy is strongly 
 marked l)y Kacliard, and cannot l)ut be observed by every person vlio han 
 studied tlio ecclesiastical liistor^' of that age. 
 
 w
 
 364 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IU. 
 
 miished men, from amons vvliom Avas selected a larcre 
 proportion of the rulers of the Cinu'ch. Sherlock 
 preached at the Temple, Tillotson at Lmcoln's Inn, 
 Wake and Jeremy Collier at Gray's Inn, Burnet at the 
 Rolls, Stillingfleet at St. Paul's Cathedral, Patrick at 
 St. Paul's, Covent Garden, Fowler at St. Giles's, Crip- 
 plegate, Sharp at St. Giles's in the Fields, Tenlson at 
 St. Martin's, Sprat at St. Margaret's, Beveridge at St. 
 Peter's in Cornhill. Of these twelve men, all of high 
 note in ecclesiastical history, ten became Bishops, and 
 four Archbishops. Meanwhile almost the only im- 
 portant theological works which came forth from a rural 
 parsonage were those of George Bull, afterwards Bishop 
 of St. David's ; and Bull never would have produced 
 those works, had he not inherited an estate, by the sale 
 of which he was enabled to collect a library, such as 
 probably no other country clergyman hi England pos- 
 sessed.^ 
 
 Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two 
 sections, which, in acquirements, in manners, and in 
 social position, differed widely from each other. One 
 section, trained for cities and courts, comprised men 
 familiar with all ancient and modern learning ; men 
 able to encounter Hobbes or Bossuet at all the weapons 
 of controversy ; men who coidd, in their sermons, set 
 forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such 
 justness of thought, and such energy of language, that 
 the indolent Charles roused himself to listen, and the 
 fastidious Bucki no-ham forjrot to sneer ; men whose 
 address, politeness, and knowledge of the world quali- 
 fied them to manage the consciences of the wealthy and 
 
 1 Nelson's Life of Bull. As to the extreme difficulty which the country 
 clergy found in procuring books, see the Life of Thomas Bray, the foundei 
 of the Socief V for the Propacation uf the Gospu!.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1G85. 365 
 
 noble ; men with whom Hahfax loved to disciiss the 
 interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not 
 ashamed to own that he had learned to write. ^ The 
 other section was destined to ruder and humbler ser- 
 vice. It was dispersed over the country, and consisted 
 chiefly of persons not at all wealtiiier, and not much 
 more refined, than small iarmers or upper servants. 
 Yet it was in these rustic priests, who derived but a 
 scanty subsistence from their tithe sheaves and tithe 
 pigs, and who had not the smallest chance of ever 
 attaining high professional honours, that the profes- 
 sional spirit was strongest. Among those divines w^ho 
 were the boast of the Universities and the delight of 
 the capital, and who had attained, or might reasonably 
 expect to attain, opulence and lordly rank, a party, 
 respectable in numbers, and more respectable in char- 
 acter, leaned towards constitutional principles of gov- 
 ernment, lived on friendly terms with Presbyterians, 
 Independents, and Baptists, would gladly have seen a 
 full toleration granted to all Protestant sects, and would 
 even have consented to make alterations in the Liturgy, 
 for the purpose of conciliating honest and candid Non- 
 conformists. But such latitudinarianisra was held in 
 horror by the country parson. He took, indeed, more 
 pride in his ragged gown than his superiors in their 
 lawn and their scarlet hoods. The very consciousness 
 l!i;it there was little in his worldly circumstances to dis- 
 tinguish him from tiie villagers to whom he ])reached 
 led him to hold innnodei'ately high the dignity of that 
 sacerdotal office which Avas his single title to reverence. 
 Having lived in seclnsion, and liaving had little o[)por- 
 
 1 " I have frequently heard him (Drvilf!!)) own witli pleasure, that if ha 
 hail iiiiy til lent for ILiiglish prose it was owing to iiis having often reiul th« 
 writings of the great Archbisiiop Tillotson." Congreve's Dedication of 
 Drydeu's Plays.
 
 866 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 tunity of correcting lus opinions by reading or conver- 
 sation, he held and taught the doctrines of indefeasible 
 hereditary right, of passive obedience, and of nonresist- 
 ance in all their crude absurdity. Having been long 
 engaged in a petty war against the neighbouring dis- 
 senters, he too often hated them for the wrongs which 
 he had done them, and found no fault with the Five 
 Mile Act and the Conventicle Act, except that those 
 odious laws had not a sharper edge. Whatever influ- 
 ence his office gave him was exerted with passionate 
 zeal on the Tory side ; and that influence was immense. 
 It would be a si'eat error to imagine, because the coun- 
 try rector was in general not regarded as a gentleman, 
 because he could not dare to aspire to the hand of one 
 of the young ladies at the manor house, because he was 
 not asked into the parlours of the great, but was left 
 to drink and smoke with grooms and butlers, that the 
 power of the clerical body was smaller than at present. 
 The influence of a class is by no means proportioned 
 to the consideration which the members of that class 
 enjoy in their individual capacity. A Cardinal is a 
 much more exalted personage than a begging friar : but 
 it vi^ould be a grievous mistake to sup})ose that the 
 College of Cardinals has exercised a greater dominion 
 over the public mind of Europe than the Order of Saint 
 Francis. In Ireland, at present, a peer holds a far 
 higher station in society than a Roman Catholic priest : 
 yet there are in Munster and Comiaught few counties 
 where a combination of priests would not carry an elec- 
 tion against a combination of peers. In the seventeenth 
 century the pulpit was to a large portion of the popula- 
 tion what the periodical press now is. Scarce any of 
 the clowns who came to the parish church ever saw a 
 Gazette or a political pamphlet. Ill informed as their
 
 Gil. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 367 
 
 spiritual pastor might be, lie was yet better informed 
 than themselves : lie had every week an opportunity 
 of harano-uiiifr them ; and his haran<>ues were never 
 answered. At every important conjuncture, invectives 
 against the Whigs and exhortations to obey the Lord's 
 anointed resounded at once from many thousands of 
 pulpits ; and the effect was formidable indeed. Of all 
 the causes which, after the dissolution of the Oxford 
 Parliament, produced the violent reaction against the 
 Exclusionists, the most potent seems to have been the 
 oratory of the country clergy. 
 
 The power which the country gentlemen and the 
 country clergymen exercised in the rural dis- .^^^^ 
 tricts was in some measure counterbalanced 3«"'"'"'ry- 
 by the power of the yeomanry, an eminently manly 
 and truehearted race. The petty proprietors who cul- 
 tivated their own fields with their own hands, and en- 
 joyed a modest competence, without affecting to have 
 scutcheons and crests, or aspiring to sit on the bench 
 of justice, then formed a much more important part 
 of the nation than at present. If we may trust the 
 best statistical writers of that age, not less than a hun- 
 dred and sixty thousand proj)rietoi\s, who with their 
 families must have made up more than a seventh of 
 the whole population, derived their subsistence fi'ora 
 little freehold estates. The average income of these 
 small landholders, an income made u]) of rent, profit, 
 and wages, was estimated at between sixty and seventy 
 ])ounds a year. It was computed that the number of 
 ])ersons who tilled their own land was greater than the 
 number t)i" those who farmed the land of others.^ A 
 large portion of the yeomanry had, fi'om the time of the 
 Reformation, leaned towards Puritanism, had, in the 
 
 ^ I liiivc lakiii l);iveii;»iit's estimate, wliich is n little lower than King's.
 
 368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch.III. 
 
 civil war, taken the side of" the Parhaiuent, had, after 
 the Restoration, persisted in liearing Presbyterian and 
 Independent preachers, liad, at elections, strenuously 
 supported the Exclusionists, and had continued, even 
 after the discovery of the Rye House plot and the pro- 
 scription of the Whig leaders, to regard Popery and 
 ai'bitrary power with unmitigated hostility. 
 
 Great as has been the change in the rural life of Eng- 
 ^ „ , land since the Revolution, the chano;e whicli 
 
 Growth of ' S> 
 
 the towns. ],.jg c-ome to pass in the cities is still more 
 amazing. At present above a sixth part of tlie nation 
 is crowded into provincial towns of more than thirty 
 tliousand inhabitants. In the reign of Charles the 
 Second no provincial town in the kingdom contained 
 thirty thousand inhabitants ; and only four provin- 
 cial towns contained so many as ten thousand inhab- 
 itants. 
 
 Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance, 
 stood Bristol, then the first English seaport, 
 and Norwich, then the first English manufac- 
 turine; town. Both have since that time been far out- 
 stripped by younger rivals ; yet both have made great 
 positive advances. The population of Bristol has quad- 
 rupled. The population of Norwich has more than 
 doubled. 
 
 Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the 
 Restoration, was struck by the splendour of the city. 
 But his standard was not high ; for he noted down 
 as a wonder the circumstance that, in Bristol, a man 
 might look round him and see nothing but liouses. It 
 seems that, in no other place with Avhich he was ac- 
 quainted, except London, did the buildings completely 
 shut out the woods and fields. Large as Bristol might 
 tlien appear, it occupied but a very small portion of the
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 309 
 
 area on wliicli it now stands. A few churches of emi- 
 nent beauty I'ose out of a labyrinth of narrow lanes 
 built u})on vaults v{' no ^reat solidity. If a coach or a 
 cart entered those alleys, there was danfjerthat it would 
 be wediied between the houses, and dano;er also that it 
 Avould break in the cellars. Goods were therefore con- 
 veyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks 
 drawn by dogs ; and the richest iidiabitants exhibited 
 their wealth, not by riding in gilded carriages, but by 
 walking the streets with trains of servants in rich 
 liveries, and by keeping tables loaded with good cheer. 
 The pomp of the christenings and burials far exceeded 
 what was seen at any other place in England. The 
 hospitality of the city was widely renowned, and es- 
 pecially the collations with which the sugar I'cfiners 
 regaled their visitors. The repast was dressed in the 
 furnace, and was accompanied by a rich beverage mafle 
 of the best Spanish wine, and celebrated over the whole 
 kingdom as Bristol milk. This luxury was supported 
 by a thriving trade with the North American planta- 
 tions and with the West Indies. The passion for colo- 
 nial traffic was so strong that there was scarce a small 
 shopkeej)er in Bristol who had not a venture on board 
 of some ship bound for Virginia or the Antilles. Some 
 of these ventures indeed were not of the most honour- 
 able kind. There was, in the Transatlantic possessions 
 of the crown, a great demand for labour ; and this 
 demand was partly sujiplied by a system of crimping 
 and kidnapping at the principal English seaports. No- 
 where was this system found in such active and exten- 
 sive o])eration as at Bristol. Even the first magistrates 
 of that city were not ashamed to ein-ich themselves by 
 ,so odious a commerce. The number of houses appears, 
 from the returns of the hearth money, to have been, in 
 vol.. I. 24
 
 370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. lU. 
 
 the year 1G85, just five thousand three hundred. We 
 can hardly suppose the iiumher of pei'sons in a house to 
 have been greater than in tlie City of London ; and in 
 the City of London we learn from the best authority 
 that there were then fifty-five persons to ten houses. 
 The population of Bristol must therefore have been 
 about twenty- nine thousand souls.^ 
 
 Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful prov- 
 ince. It was the residence of a Bishop and 
 
 Norwich. pi t i i • p i> i 
 
 of a chapter. It was the chief seat of tlie 
 chief manufacture of the realm. Some men distin- 
 guished by learning and science had recently dwelt 
 there ; and no place in the kingdom, except the capital 
 and the Universities, had more attractions for the curi- 
 ous. The library, the musevun, the aviary, and the 
 botanical garden of Sir Thomas Browne, were thought 
 by Fellows of the Royal Society well worthy of a long 
 pilgrimage. Norwich had also a court in miniature. 
 In the heart of the city stood an old palace of the Dukes 
 of Norfolk, said to be the largest town house in the 
 kingdom out of London. In this mansion, to which were 
 annexed a tennis court, a bowling green, and a wilder- 
 ness, stretching along the banks of the Wansum, the 
 noble family of Howard frequently resided, and kept a 
 state resembling that of petty sovereigns. Drink was 
 served to guests in goblets of pure gold. The very 
 
 1 Eveljm's Diary, June 27. 1654; Pepys's Diary, June 13. 1668; Roger 
 North's Lives of Lord Keeper Guildford, and of Sir Dudley North; Petty's 
 Political Arithmetic. I have taken Petty's facts, but, in drawing infer- 
 ences from tliem, I have been guided by King iind Davenaiit, who, though 
 not abler men than he, liad the advantage of coming after him. As to 
 the kidnapping for which Bristol was infamous, see North's Life of Guild- 
 ford, 121. 216., and the liarangue of JetiVeys on the subject, in the Impar- 
 tial History of his Life and Death, printed with the Bloody Assizes. Hia 
 stjde was, as usual, coarse; but I cannot reckon tlie rcjirinnud which he 
 gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his crimes.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 371 
 
 toners and shovels were of silver. Pictures by Italian 
 masters adorned the walls. The cabinets were filled 
 with a fine collection of gems purchased by that Earl 
 of Annidel whose marbles are now among the orna- 
 ments of Oxford. Here, in the year 1071, Chai'les 
 and his court were smnptnously entertained. Here, 
 too, all comers were annually welcomed, from Christ- 
 mas to Twelfth Nioht. Ale flowed in oceans for the 
 populace. Three coaches, one of which had been built 
 at a cost of five hundred pounds to contain fourteen 
 persons, were sent every afternoon round the city to 
 bring ladies to the festivities ; and the dances were 
 always followed by a luxurious banquet. When the 
 Duke of Norfolk came to Norwich, he was greeted 
 like a King returning to his capital. The bells of the 
 (yathedral and of Saint Peter Mancroft were rune: : 
 the guns of the Castle were fired ; and the Mayor and 
 Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow citizen with 
 complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the popu- 
 lation of Norwich was found, by actual enumeration, 
 to be between twenty-eight and twenty-nine thousand 
 souls. ^ 
 
 Far below Norwich, but still hiiih in dio-nity and 
 imj)ortance, were some other ancient capitals of shires, 
 lu that age it was seldom that a country gentleman 
 went up with his family to London. The county town 
 was his metro])olis. He sometimes made it his resi- 
 dence during ])art of the year. At all events, he was 
 often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by as- 
 sizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, fes- 
 tivals, and races. There were the halls where the 
 
 1 rullci's Wortliies: I'.velyn's Div.!"-, Oct. 17. 1671 ; .Touriial of K. Rrowne. 
 •on of Sir flioiiias Biowr.c, Jan. 1605; Bloniefield's History of Norfolk- 
 History of the Cily ami County of Norwich, 2 vols. 1708.
 
 372 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. lU 
 
 judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and 
 trumpets, opened tlie King's commission twice a year. 
 Tliere were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, 
 the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were 
 exposed to sale. There were the great fairs to wliicli 
 merchants came down from London, and where the 
 rural dealer laid in his annual stores of suo;ar, station- 
 cry, cutlery, and muslin. There were the shops at 
 which the best families of the neighbourhood bought 
 grocery and millinery. Some of these places derived 
 dignity from interesting historical recollections, from 
 cathedrals decorated by all the art and magnificence 
 of the middle ages, from palaces where a long succes- 
 sion of prelates had dwelt, from closes surrounded by 
 the venerable abodes of deans and canons, and from 
 castles which had in the old time repelled the Nevilles 
 or De Veres, and which bore more recent traces of the 
 vengeance of Rupert or of Cromwell. 
 
 Conspicuous amongst these interesting cities were 
 other coun- York, the capital of the north, and Exeter, 
 try towns. ^|jg capital of the west. Neither can have 
 contained much more than ten thousand inhabitants. 
 Worcester, the queen of the cider land, had about eight 
 thousand ; Nottingham probably as many. Glouces- 
 ter, renowned for that resolute defence which had 
 been fatal to Charles the First, had certainly between 
 four and five thousand ; Derby not quite four thou- 
 sand. Shrewsbury was the chief place of an exten- 
 sive and fertile district. The court of the marches 
 of Wales was held there. In the language of the gen- 
 try many miles round the Wrekin, to go to Shrews- 
 bury was to go to town. The provincial wits and 
 beauties imitated, as well as they could, the fashions 
 of Saint James's Park, in the walks along the side
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1G85. 373 
 
 of the Severn. The inhabitants were about seven 
 tliousand.i 
 
 The population of every one of these ])laces lias, 
 since the Revolution, much more than doubled. The 
 population of some has multij)Iied sevenfold. The 
 streets have been almost entirely rebuilt. Slate has 
 succeeded to thatch, and brick to timber. The pave- 
 ments and the lamps, the display of wealth in the 
 jn-incipal shops, and the luxurious neatness of the 
 dwellings occupied by the gentry would, in the seven- 
 teenth century, have seemed miraculous. Yet is the 
 relative importance of the old capitals of counties by 
 no means what it was. Younger towns, towns which 
 are rarely or never mentioned in our early history and 
 which sent no representatives to our earlv Parlia- 
 ments, have, Avithin the memory of persons still living, 
 grown to a greatness which this generation contem- 
 plates with wonder and pride, not unaccompanied by 
 awe and anxiety. 
 
 The most eminent of these towns were indeed 
 known in the seventeenth century as re- 
 
 II n • ^ -ikT -I • . V Manchester. 
 
 spectable seats ot industry. Nay, their rapid 
 progress and their vast opulence were then sometimes 
 
 1 Tlie popiilutiou of York :ipp(!;irs, from the return of baptisms and burials, 
 in Drake's History, to have been about V-ifiOO in 1730. Kxeter had only 
 17,000 inlial)it«nts in 1801. The population of Worcester was numbered 
 just belbie the siege in 104G. See Nash's History of Worce.stershire. I 
 have made allowance for the iiicreiuse which must be supposed to have taken 
 place in forty rears. In 1740, the population of Nottingham was found, 
 by eunmeration, to bejust 10.000. See l)uriny:'s History. The population 
 of Gloucester may readily be inferred from the number of houses which 
 Kiuf; found in the returns of hearth money, and from the number of birth.s 
 and burials which is given in Atkyns's History. The population of Derby 
 was 4000 in 1712 See Wolley's MS. History, quoted in Lyson's Ma-na • 
 Hiitannia. The population of Shrewsbury was ascertained, in 1G!»5. by 
 actual enumeration. As to the gaieties of Shrewsbury, .see Farquhar's Ke- 
 cruitiuj; Oflicor. Farquhar's description is borne out by a ballad in th« 
 I'epysian Library, of which the burden is " Shrewsbury for me."
 
 374 HISTORY OP ENGLAXD. [Cii. III. 
 
 described in lauuuao;e wliicli seems ludicrous to a man 
 who has seen their })resent grandeur. One of the most 
 populous and prosperous among them was Manchester. 
 It had been recpured by the Pi'otector to send one rep- 
 resentative to his Parliament, and was mentioned by 
 writers of the time of Charles the Second as a busy 
 and opulent j^lace. Cotton had, during half a century, 
 been brought thither from Cyprus and Smyrna ; but 
 the manufacture %vas in its infancy. Whitney had not 
 yet taught how the raw material might be furnished in 
 quantities almost fabulous. Arkwright had not yet 
 taught how it might be worked up with a speed and 
 precision which seem magical. The whole annual im- 
 port did not, at the end of the seventeenth century, 
 amount to two millions of pounds, a quantity which 
 would now hardly supply the demand of forty-eight 
 hours. That wonderful emporium, which in popula- 
 tion and Avealth far surpasses capitals so much re- 
 nowned as Berlin, Madrid, and Lisbon, was then a 
 mean and ill built market town, containing under six 
 thousand people. It then had not a single press. It 
 now suj^ports a hundred ]irinting establishments. It 
 then had not a single coach. It now supports twenty 
 coachmakers.^ 
 
 Leeds was already the chief seat of the woollen 
 manufactures of Yorkshire : but the elderly 
 
 Leeds. , ^ , " 
 
 inhabitants could still remember the time 
 when the first brick house, then and long after called 
 the Red House, was built. They boasted loudly of 
 
 1 Blonie's Britannia, 1673; Aikin's Country round Manchester; Man- 
 chester Diree-tory, 1845; Raines, History of the Cotton Manufiicture. The 
 Jest information wliicli I have been able to find, touching the population of 
 Manchester in the seventeenth century, is contained in a paper drawn up 
 by the Reverend R. Parkinson, and published in the .Journal of the Statis 
 tical Society for October, 1842.
 
 Ch. 111.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 375 
 
 tlieir increasing wealth, and of" the immense sales of 
 cloth which took phice in the open air on the bridge. 
 Hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, had been paid 
 down in the course of one busy market day. The 
 rising importance of Leeds had attracted tlie notice of 
 successive governments. Charles the First had granted 
 municipal privileges to the town. Oliver had invited 
 it to send one member to the House of Commons. But 
 from the returns of the hearth money it seems certain 
 that the whole population of the borough, an extensive 
 district which contains many hamlets, did not, in the 
 reign of Charles the Second, exceed seven thousand 
 souls. In 1841 there were more than a hundred and 
 fifty thousand.^ 
 
 About a day's journey south of Leeds, on the veige 
 of a wild moorland tract, lay an ancient 
 manor, now rich with cultivation, then bar- 
 ren and uuinclosed, which was known by the name of 
 Hallamshire. L'on abounded there ; and, from a very 
 early period, the rude whittles fabricated there had 
 been sold all over the kingdom. They had indeed 
 been mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in one of his Can- 
 terbury Tales. But the manufacture appears to have 
 made little progress during the three centuries which 
 followed his time. This languor niay perhaps be ex- 
 plained by the fact that the trade was, during almost 
 the whole of tliis long period, subject to such regula- 
 tions as the lord and his court leet thouglit fit to im- 
 pose. The more delicate kinds of cutlery were either 
 made in the capital, or brought from the Continent. It 
 was not indeed till the reign of George the First that 
 the English surgeons ceased to imijort from France 
 
 1 'I'hiiresliv's Ducatus T.eodcnsis; Wliitaker's Loidis and EIniete; War- 
 dell's Jlimicipiil History of till- Horoiigli of Leeds.
 
 376 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 those exquisitely fine blades which are reqviired for 
 operations on the human frame. Most of the Hal- 
 lamshire forges were collected in a market town which 
 had sprung up near the castle of the proprietor, and 
 ^^-hich, in the reign of Jannes the First, had been a sin- 
 o-ularly miserable place, containing about two thousand 
 inhabitants, of whom a third were half starved and 
 half naked beggars. It seems certain from the paro- 
 chial registers that the population did not amount to 
 four thousand at the end of the reign of Charles the 
 Second. The effects of a species of toil singularly 
 unfavourable to the health and vigour of the human 
 frame were at once discerned by every traveller. A 
 large proportion of the people had distorted limbs. 
 This is that Sheffield which now, with its dependen- 
 cies, contains a hundred and twenty thousand souls, 
 and which sends forth its admirable knives, razors, and 
 lancets to the farthest ends of the world.^ 
 
 Birminoham had not been thought of sufficient im- 
 portance to return a member to Oliver's Par- 
 liament. Yet the manufacturers of Birming- 
 ham were already a busy and thriving race. They 
 boasted that their hardware was highly esttjemed, not 
 indeed as now, at Pekin and Lima, at Bokhara and 
 Timbuctoo, but in London, and even as far off as L'e- 
 land. They had acquired a less honourable renown as 
 coiners of bad money. In allusion to their spurious 
 groats, some Tory wit had fixed on demagogues, who 
 hypocritically affected zeal against Popery, the nick- 
 name' of Bii-minghams. Yet in 1685 the population, 
 Avhich is now httle less than two hundred thousand, 
 did not amovmt to four thousand. Birmingham buttons 
 were just beginning to be known : of Birmingham 
 
 1 Hunter's History of Hallamshire.
 
 Ch. hi.] state of ENGLAND IN 1G85. 377 
 
 guns nobody had yet heard; and the place whence, 
 two generations later, the magnificent editions of Bas- 
 kerville went forth to astonish all the librarians of Eu- 
 rope, did not contain a single regular shop where a 
 Bible or an almanack could be bouoht. On market 
 days a bookseller named Michael Johnson, the father 
 of the great Samuel Johnson, came over from Lichfield, 
 and opened a stall during a few hours. This supply 
 of literature was long found adequate to the demand.^ 
 These four chief seats of our great manufactures 
 deserve especial mention. It would be tedious to enu- 
 merate all the po])ulous and opulent hives of industry 
 which, a hundred and fifty years ago, were hamlets 
 without a parish church, or desolate moors, inhabited 
 only by grouse and wild deer. Nor has the change 
 been less signal in those outlets by which the products 
 of the English looms and forges are poured forth over 
 the whole world. At present Liverpool con- 
 
 1 Till 1 Liverpool. 
 
 tarns about three hundred thousand inhabi- 
 tants. The shipping registered at her j)ort amounts to 
 between four and five huiulred tliousand tons. Into 
 her custom house has been repeatedly paid in one year 
 a sum more than thrice as great as the whole income 
 of the English crown in 1685. The receipts of her 
 post office, even since the great reduction of the duty, 
 exceed the sum which the postage of the whole king- 
 dom yielded to tlie Duke of York. Her endless docks, 
 quays and warehouses are among the wonders of the 
 
 1 IJlonic's I5ritniiiii;i, ir,7;i: Diiplalc's ■Wanvicksliire; Nortli's Exainen, 
 321.; PruCacc to Ahsaloin ami Ailiitopliel ; lliitton's History of Hiiiiiing- 
 ham; Boswell's LitV (.f .!o!inson. In 1090 the burials at Binniii^liain were 
 150, the baptisms 12."). I think it prohal)le that the aTiiiinil moilality was 
 little less than (Hic in twcMity-live. In I.i ndon it \vas ((iii.Nidurablv {jrcatiT. 
 A histcrian of Xottinsliam, half a century later, boasted of the extvanrdi- 
 nary salubrity of his town, wlicre the annual mortality was one in thirty 
 See Dering's Histor}' of Nottingham.
 
 378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 world. Yet even tliose clocks and quays and ware- 
 houses seem hardly to suffice for the gigantic trade of 
 the Mersey ; and already a rival city is growing fast 
 on the opposite shore. In the days of Charles the 
 Second Liverpool was described as a rising town which 
 had recently made great advances, and which main- 
 tained a profitable intercourse with Ireland and with 
 the suo-ar colonies. The customs had multiplied eight- 
 fold within sixteen years, and amounted to what was 
 then considered as the immense sum of fifteen thou- 
 sand pounds annually. But the population can hardly 
 have exceeded four thousand : the shipping was about 
 fourteen hundred tons, less than the tonnage of a sin- 
 gle modern Indiaman of the first class ; and the whole 
 number of seamen belonging to the port cannot be 
 estimated at more than two hundred.* 
 
 Such has been the progress of those towns where 
 wealth is created and accumulated. Not less rapid has 
 waterin ^^^^^ *^® progTcss of towus of a vcry different 
 places. kind, towns in which wealth, created and ac- 
 
 cumulated elsewhere, is expended for purposes of health 
 and recreation. Some of the most remarkable of these 
 <Tay places have sprung into existence since the time.ot 
 the Stuarts. Cheltenham is now a greater 
 Cheltenham. ^.^_^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^.^j^ ^j^^ kingdom Contained in 
 
 the seventeenth century, London alone excepted. But 
 in the seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the 
 eio-hteenth, Cheltenham was mentioned by local his- 
 torians merely as a rural jiarish lying under the Cots- 
 wold Hills, and affording good ground, both for tillage 
 
 1 Blome's Britannia; Gregson's Antiquities of the County Palatine and 
 . Duchy of Lancaster, Part II. ; Petition from Liverpool in the Privy Coun- 
 cil Book, May 10. 1G86. In 1690 the burials at Liverpool were 151, the 
 baptisms 120. In 1844 the net receipt of the customs at Liverpool was 
 l,;i65,526;. Is. 8d
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 379 
 
 and pasture. Corn grew and cattle browsed over the 
 space now covered by that long succession of streets 
 and villas. 1 Brijihton was described as a „ . , 
 
 '^ ... Bnghton. 
 
 place which had once been thriving, which 
 had possessed many small fishing barks, and which 
 had, when at the height of prosperity, contained above 
 two thousand inhabitants, but which was sinking fast 
 into decay. The sea was gradually gaining on the 
 buildings, which at length almost entirely disappeared. 
 Ninety years ago the ruins of an old fort were to be seen 
 lying among the pebbles and seaweed on the beach ; and 
 ancient men could still point, out the traces of founda- 
 tions on a spot where a street of more than a hundred 
 huts had been swallowed up by the waves. So deso- 
 late was the place after this calamity, that the vicarage 
 was thought scarcely worth having. A few poor fisher- 
 men, however, still continued to dry their nets on those 
 cliffs, on which now a town, more than twice as large 
 and populous as the Bristol of the Stuarts, presents, 
 mile after mile, its gay and fantastic front to the sea.^ 
 England, however, was not, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tmy, destitute of watering places. The gentry of Der- 
 byshire and of the neighbouring counties re- 
 ])alred to Buxton, where thev were lo(l<Ted in 
 low rooms under bare rafters, and regaled with oatcake, 
 and with a viand which the hosts called nuitton, but 
 which the guests strongly suspected to be doo-.3 ^^ ^j,,_ 
 gle good house stood near the spring. Tunbridge 
 Wells, lying within a day's journey of the Tunbri.iK.- 
 cajjital, and in one of the richest and most ^^*"*' 
 highly civilised ])arts of the Idngdom, had much greater 
 attractions. At present we see there a town which 
 
 1 Alkyiis's Gloiuestershire. 
 
 2 Manila Biitainiia; Grose's Aiitiiiuities; New Biightlielmstone Diroc- 
 tory, 1770. 
 
 8 Tour ill Dtrliysliire, by Thomas Browne, son of Sir Thomas.
 
 380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cn. III. 
 
 would, a hundred and sixty years ago, have ranked, in 
 population, fourth or fifth among the towns of England. 
 The brilliancy of the shops and the luxury of the private 
 dwellings far surpasses anything that England could 
 then show. When the court, soon after the Restora- 
 tion, visited Tun bridge Wells, there was no town : but, 
 within a mile of the spring, rustic cottages, somewhat 
 cleaner and neater than the ordinary cottages of that 
 time, were scattered over the heath. Some of these 
 cabins were moveable, and Avere carried on sledges 
 from one part of the common to another. To these 
 huts men of fashion, wearied with the din and smoke 
 of London, sometimes came in the summer to breathe 
 fresh air, and to catch a glimpse of rural life. During 
 the season a kind of fair was daily held near the foun- 
 tain. The wives and daufihters of the Kentish farmers 
 came from the neighbouring villages with cream, cher- 
 ries, wheatears, and quails. To chaffer with them, to 
 flirt with them, to praise their straw hats and tight 
 heels, was a refreshing pastime to voluptuaries sick of 
 the airs of actresses and maids of honour. Milliners, 
 toymen, and jewellers came down from London, and 
 opened a bazaar under the trees. In one booth the 
 politician might find his coffee and the London Ga- 
 zette ; in another were gamblers playing deep at bas- 
 set ; and, on fine evenings, the fiddles were in attend- 
 ance, and there were morris dances on the elastic turf 
 of the bowling green. In 1685 a subscription had 
 just been raised among tliose who frequented the 
 wells for building a church, which the Tories, who 
 then domineered everywhere, insisted on dedicating 
 to Saint Charles the Martyr.^ 
 
 1 M^moires de Granimont; Hasted's Historj' of Kent; Tunbridge Wells, 
 a Corned}', 1678; Causton's Tunbridgialia, 1G88; Metellus, a poem on Tun- 
 bridge Wells, 1693.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 381 
 
 But at the head of the English watering places, with- 
 out a rival, was Bath. The springs of that 
 city had been I'enowned from the days of the 
 Romans. It had been, during many centuries, the 
 seat of a Bishop. The sick repaired tliither from eveiy 
 part of the reahn. The King sometimes held his court 
 there. Nevertheless, Bath was then a maze of only 
 four )r five hundred houses, crowded within an old 
 wall in the vicinity of the Avon. Pictures of what 
 were considered as the finest of those houses are still 
 extant, and greatly resemble the lowest rag shops and 
 potliouses of Radcliffe Highway. Travellers, indeed, 
 complained loudly of the narrowness and meanness of 
 the streets. Tliat beautiful city which charms even 
 eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and 
 Palladio, and which the genius of Anstey and of Smol- 
 lett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made 
 classic ground, had not begun to exist. Milsom Street 
 itself was an open field lying far beyond the walls ; and 
 hedgerows intersected the space which is now covered 
 by the Crescent and the Circus. The poor patients to 
 whom the waters had been recommended lay on straw 
 in a place which, to use the language of a contemporary 
 physician, was a covert rather than a lodging. As to 
 the comforts and luxuries which were to be found in 
 the interior of the houses of Bath by the fashionable 
 visitors who resorted thither in search of health or 
 amusement, we possess information more com])lete and 
 minute than can generally be obtained on such subjects. 
 A writer who ))ublished an account of that city about 
 sixty years after the Revolution has accurately de- 
 scribed the changes which had taken place within his 
 own recollection. He assures us that in his younger 
 days the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in
 
 882 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cw. III. 
 
 rooms hardly as good as tlie garrets which he hved to 
 see occupied by footmen. Th.e floors of the dining 
 rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with 
 a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide 
 the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth 
 or a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common 
 freestone and fire irons which had cost from three to 
 four shillings Avere thought sufficient for any fireplace. 
 The best apartments were hung w^ith coarse Avoollen 
 stuff, and were furnished with rushbottomed cliairs. 
 Readers who take an interest in the progress of civili- 
 sation and of the useful arts will be o-rateful to the 
 humble topographer who has recorded these facts, and 
 Avill perhaps wish that historians of far higher preten- 
 sions had sometimes spared a few pages from military 
 evolutions and political intrigues, for the purpose of 
 letting us know how the parlours and bedchambers 
 of our ancestors looked.^ 
 
 The position of London, relatively to the other towns 
 of the em])ire, was, in the time of Charles the 
 
 London. . . 
 
 Second, far higher than at present. For at 
 present the population of London is little more than 
 six times the population of Manchester or of Liverpool. 
 In the days of Charles the Second the population of 
 London was more than seventeen times the population 
 of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be doubted whether 
 any other instance can be mentioned of a great king- 
 dom in which the first city was more than seventeen 
 times as laro-e as the second. There is reason to be- 
 
 » 
 
 1 See Wood's Histor3' of Bath, 1749; Evelyn's Diaiy, June 27.1654; 
 Pepys's Diary, June 12. 1GC8; Stukeley's Itinenirum Curiosum; Collin- 
 ' son's Somersetshire; Dr. Peirce's Historj- and Memoirs of the Bath, 171-3, 
 book I. chap. viii. ohs. 2. 1084. I have consulted several old maps and 
 pictures of Bath, particularly one curious map which is surrounded ':~ 
 views of the principal buildings. It bears the date of 1717.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 383 
 
 lieve that, in 1685, London had been, during about 
 half a century, the most populous capital in Europe. 
 The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen hun- 
 dred thousand, were then probably little more than halt" 
 a million.^ London had in the world only one com- 
 niercial rival, now long- ago outstripped, the mighty and 
 opulent Amsterdam. Euglish writers boasted of" the for- 
 est of masts and yardarms which covered the river from 
 ilie Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums 
 which were collected at the Custom House in Thames 
 Street. There is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of 
 the metropolis then bore a far grenter ])ro})ortion than 
 at present to the whole trade of the country ; yet to 
 our generation the honest vauntinoj of our ancestors 
 must appear almost ludicrous. The shij)ping which 
 they thought incredibly great appears not to have ex- 
 ceeded seventy thousand tons. This was, indeed, then 
 more than a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom, 
 but is now less than a fcmrth of the tonnage of New- 
 castle, and is nearly equalled by the tonnage of the 
 steam vessels of the Thames. The customs of Lon- 
 don amounted, in 1685, to about three hundred and 
 thirty thousand pounds a year. Li our time the net 
 duty paid annually, at the same })lace, exceeds ten 
 millions. 2 
 
 Whoever examines the maps of London which were 
 liul)lished towards the close of the reiirn of Charles the 
 Second will see that only the nucleus of the present 
 ca|)ital then existed. 'IMie town did not, as now, fade 
 by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long 
 
 1 According,' to KitiR, 530,000. 
 
 2 MrtcpluTson's History of Commerce; Chalmers's Estimate; Ciiaml)er- 
 lavne's State of Kii^'laiifl, 1684. The tonnaf;e of the steamers helorifring 
 to the port of London was, at the end of 1847, about G0,()00 tons. The 
 customs of the port, from 1842 to 1845, very nearly averaged 11,000,000/.
 
 38'1 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. ID. 
 
 avenues of villas, embowei'ed in lilacs and laburnums, 
 extended from the great centre of wealth and civilisa- 
 tion almost to the Loundaines of Middlesex and far 
 into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In the east, no 
 part of the immense line of v^'arehouses and artificial 
 lakes which now stretches from the Towner to Blackwa!! 
 had even been projected. On the west, scarcely one 
 oi' those stately piles of building which are inhabited 
 by the noble and wealtliy was in existence ; and Chel- 
 sea, wdiich is now peopled by more than forty thousand 
 hmuan beings, was a quiet country village with about 
 a thousand inhabitants.^ On the north, cattle fed, and 
 sportsmen wandered with dogs and guns, over the site 
 of the borough of Marylebone, and over far the greater 
 part of the space now covered by the boroughs of 
 Finsbury and of the Tower Hamlets. Islington was 
 almost a solitude ; and poets loved to contrast its silence 
 and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster 
 London.^ On the south the capital is now connected 
 with its suburb by several bridges, not inferior in mag- 
 nificence and solidity to the noblest works of the Caesars. 
 In 1685, a single line of irregular arches, overhung by 
 piles of mean and crazy houses, and gai'nished, after a 
 fashion worthy of the naked barbarians of Dahomy, 
 with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the naviga- 
 tion of the river. 
 
 Of the metropolis, the City, properly so called, was 
 
 the most important division. At the time of 
 
 the Restoration it had been built, for the most 
 
 part, of wood and plaster ; the few bricks that were 
 
 used were ill baked ; the booths where goods were ex- 
 
 1 Lyson's Environs of LoiiJon. The baptisms at Chelsea, between 1G80 
 and 1690, were only forty-two a year. 
 ' Cowley, Discourse of Solitude. 
 
 1
 
 Ch. in.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 385 
 
 posed to sale projected far into tlie streets, and were 
 overliung by the upper stones. A few specimens of 
 this architecture may still be seen in those districts which 
 were not reached by the great fire. That fire had, in 
 a few days, covered a space of little less than a square 
 mile with the ruins of ei^htv-nine churches and of 
 thirteen thousand houses. But the City had risen 
 again with a celerity which had excited the admira- 
 tion of neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the old 
 lines of the streets had been to a great extent pre- 
 served ; and those lines, originally traced in an age 
 when even princesses performed their journeys on 
 horseback, were often too narrow to allow wheeled car- 
 riages to pass each other with ease, and were therefore 
 ill adapted for the residence of wealthy persons in an 
 age when a coach and six was a fashionable luxurj. 
 The style of building was, however, far superior to that 
 of the City which had perished. The ordinary mate- 
 rial was brick, of much better quality than had for- 
 merly been used. On the sites of the ancient parish 
 churches had arisen a multitude of new domes, towers, 
 and spires which bore the mark of the fertile genius of 
 Wren. In every place save one the traces of the great 
 devastation had been completely effaced. But the 
 <'row(ls of A^■()rkmen, the scaffolds and the masses of 
 hewn stone were still to be seen where the noblest of 
 Protestant temples was slowly rising on the ruins of the 
 old Cathedral of St. Paul.i 
 
 1 The fullest and most trustwortliy information about the state of the 
 build'mijs of London at tills time is to he derived from the maps and draw- 
 iutrs in the British Museum and in the Pep)'sian Library. The badness of 
 the biieks in the olil buihlings of London is particularly mentioned in tho 
 Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. There is an account of the works at 
 St. Paul's in Ward's London .Spy. I am almost ushamed to quote such 
 nauseous balderdash; but I have been forced to descend even lower, if 
 possible, in search of materials. 
 
 VOL. I. 25
 
 386 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch, III. 
 
 The whole character of the City has, since that time, 
 undergone a complete change. At present the bankers, 
 the mercliants, and tlie chief shopkeepers repair thither 
 on six mornings of every week for the transaction of 
 business : but they reside in other quarters of the me- 
 ti'opohs, or at suburban country seats surrounded by 
 slu'ubberies and flower gardens. This revohition in 
 private habits has produced a pohtical revolution of no 
 small importance. The City is no longer regarded by 
 the wealthiest traders Avith that attachment which every 
 man naturally feels for his home. It is no longer asso- 
 ciated in their minds with domestic affections and en- 
 dearments. The fireside, the nursery, the social table, 
 the quiet bed are not there. Lombard Street and 
 Threadneedle Street are merely places where men toil 
 and accumulate. They go elsewhere to enjoy and to 
 *»xpend. On a Sunday, or in an evening after the 
 hours of business, some courts and alleys, which a few 
 hours before had been alive with hurrying feet and 
 anxious faces, are as silent as the glades of a forest. 
 The chiefs of the mercantile interests are no longer 
 citizens. They avoid, they almost contemn, municipal 
 honours and duties. Those honours and duties are aban- 
 doned to men who, though useful and highly respect- 
 able, seldom belong to the princely commercial houses 
 of which the names are renowned throughout the world. 
 
 In the seventeenth century the City was the mer- 
 chant's residence. Those mansions of the great old 
 burghers which still exist have been turned into count- 
 ing houses and warehouses : but it is evident that they 
 were originally not inferior in magnificence to the dwell- 
 ings which were then inhabited by the nobility. They 
 sometimes stand in retired and gloomy courts, and are 
 accessible only by inconvenient passages : but their
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 387 
 
 dimensions are ample, and their aspect stately. The 
 entrances are decorated with richly carved pillars and 
 canopies. The staircases and landing places are not 
 wanting in grandeur. The floors are sometimes of 
 wood, tessellated after the fashion of France. Tlie 
 palace of Sir Robert Clayton, in the Old Jewry, con- 
 tained a superb banqueting room wainscoated with 
 cedar, and, adorned with battles of gods and giants in 
 fresco.^ Sir Dudley North expended four thousand 
 pounds, a sum which would then have been important 
 to a Duke, on the rich furniture of his reception rooms 
 in Basinghall Street.^ In such abodes, under the last 
 Stuarts, the heads of the great firms lived splendidly 
 and hospitably. To their dwelling place they Avere 
 bound by the strongest ties of interest and affection. 
 There they had passed their youth, had made their 
 friendships, had courted their wives, had seen their 
 children grow up, had laid the remains of their parents 
 in the earth, and expected that their own remains 
 would be laid. That intense patriotism which is pecu- 
 liar to the members of societies conoreo;ated within a 
 narrow space was, in such circumstances, strongly de- 
 veloped. London was, to the Londoner, what Athens 
 was to the Athenian of the age of Pericles, what Flor- 
 ence was to the Florentine of the fifteenth century. 
 The citizen was proud of the grandeur of his city, 
 punctilious about her claims to respect, ambitious of 
 her offices, and zealous for her franchises. 
 
 At the close of the reign of Charles the Second the 
 pride of the Londoners was smarting from a cruel 
 mortification. The old charter had been taken away ; 
 and the magistracy had been remodelled. All the civic 
 
 1 Kvelyn's Diary, Sept. 20. 1672. 
 
 2 Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North.
 
 388 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IH. 
 
 functionaries were Tories ; and the Whigs, though in 
 numbers and in wealth superior to their opponents, 
 found themselves excluded fi'om every local dignity. 
 Nevertheless, the external splendour of the municipal 
 government was not diminished, nay, was rather in- 
 creased by this. change. For, under the administration 
 of some Puritans who had lately boinie rule, the ancient 
 fame of the city for good cheer had declined : but under 
 the new mao-istrates, who belonged to a more festive 
 party, and at whose boards guests of rank and fashion 
 from beyond Temple Bar were often seen, the Guildhall 
 and the halls of the great companies were enlivened by 
 many sumptuous banquets. During these repasts, odes, 
 composed by the j)oet laureate of the corporation, in 
 praise of the King, the Duke, and the Mayor, were sung 
 to music. The drinking was deep, the shouting loud. 
 An observant Tory, who had often shared in these rev- 
 els, has remarked that the practice of huzzaing after 
 drinking healths dates from this joyous period.^ 
 
 The magnificence displayed by the first civic magis- 
 trate was almost regal. The gilded coach, indeed, which 
 is now annually admired by the crowd, was not yet a 
 part of his state. On great occasions he appeai^ed on 
 horseback, attended by a long cavalcade inferior in 
 magnificence only to that which, before a coronation, 
 escorted the sovereio;n from the Tower to Westminster. 
 The Lord Mayor was never seen in public without his 
 rich robe, his hood of black velvet, his gold chain, his 
 jewel, and a great attendance of harbingers and guards.^ 
 
 1 North's Examen. This most amusing writer has preserved a specimen 
 
 of the sublime raptures in which the Pindar of the City indulged: — 
 
 " The worshipful Sir John Moor ! 
 After ;ige that uaiiie adore ! " 
 
 2 Chaniberlayne's State of England, 1684; Anglite Metropolis, 1690 
 Seymour's London, 1734.
 
 Cii. III. J STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1G85. 359 
 
 Nor did the world find anything ludicrous in the pomp 
 which constantly surrounded hin>. For it was not 
 more than became the place which, as wielding the 
 strength and representing the dignity of the City of 
 London, he was entitled to occupy in the state. That 
 (Jity, being then not only without equal in the country, 
 but without second, had, during five and forty years, 
 exercised almost as great an influence on the politics of 
 England as Paris has, in our own time, exercised on the 
 j)olitics of France. In intelligence London was greatly 
 in advance of every other j)art of the kingdom. A gov- 
 ernnient, supported and trusted by London, could in a 
 day obtain such pecuniary means as it would have taken 
 months to collect from the rest of the island. Nor were 
 the military resources of the capital to be despised. 
 The power which the Lord Lieutenants exercised in 
 other parts of the kingdom was in London intrusted to 
 a Commission of eminent citizens. Under the orders of 
 this Commission were twelve reoiments of foot and two 
 regiments of horse. An army of drapers' apprentices 
 and journeymen tailors, with common councihnen for 
 captains and aldermen for colonels, might not indeed 
 have been able to stand its ground against regular 
 troops ; but there were then very few regular troops in 
 the kingdom. A town, therefore, which could send 
 forth, at an hour's notice, thousands of men, abound- 
 ing in natural courage, provided with tolerable wea])ons, 
 and not altogether untinctured with martial discipline, 
 could not but be a valuable ally and a formidable 
 enemy. It was not forgotten that ILimijden and I'ym 
 had been ])rotected from lawless tyranny by the L(jn(lon 
 trainbands ; that, in the great crisis of the civil war, the 
 London trainbands had marched to raise the siege of 
 Gloucester ; or that, in the moveirtent against the mill-
 
 390 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ICh. III. 
 
 tary tyrants wliich followed the downfall of Richard 
 Cromwell, the Lortdon trainbands had borne a signal 
 part. In truth, it is no exaggeration to say that, but 
 for the hostility of the City, Charles the First would 
 never have been vanquished, and that, without the help 
 of the City, Charles the Second could scarcely have 
 been restored. 
 
 These considerations may serve to explain why, in 
 spite of that attraction which had, during a long course 
 of years, gradually drawn the aristocracy westward, a 
 few men of high rank had continued, till a very recent 
 period, to dwell in the vicinity of the Exchange and of 
 the Guildhall. Shaftesbury and Buckingham, while 
 eno-aged in bitter and unscrupulous opposition to the 
 government, had thought that they could nowhere 
 carry on their intrigues so conveniently or so securely 
 as under the protection of the City magistrates and the 
 City militia. Shaftesbury had therefore lived in Alders- 
 gate Street, at a house which may still easily be known 
 by pilasters and wreaths, the graceful work of Inigo. 
 Buckingham had ordered his mansion near Charing 
 Cross, once the abode of the Archbishops of York, to 
 be pulled down ; and, while streets and alleys which 
 are still named after him were rising on that site, chose 
 to reside in Dowgate.^ 
 
 These, however, were rare exceptions. Almost all 
 Faphionabi3 the uoble families of England had long mi- 
 Mpitai. " grated beyond the walls. The district where 
 most of their town houses stood lies between the City 
 and the remons which are now considered as fashion- 
 able. A few great men still retained their hereditary 
 hotels in the Strand. The stately dwellings on the 
 
 1 North's Exaraen, IIG. Wood, Ath. Ox. Shaftesbury. The Duke o< 
 3.'b Litany.
 
 Cii. III-l STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 391 
 
 south and west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Piazza of 
 Covent Garden, Southampton Square, whioli is now 
 called P>l()omsbury Square, and King's Square in Soho 
 Fields, which is now called Soho Square, were among 
 the favourite spots. Foreign princes were carried to 
 see Bloomsbury Square, as one of the wonders of 
 England.^ Sohc Sfjuare, which had just been built, 
 was to ouf ancestors a subject of pride with which 
 their posterity will hardly sympathize. Monmouth 
 Square had been the name while the fortunes of the 
 Duke of Monmouth flom'ished ; and on the southern 
 side towered his mansion. The front, though ungrace- 
 ful, was lofty and richly adorned. The walls of the 
 princi])al aj)artments were finely sculptured, with fruit, 
 foliaixe, and armorial boarino;s, and were huno; with 
 embroidered satin. ^ Every trace of this magnificence 
 has long disappeared ; and no aristocratical mansion is 
 to be found in that once aristocratical quarter. A little 
 way north from Holborn, and on the verge of the pas- 
 tures and cornfields, rose two celebrated palaces, each 
 with an ample garden. One of them, then called South- 
 ampton House, and subsequently Bedford House, was 
 removed about fifty years ago to make room for a new 
 city, which now covers, with its squares, streets, and 
 churches, a vast area, renowned in the seventeenth 
 centuiy for peaches and snipes. The other, Montague 
 House, celebrated for its frescoes and furniture, was, a 
 few months after the death of Charles the Second, 
 burned to the ground, and was S})eedily succeeded by 
 a more magnificent Montague House, which, having 
 been long the repository of such various and precious 
 
 1 Tnivels of till- Grand Duke Cosmo. 
 
 2 Cliambcrlayiic's Statu of England, 1G81; rennant's London; Smith's 
 Life of Nollukuus.
 
 392 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, [Ch. III. 
 
 treasures of art, sc:ience, and learning as were scarce 
 ever before asseiiibled under a single roof, has just given 
 ])lace to an edifice more magnificent still.^ 
 
 Nearer to the court, on a space called Saint James's 
 Fields, had just been built Saint James's Square and 
 Jermyn Street. Saint James's Church had recently 
 been opened for the accommodation of the inhabitants 
 of this new quarter.^ Golden Square, which was in 
 the next generation inhabited by lords and ministers 
 of state, had not yet been begun. Indeed the only 
 dwellings to be seen on the north of Piccadilly were 
 three or four isolated and almost rural mansions, of 
 which the most celebrated was the costly pile erected 
 by Clarendon, and nicknamed Dunkirk House. It had 
 been purchased after its founder's downfall by tlie Duke 
 of Albemarle. The Clarendon Hotel and Albemarle 
 Street still preserve the memory of the site. 
 
 He who then rambled to what is now the gayest and 
 most crowded part of Regent Street foiuid himself in a 
 solitude, and was sometimes so fortunate as to have a 
 shot at a woodcock.^ On the north the Qxford road 
 ran between hedges. Three or four hundred yards to 
 the south were the garden walls of a few great houses 
 which were considered as quite out of town. On the 
 west was a meadow renowned for a spring from which, 
 long afterwards, Conduit Street was named. On the 
 east was a field not to be passed without a shudder by 
 any Londoner of that age. There, as in a place far 
 from the haunts of men, had been dug, twenty years 
 before, when the great plague was raging, a pit into 
 
 1 i:velyn's Diary, Oct. 10. 1G83, Jan. 19. 168f • 
 
 2 Stat. 1 Jac. IL c. 22. Evelyn's Uiaiy, Dec. 7. 1684. 
 
 3 Old General Og-lethorjie, who died in 1785, used to bnast that he had 
 ah"t birds here in Anne's reij,'n. See Pennant's London, and the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine for July, 1785.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 303 
 
 which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores. 
 It was po))u]ai-ly beheved that the earth was deeply 
 tainted with infection, and could not be disturbed with- 
 out imminent risk to human life. No foundations were 
 laid there till two generations had passed without any 
 return of the pestilence, and till the ghastly spot had 
 long been surrounded by buildings.^ 
 
 We should greatly err if we were to suppose that 
 any of the streets and squares then bore the same 
 aspect as at present. The great majority of the houses, 
 indeed, have, since that time, been wholly, or in great 
 part, rebuilt. If the most fashionable parts of the 
 capital could be placed before us, such as they then 
 were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appear- 
 ance, and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. Jn 
 Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market \v:is h^Id 
 close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women 
 screamed, carters foug-ht, cabbaoe stalks and rotten 
 apples accunudated in heaps at the thresholds of the 
 Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishoj) of Durham.'-^ 
 
 The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields was an open space 
 where the rabble cono;reo:ated every evenino;, Avithin a 
 
 OCT t' O^ 
 
 few yards of Cardigan House and Winchester House, 
 to hear mountebanks harangue, to see bears dance, 
 and to set dogs at oxen. Rubbish was shot in every 
 part of the area. Iloi'ses were exercised thei'e. The 
 beggars were as noisy and importunate as in the worst 
 governed cities of the Continent. A Lincoln's Inn 
 nnim])er was a ])roverb. The whole fraternity knew 
 
 1 The pest lield will be seen in maps of London as late as the end of 
 George the First's reipn. 
 
 3 Sec a very curious plan of Covent Garden made aljout 1000, and en- 
 graved li>r Siuitli's Histiiry o' Westminster. See also Ilogarih's Morning, 
 painted while some of the houses in the Piazza were still occupied by people 
 of fashion.
 
 394 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 the arms* and liveries of every charitably disposed 
 rrraiulee in the iieighbourliood, and, as soon as his 
 lordship's coach and six appeared, came hopping and 
 crawling in crowds to persecute him. These disorders 
 lasted, in spite of many accidents, and of some legal 
 prbceedings, till, in the reign of George the Second, Sir 
 Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, was knocked down 
 and nearly killed in the middle of the square. Then 
 at length palisades were set up, and a pleasant garden 
 laid out.^ 
 
 Saint James's Square was a receptacle for all the 
 offal and cinders, for all the dead cats and dead dogs 
 of Westminster. At one time a cudgel player kept 
 the ring there. At another time an impudent squat- 
 ter settled himself there, and built a shed for rubbish 
 under the windows of the g-ilded saloons in which the 
 first magnates of the realm, Norfolks, Ormonds, Kents, 
 and Pembrokes, gave banquets and balls. It was not 
 till these nuisances had lasted through a whole genera- 
 tion, and till much had been written about them, that 
 the inhabitants applied to Parliament for permission to 
 put up rails, and to plant trees.^ 
 
 When such was the state of the region inhabited by 
 the most luxurious portion of society, we may easily 
 
 1 London Spy; Tom Brown's Comical View of London and Westminster, 
 Turner's Propositions for tlie employini; of the Poor, 1G78; Daily Courant 
 and Daily Journal of June, 7. 1733; Case of Michael v. Allestree, in 1676 
 2 Levinz. p. 172. Michael had been run over by two horses which Alles- 
 tree was breaking^ in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The declaration set forth that 
 the defendant " porta deux ehivals ungovernable en un coach, et improvide, 
 incaute, et absque debita coiisideratione ineptitudinis loci la eux drive pur 
 eux faire tractable et apt pur un coach, quels ehivals, pur ceo que, per leur 
 ferocite, ne poient estre rule, curre sur le plaintiff et le noie." 
 
 2 Stat. 12 Geo. I. c. 25; Commons' Journals, Feb. 2-5. March 2. 17 2|- 
 London Gardener, 1712; Evening Post, March 23. 1731. I have not beer, 
 able to find this number of the Evening Post; I theiefore quote it on tha 
 faith of Mr. Malcolm, who mentions it in his History of London.
 
 Ch. III.l STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 395 
 
 believe that the great body of the population siiffei-od 
 what would now be considered as insupportable griev- 
 ances. The pavement was detestable ; all foreigners 
 cried shame u])on it. The drainage was so bad that 
 in rainy weather the gutters soon became torrents. 
 Several facetious poets have commemorated the fury 
 with which these black rivulets roared down Snow 
 Hill and Ludo;ate Hill, bearino; to Fleet Ditch a vast 
 tribute of animal and vegetable filth from the stalls of 
 butchers and greengrocers. This flood was profusely 
 thrown to right and left by coaches and carts. To 
 keep as far from the carriage road as possible was 
 therefore the wish of every ])edestrian. The mild and 
 timid gave the wall. The bold and athletic took it. 
 If two roisterers met, they cocked their hats in each 
 other's faces, and pushed each other about till the 
 weaker was shoved towards the kennel. If he was a 
 mere bully he sneaked off, muttering that he should 
 find a time. If he was ])ugnacious, the encounter prob- 
 ably ended in a duel behind Montague House.^ 
 
 The houses were not numbei'cd. There would indeed 
 have been little advantage in numbering them ; for of 
 the coachmen, chairmen, porters, and errand boys of 
 Ivoiulitii, a very small pro])ortion could read. It was 
 necessary to use marks which the most ignorant coiild 
 understand. The shops were therefore distinguished 
 by painted or sculptured signs, which gave a gay and 
 grotesque aspect to the streets. The walk from Charing 
 Ci'oss to Whitechapel lay through an endless succes- 
 sion of Saracens' Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue Bears, and 
 
 1 I-eUrc<> sur Ics Anglois, writtnn early in the reiirn of William the Third ; 
 Swift's City Sliowftr; Ga3''s Trivia. Johnson used to relate a curious 
 conversation which he had with his mother ahout giving and taking tha 
 wail.
 
 396 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 Golden Lambs, which disappeared when they were no 
 longer required for the direction of the common people. 
 When the evening closed in, the difficulty and danger 
 of walking about London became serious indeed. Tlie 
 garret windows were opened, and pails were emptied, 
 with little regard to those who were passing below. 
 Falls, bruises, and broken bones were of constant oc- 
 currence. For, till the last year of the reign of Charles 
 the Second, most of the streets were left in profound 
 darkness. Thieves and robbers plied their trade with 
 impunity : yet they were hardly so terrible to peace- 
 able citizens as another class of ruffians. It was a 
 favourite amusement of dissolute young gentlemen to 
 swagger by night about the town, breaking windows, 
 upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, and offering rude 
 caresses to pretty women. Several dynasties of these 
 tyrants had, since the Restoration, domineered over 
 the streets. The Muns and Tityre Tus had given 
 place to the Hectors, and the Hectors had been re- 
 cently succeeded by the Scourers. At a later period 
 arose the Nicker, the Hawcubite, and the yet more 
 I'oiice of dreaded name of Mohawk.^ The machinery 
 London. ^^^ keeping the peace was utterly contemp- 
 tible. There was an Act of Common Council which 
 provided that more than a thousand watchmen should 
 be constantly on the alert in the city, from sunset to 
 
 ' Oldham's Imitation of the 3d Satire of Juvenal, 1682 ; Sliadwell's 
 Scourers, 1690. Many other authorities will readil^v occur to all who are 
 acquainted with the popular literature of that and the succeeding genera- 
 lion. It may be suspected that some of the Tityre Tus, like good Cava- 
 liers, broke Milton's windows shortly after the Restoration. I am confident 
 that he was thinking of those pests of London when he dictated the noble 
 1 nes, — 
 
 " And in luxurious cities, when the noise 
 Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, 
 And injury and outrage, and when night 
 Darkens the streets, then wander fortli the sons 
 Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine."
 
 Ch. ni] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 397 
 
 sunrise, and that every inliabitant should take his tuni 
 of duty. But this Act was neghg-ently executed. Few 
 of tliose Avho were summoned left their homes ; and 
 those few generally found it more agreeable to tipple 
 in alehouses than to pace the streets. ^ 
 
 It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of the 
 reign of Charles the Second, began a great ughtingof 
 change in the police of London, a change which ''''*°'^°°- 
 lias perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body 
 of the people as revolutions of much greater fame. An 
 ingenious projector, named Edward Pleming, obtained 
 letters patent conveying to him, for a term of years, 
 the exclusive right of lighting up London. He under- 
 took, for a moderate consideration, to place a light 
 before every tenth door, on moonless nights, from 
 Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of 
 the clock. Those who now see the capital all the year 
 round, from dusk to dawn, blazing with a splendour 
 compared with which the illuminations for La Hogue 
 and Blenheim would have looked pale, may perhaj)s 
 smile to think of Heming's lanterns, which glimmered 
 feebly before one house in ten during a small part of 
 one night in three. But such was not the feeling of 
 his contemporaries. His scheme was enthusiastically 
 apjilauded, and furiously attacked. The friends of im- 
 provement extolled him as the greatest of all the bene- 
 factors of his city. What, they asked, were the boasted 
 inventions of Archimedes, when compared with the 
 achievement of the man who had turned the nocturnal 
 shades inta noon day ? In spite of these eloquent eu- 
 loiries the cause of darkness was not left undefended. 
 There were fools in that age who opposed the introduc- 
 tion of what was called the new light as strenuously as 
 
 1 Seymour's London.
 
 398 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill, 
 
 fools in our age have opposed the introduction of vacci- 
 nation and raih'oads, as strenuously as the fools of an 
 age anterior to the dawn of history doubtless opposed 
 the introduction of the plough and of alphabetical writ- 
 ing. Many years after the date of Heming's patent 
 there were extensive districts in which no lamp was 
 seen.^ 
 
 We may easily imagine what, in sucli times, must 
 have been the state of the quarters of Lon- 
 don which were peopled by the outcasts of 
 society. Among those quarters one had attained a 
 scandalous preeminence. On the confines of the City 
 and the Temple had been founded, in the thirteenth 
 century, a House of Carmelite Friars, distinguished by 
 their Avhite hoods. The precinct of this house had, 
 before the Reformation, been a sanctuary for criminals, 
 and still retained the privilege of protecting debtors 
 from arrest. Insolvents consequently were to be found 
 in every dwelling, from cellar to garret. Of these a 
 large proportion were knaves and libertines, and were 
 followed to their asylum by women more abandoned 
 than themselves. The civil power was unable to keep 
 order in a district swarming with such inliabitants ; and 
 thus Whitefriars became the favoui-ite resort of all who 
 wished to be emancipated from the restraints of the 
 law. Though the immunities legally belonging to the 
 place extended only to cases of debt, cheats, false wit- 
 nesses, forgers, and highwaymen found refuge there. 
 For amidst a rabble so desperate no peace officer's 
 life was in safety. At the cry of " Rescne " bullies 
 with swords and cudgels, and termagant hags with spits 
 and broomsticks, poured forth by hundreds ; and the 
 
 1 AngliiE Metropolis, 1690, Sect. 17. entitled, " Of the new lights." Sey- 
 mour's London.
 
 Cii. ni.l STATK OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 399 
 
 irtrudor was fortunate if he escaped back into Fleet 
 (Street, hustled, stripi)ed, and pumped upon. Even the 
 warrant of the Cliief Justice of England could not be 
 executed without the help of a company of musketeers. 
 Such relics of the bai'barism of the darkest ao-es were 
 to be found within a sliort walk of the chambers where 
 Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel 
 Avhere Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee house 
 where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and 
 plays, and of the hall where the Royal Society was 
 examining the astronomical system of Isaac Newton.^ 
 
 Each of the two cities which made up the capital of 
 Enixland* had its own centre of attraction. „, 
 
 The court. 
 
 In the metropolis of commerce the point of 
 convergence w-as the Exchange ; in the metropolis of 
 fashion the Palace. But the Palace did not retain its 
 influence so loiio; as the Exchano;e. The Revolution 
 completely altered the relations between the court and 
 the hijxher classes of society. It was by decrees dis- 
 covered that the King, in his individual capacity, had 
 very little to give ; that coronets and garters, bishop- 
 lics and emliassies, lordships of the Treasury and tell- 
 ershijjs (jf the Exchcfiuer, nay, even charges in the 
 royal stiul and bedchamber, were really bestowed, not 
 by him, but by his advisers. Every ambitious and 
 covetous man perceived that he would consult his own 
 interest far better by acquiring the dominion of a Cor- 
 nish borough, and by rendering crood service to the 
 ministry during a critical session, than by becoming 
 the companion, or even the minion, of his prince. It 
 was therefore in the antechambers, not of George the 
 First and of George the Second, but of Walpole and 
 
 1 Stowe's Survey of London; Sliadwell's Squire of Alsalia; Ward's 
 London Spj'; Stat. 8 & 9 Gul. IIL cap. 27.
 
 400 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 of Pelliam, that the daily crowd of courtiers was to be 
 found. It is also to be remarked that the same revohi- 
 tion which made it impossible that our Kings should 
 use the patronage of the state, merely for the purpose 
 of gratifying their personal predilections, gave us sev- 
 eral Kings unfitted by their education and habits to be 
 gracious and affable hosts. They had been boini and 
 bred on the Continent. They never felt themselves at 
 home in our island. If they spoke our language, they 
 s})oke it inelegantly and with effort. Our national 
 character they never fully understood. Our national 
 manners they hardly attempted to acquire. The most 
 important part of their duty they performed better than 
 any ruler who had preceded them : for they governed 
 strictly according to law : but they could not be the 
 first gentlemen of the realm, the heads of polite society. 
 If ever they unbent, it was in a very small circle where 
 hardly an English face was to be seen ; and they were 
 never so hap[)y as when they could escape for a sum- 
 mer to their native land. They had indeed their days 
 of reception for our nobility and gentry ; but the re- 
 ception was mere matter of form, and became at last 
 as solemn a ceremony as a funeral. 
 
 Not such was the court of Charles the Second. 
 Whitehall, when he dwelt there, was the focus of 
 political intrigue and of fashionable gaiety. Half the 
 jobbing and half the flirting of the metropolis went on 
 under his roof. Whoever could make himself agree- 
 able to the prince, or could secure the good offices of 
 the mistress, might hope to rise in the world without 
 rendering any service to the government, without being 
 even known by sight to any minister of state. This 
 courtier got a frigate, and that a company; ; a third the 
 pardon of a rich offender ; a fourth, a lease of crown
 
 Ch. III.] . STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 401 
 
 land on easy terms. If the King notified his pleasure 
 that a briefless lawyer should be made a judge, or that 
 a libertine baronet should be made a peer, the gravest 
 counsellors, after a little murmuring, submitted.^ In- 
 terest, therefore, drew a constant press of suitors to the 
 gates of the palace ; and those gates always stood wide. 
 The King kept open house every day, and all day long, 
 for the good society of London, the extreme Whigs only 
 excepted. Hardly any gentleman had any difficulty in 
 making his way to the royal presence. The levee was 
 exactly what the word imports. Some men of quality 
 came every morning to stand round their master, to 
 chat with him while his wicr was combed and his ci'avat 
 tied, and to accompany him in his early walk through 
 the Park. All persons who had been properly intro- 
 duced might, without any special invitation, go to see 
 him dine, sup, dance, and play at hazard, and might 
 liave the pleasure of hearing him tell stories, which 
 indeed he told remarkably well, about his flight from 
 Worcester, and about the misery which he had en- 
 dured when he was a state prisoner in the hancj^i of 
 the canting meddling preachers of Scotland. By- 
 standers whom His Majesty recognised often came in 
 for a courteous word. This proved a far more success- 
 fill kingcraft than any that his father or grandfather 
 had practised. It was not easy for the most austere 
 republican of the school of Marvel to resist the fasci- 
 nation of so much (rood humour and afl'ability : and 
 many a veteran Cavalier, in whose heart the remem- 
 brance of unrequited sacrifices and services had been 
 festering during twenty years, was compensated in one 
 
 ^ See Sir l{oj;er North's account of the way in whicli Wrif^ht was made 
 a judge, and Clarendon's account of the way in which Sir Gt'orge Savila 
 was made a peer. 
 
 VOL. I. 2G
 
 402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ' [Ch. Ill 
 
 moment for wounds and sequestrations by his sover- 
 eign's kind nod, and " God bless you, my old friend ! " 
 
 Whitehall naturally became the chief staple of news. 
 Whenever there was a rumour that anything important 
 had happened or was about to happen, people hastened 
 thither to obtain intellioence from the fountain head. 
 The galleries presented the appearance of a modern 
 club room at an anxious time. They were full of 
 people inquiring whether the Dutch mail was in, what 
 tidings the express from France had brought, whether 
 John Sobiesky had beaten the Turks, whether the 
 Doge of Genoa was really at Paris. These were mat- 
 ters about which it was safe to talk aloud. But there 
 were subjects concerning which information was asked 
 and given in whispers. Had Halifax got the better of 
 Rochester ? Was there to be a Parliament ? Was the 
 Duke of York really going to Scotland ? Had Mon- 
 mouth really been summoned from the Hague ? Men 
 tried to read the countenance of every minister as he 
 went through the throng to and from the royal closet. 
 All «sorts of auo;uries were drawn from the tone in 
 which His Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or 
 from the laugh with which His Majesty honoured a jest 
 of the Lord Privy Seal ; and in a few hours the hopes 
 and fears inspired by such slight indications had spread 
 to all the coffee houses from St. James's to the Tower.^ 
 
 The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cur- 
 The coffee sory mention. It might indeed at that time 
 have been not improperly called a most im- 
 portant political institution. No Parliament had sat 
 
 1 The sources from which I have drnwn ni}' information about the state 
 of the court are too luimerous to recapituhite. Among them are the De- 
 spatches of BariUon, Van Citters, Ronquillo and Adda, the Travels of the 
 (Jiand Duke Co.-imo, tlie works of Roger North, the Diaries of Pepys, Eve- 
 lyn, and Teonge, and tlie iMenioirs of <7ranimont and Reresby.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 403 
 
 for years. The municipal council of the City hud 
 ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public 
 meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the 
 modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into 
 fashion. Nothing resembling the modern newspaper 
 existed. In such circumstances the coffee houses were 
 the chief organs through which the public opinion of 
 the meti'opolis vented itself. 
 
 The first of these establishments had been set up, in 
 the time of the Commonwealth, by a Turkey merchant, 
 who had acquired among the JVIahometans a taste for 
 their favourite beverajxe. The convenience of being 
 able to make appointments in any part of the town, 
 and of being able to pass evenings socially at a very 
 small charge, was so great that the I'ashion spread fast. 
 Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to 
 his coffee house to learn the news and to discuss it. 
 Everv coffee house had one or more orators to whose 
 eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who 
 soon became, what the journalists of our own time have 
 been called, a fourth Estate of the realm. The court 
 had lontr seen with vmeasiness the rrrowtli of this new 
 power in the state. An attempt had been made, during 
 Danbv's administration, to close the coffee houses. But 
 men of all parties missed their usual places of resort so 
 much that there was an universal outcry. The gov- 
 ernment did not venture, in opposition to a feeling so 
 stronff and w'leral, to enforce a recnlation of which the 
 legality might well be questioned. Since that time ten 
 years had elapsed, and during those years the number 
 and influence of the coffee houses had been constantly 
 increasing. Foreigners remarked that the coffee house 
 was that which especially distinguished London from 
 all other cities ; that the coffee house was the Lon-
 
 404 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 doner's home, and that those who wislied to find a 
 gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in 
 Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he fre- 
 quented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was 
 excluded from these places who laid down his penny 
 at the bar. Yet eveiy rank and profession, and every 
 shade of religious and political opinion, had its own 
 head quarters. There were houses near St. James's 
 Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoulders 
 covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample tlian 
 those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by 
 the Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig came 
 from Paris, and so did the rest of the fine gentleman's 
 ornaments, his embroidered coat, his fringed gloves, and 
 the tassel wliich upheld his pantaloons. The conversa- 
 tion was in that dialect which, loner after it had ceased 
 to be spoken in fashionable circles, continued, in the 
 mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth of the- 
 atres.^ The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's 
 shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of richly 
 scented snuff was held iii abomination. If any clown, 
 ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, 
 the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers 
 of the waiters soon convinced him that he had better 
 go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, M-ould he have had 
 far to go. For, in general, the coffee rooms reeked 
 with tobacco like a guardroom ; and strangers some- 
 times expressed their surprise that so many people 
 should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of 
 eternal foo; and stench. Nowhere was the smoking 
 
 1 The chiof peculiarity of this dialect was tiiat, in a larfje dnss of words, 
 the O was pronounced like A. Thus Lord was pronounced Lard. See 
 Vanbrugh s Relapse. Lord Sunderland was a great master of this court 
 tune, as Roger North calls it; and Titus Gates affected it in the hope of 
 passing for a fine gentleman. Examen, 77. 254.
 
 Ch. ni.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 405 
 
 more constant than at Will's. That celebrated house, 
 situated between Covent Garden and Bow Street, was 
 sacred to polite letters. There the talk was abovU 
 poetical justice and the unities of place and time. 
 There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a 
 faction for Boileau and the ancients. One group de- 
 bated whether Paradise Lost ouo;ht not to have been in 
 rhyme. To another an envious poetaster demonstrated 
 that Venice Preserved ou<iht to have been hooted from 
 the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of fig- 
 ures to be seen. There were Earls in stars and garters, 
 clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheep- 
 ish lads from the Universities, translators and index 
 makers in ra<io;ed coats of frieze. The great press was 
 to get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In win- 
 ter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the 
 fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to him, 
 and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy or of 
 Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. 
 A pinch fi'om his snuff box was an honour sufiicient to 
 turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were 
 coffee houses where the first medical men might be 
 consulted. Doctor John Radcliife, who, in the year 
 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, came 
 daily, at the hour when the Exchange was full, from 
 his house in Bow Street, then a fashionable part of 
 the capital, to Garraway's, and was to be found, sur- 
 rounded by surgeons and apothecaries, at a particular 
 table. There were Puritan coffee houses Avhere no 
 oath was heard, and where lankhaired men discussed 
 election and re]>robation through their noses ; Jew 
 coffee houses where dark eved moncv changers from 
 Venice and from Amsterdam greeted each other ; and 
 Popish coffee houses where, as good Protestants be*
 
 406 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 lieved, Jesuits planned, over their cups, another great 
 fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the King.^ 
 
 These gregarious habits had no small share in form- 
 ing the character of the Londoner of that ao-e. He 
 was, indeed, a different being from the rustic English- 
 man. There was not then the intercourse which now 
 exists between the two classes. Only very great men 
 were in the habit of dividing the year between town 
 and country. Few esquires came to the capital thrice 
 in their lives. Nor was it yet the practice of all citizens 
 in easy circumstances to breathe the fresh air of the 
 fields and woods during some weeks of every sunmier. 
 A cockney, in a rural village, was stared at as much as 
 if he had intruded into a Kraal of Hottentots. On the 
 other hand, when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shrop- 
 shire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily 
 distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or 
 a Lascar. His dress, his gait, his accent, the manner 
 in which he gazed at the shops, stumbled into the 
 gutters, ran against the porters, and stood under the 
 waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent subject 
 for the operations of swindlers and banterers. Bul- 
 lies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen 
 splashed him from head to foot. Thieves explored 
 with perfect security the huge pockets of his horseman's 
 coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of tlie 
 Lord Mayor's show. Moneydroppers, sore from the 
 cart's tail, introduced themselves to him, and appeared 
 
 1 Lettres sur les Anslois; Tom Brown's Tour; Ward's Loiicloii Spy; 
 The Character of a Coffee House, 1673; Rules and Orders of the (-offee 
 House, 1674; Coffee Houses vindiented, 1075; A Satyr against Coffee; 
 North's Examen, 138.; Life of Guildford, 152.; Life of Sir Dudley North, 
 149.; Life of Dr. Badcliffe, puhlished by Curll in 1715. The "liveliest 
 description of Will's is in the City and Country Mouse. There is a remark- 
 able pasfiage about the influence of the coii'ee house orators in Haistead's 
 Succinct Genealogies, printed in 1085.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 407 
 
 to him the most honest friendly gentlemen that he 
 had ever seen. Painted women, the refuse of Lewkner 
 Lane and Whetstone Park, passed themselves on him 
 for countesses and maids of honour. If he asked his 
 way to Saint James's, his informants sent him to jNIiie 
 End. If he wsnt into a sliop, he w^as instantly dis- 
 cerned to be a fit purchaser of everything that nobody 
 else would buy, of secondhand embroidery, copper rings, 
 and watciies that would not go. If he rambled into 
 any fashionable coftee house, he became a mark for the 
 insolent derision of fops and the grave waggery of 
 Templars. Enraged and mortified, he soon returned 
 to his mansion, and tliere, in the homage of his tenants, 
 and the conversation of his boon companions, found con- 
 solation for the vexations and humiliations which he had 
 undergone. There he once more felt himself a great 
 man ; and he saw nothing above him except when at 
 the assizes he took his seat on the bench near the Judge, 
 or when at the muster of the militia he saluted the Lord 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 The chief cause which made the fusion of the ditl'er- 
 ent elements of society so imperfect was the Dimcuity of 
 extreme difficulty which our ancestors fjund """^^''"'"s- 
 in passing from place to place. Of all inventions, the 
 alphabet and the ])rinting ])ress alone excepted, those 
 inventions which abrido;e disttmce have done most for 
 the civilisati(m of our species. Every improvement of 
 the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and 
 intellectually as well as materially, and not only facili- 
 tates the interchange of the various productions of nature 
 and art, but tends to remove national and provincial 
 antipathies, and to bind together all the branches of the 
 great human family. In the seventeenth century the 
 inhabitants of London were, for almost every practical
 
 408 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 purpose, farther from Reading than thej now are from 
 Edinburgh, and farther from Edinburgh than they now 
 are from Vienna. 
 
 The subjects of Cliarles the Second were not, it is 
 true, quite unacquainted with that principle which has, 
 in our own time, produced an unprecedented revolution 
 in human affairs, which has enabled navies to advance 
 in the face of wind and tide, and brigades of troops, 
 attended by all their baggage and artillery, to traverse 
 kingdoms at a pace equal to that of the fleetest race 
 horse. The Marquess of Worcester had recently ob- 
 served the expansive power of moisture rarefied by 
 heat. After many experiments he had succeeded in 
 constructing a rude steam engine, which he called a 
 fire water work, and Avliich he pronounced to be an 
 admirable and most forcible instrument of propulsion.^ 
 But the Marquess was suspected to be a madman, and 
 known to be a Papist. His inventions, therefore, found 
 no fa\'ourable recej)tion. His fire water work might, 
 ))erlia])s, furnish matter for conversation at a meet- 
 ing of tlie Royal Society, but was not applied to any 
 practical purpose. There were no railways, except 
 a few made of timber, on which coals were carried 
 from the mouths of the Northumbrian pits to the 
 banks of the Tyne.^ There was very little internal 
 communication by water. A few attempts had been 
 made to deepen and embank the natural streams, but 
 with slender success. Hardly a single navigable canal 
 had been even projected. The English of that day 
 were in the habit of talking Avith mingled admiration 
 and despair of the immense trench by which Lewis the 
 Fourteenth had made a junction between the Atlantic 
 and the Mediterranean. They little thought that their 
 
 1 Century of Inventions, 1003. No. 68. 
 
 2 North's Life of Guildford, 136.
 
 Ca. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 409 
 
 country would, in the course of a few generations, be 
 intersected, at the cost of private adventurers, by arti- 
 ficial rivers making up more than four times the length 
 of the Thames, the Severn, and the Trent together. 
 
 It was by the highways that both travellers and goods 
 generally passed from place to place. And Badness of 
 those highways appear to have been far worse ^^e roads. 
 than might have been expected from the degree of 
 wealth and civilisation which the nation had even then 
 attained. On the best lines of communication the ruts 
 were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often 
 such as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the 
 dusk, fi-om the uninclosed heath and fen Avhich lay 
 on both sides. Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, was 
 in dano;er of losino; his Avav on the great North road, 
 between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost 
 his way between Doncaster and York.^ Pepys and 
 his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way 
 between Newbury and Reading. In the course of 
 the same tour they lost their way near Salisbury, and 
 were in danger of having to pass the night on the 
 ])l:un.2 It was only in fine weather that the whole 
 breadth of the road was aA'ailable for wheeled vehicles. 
 Often the mud lay deep on the right and the left ; 
 and only a narrow track of firm jiround rose above the 
 (piagmire.-^ At such times obstructions and quarrels 
 were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up 
 during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would 
 break the way. It happened, almost every day, that 
 coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be pro- 
 cured from some neighboin-inij; farm, to tucj them out 
 
 1 Thoresby's Diary. Oct. 21. 1680, Aug. 3. 1712. 
 
 2 rej)ys's Diary, June 12. and 16. 1068. 
 8 Il)i.l. Vvh. 28. 1660.
 
 410 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 of the slousli. But in bad seasons the traveller had to 
 encounter inconveniences still more serious. Thoresby, 
 who was in the habit of travelling between Leeds and 
 the capital, has recorded, in his Diary, such a series of 
 perils and disasters as might suffice for a journey to 
 the Frozen Ocean or to the Desert of Sahara. On 
 one occasion he learned that the floods were out be- 
 tween Ware and London, that passengers had to swim 
 for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the 
 attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he 
 turned out of the high road, and was conducted across 
 some meadows, where it was necessary for him to ride 
 to the saddle skirts in water.^ In the course of an- 
 other journey he narrowly escaped being swe])t away 
 by an inundation of the Trent. He was afterwards 
 detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state 
 of the roads, and then ventured to proceed only because 
 fourteen members of the House of Commons, who were 
 going up in a body to Parliament Avith guides and nu- 
 merous attendants, took him into their company.^ On 
 the roads of Derbyshire travellers Avere in constant 
 fear for their necks, and were frequently compelled to 
 alieht and lead their beasts.^ The great route through 
 Wales to Holyhead Avas in such a state that, in 1685, a 
 viceroy, going to Ireland, Avas five hours in travelling 
 fourteen miles, from Saint Asaph to Conway. BetAveen 
 CouAvay and Beaumaris he was forced to Avalk great 
 pai't of the way ; and his lady Avas carried in a litter. 
 His coach Avas, Avith much difficulty, and by the help of 
 many hands, brought after him entire. In general, 
 
 1 Thoresby's Diary, May 17. 1695. 
 
 2 Ibid. Dec. 27. 1708. 
 
 u Tour in Derbyshire, by J. Browne, son of Sir Thomas Browne, 1662 
 Cotton's Angler, 1076.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 411 
 
 carriages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne, 
 on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants, to the Menai 
 Straits.i In some parts of Kent and Sussex none but 
 the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the 
 bog, in which, at everj step, they sank deep. The 
 markets were often inaccessible during several months. 
 It is said that the fruits of the earth were sometimes 
 Buffered to rot in one place, while in another place, dis- 
 tant only a few miles, the supjjly fell far short of the 
 demand. The wheeled carriages were, in this district, 
 generally pulled by oxen.^ When Prince George of 
 Denmark visited the stately mansion of Pet worth in 
 wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles : 
 and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should 
 be on each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of 
 the carriages which conveyed his retinue several were 
 ui)set and injured. A letter from one of the party has 
 been preserved, in which the unfortunate courtier com- 
 l)]ains that, during fourteen hours, he never once 
 alighted, except when his coach w^as overturned or 
 stuck fast in the mud.^ 
 
 One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems t,o 
 have been the defective state of the law. Every parish 
 was bound to repair the highways which .passed through 
 it. The peasantry were forced to give their gratuitous 
 labour six days in the year. If this was not sufficient, 
 hired labour was employed, and the expense was met 
 by a parochial rate. That a route coiniecting two great 
 towns, which have a large and thriving trade with each 
 other, should be maintained at the cost of the rural 
 
 1 Correspondence of Henry Earl of Clarendon, Dec. 30. 1685, Jan. 1. 
 IB86. 
 
 2 I'ostletlnvaifi-'s Diet., Roads. History of Ilawkliurst, in the IJibliotheca 
 Topographica I'.ritannica. 
 
 ' Annals of Queen Anne, 1703. Appendix, No. 3.
 
 412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. LCh. UL 
 
 population scattered between them is obviously unjust ; 
 and this injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of 
 the great North road, which traversed very poor and 
 thinly inhabited districts, and joined very rich and pop- 
 ulous districts. Indeed it was not in the power of the 
 parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a highway worn 
 by the constant traffic between the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire and London. Soon after the Restoration 
 this grievance attracted the notice of Parliament ; and 
 an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was passed, 
 imposing a small toll on travellers and goods, for the 
 purpose of keeping some parts of this important line 
 of communication in good repair.^ This innovation, 
 however, excited many murmurs ; and the other great 
 avenues to the capital were long left under the old sys- 
 tem. A change was at length effected, but not with- 
 out much difficulty. For unjust and absurd taxation to 
 which men are accustomed is often borne far more will- 
 ingly than the most reasonable imj^ost which is new. 
 It was not till many toll bars had been violently pulled 
 down, till the troops had in many districts been forced 
 to act against the people, and till much blood had been 
 shed, that a good system was introduced.^ By slow 
 degrees reason triumphed over prejudice ; and our isl- 
 and is now crossed in every direction by near thirty 
 thousand miles of turnpike road. 
 
 On the best highways heavy articles were, in the 
 time of Charles the Second, generally conveyed from 
 place to place by stage waggons. In the straw of 
 these vehicles nestled a crowd of passengers, who 
 
 1 15 Car. TI. c. 1. 
 
 2 The evils of the old system are strikingly set forth in many petitions 
 which appear in the Commons' Journal of 172|. How fierce an opposition 
 was offered to the new system may be learned from the Gentleman's M:ig- 
 azine of 1749. 
 
 II
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 413 
 
 could not afford to travel by coach or on horse- 
 back, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the 
 weight of their luggage, from going on foot. The ex- 
 pense of transmitting heavy goods in this way was 
 enormous. From London to Birminoham tlie charo;e 
 was seven pounds a ton ; from London to Exeter 
 twelve pounds a ton.' This was about fifteen pence 
 a ton for every mile, more by a third than was after- 
 wards charged on turnpike roads, and fifteen times 
 what is now demanded by railway companies. The 
 cost of conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax on 
 many useful articles. Coal in particular was never 
 seen except in the districts where it was produced, or 
 in the districts to which it could be carried by sea, and 
 was indeed always known in the south of England by 
 the name of sea coal. 
 
 On byroads, and generally throughout the country 
 north of York and west of Exeter, goods were carried 
 by long trains of packhorses. These strong and pa- 
 tient beasts, the breed of which is now extinct, were 
 attended by a class of men who seem to have borne 
 much resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A trav- 
 eller of humble condition often foinid it convenient to 
 perform a journey mounted on a packsaddle between 
 two baskets, imder the care of these hardy guides. 
 The expense of this mode of conveyance was small. 
 But the caravan moved at a foot's pace ; and in winter 
 the cold was often insupportable.^ 
 
 The rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, 
 with at least four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, 
 attemi)ted to go from London to the Peak with a single 
 
 1 Postlethwaite's Diet., Roads. 
 
 ' Loidis and Klmete. Mai-:»liair9 Rural Economy of England. In 1739 
 Boderic Random came from Scotland to Newcastle on a packhorse.
 
 414 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 pair, but found at Saint Albans that the journey would 
 be insupportably tedious, and altered his plan.^ A 
 coach and six is in our time never seen, except as part 
 of some pageant. The frequent mention therefore of 
 such equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. 
 We attribute to magnificence what was really the ef- 
 feet of a very disagreeable necessity. People, in the 
 time of Charles the Second, travelled with six horses, 
 because with a smaller number there was great dan- 
 ger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were even six 
 horses always sufficient. Vanbruoh, in the succeedino: 
 generation, described with great humour the way in 
 which a country gentleman, newly chosen a member 
 of Parliament, went up to London. On that occasion 
 all the exertions of six beasts, two of which had been 
 taken from the plough, could not save the family coach 
 from being imbedded in a quagmire. 
 
 Public carriages had recently been much improved. 
 stage During the years which immediately followed 
 
 coaches. ^]jg Restoration, a diligence ran between Lon- 
 don and Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at 
 Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669, a great 
 and daring innovation was attempted. It Avas an- 
 nounced that a vehicle, described as the Flying Coach, 
 would perform the whole journey between sunrise and 
 sunset. This spirited undertaking was solemnly con- 
 sidered and sanctioned by the Heads of the University, 
 and appears to have excited the same sort of interest 
 which is excited in our own time by the opening of a 
 new railway. The Vicechancellor, by a notice affixed 
 in all public places, prescribed the hour and ])lace of de- 
 parture. The success of the experiment was complete. 
 At six in the moiming the carriage began to move from 
 
 1 Cotton's Epistle to J. Bradshaw.
 
 Cm. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1(385. 415 
 
 before the ancient front of All Souls College : and at 
 seven in the evenino; the adventurous gentlenien who 
 had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn 
 in London.^ The emulation of the sister University 
 was moved ; and soon a diligence was set up which in 
 one day carried passengers from Cambridge to the 
 capitiil. At the close of the reign of Charles the Sec- 
 ond, flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to 
 the ciiief towns. But no stage coach, indeed no stage 
 waggon, appears to have proceeded further north than 
 York, or further west than Exeter. The ordinary 
 day's journey of a flying coach was about fifty miles 
 m the summer ; but in winter, when the ways were 
 bad and the nights long, little more than thirty. The 
 Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach 
 generally reached London in four days during the 
 fine season, but at Chi'istmas not till the sixth day. 
 The passengers, six in number, were all seated in the 
 carriage. For accidents were so frequent that it would 
 liave been most perilous to mount the roof. The ordi- 
 nary fare was about twopence halfpenny a mile in sum- 
 mer, and somewhat more in winter.^ 
 
 Tins mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of 
 the ])resent day would be regarded as insuflerably 
 slow, seemed to our ancestors Avonderfully and indeed 
 alarmingl}^ rapid, hi a work jjublished a few montlis 
 before the death of Charles the Second, the flying 
 coaches are extolled as far superior tc any similar vehi- 
 cles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the 
 subject of special commendation, and is triumj)} antly 
 contrasted with the sluggish pace of the continental 
 
 1 Anthony ii Wood's Life of himself. 
 
 2 Chamborlayne's State of Kn^lantl, 1034. See also the list of stage 
 coaches and waggons at the end of the book, entitled Angliiu Metropolis, 
 1690.
 
 416 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 posts. But with boasts like these was mingled the 
 sound of complaint and invective. The interests of 
 lar£i;e classes had been unfavourably atiected by the 
 establishment of the new diligences ; and, as usual, 
 many persons were, from mere stupidity and obsti- 
 nacy, disposed to clamour against the innovation, 
 simj)ly because it was an innovation. It was vehe- 
 mently argued that this mode of conveyance would 
 be fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art 
 of horsemanship ; that the Thames, which had long 
 been an important nursery of seamen, would cease to 
 be the chief thoroughfare from London up to Windsor 
 and down to Gravesend ; that saddlers and spurriers 
 Avould be ruined by hundreds ; that numerous inns, at 
 which mounted travellers had been in the habit of stop- 
 ping, would be deserted, and would no longer pay any 
 rent ; that the new carriages were too hot in summer 
 and too cold in winter ; that the passengers were griev- 
 ously annoyed by invalids and crying children ; that 
 the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was 
 impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so 
 early that it was impossible to get breakfast. On these 
 grounds it was gravely recommended tiiat no public 
 carriage should be permitted to have more than four 
 horses, to start oftener than once a week, or to go more 
 than thirty miles a day. It was hoped that, if this 
 regulation were adopted, all except the sick and the 
 lame would return to the old mode of travelUng. Pe- 
 titions embodying such opinions as these were presented 
 to the king in council from several companies cf the 
 City of London, from several provincial towns, and 
 from the justices of several counties. We smile at 
 these things. It is not impossible that our descend- 
 ants, when they read the history of the opposition
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 417 
 
 offered by cupidity and prejudice to the improvements 
 of the nineteenth century, may smile in their turn.^ 
 
 In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it 
 was still usual for men who enjoyed health and vigour, 
 and who were not encumbered by much baooaoe, to 
 perform long journeys on horseback. If the traveller 
 wished to move expeditiously he rode post. Fresh 
 saddle horses and guides were to be. procvu*ed at con- 
 venient distances alono; all the ereat lines of road. The 
 charge was threepence a mile for each horse, and four- 
 pence a stage for the guide. In this manner, when the 
 ways were good, it was possible to travel, for a consid- 
 erable time, as rapidly as by any conveyance known in 
 England, till vehicles were propelled by steam. There 
 were as yet no post chaises ; nor could those who rode 
 in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of 
 horses. The King, liowever, and the great officers of 
 state were able to command relays. Thus Chai'les 
 commonly Avent in one day from Whiteliall to New- 
 market, a distance of about fifty-five miles through a 
 level country ; and this was thought by his subjects a 
 ])roof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same 
 journey in company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. 
 The coach was drawn by six horses, which were 
 changed at Bishop Stortford and again at Chesterford. 
 The travellers reached Newmarket at night. Such a 
 mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as 
 a rare luxury confined to princes and nn'nisters.^ 
 
 Whatever might be the way in which a journey was 
 
 J- John Cresset's Reasons for suppressing Staije Coaches, 1672. These 
 reasons were afterwards inscrtccl in a tract, entitled " The Grand Concern 
 of Kngtand explained, IfJT^." Cresset's attack on stage coaches called 
 forth some answers which I have consiiltcil. 
 
 '^ Chamberlayne's State of Kngland, 1084. North's Examen, 105. Eve- 
 lyn's Diary, Oct. 9, 10. 1G71. 
 
 VOL. I. 27
 
 418 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill, 
 
 performed, the travellers, unless they were numerous 
 Uii^hway- ^^^^ ^^^^^^ armed, ran considerable risk of 
 '"''°- being stopped and plundered. The mounted 
 
 highwayman, a marauder known to our generation 
 only from books, was to be found on every main road. 
 The waste tracts which lay on the great routes near 
 London were especially haunted by plunderers of this 
 class. Hounslow Heath, on the great Western Koad, 
 and Finchley Common, on the great Northern Road, 
 were perhaps the most celebrated of these spots. The 
 Cambridge scholars trembled when they approached 
 Epping Forest, even in broad daylight. Seamen who 
 had just been paid off at Chatham were often compelled 
 to deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated near a 
 hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets as the 
 scene of the depredations of Falstaff. The public 
 authorities seem to have been often at a loss how to 
 deal with the ])lnnderers. At one time it was an- 
 nounced in the Gazette that several persons, who were 
 strongly suspected of being highwaymen, but against 
 whom there w^as not sufficient evidence, would be 
 paraded at Newgate in riding dresses : their horses 
 would also be shown : and all gentlemen who had been 
 robbed were invited to insnect this singular exhibition. 
 On another occasion a pardon was publicly offered to 
 a robber if he would give up some rough diamonds, of 
 immense value, which he had taken when he stopped 
 the Harwich mail. A short time after appeared an- 
 other proclamation, warning the innkeepers that the 
 eye of the government was upon them. Their crim- 
 inal connivance, it was affirmed, enabled banditti to 
 infest the roads with impunity. That these suspicions 
 were not without foundation, is proved by the dying 
 speeches of some penitent robbers of that age, who 
 
 i
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 419 
 
 ap])car to have received from the innkeepers services 
 much resembhng those which Farquhar's Bonifiice 
 rendered to Gibbet.^ 
 
 It was necessary to the success and even to the 
 •afety of the highwayman that he should be a bold and 
 'kilful rider, and that his manners and appearance 
 should be such as suited the master of a fine horse. 
 He therefore held an aristocratical position in the com- 
 munity of thieves, appeared at fashionable coffee liouses 
 and gaming houses, and betted with men of quality on 
 the race ground.^ Sometimes, indeed, he was a man 
 of good family and education. A romantic interest 
 therefore attached, and perhaps still attaches, to the 
 names of freebooters of this class. The vulgar eagerly 
 drank in tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their 
 occasional acts of generosity and good nature, of their 
 amoiu's, of their miraculous escapes, of their desperate 
 struggles, and of their manly bearing at the bar and in 
 the cart. Thus it was related of William Nevison, the 
 great robber of Yorkshire, that he levied a quarterly 
 tribute on all the northern drovers, and, in return, not 
 only spared them himself, but protected them against 
 all other thieves ; that he demanded purses in the most 
 courteous manner ; that he gave largely to the poor 
 what he had taken from the rich ; that his life was 
 once spared by the royal clemency, but that he again 
 tempted his fate, and at length died, in 1G85, on the 
 gnllows of York.'^ It was related how Claude Duval, 
 
 1 See the London Gazette, May U. 1G77, August 4. 1687, Dec. 5. JR87. 
 'I he last confi;ssion of Aui^nstin Kins, who was the son of an eniinont 
 iHviiip, and had been educated at Cambridge, but was hanged at Colches- 
 ter in March 1C88, is highly curious. 
 
 2 AimrrtU. Pray sir, lian't I seen your face at Will's coffeehouse? 
 Oi/>btt. Yes, sir. and at White's too. — Hoaux' Stratagem. 
 
 * (k'nt's History of York. Atiothrr marauder of tlie same description, 
 named Biss, was hango() at Salisbury in 1G115. In a ballad which is in tht
 
 420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 the French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to the 
 road, became captain of a formidable gang, and had tlie 
 honour to be named first in a royal proclamation against 
 notorious offenders ; how at the head of his troop he 
 stopped a lady's coach, in which there was a booty of 
 four hundred pounds ; how he took only one hundred, 
 and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by 
 dancing a coranto with him on the heath ; how his 
 vivacious gallantry stole away the hearts of all women ; 
 how his dexterity at sword and pistol made him a ter- 
 I'or to all men ; how, at length, in the year 1670, he 
 was seized when overcome by wine ; how dames of 
 high rank visited him in prison, and with tears inter- 
 ceded for his life ; how the King would have granted a 
 pardon, but for the interference of Judge Morton, the 
 terror of highwaymen, who threatened to resign his 
 office unless the law were carried into full effect ; and 
 how, after the execution, the corpse lay in state with 
 all the pomp of scutcheons, wax lights, black hangings 
 and mutes, till the same cruel Judge, who had inter- 
 cepted the mercy of the crown, sent officers to disturb 
 the obsequies.^ In these anecdotes there is doubtless 
 a large mixture of fable ; but they are not on that ac- 
 count unworthy of being recorded ; for it is both an au- 
 thentic and an important fact that such tales, whether 
 false or true, were heard by our ancestors with eager- 
 ness and faith. 
 
 All the various dangers by which the traveller was 
 beset were greatly increased by darkness. He was 
 
 I'epysian Library, he is represented as defending himself thus before the 
 .] udge : 
 
 " What say you now, my honoured Lord, 
 
 What harm was there in this ? 
 
 Rich, wealthy misers were abhorred 
 
 By brave, freehearted Biss." 
 
 Pope's Memoirs of Duval, published immediately after the execution 
 Oates's EIkuv ^aaiXiKT/, Part I.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 421 
 
 therefore commonly desirous of having the shelter of a 
 roof durino; the night ; and such shelter it was 
 
 Inns* 
 
 not difficult to obtain. From a very early pe- 
 riod the inns of Enc;land had been renowned. Our fii'st 
 great poet had described the excellent accommodation 
 which tliey afforded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth 
 century. Nine and twenty pei'sons, with their horses, 
 found room in the wide chambers and stables of the 
 Tabard in Southwark. The food was of the best, and 
 the wines such as di'ew the company on to drink largely. 
 Two hundred years later, under the reimi of Elizabeth, 
 William Harrison gave a lively description of the plenty 
 and comfort of the great hostelries. The Continent of 
 Europe, he said, could show nothing like them. There 
 were some in which two or three hundred people, with 
 their horses, could without difficulty be lodged and fed. 
 The bedding, the tapestry, above all, the abundance of 
 clean and fine linen was matter of wonder. Valuable 
 plate was often set on the tables. Nay, there were signs 
 which had cost thirty or forty pounds. In the scA-en- 
 teenth centuiy England abounded with excellent inns 
 of every rank. The traveller sometimes, in a small 
 village, lighted on a public house such as Walton has 
 described, where the brick floor was swept clean, where 
 the walls were stuck round with ballads, where the 
 sheets smelt of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a 
 cup of good ale, and a dish of trouts fresh from the 
 neighbouring brook, were to be procured at small 
 charo-e. At the laricer houses of entertainment were 
 to be found beds hung with silk, choice cookery, and 
 claret equal to the best which was drunk in London.^ 
 
 1 Sec the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Harrison's Historical De- 
 scription of the Islimd of Great Britain, and I'ejn's's account of liis tour in 
 the summer of 1GG8. The excellence of the English inns is noticed in the 
 Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
 
 422 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. LCh. III. 
 
 The innkeepers too, it was said, Avere not like other 
 innkeepers. On tlie Continent the liuidlord was tlie 
 tyrant of those who crossed the threshokl. In England 
 he was a servant. Never was an Enghshman more at 
 home than when he took his ease in his inn. Even 
 men of" fortune, who might in their own mansions have 
 enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of pass- 
 ing their evenings in the parlour of some neighbouring 
 house of public entertainment. They seem to have 
 thought that comfort and freedom could in no other 
 place be enjoyed in equal perfection. This feeling con- 
 tinued during many generations to be a national pecu- 
 liarity. The liberty and jollity of inns long furnished 
 matter to our novelists and dramatists. Johnson de- 
 clared that a tavern chair was the throne of human 
 felicity ; and Shenstone gently complained that no pri- 
 vate roof, however friendly, gave the wanderer so warm 
 a welcome as that which was to be found at an inn. 
 
 Many conveniences, which were unknown at Hamp- 
 ton Court and Whitehall in the seventeenth century, 
 are to be found in our modern hotels. Yet on the 
 whole it is certain that the improvement of our houses 
 of public entertainment has by no means kept pace with 
 the improvement of our roads and of our conveyances. 
 Nor is this strange ; for it is evident that, all other cir- 
 cumstances being supposed equal, the inns will be best 
 where the means of locomotion are worst. The quicker 
 the rate of travelling, the less important is it that there 
 should be numerous agreeable resting places for the 
 traveller. A hundred and sixty years ago a person 
 who came up to the capital from a remote county gen- 
 erally required, by the way, twelve or fifteen meals, and 
 lodging for five or six nights. If he were a great man, 
 he expected the meals and lodging to be comfoi-table,
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 423 
 
 ai)(J even luxurious. At present we fly from York or 
 Exeter to London by the light of a single winter's day. 
 At present, therefore, a traveller seldom interrupts his 
 journey merely for the sake of rest and refreshment. 
 The consequence is that hundreds of excellent inns have 
 fallen into utter decay. In a short time no good houses 
 of that description will be found, except at places 
 where strangers are likely to be detained by business 
 or pleasure. 
 
 The mode in which correspondence was carried on 
 between distant places may excite the scorn 
 
 ^ . "■ . Post office. 
 
 of the present generation ; yet it was such as 
 might have moved the admiration and envy of the pol- 
 ished nations of antiquity, or of the contemporaries of 
 Raleigh and Cecil. A rude and imperfect establish- 
 ment of posts for the conveyance of letters had been set 
 up by Charles the First, and had been swept away by 
 the civil war. Under the Commonwealth the design 
 was resumed. At the Restoration the proceeds of the 
 Post Office, after all expenses had been ]\aid, were 
 settled on the Duke of York. On most lines of road the 
 mails went out and came in only on the alternate days. 
 In Cornwall, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and among 
 the hills and lakes of Cumberland, letters were received 
 onlv once a week. During; a roval progress a dailv 
 post was despatched from the capital to the place where 
 the court sojourned. There was also daily communi- 
 cation between London and the Downs ; and the same 
 privilege was sometimes extended to Tunbridge Wells 
 and Bath at the seasons when those places were crowded 
 by the sreat. The bao-s were carried on horseback 
 day and night at the rate of about five miles an hoiu*.' 
 
 1 Stat. 12 Car. H. c. 35. Chambeilayne's State of England, 1G84. An- 
 glioE Metropolis, liiDO. London Gazette, June 22. 1G85, August 15. 1G87.
 
 424 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 The ]-evenue of this establishment was not derived 
 solely from the charge for the transmission of letters. 
 The post office alone was entitled to furnish post horses ; 
 and, from the care with which this monopoly was 
 guarded, we may infer that it was found profitable.^ If, 
 indeed, a traveller had waited half an hour without be- 
 ing supplied, he might hire a horse wherever he could. 
 
 To facilitate coiTespondence between one part of 
 London and another was not originally one of the ob- 
 jects of the Post Office. But, in the reign of Charles 
 the Second, an enterprising citizen of London, William 
 Dockwray, set up, at great expense, a penny post, 
 which delivered letters and parcels six or eight times 
 a day in the busy and crowded streets near the Ex- 
 change, and four times a day in the outskirts of the 
 capital. This improvement was, as usual, strenuously 
 resisted. The porters complained that their interests 
 were attacked, and tore down the placards in which the 
 scheme was announced to the public. The excitement 
 caused by Godfrey's death, and by the discovery of 
 Coleman's papers, was then at the height. A cry was 
 therefore raised that the penny post was a Popish con- 
 trivance. The great Doctor Gates, it was affirmed, had 
 hinted a suspicion that the Jesuits were at the bottom 
 of the scheme, and that the bags, if examined, would be 
 found full of treason.^ The utility of the enterprise 
 was, however, so great and obvious that all opposition 
 proved fruitless. As soon as it became clear that the 
 speculation would be lucrative, the Duke of York com- 
 plained of it as an infraction of his monopoly, and the 
 courts of law decided in his favour.^ 
 
 1 London Gazette, Sept. 14. 1685. 
 
 2 Smith's Current Intelligence, March 30. and April 3. 1680. 
 « Anglise Metropolis, 1690.
 
 Ch. Ill ] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 426 
 
 The rev^emie of tlie Post Office was from the first 
 constantly increasing. In the year of tlie Restoration a 
 committee of the House of Commons, after strict in- 
 quiry, had estimated the net receipt at about twenty 
 thousand pounds. At the close of the reign of Charles 
 the Second, the net receipt was little short of fifty thou- 
 sand pounds ; and this was then thought a stupendous 
 sum. The gross receipt was about seventy thousand 
 poimds. The charge for conveying a single letter Avas 
 twopence for eighty miles, and threepence for a longer 
 distance. The postage increased in proportion to the 
 weight of the packet.^ At present a single letter is 
 carried to the extremity of Scotland or of Ireland for a 
 penny ; and the monopoly of post horses has long ceased 
 to exist. Yet the gross annvial receipts of the depart- 
 ment amount to more than eighteen hundred thousand 
 pounds, and the net receipts to more than seven hun- 
 dred thousand pounds. It is, therefore, scarcely pos- 
 sible to doubt that the number of letters now con- 
 veyed by mail is seventy times the number which was 
 so conveyed at the time of the accession of James the 
 Second. 
 
 No part of the load which tlie old mails carried out 
 was more important than the newsletters. In 
 1685 )u»thing like the London daily paper of 
 om' time existed, or could exist. Neither the necessary 
 capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Free- 
 dom too was wanting, a want as fatal as that of either 
 capital or skill. The press was not indeed at that mo- 
 ment under a general censorship. The licensing act, 
 which had been passed soon after the Restoration, had 
 ex])ired in 1679. Any person might therefore print, 
 
 * Commons' Journals, Sept. 4. 1G60, March 1. 1G8S. Chamberlayne, 1684. 
 Davenant on thu Public Revenue, Discourse IV.
 
 426 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. HI. 
 
 at his own risk, a history, a sermon, or a poem, witliout 
 the previous approbation of any public officer; but tlie 
 Judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty 
 did not extend to Gazettes, and that, by the common 
 law of England, no man, not authorised by the crown, 
 had a right to publish political news.^ While the Whig 
 party was still formidable, the government thought it 
 ex})edient occasionally to connive at the violation of this 
 rule. During the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, 
 many newspapers were suffered to appear, the Protes- 
 tant Intelligence, the Current Intelligence, the Domes- 
 tic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mei'cury.^ 
 None of these was published oftener than twice a week. 
 None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quan- 
 tity of matter which one of them contained in a year 
 was not more than is often found in two numbers of the 
 Times. After the defeat of the Whig-s it was no lono;er 
 necessary for the King to be sparing in the use of that 
 which all his Judges had pronounced to be his un- 
 doubted prerogative. At the close of his reign no 
 newspaper was suffered to appear without his allow- 
 ance : and his allowance was given exclusively to the 
 London Gazette. The London Gazette came out onlv 
 on Mondays and Thursdays. The contents generally 
 were a royal proclamation, two or three Tory addresses, 
 notices of two or three promotions, an account of a 
 skirmish between the imperial troops and the Janis- 
 saries on the Danube, a description of a highAvayman, 
 an announcement of a grand cockfight between two 
 persons of honour, and an advertisement offering a 
 reward for a strayed dog. The whole made up two 
 
 1 London Gazette, May 5. and 17. 1680. 
 
 * There is a very curious, and, I should think, unique collection of theM 
 papers in the British lluseum.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 427 
 
 pages of moderate size. Whatever was communicated 
 respectino; matters of the hiixliest moment was communi- 
 cated in the most meagre and formal style. Sometimes, 
 indeed, when the government was disposed to gratify 
 the public curiosity respecting an imjoortant transaction, 
 a broadside was put forth giving fuller details than 
 could be found in the Gazette : but neither the Gazette 
 nor any supplementary broadside printed by authority 
 ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit the 
 purposes of the court to publish. The most important 
 parliamentary debates, the most important state trials, 
 recorded in our history, were passed over in profound 
 silence.^ In the capital the coffee houses supplied in 
 some measure the place of a journal. Thither the 
 Londoners flocked, as the Athenians of old flocked to 
 the market place, to hear whether there was any news. 
 There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been 
 treated the day before in Westminster Hall, what hor- 
 rible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the 
 torturing of Covenanters, how grossly the Navy Board 
 had cheated the crown in the victualling of the fleet, and 
 what grave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought 
 against the Treasury in the matter of the hearth money. 
 But people who lived at a distance from the 
 
 Newsletters. 
 
 great theatre of political contention could be 
 kept regularly informed of what was passing there only 
 by means of newsletters. To pre})are such letters be- 
 came a calling in London, as it now is among the na- 
 tives of India. The newswriter rambled from cofl'ee 
 room to coffee room, collecting reports, squeezed him- 
 self into the Sessions House at the Old Bailey if there 
 was an interesting trial, nay, perhaps obtained admis- 
 
 1 For example, tliere is not a word in the Gazette about tlie impdrtnnt 
 parliamentary proeeedings of November 1GS5, or about the trial and acquit- 
 tal of the seven IJisliops.
 
 428 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii. III. 
 
 sion to the gallery of Whitehall, and noticed how the 
 King and Duke looked. In this way he gathered ma- 
 terials for weekly epistles destined to enlighten some 
 county town or some bench of rustic magistrates. 
 Such were the sources from which the inhabitants of 
 the largest provincial cities, and the great body of the 
 gentry and clergy, learned almost all that they knew of 
 the history of their own time. We must suppose that 
 at Cambridge there were as many persons curious to 
 know what was passing in the world as at almost any 
 place in the kingdom, out of London. Yet at Cam- 
 bridge, during a great part of the reign of Charles the 
 Second, the Doctors of Laws and the Masters of Arts 
 had no regular supply of news except through the Lon- 
 don Gazette. At leno;th the services of one of the col- 
 lectors of intelligence in the capital were employed. 
 That was a memorable day 'on which the fii'st news- 
 letter from London was laid on the table of the only 
 coffee room in Cambridc^e.^ At the seat of a man of 
 fortune in the country the newsletter was impatiently 
 expected. Within a week after it had arrived it had 
 been tlumibed by twenty families. It furnished the 
 neighbouring squires with matter for talk over their 
 October, and the neighbouring rectors with topics for 
 sharp sermons against Whiggery or Popery. Many of 
 these curious journals might doubtless still be detected 
 by a diligent search in the archives of old families. 
 Some are to be found in our public libraries ; and one 
 series, Mdiich is not the least valuable part of the liter- 
 ary treasures collected by Sir James Mackintosh, will 
 be occasionally quoted in the course of tliis work.^ 
 
 1 Roger North's Life of Dr. John North. On the subject of newsletters, 
 see the Examen, 133. 
 
 2 1 take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family 
 of my dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh for confiding to me
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 429 
 
 It is scarcTelv necessary to sav tliat there were then 
 no provincial newspajiers. Indeed, except in the capi- 
 tal and at the two Universities, there was scarcely a 
 printer in the kingdom. The only press in England 
 north of Trent appears to have been at York.' 
 
 It was not only by means of the London Gazette that 
 the government undertook to furnish political The obser- 
 instruction to the people. That journal con- ^'''°''' 
 tained a scanty supply of news without comment. 
 Another journal, jmblished under the patronage of the 
 court, consisted of comment without news. This paper, 
 called the Observator, was edited by an old Tory pam- 
 phleteer named Roger Lestrange. Lcstrange was by 
 no means deficient in readiness and shrewdness ; and 
 his diction, though coarse, and disfigured by a mean 
 and flippant jargon which then passed for wit in the 
 green room and the tavern, was not without keenness 
 and vigour. But his nature, at once ferocious and 
 ignoble, showed itself in every line that he penned. 
 When the first Observators appeared there was some 
 excuse for his acrimony. For the Whigs were then 
 powerful ; and he had to contend against numerous 
 adversaries, whose unscrupulous violence might seem 
 to justify unsparing retaliation. But in 1685 all oji- 
 position had been crushed. A generous spirit would 
 
 tho materials colleclccl by him at a time whpii lio incditafpd a work similar 
 to that which I have undertaken. I have never .'^een, and I do not believe 
 that there anywhere exist.s, within the same compas«, so noble a collection 
 of extracts from public and private archives. The jiidtrmenf with which Sir 
 James, in great masses of the rudest ore in history, selected what was valu- 
 able, and rejected what was worthless, can be fully appreciated only by one 
 who has toiled after him in the same mine. 
 
 1 Life of Thomas Gent. A complete list of all printings houses in 1724 
 will be found in Nichols's T-iterary Anecdotes of the eighteenth ccnturi-. 
 There had tln;n i)een a great increase within a few years in the number of 
 presses; and yet there were thirty-four counties in which there was do 
 printer, one of those counties being Lancashire.
 
 430 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 have disdained to insult a party whicli could not reply, 
 and to aggravate the misery of prisoners, of exiles, of 
 bereaved families : but from the malice of Lestrano-e 
 the grave was no hiding place, and the house of mourn- 
 ing no sanctuary. In the last month of the reign of 
 Charles the Second, William Jenkyn, an aged dissent- 
 ing pastor of great note, who had been cruelly perse- 
 cuted for no crime but that of worshipping God ac- 
 cording to the fashion generally followed throughout 
 Protestant Europe, died of hardships and privations in 
 Newgate. The outbreak of popular sympathy could not 
 be repressed. The corpse was followed to the grave 
 by a train of a hundred and fifty coaches. Even 
 courtiers looked sad. Even the unthinking; King 
 showed some signs of concern. Lestrange alone set 
 up a howl of savage exultation, laughed at the weak 
 compassion of the Trimmers, proclaimed that the blas- 
 phemous old impostor liad met with a most righteous 
 punishment, and vowed to wage war, not only to the 
 death, but after death, with all the mock saints and 
 martyrs.^ Such was the spirit of the paper which was 
 at this time the oracle of the Tory party, and especially 
 of the parochial clergy. 
 
 Literature which could be carried by the post bag 
 Scarcity of then fomicd the greater part of the intel- 
 country" Icctual nutriment ruminated by the country 
 places. divines and country justices. The difficulty 
 
 and expense of conveying large packets from place to 
 place was so great, that an extensive work was longer 
 in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devon- 
 shire or Lancashire than it now is in reaching Ken- 
 tucky. How scantily a rural parsonage was then 
 
 1 Observator, Jan. 29. and 31. 1685. Calamy's Life of Baxter. Non 
 conformist Memorial.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1G85. 431 
 
 furnished, even with books the most necessary to a 
 theologian, has ah-eady been remarked. The houses 
 of tlie gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few 
 knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now 
 perpetually be found in a servants' hall, or in the back 
 jiarlour of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed 
 among his neio;hbours for a great scholar, if Hudibras 
 and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton's Jests and the Seven 
 Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall windov; 
 among the fishing rods and fowling pieces. No circu- 
 lating library, no book society then existed even in the 
 capital : but in the cajiital those students who could not 
 afford to purchase largely had a resource. The sho})S 
 of the great booksellers, near Saint Paul's Churchyard, 
 were crowded every day and all day long with readers ; 
 and a known customer was often permitted to carry a 
 volume home. In the country there was no such ac- 
 commodation ; and every man was under the necessity 
 of buying whatever he wished to read.^ 
 
 As to the lady of the manor and her daughters, their 
 literary stores generally consisted of a ])rayer pen.aie 
 book and a receipt book. But in truth they ''^""^='«''"- 
 lost little by living in rural seclusion. For, even in 
 the highest ranks, and in those situations which afforded 
 the greatest facilities for mental improvement, the Eng- 
 lish women of that generation were decidedly worse 
 educated than they have been at any other time since 
 the revival of learning. At an earlier period they had 
 studied the masteri)ieces of ancient genius. In the 
 jiresent day they seldom bestow much attention on the 
 
 1 Cotton seems, from his Anj^ler, to have found room for his whole 
 library in his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. Even when 
 Franklin first visited London in 1724, circiilatinLT liliraries were unknown 
 there. The crowd at the booksellers' shops in ]>ittle Britain is mentioned 
 by Roger North in his life of his brother John.
 
 432 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. HI. 
 
 dead languages ; but tliey are familiar with the tongue 
 of Pascal and Moliere, witli the tongue of Dante and 
 Tasso, with the tongue of Goethe and Schiller ; nor is 
 there any purer or more graceful English than that 
 which accomplished women now speak and write. 
 But, during the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the culture of the female mind seems to have 
 been almost entirely neglected. If a damsel had the 
 l(!ast smattering of literature she was regarded as a 
 prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and natu- 
 rally quick witted, were unable to write a line in their 
 mother tongue without solecisms and faults of spell- 
 ing such as a charity girl would now be ashamed to 
 3ommit.^ 
 
 The explanation ma}'' easily be found. Extravagant 
 licentiousness, the natural eifect of extravagant auster- 
 ity, was now the mode : and licentiousness had pro- 
 duced its ordinary effect, the moral and intellectual 
 degradation of women. To their personal beauty, it was 
 the fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. But the 
 admiration and desire which they inspired Avere seldom 
 mingled with respect, with affection, or with any chival- 
 rous sentiment. The qualities which fit them to be com- 
 panions, advisers, confidential friends, rather repelled 
 than attracted the libertines of Whitehall. In that 
 court a maid of honour, who dressed in such a manner 
 as to do full justice to a white bosom, who ogled signifi- 
 cantly, who danced voluptuously, who excelled in pert 
 
 1 One instance will suffice. Queen Jlary had good natural abilities, 
 had been educated by a Bishop, was fond of histoiy and poetn% and was 
 leganled by very eminent men as a superior woman. There is, in the 
 library at the Hague, a superb English Bible which was delivered to her 
 when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey. In the title page are these 
 w)rds in her own hand, "This book was given the King and I, at our 
 crownation. Marie R."
 
 Ch. ni-l STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 433 
 
 re])artee, wlio was not asliamed to romp with Lords of 
 the Bedchamber and Captains of the Guards, to sing 
 slj verses with sly expression, or to put on a page's 
 dress for a froHc, was more hkely to be followed and 
 admired, more likely to be honoured with royal atten- 
 tions, more likely to win a rich and noble husband than 
 Jane Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have been. In 
 such circumstances the standard of female attainments 
 was necessarily low ; and it was more dangerous to be 
 above that standard than to be beneath it. Extreme 
 ignorance and frivolity were thought less unbecoming in 
 a lady than the slightest tincture of pedantry. Of the 
 too celebrated women whose faces we still admire on the 
 walls of Hampton Court, few indeed were in the habit of 
 reading anything more valuable than acrostics, lampoons, 
 and translations of the Clelia and the Grand Cyrus. 
 
 The literary acquirements, even of the accomplished 
 gentlemen of that generation, seem to have Literary at- 
 een somewhat less sohd and profound than gcaticmcn. 
 at an earlier or a later period. Greek learning, at least, 
 did not flourish among us in the days of Cliarles the 
 Second, as it had flourished before the civil war, or as 
 it again flourished long after the Revolution. There 
 were undoubtedly scholars to whom the whole Greek 
 literature, from Homer to Photius, was fomiliar : but 
 such scholars were to be found almost exclusively amono- 
 the clergy resident at the Universities, and even at the 
 Universities were few, and were not fully apj)rcciated. 
 At Cambridge it was not thought by any means neces- 
 sary that a divine shoidd be able to read the Gospels in 
 the original.! Nor was the standard at Oxford hio-her. 
 
 ^ 1 Ki.f,'er North tells u.s that his brotlier John, who was Greek professor at 
 Cambridge, complained bitterly of the general neglect of the Greek tongue 
 among the academical clergy. 
 vol,. I. 28
 
 434 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii. HI 
 
 When, in the reign of William the Third, Christ Church 
 rose up as one man to defend the genuineness of tlie 
 Epistles of Phalaris, that great college, then considered 
 as the first seat of philology in the kingdom, could not 
 muster such a stock of Attic learning as is now pos- 
 sessed by several youths at every great public school. 
 It may easily be supposed that a dead language, neg- 
 lected at the Universities, was not much studied by men 
 of the world. In a former age the poetry and eloquence 
 of Gniece had been the delight of Raleio-h and Falkland. 
 In a later age the poetry and eloquence of Greece were 
 the delight of Pitt and Fox, of Windham and Gren- 
 ville. But during the latter part of the seventeenth 
 century there was in England scarcely one eminent 
 statesman who could read with enjoyment a page of 
 Sophocles or Plato. 
 
 Good Latin scholars were numerous. The language 
 of Rome, indeed, had not altogether lost its im])erial 
 prerogatives, and was still, in many parts of Europe, 
 almost indispensable to a traveller or a negotiator. To 
 speak it well was therefore a much more common ac- 
 complishment than in our time ; and neither Oxford 
 nor Cambridge wanted poets who, on a great occasion, 
 could lay at the foot of the throne happy imitations of 
 the verses in which Virgil and Ovid had celebrated the 
 greatness of Augustus. 
 
 Yet even the Latin was giving way to a younger rival. 
 Influence of Fraucc United at that time almost every species 
 
 French liter- i 
 
 aiure. ot asccndcncy. Her military glory was at the 
 
 height. She had vanquished mighty coalitions. She had 
 dictated treaties. She had subjugated great cities and 
 provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield 
 her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes 
 to prostrate themselves at her footstool. Her authority
 
 Ch. III.J state op ENGLAND IN 1685. 485 
 
 was supreme in all matters of good breeding, from a 
 duel to a minuet. She determined how a gentleman's 
 coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether 
 his heels must be high or low, and whether the lace 
 on his hat must be broad or narrow. In literature 
 she gave law to the world. The fame of her great 
 writers filled Europe. No other country could produce 
 a tragic poet equal to Racine, a comic poet equal to 
 Moliere, a trifler so agreeable as La Fontaine, a rheto- 
 rician so skilful as Bossuet. The literary glory of Italy 
 and of Spain had set ; that of Germany had not yet 
 dawned. The genius, therefore, of the eminent men 
 who adorned Paris shone forth with a splendour which 
 was set off to full advantage by contrast. France, in- 
 deed, had at that time an empire over mankind, such as 
 even the Roman Republic never attained. For, when 
 Rome was politically dominant, she was in arts and let- 
 ters the humble pupil of Greece. France had, over the 
 surrounding countries, at once the ascendency which 
 Rome had over Greece, and the ascendency which 
 Greece had over Rome. French was fest becomino; 
 the universal language, the language of fashionable 
 society, the language of diplomacy. At several courts 
 princes and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely 
 than their mother tono;ue. In our island there was less 
 of this servility than on the Continent. Neither our 
 good nor our bad qualities were those of imitators. Yet 
 e\en here homage was paid, awkwardly indeed and 
 s\illenly, to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. 
 The melodious Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and 
 ladies of the court of Elizabetli, sank into contemjit. 
 A gentleman who quoted Horace or Terence was con- 
 sidered in good com}>any as a pompous pedant. But 
 to garnish his conversation with scrajis of French was
 
 436 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 the best proof which he could give of his parts and at- 
 tainments.^ New canons- of criticism, new models of 
 style came into fashion. The quaint ingenuity which 
 had deformed the verses of Donne, and had been a 
 blemish on those of Cowlej'^, disappeared from our poe- 
 try. Our prose became less majestic, less artfully m- 
 volved, less variously musical than that of an earlier age, 
 but more lucid, more easy, and better fitted for contro- 
 versy and narrative. In these changes it is impossible 
 not to recognise the influence of French precept and of 
 French example. Great masters of our language, in 
 their most dignified compositions, affected to use French 
 words, when English words, quite as expressive and 
 sonorous, were at hand : ^ and from France was im- 
 ported the tragedy in rhyme, an exotic which, in our 
 soil, drooped, and speedily died. 
 
 It would have been well if our writers had also 
 Immorality copicd the dccorum which their great French 
 mirature'of coutemporarles, with few exceptions, pre- 
 Engiand gcrvcd ; for the profligacy of the English 
 plays, satires, songs, and novels of that age is a deep 
 blot on our national fame. The evil may easily be 
 traced to its source. The wits and the Puritans had 
 never been on friendly terms. There was no sym- 
 pathy between the two classes. They looked on the 
 whole system of human life from different points and 
 in different lio-hts. The earnest of each was the iest 
 
 i Butler, in a satire of great asperity, says, 
 
 " For, though to smatter words of Greek 
 And Latin be the rhetorique 
 Of pedants counted, and vainglorious, 
 To smatter French is meritorious." 
 
 2 The most offensive instance which I remember is in a poem on the cor- 
 onation of Charles the Second by Dryden, who certainly could not plead 
 poverty as an excuse for borrowinji; words from any foreign tongue: — 
 
 " Hither in summer evenings you repair 
 To taste the fraicheur of the cooler air."
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 437 
 
 of the other. The pleasures of each were the torments 
 of the other. To the stern precisian even the iniio- 
 cent sport of the fancy seemed a crime. To light and 
 festive natures the solemnity of the zealous brethren 
 furnished copious matter of ridicule. From the Refor 
 mation to the ci^nl war, almost every writer, gifted with 
 a fine sense of the ludicrous, had taken some opportu- 
 nity of assailing the straio-ht haired, snufflino-, whinino- 
 saints, who christened their children out of the Book 
 of Nehemiah, who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack 
 in the Green, and who thought it impious to taste plum 
 porridge on Christmas day. At length a time came 
 when the laughers began to look grave in their turn. 
 The rigid, ungainly zealots, after having furnished much 
 good sport during two generations, rose up in arms, 
 conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod down under 
 their feet the whole crowd of mockers. The wounds 
 inflicted by gay and petulant malice were retaliated with 
 the gloomy and implacable malice peculiar to bigots who 
 mistake their own rancour for virtue. The theatres 
 were closed. The players were flogged. The press was 
 jmt under the guardianship of austere licensers. The 
 Muses were banished from their own favourite haunts, 
 Cambridge and Oxford. Cowley, Crashaw, and Cleve- 
 land were ejected from their fellowships. The young 
 candidate for academical honours Avas no lon<ier re- 
 quired to write Ovidian epistles or Virgilian pastorals, 
 but was strictly interrogated by a synod of lowering 
 Supralapsarians as to the day and hour when he expe- 
 rienced the new birth. Such a system was of course 
 fruitful of hypocrites. Under sober clothing and under 
 visages composed to the expression of austerity lay hid 
 during several years the intense desire of license and of 
 revenge. At length that desire was gratified. The
 
 438 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 Restoration emancipated thousands of minds from a 
 yoke which had become insupportable. The old fight 
 recommenced, but with an animosity altogether new. 
 It was now not a sportive combat, but a war to the 
 death. The Roundhead had no better quarter to ex- 
 pect from those whom he had persecuted than a cruel 
 slave driver can expect from insurgent slaves still bear- 
 ing the marks of his collars and his scourges. 
 
 The war between wit and Puritanism soon becamo 
 a war between wit and morality. The hostility excited 
 by a grotesque caricature of virtue did not spare virtue 
 herself Whatever the canting Roundhead had re- 
 garded with reverence was insulted. Whatever he had 
 proscribed was favoured. Because he had been scru- 
 pulous about trifles, all scruples were treated with deri- 
 sion. Because he had covered his failings with the 
 mask of devotion, men were encouraged to obtrude with 
 Cynic impudence all their most scandalous vices on 
 the public eye. Because he had punished illicit love 
 with barbarous severity, virgin purity and conjugal fidel- 
 ity were made a jest. To that sanctimonious jargon 
 wliich was his Shibboleth, was opposed another jargon 
 not less absurd and much more odious. As he never 
 opened his mouth except in scriptural phrase, the new 
 breed of wits and fine gentlemen never opened their 
 mouths without uttering ribaldry of which a porter 
 would now be ashamed, and without calling on their 
 Maker to curse them, sink them, confound them, blast 
 them, and damn them. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that our polite literatui'e, 
 when it revived with the revival of the old ci\al and 
 ecclesiastical polity, should have been profoundly im- 
 moral. A few eminent men, M'ho belonged to an earli^er 
 and better age, were exempt from the general contagion.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 439 
 
 The verse of Waller still breathed the sentiments which 
 had animated a more cliivalrous generation. Cowley, 
 (listinixuished as a loyalist and as a man of letters, raised 
 liis voice courageously against the immorality which 
 disgraced both letters and loyalty. A mightier poet, 
 tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy and 
 blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult 
 which raged all around him, a song so sublime and so 
 holy that it would not have misbecome the lips of those 
 ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye 
 which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the 
 jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold. 
 The vigorous and fertile genius of Butler, if it did not 
 altogether escape the prevailing infection, took the dis- 
 ease in a mild form. But these were men whose minds 
 had been trained in a world which had passed away. 
 They gave place in no long time to a younger genera- 
 tion of wits ; and of that generation, from Dryden down 
 to Durfey, the common characteristic was hardhearted, 
 shameless, swaggering licentiousness, at once inelegant 
 and inhuman. The influence of these writers was 
 doubtless noxious, yet less noxious than it would have 
 been had they been less depraved. The poison which 
 they administered was so strong that it was, in no long 
 time, rejected with nausea. None of them understood 
 the dangerous art of associating images of unlawful 
 pleasure with all that is endearing and ennobling. None 
 of them was aware that a certain decorum is essential 
 even to volujituousness, that drapery may be more 
 alluring than exposure, and that the imagination may 
 be far more powerfully moved by delicate hints which 
 impel it to exert itself than by gross descriptions which 
 it takes in passively. 
 
 The spirit of the Antipuritan reaction pervades al«
 
 440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. III. 
 
 most the vvhole polite literature of the reign of Charles 
 the Second. But the very quintessence of that spirit 
 will be found in the comic drama. The playhouses, 
 shut by the meddling fanatic in the day of his power, 
 were again crowded. To their old attractions new 
 and more powerful attractions had been added. Sce- 
 nery, dresses, and decorations such as would now be 
 thought mean or absurd, but such as would have been 
 esteemed incredibly magnificent by those who, early 
 in the seventeenth century, sate on the filthy benches 
 of the Hope, or under the thatched roof of the Rose, 
 dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The fascination 
 of sex was called in to aid the fascination of art : and 
 the young spectator saw, with emotions unknown to 
 the contemporaries of Shakspeare and Jonson, tender 
 and sprightly heroines personated by lovely women. 
 From the day on which the theatres were reopened 
 they became seminaries of vice ; and the evil propa- 
 gated itself. The profligacy of the representations soon 
 drove away sober people. The frivolous and dissolute 
 who remained required every year stronger and stronger 
 stimulants. Thus the artists corrupted the spectators, 
 and the spectators the artists, till the turpitude of the 
 drama became such as must astonish all who are not 
 aware that extreme relaxation is the natural effect of 
 extreme i-estraint, and that an age of hypocrisy is, in 
 the regular course of things, followed by an age of 
 impudence. 
 
 Nothing is more characteristic of the times than the 
 (^are with which the poets contrived to put all their 
 loosest verses into the mouths of women. The com- 
 positions in which the greatest license was taken were 
 the epilogues. They were almost always recited by 
 favourite actresses ; and nothing charmed the depraved 
 
 1
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 441 
 
 audience so much as to hear Hues grossly indecent 
 repeated by a beautiful girl, wlio was supposed to have 
 not yet lost her innocence.^ 
 
 Our theatre was indebted in that age foi" many plots 
 and characters to Spain, to France, and to the old 
 English masters : but whatever our dramatists touched 
 they tainted. In their imitations the houses of Calde- 
 ron's stately and high spirited Castilian gentlemen 
 became sties of vice, Shakspeare's Viola a procuress, 
 Moliere's JNIisanthrope a ravisher, Moliere's Agnes an 
 adulteress. Nothing could be so pure or so heroic but 
 that it became foul and ignoble by transfusion through 
 those foul and ignoble minds. 
 
 Such was the state of the drama ; and the drama 
 was the department of polite literature in which a poet 
 had the best chance of obtaining a subsistence by his 
 pen. The sale of boohs was so small that a man of 
 the greatest name could expect only a pittance for the 
 copyright of the best ])erformance. There cannot be 
 a stronger instance than the fate of Dryden's last pro- 
 duction, the Fables. Tliat volume was published when 
 he was universally admitted to be the chief of living 
 English poets. It contains about twelve thousand lines. 
 The versification is admirable ; the narratives and de- 
 scriptions full of life. To this day Palamon and Arcite, 
 Cymon and Iphigenia, Tlicodore and Honoria, are the 
 deliglit both of critics and of schoolboys. The collec- 
 tion includes Alexander's Feast, the noblest ode in our 
 language. For the copyrigiit Dryden received two 
 hnndi-ed and fifty pounds, less than in our days has 
 sometimes been paid for two articles in a review.^ 
 
 1 Jeremy Collier has censured this odious practice with liis usual Ibrca 
 »nd keenness. 
 
 2 The contract will be found in Sir Walter Scott's edition of Dryden.
 
 I 
 
 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 Nor floes tlie bargain seem to have been a hard one. 
 For the book went off slowly ; and the second edition 
 was not required till the author had been ten years in 
 his grave. By writing for the theatre it was possible 
 to earn a much larger sum with much less trouble. 
 Southern made seven hundred pounds by one play.^ 
 Otway was raised from beggary to temporary affluence 
 by the success of his Don Carlos.^ Shadwell cleared 
 a hundred and thirty pounds by a single representa- 
 tion of the Squire of Alsatia.^ The consequence was 
 that every man who had to live by his wit wrote plays, 
 whether he had any internal vocation to write plays 
 or not. It was thus with Dryden. As a satirist he 
 has rivalled Juvenal. As a didactic poet he perhaps 
 might, with care and meditation, have rivalled Lucre- 
 tins. Of lyric poets he is, if not the most sublime, the 
 most brilliant and spiritstii-ring. But nature, profuse 
 to him of many rare gifts, had denied him the dramatic 
 faculty. Nevertheless all the energies of his best years 
 were wasted on dramatic composition. He had too 
 much judgment not to be a^^'are that in the power of 
 exhibiting character by means of dialogue he was defi- 
 cient. That deficiency he did his best to conceal, some- 
 times by surprising and amusing incidents, sometimes 
 by stately declamation, sometimes by harmonious num- 
 bers, sometimes by ribaldry but too well suited to the 
 taste of a profane and licentious pit. Yet he never 
 obtained any theatrical success equal to that which re- 
 warded the exertions of some men far inferior to him in 
 general powers. He thought himself fortunate if he 
 cleared a hundred guineas by a play ; a scanty remuner- 
 
 1 See the Life of Southern, by Shiels. 
 
 2 See Rochester's Trial of the Poets. 
 
 * Some Account of the English Stage.
 
 Uh. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 443 
 
 atioii, yet apparently larger than he could have earned 
 m any other way by the same quantity of labour.^ 
 
 The recompense which the wits of that age could 
 obtain from the public was so small, that they were 
 under the necessity of eking out their incomes by levy- 
 ing contributions on the great. Every rich and good- 
 nature] lord was pestered by authors with a mendi- 
 cancy so importunate, and a flattery so abject, as may 
 in our time seem incredible. The patron to whom a 
 work was inscribed was exj)ected to reward the writer 
 with a purse of gold. The fee paid for the dedication 
 of a book was often much larger than the sum which 
 any publisher would give for the copyright. Books 
 were therefore frequently printed merely that they 
 might be dedicated. This traffic in praise produced 
 the effect which might have been expected. Adulation 
 pushed to the verge, sometimes of nonsense, and some- 
 times of impiety, was not thought to disgrace a poet. 
 Independence, veracity, selfrespect, were things not 
 required by the world from him. In truth, he was in 
 morals something between a pandar and a beggar. 
 
 To the other vices which degraded the literary chai-- 
 acter was added, towards the close of the reio-n of 
 Charles the Second, the most savage intemperance of 
 party spirit. The wits, as a class, had been impelled 
 by their old hatred of Puritanism to take the side of 
 the court, and had beeii found useful allies. Dryden, 
 in particular, had done good service to the govern- 
 ment. His Absalom and Achitophel, the greatest 
 satire of modern times, had amazed the town, li:i(l 
 made its. way with unprecedented rapidity even intd 
 rural districts, and had, wherever it appeared, bitterlv 
 annoyed the Exclusionists, and raised the courage of 
 
 1 Life of Southern, by Shiels.
 
 444 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Ill 
 
 the Tories. But we must not, in the admii'ation whicli 
 we naturally feel for noble diction and versification, 
 forget the great distinctions of good and evil. The 
 spirit by which Dryden and several of his compeers 
 were at this time animated ao-ainst the Whigs deserves 
 to be called fiendish. The servile Judges and Sherifl's 
 of those evil days could not shed blood so fast as the 
 poets cried out for it. Calls for more victims, hideous 
 jests on hanging, bitter taunts on those who, having 
 stood bv the Kino- in the hour of dano-er, now advised 
 him to deal mercifully and generously by his vanquished 
 enemies, were publicly recited on the stage, and, that 
 nothing might be wanting to the guilt and the shame, 
 were recited by women, who, having long been taught 
 to discard all modesty, were now taught to discard all 
 compassion. 1 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that, while the lio-hter litera- 
 statot ture of England was thus becoming a nui- 
 En^aiiua. sance and a national disgrace, the Eno-Hsh 
 genius was effecting in science a revolution wliich will, 
 to the end of time, be reckoned among the highest 
 achievements of the human intellect. Bacon had sown 
 the good seed in a sluggish soil and an ungenial sea- 
 son. He had not expected an early crop, and in his 
 •ast testament had solemnly bequeathed his fame to 
 the next age. During a whole generation his phi- 
 losophy had, amidst tumults, wars, and proscriptions, 
 been slowly ripening in a few well constituted minds. 
 While factions were strucpo-lino; for dominion over each 
 other, a small body of sages had turned away with 
 benevolent disdain from the conflict, and had devoted 
 
 1 If any reader thinks my expressions too severe, I would advise him to 
 read Drj'den's Epilogue to the Duke of Guise, and to observe that it wa« 
 t^iioken bv a woman.
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 445 
 
 themselves to the nobler work of extending the do- 
 minion of man over matter. As soon as tranquillity 
 was restored, these teachers easily found attentive 
 audience. For the discipline through which the nation 
 had passed had brought the public mind to a temper 
 well fitted for the reception of the Verulamian doc- 
 trine. The civil troubles had stimuUited the faculties 
 of the educated classes, and had called forth a restless 
 activity and an insatiable curiosity, such as had not be- 
 fore been known among us. Yet the effect of those 
 troubles was that schemes of political and religious 
 reform were generally regarded with sus[)icion and con- 
 tempt. During twenty years the chief employment of 
 busy and ingenious men had been to frame constit;u- 
 tions with first magistrates, without first magistrates, 
 with hereditary senates, with senates appointed by 
 lot, with annual senates, with perpetual senates. In 
 these plans nothing was omitted. All the detail, 
 all the nomenclature, all the ceremonial of the imag- 
 inary government was fully set forth, Polemarchs and 
 Phylarchs, Tribes and Galaxies, the Lord Archon 
 and the Lord Stratecus. Which ballot boxes were 
 to be green and which I'ed, which balls were to be 
 of gold and which of silver, which magistrates were 
 to wear hats and which black velvet caps with peaks, 
 how the maqe was to be carried and wlieu tlu; heralds 
 were to uncover, tliese, and a hundred more such trifies, 
 were gravely considered and arranged by men of no 
 common caj)acity and learning.' But the time for 
 these visions had gone by ; and, ii' any steadfast repub- 
 lican still continued to amuse himself with them, fear 
 of public derision and of a criminal information gen- 
 erally induced him to keep his fancies to himself. It 
 1 See particularly Uarringtoii's Oceana.
 
 446 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. |Ch. Ill 
 
 was now unpopular and unsafe to mutter a word 
 against the fundamental laws of the monarchy : but 
 daring and ingenious men might indemnify themselves 
 by treating with disdain what had lately been consid- 
 ered as the fundamental laws of nature. The torrent 
 which had been dammed up in one channel rushed 
 violently into another. The revolutionary spirit, ceas- 
 ino- to operate in politics, began to exert itself with 
 unprecedented vigour and hardihood in every depart- 
 ment of physics. The year 1660, the era of the res- 
 toration of the old constitution, is also the era fi'om 
 which dates the ascendency of the new philosophy. 
 In that year the Royal Society, destined to be a chief 
 acfent in a long series of glorious and salutary reforms, 
 began to exist.^ In a few months experimental science 
 became all the mode. The transfusion of blood, the 
 ponderation of air, the fixation of mercury, succeeded 
 to that place in the public mind which had been lately 
 occupied by the controversies of the Rota. Dreams 
 of pei-fect fonns of government made way for dreams 
 of wings with which men were to fly from the Tower 
 to the Abbey, and of doublekeeled ships which were 
 never to founder in the fiercest storm. All classes 
 were hurried along by the prevailing sentiment. Cav- 
 alier and Roundhead, Churchman and Puritan were 
 for once allied. Divines, jurists, statesmen, nobles, 
 princes, swelled the triumph of the Baconian philoso- 
 phy. Poets sang with emulous fervour the approach 
 of the golden age. Cowley, in lines weighty with 
 thought and resplendent with wit, urged the chosen 
 seed to take possession of the promised land flowing 
 with milk and honey, that land which their great de- 
 liverer and lawgiver had seen, as fi-om the summit of 
 
 1 See Sprat's History of the Royal Society.
 
 Ch. III.J state op ENGLAND IN 1685. 447 
 
 Pisgali, but had not been j)ermittecl to enter.^ Dryden, 
 with more zeal tlian knowledge, joined his voice to the 
 general acclamation, and foretold things which neither 
 he nor anybody else understood. The Royal Society, 
 he predicted, would soon lead us to the extreme verge 
 of the globe, and there delight us with a better view of 
 the moon.^ Two able and aspiring pi-elates. Ward, 
 Bishop of Salisbury, and Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, 
 were conspicuous among the leaders of the movement. 
 Its history was eloquently written by a younger divine, 
 who was rising to high distinction in his pi'ofession, 
 Thomas Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. Both 
 Chief Justice Hale and Lord Keeper Guildford stole 
 some hours from the business of their courts to write 
 on hydrostatics. Indeed it was under the immediate 
 directions of Guildford that the first barometers ever 
 exposed to sale in Loiidon were constructed.^ Chem- 
 istry divided, for a time, with wine and love, with the 
 stage and the gaminij; table, with the intrio;ues of a 
 courtier and the intriixues of a demaaomie, the atten- 
 tion of the tickle Buckingham. Rupert has the credit 
 of having invented mez/.otinto ; and from him is named 
 that curious bubble of glass which has long amused 
 children and puzzled philosophers. Charles himself 
 had a laboratory at Whitehall, and was far more active 
 and attentive there than at the council board. It w^as 
 almost necessary to the character of a fine gentleman 
 to have something to say about airpumj)s and tele- 
 Bcopes ; and even fine ladies, now and then, thought it 
 b<-:oming to affect a taste for science, went in coaches 
 
 1 Cowley's Ode to tlie Royal Society. 
 
 * " Then wc upon thp (;lolio's la^^t Terpo shall go, 
 
 Ami view tlie (veiin Iwining on the sk.v ; 
 Fi-oin tlicnrc our rolling nci^ilihours wc shall know, 
 AdU on the lunar world securely pry.'' 
 
 Annus Miiabilis, IM 
 
 • North's Life of Guildford.
 
 448 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. HI. 
 
 and six to visit the Gresham curiosities, and broke forth 
 into cries of delight at finding that a magnet really at- 
 tracted a needle, and that a microscope really made a 
 fly look as large as a sparrow.^ 
 
 In this, as in eveiy great stir of the human mind, 
 there was doubtless somethinp; which might well move 
 a smile. It is the universal law that whatever pursuit, 
 whatever doctrine, becomes fashionable, shall lose a 
 portion of that dignity which it had possessed while it 
 was confined to a small but eaniest minority, and was 
 loved for its own sake alone. It is true that the follies 
 of some persons who, without any real aptitude for 
 science, professed a passion for it, furnished matter of 
 contemptuous mirth to a few malignant satirists who 
 belonged to the preceding generation, and were not dis- 
 posed to unlearn the lore of their youth.^ But it is not 
 less true that the great work of interpreting nature was 
 performed by the English of that age as it had never 
 before been performed in any age by any nation. The 
 spirit of Francis Bacon was abroad, a spirit admirably 
 compounded of audacity and sobriety. There Avas a 
 strong persuasion that the whole world was full of 
 secrets of high moment to the happiness of man, and 
 that man had, by his Maker, been intrusted with the 
 key which, rightl}^ used, would give access to them. 
 There was at the same time a conviction that in physics 
 it was impossible to arrive at the knowledge of general 
 lav/s except by the careful observation of particular 
 facts. Deeply impressed Avith these great truths, the 
 professors of the new philosophy applied themselves to 
 
 1 Pepys's Diary, May 30. 1667. 
 
 2 Butler was, I think, the only man of real genius who, between the 
 Restoration and the Revolution, showed a bitter enmity to the new philos- 
 ophy, as it was then called See the Satire on the Royal Society, and the 
 Elephant in the Jloon 
 
 II
 
 t 
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 449 
 
 their task, and, before a quarter of a century liad ex- 
 pired, they had given ample earnest of wliat lias since 
 been achieved. Ah'eady a reform of agriculture had 
 been commenced. New vegetables were cultivated. 
 New implements of husbandry were employed. New 
 manures were applied to the soil.^ Evelyn had, under 
 the formal sanction of the Royal Society, given instruc- 
 tion to his countrymen in planting. Temple, in his 
 intervals of leisure, had tried many experiments in hor- 
 ticulture, and had proved that many delicate fruits, the 
 natives of more favoured climates, might, with the help 
 of art, be grown on English ground. Medicine, which in 
 Fi'ance was still in abject bondage, and afforded an inex- 
 haustible subject of just ridicule to Moliere, had in Eng- 
 land become an experimental and progressive science, 
 and every day made some new advance, in defiance 
 of Hippocrates and Galen. The attention of specula- 
 tive men had been, for the first time, directed to the 
 important subject of sanitary police. The great plague 
 of 1GG5 induced them to consider with care the defec- 
 tive architecture, draininir, and ventilation of the cani- 
 tab The great fire of 1666 aft'orded an opportunity for 
 effecting extensive improvements. The whole matter 
 was diligently examined by the Royal Society ; and to 
 the suggestions of that body must be j)artly attributed 
 the changes which, though far short of what the ]mblic 
 welfare required, yet made a wide difference between 
 the new and the old London, and probably put a final 
 close to the ravages of pestilence in our country.^ At 
 the same time one of the founders of the society. Sir 
 William Petty, created the science of political arithme- 
 
 ' The pa^rerncss witli wliicli the agriculturists of tliat age triod experi- 
 ments and introduced iiiiprovemoiits, is well described by Aubrey, Nat- 
 ural History of Wiltshire, 1685. 
 
 !• Sprat's History of the Koyal Society. 
 vou I. 2a
 
 450 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. HI. 
 
 tic, the liumble but indispensable handmaid of politi- 
 cal philosophy. No kingdom of nature was left un- 
 explored. To that period belong the chemical discov- 
 eries of Boyle, and the earliest botanical researches of 
 Sloane. It was then that Ray made a new classifica- 
 tion of birds and fishes, and that the attention of Wood- 
 ward was first drawn towards fossils and shells. One 
 after another phantoms which had haunted the world 
 through ages of darkness fled before the light. Astrol- 
 ogy and alchymy became jests. Soon there was scarce- 
 ly a county in which some of the Quorum did not smile 
 contemptuously when an old woman was brought before 
 them for riding on broomsticks or giving cattle the 
 murrain. But it was in those noblest and most ardu- 
 ous departments of knowledge in which induction and 
 mathematical demonstration cooperate for the discov- 
 ery of truth, that the English genius won in that age 
 the most memorable triumphs. John WalUs placed 
 the whole system of statics on a new foundation. Ed- 
 mund Halley investigated the properties of the atmos- 
 phere, the ebb and flow of the sea, the laws of mag- 
 netism, and the course of the comets ; nor did he shrink 
 from toil, peril, and exile in the cause of science. 
 While he, on the rock of Saint Helena, mapped the 
 constellations of the southern hemisphere, our national 
 observatory was rising at Greenwich ; and John Flam- 
 steed, the first astronomer royal, Avas commencing that 
 long series of observations which is never mentioned 
 without respect and gratitude in any part of the globe. 
 But the glory of these men, eminent as they were, is 
 cast into the shade by the transcendent lustre of one 
 immortal name. In Isaac Newton two kinds of intel- 
 lectual power, which have little in common, and which 
 are not often found together in a very high degree of 
 
 II
 
 Ob. III.] STATE OP ENOLAND TN 1685. 4^1 
 
 vigour, but which nevertheless are equally necessary 
 in the most sublhne departments of physics, were 
 united as they have never been united before or since. 
 There may have been minds as happily constituted as 
 his for the cultivation of pure mathematical science ; 
 there may have been minds as happily constituted for 
 the cultivation of science purely experimental : but in 
 no other mind have the demonstrative faculty and the 
 inductive faculty coexisted in such supreme excellence 
 and perfect harmony. Perhaps in an age of Scotists 
 and Thomists even his intellect mio;ht have run to 
 waste, as many intellects ran to waste which were 
 inferior only to his. Happily the spirit of the age on 
 which his lot was cast, gave the right direction to his 
 mind ; and his mind reacted with tenfold force on the 
 spirit of the age. In the year 1685 his fame, though 
 splendid, was only dawning ; but his genius was in the 
 meridian. His great work, that work which effected 
 a revolution in the most important provinces of natural 
 philosophy, had been completed, but was not yet pub- 
 lished, and was just about to be submitted to the con- 
 sideration of the Royal Society. 
 
 It is not very easy to explain why the nation which 
 was so far before its neighbours in science state of the 
 should in art have been far behind them all. *"'"""''• 
 Yet such was the fact. It is true that in architecture, 
 an art which is half a science, an art in which none but 
 a geometrician can excel, an art which has no standard 
 of grace but what is directly or indirectly dependent 
 on utility, an art of which the creations derive a part, 
 at least, of their majesty from mere bulk, our country 
 could boast of one truly great man, Christopher AVren ; 
 and the fire Avhich laid London in ruins had given him 
 an opportunity, unprecedented in modern histoiy, of
 
 452 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 displaying liis })owe.rs. The austere beauty of the 
 Athenian portico, the gloomy sublimity of the Gothic 
 arcade, he was, like almost all his contemporaries, in- 
 capable of emulating, and perhaps incapable of appre- 
 ciating : but no man, born on our side of the Alps, has 
 imitated with so much success the mao-nificence of the 
 palacelike churches of Italy. Even the superb Lewis 
 has left to posterity no work Avhich can bear a com- 
 parison with Saint Paul's. But at the close of the 
 reign of Charles the Second there was not a single 
 English painter or statuary whose name is now re- 
 membered. This sterility is somewhat mysterious ; 
 for painters and statuaries were by no means a de- 
 spised or an ill paid class. Their social position was 
 at least as high as at present. Their gains, when com- 
 pared with the wealth of the nation and with the re- 
 muneration of other descriptions of intellectual labour, 
 were even larger than at present. Indeed the munifi- 
 cent patronage which was extended to artists drew 
 them to our shores in multitudes. Lely, who has pre- 
 served to us the rich curls, the full lips, and the lan- 
 guishing eyes of the frail beauties celebrated by Ham- 
 ilton, was a Westphalian. He had died in 1680, having 
 long lived splendidly, having received the honour of 
 knighthood, and having accumulated a good estate out 
 of the fruits of his skill. His noble collection of draw- 
 ings and pictures was, after his decease, exhibited by 
 the royal permission in the Banqueting House at 
 Whitehall, and was sold by auction for the almost in- 
 credible sum of twenty-six thousand pounds, a sum 
 which bore a greater proportion to the fortunes of the 
 rich men of that day than a hundred thousand pounds 
 would bear to the fortunes of the rich men of our time.^ 
 
 1 Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. London Gazette, May 31. 1683i 
 North's Life of Guildford.
 
 Ch. m ] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 453 
 
 Lely was succeeded by his countryman Godfi'ey Knel- 
 ler, who was made first a knight and then a baronet, 
 and who, after keeping up a sumptuous estabhshment, 
 and after losing mu(;h money by unhicky speculations, 
 was still able to bequeath a large fortune to liis family. 
 The two Vandeveldes, natives of Holland, had been 
 tempted by English liberality to settle here, and had 
 produced for the King and his nobles some of the finest 
 sea pieces in the world. Another Dutchman, Simon 
 Varelst, painted glorious sunflowers and tulips for prices 
 such as had never before been known. Verrio, a Nea- 
 politan, covered ceilings and staircases with Gorgons 
 and Muses, Nymphs and Satyrs, Virtues and Vices, 
 Gods quaffing nectar, and laurelled princes riding in 
 triumph. The income which he derived from his per- 
 formances enabled him to keep one of the most ex- 
 pensive tables in England. For his pieces at Windsor 
 alone he received seven thousand pounds, a sum then 
 sufficient to make a gentleman of moderate wishes 
 perfectly easy for life, a sum greatly exceeding all 
 that Dryden, during a literary life of forty years, ob- 
 tained from the booksellers.^ Verrio's chief assistant 
 and successor, Lewis Laguerre, came from France. 
 The two most celebrated sculptors of that day were 
 also foreigners. Gibber, whose pathetic emblems of 
 Fury and Melancholy still adorn Bedlam, was a Dane. 
 Gibbons, to whose graceful fancy and delicate touch 
 many of our palaces, colleges, and churches owe their 
 finest decorations, was a Dutchman. Even the designs 
 for the coin were made by French artists. Indeed, it 
 was not till the reign of George the Second that our 
 country could glory in a great painter ; and George the 
 
 1 The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio are mentioned in Wal 
 pole's Anecdotes of Painting.
 
 454 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Gh. III. 
 
 Third was on the throne before she had reason to be 
 proud of any of her sculptors. 
 
 It is time that this description of the England which 
 Charles the Second governed should draw to a close. 
 Yet one subject of the highest moment still remains 
 untouched. Nothing has as yet been said of the great 
 body of the people, of those who held the ploughs, who 
 tended the oxen, who toiled at the looms of Norwich 
 and squared the Portland stone for Saint Paul's. Nor 
 can veiy much be said. The most numerous class is 
 precisely the class respecting which we have the most 
 meagre information. In those times philanthropists 
 did not yet regard it as a sacred duty, nor had dema- 
 gogues yet found it a lucrative trade, to talk and write 
 about the distress of the labourer. History was too 
 much occupied with courts and camps to spare a line for 
 the hut of the peasant or for the garret of the mechanic. 
 The press now often sends forth in a day a greater 
 quantity of discussion and declamation about the con- 
 dition of the working man than was published during 
 the twenty- eight years which elapsed between the 
 Restoration and the Revolution. But it would be a 
 great error to infer from the increase of complaint that 
 there has been any increase of misery. 
 
 The great criterion of the state of the common people 
 sute of the is the amount of their wages ; and, as four 
 
 common n <^ i p i i • i 
 
 people. tilths or the common people were, m the sev- 
 enteenth century, employed in agriculture, it is espe- 
 cially important to ascertain what were then the wages 
 of agricultural industry. On this subject we have the 
 means of arriving at conclusions sufficiently exact foi 
 our purpose. 
 
 Sir William Petty, whose mere assertion 
 
 AjfTicultural _ . . 
 
 wages. carries great weight, informs us that a labourer
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 455 
 
 was by no means in the lowest state who received for a 
 day's work fourpence with food, or eightpence without 
 food. Four shilHngs a week therefore were, according 
 to Petty's calculation, fair agricultural wages. ^ 
 
 That this calculation was not remote from the truth 
 we have abundant proof. About the beginning of the 
 year 1685 the Justices of Warwickshire, in the exercise 
 of a power entrusted to them by an act of Elizabeth, 
 fixed, at their quarter sessions, a scale of wages for the 
 county, and notified that every employer who gave more 
 than the authorised sum, and every Avorking man who 
 received more, would be liable to punishment. The 
 wages of the common agricultural labourer, from March 
 to September, were fixed at the precise sum mentioned 
 by Petty, namely four shilHngs a week without food. 
 From September to March the wages were to be only 
 three and sixpence a week.'^ 
 
 But in that age, as in ours, the earnings of the peas- 
 ant were very different in different parts of the kingdom. 
 The wages of Warwickshire were probably aljout tlie 
 average, and those of the counties near the Scottish 
 border below it : but there were more favoured dis- 
 tricts. In the same year, 1685, a gentleman of Devon- 
 shire, named Richard Dunning, publislied a small tract, 
 in which he des('ribed the condition of the poor of that 
 county. That he understood his subject well it is im- 
 possible to doubt ; for a few months later his work was 
 reprinted, and was, by the magistrates assembled in 
 quarter sessions at Exeter, strongly recommended to 
 the attention of all parochial officers. According to 
 him, the wages of the Devonshire peasant were, with- 
 out food, about five shillinfis a week.'^ 
 
 1 I'etty's Political Arithmetic. 
 
 2 Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 4. Arcliirologia, vol. xi. 
 
 • Plain aud easy Method showing how the Oftice of Overseer of the Pooi
 
 456 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. in. 
 
 Still better was the condition of the labourer in the 
 neio-hbourliood of Burv St. Edmund's. Tlie mao-istrates 
 of Suffolk met there in the spring of 1682 to fix a rate 
 of wages, and resolved that, where the labourer w^as not 
 boarded, he should have five shilhngs a week in winter, 
 and six in summer.^ 
 
 In 1661 the justices at Chelmsford had fixed the 
 wages of the Essex labourer, who was not boarded, at 
 six shillings in winter and seven in summer. Tliis 
 seems to have been the highest remuneration given in 
 the kingdom for agricultural labour between the Res- 
 toi'ation and the Revolution ; and it is to be observed 
 that, in the year in which this order was made, the 
 necessaries of life were immoderately dear. Wheat was 
 at seventy shillings the quarter, which MJ^ould even now 
 be considered as almost a lamine price.^ 
 
 These facts are in perfect accordance with another 
 fact which seems to deserve consideration. It is evident 
 that, in a country w^here no man can be compelled to 
 become a soldier, the ranks of an army cannot be filled 
 if the government offers much less than the wages of 
 common rustic labour. At present the pay and beer 
 money of a private in a regiment of the line amount to 
 seven shillings and sevenpence a week. This stipend, 
 coupled with the hope of a pension, does not attract the 
 English youth in sufficient numbers ; and it is found 
 necessary to supply the deficiency by enlisting largely 
 from among the poorer population of Mvinster and Con- 
 naught, The pay of the private foot soldier in 1685 
 was only four shillings and eightpence a week ; yet it is 
 certain that the government in that year found no diffi- 
 
 ma}- be managed, by Richard Dunning; Ist edition, 1G85 ; 2d editioa 
 1686. 
 
 1 Cullum 8 History of Hawsted. 
 
 2 Ruggles on the Poor.
 
 Ch. III-l STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 457 
 
 culty in obtaining many thousands of English recruits at 
 very short notice. The pay of* the private foot soldier 
 in the army of the Commonwealth had been seven shil- 
 lings a week, that is to say, as much as a corporal re- 
 ceived under Charles the Second : ^ and seven shillino-s 
 a week had been found sufficient to fill the ranks with 
 men decidedly superior to the generality of the people. 
 On the whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude 
 tliat, in the reign of Charles the Second, the ordinary 
 wages of the peasant did not exceed four shillings a 
 week ; but that, in some parts of the kingdom, five shil- 
 lings, six shillings, and, during the summer months, 
 even seven shillings Avere paid. At present a district 
 where a labourino; man earns only seven shillincrs a 
 week is thought to be in a state shocking to humanity. 
 The average is very much higher ; and, in prosperous 
 counties, the weekly wages of husbandmen amount to 
 twelve, fourteen, and even sixteen shillino-s. 
 
 The rem\ineration of workmen employed in manu- 
 factures has always been higher than that of AVasesof 
 the tillers of the soil. In the year 1680, a crs. 
 member of the House of Commons remarked that the 
 higli wages paid in this country made it impossible for 
 our textures to maintain a competition with the produce 
 of the Indian looms. An Eno;lish mechanic, he said, in- 
 stead of slaving like a native of Bengal for a piece of 
 copper, exacted a shilling a day.^ Other evidence ia 
 extant, which proves that a shilling a day was the pay 
 to which the English manufacturer then thought him- 
 self entitled, but that he was often forced to work for 
 less. Tlie common people of that age were not in the 
 
 1 Si'c, ill ■riiuilcif's State Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch Depu- 
 ties, (laled Aiifi-ust a^. 105.1. 
 
 '■^ Tlie orator was Mr. .lolm Basset, member for Bariistai)le. See Smith's 
 Memoirs of Wool, chapter Ixviii.
 
 458 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. III. 
 
 fe' 
 
 habit of meeting for public discussion, of haranguing, 
 or of petitioning Parliament. No newspaper pleaded 
 their cause. It was in rude rliyme that their love and 
 hatred, their exultation and their distress found utter- 
 ance. A great part of their history is to be learned 
 only from their ballads. One of the most remarkable 
 of the popular lays chaunted about the streets of Nor- 
 wich and Leeds in the time of Charles the Second may 
 still be read on the original broadside. It is the vehe- 
 ment and bitter cry of labour against capital. It de- 
 scribes the good old times when every artisan employed 
 in the woollen manufacture lived as well as a farmer. 
 But those times were past. Sixpence a day was now 
 all that could be earned by hard labour at the loom. 
 If the poor complained that they could not live on such 
 a pittance, they were told that they were free to take it 
 or leave it. For so miserable a recompense were the 
 producers of wealth compelled to toil, rising early and 
 lying down late, while the master clothier, eating, sleep- 
 ing, and idling, became rich by their exertions. A shil- 
 ling a day, the poet declai'es, is what the weaver would 
 have, if justice were done.^ We may therefore con- 
 clude that, in the generation which preceded the Revo- 
 
 1 This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year is not given; 
 
 but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my 
 
 pui-pose. I will quote some of the lines. The master clothier is iDtroduced 
 
 speaking as follows: — 
 
 "In former ages we used to give, 
 So that our workfolks like farmers did live ; 
 But tlie times are changed, we will make them know. 
 
 We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day, 
 
 Though a shilling they deserve if they had their just pay ; 
 
 If at all they murmur and say 't is too small, 
 
 We bid them choose whether they '11 work at all. 
 
 And thus we do gain all our wealth and estate, 
 
 By many poor men that work early and late. 
 
 Then hey for the clothing trade 1 It goes on brave ; 
 
 We scorn for to tnyl and uioyl, nor yet to slave. 
 
 Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease. 
 
 We go when we will, and we come when we pleas*."
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 469 
 
 lution, a workman employed in the great staple manu- 
 facture of England thought himself fairly paid if he 
 gained six shillings a week. 
 
 It may here be noticed that the practice of setting 
 children prematurely to work, a practice which Labour of 
 
 , 1 I . . n 1 children in 
 
 tlie state, the legitnnate protector oi tiiose factories, 
 who cannot protect themselves, has, in our time, wisely 
 and humanely interdicted, prevailed in the seventeenth 
 century to an extent which, when compared with the 
 extent of the manufacturing system, seems almost in- 
 credible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing 
 trade, a little creature of six years old was thought fit 
 for labour. Several writers of that time, and among 
 them some who were considered as eminently benev- 
 olent, mention, with exultation, the fact that in that 
 single city boys and girls of very tender age ci'eated 
 wealth exceeding what was necessaiy for their own 
 subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a year.^ The 
 more carefully we examine the history of the past, the 
 more reason shall we find to dissetit from those who 
 imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social 
 evils. The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely 
 an exce])tion, old. That which is new is the intelli- 
 gence which discerns and the humanity which remedies 
 them. 
 
 When we pass from the weavers of cloth to a diffei- 
 ent class of artisans, our inquiries will still wages of dif- 
 lead us to nearly the same conclusions. Dur- of artisans. 
 ing several generations, the Commissioners of Green- 
 wich Hospital have kept a register of the wages paid 
 to different classes of workmen wiio have been em- 
 
 1 Cliainherlayne'.s State of EiiKland; Petty's Political Arithmetic, chap- 
 ter viii.; Dunning's Plain and Eas3- Method; Firniin's Proposition for the 
 Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firniiu was au emi- 
 nent philanthropist.
 
 460 H-ISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IU. 
 
 ployed in the repairs of the building. From this valu- 
 able record it appears that, in the course of a hundred 
 and twenty years, the daily earnings of the bricklayer 
 have risen from half a crown to four and tenpence, 
 those of the mason from half a crown to five and three- 
 jience, those of the carpenter from half a crown to five 
 and fivepence, and those of the plumber from three 
 shillings to five and sixpence. 
 
 It seems clear, therefore, that the wages of labour, 
 estimated in money, were, in 1685, not more than half 
 of what they now are ; and there were few articles im- 
 portant to the working man of which the pi'ice was not, 
 in 1685, more than half of what it now is. Beer was 
 undoubtedly much cheaper in that age than at present. 
 Meat was also cheaper, but was still so dear that hun- 
 dreds of thousands of families scarcely knew the taste 
 of it.^ In the cost of wheat there has been very little 
 change. The average price of the quarter, during the 
 last twelve years of Charles the Second, was fifty shil- 
 lings. Bread, therefore, such as is now given to the 
 inmates of a workhouse, was then seldom seen, even on 
 the trencher of a yeoman or of a shopkeeper. The 
 great majority of the nation lived almost entirely on 
 rye, barley, and oats. 
 
 The produce of tropical countries, the produce of the 
 mines, tlie produce of machinery, was positively dearer 
 than at present. Among the commodities for which 
 the labourer Avould have had to pay higher in 1685 
 than his posterity now pay were sugar, salt, coals, 
 candles, soap, shoes, stockings, and generally all articles 
 of clothing and all articles of bedding. It may be added, 
 
 1 King ill his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the 
 common people of England at 880.000 families. Of these families 440,000, 
 according to him, ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000 
 ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than oace a week
 
 Ch. III.] STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 461 
 
 that the old coats and hlankets would have been, not 
 only more costly, but less serviceable than the modern 
 fabrics. 
 
 It must be remembered that those labourers who 
 were able to maintain themselves and their Number of 
 families by means of wao;es were not tlie most p'^"?'^'^*- 
 necessitous members of the community. Beneath them 
 lay a large class whicli could not subsist without some 
 aid from the parish. Tliere can hardly be a more im- 
 jDortant test of the condition of the common people than 
 the ratio which this class bears to the whole society. 
 At present the men, women, and cliildren who receive 
 relief appear from the official returns to be, in bad years, 
 one tenth of the inlialntants of England, and, in good 
 years, one thirteenth. Gregory King estimated tliem 
 in liis time at about a fourth ; and this estimate, whicli 
 all our respect for his authority will scarcely prevent 
 us from calling extravagant, was pronounced by Dave- 
 nant eminently judicious. 
 
 We are not quite without the means of forming an 
 estimate for ourselves. The poor rate was undoubtedly 
 the heaviest tax borne by our ancestors in those days. 
 It was computed, in the reign of Charles the Second, 
 at near seven hundred thousand pounds a year, much 
 more than the produce either of the excise or of the 
 customs, and little less than half the entire revenue of 
 the crown. The poor rate went on increasing rapidly, 
 and appears to have risen in a short time to between 
 eight and nine luuidred thousand a year, that is to say, 
 to one sixth of what it now is. The population was 
 then less than a third of what it now is. The minimum 
 of wages, estimated in money, was half of what it now 
 is ; and we can therefore hardly suppose that the aver- 
 age allowance made to a pauper can have been more
 
 462 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IH. 
 
 than half of wliat it now is. It seems to follow that 
 the proportion of the English jDeople Avhich received 
 parochial relief then must have been larger than the 
 proportion which receives relief now. It is good to 
 speak on such questions with diffidence : but it has cer- 
 tainly never yet been proved that pauperism was a less 
 heavy burden or a less serious social evil during the last 
 quarter of the seventeenth century than it is in our own 
 time.i 
 
 In one respect it must be admitted that the progress 
 of civilisation has diminished the physical comforts of a 
 portion of the poorest class. It has already been men- 
 tioned that, before the Revolution, many thousands of 
 square miles, now inclosed and cultivated, were marsh, 
 forest, and heath. Of this wild land much was, by law, 
 common, and much of what was not common by law 
 was worth so little that the proprietors suflPered it to be 
 common in fact. In such a tract, squatters and tres- 
 passers were tolerated to an extent now unknown. The 
 peasant who dwelt there could, at little or no charge, 
 procure occasionally some palatable addition to his hard 
 fare, and provide himself with ftael for the Avinter. He 
 kept a flock of geese on wdiat is now an orchard rich 
 
 1 Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix B. No. 
 2. Appendix C. No. 1. 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate men- 
 tioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Jloore, the other, some years 
 later, by Rii-bard Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in Davenant's 
 Kssa}- on Ways and Means; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's valuable 
 work on the poor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers and beg- 
 gars in 169G, at the incredible number of 1,330,000 out of a population of 
 5..5n0,000. Tn 184G the number of persons who received relief appears from 
 the official returns to have been only 1,3-32,089 out of a population of about 
 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in those returns, a pauper 
 mast very often be reckoned more than once. 
 
 I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet entitled " Giv- 
 ing Alms no Charity," and the Greenwich tables wliich will be found in 
 Mr. McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices.
 
 Ua. III.] STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 463 
 
 with apple blossoms. He snared wild fowl on the fen 
 which has long since been drained and divided into coi-n 
 tiekls and tnrnip fields. He cut turf among the furze 
 bushes on the moor wliich is now a meadow bright with 
 clover and renowned for butter and cheese. The ])rog- 
 ress of agriculture and the increase of population neces- 
 sarily deprived him of these privileges. But against, 
 this disadvantage a long list of advantages is i>e„efirsde- 
 to be set off. Of the blessings which civilisa- eommon Jeo- 
 tion and philosophy bring with tliem a large pJ.'^ *re« of'^ 
 proportion is common to all ranks, and would, "'TiUsatiou. 
 if withdrawn, be missed as painfully by the labourer as 
 by the peer. Tiie market place which the rustic can 
 noAv reach with his cart in an hoiu' was, a hundred 
 and sixty years ago, a day's journey from him. The 
 street which now affords to the artisan, during the 
 whole night, a secure, a convenient, and a brilliantly 
 lighted walk was, a hinidrcd and sixty years a^o, so dark 
 after sunset that he would not have been able to see his 
 hand, so ill paved that he would have run constant risk 
 of breaking his neck, and so ill watched that he would 
 have been in imminent danger of being knocked down 
 and plundered of his small earnings. Every bricklayer 
 who falls from a scaffold, every sweeper of a crossing 
 who is run over by a can-iage, may now have his wounds 
 dressed and his limbs set with a skill such as, a hundred 
 and sixty years ago, all the wealth of a great lord like 
 Ormond, or of a merchant prince like Clayton, could 
 not have ])urchased. Some frightful diseases have been 
 extirpated l)y science ; and some have been banished by 
 police. The term of human life has been lengthened 
 over the whole kingdom, and es])ecially in the towns. 
 The year 1685 was not accounted sickly ; yet in the 
 year 1685 more than one in twenty-three of the in-
 
 404 IIISTOUY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IlL 
 
 habitants of the capital cliecl.^ At present only one in- 
 habitant of the capital in forty dies annually. The dif- 
 ference in salubrity between the London of the nine- 
 teenth century and the London of the seventeenth 
 century is very far greater than the difference between 
 London in an ordinary year and London in a year 
 of cholera. 
 
 Still more important is the benefit which all orders 
 of society, and especially the lower orders, have derived 
 from the mollifying influence of civilisation on the 
 national character. The o-roundwork of that character 
 has indeed been the same through many generations, 
 in the sense in which the groundwork of the character 
 of an individual may be said to be the same when he 
 is a rude and thoughtless schoolboy and when he is a 
 refined and accomplished man. It is pleasing to reflect 
 that the public mind of England has softened while it 
 has ripened, and that we have, in the course of ages, 
 become, not only a wiser, but also a kinder people. 
 There is scarcely a page of the history or lighter liter- 
 ature of the seventeenth century which does not con- 
 tain some proof that our ancestors were less humane 
 than their posterity. The discij^line of Avorkshops, of 
 schools, of private families, though not more efficient 
 than at present, was infinitely harsher. Masters, well 
 born and bred, were in the habit of beating their ser- 
 vants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowl- 
 edge but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent 
 station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. The 
 implacability of hostile factions was such as we can 
 scarcely conceive. Whigs were disposed to murmur 
 because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his 
 bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and in- 
 
 1 The deaths were 23,222. — Petty's Political xiiithmetic.
 
 Ch III.j STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 465 
 
 suited Russell as liis coach passed from the Tower to 
 the scatiuld in Lhicohi's Inn Fields.^ As little mercy 
 was shown by the popuhice to sutFerers of a humbler 
 rank. If an offender was put into the pillory, it was 
 well if he escaped with life from the shower of brick- 
 bats and paving stones.^ If he was tied to the cart's 
 tail, tlie crowd })ressed round him, imploring the hang- 
 man to give it the fellow well, and make him howl.^ 
 Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell 
 on court days, for the purpose of seeing the wretched 
 women who beat hemp there wljipped.* A man pressed 
 to death for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coin- 
 ing, excited less sympathy than is now felt for a galled 
 horse or an overdriven ox. Fights compared witli 
 which a boxing match is a refined and humane spectacle 
 were among the favourite diversions of a large part of 
 the town. Multitudes assembled to see o-ladiators hack 
 each other to pieces witli deadly weajjons, and shouted 
 with delioht when one of the combatants lost a finder 
 or an eye. The prisons were hells on earth, seminaries 
 of every crime and of every disease. At the assizes 
 the lean and yellow culprits brought with them from 
 their cells to the dock an atmosphere of stench and 
 pestilence which sometimes avenged them signally on 
 bench, bar, and jury. But on all this misery society 
 looked with profound indifference. Nowhere could be 
 found that sensitive and restless compassion which has, 
 in our time, extended a powerful protection to the fac- 
 tory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave, 
 which pries into the stores and watercasks of every emi- 
 
 1 Rurnct, i. 560. 
 
 2 MugKleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit. 
 
 8 Tom Brown describes siicii a scene in lines which I do not venture to 
 quote. 
 * Ward's London Spy. 
 VOL. I. 30
 
 466 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IIL 
 
 errant sliip, which winces at every lash laid on the back 
 of a drunken soldier, which will not suiFer the thief in 
 the hulks to be ill fed or overworked, and which has re- 
 peatedly endeavoured to save the life even of the mur- 
 derer. It is true that compassion ought, like all other 
 feelings, to be under the government of reason, and has, 
 for want of such government, produced some ridiculous 
 and some deplorable effects. But the more we study 
 the annals of the past the more shall we rejoice that 
 we live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty 
 is abhorred, and in whiqh pain, even when deserved, is 
 inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty. Every 
 class doubtless has gained largely by this great moral 
 change : but the class which has gained most is the 
 poorest, the most dependent, and the most defenceless. 
 The general effect of the evidence which has been 
 Delusion Submitted to the reader seems hardly to admit 
 
 which leads n i i -vr • •; o • 1 
 
 men to over- of douot. 1 ct, \\\ spite ot eviclence, many 
 ptness'ofpre- will Still image to themselves the England of 
 erationf.''" the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than 
 the England in which we live. It may at first sight 
 seem strange that society, while constantly moving 
 forward with eager speed, should be constantly look- 
 ing backward with tender regret. But these two pro- 
 pensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily 
 be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from 
 our impatience of the state in which we actually are. 
 That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass pre- 
 ceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happi- 
 ness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful 
 in us to be constantly discontented with a condition 
 which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is 
 constant improvement precisely because there is con- 
 stant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied witli
 
 Ch. Ill J STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 467 
 
 the present, we should cease to contrive, to labour, and 
 to save with a view to the future. And it is natural 
 that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form 
 a too favourable estimate of the past. 
 
 1)1 truth we are under a deception similar to that 
 which misleads the traveller in the Arabian desert. 
 Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare : but far in ad- 
 vance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refresh- 
 ing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward and find 
 nothing but sand where, an hour before, they had seen 
 a lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake where, an 
 hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar 
 illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of 
 the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the 
 highest degrees of opulence and civilisation. But, if 
 we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find 
 it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. 
 It is noAv the fashion to place the golden age of Eng- 
 land in times when noblemen were destitute of com- 
 forts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern 
 footman, when farmers and sh()j)keepers breakfasted on 
 loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a 
 modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a 
 week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of 
 gentry, when men died faster in the purest country 
 air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of 
 our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of 
 our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. 
 We too shall, in our turn, be outstripi)ed, and in our 
 turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth cen- 
 tury, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think him- 
 self miserably paid with filteen shillings a week ; that 
 the car})enter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings 
 a day ; that labouring men may be as little used to
 
 468 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. III. 
 
 dine without meat as they now are to eat rye bread ; 
 that sanitary poHce and medical discoveries may hav ■ 
 added several more years to the average length of 
 human life ; that numerous comforts and luxuries 
 which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be 
 within the reach of every diligent and thrifty working 
 man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that 
 the increase of wealth and the progress of science have 
 benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to 
 talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when 
 England was truly merry England, when ali classes 
 were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the 
 rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the 
 poor did not envy the splendour of the rich.' 
 
 1 During the interval which has elapsed since this chapter was written, 
 England has continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity. I li;ive 
 lel't my text nearly as it originally stood; but I have added a few nott-s 
 which may enable the reader to form some notion of the progress which 
 has been made during the last nine years; and, in general, I would desire 
 liim to remember that there is scarcely a district which is not more pcipu- 
 lous, or a source of wealth which is not more productive, at present thao 
 ia 1848. (1857.)
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 [The matter referred to in the note at the close of the third cliap- 
 ter will be found in this Appendix, with later statistics. For tiie 
 notes enclosed within brackets the Riverside edition is responsible ; 
 those not so distinguished are notes of tlie author.] 
 
 [In the month of January, 1849, a correspondence cranmerand 
 took place between the Bishop of Exeter and Mr. Ma- ^^e Church 
 caulay on certain statements, m the nrst chapter oi his pp. (jo, m. 
 History, respecting Archbishop Crannier and the Church 62, 63. 
 of England. This correspondence originated in an invitation from 
 the historian communicated to the Bishop tlirough Sir James Stephen. 
 It was first published in 1801 by Mr. Murray. 
 
 In his first letter, the Bishop bears testimony to the extraordinary 
 merits of Mr. Macaulay's History, among Avhicli he considers tlie 
 greatest its unequalled trutlifuhicss. He again alludes to it as a 
 work which will be preeminently the guide and instruction of future 
 generations of Englishmen. In a subsequent letter tlie Bishop 
 assigns as a reason for further trespassing on the historian's patience 
 simply and merely the incalculable importance which he attributes 
 to the statements to which ]Mr. Macaulay shall permanently ailhere 
 in his History. Yet again, in his third letter, the Bishop disclaims 
 any other than the most respectful feelings to the historian and his 
 immortal work, and laments to think that in that work should be 
 embalmed errors so grievously injurious to the Church, as those on 
 which he presumes to comment. " Would that what I have writ- 
 ten," he adds, " may induce you to look more closely into the 
 various matters which I have brought to your attention ! I do not 
 flatter myself with the hope that I can have convinced you. Hut I 
 shall have done no light service to the Church, and to those who in 
 all ages to come shall read your ' History ' and derive much of their 
 practical feeling towards that Church from what they shall there 
 read, if I am the happy instrument of inducing you to convince 
 yourself" 
 
 The statements to which the Bishop took exception are sufficiently 
 indicated by the replies of Mr. Macaulay and the changes which he 
 introduced in the subsequent editions of his work. These changei
 
 470 APPENDIX. 
 
 we sliall point out in a separate paragraph, first presenting at length 
 the two letters of the historian in reply to the several communica- 
 tions of the Bisliop. Our readers will thus be enabled to understand 
 the extent to which Mr. Macaulay considered himself in error, to 
 appreciate the importance of his corrections in the final revision of 
 his text, and to know that, as it now stands, his great work exhibits 
 ths results of his best reflection and his matured convictions, after 
 examining the works to which the Bishop called his attention, and 
 carefully weighing his observations. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay to the Lord Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 Albany, London, January 8, 1849. 
 
 My Lord, — 1 beg you to accept my thanks for your highly inter- 
 esting letter. I have seldom been more gratified than by your ap- 
 probation ; and I can with truth assure you that I am not solicitous 
 to defend my book against any criticisms to whicli it may be justly 
 open. I liave undertaken a task which makes it necessary for me 
 to treat of many subjects with which it is impossible that one man 
 should be more than superficially acquainted, — law, divinity, mili- 
 tary aflairs, maritime affairs, trade, finance, manufactures, letters, 
 arts, sciences. It would therefore be the height of folly and arro- 
 gance in me to receive ungraciously suggestions ofltred in a friendly 
 spirit, by persons who have studied profoundly branches of knowl- 
 edge to which I have been able to give only a passing attention. I 
 should not, I assure you, feel at all mortified or humbled at being 
 compelled to own that I had been set right by an able and learned 
 prelate on a question of ecclesiastical history. 
 
 I really think, however, that it is in my power to vindicate myself 
 from the charge of having misrepresented the sentiments of the Eng- 
 lish Reformers concerning t'hurch Government. 
 
 Your Lordship admits that I have given a correct account of the 
 opinions which Cranmer held in 1-540 touching the roj'al supremacy 
 and the episcopal function. But you say that he soon afterwards 
 charged his mind, and expressed opinions very different ; and you 
 think that I ought in candour to have mentioned this. Perhaps it 
 would have been as well if I had inserted the words " at one time," 
 or " on one occasion." But it matters very little. I had said, a few 
 lines before, that on this class of subjects, the founders of the An- 
 glican Church were constantly changing their minds, that they con- 
 tradicted each other, that they contradicted themselves, and that the 
 word " supremacy " had very diflerent significations in the same 
 mouth at different conjunctures. The truth is that you altogether
 
 APPENDIX. 471 
 
 misapprelicDd the use wliich I meant to make of Cranmei's answers 
 of 1540. The fault is probablj' my own. I ought to have made my 
 nieanuig clearer. Yet I tliiiik that, if you will do me the honour to 
 read again pages 55, 56, and 57 of my tirst volunie,i you will see 
 tliat I never meant to make the Churcli responsible for Cranmer's 
 vagaries. I cited his diria, not to prove what was the genuine An- 
 glican doctrine, but to prove in how unsettled a state the minds even 
 of very eminent Doctors were, in that troubled age, on questions of 
 the utmost gravity. I say expressly tliat this notion of the suprem- 
 acj' gave scandal not only to Papists, but also to Protestjints ; and 
 I quote the article by which our Church contradicts point blank 
 Cranmer's main proposition. I persuade myself that your Lord- 
 ship will, on reexamination, acquit me of everything worse than 
 some want of lucidity. 
 
 I have looked again at the Commission wliich Bonner received 
 from Henry, and at that which Cranmer took out after Henry's 
 death; and must own that my opinion as to the sense of these docu- 
 ments remains unchanged. Your Lordsliip directs mj- attention to 
 the words " praeter et ultra ea quaj tibi ex sacris Uteris divinitus 
 comniissa esse dignoscunlur." No doubt these wonls recognise an 
 episcopal power derived from God. But do they recognise an epis- 
 copal ))ower derived immediately from God ? I think not. I am 
 strongly of opinion that tliose who drew up these commissions lieid 
 that the episcopal power was derived from God through tli© King, 
 and was to be exerciseil in subordination to the King ; as your Lord- 
 ship probably holds tiiat the priestly power is derived from God 
 through the Bishop, and is to be exercised in subordination to tlie 
 Bishop. My reason for tliinking this is that the words quoted by 
 your Lordsliip are immediately followed by these very significant 
 words, " vice, nomine, et auctoritate nostris exequendum." I really 
 believe that tiie sense of these instruments may fairly be sumir.e*! 
 up tlius : — "Whereas all sjiiritu-al as well as temporal jurisdiction 
 is derived from the Sovereign, and may be resumed by him, we 
 empower you to ordain, to institute, to grant letters of administra- 
 tion, to take cognisance of ecclesiastical oS«?nces, and to perform all 
 functions which appear from Holy Writ to belong by Divine appoint- 
 ment to Bishops, as our lieutenant, in our name, by our authority, 
 and during our pleasure." 
 
 Your Lordship says that I ought to have consulted the public Acts 
 of our Kings and of the Church, instead of culling here and tiiere 
 instances of ill-judged actions and expri'ssions of jirivate men. This 
 charge is made in language so kind and flattering, that I cannot com- 
 plain of it. Yet I cannot pUad guilty. For it seems to me that I 
 
 1 pp. 60, Gl, 02, 68, fupra.
 
 472 APPENDIX. 
 
 have mentioned three facts of the highest importance which indicate, 
 in a manner not to be mistaken, the opinion, not of individuals, but 
 of the Church and State, on the subject of Episcopacy. 
 
 First, I have remarked that the Church has not, in her doctrinal 
 confessions and discourses, asserted any tbrm of ecclesiastical gov- 
 ernment to be essential to the welfare of a Christian Society. This 
 is surely a most important fact. It is strange that, if the Church 
 really held episcopacy to be essential, not a word should be said on 
 that subject in the 19th Article. Still stranger would seem the lan- 
 guage of the 36th Article. The subject of that Article is the conse- 
 cration of Bishops. Not a word is said about the divine origin of 
 the ofHce, or about the necessity of the imposition of hands. It is 
 only affirmed that the Anglican form of consecration contains noth- 
 ing that of ilsdf is superstitious or ungodly. It is not easy to take 
 lower ground than this. I am convinced that half the ministers of 
 the established Church of Scotland would have the candour to admit 
 as much. The second part of the Homily on Whitsunday is equally 
 remarkable. Three notes of a true Church are given, but not a 
 word about episcopacy. I had mentioned these things in my first 
 chapter, but omitted them from fear of prolixity. I do not wisii to 
 lay more stress on them than is reasonable. But let me ask your 
 Lordship whether you think that Laud, or Sheldon, or Ken, would 
 have drawn up such Articles and such Homilies 1 
 
 Secondly, I have mentioned the very important circumstance that, 
 till the Restoration, episcopal ordination was not required by law as 
 a qualification for holding a cure of souls in the Church of England. 
 I have no doubt that your Lordship remembers a remarkable pas- 
 sage on this subject in Clarendon's Life, ii. 152, fol. How can I 
 believe that a Church in which, during three generations, numerous 
 ministers not episcopally ordained were admitted to the charge of 
 parishes can have held episcopal ordination essential to the adminis- 
 tration of the sacraments ? 
 
 Thirdly, I have mentioned the fact that James I., as head of the 
 Church, sent a Bishop and several priests to the Synod of Dort. 
 These divines joined in solemn acts of public worship with ministers 
 not episcopally ordained, and sate in council with those ministers on 
 the gravest questions of theology. One of the Anglican Presbyters 
 who was sent on this embassy afterwards became a bishop ; and his 
 writings are highly esteemed to this day. He always considered 
 himself as highly honoured by having been selected for such a mis- 
 sion, and spoke of himself as unworthy to form a part of so illus- 
 trious a congress. Imagine Sancroft or South rising to address the 
 Molerator in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 I therefore cannot admit that I have neglected to consult the pub-
 
 APPENDIX. 473 
 
 Uc Acts of our kings and of the Church. I liave, I tliink proved 
 from lho.se Acts tliat there did take phice in the seventeenth century 
 a very great chanj^e in the opinion of the clerical body, and of thii 
 heads of that body, touching eccles^iastical policy. Your Lordship, 
 I understand, admits tliat there was some change. The difference 
 between us is a difference of degree, and diflerences of degree are 
 not easily expressed with precision in words. I do not, I must own, 
 feel satisfied that the language which I have used requires any mod- 
 ification. But if reading and reflection should lead me to a different 
 opinion, false shame shall not prevent me from making a public re- 
 tractation. 
 
 I beg 3'our Lordship to excuse the faults of this letter. It has 
 been written in a sick-room, with considerable difficulty and pain : 
 but I could not delay my acknowledgments for your great kindness 
 and courtesy. I have the honour to be. 
 
 My Lord, with great respect. 
 Your Lordship's most faithful servant^ 
 
 T. B. Macaulat. 
 
 No. 11. 
 Mr. MacaulAy to tue Lokd Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 Albany, London, Jan. 22, 1849. 
 
 My Lord, — I should be most ungrateful if I did not thankful!}' 
 acknowledge my obligations to your Lordshij) for the highly inter- 
 esting and very friendly letters with wiiich you have lioiKJured mo. 
 Before another edition of my book appears I shall have time to 
 weigh your observations carefully, and to examine the works to 
 which you have called my attention. You have convinced me of 
 the proi)riety of making some alterations. But 1 hope that you will 
 not accuse me of pertinacity if I add that, as far as I can at present 
 judge, those alterations will be slight, and that, on the great points 
 in issue, my opinion is unchanged. 
 
 I cannot, for example, see that I was wrong in saying that Henry 
 considered himself, and was represented by his favourite Courtiers, 
 as a kind of Pope, the channel of Sacramentiil graces, and the ex- 
 positor of Catholic verity. That he was so represented by Cranmer 
 in the very remarkable answers which Burnet published from the 
 Stillingtleet MS., your Lordshij) does not deny. But you conceive 
 that this was a notion peculiar to Cranmer, and that even Cranmer 
 held it only for a short time. Yet surely the i)aper to which I have 
 referred in the Note to page 50 of my first volume^ is to the same 
 effect That paper was evidently meant as a kind of brief for the 
 
 1 p. 62, supra.
 
 474 APPENDIX. 
 
 courtly part3' in the Convocation. I will give two sentences. " Thig 
 text, Matt, xvi., Quodcuuque lii/averitis, &c., gave authority to all the 
 Apostles jointly to make laws and keep councils, until such time as 
 a convenient number of the lay people were converted to the faith; 
 and then the said text ceased." " This text of Actuum xx., Atten- 
 dite vobis et iiniverso ffregi, in quo Spiritus Sanctus vos pomit Episrojms 
 was not meant of such Bishops only as be now of the Clergy, but 
 was as well meant and spoken of every ruler and governor of the 
 Christian people." Strype believed tliis paper to be in the hand- 
 writing of Gardiner ; and this is a very significant circumstance ; 
 for as tiie contents were clearly not such as Gardiner would have 
 written of his own accord, he must have written them like a time- 
 server, as he was, because he knew that they would please Henry. 
 
 But I lay still more stress on the two Commissions — that given 
 to Bonner in 1539, and that taken out by Cranmer in 1546. They 
 are instruments of high dignity and importance — they run in very 
 similar language ; and they must be held to express the deliberate 
 sense of those who ruled the Church and State during a period of 
 more than seven years. Your Lordship will, I think, admit that, 
 in both Commissions, the Bishop is empowered to ordain, not merely 
 auctoritate reyis, a phrase which might perhaps be so construed as to 
 save the spiritual independence of the Episcopate, but vice regis, a 
 phrase which seems to be susceptible of no such construction. Tlie 
 best comment on this word vice will be found in Cranmer's Declara- 
 tion, contained in the Stillingfleet MS. — "A Bishop may make a 
 Priest by the Scripture ; and so may Princes and Governors als^o, 
 and that by the authority of God committed to them." I really do 
 not think that I exaggerate when I say that in these Commissions 
 the King does claim to be the channel of Sacramental Graces. 
 
 Then as to the claim of the King to be the expositor of doctrine, 
 I cannot think that the passages which your Lordship cites prove 
 my view to be erroneous. It appears from those passages that the 
 King, before he propounded dogmas and commanded his people to 
 accept them as orthodox, consulted Bishops and other learned men. 
 It appears also that he acknowledged a certain spiritual authority in 
 General Councils. But does it follow hence that he did not claim to 
 be the Pope of England, the expositor of Catholic verity ? Does 
 uot the Pope, before he condemns a heresy, consult theologians ? 
 Were not the books of the Jansenists and Quietists sifted by many 
 grave Doctors before the Supreme Pontiff, having weighed the re- 
 ports and authorities, pronounced his anathema? And do not all 
 Roman Catholics hold that General Councils congregated in Spiniu 
 Sanclo have a very high and venerable authority 1 Nay, many Ro- 
 man Catholics, we know, have maintained that a General Council
 
 APPENDIX. 475 
 
 might be called without the consent, nay, in defiance of the prohibi- 
 tion, of the Supreme rontiff. The two Councils of Pisa were act" 
 ually 80 called, and one of tliem at least has always been held by a 
 large party to have been a good and regular Council. The Anglican 
 Church, in declaring that a Council cannot be held in Siiiritu Suncto 
 without the Royal Consent, has really ascribed a higher spiritual 
 power to the King than the most illustrious Galilean Divines have 
 ever ascribed to the Pope. 
 
 I have carefully considered what your Lordship has written con- 
 cerning that great change which, as I hold, took place in the senti- 
 ments of our Ecclesiastical rulers during the seventeenth century. 
 It seems to me that the whole question is decided by this single tiict, 
 that, till the Act of Uniformity was passed after the Restoration, 
 Episcopal Ordination was not necessary, either in law or in practice, 
 to the exercise of any priestly function in the Church of England. 
 " The Act of Uniformity," says Clarendon, " admitted no person to 
 have any Cure of Souls or any Ecclesiastical dignity in the Church 
 of England, but such who had been or should be ordained Priest or 
 Deacon by some Bishop. This," he goes on, " was mw. For there 
 liad been many, and at present there were some, who possessed Ben- 
 efices with Cure of Souls and other Ecclesiastical promotions, who 
 had never received orders but in France or Holland ; and these men 
 must now receive new Ordination, which had always been held un- 
 lawful in the Church, or by this Act of Parliament must be deprived 
 of their livelihood, which they enjoyed in the most flourishing and 
 peaceable time of the Church. And therefore it was saitl that this 
 liad not been the opinion of the Church of England, and that it 
 would be a great reproach on all other Protestant Churches who had 
 no Bishop, as if they had no Ministers, and consequently were no 
 Churches ; for that it was well known the Church of England did 
 not allow reordination, as the ancient Church never admitted it ; in- 
 asmuch as, if any priest of the Church of Rome renounces the Com 
 munion thereof, his ordination is not questioned. And, therefore, 
 the not admitting the Ministers of other Protestants to have the 
 same privilege here, can proceed on no other ground tlian that they 
 looked not upon them as Ministers, having no ordination, which is a 
 judgment the Church of England liad not ever owned." 
 
 Thus far Clarendon. But the Statute-book contains evidence still 
 more decisive. 1 refer to the Act of Parliament, 18 Eliz. c. 12. " In 
 »rder," says the Act, " that the Churches of the Queen's Majesty 
 may be supplied with Pastors of sound religion, it is enacted that 
 every person pretending to be a Priest or iMinistcr of Ciod's Holy 
 Word and Sacraments, by reason of any other form of institution, 
 consecration, or ordination, than the form set forth by Parliament,"
 
 476 APPENDIX. 
 
 ehall be episcopally ordained, if not ordained already ? No ; but 
 sliall subscribe the Articles, or shall be incapable of holding any 
 benefice. And with this law the practice was in perfect harmony. 
 Elizabeth made Whittingham Dean of Durham. He had been or- 
 dained at Geneva. The Archbishop of York questioned the appoint- 
 ment. The case was tried, and finally decided in Whittingham's 
 favour. Dr. Delaune, who had been ordained at Leyden bj'^ the 
 Presbytery, was presented in the reign of James I. to a living in the 
 diocese of Norwich, and was instituted by Bishop Overall. In 
 Str^'pe's Life of Grindal is the license which the Archbishop gave to 
 John Morrison, who had been ordained by the Presbytery of Lothian. 
 The preamble recites that Morrison had been admitted to the Minis- 
 try according to the laudable rite of the Reformed Church of Scot- 
 land, and that he was orthodox in the fiiith. He is, therefore, em- 
 powered by the Primate to celebrate divine offices, and to minister the 
 iSucruments throughout the whole province of Canterbury. 
 
 The Convocation, unless I greatly mistake, ratified the judgment 
 of the Parliament on this subject. For surely the 65th Canon of 
 1603 must be understood as a distinct recognition of Presbyterian 
 orders. That Canon directs all preachers, before their sermons, to 
 exhort the people to pray for Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and 
 especially for the Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
 Now, in 1603, Episcopal Ordination was unknown in the Scotch 
 Church. The only Bishops in Scotland were tiiose Tulchan bishops 
 who had never been consecrated, and who were just such bishops 
 as his late Royal Highness the Bishop of Osnaburg. Here then we 
 have a Presbyterian Church mentioned, between two Episcopal 
 Churches, as being, not less than those Episcopal Churches, a 
 branch of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. Is it possible to believe 
 that either the Upper or the Lower House of Convocation, M'hen 
 this Canon was voted, held that the Church of Scotland was not 
 within the definition of a true Church given in the Articles 1 
 
 I have trespassed so long on your Lordship's patience tliat I will 
 not venture to discuss the important question, whether the framers 
 of our Articles and Homilies took the Calvinistic or the Arminian 
 view of the great problems of metaphysical theology. In truth I 
 could not, without writing a pamphlet, give one half of the reasons 
 which have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived. I 
 will, however, just mention one circumstance which seems to me 
 important, and which I do not remember to have seen noticed. The 
 Act of Toleration was specially intended for the relief of the Cal- 
 vinistic Dissenters. The relief given by that Act was confined to 
 persons who should subscribe all the Articles of the Church of Eng- 
 land, with the exception of the 34th, the 35th, the 36th, and some
 
 APPENDIX. 477 
 
 words of the 20th and 27th. Tlie Legislature absolutely required 
 tlie disciples of Owen and Bunyan, the old members of the Assem- 
 bly of Divines, men who avowedly lield the doctrines of tlie Confes- 
 sion of Faith, to sign the Articles of the Church of England on Free 
 Will, Justification, Election, and Predestination ; and these men 
 made not the least objection. Now surely, if the sense of the Arti- 
 cles were plairdy Arminian, it would have been as absurd to offer 
 toleration to the Pui-itans on condition of their subscribing the Arti- 
 cles as it would have been to offer toleration to the Socinians on 
 condition of their subscribing the Athanasian Creed, or to Papists 
 on condition of their taking the declaration against Transubstantia- 
 tion. The fact that .a law intended for the relief of sects notoriously 
 Calvinistic was framed in this way, I consider as a distinct declara- 
 tion of the Legislature that the Doctrinal Articles may honestly, and 
 witliout any straining, be understood in a Calvinistic sense. 
 
 You are probably aware that the strictly Calvinistic Dissenters 
 long continued to attach great importance to the rule about sub- 
 scription, and were alarmed and indignant when it was relaxed. 
 They actually petitioned Parliament against any relaxation in 1773. 
 A very remarkable speech of Burke on the subject will be found in 
 his works. The writings of William Huntington, S. S., who was 
 something more than a Calvinist, contain several curious passages 
 on this subject. He evidently wished the subscription to be retained 
 for the purpose of discouraging Arminianism among the Non-Con- 
 formists. 
 
 But I must stop. I again assure your Lordship that I will care- 
 fully reconsider the opinion which I have formed on tliese important 
 matters, and will weigh with attention the many valuable observa- 
 tions contained in your letters. 
 
 I beg again to repeat the expression of my respectful gratitude for 
 your great kindness. When your parliamentary duties call you 
 to London I will do myself the honour of repeating my thanks in 
 person. 
 
 In the mean time I have the honour to be. 
 My Lord, 
 Your Lordsliip's most faithful servant, 
 
 T. B. Macadlay. 
 
 Wliile the Bishop was not disposed to differ with Mr. Macaulay 
 in his view of the character of Cranmer, he regretted that the his- 
 torian had not given the Archbishop credit for his noble opposition 
 to the Act of the Six Articles, in spite of the demand of Henry 
 Vni. that he should support the measure, or at least remain neu- 
 tral. Cranmer attended every discussion of the Bill, and opposed 
 .t vehemently at every stage.
 
 478 APPENDIX. 
 
 The changes made by Mr. Macaulay in the text of the pagos to 
 which particular reference is made in tlie correspondence were as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 p. 56, supra, 11. 29, 31, — where the word " courtier " occurs it has 
 been substituted for " statesman " in deference to the Bishop's sug- 
 gestion that Cranmer was entirely free from statecraft, and probably 
 owed much of his influence over Henry to his entire abstinence from 
 all dealing with matters of state. 
 
 p. 60, 1. 22. The original statement was qualified by the insertion 
 of the words " at one time." 
 
 p. 60, 1. 33. In his early editions Mr. Macaulay stated that Henry 
 proclaimed it in his power to " confer the episcopal character and to 
 take it away." This the Bishop emphatically denied — admitting 
 that every Sovereign may deprive any Bishop of the right to " enact 
 the Episcopal character within his or its domains." Mr. Macaulay 
 substituted for " the episcopal character " the words " episcopal au- 
 thority." 
 
 p. 61, 1. 2, — " as his deputies " were inserted after " functions," — 
 and " royal " erased before the word " pleasure." 
 
 p. 61, 11. 15, 16. This sentence originally read, — " These opinions 
 Cranmer followed out to their legitimate consequences." 
 
 p. 61, 1. 23, originally, — " to ordain and to perform other spiritual 
 functions." 
 
 p. 61, 1. 27, — " some theologians," — originally " the theologians." 
 
 pp. 83, 84. The sentence beginning " An instrument is still ex- 
 tant" — and the sentence following — were inserted iu the text sub- 
 sequently to the controversy with the Bishop. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay's opinions on the subjects of this controversy had 
 been long formed, and were consistentlj' maintained. See his reviews 
 of Hallaui's Constitutional History, and of Mackintosh's History of 
 the Revolution in England, in 1688.] 
 
 On this subject Bishop Cooper's language is reraarka- 
 Church with- bly clear and strong. He maintains, in his Answer to Mar- 
 out a Bishop. ti,j Marprelate, printed in 1589, that no form of church 
 government is divinely ordained ; that Protestant com- 
 munities, in establishing different forms, have only made a legitimate 
 use of their Christian liberty ; and that episcopacy is peculiarly 
 suited to England, because the English constitution is monarchical. 
 " All those churches," says the Bishop, " in which the Gospell, in 
 these dales, after great darknesse, was first renewed, and the learned 
 men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not but have been 
 directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty, that, in e.xtertal 
 government and other outward orders, they might choose such as 
 they thought in wisedome and godlinesse to be most convenient for
 
 APPENDIX. 479 
 
 Ihe state of their countrey and disposition of their people. Why 
 then should this liberty that otiier countreys have used under anie 
 colour be wrested from us ? I think it therefore great presumption 
 and boldnesse that some of our nation, and those, wiiatever they may 
 think of themselves, not of the greatest wisdome and skill, sliould 
 take upon them to controlle the whole realme, and to binde both 
 prince and people in respect of conscience to alter the present state, 
 and tie themselves to a certain plattbrme devised by some of our 
 neighbours, which, in the judgement of many wise and godly per- 
 sons, is most unfit for the state of a Kingdonie." 
 
 Joseph Hall, then Dean of Worcester, and afterwards gyng^ ^f 
 Bishop of Norwich, wa« one of the commissioners. In Dort. v. 84, 
 his life of himself, he says : " My unworthincss was °° ^' 
 named for one of the assistants of that honourable, grave, and rev 
 ererid meeting." To high churchmen this humility will seem not 
 a little out of place. 
 
 [In his third letter to Mr. Macaulay, the Bishop of Exeter con- 
 demns as a "disgraceful fact" the sending by James I. of Bishop 
 Carleton, and Dean (afterwards Bishop) Hall to the Synod of Dort. 
 He doubts if this was done by the King as the head of the Church, 
 but contends that if it were so the Church is no more responsible for 
 any irregular or schismatical act of this its head, than the state is for 
 any unauthorized usurpation of j)ower, any violation of the tempo- 
 ral rights of the people, which any of the Henrys, or Jameses, or 
 Charleses thought fit to perpetrate. " I need not tell you," he adds, 
 " that the Synod of Dort had much more of a jmlitical tlian of an 
 ecclesiastical character. It was holdcn for the purpose of sustaining 
 the influence of the Prince of Orange, the patron of the Calvinists, 
 against Barnvdt and his party, the friends and supporters of the Ar- 
 nunians." The Bisliop does not believe that the " Doctors at Dort " 
 were very man}' of them " wilhoul Episcopal ordination," — but this, 
 lie admits, makes very little difference; — "the Synod was one 
 which the Church of England could not recognize; nor did it — 
 M-hatever was done by the Sovereign. Bishop Carleton stood up for 
 Episcopacy at the Synod ; and Ilali's greatest work is " Episcopacy 
 by Divine Right Asserted," written, many years afterwards, under 
 the eye oi Laud. How such men, notwithstanding the Calvinism of 
 one, and the semi-Calvinism of the other, could have gone to such a 
 Synod, I do not undertake to explain."] 
 
 It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the Res- ^^.j ^^ p^.. 
 toration, that persons not episcopally ordained were, for formity. P. 
 the first time, made incapaiile of holding benefices. No *''*' ""'^'" 
 man was more zealous for this law than Clarendon. Yet he 8.iys : 
 " This was new : for there had been many, and at present there were
 
 480 APPENDIX. 
 
 some, wlio possessed benefices with cure of souls and other ecclesias- 
 tical protnotions, who had never received orders but in France or 
 Holland; and these men must now receive new ordination, which 
 had been always held unlawful in the Church, or by this act of par- 
 liament must be deprived of their livelihood which they enjoyed in 
 the most flourishing and peaceable time of the Church." 
 
 [This note was first inserted subsequently to the correspondence 
 with the Bishop of Exeter. The passage from Clarendon is also 
 cited with additions in one of Mr. Macaulay's letters to the Bishop, 
 and the Bishop complains that though Mr. Macaulay was incapable 
 of intentionally making an illusory citation, yet the unintended effect 
 of the citation in his letter was illusory. The Bishop in the notes to 
 the published correspondence prints the passage in connection both 
 with what precedes and with what follows — which does not seem 
 to affect the statement in illustration of which it is cited.] 
 
 ^ I am happy to say that since this passage was written 
 
 Oude. P. 225, the territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the 
 note to 1.31. j^^^ ^^ 0\ide have been added to the British domm- 
 ions. (1857.) 
 
 [In 1817 the Rajah of Nagpore, sometimes called of Berar, took up 
 arms against the British, and was deposed. When his son came of 
 age in 1826, the country was restored to him ; and on his dying 
 without heirs in December, 1853, this province of 4,650,000 inhab- 
 itants was added to the possessions of the East India Company. 
 Oude was " annexed " by a proclamation issued by the governor- 
 general in 1856, deposing the King, but allowing him a liberal pen- 
 sion and permission to retain his titles. In the year when the au- 
 thor's note was written, the province was in a state of insurrec- 
 tion, and was only subdued in the spring and summer of 1859, 
 when all its forts were destroyed, and the whole population was dis- 
 armed.] 
 
 Population. [The population of the United Kingdom in 1871 was 
 P. 310, note. thir1r)'-one million, eight hundred and fifty-seven thou- 
 sand, three hundred and thirty-eight, thus distributed : — 
 
 England and Wales 22,712,266 
 
 Scotland 3,360,018 
 
 Ireland 5,411,416 
 
 Islands 144,638 
 
 Army. Navy, and Merchant Seamen abroad . 229,000 
 
 Total United Kingdom 31,857,338 
 
 The Census of 1871 shows an increase during the decade of 2,646,- 
 042 persons, and 519,612 inhabited houses in England and Wales ; in 
 Scotland, an increase of 297,724 persons, and 18,965 inhabited houses; 
 
 I
 
 APPENDIX. 481 
 
 in the Channel Islands and Man, an increase of 1,191 persons, and 
 944 inhabited houses; but in Ireland a decrease of 387,551 persons 
 (or 56,806 families) and 33,927 houses ; or a total increase in Great 
 Britain of 2,285,694 persons, and 506,620 inhabited houses. The 
 population in urban districts in England and Wales, has grown more 
 than twice as fast as that of the rural districts (1.73 per cent, against 
 0.71 ), and very nearly the same per centage prevails in Scotland. 
 
 Ireland reached its highest point in 1845, when its entire popula- 
 tion was estimated at 8,295,061. The failure of the potato crop for 
 two successive years produced famine and disease, <and the population 
 rapidly diminished under their influence, and the new impulse given 
 to emigration. Since 1845, the decrease of the Irish population has 
 been 2,892,302, or nearly 35 per cent. 
 
 The estimated population of the several divisions of the United 
 Kingdom in the middle of 1874, was as follows : England and Wales, 
 23,648,609; Scotland, 3,462,916 ; Ireland, 5,300,485. Total, 32,41 2,- 
 010.] 
 
 [The Public Revenue of the United Kingdom for the jievenuein 
 year ending 31st of March, 1874, was as follows: Cus- 1873-4. P 
 toms, .£20,616,063; Exci.se, Stamps, Taxes and Licome ^l^' 'i°'^- 
 Tax, £47,342,825; Post OtKce, £7,296,354; Telegraph Service, 
 £1,216,195; Crown Lands, £487,695; Miscellaneous, £3,948,706; 
 making a total of £80,907,838. Practically, excluding such amounts 
 as advances and repayments for local works, the actual revenue for 
 the year was from all sources, £77,335,657. The total ordinary ex- 
 penditure was .£76,466,510; the expense of fortification, £500,000; 
 and the surplus of income over total expenditure, £369,147. Among 
 the expenditures was an item of £3,196,875 for the Alabama Claims. 
 The interest of the Public Debt and management was .£21,986,102. 
 
 Tiie Excise, which produced net .£585,000 in the hist year of the 
 reign of Charles II., produced £27,115,970 in 1873-4. The net pro- 
 ce(Hls of the Customs, in the former year, £530,000, were in the latter 
 year £20,323,325.] 
 
 In 1854 the quantity of coal brought into London c^ni. P. 349 
 amounted to 4,378,000 tons. (1857.) [In the time of note. 
 Charles 11., one half the produce of the English coal pits wa.s con- 
 sumed in London ; in 1848, about one tenth, and in 1872, less than 
 one twentieth. The produce mcainvhilc had increased from 700,000 
 tons to 120,000,000 tons. In the quarter of a century that has elajiscd 
 since the text was written the annual produce has been quadrupled. 
 The amount exported annually is about 13,000,000 tons.] 
 
 VOL. I. 31
 
 482 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Clergy ^" the eighteenth century tlie great increase in tlie 
 
 plebeian. vahic of benefices produced a change. The younger 
 ' sons of tlie nobility were allured back to the clerical 
 
 profession. Warburton in a letter to Hurd, dated the 5th of July, 
 1752, mentions this change, which was then recent. " Our grandees 
 have at last found their way back into the Church. I only wonder 
 they have been so long about it. But be assured that nothing but a 
 new religious revolution, to sweep away tlie fragments that Henry 
 the Eighth left after banqueting his courtiers, will drive them out 
 again." 
 
 Social posi- I may add that Swift, in his " Essay on the Fates of 
 
 rymen' ^p"^ Clergymen," has elaborately traced the career of two 
 362, notes. divines, Eugenius and Corusodes, tlie man of parts and 
 the dunce. Differing in every thing else, they both marry low 
 women. Eugenius has to take up with a farmer's widow, and Coru- 
 sodes with a cast-off mistress. 
 
 Even in " Tom Jones," published two generations later, Mrs. Sea- 
 grim, the wife of a game-keeper, and Mrs. Honour, a waiting woman, 
 boast of their descent from clergymen. " It is to be hoped," snya 
 Fielding, " such instances will in future ages, when some provision 
 is made for the families of the inferior clergy, appear stranger than 
 they can be thought at present." 
 
 [The quotation of Swift's advice as .an historical authority is of 
 itself droll enough ; but why does Mr. Macanlay conceal that the 
 same authority tells us that as the Clidplain was to be rewarded with 
 the Abigail, the gentleman's Valet was to have a Commission in tlie 
 army, and the Footman was to marry my Lord's Widoto? Would Mr. 
 Macanlay quote these exaggerated pleasantries as a proof of the gen- 
 eral degradation of the Army or the Peerage in the reign of Charles 
 II. or even of George II. ? Why, then, of the Clergy ? We con- 
 fess our only wonder is, that when he was ransacking his " lighter 
 literature," from Elizabeth to the Georges, — nay, that even in graver 
 literature, — he was not able to produce an hundred exceptional cases, 
 which, paraded after his usual fashion as specimens of general man- 
 ner, might have given some color to his imputations. But the truth 
 is, the whole amount of testimony, light as well as grave, was the 
 other way ; and the amiable and respectable picture which Addison 
 (though not unwilling to banter him a little) draws of Sir Roger de 
 Coverley's chaplain, must be in the memory of most readers as a 
 contradiction of Mr. Macaulay's sweeping imputations.— J. W. 
 Ckokek. Quarterly Review 84, p. 594.]
 
 APPENDIX. 483 
 
 In 1851 Leeds had 172,000 inhabitants. (1857.) [Leeds Leeds. P. 
 in 1871 had 259,212 inhabitants. Its woollen manufac- 375. 
 tures now surpass those of all other cities in England. More leather 
 is tanned here than any where else in the British Empire. It is an 
 important railroad centre, and in the environs are more than a hun- 
 dred collieries.] 
 
 In 1851 the population of Sheffield had increased to Sheffield. P. 
 135,000 inhabitants. (1857.) [Sheffield in 1871 had in- 376. 
 creased to 239,947 inhabitants, having doubled in population since 
 the text was written.] 
 
 In 1851 the population of Birmingham had increased Birmingham 
 to 232,000. (1857.) [Birmingham in 1871 numbered P- 377. 
 343,696 inhabitants.] 
 
 In 1851 Liverpool contained 375,000 inhabitants. Liverpool. 
 (1857.) [The figures of the text, though written but a P-378. 
 quarter of a century since, convey a very inadequate idea of the 
 Liverpool of to-day. The population now exceeds half a million. 
 The registered shipping, then between four and five hundred thou- 
 sand tons, on the first of January, 1874, comprised 1,866 sailing ves- 
 sels, of 990,867 tons ; and 563 steamers, of 412,464 tons. Nearly one 
 half of all the exports from Great Britain pass through this port. It 
 is the greatest cotton market, and its Australia trade is rapidly mak- 
 ing it the greatest wool market, in the world. It is a leading grain 
 market. It rivals London in the Eastern trade. The extraordinary 
 growth of Liverpool is largely due to its trade with the United 
 States.] 
 
 In 1851 the population of London exceeded 2,300,000. London. P. 
 (1857.) [In 1871 the population of London was 3,266,989. 383. 
 The population in the middle of 1874, was estimated by the registrar 
 at 3,400,000. The metropolitan police district, and the city police 
 district embrace a population of 3,883,092 ; without including the 
 transient residents who are always very numerous. The limits of 
 the districts embrace 687 square miles.] 
 
 In 1854 the tonnage of the steamers of the port of Ste.am Ton- 
 London amounted to 138,000 tons, without reckoning j^^? P. 383' 
 vessels of 1<!SS than fifty tons. (1857.) note. 
 
 [The registered merchant shipping of the port of London amounted 
 January 1, 1874, to 846 steamers, of 447,839 tons; and 1,993 sailing 
 vessels, of 694,218 tons. The duty collected there is between ten 
 and twelve million pounds.]
 
 484 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Present [At the close of 1862 the total number of sailing ves- 
 
 Great'iJri°- ^^'^ registered in the various ports of P>nglancl and 
 Jiin. P. 383, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Chan- 
 nel Islands, was 26,212 ; their total amount of tonnage 
 4,196,509. Total of steam-vessels, 2,228; total of tiieir tonnage, 
 587,891. For 1863 there was an increase of 127 sailing vessels, and 
 3^4,708 tons, over the preceding year ; and of one steam-vessel, but 
 of 58,96.5 steam tonnage. The whole number of sailing and steam 
 vessels that entered the ports of the United Kingdom in 1872, foreign 
 and colonial, was 64,728 ; with an aggregate tonnage of 21,015,415 
 tons. There were cleared during the same period 64,883 vessels, of 
 21,485,610 tons. 
 
 In 1873 the tonnage of British and Foreign vessels (sailing and 
 steam) entered with cargoes and in ballast at ports in the United King- 
 dom, from foreign countries and British possessions, was 18,795,657 
 tons ; cleared to the same, 19,139,365 tons.] 
 
 Post-Office. I have left the text as it stood in 1848. In the year 
 
 P. 425, note. 1856 the gross receipt of the Post Office was more than 
 ^2,800,000 ; and the net receipt was about £1,200,000. The number 
 of letters conveyed by post was 478,000,000. (1857.) 
 
 [As nearly as it can be ascertained, the number of letters which 
 passed through the post in the United Kingdom in 1873 was about 
 907 millions; the number of post cards about 72 millions; of book 
 packets, 109 millions; and of newspapers, 125 millions; making a 
 total of 1,233 millions of articles posted. In th« last year of high- 
 priced postage, 1839, three letters were put into the post by every in- 
 habitant of the United Kingdom ; each person on an average now 
 posts twenty-nine letters. 
 
 The gross revenue of the Post Office for 1873 was £5,348,000 ; and 
 the expenditure, £3,793,000. 
 
 The force of the Post Office is about 42,000 persons, comprising 
 12,500 postmasters, 9,000 clerks, and upwards of 20,000 sorters, car- 
 riers, and messengers. Out of this number nearly 9,500 belong to the 
 London district, and of these 5,000 are attached to the chief office in 
 St. Martin's-Le-Grand. 
 
 The entire telegraphic system is now in the hands of the Postal 
 authorities, the government having bought up all the lines. It has 
 now about 5,000 offices, and in 1873 sent upwards of 17,000,000 mes- 
 sages, exclusive of those for the newspapers, which amounted to 
 38,000,000 words sent for transmission. The transfer of the telegraph 
 service to the government is said to have resulted in affording a pnjfit 
 on each year's transactions amounting in 1873-4 to £1,057,824. Each 
 week's returns show a rapid increase in the number of telegrams sent, 
 both for commercial and social purposes.]
 
 m)z mot^^ of Jlortx i^acaula^ 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 VOL. n.
 
 i
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The death of Kino; Charles the Second took the 
 nation by surprise. His frame was naturally ^^^^^^ ^j. 
 strong, and did not appear to have suffered chariesn. 
 from excess. He had always been mindful of his 
 health even in his pleasures ; and his habits were such 
 as promise a long life and a robust old age. Indolent 
 as he was on all occasions which required tension of 
 the mind, he was active and persevering in bodily 
 exei'cise. He had, when young, been renowned as a 
 tennis player,^ and was, even in the decline of life, an 
 indefatigable walker. His ordinary ])ace was such that 
 those who were admitted to the honour of his society 
 found it difficult to keep up with him. He rose early, 
 and generally passed three or four hours a day in the 
 open air. He might be seen, before the dew was off 
 the grass in St. James's Park, striding among the 
 trees, playing with his spaniels, and flinging corn to 
 his ducks; and these exhibitions endeared lim to the 
 common people, who always love to see the great un 
 bend.2 
 
 1 Pepys's Diary, Dec. 28. 1663, Sept. 2. 1667. 
 
 2 Runiet, i. 606.; Spectator, No. 462.; Lords' Journals, Oct. 28. 1678; 
 Gibber's Apology.
 
 10 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii. IV. 
 
 At length, towards the close of the year 1G84, he 
 was prevented, by a slight attack of what was supposed 
 to be gout, from rambling as usual. He now spent his 
 mornings in his laboratory, where he amused himself 
 with experiments on the properties of mercury. His 
 temper seemed to have suflered from confinement. 
 He had no apparent cause for disquiet. His kingdom 
 was tranquil : he was not in pressing want of money : 
 his power Avas greater than it had ever been : the 
 party which had long thwarted him had been beaten 
 down ; but the cheerfulness which had supported him 
 against adverse fortune had vanished in this season of 
 prosperity. A trifle now sufficed to depress those 
 elastic spirits which had boime up against defeat, 
 exile, and penury. His ii'ritation frequently showed 
 itself by looks and words such as could hardly have 
 been expected from a man so eminently distinguished 
 by good humour and good breeding. It was not sup- 
 posed however that his constitution was seriously 
 impaired.^ 
 
 His palace had seldom presented a gayer or a more 
 scandalous appearance than on the evening of Simday 
 the first of February IGSS.'"^ Some grave persons who 
 had gone thither, after the fashion of that age, to pay 
 their duty to their sovereign, and who had expected 
 that, on such a day, his court would wear a decent 
 aspect, were struck witli astonishment and horror. 
 The great gallery of Whitehall, an admirable relic of 
 the mao;nificence of the Tudors, was crowded Avith 
 revellers and gamblers. The King sate there cliatting 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 605,600.; Wehvood, 138.; North's Life of Guildford, 251. 
 
 2 I maj- take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever I give 
 inly one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth 
 century, the style of England; but I reckon the year from the firsi of 
 January.
 
 1685.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 11 
 
 and toying with three women, whose charms A^-^ere the 
 boast, and whose vices were the disgrace, of three 
 nations. Barbara Pahner, Duchess of Cleveland, Avas 
 there, no longer young, but still retaining some traces 
 of that superb and voluptuous loveliness which twenty 
 years before OA^ercame the hearts of all men. There 
 too M-^as the Duchess of Portsmouth, whose soft and 
 infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity of 
 France. Hortensia Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, 
 and niece of the great Cardinal, completed the group. 
 She had been early removed from her native Italy to 
 the court where her uncle was supreme. His power 
 and her own attractions had drawn a crowd of illus- 
 trious suitors round her. Charles himself, during his 
 exile, had sought her hand in vain. No ojift of nature 
 or of fortune seemed to be Avantino; to her. Her face 
 Avas beautiful AA'ith the nch beauty of the South, her 
 understanding quick, her manners graceful, her rank 
 exalted, her possessions immense ; but her ungovern- 
 able passions had turned all these blessings into curses. 
 She had found the misery of an ill assorted marriage 
 intolerable, had fled from her husband, had abandoned 
 her A'ast wealth, and, after having astonished Rome 
 and Piedmont by her adA-entures, had fixed her abode 
 in England. Her house was the favourite resort of 
 men of wit and pleasure, avIio, for the sake of her 
 smiles and her table, endured her frequent fits of 
 insolence and ill humour. Rochester and Godolphin 
 sometimes forgot the cares of state in her company. 
 Baiillon and Saint Evremond found in her draAving 
 room cons()lati(m for their long banishment from Paris. 
 The learning of Vossius, the Avit of Waller, Avere 
 daily employed to flatter and amuse her. But her 
 liseased mind required stronger stimulants, and sought
 
 12 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 them in gallantry, in basset, and in usquebaugh.^ 
 While Charles flirted with his three sultanas, Hor- 
 tensia's French page, a handsome boy, whose vocal 
 performances were the delight of Whitehall, and were 
 rewarded by numerous presents of rich clothes, ponies, 
 and guineas, warbled some amorous verses.^ A party 
 of twenty courtiers was seated at cards round a large 
 table on which gold was heaped in mountains.^ Even 
 then the King had complained that he did not feel 
 quite well. He had no appetite for his supper: his 
 rest that night was broken ; but on the following 
 morning he rose, as usual, early. 
 
 To that morning the contending factions in his 
 council had, during some days, looked forward with 
 anxiety. The struggle between Halifax and Roches- 
 ter seemed to be approaching a decisive crisis. Hali- 
 fax, not content with having already driven his rival 
 from the Board of Treasury, had undertaken to prove 
 him guilty of such dishonesty or neglect in the con- 
 duct of the finances as ought to be punished by dismis- 
 sion from the public service. It was even whispered 
 that the Lord President would probably be sent to the 
 Tower. The King had pi-omised to inquire into the 
 matter. The second of February had been fixed for 
 the investigation ; and several officers of the revenue 
 had been ordered to attend with their books on that 
 day.* But a great turn of fortune was at hand. 
 
 Scarcely had Charles risen from his bed when his 
 
 1 Saint Evremond, passim. St. R^al, M^moires de la Duchesse de Maza* 
 rin; Rochester's Farewell; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6. 1676, June 11. 1699. 
 
 2 Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 28. 1681 ; Saint E\Temond's Letter to Ddry. 
 
 3 Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4. 168i. 
 
 4 Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North, 170. ; The True Patriot vin- 
 dicated, or a Justification of his Excellency the E of R ; 
 
 Burnet, i. 605. The Treasury Books prove that Burnet had good intelli- 
 gence.
 
 1685.] CHAELES THE SECOND. 13 
 
 attendants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, 
 and that his thouohts seemed to be wanderino-. Sev- 
 eral men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their 
 sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effort to 
 converse vkdth them in his usual gay style ; but his 
 ghastly look surprised and alarmed them. Soon his 
 face grew black ; his eyes turned in his head ; he 
 uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of 
 one of his lords. A physician who had charge of the 
 royal retorts and crucibles happened to be present. 
 He had no lancet ; but he opened a vein with a pen- 
 knife. The blood flowed freely ; but the King was 
 still insensible. 
 
 He was laid on his bed, where, during a short time, 
 the Duchess of Portsmouth hung over him with the 
 familiarity of a wife. But the alarm had been given. 
 The Queen and the Duchess of York were hastening 
 to the room. The favourite concubine was forced to 
 retire to her own apartments. Those apartments had 
 been thrice pulled down and thrice rebuilt by her 
 lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of 
 the chimney was massy silver. Several fine paintings, 
 which properly belonged to the Queen, had been 
 transferred to the dwelling of the mistress. The side- 
 boards were piled with richly wrought plate. In the 
 niches stood cabinets, the masterpieces of Japanese 
 art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, 
 were depicted, in tints which no English tapestry 
 could rival, birds of gorgeous plumage, landscapes, 
 hunting matches, the lordly terrace of Saint Gcr- 
 mains, the statues and fountains of Versailles.^ In 
 the midst of this splendour, purchased by guilt and 
 ahame, the unha])py woman gave herself up to an 
 
 > Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24. 168^, Oct. 4. 1083.
 
 14 ' HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. FV. 
 
 agony of grief, which, to do her justice, was not wholly 
 selfish. 
 
 And now the gates of Whitehall, which ordinarily 
 stood open to all comers, were closed. But persons 
 whose faces were known were still permitted to enter. 
 The antechamhers and galleries were soon filkd to 
 overflowing ; and even the sick room was crowded 
 with peers, privy councillors, and foreign ministers. 
 All the medical men of note in London were sum- 
 moned. So high did political animosities run that 
 the presence of some Whig physicians was regarded as 
 an extraordinary circumstance.^ One Roman Catholic 
 whose skill was then widely renowned, Doctor Thomas 
 Short, was in attendance. Several of the prescriptions 
 have been preserved. One of them is signed by four- 
 teen Doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot 
 iron was applied to his head. A loathsome volatile 
 salt, extracted from human skulls, was forced into his 
 mouth. He recovered his senses ; but he was evi- 
 dently in a situation of extreme danger. 
 
 The Queen was for a time assiduous in her attend- 
 ance. The Duke of York scarcely left his brother's 
 bedside. The Primate and four other Bishops were 
 then in London. They remained at Whitehall all day, 
 and took it by tui'ns to sit up at night in the King's 
 room. The news of his illness filled the capital with 
 sorrow and dismay. For his easy temper and aifable 
 manners had won the affection of a large part of the 
 nation ; and those who most disliked him preferred his 
 unprincipled levity to the stern and earnest bigotry of 
 his brother. 
 
 On the morning of Thursday the fifth of February, 
 the London Gazette announced that His Majesty was 
 1 Dugdale's Correspondence. 
 
 II
 
 1685.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 15 
 
 going on well, and was thought by the physicians to 
 be out of danger. The bells of all the churches ranij; 
 merrily ; and preparations for bonfires were made in 
 the streets. But in the evening it was known that a 
 relapse had taken place, and that the medical attend- 
 ants had given up all hope. The public mind was 
 greatly disturbed ; but there was no disposition to tu- 
 mult. -The Duke of York, who had already taken on 
 himself to give orders, ascertained that the City was 
 perfectly quiet, and that he might without difficulty be 
 proclaimed as soon as his brother should expire. 
 
 The King was in great pain, and complained that he 
 felt as if a fire was burning within him. Yet he bore 
 up against his sufferings with a fortitude which did not 
 seem to belono: to his soft and luxurious nature. The 
 siffht of his misery affected his wife so much that she 
 fainted, and was carried senseless to her chamber. 
 The prelates who were in waiting had from the first 
 exhorted him to prepare for his end. They now 
 thouo-ht it their duty to address him in a still more 
 urgent manner. William Saneroft, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, an honest and pious, though narrowminded, 
 man, used great freedom. '' It is time," he said, " to 
 speak out ; for, Sir, you are about to appear before a 
 Judge who is no respecter of persons." The King 
 answered not a word. 
 
 Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then tried 
 his [)o\vers of persuasion. He was a man of parts and 
 learning, of quick sensibihty and stainless virtue. His 
 elaborate works have long been forgotten ; but his 
 morning and evening hymns are still repeated daily in 
 thousands of dwellings. Though, like most of liis 
 order, zealous for monarchy, he was no sycophant. 
 Before he became a Bishop, he had maintained the 
 
 VOL. IJ. 2
 
 IG HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 honour of his pown bv refusino;, when the court was at 
 Winchester, to let Eleanor Gwynn lodge in the house 
 which he occupied there as a prebendary. ^ The King 
 had sense enough to respect so manly a spirit. Of all 
 the prelates he liked Ken the best. It was to no pur- 
 pose, however, that the good Bishop now put forth all 
 his eloquence. His solemn and pathetic exhortation 
 awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree that 
 some among them believed him to be filled with the 
 same spirit which, in the old time, had, by the mouths 
 of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes to repent- 
 ance. Charles however was unmoved. He made no 
 objection indeed when the service for the Visitation of 
 the Sick was read. In reply to the pressing questions 
 of the divines, he said that he was sorry for what he 
 had done amiss ; and he suffered the absolution to be 
 pronoiinced over him according to tlie forms of the 
 Church of England : but, when he was uro-ed to de- 
 clare that he died in the communion of that Church, 
 he seemed not to hear what was said ; and nothing 
 could induce him to take the Eucharist from the hands 
 of the Bishops. A table Avith bread and wine was 
 brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he 
 said that there was no hurry, and sometimes that he 
 was too weak. 
 
 Many attributed this apathy to contempt for divine 
 thmgs, and many to the stupor which often precedes 
 death. But there were in the palace a few persons 
 who knew better. Charles had never been a sincere 
 member of the Established Church. His mind had 
 long oscillated between Hobbism and Popery. When 
 his health was good and his spirits high, he was a 
 scoffer. In his few serious moments he was a Roman 
 1 Hawkins's Life of Ken, 1713.
 
 1686.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 17 
 
 Catliolic. The Duke of York was aware of this, but 
 was entirely occupied with the care of his own interests. 
 He had ordered the outports to be closed. He had 
 posted detachments of the Gvmrds in different parts 
 of the City. He had also procured the feeble signa- 
 ture of the dying King to an instrument by which 
 some duties, granted only till the demise of the crown, 
 were let to farm for a term of three years. These 
 things occupied the attention of James to such a de- 
 gree that, though, on ordinary occasions, he was indis- 
 creetly and unseasonably eager to bring over prose- 
 lytes to his Church, he never reflected that his brother 
 was in danger of dying without the last sacraments. 
 This neglect was the more extraordinary because the 
 Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, 
 suggested, on the morning on which the King was 
 taken ill, the propriety of procuring spiritual assistance. 
 For such assistance Charles was at last indebted to an 
 agency very different from that of his pious wife and 
 sister in law. A life of frivolity and vice had not ex- 
 tinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments 
 of religion, or all that kindness which is the glory of 
 her sex. The French Ambassador Barillon, who had 
 come to the palace to inquire after the King, paid her 
 a visit. He found her in an agony of sorrow. She took 
 him into a secret room, and poured out her whole heart 
 to him. " I have," she said, " a thing of great mo- 
 ment to tell you. If it were known, my head would 
 be in danger. The King is really and truly a Catho- 
 lic ; but he will die without being reconciled to the 
 Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergy- 
 men. I cannot enter it without giving scandal. The 
 Duke is thinking only of himself. Speak to him. Re- 
 mind him that there is a soul at stake. He is master
 
 18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 now. He can clear the room. Go tins instant, or it 
 will be too late." 
 
 Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke 
 aside, and delivered the message of the mistress. The 
 conscience of James smote him. He started as if 
 roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should 
 prevent him from discharging the sacred duty which 
 had been too long delayed. Several schemes were dis- 
 cussed and rejected. At last the Duke commanded the 
 crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, 
 and whispered something which none of the spectators 
 could hear, but which they supposed to be some ques- 
 tion about affairs of state. Charles answered in an 
 audible voice, " Yes, yes, with all my heart." None 
 of the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, 
 guessed that the King was declaring his wish to be 
 admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome. 
 
 " Shall I bring a priest ? " said the Duke. " Do, 
 brother," replied the sick man. "■ For God's sake do, 
 and lose no time. But no ; you will get into trouble." 
 " If it costs rae my life," said the Duke, " I will fetch 
 a pi-iest." 
 
 To find a priest, however, for such a purpose, at a 
 moment's notice, was not easy. For, as the law then 
 stood, the person who admitted a proselyte into the 
 Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime. 
 The Count of Castel Melhor, a Portuguese nobleman, 
 who, driven by political troubles fi*om his native land, 
 had been hospitably received at the English court, un- 
 dertook to procure a confessor. He had recourse to 
 nis countrymen who belonged to the Queen's house- 
 hold ; but he found that none of her chaplains knew 
 English or French enough to shrive the Kino;, The 
 Duke and Barillon were about to send to the Venetian
 
 1685.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 19 
 
 minister for a clergyman, when they heard that a Ben- 
 edictine monk, named John Huddleston, happened to 
 be at Whitehall. This man had, with great risk to 
 liimself, saved the King's life after the battle of 
 Worcester, and had, on that account, been, ever since 
 the Restoration, a privileged person. In the shai'pest 
 proclamations which had been put forth against Popish 
 j'l'iests, when false witnesses had inflamed the nation 
 to fury, Huddleston had been excepted by name.^ He 
 readily consented to put his life a second time in peril 
 for his prince ; but there was still a difficulty. The 
 honest monk was so illiterate that he did not know 
 what he ought to say on an occasion of such impor- 
 tance. He however obtained some hints, through the 
 intervention of Castel Melhor, from a Portuguese ec- 
 clesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the back 
 stairs by Chiffinch, a confidential servant, wlio, if the 
 satires of that ac<-e are to be credited, had often intro- 
 duced visitors of a very different description by the 
 same entrance. The Duke then, in the King's name, 
 commanded all who were ])resent to quit the room, 
 except Lewis Duras, Earl of Feversham, and John 
 Granville, Earl of Bath. Both these Lords professed 
 the Protestant rehoion ; but James conceived that he 
 could count on their fidelity. Feversham, a French- 
 man of noble birth, and nephew of the great Turenne, 
 held high rank in the English army, and was Cham- 
 berlain to the Queen. Bath was Groom of the Stole. 
 The Duke's orders were obeyed, and even the phy- 
 sicians withdrew. The back door was then opened, 
 and Father Huddleston entered. A cloak had been 
 
 1 See the London Gazette of Nov. 21. 1G78. Barrillon and Burnet say 
 that Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of Parliament made 
 •gainst priests ; but this is a mistake.
 
 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 thrown over his sacred vestments, and his shaven 
 crown was concealed by a flowing wig. " Sir," said 
 the Duke, " this good man once saved your life. He 
 now comes to save your soul." Charles faintly an- 
 swered, " He is welcome." Huddleston went throuo-h 
 his part better than had been expected. He knelt by 
 the bed, listened to the confession, pronounced the ab- 
 solution, and administered extreme unction. He asked 
 if the King wished to receive the Lord's supper. 
 " Surely," said Charles, " if I am not unworthy." 
 The host was brought in. Charles feebly strove to 
 rise and kneel before it. The priest bade him lie still, 
 and assured him that God would accept the humilia- 
 tion of the soul, and would not require the humilia- 
 tion of the body. The King found so much difficulty 
 in swallowing the bread that it was necessary to open 
 the door and to procure a glass of water. This rite 
 ended, the monk held up a crucifix before the penitent^ 
 charged him to fix his last thoughts on the sufferings 
 of the Redeemer, and withdrew. The whole ceremony 
 had occupied about three quarters of an hour ; and, 
 during that time, the courtiers who filled the outer 
 room had communicated their suspicions to each other 
 by whispers and significant glances. The door was at 
 length thrown open, and the crowd again filled the 
 chamber of death. 
 
 It was now late in the evening. The King seemed 
 much relieved by what had passed. His natural chil- 
 dren were brought to his bedside, the Dukes of Graf- 
 ton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the 
 Duchess of Cleveland, the Duke of Saint Albans, son 
 of Eleanor Gwynn, and the Duke of Richmond, son 
 of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them 
 all, but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond.
 
 1685.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 21 
 
 One face which should have been there was wanting. 
 The eldest and best beloved child was an exile and a 
 wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his 
 father. 
 
 During the night Charles earnestly recommended 
 the Duchess of Portsmouth and her boy to the care of 
 James ; *' And do not," he goodnaturedly added, " let 
 poor Nelly starve." The Queen sent excuses for her 
 absence by Halifax. She said that she was too mvich 
 disordered to resume her post by the couch, and im- 
 plored pardon for any offence which she might unwit- 
 tingly have given. " She ask my pardon, poor woman ! " 
 cried Charles ; " I ask hers with all my heart." 
 
 The morning light began to peep through the win- 
 dows of Whitehall ; and Charles desired the attend- 
 ants to pull aside the curtains, that he might have one 
 more look at the day. He remarked that it was time 
 to wind up a clock which stood near his bed. These 
 little circumstances were long remembered, because 
 they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared 
 himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession 
 of his faculties. He apologized to those who had stood 
 round him all night for the trouble which he had 
 caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable 
 time dying ; but he hoped that they would excuse it. 
 Tiiis was the last glimpse of that exquisite urbanity, so 
 often found potent to charm away the resentment of a 
 justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of 
 the dying man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. 
 Great numbers had repaired to the churches at the 
 hour of morning service. When the prayer for the 
 King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how 
 deeply his people felt for him. At noon on Friday, the 
 sixth of February, he passed away without a struggle.^ 
 
 1 Clarke's Life of James the Sccoud, i. 74G. Oiig. Mem.; Barillun's De-
 
 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 At tliat time the common people throughout Europe, 
 SuBpicions ^"^ uowhere more than in England, were in 
 of poison. the habit of attributing the deaths of princes, 
 
 spatch of Feb. _8^. 1685 ; Van Citter's De.spatches of Feb. ^3^. and Feb. -«-. ; 
 Huddleston's Narrative; Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield 
 277.; Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, First Series, iii. 333.; Second Series.^ 
 iv. 74.; Chaillot MS.; Burnet, i. 606.; Evelyn's Diaiy, Feb. 4. 1684 ■ 
 Welwood's Memoirs, 140. ; North's Life of Guildford, 2S2. ; Examen, 648. ; 
 Hawkins's Life of Ken ; Drj'dcn's Threnodla Augustalis ; Sir H. Halford's 
 E.ssay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See also a fragment of a letter 
 which Lord Bruce wrote long after he had become Earl of Ailesbury, and 
 which is printed in the European Magazine for April, 179.5. Ailesburv 
 calls Burnet an impostor. Yet his own nan-ative and Burnet's will not, to 
 any candid and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other. I have 
 seen in the British Museum, and also in the Library of the lioyal Institu- 
 tion, a curious broadside containing an account of the death of Charles. 
 It will be found in the Somers Collection. The author was evidently a 
 zealous Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good sources of in- 
 formation. I strongly suspect that he had been in communication, directly 
 or indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length ; but the 
 initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said that the 
 D. of Y. was reminded of the duty which he owed to his brother by P. M. 
 A. 0. F. I must own myself quite unable to decipher the last five letters. 
 It is some consolation that Sir Walter Scott was equally unsuccessful. 
 (1848.) Since the first edition of this work was published, several verj' in- 
 genious conjectures touching these mysterious letters have been communi- 
 cated to me; but I am convinced that the true solution has not yet been 
 suggested. (1850.) 1 still greatly doubt whether the riddle lias been 
 solved. But the most plausible interpretation is one which, with some va- 
 riations, occurred, almost at the same time, to myself and to several other 
 persons; I am inclined to read " Pt;re Mansuete A Cordelier Friar." Man- 
 suete, a Coi'delier, was then James's confessor. To Mansuete therefore 't 
 peculiarly belonged to remind James of a sacred duty which had been cu .- 
 pably neglected. The writer of the broadside must have been unwilling 
 to inform the world that a soul which many devout Eoman Catholics had 
 left to perish had been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity 
 of a woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would 
 prefer a fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not 
 fail to give scandal. (1856.) 
 
 It should seem that no transactions in history ought to be more accu- 
 rately known to us than those which took place round the deathbed of 
 Charles the Second. We have several relations written by persons who 
 were actually in his room. We have several relations written by persons 
 who, though not themselves eye witnesses, had the best opportunities of 
 obtaining information from eye witnesses. Yfet whoever attempts to digest 
 this vast mass of materials into a consistent narrative will find the Uask a
 
 1685.] CHARLES THE SECOND. 23 
 
 especially when the prince was popular and the death 
 unexpected, to the foulest and darkest kind of assas- 
 sination. Thus James the First had been accused of 
 poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles the First had 
 been accused of poisoning James the First. Thus 
 when, in the time of the Commonwealth, the Princess 
 Elizabeth died at Carisbrook, it was loudly asserted 
 that Cromwell had stooped to the senseless and das- 
 tardly wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with the 
 food of a young girl whom he had no conceivable 
 motive to injure.^ A few years later, the rapid de- 
 composition of Cromwell's own corpse was ascribed 
 by many to a deadly potion administered in his medi- 
 cine. The death of Ciiarles the Second could scarcely 
 fail to occasion similar rumours. The public ear had 
 been repeatedly abused by stories of Popish plots 
 against his life. There was, therefore, in many minds, 
 a 'strong predisposition to suspicion ; and there were 
 some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so pre- 
 disposed, might seem to indicate that a crime had been 
 ])erpetrated. The fourteen Doctors who deliberated 
 on the King's case contradicted each other and them- 
 selves. Some of them thought that his fit was epilep- 
 
 (lifficult one. Indeed James and his wife, when they tohl the story to the 
 nuns of C'haillot, could not agree as to some circumstances. The Queen 
 said tliat, after Charles had received the last Sacraments, the Protestant 
 Bishops renewed their exhortations. The King said that nothing of the 
 kind took place. " Surely," said the Queen, " you told me so yourself." 
 ' It is impossible that I could have told you ."o," said the King; " for noth- 
 ing of the sort hap])cncd." 
 
 It is much to be regretted that Sir Henrj' Ilaltbrd should have taken so 
 little trouble to ascertain the facts on which he pronounced judgment, ile 
 does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the narratives of 
 James, Barillon, and Iluddleston. 
 
 ' l.'laiendon nuMitions this c.ilumny with just scorn. " According to the 
 charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it believed 
 to be by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor any proof ever 
 after made." Book xiv.
 
 24 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. LCh. FV 
 
 tic, and that he should be suffered to have his doze 
 out. The majority pronounced him apoplectic, and 
 tortured him during some hours like an Indian at a 
 stake. Tihen it was determined to call his complaint 
 a fever, and to administer doses of bark. One phy- 
 sician, however, protested against this course, and 
 assured the Queen that his brethren would kill the 
 King among them. Nothing better than dissension 
 and vacillation could be expected from such a multi- 
 tude of advisers. But many of the vulgar not un- 
 naturally concluded, from the perplexity of the great 
 masters of the healing art, that the malady had some 
 extraordinary origin. There is reason to believe that 
 a horrible suspicion did actually cross the mind of 
 Short, who, though skilful in his profession, seems to 
 have been a nervous and fmciful man, and whose 
 perceptions were probably confused by dread of the 
 odious imputations to which he, as a Roman Catholic, 
 was peculiarly exposed. We cannot, therefore, won- 
 der that wild stories without number were repeated 
 and believed by the common people. His Majesty's 
 tonsue had swelled to the size of a neat's tongue. 
 A cake of deleterious powder had been found in his 
 brain. There were blue spots on his breast. There 
 were black spots on his shoulder. Something had 
 been put into his snuff-box. Something had been put 
 into his broth. Something had been put into his 
 favourite dish of eggs and ambergrease. The Duchess 
 of Portsmouth had poisoned him in a cup of chocolate. 
 The Queen had poisoned him in a jar of dried pears. 
 Such tales ought to be preserved ; for they furnish us 
 with a measure of the intellio;ence and virtue of the 
 generation which eagerly devoured them. That no 
 rumour of the same kind has ever, in the present age.
 
 I 
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 25 
 
 found credit among us, even when lives on which 
 great interests depended have been terminated by 
 unforeseen attacks of disease, is to be attributed partly 
 to the progress of medical and chemical science, but 
 partly also, it may be hoped, to the progress which 
 the nation has made in good sense, justice, and hu- 
 man itv.^ 
 
 When all was .over, James retired from the bedside 
 to his closet, where, during a quarter of an gpeechof 
 hour, he remained alone. Meanwhile the thrprily*" 
 Privy Councillors who were in the palace Council, 
 assembled. The new King came forth, and took his 
 place at the head of the board. He commenced his 
 administration, according to usage, by a speech to the 
 Council. He expressed his regret for the loss which 
 he had just sustained, and he promised to imitate the 
 singular lenity which had distinguished the late reign. 
 He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a 
 fondness for arbitrary power. But that was not the 
 only falsehood which h.ad been told of him. He was 
 resolved to maintain the established government both 
 in Church and State. The Church of Enoland he 
 knew to be eminently loyal. It should therefore 
 always be his care to support and defend her. The 
 laws of England, he also knew, were sufficient to 
 make him as great a King as he could wish to be. 
 He would not relinquish his own rights ; but lie would 
 
 1 Welwood, 139.; Burnet, i. 609.; Sheffield's Character of Charles the 
 Second; North's Life of Guildford, 2.")2.; Exanien, G48. ; Revolution Poli- 
 tics; Ilifjgons on Unmet. What North says of the embarrassment and 
 vacillation of the physicians is contirmed by the despatches of Van Citters. 
 I have been much perplexed by liic strange story about Short's suspicions. 
 I was, at one time, inclined to adopt North's solution. But, though I 
 attach little weight to the authority of Welwood and Burnet in such a 
 case, I cannot reject the testimony of so well informed and so unwilling a 
 witness as IShetKeld.
 
 26 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV, 
 
 respect the rights of others. He had formerly risked 
 his hfe in defence of his country, and he would still 
 go as far as any man in support of her just liberties. 
 
 This speech was not, like modern speeches on simi- 
 lar occasions, carefully prepared by the advisers of the 
 sovereign. It was the extemporaneous expression of 
 the new King's feelings at a moment of great excite- 
 ment. The members of the Council broke forth into 
 clamours of delight and gratitude. The Lord Presi- 
 dent, Rochester, in the name of his brethren, expressed 
 a hope that His Majesty's most Avelcome declaration 
 wovild be made public. The Solicitor General, Hene- 
 age Fhich, offered to act as clerk. He was a zealous 
 churchman, and, as such, was naturally desirous that 
 there should be some permanent record of the gracious 
 pronn'ses which had just been uttered. " Those prom- 
 ises," he said, " have made so deep an impression on 
 me that I can repeat them word for word." He soon 
 produced his report. James read it, approved of it, 
 and ordered it to be published. At a later period he 
 said that he had taken this step without due considera- 
 tion, that his unpremeditated expressions touching the 
 Chiu'ch of England were too strong, and that Finch 
 had, with a dexterity which at the time escaped notice, 
 made them still strono-er.^ 
 
 The King had been exhausted by long watching 
 
 James pro- ^^^'^ ^Y many violent emotions. He now re- 
 claimed, ^ij.^^j ^^ ^gg^_ rj^j^g Pj.j^^^ Councillors, having 
 
 respectfully accompanied him to his bedchamber, re- 
 turned to their seats, and issued orders for the cere- 
 mony of proclamation. The Guards were under arms ; 
 the heralds appeared in their gorgeous coats; and the 
 
 ' London Gazette, Feb. 9. 1084; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii 
 8.; Barillon, Feb. JL; Evelyn's l)i.an\ Feb- 6.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 27 
 
 pageant proceeded without any obstruction. Casks of 
 wine were broken up in tlie streets, and all who passed 
 were invited to drink to the health of the new sover- 
 eign. But, though an occasional shout was raised, the 
 people were not in a joyous mood. Tears were seen 
 in many eyes ; and it was remarked that there was 
 scarcely a housemaid in London who had not contri ved 
 to procure some fragment of black crape in honour of 
 King Charles.^ 
 
 The ftmeral called forth much censure. It would, 
 indeed, hardly have been accounted worthy of a noble 
 and opulent subject. The Tories gently blamed the 
 new King's parsimony ; the Whigs sneered at his want 
 of natural affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scot- 
 land exultingly proclaimed that the curse denounced 
 of old against wicked princes had been signally ful- 
 filled, and that the departed tyrant had been buried 
 with the burial of an ass.^ Yet James commenced his 
 administration with a large measure of public good will. 
 His speech to the Coimcil appeared in print, and the 
 impression which it produced was highly favourable to 
 him. This, then, was the prince whom a faction had 
 driven into exile and had tried to rob of his birthright, 
 on the ground that he was a deadly enemy to the re- 
 ligion and laws of England. He had triumphed ; he 
 was on the throne ; and his first act was to deckre 
 that he would defend the Church, and would stricny 
 respect the rights of his people. The estimate which 
 all parties had formed of his character, added weight 
 to every word that fell from him. The Whigs called 
 him haughty, imj)lacable, obstinate, regardless of public 
 
 1 See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the Examen, 647. ; 
 Buniet, i. G2(). ; Iliffgons on I'lirnet. 
 
 2 London CJa/.etle, Fch. H. 163i; Evelyn's Diary of the same day; Bur- 
 Det, i. GIO. ; The Hind let loose.
 
 28 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cu. IV. 
 
 opinion. The Tories, Avhile they extolled his princely 
 virtues, had often lamented his neglect of the arts 
 which conciliate popularity. Satire itself had never 
 represented him as a man likely to court public favour 
 by professing what he did not feel, and by promising 
 what he had no intention of performing. On the 
 Sunday which followed his accession, his speech was 
 quoted in many pulpits. " We have now for our 
 Church," cried one loyal preacher, "the word of a 
 King, and of a King who was never worse than his 
 word." This pointed sentence was fast circulated 
 through town and country, and was soon the watch- 
 word of the whole Tory party. ^ 
 
 The great offices of state had become vacant by the 
 state of the demise of the croAvn ; and it was necessary 
 tion. for James to determine how they should be 
 
 filled. Few of the members of the late cabinet had 
 any reason to expect his favour. Sunderland, who was 
 Secretary of State, and Godolphin, who was First 
 Lord of the Treasury, had supported the Exclusion 
 Bill. Halifax, who held the Privy Seal, had opposed 
 that bill with unrivalled powers of argument and elo- 
 quence. But Halifax was the mortal enemy of des- 
 potism and of Popery. He saw with dread the prog- 
 ress of the French arms on the continent, and the in- 
 fluence of French o-old in the counsels of Enoland. 
 Had his advice been followed, the laws would have 
 been strictly observed ; clemency would have been 
 extended to the vanquished Whigs : the Parliament 
 would have been convoked in due season ; an attempt 
 would have been made to reconcile our domestic fac- 
 tions ; and the principles of the Triple Alliance would 
 again have guided our foreign policy. He had there- 
 1 Bumet, i. 628. ; Lestrange, Observator, Feb. 11. 16a|.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 29 
 
 fore incurred tlie bitter animosity of James. The Lord * 
 Keeper Guildford could hardl}'' be said to belong to 
 either of the parties into which tlie court was divided. 
 He could by no means be called a friend of liberty ; 
 and yet he had so great a reverence for the letter of 
 the law that he was not a serviceable tool of arbitrary 
 power. He was accordingly designated by the vehe- 
 ment Tories as a Trimmer, and was to James an ob- 
 ject of aversion with which contempt was largely nnn- 
 gled. Ormond, Avho was Lord Steward of the House- 
 hold and Viceroy of Ireland, then resided at Dublin. 
 His claims on the royal gratitude were superior to those 
 of any other subject. He had fought bravely for 
 Charles the First ; he had shared the exile of Charles 
 the Second ; and, since the Restoration, he had, in 
 spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty unstained. 
 Though he had been disgraced during the predomi- 
 nance of the Cabal, he had never gone into factious 
 opposition, and had, in the days of the Popish Plot and 
 the Exclusion Bill, been foremost among the support- 
 ers of the throne. He was now old, and had been re- 
 cently tried by the most cruel of all calamities. He had 
 followed to the grave a son who should have been his 
 own chief mourner, the gallant Ossory. The eminent 
 services, the venerable age, and the domestic misfortunes 
 of Ormond made him an object of general interest to 
 the nation. The Cavaliers regarded him as, both bv 
 right of seniority and by right of merit, their head; and 
 the Whigs knew that, faithful as he had always been to 
 thi; cause of monarchy, he was no friend either to Po- 
 pery or to arbitrary power. But, high as he stood in 
 the public estimation, he had little favour to expect from 
 his new master. James, indeed, while still a subject, 
 had urged his brother to make a complete change in
 
 30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. IV. 
 
 * tiie Irish administration. Charles had assented ; and 
 it had been arranged that, in a few months, there 
 should be a new Lord Lieutenant.^ 
 
 Rochester was the only member of the cabinet who 
 New arrange- stood high in the favour of the King. The 
 ments. general expectation was that he would be im- 
 
 mediately placed at the head of affairs, and that all the 
 other great officers of state would be changed. This 
 expectation proved to be well founded in part only. 
 Rochester was declared Lord Treasui'cr, and thus be- 
 came prime minister. Neither a Lord High Admiral, 
 nor a Board of Admiralty was appointed. The new 
 King, who loved the details of naval business, and 
 would have made a respectable clerk in the dockyard 
 at Chatham, determined to be his own minister of ma- 
 rine. Under him the management of that important 
 department was confided to Samuel Pepys, whose li- 
 brary and diary have kept his name fresh to our time. 
 No servant of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. 
 Sunderland exerted so much art and address, employed 
 so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many 
 secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Go- 
 dolphin's obsequiousness, industry, experience, and 
 taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer 
 wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to 
 the Queen. With these three Lords the Khig took 
 counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, 
 Ormond, and Guildford, he determined not yet to dis- 
 miss them, but merely to humble and annoy them. 
 
 Halifax was told that he must give up the Privy 
 Seal and accept the Presidency of the Council. He 
 submitted with extreme reluctance. For, though tlie 
 
 1 The letters which passed between Rochester and Orinond ot 'bis sub- 
 ject will be found in the Clarendon Correspondence.
 
 less.] JAMES THE SECOND. 31 
 
 President of tlie Council had always taken precedence 
 of the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Privy Seal was, in 
 that age, a much more important officer than the Lord 
 President. Rochester had not forgotten the jest which 
 had been made a few months before on his own re- 
 moval from the Treasury, and enjoyed in his turn the 
 pleasure of kicking his rival up stairs. The Privy 
 Seal Avas delivered to Rochester's elder brother, Henry 
 Earl of Clarendon. 
 
 To Barillon James expressed the strongest dislike of 
 Halifax. " I know him well, I never can trust him. 
 He shall have no share in the management of public 
 business. As to the place which I have given him, it 
 will just serve to show how little influence he has." 
 But to Halifax it was thought convenient to hold a 
 very different language. " All the past is forgotten," 
 said the King, " except the service which you did me 
 in the debate on the Exclusion Bill." This speech 
 has often been cited to prove that James was not so 
 vindictive as he has been called by his enemies. It 
 seems rather to prove that he by no means deserved 
 the praises which have been bestowed on his sincerity 
 by his friends.^ 
 
 Ormond was politely informed that his services were 
 no longer needed in Ireland, and was invited to repair 
 to Whitehall, and to perform the functions of Lord 
 Steward. He dutifully submitted, but did not affect to 
 deny that the new arrangement wounded his feelings 
 deeply. On the eve of his departure he gave a mag- 
 nificent banquet at Kilmainham Hospital, then just 
 completed, to the officers of the garrison of Dublin. 
 After dinner lie rose, filled a goblet to the brim with 
 
 J- The ministerial changes arc announced in the London Gazette, Fcib. 
 19. 1G8|. See Burnet, i. G21.; Harillon, I'eb. ^g^g-; and *^'^ 
 vol.. II. 3
 
 32 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. FV 
 
 wine, and, liolding it up, asked whether he had spilt 
 one drop. " No, gentlemen ; whatever the courtiers 
 may say, I am not yet sunk into dotage. My hand 
 does not fail me yet ; and my hand is not steadier than 
 my heart. To the health of King James ! " Such 
 was the last farewell of Ormond to Ireland. He left 
 the administration in the hands of Lord Justices, and 
 repaired to London, where he was received with un- 
 usual max'ks of public respect. Many persons of rank 
 went forth to meet him on the road. A Ions; train 
 of equipages followed him into Saint James's Square, 
 where his mansion stood ; and the Square was thronged 
 by a multitude which greeted him with loud acclama- 
 tion s.^ 
 
 The Great Seal was left in Guildford's custody : but 
 Sir George ^ marked indignity was at the same time of- 
 jeffreys. fered to him. It was determined that another 
 lawyer of more vigour and audacity should be called 
 to assist in the administration. The person selected 
 was Sir Geoi'ge Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of 
 King's Bfench. The depravity of this man has passed 
 into a proverb. Both the great English parties have 
 attacked his memory with emulous violence : for the 
 Whigs considered him as their most barbarous enemy ; 
 and the Tories found it convenient to throw on him 
 the blame of all the crimes which had sullied their tri- 
 umph. A diligent and candid inquiry will show that 
 some frightful stories which have been told concerning 
 him are false or exaggerated. Yet the dispassionate 
 historian will be able to make very little deduction 
 from the vast mass of infamy with which the memoiT 
 of the wicked judge has been loaded. 
 
 » Carte's Life of Ormond ; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ire- 
 land, 1690; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 33 
 
 He was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but con- 
 stitutionally prone to insolence and to the angry pas- 
 sions. When just emerging from boyhood he had 
 risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where 
 advocates have always used a license of tongue un- 
 known in Westminster Hall. Here, during many 
 vears, his chief business was to examine and crossex- 
 amine the most hardened miscreants of a gi'eat capital. 
 Daily conflicts with prostitutes and thieves called out 
 and exercised his powei's so effectually that he became 
 the most consummate bully ever known in his profes- 
 sion. Tenderness for others and respect for himself were 
 feelings alike unknown to him. He acquired a bound- 
 less command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express 
 hatred and contemj)t. The profusion of maledictions 
 and vituperative ei)ithets which composed his vocabu- 
 lary could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket 
 or the bearijarden. His countenance and his voice 
 must always have been unamiable. But these natural 
 advantages, — for such he seems to have thought them, 
 — he had improved to such a degree that there were 
 few wlio, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear 
 him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate 
 upon his brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascina- 
 tion for the unha]>py victim on whom they were fixed. 
 Yet his brow and his eye were less terrible than the 
 savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fiiry, as was 
 said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the 
 thunder of the judgment day. These qualifications 
 he carried, while still a young man, from the bar to 
 the bench. He early became Common Serjeant and 
 then Recorder of London. As a judge at the City 
 sessions he exhibited the same propensities which after-
 
 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 wards, in a higher post, gained for him an unenviablt 
 immortahty. Ah-eady might be remarked in liim the 
 most odious vice which is incident to human nature, a 
 dehght in misery merely as miseiy. There was a 
 fiendish exultation in the way in which he pronounced 
 sentence on offenders. Their weeping and imploring 
 seemed to titillate him voluptuously ; and he loved to 
 scare them into fits by dilating with luxuriant amplifi- 
 cation on all the details of what they M^ere to suffer. 
 Thus, when he had an opportunity of ordei'ing an un- 
 lucky adventuress to be whipped at the cart's tail, 
 " Hangman," he would exclaim, " I charge you to pay 
 particular attention to this lady ! Scourge her soundly, 
 man. Scourge her till the blood runs down ! It is 
 Christmas, a cold time for Madam to strip in ! See 
 that you warm her shoulders thoroughly ! " ^ He was 
 hardly less facetious when he passed judgment on poor 
 Lodowick Muggleton, the drunken tailor who fancied 
 liimself a prophet. " Impudent rogue ! " roared Jef^ 
 freys, " thou shalt have an easy, easy, easy punishment ! " 
 One part of this easy punishment was the pillory, in 
 which the wretched fanatic was almost killed with 
 brickbats.^ 
 
 By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hard- 
 ened to that temper which tyrants require in their 
 worst implements. He had hitherto looked for profes- 
 sional advancement to the corporation of London. He 
 had therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had 
 always appeared to be in a higher state of exhilaration 
 when he explained to Popish priests that they were to 
 
 1 Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678. 
 
 '2 The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v. chapter v. In this 
 V, ork, Lodowick, after his fasliion, revenges himself on the " bawling 
 devil," as he calls Jetfieys, by a string of curses which Ernulphus, or Jef' 
 frej's himself, might have envied. The trial was in January, 1677.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 35 
 
 be cut down alive, and were to see their own bowels 
 burned, than when he passed ordinary sentences of 
 death. But, as soon as he had got all that the City 
 could o;ive, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass 
 and his tongue of venom to the Court. Chiffinch, who 
 was accustomed to act as broker in infamous contracts 
 of more than one kind, lent his aid. He had con- 
 ducted many amorous and many political intrigues; 
 but he assuredly never rendered a more scandalous 
 service to his masters than when he introduced Jeffreys 
 to Whitehall. The renegade soon found a patron in 
 the obdurate and revengeful James, but was always 
 regarded with scorn and disgust by Charles, whose 
 faults, great as they were, had no affinity Avitli inso- 
 lence and cruelty. " That man," said the King, " has 
 no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impu- 
 dence than ten carted streetwalkers." ^ Work was 
 to be done, however, which could be trusted to no 
 man who reverenced law or was sensible of shame ; 
 and thus Jeffreys, at an age at which a barrister thinks 
 liimself fortunate if he is employed to conduct an im- 
 portant cause, was made Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench. 
 
 His enemies could not deny that he possessed some 
 of the qualities of a great judge. His legal knowledge, 
 indeed, was merely such as he had picked up in prac- 
 tice of no very high kind. But he had one of those 
 happily constituted ijitellects which, across labyrinths 
 of soj)histry, and through masses of immaterial facts, 
 go straight to the true point. Of his intellect, how- 
 ever, he seldom had the full use. Even in civil causes 
 his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually disor- 
 
 1 This saying is to bo found in many contemporary pamphlets. Titua 
 Gates was never tired of quoting it. Sec his EIkuv BaaiTuKT/.
 
 36 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 dered his judgment. To enter his court was to enter 
 the den of a wild beast, which none could tame, and 
 which was as hkely to be roused to rage by caresses as 
 by attacks. He frequently poured forth on plaintiffs 
 and defendants, barristers and attorneys, Avitnesses and 
 jurymen, torrents of frantic abuse, intermixed with 
 oaths and curses. His looks and tones had inspired 
 terror when he was merely a young advocate strug- 
 gling into practice. Now that he was at the head of the 
 most formidable tribunal in the realm, there were few 
 indeed who did not tremble before him. Even when 
 he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. 
 But in general his reason was overclouded and his evil 
 passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His 
 evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People 
 who sav\' him only over his bottle would have supposed 
 him to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to 
 low company and low merriment, but social and good- 
 humoured. He was constantly suri'ounded on such 
 occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from 
 among the vilest pettifoggers who practised before 
 him. These men bantered and abused each other for 
 his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk, 
 sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, 
 hugged and kissed them in an ecstacy of drunken 
 fondness. But, though wine at first seemed to soften 
 his heart, the effect a few hours later was verv differ- 
 ent. He often came to the iudg-ment seat, havincr 
 kept the coui-t waiting long, and yet having but half 
 slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes star- 
 ing like those of a maniac. When he was in this 
 state, his boon companions of the preceding night, if 
 they were wise, ke])t out of his way : for the recollec- 
 tion of the familiarity to Avhich he had admitted them
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 37 
 
 inflamed his malignity ; and he was sure to take every 
 opportunity of overwhehning them with execration ana 
 invective. Not the least odious of his many odious 
 peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly 
 browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of 
 maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on 
 his favour. 
 
 The services Avhich the government had expected 
 from him were performed, not merely without flinch- 
 inii-, but eagerly and ti'iumphantly. His first exploit 
 was the judicial murder of Algernon Sidney. What 
 followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning. 
 Respectable Tories lamented the disgrace which the 
 barbarity and indecency of so great a functionary 
 brought upon the administration of justice. But the 
 excesses which filled such men with horror were titles 
 to the esteem of James. Jeffi-eys, therefore, very soon 
 after the death of Charles, obtained a seat in the cabi- 
 net and a peerage. This last honour was a signal mark 
 of royal approbation. For, since the judicial system of 
 the realm had been remodelled in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, no Chief Justice had been a Lord of Parlia- 
 ment.^ 
 
 Guildford now found himself superseded in all his 
 political functions, and restricted to his business as a 
 judge in ecpiity. At Council he was treated by Jef- 
 freys with marked incivility. The whole legal patron- 
 age was in the hands of the Chief Justice ; and it was 
 
 ' 'Ihe chief sources of information concerning Jeffreys are the State 
 Trials and North's Life of Lord Guildford. Some touches of minor inipor- 
 laiu'e I owe to conteiiiporary jjauiphlets in verse and prose. Such arc llic 
 Hloody Assizes, the Life and i)eath of George Lord .Jellreys, the I'aneiiyric 
 Dn the late T-ord Jctlreys, the Letter to the Lord Chancellor, .leflVeys's 
 I'.U-ixy. See also Evelyn's Diary, Dec. .5. 1083, Oct. ."Jl. 108.5. I scarcely 
 need advise every reader to consult Lmd C;iiii|il)e.ll's excellent Life of Jef- 
 freys.
 
 38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 well known by the bar that the surest way to propitiate 
 the Chief Justice was to treat the Lord Keeper with 
 disrespect. 
 
 James had not been many hours king when a dis- 
 The revenue P^^^ arosc between the two heads of the law. 
 out'anlct'of" The customs had been settled on Charles 
 I'uriiameut. ^j^]^^ f^^. j^fg^ ^^^^j p^^]^ ^^^ therefore be le- 
 
 gaily exacted by the new sovereign. Some weeks 
 must elapse before a House of Commons could be 
 chosen. If, in the meantime, the duties were sus- 
 pended, the revenue would suffer ; the regular course 
 to trade would be interrupted ; the consumer would 
 derive no benefit ; and the only gainers would be those 
 fortunate speculators whose cargoes might happen to 
 arrive during the interval between the demise of the 
 crown and the meeting of the Parliament. The Treas- 
 ury was besieged by merchants whose warehouses were 
 filled with goods on which duty had been paid, and 
 who were in grievous apprehension of being undersold 
 and ruined. Impartial men must admit that this was 
 one of those cases in which a government may be 
 justified in deviating fi'om the strictly constitutional 
 course. But, when it is necessary to deviate from the 
 strictly constitutional course, the deviation clearly ought 
 to be no greater than the necessity requires. Guild- 
 ■ford felt this, and gave advice which did him honour. 
 He proposed that the duties should be levied, but 
 should be kept in the Exchequer apart from other 
 sums till the Parliament should meet. In this way 
 tlie King, while violating the letter of the laws, would 
 show that he wished to conform to their spirit. Jef- 
 freys gave very different counsel. He advised James 
 to put forth an edict declai'ing it to be His Majesty's 
 will and pleasure that the customs should continue to
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 39 
 
 be paid. Tliis advice was well suited to the King's 
 temper. The judicious proposition of the Lord Keeper 
 was rejected as worthy only of a Whig, or of what Avas 
 still worse, a Trimmer. A proclamation, such as the 
 Chief Justice had suggested, appeared. Some people 
 expected that a violent outbreak of public indignation 
 Avould be the consequence : but they were deceived. 
 The spirit of opposition had not yet revived ; and the 
 court might safely venture to take steps which, five 
 years before, would have produced a rebellion. In the 
 City of London, lately so turbulent, scarcely a murmur 
 was heard. ^ 
 
 The proclamation, which announced that the cus- 
 toms would still be levied, announced also APariiameut 
 that a Parliament would shoi-tly meet. It "^"^ 
 was not without many misgivings that James had de- 
 termined to call the Estates of his realm together. 
 The moment was, indeed, most auspicious for a gen- 
 eral election. Never since the accession of the House 
 of Stuart had the constituent bodies been so favourably 
 disposed towards the court. But the new sovereign's 
 mind was haunted by an apprehension not to be men- 
 tioned, even at this distance of time, without shame 
 and indignation. He was afraid that bv summoning 
 his Parliament he might incur the displeasure of the 
 Kino; of Fi-ance. 
 
 To the Kino; of France it mattered little which of 
 the two Enolish factions triumphed at the 
 elections : for all the Parliaments which had between 
 
 . ■ . , ■lanii'S and 
 
 met smce the Restoration, whatever niiglit the French 
 have been their temper as to domestic poli- 
 tics, had been jealous of the growing ])ower of the 
 House of Bourbon. On this subject there was little 
 
 1 London Gazette, Feb. 12. 168|. North's Life of Guildford, 254.
 
 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. IV. 
 
 difference between the Whigs and the sturdy country 
 gentlemen who formed the main strength of the Tory 
 party. Lewis had therefore spared neither bribes nor 
 menaces to prevent Charles from convoking the 
 Houses ; and James, who had fi'om the first been in 
 the secret of his brother's foreign pohtics, had, in be- 
 coming King of England, become also a hireling and 
 irassal of France. 
 
 Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who now 
 formed the interior cabinet, were perfectly aware that 
 their late master had been in the habit of receiving 
 money from the court of Versailles. They were con- 
 sulted by James as to the expediency of convoking the 
 legislature. They acknowledged the importance of 
 keeping Lewis in good humour : but it seemed to them 
 that the calling of a Parliament was not a matter of 
 choice. Patient as the nation appeared to be, there 
 were limits to its patience. The principle that the 
 money of the subject could not be lawfully taken by 
 the King without the assent of the Commons, was 
 firmly rooted in the public mind ; and though, on an 
 extraordinary emergency, even Whigs might be will- 
 ing to pay, during a few weeks, duties not imposed by 
 statute, it was certain that even Tories would become 
 refractory if such irregular taxation should continue 
 longer than the special circumstances which alone jus- 
 tified it. The Houses then must meet ; and, since it 
 was so, the sooner they were summoned the better. 
 Even the short delay which would be occasioned by a 
 reference to Versailles might produce irreparable mis- 
 chief. Discontent and suspicion would spread fast 
 through society. Halifax would complain that the 
 fundamental principles of the constitution were vio- 
 lated. The Lord Keeper, like a cowardly pedantic
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 41 
 
 special pleader as he was, would take the same side. 
 What might have been done with a good grace would 
 at last be done with a bad grace. Those very minis- 
 ters whom His Majesty most wished to lower in the 
 public estimation would gain popularity at his expense. 
 The ill temper of the nation might seriously affect the 
 result of the elections. These arguments were unan- 
 swerable. The King therefore notified to the country 
 his intention of holding a Parliament. But he was 
 painfully anxious to exculpate himself from the guilt 
 of having acted undutifully and disrespectfully towards 
 France. He led Barillon into a private room, and 
 there apologized for having dared to take so important 
 a step without the previous sanction of Lewis. " As- 
 sure your master," said James, " of my gratitude and 
 attachment. I know that without his protection I can 
 do nothing. I know what troubles my brother brought 
 on himself by not adhering steadily to France. I will 
 take good care not to let the Houses meddle with i'or- 
 eign affairs. If I see in them any disposition to make 
 mischief, I will send them about their business. Ex- 
 plain this to my good brother. I hope that he will not 
 take it amiss that I have acted without consulting him. 
 He has a right to be consulted ; and it is my wish to 
 consult him about everything. But in this case the 
 delay even of a week might have produced serious 
 consequences." 
 
 These ignominious excuses were, on the following 
 morning, repeated by Rochester. Barillon received 
 them civilly. Rochester, grown bolder, proceeded to 
 ask for money. " It will be well laid out," he said ; 
 " your master cannot employ his revenues better. 
 Represent to him strongly how important it is that 
 the Kino- of Euirland should be dependent, not
 
 42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IT. 
 
 on Ills own people, but on the friendship of France 
 alone." ^ 
 
 Barillon hastened to communicate to Lewis the 
 wishes of the English government ; but Lewis had 
 already anticipated them. His first act, after he was 
 apprised of the death of Charles, was to collect bills of 
 exchancre on England to the amount of five hundred 
 thousand livres, a sum equivalent to about thirty-seven 
 thousand five hundred pounds sterling. Such bills 
 were not then to be easily procured in Paris at a day's 
 notice. In a few hours, however, the purchase was 
 effected, and a courier started for London.^ As soon 
 as Barillon received the remittance, he flew to White- 
 hall, and communicated the welcome news. James 
 was not ashamed to shed, or pretend to shed, tears of 
 delight and gratitude. " Nobody but yom' King," he 
 said, " does such kind, such noble things. I never can 
 be grateful enough. Assure him that my attachment 
 will last to the end of my days." Rochester, Sunder- 
 land, and Godolphin came, one after another, to em- 
 brace the ambassador, and to whisper to him that he 
 had given new life to their royal master.^ 
 
 But thouffh James and his three advisers were 
 pleased with the promptitude which Lewis had shown, 
 they were by no means satisfied Avith the amount of 
 the donation. As they were afraid, however, that 
 they might give offence by importunate mendicancy, 
 they merely hinted their wishes. They declared that 
 they had no intention of haggling with so generous a 
 benefactor as the French King, and that they were 
 
 1 The chief authority for these transactions is Barillon's despatch of 
 Feb. 9 . 1G85. It will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History 
 Sp.e also Preston's letter to James, dated April i|. 1685, in Dalrymple. 
 
 2 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. .1^. 1685. 
 « BariUon, Feb. i-|. 1G8&.
 
 1688.] JAMES THE SECOND. 43 
 
 willing to trust entirely to his munificence. They, at 
 the same time, attempted to propitiate him by a large 
 sacrifice of national honour. It was well known that 
 one chief end of his politics was to add the Belgian 
 provinces to his dominions. England was bound by a 
 treaty, which had been concluded with Spain when 
 Danby was Lord Treasurer, to resist any attempt which 
 France might make on those ]n-ovinces. The three 
 ministers informed Barillon that their master considered 
 that treaty as no longer obligatory. It had been made, 
 they said, by Charles : it might, perhaps, have been 
 bindino; on him ; but his brother did not think him- 
 self bound by it. The most Christian King might, 
 therefore, without any fear of opposition from Eng- 
 land, proceed to annex Brabant and Hainault to his 
 empire.^ 
 
 It was at the same time resolved that an extraoi-- 
 dinary embassy should be sent to assure chunhiii 
 Lewis of the gratitude and affection of James, '^f/ao;'",^^'"'^" 
 For this mission was selected a man who did *'"'^"*'''- 
 not as yet occupy a very eminent j)osition, but whose 
 renown, strangely made up of infamy and glory, filled 
 at a later period the whole civilised world. 
 
 Soon after the Restoration, in the gay and dissolute 
 times wliicli have been celebrated by the lively 
 
 / His history. 
 
 pen of Hamilton, James, young and ardent in 
 the pursuit of pleasure, had been attracted by Arabella 
 Churchill, one of the maids of honour who waited on 
 his first wife. Tiie younir ladv was not beautiful : but 
 the taste of James was not nice : and she became his 
 avowed mistress. She was the daughter of a ])()or 
 Cavalier knight who haunted Whitehall, and made 
 himself ridiculous by pul)lishing a dull and affected 
 folio, long forgotten, in praise of monarchy and nion- 
 1 Barillon, Feb. \\. 1685.
 
 44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 arclis. The necessities of the Churchills were press- 
 ing ; their loyalty was ardent ; and their only feelino; 
 about Arabella's seduction seems to have been joyful 
 surprise that so homely a girl should have attained such 
 high preferment. 
 
 Her interest was indeed of great use to her rela- 
 tions ; but none of them was so fortunate as her eldest 
 brother John, a fine youth, who carried a pair of col- 
 ours in the foot guards. He rose fast in the court and 
 in the army, and was early distinguished as a man of 
 fashion and of pleasure. His stature was commanding, 
 his face handsome, his address singularly winning, yet 
 of such dignity that the most impertinent fops never 
 ventured to take any liberty with him ; his temper, 
 even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, 
 always under perfect command. His education had 
 been so much neglected, that he could not spell the 
 most common words of his own language : but his 
 acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the 
 place of book learning. He was not talkative : but, 
 when he was forced to speak in public, his natural elo- 
 quence moved the envy of practised rhetoricians. ^ His 
 courage was singularly cool and imperturbable. During 
 many years of anxiety and peril, he never, in any 
 emergency, lost, even for a moment, the perfect use of 
 his admirable judgment. 
 
 In his twenty-third year he was sent with his regi- 
 ment to join the French forces, the i engaged in oper- 
 ations against Holland. His serene intrepidity distin- 
 guished him among thousands of brave soldiers. His 
 professional skill commanded the respect of veteran 
 officers. He was pubhcly thanked at the head of the 
 
 1 Swift who hated Marlborough, and who was little disposed to allow 
 any merit to those whom lie hated, suys, in the iainous letter to Crassus, 
 " You are no ill orator in the Senate."
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 45 
 
 army, and received many marks of esteem and confi- 
 dence from Turenne, who was then at the height of 
 tlie niiUtary glory. 
 
 Unhappily the splendid qualities of John Churchill 
 were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind. 
 Some propensities, which in youth are singularly un- 
 graceful, began very early to show themselves in him. 
 He was thrifty in his very vices, and levied ample con- 
 tributions on ladies enriched by the spoils of more lib- 
 eral lovers. He was, during a short time, the object 
 of the violent but fickle fondness of the Duchess of 
 Cleveland. On one occasion he was caught with her 
 by the King, and was forced to leap out of the win- 
 dow. She rewarded this hazardous feat of gallantry 
 with a present of five thousand pounds. With this 
 sum the prudent young hero instantly bought an an- 
 nuity of five hundred a year, well secured on landed 
 property.^ Already his private drawer contained a 
 hoard of broad pieces which, fifty years later, when he 
 was a Duke, a Prince of the Empire, and the richest 
 subject in Europe, remained untouched.^ 
 
 After the close of the war he was attached to the 
 household of the Duke of York, accompanied his pa- 
 tron to the Low Countries and to Edinburgh, and w-as 
 rewarded for his services with a Scotch peerage and 
 with the command of the only regiment of dragoons 
 which was then on the English establishment.^ His 
 
 1 Dartmouth's note on Buraet, i. 204. Chesterfield's Letters, Nov. 18. 
 
 1748. Chesterliekl is an unexceptionable witness: for the annuity was a 
 
 charge on the estate of his grandfather, Halifax. I believe that there is no 
 
 foundation for a disgraceful addition to the story which may be foun 1 in 
 
 I'ope : 
 
 "The Rrtllant. too, to wlioin she paid it Jo\m, 
 liived to rufuso his mistress liaifa crown." 
 
 Curll calls this a piece of travelling scandal. 
 
 ^ Pope in Sppnc'c's Anecdotes. 
 
 • See the Historical Records of the First or Royal Dragoons The
 
 46 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 wife had a post in the family of James's younger 
 daughter, the Princess of Denmark. 
 
 Lord Churchill Avas now sent as ambassador extraor- 
 dinary to Versailles. He had it in charge to express 
 the warm gratitude of the English government for the 
 money wliich had been so generously bestowed. It 
 had been originally intended that he should, at the same 
 time, ask Lewis for a much larger sum ; but, on full 
 consideration, it was apprehended that such indelicate 
 greediness might disgust the benefactor whose spon- 
 taneous liberality had been so signally displayed. 
 Churchill was therefore directed to confine himself to 
 thanks for what was past, and to say nothing about the 
 future.^ 
 
 But James and his ministers, even while protesting 
 that they did not mean to be importunate, contrived to 
 hint, very intelligibly, what they wished and expected. 
 In the French ambassador they had a dexterous, a 
 zealous, and, perhaps, not a disinterested intercessor. 
 Lewis made some difficulties, probably with the design 
 of enhancing the value of his gifts. In a very few 
 weeks, however, Barillon received from Versailles fif- 
 teen hundred thousand livres more. This sum, equiv- 
 alent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds 
 sterling, he was instructed to dole out cautiously. He 
 was authorised to furnish the Enfrlish orovernment with 
 thirty thousand pounds, for the purpose of corrupting 
 members of the new House of Commons. The rest he 
 
 appointment of Churchill to the command of this regiment was ridiculed 
 as an instance of absurd partiality. One lampoon of that time, which I 
 do not remember to have seen in print, but of which a manuscript copy is 
 in the British Museum, contains these lines: 
 
 " Let 's cut our meat with spoons : 
 The sense is as good 
 As that Churchill should 
 Be put to command the dragoonfl." 
 
 1 BariUon, Feb. ^. 1685.
 
 1685. J JAMES THE SECOND. 47 
 
 was directed to keep in reserve for some extraordinaiy 
 emergency, such as a dissolution or an insurrection.^ 
 
 The turpitude of these transactions is universally ac- 
 knowledged : but their real nature seems to be often 
 misunderstood ; for, though the foreign policy of the 
 two last Kings of the House of Stuart has never, since 
 the correspondence of Barillon was exposed to the pub- 
 lic eye, found an apologist among us, there is still a 
 party which labours to excuse their domestic policy. 
 Yet it is certain that between their domestic policy and 
 their foreign j)olicy there was a necessary and indis- 
 soluble connexion. If they had upheld, during a sin- 
 gle year, the honour of the country abroad, they 
 would have been compelled to change the whole system 
 of their administration at home. To praise them for 
 refusing to govern in conformity with the sense of Par- 
 liament, and yet to blame them for submitting to the 
 dictation of Lewis, is inconsistent. For they had only 
 one choice, to be dependent on Lewis, or to be depend- 
 ent on Parliament. 
 
 James, to do him justice, would gladly have found 
 out a third way : but there was none. He became the 
 slave of France : but it would be incorrect to represent 
 him as a contented slave. He had spirit enough to be 
 at times angry Avith himself for submitting to such 
 thraldom, and impatient to break loose from it ; and 
 this disposition was studiously encouraged by the agents 
 of many foreign powers. 
 
 His accession had excited hopes and fears in every 
 continental court : and the commencement Fpenn^s of 
 of his administration was watched by stran- nenfaT^T- 
 gers with interest scarcely less deep than towllrTi'* 
 that which was felt by his own subjects. One *^°siaud 
 
 1 Barillon, April "J • Lewis to Barillon, April ^. 
 VOL. n. 4
 
 48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fCn. FV. 
 
 government alone wished that the troubles wliich had, 
 during three generations, distracted England, might 
 be eternal. All other governments, whether republi- 
 can or monarchical, whether Protestant or Roman 
 Catholic, wislied to see those troubles happily termi- 
 nated. 
 
 The nature of the long contest between the Stuarts 
 and their Parliaments was indeed very imperfectly ap- 
 prehended by foreign statesmen : but no statesman 
 could fail to perceive the effect which that contest had 
 produced on the balance of power in Europe. In or- 
 dinary circumstances, the sympathies of the courts of 
 Vienna and Madrid would doubtless have been with a 
 prince struggling against subjects, and especially with 
 a Roman Catholic prince struggling against heretical 
 subjects : but all such sympathies were now overpowered 
 by a stronger feeling. The fear and hatred inspired 
 by the greatness, the injustice, and the arrogance of 
 the French King were at the height. His neighbours 
 might well doubt whether it were more dangerous to 
 be at war or at peace with him. For in peace he con- 
 tinued to plunder and to outrage them ; and they had 
 tried the chances of war against him in vain. In this 
 perplexity they looked with intense anxiety towards 
 England. Would she act on the principles of the 
 Trii)le Alliance or on the principles of the treaty of 
 Dover? On that issue depended the fate of all her 
 neighbours. With her help Lewis might yet be with- 
 stood : but no help could be expected from her till she 
 was at unity with herself. Before the strife between 
 the throne and the Parliament began, she had been a 
 power of the first rank : on the day on which that 
 strife terminated she became a power of the first rank 
 again ; but while the dispute remained undecided,
 
 1685.J JAMES THE SECOND. 49 
 
 slie was condemned to inaction and to vassalage. She 
 had been great under the Plantagenets and Tudors : 
 slie was again great under the princes who reigned 
 after the Revolution : but, under the Kings of the 
 House of Stuart, she was a blank in the map of Eu- 
 rope. She had lost one class of energies, and had not 
 yet acquired another. That species of force, which, 
 in the fourteenth century, had enabled her to humble 
 France and Spain, had ceased to exist. That species 
 of force, whicli, in the eighteenth century, humbled 
 France and Spain once more, had not yet been called 
 into action. The government was no longer a limited 
 monarchy after the fashion of the middle ages. It had 
 not yet become a limited monarchy after the modern 
 fashion. With the vices of two different systems it 
 had the strength of neither. The elements of our 
 polity, instead of combining in harmony, counteracted 
 and neutralised each other. All was transition, con- 
 flict, and disorder. The chief business of the sover- 
 eign was to infringe the privileges of the legislature. 
 The chief business of the legislatiu-e was to encroach 
 on the prerogatives of the sovereign. The King read- 
 ily accepted foreign aid, which relieved him from the 
 misery of being dependent on a mutinous Parliament. 
 The Parliament refused to tiie King the means of sup- 
 ])orting the national honour abroad, from an apprehen- 
 sion, too well founded, that those means might be em- 
 uloyed in order to establish despotism at home. The 
 effect of these jealousies was that our country, with 
 all her vast resources, was of as little weight in Chris- 
 tendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of Loraine, 
 and certainly of far less weight than the small province 
 of H(;lland. 
 
 France was deej)ly interested in prolonging this state
 
 50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 of things. 1 All other powers were deeply interested 
 in bi'inging it to a close. The general wish of Europe 
 was that James would govern in conformity with law 
 and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself 
 came letters, expressing an earnest hope that the new 
 Policy of the King of England would be on good terms 
 Borne. with his Parliament and his people.^ Fi'om 
 
 the Vatican itself came cautions against immoderate 
 zeal for the Roman Catholic faith. Benedict Odes- 
 calchi, who filled the papal chair under the name of 
 Innocent the Eleventh, felt, in his character of tempo- 
 ral sovereign, all those apprehensions with which other 
 princes watched the progress of the French power. 
 He had also grounds of uneasiness which were pecu- 
 liar to himself. It was a happy circumstance for the 
 Protestant religion that, at the moment when the last 
 Roman Catliolic King of England mounted the throne, 
 the Roman Catholic Church was torn by dissension, 
 
 1 I miglit transcribe half Barillon's correspondence in proof of this propo- 
 sition: but I will only quote one passage, in which the policy of the French 
 government towards England is exhibited concisely and with perfect 
 clearness. 
 
 " On peut tenir pour un maxime indubitable que I'accord du Roy 
 d'Angleten'e avec sou parlement, en quelque maniere qu'il se fasse, n'est 
 pas confomie aux int^rets de V. M. Je me contente de penser cela sans 
 m'en ouvrir a personne, et je cache avec soin mes sentimens a cet egard." 
 
 Veil -^S 
 
 — Barillon to Lewis, - — tt^ 1687. That this was the real secret of the 
 
 ' iVIar. 10. 
 
 ■whole policy of Lewis towards our country was perfectly understood at 
 
 Vienna. The Emperor Leopold wrote thus to James, 1680. " Galli 
 
 id unum agebant, ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram et ejusdem pop- 
 ulos fovendo simultates, reliquaj ChristiansB Europce tanto securius insulta- 
 rent." 
 
 2 " Que sea unido con su reyno, y en todo buena intelligencia con el 
 parlamento." — Despatch from the King of Spain to Don Pedro Ronquillo, 
 March X^. 1685. This despatch is in the archives of Simancas, which 
 contain a great mass of papers relating to English affairs. Copies of the 
 most interesting of those papers are in the possession of M. Guizot, and 
 were by him lent to me. It is with peculiar pleasure that, at this time, 1 
 •cknowledge this mark of the friendship of so great a man. (1848.)
 
 I 
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 51 
 
 and threatened with a new schism. A quarrel similar 
 to that which had raged in the eleventh century be- 
 tween the Emperors and the Supreme Pontiffs had 
 arisen between Lewis and Innocent. Lewis, zealous 
 even to bigotry for the doctrines of the Church of 
 Rome, but tenacious of his regal authority, accused the 
 Pope of encroaching on the secular rights of the French 
 crown, and was in turn accused by the Pope of en- 
 croaching on the spiritual power of the keys. The 
 King, haughty as he was, encountered a spirit even 
 more determined than his OAvn. Innocent was, in all 
 private relations, the meekest and gentlest of men : 
 but, when he spoke officially from the chair of St. 
 Peter, he spoke in the tones of Gregory the Seventh 
 and of Sixtus the Fifth. The dispute became serious. 
 Afirents of the Kino; Avere excommunicated. Adher- 
 ents of the Pope were banished. The King made the 
 champions of his authority Bishops. The Pope re- 
 fused them institution. They took possession of the 
 episcopal palaces and revenues ; but they were inconfi- 
 petent to perform the episcopal functions. Before the 
 struggle terminated, there were in France thirty prel- 
 ates who could not confirm or ordain.^ 
 
 Had any prince then living, except Lewis, been en- 
 gaged in such a dispute with the Vatican, he would 
 have had all Protestant governments on his side. But 
 tlie fear and resentment which the ambition and inso- 
 lence of tlie French King had inspired were such that 
 whoever had the courage manfully to oppose him was 
 sure of public sympathy. Even Lutherans and Cal- 
 vinists, who had always detested the Pope, could not 
 
 ' Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the history of this 
 quarrel. Suininaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset's Life of Bosauet, 
 and in Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV.
 
 62 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 refi'ain from wisliing him success against a tyrant who 
 aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus that, in the 
 present century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh 
 as Antichrist were well pleased to see Antichrist con- 
 fi'ont the gigantic power of Napoleon. 
 
 The resentment which Innocent felt towards J^rance 
 disposed him to take a mild and liberal view of the 
 affairs of England. The return of the English people 
 to the fold of which he was the shepherd would un- 
 doubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too wise 
 a man to believe that a nation, so bold and stubborn, 
 could be brought back to the Church of Rome by the 
 violent and unconstitutional exercise of royal author- 
 ity. It was not difficult to foresee that, if James at- 
 tempted to promote the interests of his religion by ille- 
 gal and unpopular means, the attempt would fail ; the 
 hatred with which the heretical islanders reo;arded the 
 true faith would become fiercer and stronger than ever ; 
 and an indissoluble association would be created in 
 their minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, 
 between Popery and arbitrary power. In the mean- 
 time the King would be an object of aversion and sus- 
 picion to his people. England would still be, as she 
 had been under James the First, under Charles the 
 First, and under Charles the Second, a power of the 
 third rank ; and France would domineer unchecked 
 beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the other hand, 
 it was probable that James, by acting with prudence 
 and moderation, by strictly observing the laws, and by 
 exertino; himself to win the confidence of his Parlia- 
 ment, might be able to obtain, for the professors of his 
 religion, a large measure of rcHef. Penal statutes 
 would go first. Statutes imposing civil incapacities 
 would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 53 
 
 and the English nation united might head the Euro- 
 pean coahtion, and might oppose an insuperable bar- 
 rier to the cupidity of Lewis. 
 
 Innocent was confirmed in his judgment by the 
 principal Englishmen who resided at his court. Of 
 these the most illustrious was Philip Howard, sprung 
 from the noblest houses of Britain, grandson, on one 
 side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the other, of a Duke 
 of Lennox. Philip had long been a member of the 
 sacred college : he was commonly designated as the 
 Cardinal of England ; and he was the chief counsellor 
 of the Holy See in matters relating to his country. 
 He had been driven into exile by the outcry of Prot- 
 estant bigots ; and a member of his family, the unfoi'- 
 tunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to their rage. But 
 neither the Cardinal's own wrongs, nor those of his 
 house, had so heated his mind as to make him a rash 
 adviser. Every letter, therefore, which went from the 
 Vatican to Whitehall recommended patience, moder- 
 ation, and respect for the prejudices of the English 
 people.^ 
 
 In the mind of James there was a great conflict. 
 We should do him iniustice if we supposed struggle in 
 
 -^ ^ * the mind of 
 
 that a state of vassalage was agreeable to ins James, 
 temper. He loved authority and business. He had 
 a high sense of his own personal dignity. Nay, he was 
 not altofrether destitute of a sentiment which bore some 
 affinity to j)at)-iotisrn. It galled his soul to think that 
 the kingdom which he ruled was of far less account in 
 the world than many states which ])ossessed smaller 
 natural advantages ; and he listened eagerly to foreign 
 ministers when they urged him to assert the dignity of 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 661., and Letter from Rome; Dodd's Church History, part 
 viii. book i. art. 1.
 
 54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 his rank, to place himself at the head of a ^reat con- 
 federacy, to become the protector of injured nations, 
 and to tame the pride of that power which held the 
 Continent in awe. Such exhortations made his heart 
 swell with emotions unknown to his careless and effem- 
 inate brother. But those emotions were soon subdued 
 by a stronger feeling. A vigorous foreign policy neces- 
 sarily implied a conciliatory domestic policy. It was 
 impossible at once to confront the might of France and 
 to trample on the liberties of England. The executive 
 government could undertake nothing great without the 
 support of the Commons, and could obtain their sup- 
 port only by acting in conformity with their opinion. 
 Fluctuations Thus James found that the two things which 
 ofhispoucy. |jg j^Qg^ desired could not be possessed to- 
 gether. His second wish was to be feared and respected 
 abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master 
 at home. Between the incompatible objects on which 
 his heart was set, he, for a time, went irresolutely to and 
 fi*o. The conflict in his own breast gave to his public 
 acts a strange appearance of indecision and insincerity. 
 Those who, without the clue, attempted to explore the 
 maze of his politics were imable to understand how 
 the same man could be, in the same week, so haughty 
 and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the va- 
 garies of an ally who passed, in a few hours, from hom- 
 age to defiance, and from defiance to homage. Yet, 
 now that the whole conduct of James is before us, this 
 inconsistency seems to admit of a simple explanation. 
 At the moment of his accession he was in doubt 
 whether the kingdom would peaceably submit to his 
 authority. The Exclusionists, lately so powerful, 
 might rise in arms against him. He might be in gi'eat 
 need of French money and French troops. He was
 
 I 
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 55 
 
 therefore, during some clays, content to be a sycophant 
 and a mendicant. He humbly apologized for daring to 
 call his Pai'lianient too-ether without the consent of tlie 
 French Government. He beo;cTed hard for a Frencli 
 subsidy. He wept with joy over the French bills of 
 exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy 
 charged with assurances of his gratitude, attachment, 
 and submission. But scarcely had the embassy de- 
 parted when his feelings underwent a change. He 
 had been everywhere proclaimed without one riot, 
 without one seditious outcry. From all corners of the 
 island he received intelligence that his subjects were 
 tranquil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrad- 
 ing relation in which he stood to a foreign power 
 seemed intolerable. He became proud, punctilious, 
 boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high language 
 about the dignity of his crown and the balance of 
 poAver that his whole court fully expected a complete 
 revolution in the foreign politics of the realm. Ho 
 commanded Churchill to send home a minute report of 
 the ceremonial of Versailles, in order that the honours 
 with which the English embassy was received there 
 might be repaid, and not more than repaid, to the rep- 
 resentative of France at Whitehall. The news of this 
 change was received with delight at Madrid, Vienna, 
 and the Hague. ^ Lewis was at first merely diverted. 
 " My good ally talks big," he said ; " but he is as fond 
 of my pistoles as ever his brother was." Soon, how- 
 ever, the altered demeanour of James, and the hopes 
 with which that demeanour ins])ired both the branches 
 of the House of Austria, hegan to call for more serious 
 notice. A remarkable letter is still extant, in which 
 
 ^ Consultations of the Spanish Council of State on April J^. and April 
 ^. 1685, in the Archives of Simancas.
 
 5() HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 the French King intimated a strong suspicion that he 
 had been duped, and that the very money which he 
 had sent to Westminster would be employed against 
 him.i 
 
 B}'" this time England had recovered from the sad- 
 ness and anxiety caused by the death of the good- 
 natured Charles. The Tories were loud in professions 
 of attachment to their new master. The hatred of the 
 Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which 
 is not steadily Wliig or Tory, but which inclines alter- 
 nately to Whiggism and to Toryism, was still on the 
 Tory side. The reaction which had followed the dis- 
 solution of the Oxford parliament had not yet spent its 
 force. 
 
 The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant 
 Public ceie- fn^nds to the proof. While he was a subject, 
 the'itoman ^^^ ^^^^ been in the habit of hearing mass with 
 ritesin'the closcd doors in a small oratory which had 
 palace. been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered 
 
 the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who 
 came to pay their duty to him might see the ceremony. 
 When the host was elevated there was a strange con- 
 fusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell 
 on their knees : the Protestants hurried out of the 
 room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace ; 
 and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached 
 there by Popish divines, to the great discomposure of 
 zealous churchmen.^ 
 
 A more serious innovation followed. Passion week 
 came ; and the King determined to hear mass with the 
 same pomp with which his predecessors had been sur- 
 
 1 Lewis to Barillon, -f—fr 1G85 ; Burnet, i. 623. 
 
 2 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 5.; Barillon, jyj^^p-x 1685. Eve- 
 lyn's Diary, March 5. 168|.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 57 
 
 rounded when they repaired to the temples of the es- 
 tabhshed religion. He announced his intention to the 
 three members of the interior cabinet, and requested 
 them to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions 
 were the same, readily consented. Godolphin, as 
 Chamberlain of the Queen, had already been in the 
 habit of giving her his hand when she repaired to her 
 oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself offi- 
 cially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was 
 greatly disturbed. His influence in the country arose 
 chiefly from the opinion entertained by the clergy and 
 by the Tory gentry, that he was a zealous and uncom- 
 promising friend of the Church. His orthodoxy had 
 been considered as fully atoning for faults which would 
 otherwise have made him the most unpopular man in 
 the kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme vio- 
 lence of temper, and for manners almost brutal.^ He 
 feared that, by complying with the royal wishes, he 
 should greatly lower himself in the estimation of his 
 party. Aft(!r some altercation he obtained permission 
 to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great 
 civil dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on 
 Easter Sunday. The rites of the Church of Rome 
 were once more, after an interval of a hundred and 
 twenty-seven years, performed at Westminster with 
 regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The 
 Knights of the Garter wore their coHars. Tiie Duke of 
 Somerset, second in raid-c among the temporal nobles 
 of the realm, carried the sword of state. A long train 
 of great lords accompanied the King to his seat. But 
 it was remarked that Ormond and Halifax remained in 
 
 1 " To those tliat ask boons 
 lie swcnrs by (lod's nous, 
 And chides theui as if tboy came tlierc to steal spoons.'' 
 
 Lameutable Lory, a ballad, 16 <4.
 
 58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Crt. TV. 
 
 the antechamber. A few years before they had gal- 
 lantly defended the cause of James against some of 
 those who now pressed past them. Ormond had borne 
 no share in the slaughter of Roman Catholics. Halifax 
 had courageously pronounced Stafford not guilty. As 
 the timeservers who had pretended to shudder at the 
 thought of a Popish king, and who had shed without 
 pity the innocent blood of a Popish peer, now elbowed 
 each other to get near a Popish altar, the accomplished 
 Trimmer might, with some justice, indulge his solitary 
 pride in that unpopular nickname.^ 
 
 Within a week after this ceremony James made a 
 His corona- ^^^ greater sacrifice of his own religious prej- 
 tion. udices than he had yet called on any of his 
 
 Protestant subjects to make. He was crowned on the 
 twenty-third of April, the feast of the patron saint of 
 the realm. The Abbey and the Hall were splendidly 
 decorated. The presence of the Queen and of the 
 peei'esses gave to the solemnity a charm wdiich had 
 been wantino- to the. magnificent inauguration of tlie 
 late Kinp-. Yet those who remembered that inaucrura- 
 tion ])ronounced that there was a great falling off. 
 The ancient usage was that, before a coronation, the 
 sovereign, with all his heralds, judges, councillors, lords, 
 and gi-eat dignitaries, should ride in state from the 
 Tower to Westminster. Of these cavalcades the last 
 and the most glorious was that which passed through i 
 the capital while the feelings excited by the Restora- 
 tion were still in fiill vigour. Arches of triumph over- 
 liung the road. All Cornhill, Cheapside, Saint Paul's 
 Church Yard, Fleet Street, and the Strand, were 
 lined with scaffolding. The whole city had thus been 
 admitted to gaze on royalty in the most splendid and 
 1 Barillon.Apnl. 1 0.1685.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 69 
 
 solemn form that royalty could wear. James ordered 
 an estimate to be made of tlie cost of such a procession, 
 and found that it would amount to about half as much 
 as he proposed to expend in covering his wife with 
 tnnkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse 
 where he ought to have been frugal, and niggardly 
 where he might pardonably have been profuse. More 
 than an hundred thousand pounds were laid out in 
 dressing the Queen, and the procession from the Tower 
 was omitted. The folly of this course is obvious. If 
 pageantry be of any use in politics, it is of use as a 
 means of strikino; the imao;ination of the multitude. 
 It is surely the height of absurdity to shut out the 
 populace from a show of which the main object is to 
 make an impression on the populace. James would 
 have shown a more judicious munificence and a more 
 judicious parsimony, if he had traversed Lond(m from 
 east to west with the accustomed pomp, and had or- 
 dered the robes of his wife to be somewhat less thickly 
 set with pearls and diamonds. His example was, how- 
 ever, long followed by his successors ; and sums which, 
 well employed, would have afforded exquisite gratifi- 
 cation to a large part of the nation, were squandered 
 on an exhibition to which only three or four thousand 
 privileged persons were admitted. At length the old 
 practice was partially revived. On the day of the 
 coronation of Queen Victoria there was a procession 
 in which many deficiencies might be noted, but which 
 was seen with interest and delight by half a million of 
 her subjects, and which undoubtedly gave far greater 
 pleasure, and called forth far greater enthusiasm, than 
 the more costly dis])lay which was witnessed by a 
 select circle within the Abbey. 
 
 James had ordered Sancroft to abridac the ritual.
 
 60 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 The reason publicly assigned was that the day was too 
 short for all that was to be done. But whoever ex- 
 amines the changes which were made will see that the 
 real object was to remove some things highly offensive 
 to the religious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. 
 The Communion Service was not read. The ceremony 
 of presenting the sovereign with a richly bound copy of 
 the English Bible, and of exhorting him to prize above 
 all earthly treasures a volume which he had been 
 taught to regard as adulterated with false doctrine, was 
 omitted. What remained, however, after all this cur- 
 tailment, might well have raised scruples in the mind 
 of a man who sincerely believed the Church of Eng- 
 land to be a heretical society, within the pale of which 
 salvation was not to be found. The King made an 
 oblation on the altar. He appeared to join in the peti- 
 tions of the Litany which Avas chaunted by the Bishops. 
 He received fi'om those false prophets the unction typ- 
 ical of a divine influence, and knelt with the semblance 
 of devotion while they called down upon him that 
 Holy Spirit of which they were, in his estimation, the 
 malignant and obdurate foes. Such are the inconsist- 
 encies of human nature that this man, who, from a 
 fanatical zeal for his religion, threw away three king- 
 doms, vet chose to commit what was little short of an 
 act of apostasy, rather than forego the childish pleasure 
 of being invested with the gewgaws symbolical of 
 kingly power.^ 
 
 Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, preached. He was 
 one of those wn-iters who still affected the obsolete style 
 of Archbishop Williams and Bishop Andrews. The 
 
 1 From Adda's despatch of p^^—f- 1686, and fi-om the expressions of the 
 Pfere d'Orleans (Histoire des Revolutions d'Angleterre, liv. xi.), it is clear 
 that rigid Catholics thought the King's conduct indefensible.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 61 
 
 sermon was made up of quaint conceits, such as seventy 
 years earlier might have been admired, but sucJi as 
 moved tlie scorn of a generation accustomed to the 
 purer eloquence of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. 
 King Solomon was King James. Adonijah was Mon- 
 mouth. Joab was a Rye House conspirator ; Shimei, 
 a Whig libeller ; Abiatiiar, an honest but misguided 
 old Cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles 
 was construed to mean that the King was above the 
 Parliament : and another was cited to prove that he 
 alone ouo;ht to command the militia. Towards the 
 close of the discourse the orator very timidly alluded 
 to the new and embarrassing position in which the 
 Church stood with reference to the sovereign, and re- 
 minded his hearers that the Emperor Constantius Chlo- 
 rus, though not himself a Christian, had held in honour 
 those Christians who remained true to their religion, 
 and had treated with scorn those who sought to earn 
 his favour by a})ostasy. The service in the Abbey was 
 followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, the banquet 
 by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad 
 j)oetry.^ 
 
 This may be fixed upon as the moment at which 
 the enthusiasm of the Torv i)artv reached Knthusiism 
 
 . , ' ' ", „ , of the Tories' 
 
 the zenith, xiiver smce the accession of the addresses. 
 new King, addresses had been pouring in which ex- 
 
 ' London Gazette; Gazette de France; Clarke's Life of James the 
 Secon<l, ji. 10.; History of the Coronation of Kinj; James the Second aiiil 
 Queen i\Iar\% by Francis Saiidford, Lancaster Herald, Fol. 1687; Evelyn's 
 Diary, May 21. IfiSS; Despatch of the Dutch Aiuhassadors, April 10. 108.5; 
 Burnet, i. 628.; Eachard, iii. 1-M.; A Sermon preached before their Majes- 
 ties King .lames the Second and (Jneen Mary at their Coronation in West- 
 m !!5ter Abbey, April -2'1 lOS."), by Francis, Lord Bishop of Ely, and Lord 
 Almoner. I have seen an Italian account which was published at Modena, 
 Bnd which is chiefly remarkable for the skill with which the \NTiter sinks 
 the fact that the pniyer.s and psalms were in Englisli, and that the Bishops 
 were heretics.
 
 62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 pressed profound veneration for his person and office, 
 and bitter detestation of the vanquished Whigs. Tlie 
 maoistrates of Middlesex thanked God for having; con- 
 founded the designs of those regicides and exchiders 
 who, not content with having murdered one blessed 
 nionarcli, were bent on destroying the foundations of 
 monarchy. The city of Gloucester execrated the 
 bh^odthirsty villains who had tried to deprive His 
 Majesty of his just inheritance. The burgesses of 
 Wigan assured their sovei^eign that they would defend 
 iiim against all plotting Achitophels and rebellious 
 Absaloms. The grand jury of Suffolk expressed a 
 hope that the Parliament would proscribe all the ex- 
 clusionists. Many corporations pledged themselves 
 never to return to the House of Commons any person 
 who had voted for taking away the birthright of James. 
 Even the capital was profoundly obsequious. The 
 lawyers and traders vied with each other in servility. 
 Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery sent up fervent 
 professions of attachment and submission. All the 
 great commercial societies, the East India Company, 
 the African Company, the Turkey Company, the 
 Muscovy Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the 
 Maryland Merchants, the Jamaica Merchants, the Mer- 
 chant Adventurers, declared that they most cheerfully 
 complied with the royal edict which required them still 
 to pay custom. Bristol, the second city of the island, 
 echoed the voice of London. But nowhere was the 
 spirit of loyalty stronger than In the two Universities. 
 Oxiford declared that she w^ould never swerve from 
 those religious principles which bound her to obey the 
 King without any restrictions or limitations. Cambridge 
 condemned, in severe terms, the violence and treachery 
 of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavoured 
 
 «
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 63 
 
 to turn the stream of succession out of tlie ancient 
 cliannel.^ 
 
 ' Such addresses as these filled, during a considerable 
 time, every number of the London Gazette. 
 
 .,-, . 1 1 1 1 ■ 1 1 'riie electioiM. 
 
 But it was not only by addressing tliat the 
 Tories showed their zeal. The writs for the new 
 Parliament had gone forth, and the country was agi- 
 tated by the tumult of a general election. No election 
 Ijad ever taken place under circumstances so favour- 
 able to the court. Hundreds of thousands whom the 
 Popish plot had scai'ed into Whiggism had been scared 
 back by the Rye House plot into Toryism. In the 
 counties the government coidd depend on an over- 
 whelming majority of the gentlemen of three hundred 
 a year and upwards, and on the clergy almost to a 
 man. Those borouo;hs which had once been the ciiii- 
 iels of Whiggism had recently been deprived of their 
 charters by legal sentence, or had prevented the sen- 
 tence by voluntary surrender. They had now been 
 reconstituted in such ;i manner that they were certain 
 to return members devoted to the crown. Where the 
 townsmen could not be trusted, the freedom had been 
 bestowed on the neighbouring squires. In some of 
 the small western corporations, the constituent bodies 
 were in great part composed of Captains and Lieu- 
 tenants of the Guards. The returnino- officers were 
 ahnost everywhere in the interest of the court. In ev- 
 ery shire the Lord I^ieutenant and his deputies formed 
 a powerful, active, and vigilant committee, for the pur- 
 pose of cajoling and intimidating the freeholders. Tiie 
 people were solemnly warned from thousands of pul- 
 pits not to vote for any Whig candidate, as they should 
 
 > See the London GazeUe during the months of February, March, and 
 April. 1085. 
 
 VOL. II. 5
 
 64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. " [Ch. TV. 
 
 answer it to Him who had ordained the powers that 
 be, and who had pronounced rebeUion a sin not less 
 deadly than witchcraft. All these advantages the pre- 
 dominant party not only used to the utmost, but abused 
 in so shameless a manner that grave and reflecting men, 
 who had been true to the monarchy in peril, and who 
 bore no love to republicans and schismatics, stood aghast, 
 and augured from such beginnings the approach of evil 
 times.^ 
 
 Yet the Whigs, though suffering the just punish- 
 ment of their errors, though defeated, disheartened, 
 and disorganized, did not yield witliout an effoi't. 
 They were still numerous among the traders and arti- 
 sans of the towns, and among the yeomanry and peas- 
 antry of the open country. In some districts, in Dor- 
 setshire for example, and in Somersetshire, they were 
 the great majority of the population. In the remod- 
 elled boroughs they could do notliing : but, in eveiy 
 county where they had a cliance, they struggled des- 
 perately. In Bedfordshire, which had lately been rep- 
 resented by the virtuous and unfortunate Russell, they 
 were victorious on the show of hands, but were beaten 
 at the poll.^ In Essex they polled thirteen hundred 
 votes to eig-hteen hundred.^ At the election for North- 
 amptonshire the common people were so violent in their 
 hostility to the court candidate that a body of troo{>s 
 
 ' It would be easy to fill a volume -with what Whig historians and 
 pamphleteers have ^vritten on this subject. I will cite only one witnes-^, 
 a churchman and a Tory. "Elections," says Evelvn, "were thouglt to 
 be verj' indecently carried on in most places. God give a better issue of it 
 than some expect! " (May 10. 168.5.) Again he says, " The truth is there 
 were many of the new menibers whose elections and returns were univer- 
 sall3' condemned." (May 22.) 
 
 ' This f;ict I learned from a newsletter in the librarj' of the Royal Insti- 
 tution. Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig party in Bedford- 
 shire. 
 
 3 Bramston's Memoirs.
 
 16&5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 65 
 
 was drawn out in the market place of the county town, 
 and was ordered to load with ball.^ The history of 
 the contest for Buckinohtimshire is still more remark- 
 able. The Whii^ candidate, Thomas Wharton, eldest 
 son of Philip Lord Wharton, was a man distinguished 
 alike by dexterity and by audacity, and destined to 
 play a conspicuous, though not always a respectable, 
 part in the politics of several reigns. He had been 
 one of those members of the House of Commons who 
 had carried up the Exclusion Bill to the bar of the 
 Lords. The court was therefore bent on throwing 
 him out by fair or foul means. The Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice Jeffreys himself came down into Buckinghamshire, 
 for the purpose of assisting a gentleman named Hacket, 
 who stood on the high Tory interest. A stratagem 
 was devised which, it was thought, could not fail of 
 success. It was given out that the polling would take 
 place at Ailesbury ; and Wharton, whose skill in all 
 the arts of electioneering was unrivalled, made his 
 arrangements on that supposition. At a moment's 
 warning the Sheriff adjourned the poll to Newj)ort 
 Pagnell. Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and 
 found that Hacket, who was in the secret, had already 
 secured every inn and lodging. The Whig freeholders 
 were compelled to tie their horses to the hedges, and 
 to s\ee\) under the open sky in the meadows which sur- 
 round the little town. It was with the greatest diffi- 
 culty that refreshments could be procured at such short 
 notice for so large a number of men and beasts, though 
 Wharton, who was utterly regardless of money when 
 his ambition and party spirit were roused, disbursed 
 fifreen hundred pomuls in one day, an hnmense outlay 
 
 ' Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the good Protes- 
 tants of this Kingdom, 1081); Dialogue between Two Friends, 1689.
 
 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 for those times. Injustice seems, however, to have 
 animated the courage of the stoutltearted yeomen of 
 Bucks, the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. 
 Not only was Wharton at the head of the poll ; but he 
 was able to spare his second votes to a man of moder- 
 ate opinions, and to throw out the Chief Justice's can- 
 didate.^ 
 
 In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs 
 polled about seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about 
 two thousand. The common people were vehement 
 on the Whig side, raised the cry of " Down with the 
 Bishops," insulted the clergy in the streets of Chester, 
 knocked doAvn one gentleman of the Tory party, broke 
 the windows and beat the constables. The militia was 
 called out to quell the riot, and was kept assembled, in 
 order to protect the festivities of the conquerors. When 
 the poll closed, a salute of five great guns from the 
 castle, proclaimed the triumph of the Church and the 
 Crown to the surrounding country. The bells rang. 
 The newly elected members went in state to the City 
 Cross, accompanied by a band of music, and by a long 
 train of knights and squires. The procession, as it 
 marched, sang " Joy to Great Caesar," a loyal ode, 
 which had lately been written by Durfey, and which, 
 though, like all Durfey's writings, utterly contemptible, 
 was, at that time, almost as popular as Lillibullero be- 
 came a few years later.^ Round the Cross the train- 
 bands were drawn up in order : a bonfire was lighted : 
 the Exclusion Bill was burned : and the health of Kino; 
 James was drunk with loud acclamations. The fol- 
 lowing day was Sunday. In the morning the militia 
 
 1 Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715. 
 
 2 See the Guardian, No. 67. ; an exquisite specimen of Addison's pecu- 
 liar manner. It would be difficult to find in any other writer such an 
 instance of benevolence delicately flavoured with contempt.
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 67 
 
 lined the streets leading to tlie Cathedral. The two 
 knights of the shire were escorted Avith great pomp 
 to the choir by the magistracy of tlie City, heard 
 the Dean preach a sermon, probably on the duty of 
 passive obedience, and were afterwards feasted by the 
 Mayor.^ 
 
 In Northumberland the triumph of Sir John Fen- 
 wick, a courtier whose name afterwards obtained a 
 melancholy celebrity, was attended by circumstances 
 which excited interest in London, and which were 
 thought not unworthy of being mentioned in the de- 
 spatches of foreign ministers. Newcastle was lighted 
 up with great piles of coal. The steeples sent forth 
 a joyous peal. A copy of the Exclusion Bill, and 
 a black box, resembling that which, according to the 
 popular fable, contained the contract between Charles 
 the Second and Lucy Walters, were publicly committed 
 to the flames, with loud acclamations.^ 
 
 The general result of the elections exceeded the 
 most sanguine expectations of the court. James found 
 with delight that it would be unnecessary for him to 
 expend a farthing in buying votes. He said that, with 
 the exception of about forty members, the House of 
 Commons was just such as he should himself have 
 named.^ And this House of Commons it was in his 
 power, as the law then stood, to keep to the end of his 
 reign. 
 
 Secure of parliamentary support, he might now in- 
 dulge in the luxury of revenge. Plis natiu-e was not 
 placable ; and, while still a subject, he had suffered 
 some injuries and indignities wiiich might move even a 
 
 1 The Obsenator, April 4. 1085. 
 
 2 Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 14. 1G85. 
 8 Burnet, i. G2G.
 
 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. FV 
 
 placable nature to fierce and lasting resentment. One 
 set of men in particular had, with a baseness and cruelty 
 beyond all example and all description, attacked his 
 honour and his life, the witnesses of the plot. He may 
 well be excused for hating them ; since, even at this 
 day, the mention of their names excites the disgust and 
 horror of all sects and parties. 
 
 Some of these wretches were already beyond the 
 reach of human justice. Bedloe had died in his wick- 
 edness, without one sign of remorse or shame. ^ I^ug- 
 daie had followed to the grave, driven mad, men said, 
 by the Furies of an evil conscience, and with loud 
 shrieks imploring those who stood round his bed to 
 take away Lord Stafford.^ Carstairs, too, was gone. 
 His end was all horror and despair ; and, with his last 
 breath, he had told his attendants to throw him into a 
 ditch like a dog, for that he was not fit to sleep in a 
 Christian burial ground.^ But Oates and Dangerfield 
 were still within the reach of the stern prince whom 
 Proceedings they had wrougcd. James, a short time be- 
 Oates. fore his accession, had instituted a civil suit 
 
 against Oates for defamatory words : and a jury had 
 given damages to the enormous amount of a hundred 
 thousand pounds.* The defendant had been taken 
 in execution, and was lying in prison as a debtor, 
 without hope of release. Two bills of indictment 
 against him for perjury had been found by the grand 
 jury of Middlesex, a few weeks before the death of 
 Charles. Soon after the close of the elections the trial 
 came on. 
 
 1 A faithful account of the Sickness, Death, and Burial of Captain Bed- 
 low, 1680; NaiTative of Lord Chief Justice North. 
 
 2 Smith's Intrigues of the Popish Plot, 1685. 
 8 Burnet, i. 439. 
 
 * See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials.
 
 lfiS5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 69 
 
 Among the upper and middle classes Oates had 
 few friends left. All intellio-ent Whigs were now con- 
 vinced that, even if his narrative had some founda- 
 tion in fact, he had erected on that foundation a vast 
 superstructure of romance. A considerable number of 
 low fanatics, however, still regarded him as a public 
 benefactor. These people well knew that, if he were 
 convicted, his sentence would be one of extreme 
 severity, and were therefore indefatigable in their en- 
 deavours to manage an escape. Though as yet in con- 
 finement only for debt, he was put into irons by the 
 authorities of the King's Bench prison ; and even so he 
 was with difficulty kept in safe custody. The mastiff 
 that guarded his door was poisoned ; and, on the very 
 night preceding his trial, a ladder of ropes was intro- 
 duced into his cell. 
 
 On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, 
 Westminster Hall was crowded with spectators, among 
 whom were many Roman Catholics, eager to see the 
 misery and humiliation of their persecutor.^ A few 
 years earlier his short neck, his legs luieven, the vul- 
 gar said, as those of a badger, his forehead low as that 
 of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length 
 of chin, had been familiar to all who frequented the 
 courts of law. He had then been the idol of the nation. 
 Wherever he had appeared men had uncovered their 
 heads to him. The lives and estates of the magnates 
 of the realm had been at his mercy. Times had now 
 clianged ; and many, who had formerly regarded him 
 as the deliverer of his country, shuddered at the sight 
 of those hideous features on which villany seemed to 
 be written by the hand of God.^ 
 
 1 Evelyn's Diary, May 7. 1G85. 
 
 2 There remain many [)ictures of Gates. The most striking descriptioM
 
 70 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 It^was proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that 
 this man had, by false testimony, deliberately murdered 
 several guiltless persons. He called in vain on the 
 most eminent members of the Parliaments which had 
 rewarded and extolled him to give evidence in his fa- 
 vour. Some of those whom he had summoned absented 
 themselves. None of them said anything tending to his 
 vindication. One of them, the Earl of Huntingdon, bit- 
 terly reproached him with having deceived the Houses 
 and drawn on them the guilt of shedding innocent 
 blood. The Judges browbeat and reviled the prisoner 
 with an intemperance which, even in the most atro- 
 cious cases, ill becomes the judicial character. He be- 
 trayed, however, no sign of fear or of shame, and faced 
 the storm of invective which burst upon him from bar, 
 bench, and witness box, with the insolence of despair. 
 He Avas convicted on both indictments. His offence, 
 though, in a moral light, murder of the most aggra- 
 vated kind, was, in the eye of the law, merely a mis- 
 demeanour. The tribunal, however, was desirous to 
 make his punishment more severe than that of felons 
 or traitors, and not merely to put him to death, but to 
 put him to death by frightful torments. He was 
 sentenced to be stripped of his clerical habit, to be 
 pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster 
 Hall with an inscription declaring his infamy over his 
 head, to be pilloried again in front of the Royal Ex- 
 change, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and, 
 after an interval of two days, to be whipped from 
 Newgate to Tyburn. If, against all probability, he 
 should happen to survive this horrible infliction, he 
 was to be kept close prisoner during hfe. Five times 
 
 of his person are in North's Examen, 225., in Dryden's Absalom and Achi- 
 tophel, and in a broadside entitled, A Hue and Cry after T. O.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 71 
 
 every year he was to be brought fortli from his dun- 
 geon and exposed on the pillory in different parts of 
 tJie capital.^ 
 
 This rigorous sentence was rigorously executed. 
 On the day on which Gates was pilloried in Palace 
 Yard, he was mercilessly pelted and ran some risk of 
 being pulled in pieces.^ But in the City his partisans 
 mustered in great force, raised a riot, and upset the 
 pillory.^ They were, however, unable to rescue their 
 favourite. It was su]:)posed that he would try to escape 
 the horrible doom which awaited him by swallowing 
 poison. All that he ate and drank was therefore care- 
 fully inspected. On the following morning he was 
 brought forth to undergo his first flogging. At an 
 early hour an innumerable multitude filled all the 
 streets from Aldgate to the Old Bailey. The hang- 
 man laid on the lash with such unusual severity as 
 showed that he had received special insti-uctions. The 
 blood ran down in rivulets. For a time the criminal 
 showed a strange constancy : but at last his stubborn 
 fortitude save way. His bellowings were frightful to 
 hear. He swooned several times ; but the scourge still 
 continued to descend. When he was unbound, it 
 seemed that he had borne as much as the human 
 frame can bear without dissolution. James was in- 
 treated to remit the second flogging. His answer was 
 short and clear, " He shall go through with it, if he 
 has breath in his body." An attem])t was made to 
 obtain the Queen's intercession ; but she indignantly 
 refused to say a word in favour of such a wretch. 
 
 1 The proceedings will be found at length in the Collection of SUt« 
 Trials. 
 
 « ^ , « Mnv 29. ^-,-^„ 
 
 2 Gazette de France, j;^^;^ 1685. 
 
 » Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, May ^. 1685.
 
 72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 After an interval of only forty-eight hours, Oates was 
 again brought out of his dungeon. He was unable to 
 stand, and it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on 
 a sledge. He seemed quite insensible ; and the Tories 
 reported that he had stupefied himself with strong 
 drink. A person who counted the stripes on the 
 second day said that they were seventeen hundred. 
 The bad man escaped with life, but so narrowly that 
 his ignorant and bigoted admirei's thought his recovery 
 miraculous, and appealed to it as a proof of his inno- 
 cence. The doors of the prison closed upon him. 
 During many months he remained ironed in the dark- 
 est hole of Newgate. It was said that in his cell he 
 gave himself up to melancholy, and sate whole days 
 uttering deep groans, his arms folded, and his hat 
 pulled over his eyes. It was not in England alone 
 that these events excited strong interest. Millions of 
 Roman Catholics, who knew nothing of our institu- 
 tions or of our factions, had heard that a persecution 
 of singular barbarity had raged in our island against 
 the professors of the true faith, that many pious men 
 had suffered martyrdom, and that Titus Oates had been 
 the chief murderer. There was, therefore, great joy 
 in distant countries when it was known that the divine 
 justice had overtaken him. Engravings of him, look- 
 ing out from tlie pillory, and writhing at the cart's tail, 
 were circulated all over Europe ; and epigrammatists, 
 in many languages, made merry with the doctoral -title 
 which he pretended to have received fi'om the Univer- 
 sity of Salamanca, and remarked that, since his fore- 
 head could not be made to blush, it was but reasonable 
 that his back should do so.^ 
 
 1 Evelyn's Dian', May 22. 1685; Eachard, iii. 741.; Bumet, i. 637.; Ob- 
 lervator, May 27. 1G85; Oates's Et/tu'v, 89. j EUuv l3poTo'Aoiyov, 1G97;
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 73 
 
 Horrible as were the sufferings of Oates, they did 
 not equal his cinmes. The old law of England, Avhich 
 had been suffered to become obsolete, treated the false 
 witness, who had caused death by means of perjury, as 
 a murderer.! This was wise and righteous : for such 
 a witness is, in truth, the worst of murderers. To the 
 guilt of shedding innocent blood he has added the guilt 
 of violating the most solemn engagement into which 
 man can enter with his fellow men, and of making m- 
 stitutions, to which it is desirable that the public should 
 look witli respect and confidence, instruments of fright- 
 ful wrong and objects of general distrust. The pain 
 produced by ordinary murder bears no proportion 
 to the pain produced by murder of which the courts 
 of justice are made the agents. The mere extinc- 
 tion of life is a very small part of what makes an 
 execution hon*ible. The prolonged mental agony of 
 the sufferer, the shame and misery of all connected 
 with him, the stain abiding even to the third and fourth 
 generation, are things far more dreadful than death 
 itself. In general it may be safely affirmed that the 
 father of a laro-e family would rather be bereaved of all 
 
 Commons' Journals of May, June, and July, 1689 ; Tom Brown's Advice to 
 Dr. Oates. Some interestiii<^ circiinistanfcs are mentioned in a broadside, 
 printed for A. IJrooks, Charing Cross, lOS-'J. I have seen contemporary 
 French and Italian pamjililets containing the history of the trial and exe- 
 cution. A print of Titus in the pillory was published at IMilan, with the 
 following curious inscription: "(Juesto c il naturale ritratto di Tito Otez, 
 
 vero Oatz, Inglcse, posto in berlina, uno de' principali professori dclla 
 religion protcstante, acerrimo persecutore de' Cattolici, e gran spergiuro." 
 
 1 have also seen a Dutch engraving of his punishment, with some Latin 
 
 verses, of which the following are a specimen: 
 
 t 
 " At Doctor fictus non ficto.s pertulit ictus, 
 A tortore Jatos baud uioUi in corporc gratoB, 
 Diflcerpt ut vere scclcra ob comuns.Sii rubere." 
 
 The anagram ofliis name, " Testis Ovat," may be found on many prints 
 published in different countries. 
 1 Blackstone's Commentaries, Chapter of Homicide.
 
 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 his children by accident or by disease than lose one of 
 them by the hands of the hangman. Murder by false 
 testimony is therefore the most aggravated species of 
 murder : and Oates had been guilty of many such 
 murders. Nevertheless the punishment which was 
 inflicted upon him cannot be justified. In sentencing 
 him to be stripped of his ecclesiastical habit and im- 
 prisoned for life, the judges exceeded their legal power. 
 They were undoubtedly competent to inflict whipping; 
 nor had the law assigned a limit to tlie number of 
 stripes. But the spirit of the law clearly was that no 
 misdemeanour sliould be punished more severely than 
 the most atrocious felonies. The worst felon could 
 only be hanged. The judges, as they believed, sen- 
 tenced Oates to be scourged to death. That the law 
 was defective is not a sufficient excuse : for defective 
 laws should be altered by the legislature, and not 
 strained by the tribunals ; and least of all should the 
 law be strained for the purpose of inflicting torture and 
 destroying life. That Oates was a bad man is not a 
 sufficient excuse ; for the guilty are almost always the 
 first to suffer those hardships which are afterwards 
 used as precedents against the innocent. Thus it was 
 in the present case. Merciless flogging soon became 
 an ordinary punishment for political misdemeanours of 
 no very aggravated kind. Men were sentenced, for 
 hasty words spoken against the government, to ])ain 
 so excruciating that they, with unfeigned earnestness, 
 begged to be brought to trial on capital charges, and 
 sent to the gallows. Happily the progress of this great 
 evil was speedily stopped by the Revolution, and by 
 that article of the Bill of Riohts which condemns all 
 sruel and unusual punishments.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 75 
 
 The villany of Dangerfield had not, Hke that of 
 Oates, destroyed many innocent victims ; for Proceedings 
 
 T^ /^. 1111 1 1 IP against 
 
 Dangerneld had not taken up the trade oi Dungerfieid. 
 a witness till the plot had been blown upon and till 
 juries had become incredulous.^ He was brought to 
 trial, not for perjury, but for the less heinous offence 
 of libel. He had, during the agitation caused by the 
 Exclusion Bill, put forth a narrative containing some 
 false and odious imputations on the late and on the 
 present King. For this publication he was now, after 
 the lapse of five years, suddenly taken up, brought 
 before the Privy Council, committed, tried, convicted, 
 and sentenced to be whij:)ped from Aldgate to Newgate 
 and from Newgate to Tyburn. The wretched man 
 behaved with great effrontery during the trial ; but, 
 when he heard his doom, he went into agonies of de- 
 spair, gave himself up for dead, and chose a text for his 
 funeral sermon. His forebodings were just. He was 
 not, indeed, scourged quite so severely as Oates had 
 been ; but he had not Oates's iron strength of bodv and 
 mind. After the execution Dangerfield was put into 
 a hackney coach and was taken back to prison. As he 
 passed the corner of Hatton Garden, a Tory gentleman 
 of Gray's Inn, named Francis, stopped the carriage, 
 and cried out with brutal levity, " Well, friend, have 
 you had your heat this morning ? " The bleeding 
 prisoner, maddened by this insult, answered with a 
 curse. Francis instantly struck him in the face Avith 
 
 1 Accordinf? to Eogrr Nortli tlio jiiflgt's dccidod that Dangerfield, having 
 been previously convicted of p(!rjurv, was iucoinpetent to be a witness of 
 the plot. Hut this is one anion^^ many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. 
 It appears, from the report of the trial of Lord Castclmaine in June 1G80, 
 that, after much altercation between counsel, and much consultation among 
 the judges of the diliercnt courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerlield was 
 »\v(iiii, ami >ull'ercd to tell liis story: but tiie jury very properly gave no 
 credit to his (estiiuouv.
 
 76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 a cane which injured the eye. Dangerfield was car- 
 ried dying into Newgate. This dastardly outrage 
 roused the indignation of the bystanders. They seized 
 Francis, and were with difficulty restrained from tear- 
 ing him to pieces. The appearance of Dangerfield's 
 body, which had been fi'ightfully lacerated by the whip, 
 inclined many to believe that his death was chiefly, 
 if not wholly, caused by the stripes which he had 
 received. The government and the Chief Justice 
 thought it convenient to lay the whole blame on Fran- 
 cis, who, though he seems to have been at worst guilty 
 only of aggravated manslaughter, was tried and exe- 
 cuted for murder. His dying speech is one of the 
 most curious monuments of that age. The savage 
 spirit which had brought him to the gallows remained 
 with him to the last. Boasts of his loyalty and abuse 
 of the Whigs were mingled with the parting ejacula- 
 tions in which he commended his soul to the divine 
 mercy. An idle rumour had been circulated that his 
 wife was in love with Dangerfield, who was eminently 
 handsome and renowned for gallantry. The fatal blow, 
 it was said, had been prompted by jealousy. The dy- 
 ing husband, with an earnestness, half ridiculous, half 
 pathetic, vindicated the lady's character. She was, 
 he said, a virtuous woman : she came of a loyal stock, 
 and, if she had been inclined to break her marriage 
 vow, would at least have selected a Tory and a church- 
 man for her paramour.^ 
 
 1 Dangerfield's trial was not reported; but I have seen a concise account 
 of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of the evidence against 
 Francis, and his d_ying speech, will be found in the Collection of State 
 Trials. See Eachard, iii. 741. Burnet's n.arrative contains more mistakes 
 than lines. See also North's Examen, 256., the sketch of Dangerfield's 
 life in the Bloody Assizes, the Observator of July 29. 1G85, and the poem 
 entitled '• Dange^jfield's Ghost to Jeffreys." In the very rare volume en- 
 titled " Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halstead," Lord Peterborough
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. T7 
 
 About the same time a culprit, who bore very little 
 resemblance to Oates or Dangerfeld, appeared Proceedings 
 on the floor of the Court of King's Bench. Baxter. 
 No eminent chief of a party has ever passed through 
 many years of civil and religious dissension with more 
 innocence than Richard Baxter. He belonged to the 
 mildest and most temperate section of the Puritan 
 body. He was a young man when the civil war broke 
 out. He thought that the right was on the side of the 
 Houses ; and he had no scruple about acting as chap- 
 lain to a regiment in the parliamentary army : but his 
 clear and somewhat sceptical understanding, and his 
 strong sense of justice, preserved him fi'om all excesses. 
 He exerted himself to check the fanatical violence of 
 the soldiery. He condemned the proceedings of the 
 High Court of Justice. In the days of the Common- 
 wealth he had the boldness to express, on many occa- 
 sions, and once even in Cromwell's presence, love and 
 reverence for the ancient institutions of the covmtry. 
 While the royal family was in exile, Baxter's life was 
 chiefly passed at Kidderminster in the assiduous dis- 
 charge of parochial duties. He heartily concurred in 
 the Restoration, and was sincerely desirous to bring 
 about an union between Episcopalians and Presbyte- 
 rians. For, with a liberality rare in his time, he con- 
 sidered questions of ecclesiastical }>olity as of small 
 account when com])ared with the great principles of 
 Christianity, and had never, even wlien j)relacy was 
 most odious to the ruling powers, joined in the outcry 
 against Bishops. The attempt to reconcile the con- 
 tendincr factions failed. Baxter cast in his lot with his 
 
 o 
 
 says that Panffcrfield, with whom he had had some intercourse, was "• 
 younp mat who appeared under a decent flf;iii"e, a serious beha^ lour, and 
 irith words tbat did not seem to proceed from a common understanding."
 
 78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, 
 quitted the parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave him- 
 self up almost wholly to study. His theological writ- 
 ings, though too moderate to be pleasing to the bigots 
 of any party, had an immense reputation. Zealous 
 Churchmen called him a Roundhead ; and many Non- 
 conformists accused him of Erastianism and Arminian- 
 ism. But the integrity of his heart, the purity of his 
 life, the vigour of his faculties, and the extent of his 
 attainments were acknowledged by the best and wisest 
 men of every persuasion. His political opinions, in 
 spite of the oppression which he and his brethren had 
 suffered, were moderate. He was friendly to that small 
 party which was hated by both Whigs and Tories. 
 He could not, he said, join in cursing the Trimmers, 
 when he remembered who it was that had blessed the 
 peacemakers.^ 
 
 In a Commentary on the New Testament he had 
 complained, with some bitterness, of the persecution 
 which the Dissenters suffered. That men who, for not 
 using the Prayer Book, had been driven from their 
 homes, stripped of their propert}^ and locked up in 
 dungeons, should dare to utter a murmur, was then 
 thought a high crime against the State and the Church. 
 Roger Lestrange, the champion of the government 
 and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note of Avar 
 in the Observator. An information was filed. Bax- 
 ter begged that he might be allowed some time to pre- 
 pare for his defence. It was on the day on which 
 Gates was pilloried in Palace Yard tliat the illustrious 
 chief of the Puritans, oppressed by age and infirmities, 
 came to Westminster Hall to make this request. Jef- 
 freys burst into a storm of x-age. " Not a minute," he 
 
 » Baxter's preface to Sir Matthew Hale's Judgment of the Nature of True 
 Religion, 1684.
 
 1«85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 79 
 
 cried, " to save his life. I can deal with saints as well 
 as with sinners. There stands Gates on one side of 
 the pillory ; and, if Baxter stood on the other, tlie two 
 greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand together." 
 
 When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of 
 those who loved and honoured Baxter filled tlie court. 
 At his side stood Doctor William Bates, one of the 
 most eminent of the Nonconformist divines. Two 
 Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop, 
 appeared for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarce be- 
 gun his address to the jury, when the Chief Justice 
 broke forth : " Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set 
 a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction. 
 This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hyjjocriti- 
 cal villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would have 
 nothing but longwinded cant without book : " and tiien 
 his Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and 
 began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what he 
 supposed to be Baxter's style of praying, " Lord, we 
 are thy people, thy peculiar people, thy dear people." 
 Pollexfen gently reminded the court that his late Maj- 
 esty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. 
 *' And what ailed the old blockhead then," cried Jef- 
 freys, " that he did not take it ? " His fury now rose 
 almost to madness. He called Baxter a doo-, and SAvore 
 that it would be no more than justice to whip such a 
 villain through the whole City. 
 
 Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his 
 leader. " You are in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wal- 
 lop," said the Judge. " Gentlemen of the lono; robe 
 ought to be ashamed to assist such factious knaves." 
 The advocate made another attcmj)t to obtain a hear- 
 ing, but to no purpose. " If you do not know your 
 duty," said Jeffreys, " I will teach it you." 
 
 VOL. II. 1}
 
 80 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Wallop sate down ; and Baxter himself attempted 
 to put in a word. But the Chief Justice drowned all 
 expostulation in a torrent of ribaldry and invective, 
 mingled with scraps of Hudibras. "My Lord," said 
 the old man, " I have been much blamed by Dissent- 
 ers for speaking respectfully of Bishops." " Baxter 
 for Bishops ! " cried the judge, " that 's a merry con- 
 ceit indeed. I know what you mean by Bishops, 
 rascals like yourself, Kidderminster Bishops, factious 
 snivelling Presbyterians ! " Again Baxter essayed to 
 speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed, " Richard, Richard, 
 dost thou think we will let thee poison the court ? 
 Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written 
 books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of 
 sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of 
 God, I '11 look after thee. I see a great many of your 
 brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their 
 mighty Don. And there," he continued, fixing his 
 savage eye on Bates, " there is a Doctor of the party 
 at your elbow. But, by the grace of God Almighty, 
 I will crush you all." 
 
 Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior coun- 
 sel for the defence made a last effort, and undertook 
 to show that the words of which complaint was made 
 would not bear the construction put on them by the 
 information. With this view he began to read the 
 context. In a moment he was roared down. " You 
 shan't turn the court into a conventicle." The noise 
 of weeping was heard from some of those who sur- 
 rounded Baxter. " Snivelling calves ! " said the 
 Judge. 
 
 Witnesses to character were in attendance, and 
 among them were several clergymen of the Established 
 Church. But the Chief Justice would hear nothing. 
 
 I
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 81 
 
 ■' Does your Lordship think," said Baxter, "that any 
 jury will convict a man on such a trial as this ? " "I 
 warrant you, Mr. Baxter," said Jeffreys : " don't 
 trouble yourself about that." Jeffreys was right. 
 "^I'lie Sheriffs were the tools of the government. The ju- 
 rymen, selected by the Sheriffs from among the fiercest 
 zealots of the Tory party, conferred for a moment, and 
 returned a verdict of guilty. " My Lord," said Bax- 
 ter, as he left the court, " there was once a Chief Jus- 
 tice who would have treated me very differently." 
 He alluded to his learned and virtuous friend Sir 
 Matthew Hale. " There is not an honest man in Eno- 
 land," answered Jeffreys, " but looks on thee as a 
 knave." ^ 
 
 The sentence was, for those times, a lenient one. 
 What passed in conference among the judges cannot be 
 certainly known. It was believed among the Noncon- 
 formists, and is highly probable, that the Chief Justice 
 was overruled by his three brethren. He proposed, it 
 is said, that Baxter should be whipped through London 
 at the cart's tail. The majority thought that an emi- 
 nent divine, who, a quarter of a century before, had 
 been offered a mitre, and who was now in his seven- 
 tieth year, would be sufficiently punished for a few 
 sharp words by fine and imprisonment.''^ 
 
 The manner in which Baxter was treated by a judge 
 who was a member of the cabinet and a fa- Meeting or 
 vourite of the sovereign indicated, in a man- ^euto^f''^ 
 nernot to be mistaken, the feelinn; with which ^''°^''^"'^- 
 the government at this time regarded the Protestant 
 
 ' See the Observator of February 25. 1685, the infonnation in the Col- 
 lertion of State Trials, the account of what passed in court given by Cal- 
 Biiiy, Life of Baxter, chnp. xiv., and tiic very curious extracts from the 
 Baxter M8S. in the. Life, \>y Onne, published in 18:J0. 
 
 '^ ilaxter MS. cited bv Onne.
 
 82 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IT. 
 
 Nonconformists. But already that feeling had been 
 indicated by still stronger and more terrible signs. 
 The Parliament of Scotland had met. James had 
 purjDosely hastened the session of this body, and had 
 postponed the session of the English Houses, in the 
 hope that the example set at Edinburgh would produce 
 a good effect at Westminster. For the legislature of 
 his northern kingdom was as obsequious as those pro- 
 vincial Estates which Lewis the Fourteenth still suf- 
 fered to play at some of their ancient functions in Brit- 
 anny and Burgundy. None but an Episcopalian could 
 sit in the Scottish Parliament, or could even vote for a 
 member ; and in Scotland an Episcopalian was always 
 a Tory or a timeserver. From an assembly thus con- 
 stituted little opposition to the royal wishes was to be 
 apprehended ; and even the assembly thus constituted 
 could pass no law which had not been previously ap- 
 proved by a committee of courtiers. 
 
 All that the government asked was readily granted. 
 In a financial point of view, indeed, the liberalitv of 
 the Scottish Estates was of little consequence. They 
 gave, however, what their scanty means permitted. 
 They annexed in perpetuity to the crown the duties 
 which had been granted to the late Kino;, and which 
 in his time had been estimated at forty thousand pounds 
 sterling a year. They also settled on James for life an 
 additional annual income of two hundred and sixteen 
 thousand pounds Scots, equivalent to eighteen thou- 
 sand pounds sterling. The whole sum which they 
 were able to bestow was about sixty thousand a year, 
 little more than what was poured into the English Ex- 
 chequer every fortnight.^ 
 
 1 Act Pari. Car. II. March 29. 1661; Jac. VII. April 28. 1685, and May 
 13. 1685.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 83 
 
 Haviiif^ little money to give, the Estates supplied 
 the defect by loyal professions and barbarous statutes. 
 The King, in a letter which was read to them at the 
 opening of their session, called on them in vehement 
 language to ju'ovide new penal laws against the refrac- 
 tory Presbyterians, and expressed his regret that busi- 
 ness made it impossible for him to propose such laws 
 in person from the throne. His commands were obeyed. 
 A statute framed by his ministers was promptly passed, 
 a statute which stands forth, even among the statutes 
 of that unhaj)py country at that unhappy pei'iod, pre- 
 eminent in atrocity. It was enacted, in few but em- 
 phatic words, that whoever should preach in a con- 
 venticle under a roof, or should attend, either as 
 preacher or as hearer, a conventicle in the open air, 
 should be punished with death and confiscation of 
 property.^ 
 
 This law, passed at the King's instance by an assem- 
 bly devoted to his will, deserves especial no- Feeling of 
 tice. For he has been frequently represented war'aTtue 
 by ignorant writers as a prince rash, indeed, ^^'"'^"*"^- 
 and injudicious in his choice of means, but intent on 
 one of the noblest ends which a ruler can pursue, the 
 establishment of entire religious libert3\ Nor can it be 
 denied that some })ortions of his lif(% when detached 
 from the rest and suj)erficially considered, seem to war- 
 rant this favourable view of his character. 
 
 While a subject he had been, during many years, 
 a persecuted man ; and persecution had produced its 
 usual effect on him. His mind, dull and narrow as it 
 was, had profited under that sharp discipline. While 
 he was excluded from the Court, from the Admiralty, 
 
 1 Act Tarl. Jiic. VII.MayS. 1085; Observalor, .Jiine20. 1C85. Lestrang* 
 evidently wished to see the precedent followed iu Euyland.
 
 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ICh IV. 
 
 and from the Council, and was in danger of beino- also 
 excluded from the tlnrone, only because he could not 
 help believing in transubstantiation and in the author- 
 ity of the see of Rome, he made such rapid progress in 
 the doctrines of toleration that he left Milton and 
 Locke behind. What, he often said, could be more 
 unjust, than to visit speculations with penalties which 
 ought to be reserved for acts ? What more impohtic 
 than to reject the services of good soldiers, seamen, 
 lawyers, diplomatists, financiers, because they hold un- 
 sound opinions about the number of the sacraments or 
 the pluripresence of saints ? He learned by rote those 
 commonplaces which all sects repeat so fluently when 
 they are enduring oppression, and forget so easily when 
 they are able to retaliate it. Indeed he rehearsed his 
 lesson so well, that those who chanced to hear him on 
 this subject gave him ci*edit for much more sense and 
 much readier elocution than he really possessed. His 
 professions imposed on some charitable persons, and per- 
 haps imposed on himself. But his zeal for the rights of 
 conscience ended with the predominance of the Whig 
 party. When fortune changed, when he was no longer 
 afraid that others would persecute him, wdien he had 
 it in his power to persecute others, his real propensities 
 began to show themselves. He hated the Puritan 
 sects with a manifold hatred, theological and pohtical, 
 hereditary and personal. He regarded them as the 
 foes of Heaven, as the foes of all legitimate authority 
 in Church and State, as his great grandmother's foes 
 and his grandfather's, his father's and his mother's, his 
 brother's and his own. He, who had complained so 
 loudly of the laws against Papists, now declared him- 
 self unable to conceive how men could have the impu- 
 dence to propose the repeal of the laws against Puri-
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 86 
 
 tans J He, whose favourite theme had been the injus- 
 tice of requiring civil functionaries to take rehgious 
 tests, estabhshed in Scotland, when he resided there as 
 Viceroy, the most rigorous religious test that has ever 
 been known in the empire.^ He, who had expressed 
 just indignation wlien the priests of his own faith were 
 hanged and quartered, amused himself with hearing 
 Covenanters shriek and seeing them writhe while 
 their knees were beaten flat in tlie boots.^ In this 
 mood he became Kino;, and he immediately demanded 
 and obtained from the obsequious Estates of Scotland, 
 as the surest pledge of their loyalty, the most sangui- 
 nary law that has ever in our islands been enacted 
 ajjainst Protestant Nonconformists. 
 
 With this law the whole spirit of his administration 
 was in perfect harmony. The fiery persecu- c^^g, ^^^^. 
 tion, which had raged when he ruled Scotland Sh Cov- 
 as vicegerent, waxed hotter than ever from ^°''"'*"^^- 
 the day on which he became sovereign. Those shires 
 in which the Covenanters were most numerous were 
 given up to the license of the army. With the army 
 Avas mingled a militia, composed of the most violent 
 and profligate of those who called themselves Episco- 
 palians. Preeminent among the band which oppressed 
 and wasted these unhappy districts were the dragoons 
 commanded by John Graham of Claverhouse. Tiie 
 story ran that these wicked men used in their revels 
 
 1 Tlis own words reported by himself. Clarke's Life of James the 
 Secoad, i. 656. Grip. Mem. 
 
 2 Act Pari. Car. II. Auftust 31. 1681. 
 
 3 Burnet, i. 583.; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the 
 Scottish Privy Council durinjr almost the whole administration of the 
 Duke of York arc wanting. (1848.) This assertion lias been met by a 
 llirec' :ontrailiction. Hut the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There is 
 .n tiie acta of the Scotti.sh Privy Council a hiatus extending from .Vut^ust 
 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of York began to reside in Scotland in 
 December 1G79. He left Scotland, never to return, in May 1682. (1857.)
 
 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 to play at the torments of hell, and to call each other 
 by tlie names of devils and damned souls. ^ The chief 
 of this Tophet, a soldier of distinguished courage and 
 professional skill, but rapacious and profane, of violent 
 temper and of obdurate heai't, has left a name which, 
 wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the 
 globe, is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. 
 To recapitulate all the crimes, by which this man, and 
 men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western 
 Lowlands into madness, would be an endless task. A 
 lew instances must suffice ; and all those instances shall 
 be taken from the history of a single fortnight, that 
 very fortnight in which the Scottish Parliament, at the 
 urgent request of James, enacted a new law of unpre- 
 cedented severity against Dissenters. 
 
 John Brown, a poor carrier of Lanarkshire, was, for 
 his singular piety, commonly called the Christian car- 
 rier. Many years later, when Scotland enjoyed rest, 
 prosperity, and religious freedom, old men who remem- 
 bered the evil days, described him as one versed in 
 divine things, blameless in life, and so peaceable that 
 the tyrants could find no offence in him except that he 
 absented himself from the public Avorship of the Epis- 
 copalians. On the first of May he was cutting turf, 
 when he was seized by Claverhouse's di'agoons, rapidly 
 examined, convicted of nonconformity, and sentenced 
 to death. It is said that, even among the soldiers, it 
 was not easy to find an executioner. For the wife of 
 the poor man was present : she led one little child by 
 the hand : it was easy to see that she was about to give 
 birth to another ; and even those wild and hardhearted 
 men, who nicknamed one another Beelzebub and Apol- 
 lyon, shrank fi'om the great wickedness of butchering 
 her husband before her face. The prisoner, mean- 
 
 i Wodrow, III. ix. (J. 
 
 i
 
 1«85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 87 
 
 while, raised above liimself by the near prospect of 
 eternity, prayed load and fervently as one inspired, 
 till Claverhouse, in a fury, shot him dead. It was re- 
 ported by credible witnesses tliat the widow cried out 
 in her agony, " Well, sir, Avell ; the day of reckoning 
 will come ; " and that the murderer replied, " To man 
 I can answer for what I have done ; and as for God, I 
 will take him into mine own hand." Yet it was ru- 
 moured that even on his seared conscience and ada- 
 mantine heart the dying ejaculations of his victim 
 made an impression which was never effaced.^ 
 
 On the fifth of May two artisans, Peter Gillies and 
 John Bryce, were tried in Ayrshire by a military tri- 
 bunal consisting of fifteen soldiers. The indictment is 
 still extant. The prisoners were charged, not with any 
 act of rebellion, but with holding the same pernicious 
 doctrines which had impelled others to rebel, and with 
 wanting only opportunity to act uj)on those doctrines. 
 The pi'oceeding was summary. In a few hours the 
 two culprits were convicted, hanged, and flung together 
 into a hole under the gallows.^ 
 
 The eleventh of May was made remarkable by more 
 than one o-reat crime. Some ngid Calvinists had from 
 the doctrine of reprobation drawn the consequence that 
 to ])ray for any person who had been predestined to 
 perdition was an act of mutiny against the eternal de- 
 crees of the Su])reme Being. Three poor labouring 
 men, deeply imbued with this unamiable divinity, were 
 stopped by an officer in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. 
 
 1 Wodrow, III. ix. C. The editor of the Oxford edition of Burnet at- 
 tempts to excuse this act by aliefjinf^ that Claverhouse was then employed 
 to intercept all communicatlDU hetwecn Arj^yle and Monmouth, and by sup- 
 posing that John Brown may have been detected in conveying intelligence 
 between the rebel camps. Unfortunately for this hypothesis John lirown 
 was shot on the first 6f 5Iay, wlien both Argyle and Monmouth were in 
 Holland, and when there was no insurrection in any part of our island. 
 
 8 Wodrow, III. ix. 6.
 
 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 They were asked whether they would pray for King 
 James the Seventh. They refused to do so except un- 
 der the condition that lie was one of the elect. A file 
 of musketeers was drawn out. The prisoners knelt 
 down : they were blindfolded ; and, within an hour 
 after they had been arrested, their blood was lapped up 
 by the dogs.^ 
 
 While this was done in Clydesdale, an act not less 
 horrible was perpetrated in Eskdale. One of the pro- 
 scribed Covenanters, overcome by sickness, had found 
 shelter in the house of a respectable widow, and had 
 died there. The corpse was discovered by the Laird 
 of Westerhall, a petty tyrant who had, in the days of 
 the Covenant, professed inordinate zeal for the Presby- 
 terian Church, who had, since the Restoration, pur- 
 chased the favour of the government by apostasy, and 
 who felt towards the party which he had deserted the 
 implacable hatred of an apostate. This man pulled 
 down the house of the poor woman, carried away her 
 furniture, and, leaving her and her younger children 
 to wander in the fields, dragged her son Andrew, who 
 was still a lad, before Claverhouse, who happened to 
 be marching through that part of the country. Cla- 
 verhouse was just then strangely lenient. Some 
 thought that he had not been quite himself since the 
 death of the Christian carrier, ten days before. But 
 Westerhall was eager to signalise his loyalty, and ex- 
 torted a sullen consent. The guns were loaded, and 
 the youth was told to pull his bonnet over his face. 
 He refused, and stood confronting his murderers with 
 the Bible in his hand. " I can look you in the face," 
 he said ; " I have done nothing of which I need be 
 ashamed. But how will you look in that day when 
 
 » Wodrow, III. ix. 6.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. W 
 
 you shall be jtidged by what is written in this book ? " 
 He fell dead, and was buried in the moor.^ 
 
 On the same day two women, Margaret Maclachlan 
 and Margaret Wilson, the former an aged widow, the 
 latter a maiden of eighteen, suffered death for their 
 religion in Wigtonshire. They were offered their 
 lives if they would consent to abjure the cause of the 
 insurgent Covenanters, and to attend the Episcopal 
 worship. They refused ; and they were sentenced to 
 be drowned. They were carried to a spot which the 
 Solway overflows twice a day, and were fastened to 
 stakes fixed in the sand, between high and low water 
 mark. The elder sufferer was placed near to the ad- 
 vancing flood, in the hope that her last agonies might 
 terrify the younger into submission. The sight was 
 dreadful. But the courage of the survivor was sus- 
 tained by an enthusiasm as lofty as any that is recorded 
 in martyrology. Siie saw the sea draw nearer and 
 nearer, but gave no sign of alarm. She prayed and 
 sang verses of psalms till the waves choked her voice. 
 After she had tasted the bitterness of death she was, 
 by a cruel mercy, unbound and i-estored to life. When 
 she came to herself, pitying friends and neighbours im- 
 plored her to yieUl. " Dear Margaret, only say, God 
 save the King I " The poor girl, true to her stern 
 theology, gasped out, " May God save him, if it be 
 God's will ! " Her friends crowded round the presid- 
 ing officer. " She has said it ; indeed, sir, she has 
 said it." "Will she take the abjuration?" he de- 
 manded. "• Never ! " she exclaimed. " I am Christ's ; 
 let me go ! " And the waters closed over her for the 
 last time.^ 
 
 1 Wodrow, III. ix. G. Cloud of Witnesses. 
 
 2 Wodrow, III. ix. G. Tlie epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in the
 
 90 HISTOEY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Thus was Scotland governed by that prince whom 
 ignorant men have represented as a friend of rehgious 
 liberty, whose misfortune it was to be too wise and too 
 good for the age in which he lived. Nay, even those 
 laws which authorised him to govern thus were in his 
 judgment reprehensibly lenient. While his officers 
 were committing the murders which have just been re- 
 lated, he was urging the Scottish Parliament to pass a 
 new Act compared with which all former Acts might be 
 called merciful. 
 
 In England his authority, though great, was circum- 
 scribed by ancient and noble laws which even the To- 
 ries would not patiently have seen him infringe. Here 
 he could not hurry Dissenters before military tribunals, 
 or enjoy at Council the luxury of seeing them swoon 
 in the boots. Here he could not drown young girls 
 for refusing to take the abjuration, or shoot poor coun- 
 trymen for doubting whether he was one of the elect. 
 Yet even in England he continued to persecute the 
 Puritans as far as his power extended, till events which 
 will hereafter be related induced him to form the 
 design of uniting Puritans and Papists in a coalition 
 for the humiliation and spoliation of the Established 
 Church. 
 
 One sect of Protestant Dissenters indeed he, even 
 reeling of ^^ ^^^'^^ early period of his reign, regarded 
 wa^dsthe "^J^^^ some teudemess, the Society of Friends. 
 Quaiijra. jjjg partiality for that singular fi-aternity can- 
 not be attributed to religious sympathy ; for, of all wl.o 
 
 churchyard at Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of Wit- 
 nesses : 
 
 "Murdered for o^vTling Christ supreme 
 Head of his Church, and no more crime, 
 But her not o\vuhig Prelacy, 
 And not abjuring Presbytery, 
 Within the sea. (ied to a Rtake. 
 She suffered for Christ Jeeus' sake."
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 91 
 
 acknowledffe the divine mission of Jesus, the Roman 
 Cathohc and the Quaker differ most widely. It may 
 seem paradoxical to say that this veiy circumstance 
 constituted a tie between the Roman Catholic and the 
 Quaker ; yet such was really the case. For they de- 
 viated in opposite directions so far from what the great 
 body of the nation regarded as right that even liberal 
 men generally considered them both as lying beyond 
 the pale of the largest toleration. Thus the two ex- 
 treme sects, precisely because they were extreme sects, 
 had a common interest distinct from the interest of the 
 intermediate sects. The Quakers were also guiltless 
 of all offence against James and his House. They had 
 not been in existence as a community till the war be- 
 tween his father and the Long Parliament was drawing 
 towards a close. They had been cruelly persecuted 
 by some of the revolutionary governments. They had, 
 since the Restoration, in spite of much ill usage, sub- 
 mitted themselves meekly to the royal authority. For 
 they had, though reasoning on premises which the An- 
 glican divines regarded as heterodox, arrived, like the 
 Ancrlican divines, at the conclusion, that no excess of 
 tyranny on the part of a prince can justify active re- 
 sistance on the part of a subject. No libel on the gov- 
 ernment had ever been traced to a Quaker.^ In no 
 conspiracy against the government had a Quaker been 
 imphcatcd. The society had not joined in the clamour 
 for the Exclusion Bill, and had solemnly condemned 
 the Rye House Plot as a hellish design and a work of 
 the devil.2 Indeed, the Friends then took very little 
 part in civil contentions ; for they were not, as now, 
 congregated in large towns, but were generally cu- 
 
 » See the letter to King Charles II. prefixed to Barclay's Apology. 
 ' Sewel's History of the Quakers, book x.
 
 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. lY. 
 
 gaged in agriculture, a pursuit from which they have 
 been gradually driven by the vexations consequent on 
 their strange scruple about paying tithe. They were, 
 therefore, far removed from the scene of political strife. 
 They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on prin- 
 ciple all political conversation. For such conversation 
 was, in their opinion, unfavourable to their spirituality 
 of mind, and tended to disturb the austere composure 
 of tlieir deportment. The yearly meetings of that age 
 repeatedly admonished the brethren not to hold dis- 
 course touching affairs of state. ^ Even within the 
 memory of persons now living those grave elders who 
 retained the habits of an earlier generation systemati- 
 cally discouraged such worldly tal'k.^ It was natural 
 that James should make a wide distinction between 
 these harmless people and those fierce and restless sects 
 which considered resistance to tyranny as a Christian 
 duty, which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, 
 made war on legitimate princes, and which had, during 
 four generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House 
 of Stuart. 
 
 It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant 
 large relief to the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker 
 without mitifjatino; the sufFerino;s of the Puritan sects. 
 A law was in force which imposed severe penalties 
 on every person who refused to take the oath of su- 
 premacy when required to do so. This law did not 
 affect Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists ; for 
 they were all ready to call God to witness that they 
 renounced all spiritual connection with foreign prelates 
 and potentates. But the Roman Catholic would not 
 swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction iii England, 
 
 1 Minutes of Yearly Meetings, 1689, 1G90. 
 
 2 Clarkson on Quakerism ; Peculiar Customs, chapter v.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 98 
 
 and the Quaker would not swear to any thing. On 
 the other hand, neither the Roman Cathohc nor the 
 Quaker was touched by the Five Mile Act, which, of 
 all the laws in the Statute Book, was perhaps the most 
 annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists. ^ 
 
 The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate 
 at court. Though, as a class, they mixed ^imam 
 little with the world, and shunned politics as ^^'^■ 
 a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one of 
 them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and 
 fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant 
 access to the royal ear. This was the celebrated Wil- 
 liam Penn. His father had held great naval commands, 
 had been a Commissioner of the Admiralty, had sate 
 in Parliament, had received the honour of knighthood, 
 and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The 
 son had been liberally educated, and had been designed 
 for the profession of arms, but had, while still young, 
 injured his prospects and disgusted his friends by join- 
 ing what was then generally considered as a gang of 
 crazy heretics. He had been sent sometimes to the 
 Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had been 
 tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the 
 law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled 
 to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such 
 powerful protection that, while all the gaols of Eng- 
 land were filled with his brethren, he was permitted, 
 
 1 After this passage was Avritten, I found, in the British Museum, a 
 manuscript (Ilarl. JIS. 7500.) entitled, "An Account of the Seizures, 
 Sequestrations, great Spoil and Havock made upon the Estates of the 
 several Protestant Dissenters called Quakers, upon Prosecution of old 
 Statutes made against Papist and Popish Recusants." The manuscript 
 is marked as having belonged to James, and appears to have been given 
 by his confidential servant, Colonel Oraham, to T.ord Oxford. This cir- 
 cumstance appears to me to conlirm the view which I have taken of th© 
 K.ing'8 conduct towards the Quakers.
 
 94 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 during many years, to profess his opinions without mol- 
 estation. Towards the close of the late reign he had 
 obtained, in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from 
 the crown, the grant of an immense region in North 
 America. In this tract, then peopled only by Indian 
 hunters, he had invited his persecuted friends to settle. 
 His colony was still in its infancy when James mounted 
 the throne. 
 
 Between James and Penn there had long been a 
 familiar acquaintance. The Quaker now became a 
 corn-tier, and almost a favourite. He was every day 
 summoned from the gallery into the closet, and some- 
 times had long audiences while peers were kept wait- 
 ing in the antechambers. It was noised abroad that 
 he had more real power to help and hurt than many 
 nobles who filled high offices. He was soon surrounded, 
 by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Kensing- 
 ton was sometimes thronged, at his hour of rising, by 
 more than two hundred suitors. He paid dear, how- 
 ever, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect 
 looked coldly on liim, and requited his services with 
 obloquy. He was loudly accused of being a Papist, 
 nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed that he had been edu- 
 cated at St. Omers, and others, that he had been or- 
 dained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find 
 credit only with the undiscerning multitude : but vvitli 
 these calumnies were mingled accusations much better 
 founded.^ 
 
 1 Penn's visits to Whitehall, and levees at Kensington, are described 
 with great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by Gerard Croese. " Sunie- 
 bat," he says, " rex ssepe secretum, non horarium, vero horarum pluriiim, 
 in quo de variis rebus cum Penno serio serinonem conferebat, et interim 
 ditierebat audire pnccipuorum nobilium ordinem, qui hoc interim spatio 
 in proctt'toue, in proximo, regem conventum prassto erant." Of the 
 crowd of suitors at Penn's house, Croese says, " Vidi quandoque de hoc
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 96 
 
 To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task 
 which requires some courage ; for he is rather a mythi- 
 cal than a historical person. Rival nations and hostile 
 sects have agreed in canonizing him. England is proud 
 of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the At- 
 lantic regards him with a reverence similar to that 
 which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans 
 for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was 
 a member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of 
 other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright 
 pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a 
 very different sort have sounded his praises. The 
 French philosophers of the eighteenth century par- 
 doned what they regarded as his superstitious fancies 
 in consideration of his contempt for priests, and of his 
 cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially extended to all 
 races and to all creeds. His name has thus become, 
 throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for 
 probity and philanthropy. 
 
 Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. 
 Penn was without doubt a man of eminent virtues. 
 He had a strong sense of religious duty and a fervent 
 desire to promote the happiness of maidvind. On one 
 or two points of high importance he had notions more 
 correct than were, in his day, common even among 
 men of enlarged minds ; and, as the proprietor and leg- 
 islator of a province which, being almost uninhabited 
 when it came into his possession, afforded a clear field 
 for moral experiments, he had the I'are good fortune of 
 being able to carry his theories into practice without 
 any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing 
 institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour 
 
 genere hominura non minus bis centum." — Historia Quakeriana, lib iL 
 1695. 
 
 VOL. u. 7
 
 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 as a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings 
 with a savage people, abuse the strength derived from 
 civilisation, and as a lawgiver who, in an age of perse- 
 cution, made religious liberty the corner stone of a 
 polity. But his writings and his life fui'nish abundant 
 proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He had 
 no skill in reading the characters of others. His confi- 
 dence in persons less virtuous than himself led him into 
 great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one 
 great principle sometimes impelled him to violate other 
 great principles which he ought to have held sacred. 
 Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against the 
 temjDtations to which it was exposed in that splendid 
 and polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which 
 he now ming;led. The whole court was in a ferment 
 with intrigues of gallantry and intrigues of ambition. 
 The traffic in honours, places, and pardons was inces- 
 sant. It was natural that a man who was daily seen at 
 the palace, and who was known to have free access to 
 majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his 
 influence for purposes which a rigid morality must con- 
 demn. The integrity of Penn had stood firm against 
 obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by royal 
 smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating 
 eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists 
 and courtiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles 
 and phrases against which he had often borne his .tes- 
 timony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. 
 It would be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse 
 than such compliances with the fashions of the world. 
 Unhappily it cannot be concealed that he bore a chief 
 part in some transactions condemned, not merely by 
 the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but 
 by the general sense of all honest men. He after-
 
 favour 
 shown to 
 Roman 
 Catholics 
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 97 
 
 wards solemnly protested that his hands were pure 
 from illicit gain, and that he had never received any 
 gratuity ft'om those whom he had obliged, though he 
 might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have 
 made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.^ To 
 this assertion frill credit is due. But bribes may be 
 offered to vanity as well as to cupidity ; and it is impos- 
 sible to deny that Penn was cajoled into bearing a part 
 in some unjustifiable transactions of which others en- 
 joyed the profits. 
 
 The first use which he made of his credit was highly 
 commendable. He strongly represented the pep^,;, 
 sufferincrs of his brethren to the new Kinir, 
 who saw with pleasure that it was possible to 
 grant indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to '^"'i ^''"•'•^ri:- 
 the Roman Catholics, without showing similar favour to 
 other classes which were then under persecution. A 
 list was framed of prisoners against whom proceedings 
 had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for not 
 going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had 
 been produced to the government. These persons were 
 discharged, and orders were given that no similar pro- 
 ceeding should be instituted till the royal pleasure should 
 be further signified. In this way about fifteen hundred 
 Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catho- 
 lics, regained their liberty.^ 
 
 1 " Twenty thousand into my pocket; and a hundred thousand into my 
 province." — Penn's Letter to Popple. 
 
 ■■^ '{"hose orders, sii^nod by Sunderland, will ho found in Scwel's History. 
 They hear date April 18. 1085. They arc written in a style singularly ob- 
 scure and intricate; but I think that I have exhibited the meaning cor- 
 rectly. I have not been able to find any proof tliat any person, not a Ro- 
 man Catholic or a Quaker, rogaincMl his freedom under those orders. See 
 Neal's llistorv' of the Puritans, vol. ii. chap. ii. (Jerard Croeso, lib. ii. 
 Croese eUimates the number of (iuakcrs liberated at fourteen hundred and 
 wxty.
 
 98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 And now the time had arrived when the Enghsh 
 ParHament was to meet. The members of the House 
 of Commons who had repaired to the capital were so 
 numerous that there was much doubt whether their 
 cliamber, as it was tlien fitted up, would afford suffi- 
 cient accommodation for them. They employed the 
 days which immediately preceded the opening of the 
 session in talking over public affairs with each other 
 and with the agents of the government. A great 
 meeting of the loyal party was held at the Fountain 
 Tavern in the Strand ; and Roger Lestrange, who had 
 recently been knighted by the King, and returned to 
 Parliament by the city of Winchester, took a leading 
 part in their consultations .^ 
 
 It soon appeared that a large portion of the Com- 
 mons had views which did not altogether agree with 
 those of the Court. The Tory country gentlemen 
 were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to maintain 
 the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act ; and some 
 among them talked of voting the revenue only for a 
 term of years. But they were perfectly ready to 
 enact severe laws against the Whigs, and would gladly 
 have seen all the supporters of the Exclusion Bill made 
 incapable of holding office. The King, on the other 
 hand, desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue 
 for life, the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and 
 the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act. On these three 
 objects his heai't was set ; and he was by no means dis- 
 posed to accept as a substitute for them a penal law 
 against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have 
 been positively unpleasing to him ; for one class of 
 Exclusionists stood high in his favour, that class of 
 
 1 Barillon, ^j^^ 1685. Observator, May 27. 1G35; Sir J. ReresDy's 
 Memoirs. 
 
 J 
 
 I
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 99 
 
 which Sunderland was the representative, that class 
 which had joined the Whigs in the days of the plot, 
 merely because the Whigs were predominant, and 
 which had changed with the change of fortune. James 
 justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable 
 tools that he could employ. It was not from the stout- 
 hearted Cavaliers, who had been true to him in his 
 adversity, that he could expect abject and unscrupulous 
 obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled 
 not by zeal for liberty or for religion, but merely by 
 selfish cupidity and selfish fear, had assisted to oppress 
 him when he was weak, were the very men who, im- 
 pelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would 
 assist him to oppress his people now that he was 
 strong.^ Though vindictive, he was not mdiscrimi- 
 nately vindictive. Not a single instance can be men- 
 tioned in which he showed a generous compassion to 
 those who had opposed him honestly and on public 
 grounds. But he frequently spared and promoted 
 those whom some vile motive had induced to injure 
 him. For that meanness which marked them out as fit 
 implements of tyranny was so precious in his estimation 
 that he reijarded it with some indulgence even when 
 it was exhibited at his own expense. 
 
 The King's wishes were communicated through sev- 
 eral channels to the Tory members of the Lower 
 House. The majority was easily persuaded to forego 
 all thoughts of a penal law against the Exclusionists, 
 and to consent that his majesty should have the rev- 
 enue for life. 15ut about the Test Act and the Habeas 
 
 1 Lewis wrote to ISarillon aliout this class of Exclusionists as follows: 
 ■' L'intiTet qiiMls aiiTout ;i cfi'acer cette fache par dcs services considi'rables 
 les portcra, kcIoii loiitcs Ics ajipan'rifes, ii le servir plus utiloment que ne 
 pourroient faire ceux qui oul toujours <?t(j les plus attaches k sa personue." 
 May ^. 1G85.
 
 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. IV 
 
 Corpus Act, the emissaries of the court could obtain n' 
 satisfactory assurances.^ 
 
 On the nineteenth of May the session was opened. 
 Meeting of The beuches of the Commons presented a 
 
 the English . '■ 
 
 Parliament, suigular spcctacle. That great party which, 
 in the last three Parliaments, had been predominant, 
 had now dwindled to a pitiable minority, and was in- 
 deed little more than a fifteenth part of the House. 
 Of the five hundred and thirteen knights and burgesses 
 only a hundred and thirty-five had ever sate in that 
 place before. It is evident that a body of men so raw 
 and inexperienced must have been, in some impor 
 tant qualities, far below the average of our representa- 
 tive assemblies.^ 
 
 The management of the House was confided by 
 James to two peers of the kingdom of Scotland. One 
 of them, Charles Middleton, Earl of Middleton, after 
 holding high office at Edinburgh, had, shortly before 
 the death of the late King, been sworn of the English 
 Privy Council, and appointed one of the Secretaries of 
 State. With him was joined Richard Graham, Vis- 
 count Preston, who had long held the post of Envoy at 
 Versailles. 
 
 The first business of the Commons was to elect a 
 Trevor chosen Sp®^^^^- Who should be the mau, was a 
 speaker. question which had been much debated in 
 the cabinet. Guildford had recommended Sir Thomas 
 Mei'es, who, like himself, ranked among the Trimmers. 
 Jeffreys, who missed no opportunity of crossing the 
 Lord Keeper, had pressed the claims of Sir John 
 Trevor. Trevor had been bred half a pettifogger and 
 half a gambler, had brought to political life sentiments 
 
 1 Barillon, May ^\. 1685 ; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs. 
 
 2 Bumet, i. 626. ; Evelyn's Diary, May 22. 1685.
 
 1886.] JAMES THE SECOND. 101 
 
 and principles wortliy of both his calhngs, had become 
 a parasite of the Chief Justice, and could, on occasion, 
 imitate, not unsuccessfully, the vituperative style of his 
 patron. The minion of Jeffreys was, as might have 
 been expected, preferred by James, was proposed by 
 Middleton, and was chosen without opposition.^ 
 
 Thus far all went smoothly. But an adversary of 
 no common prowess was watching his time, character of 
 This was Edward Seymour of Berry Pome- ^'^•^"*°"'^- 
 roy Castle, member for the city of Exeter. Seymour's 
 birth put him on a level Avith the noblest subjects in 
 Europe. He was the right heir male of the body of 
 that Duke of Somerset who had been brother in law 
 of King Henry the Eighth, and Protector of the realm 
 of England. In the limitation of the dukedom of 
 Somerset, the elder son of the Protector had been 
 postponed to the younger son. From the younger 
 son the Dukes of Somerset were descended. From 
 the elder son was descended the family which dwelt 
 at Berry Pomeroy. Seymour's fortune was large, and 
 his influence in the west of England extensive. Nor 
 was the importance derived from descent and wealth 
 the only importance which belonged to him. He was 
 one of the most skilful debaters and men of business 
 in the kingdom. He had sate many years in the 
 House of Commons, had studied all its rules and 
 usages, and thoroughly understood its peculiar temper. 
 He had been elected Speaker in the late reign under 
 circumstances which made that distinction peculiarly 
 honourable. Durins several iiencrations none but 
 lawyers had been called to the chair ; and he was the 
 first country gentleman whose abiHties and acquii-e- 
 luents enabled him to break that long prescription. 
 > Roger North's Life of Guildford, 218. ; Bramston's Memoirs.
 
 102 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Gh. IV. 
 
 He had subsequently held high political office, and had 
 sate in the cabinet. But his haughty and unaccom- 
 modating temper had given so much disgust that he 
 had been forced to retire. He was a Tory and a 
 Churchman ; he had strenuously opposed the Exclu- 
 sion Bill ; he had been persecuted by the Whigs in 
 the dav of their prosperity ; and he could therefore 
 safely venture to hold language for which any person 
 suspected of republicanism would have been sent to 
 the Tower. He had long been at the head of a 
 strong parliamentary connection, which was called 
 the Western Alliance, and which included many gen- 
 tlemen of Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Cornwall.^ 
 
 In every House of Commons a member, who unites 
 eloquence, knowledge, and habits of business, to opu- 
 lence and illustrious descent, must be highly consid- 
 ered. But in a House of Commons from which many 
 of the eminent orators and parliamentary tacticians of 
 the age were excluded, and which was crowded with 
 people who had never heard a debate, the influence 
 of such a man was peculiarly formidable. Weight 
 of moral character was indeed wanting to Edward 
 Seymour. He was licentious, profane, corrupt, too 
 proud to behave with common politeness, yet not too 
 proud to pocket illicit gain. But he was so useful 
 an ally, and so mischievous an enemy, that he was 
 frequently courted even by those who most detested 
 him.2 
 
 He was now in bad humour with the government. 
 His interest had been weakened in some places by 
 the remodelling of the western boroughs : his piiJe 
 
 1 North's Life of Guildford, 228. ; News from Westminster. 
 
 2 Burnet, i. 382. ; Letter from Lord Conway to Sir George Rawdon, Dec 
 28. 1677, in tlio Uawdoii Papers.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 103 
 
 had been wounded by the elevation of Trevor to the 
 chair ; and he took an early opportunity of revenging 
 himself. 
 
 On the twenty-second of May the Commons were 
 summoned to the bar of the Lords ; and the ^he King's 
 King, seated on his throne, made a speech to tht^aruk- 
 both Houses. He declared himself resolved """"'• 
 to maintain the established government in Church and 
 State. But he weakened the effect of this declaration 
 by addressing an extraordinary admonition to the Com- 
 mons. He was apprehensive, he said, that they might 
 be inclined to dole out money to him, from time to 
 time, in the hope that they should thus force him to 
 call them frecjuently together. But he must warn 
 them that he was not to be so dealt with, and that, if 
 they wished him to meet them often, they must use 
 him well. As it was evident that without money the 
 government could not be carried on, these expressions 
 plainly implied that, if they did not give him as much 
 money as he wished, he would take it. Strange to 
 say, this harangue was received with loud cheers by 
 the Tory gentlemen at the bar. Such acclamations 
 were then usual. It has now been, during many 
 years, the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments 
 to hear, in respectful silence, all expressions, accept- 
 able or unacceptable, which are uttered from the 
 throne.^ 
 
 It was then the custom that, after the King had con- 
 cisely explained his reasons for calling Parliament to 
 e-ether, tiie minister who held the Great Seal should, 
 at more length, explain to the Houses the state of 
 public affairs. Guildford, in imitation of his predeces- 
 sors, Clarendon, Bridgeman, Sliafteshui-y, and Notting- 
 
 » London Gazette, May 25. 1085 ; Evelyn's Diary, May 22. 1685
 
 104 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 ham, had prepared an elaborate oration, but found, to 
 his great mortification, that his services wei'e not 
 wanted.-'^ 
 
 As soon as the Commons had returned to their own 
 Debate in the chamber, it was proposed that they should 
 Commons, pesolve themsclvcs into a Committee, for the 
 purpose of settling a revenue on the King. 
 
 Then Seymour stood up. How he stood, looking 
 Speech of lik® what he was, the chief of a dissolute and 
 Seymour. \i\g\i spirited gentry, with the artificial ring- 
 lets clustering in fashionable profusion round his shoul- 
 ders, and a mingled expression of voluptuousness and 
 disdain in his eye and on his lip, the likenesses of him 
 which still remain enable us to imagine. It was not, 
 the haughty Cavalier said, his wish that the Parlia- 
 ment should withhold from the crown the means of 
 carrying on the government. But was there indeed 
 a Parliament ? Were there not on the benches many 
 men who had, as all the world knew, no right to sit 
 there, many men whose elections were tainted by cor- 
 ruption, many men forced by intimidation on reluctant 
 voters, and many men returned by corporations which 
 had no legal existence ? Had not constituent bodies 
 been remodelled, in defiance of royal charters and of 
 immemorial prescription ? Had not returning officers 
 been everywhere the unscrupulous agents of the Court ? 
 Seeing that the very principle of representation had 
 been thus systematically attacked, he knew not how 
 to call the throng of gentlemen which he saw around 
 him by the honourable name of a House of Commons. 
 Yet never was there a time when it more concerned 
 the public weal that the character of the Parliament 
 should stand high. Great dangers impended over the 
 1 North's Life of Guildford, 256.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 106 
 
 ecclesiastical and civil constitution of the realm. It 
 was matter of vulgar notoriety, it Avas matter which 
 required no proof, that the Test Act, the rampart of 
 reHgion, and the Habeas Corpus Act, the rampart of 
 liberty, were marked out for destruction. " Before 
 we proceed to legislate on questions so momentous, let 
 us at least ascertain whether we really are a legisla- 
 ture. Let our first proceeding be to inquire into the 
 manner in which the elections have been conducted. 
 And let us look to it that the inquiry be impartial. 
 For, if the nation sliall find that no redress is to be 
 obtained by peaceful methods, we may perhaps ere 
 long suffer the justice which we refuse to do." He 
 concluded by moving that, before any supply was 
 <i-ranted, the House would take into consideration 
 petitions against returns, and that no member whose 
 right to sit was disputed should be allowed to 
 vote. 
 
 Not a cheer was heard. Not a member ventured to 
 second the motion. Indeed, Seymour had said much 
 that no other man could have said with impunity. The 
 proposition fell to the ground, and was not even entered 
 on the journals. But a mighty effect had been pro- 
 duced. Barillon informed his master that many who 
 had not dared to applaud that remarkable speech had 
 cordially approved of it, that it was the universal sub- 
 ject of conversation throughout London, and that the 
 impression made on the public mind seemed likely to 
 be durable.^ 
 
 The Commons went into committee Avithout delay, 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 639.; Evelyn's Diarj', May 22. 1G85; Barillon, j'j'n'.V -^"^ 
 .^^^ ^' 1685. The silence of the journals perplexed Mr. Fox: but it 
 is explained by the circumstance that Seymour's motion was not 
 onded.
 
 106 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 The Revenue ^^^ votecl to the Kiiig, for life, the whole 
 voted. revenue enjoyed by his brother.^ 
 
 The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of 
 Proceedings the Housc sccm to havc been of opinion that 
 
 of the Com- . , • i i • i i i i 
 
 mens con- the promptitude with which tiiey liad met 
 ligion. the wish of James, touching the revenue, 
 
 entitled them to expect some concession on his part. 
 They said that much had been done to gratify him, 
 and that they must now do something to gratify the 
 nation. The House, therefore, resolved itself into a 
 Committee of Religion, in order to consider the best 
 means of providing for the security of the ecclesias- 
 tical establishment. In that Committee two resolutions 
 were unanimously adopted. The first expressed fer- 
 vent attachment to the Church of England. The sec- 
 ond called on the King to put in execution the penal 
 laws against all persons who were not members of that 
 Church.2 
 
 The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the 
 Protestant dissenters tolerated, and the Roman Cath- 
 ' dies alone persecuted. But the Whigs were a small 
 and a disheartened minority. They therefore kept 
 themselves as much as possible ovit of sight, dropped 
 their party name, abstained from obtruding their pe- 
 culiar opinions on a hostile audience, and steadily sup- 
 ported every proposition tending to disturb the harmony 
 which as yet subsisted between the Parliament and the 
 Court. 
 
 When the proceedings of the Committee of Religion 
 were known at Whitehall, the King's anger was great. 
 Nor can we justly blame him for resenting the conduct 
 of the Tories. If they were disposed to require the 
 
 1 Journals, May 22. Stat. Jac. II. i. 1. 
 
 2 Journals, May 26, 27. Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 107 
 
 rigorous execution of the peual code, they clearly ought 
 to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a 
 Papist on the throne, and then to insist on his perse- 
 cutine: to the death the teachers of that faith in which 
 alone, on his principles, salvation could be found, was 
 monstrous. In mitigating by a lenient administration 
 the severity of the bloody laws of Elizabeth, the King 
 violated no constitutional principle. He only exerted 
 a power which has always belonged to the crown. 
 Nay, he only did what Avas afterwards done by a suc- 
 cession of sovereigns zealous for Protestantism, by Wil- 
 liam, by Anne, and by the princes of the House of 
 Brunswick. Had he suffered Roman Catholic priests, 
 whose lives he could save without infringing any law, 
 to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for discharging 
 what he considered as their first duty, he would have 
 drawn on himself the hatred and contempt even of 
 those to whose prejudices he had made so shameful a 
 concession ; and had he contented himself with grant- 
 ing to the members of his own Church a practical tol- 
 eration by a large exercise of his unquestioned pre- 
 rogative of mercy, posterity would have unanimously 
 applauded him. 
 
 The Commons probably felt on reflection that they 
 had acted absuixlly. They were also disturbed by 
 learning that the King, to whom they looked up with 
 suj)erstitious reverence, was greatly provoked. They 
 made haste, therefore, to atone for their offence. In 
 the House they unanimously reversed the decision 
 which in the Connnittee they had unanimously adopted, 
 and passed a resolution importing that they relied with 
 entire confidence on His Majesty's gracious promise to 
 protect that religion which was dearer to them than life 
 
 itself.i 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, May 27. 1G85.
 
 i.08 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. IV. 
 
 Three days later the King informed the House that 
 AfWifionai ^lis brother had left some debts, and that the 
 Saxes Toted. g^Qj-gg ^f ^]^q navj and ordnance were nearly- 
 exhausted. It was promptly resolved that new taxes 
 should be imposed. The person on Avhom devolved 
 the task of devising ways and means was Sir Dudley 
 Sir Dudley North, yoimger brother of the Lord Keeper. 
 North. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of 
 
 his time. He had early in life been sent to the Levant, 
 and had there been long engaged in mercantile pursuits. 
 Most men would, in such a situation, have allowed their 
 faculties to rust For at Smyrna and Constantinople 
 there were few books and few intelligent companions. 
 But the young factor had one of those vigorous under- 
 standings which are independent of external aids. In 
 his solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of 
 trade, and thought out by degrees a complete and ad- 
 mirable theory, substantially the same Avith that which, 
 a hundred years later, was expounded by Adam Smith. 
 After an exile of many years, Dudley North returned 
 to England with a large fortune, and commenced busi- 
 ness as a Turkey merchant in the City of London. 
 His profound knowledge, both speculative and practical, 
 of commercial matters, and the perspicuity and liveli- 
 ness with which he explained his views, speedily intro- 
 duced him to the notice of statesmen. The government 
 found in him at once an enlightened adviser and an 
 unscrupulous slave. For with his rare mental endow- 
 ments were joined lax principles and an unfeeling heart. 
 When the Tory reaction was in full progress, he had 
 consented to be made Sheriff for the express purj^ose 
 of assisting the vengeance of the court. His juries 
 had never failed to find verdicts of Guilty ; and, on a 
 day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs
 
 l«86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 101> 
 
 and arms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great dis- 
 composure of liis lady, driven to his fine house in Bas- 
 inshall Street for orders. His services had been re- 
 warded with the honour of lenighthood, with an Alder- 
 man's gown, and with the office of Counnissioner of the 
 Customs. He had been brought into Parliament for 
 Banbury, and, though a new member, was the person 
 on whom the Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for the con- 
 duct of financial business in the Lower House. ^ 
 
 Thou2:h the Commons were unanimous in their res- 
 olution to grant a further supply to the crown, they 
 were by no means agreed as to the sources from which 
 that supply should be drawn. It was speedily deter- 
 mined that part of the sum which was required should 
 be raised by laying an additional impost, for a term of 
 eight years, on wine and vinegar : but something more 
 than this was needed. Several absurd schemes were 
 suggested. Many country gentlemen were disposed to 
 put a heavy tax on all new buildings in the capital. 
 Such a tax, it was lu)])ed, would check the growth of 
 a city which had long been regarded with jealousy 
 and aversion by the rural ai'istocracy. Dudley North's 
 plan Avas that additional duties should be imposed, for 
 a term of eight years, on sugar and tobacco. A great 
 clamour was raised. Colonial merchants, grocers, 
 sugar bakers and tobacconists, petitioned the House 
 and besieged the public offices. The people of Bristol, 
 who were deeply iiiterested in the trade with Virginia 
 and Jamaica, sent up a deputation which was heard at 
 the bar of the Commons. Rochester was for a mo- 
 -Tient staggered ; but North's ready wit and perfect 
 knowledge of trade prevailed, both in the Treasury 
 
 1 Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North; Life of Lord Guildford, 166.; 
 Mr. M'Ciilloch's Literature of Politiwtl Mcouomy.
 
 110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.' [Ch. IV. 
 
 and in the Parliament, against all opposition. The old 
 members were amazed at seeing a man who had not 
 been a fortnight in the House, and whose life had been 
 chiefly passed in foreign countries, assume with confi- 
 dence, and discharge with ability, all the functions of a 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer.^ 
 
 His plan was adopted ; and thus the crown was in 
 possession of a clear income of about nineteen hundred 
 thousand pounds, derived from England alone. Such 
 an income was then more than sufficient for the sup- 
 port of the government in time of peace.^ 
 
 The Lords had, in the meantime, discussed several 
 Proceedings important questions. The Tory party had 
 of the Lords, always been strong among the peers. It in- 
 cluded the whole bench of Bishops, and had been rein- 
 forced, during the four years which had elapsed since 
 the last dissolution, by several fresh creations. Of the 
 new nobles, the most conspicuous were the Lord Treas- 
 urer Rochester, the Lord Keeper Guildford, the Lord 
 Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Loi-d Godolphin, and the 
 Lord Churchill, who, after his return from Versailles, 
 had been made a baron of England. 
 
 The peers early took into consideration the case of 
 four members of their body who had been impeached 
 in the late reign, but had never been brought to 
 trial, and had, after a long confinement, been admitted 
 to bail by the Court of King's Bench. Three of the 
 noblemen who were thus under recognisances were 
 Roman Catholics. The fourth was a Protestant of 
 great note and influence, the Earl of Danby. Since 
 he had fallen fi'om power and had been accused of 
 
 I Life of Dudley North, 176.; Lonsdale's Memoirs; Van Citters, Jnn« 
 ^. 1685. 
 3 Commons' Journals, March 1. 1689.
 
 »1».] JAMES THE SECOND. Ill 
 
 treason bv the Commons, four Parliaments liad been 
 dissolved ; but he had been neither acquitted nor con- 
 demned. In 1679 the Lords had considered, with 
 reference to his situation, the question whether an im- 
 peachment was or was not terminated by a dissolution. 
 They had resolved, after long debate and fiiU examina- 
 tion of precedents, that the impeachment was still 
 j)ending. That resolution they now rescinded. A 
 few Whig nobles protested against this step, but to 
 little purpose. The Commons silently acquiesced in 
 the decision of the Upper House. Danby again took 
 his seat among his peers, and became an active and 
 powerful member of the Tory party. ^ 
 
 The constitutional question on which the Lords thus, 
 in the short space of six years, pronounced two diametri- 
 cally opposite decisions, slept during more than a cen- 
 tury, and was at length revived by the dissolution 
 which took place during the long trial of Warren Hast- 
 ings. It Avas then necessary to determine whether the 
 rule laid down in 1679, or the opposite rule laid down 
 in 1685, was to be accounted the law of the land. The 
 point was long debated in both Houses ; and the best 
 legal and parliamentary abilities Avhich an age preemi- 
 nently fertile both in legal and in parliamentary ability 
 could supply were employed in tlie discussion. The 
 lawyers were not unequally divided. Tiiurlow, Ken- 
 yon, Scott, and Erskine maintained that the dissolution 
 had put an end to the impeachment. The contrary 
 doctrine was held by Mansfield, Camden, Loughbor- 
 ough, and Grant. But among those statesmen who 
 grounded their arguments, not on precedents and tech- 
 nical analogies, but on deej) and broad constitutional 
 principles, there was little difference of opinion. Pitt 
 
 1 Lords' Journals, March 18, 19. 1G79, May 22. 1685. 
 
 TOL. II. 8
 
 112 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. FV 
 
 and Grenville, as well as Burke and Fox, held that the 
 impeachment was stili pending. Both Houses hy great 
 majorities set aside the decision of 1685, and pro- 
 nounced the decision of 1679 to be in conformity with 
 the law of Parliament. 
 
 Of the national crimes which had b6en committed 
 Bill for re- duHug the pauic excited by the fictions of 
 am'ilJder'^^ Oatcs, the most signal had been the judicial 
 of Stafford, inurder of Stafford. The sentence of that 
 unhappy nobleman was now regarded by all impartial 
 persons as unjust. The principal witness for the pros- 
 ecution had been convicted of a series of foul peijuries. 
 It was the duty of the legislature, under such circum- 
 stances, to do justice to the memory of a guiltless suf- 
 ferer, and to efface an unmerited stain from a name 
 long illustrious in our annals. A bill for reversing the 
 attainder of Stafford was passed by the Upper House, 
 in spite of the murmurs of a few peers who were un- 
 willing' to admit that they had shed innocent blood. 
 The Commons read the bill twice without a division, 
 and ordered it to be committed. But, on the day ap- 
 pointed for the committee, arrived news that a formida- 
 ble rebellion had broken out in the West of England. 
 It was consequently necessary to postpone much im- 
 portant business. The ameads due to the memory of 
 Stafford were deferred, as was supposed, only for a 
 short time. But the misgovernment of James in a few 
 months completely turned the tide of public feeling. 
 During several generations the Roman Catholics were 
 in no condition to demand reparation for injustice, and 
 accounted themselves happy if they were permitted to 
 live unmolested in obscurity and silence. At length, 
 in the reign of King George the Fourth, more than a 
 hundred and forty years after the day on which the
 
 168M JAMES THE SECOND. 113 
 
 blood of StafFord was shed on Tower Hill, the tardy 
 expiation was accomplished. A law annulling the at- 
 tainder and restoring the injured family to its ancient 
 dignities was presented to Parliament by the ministers 
 of the crown, was eagerly welcomed by public men 
 of all parties, and was passed without one dissentient 
 voice. 1 
 
 It is now necessary that I should trace the origin and 
 progress of that rebellion by which the deliberations of 
 the Houses were suddenly interrupted. 
 
 I Stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 46.
 
 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Towards the close of the reiom of Charles the Sec- 
 AVTiig refu- Olid, somc Whigs who had been deeply impli- 
 
 geeson the i • i i n i , . "^ , 
 
 Continent, cated 111 the plot SO tatal to their party, and 
 who knew themselves to be marked out for destruc- 
 tion, had sought an asylum in the Low Countries. 
 
 These refugees were in general men of fiery temper 
 and weak judgment. They were also under the in- 
 fluence of that peculiar illusion which seems to belong 
 to their situation. A politician driven into banish- 
 ment by a hostile faction generally sees the society 
 which he has quitted through a false medium. Every 
 object is distorted and discoloured by his regrets, his 
 longings, and his resentments. Every little discontent 
 appears to him to portend a revolution. Every riot is 
 a rebellion. He cannot be convinced that his country 
 does not pine for him as much as he pines for his coun- 
 try. He imagines that all his old associates, who still 
 dwell at their homes and enjoy their estates, are tor- 
 mented by the same feelings which make life a burden 
 to himself. The longer his expatriation, the greater 
 does this hallucination become. The lapse of time, 
 which cools the ardour of the friends whom he has left 
 behind, inflames his. Every month his impatience to 
 revisit his native land increases ; and every month his 
 native land remembers and misses him less. This 
 delusion becomes almost a madness when many exiles 
 who suffer in the same cause herd together in a foreign 
 country. Their chief employment is to talk of what 
 
 I
 
 ISnS.l JAMES THE SECOND. 115 
 
 tlu'v once were, and of what they may yet be, to goad 
 each otlier into animosity against the common enemy, 
 to feed each otlier with extravagant hopes of victory 
 and revenge. Thus they become ripe for enterprises 
 which would at once be pronounced hopeless by any 
 man whose passions had not deprived him of the power 
 of calculating chances. 
 
 In this mood were many of the outlaws who had 
 assembled on the Continent. The corre- Their corre- 
 spondence which they kept up with England E'n^g'iand'^ "* 
 was, for the most part, such as tended to excite their 
 feelings and to mislead their judgment. Their in- 
 formation concerning the temper of the public mind 
 was chiefly derived fi'om the worst members of the 
 Whig party, from men Avho were plotters and libellers 
 by profession, who were pursued by the officers of 
 justice, who were forced to skulk in disguise throuo-h 
 back streets, and who sometimes lay hid for weeks 
 together in cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who 
 had formerly been the ornaments of the Country Party, 
 the statesmen who afterwards guided the counsels of 
 the Convention, would have given advice very different 
 from that which was given by such men as John Wild- 
 man and Henry Danvers. 
 
 Wildman had served forty years before in the par- 
 liamentary arm}^ but had been more distinguished 
 there as an agitator than as a soldier, and, had early 
 quitted the profession of arms for pursuits better suited 
 to his temper. His hatred of monarchy had induced 
 him to engage in a long series of conspiracies, first 
 against the Protector, and then against the Stuarts. 
 But with Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender 
 care for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in 
 grazing the edge of treason. No man understood bet-
 
 116 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cif. V. 
 
 ter how to instigate others to desperate enterprises by 
 \^ords which, when repeated to a jury, might seem in- 
 nocent, or, at worst, ambiguous. Such was his cun- 
 ning that, though always plotting, though always known 
 to be plotting, and though long malignantly watched by 
 a vindictive government, he eluded every danger, and 
 died in his bed, after having seen two generations of 
 his accomplices die on the gallows.^ Danvers was a 
 man of the same class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, 
 constantly urged to the brink of danger by enthusiasm, 
 and constantly stopped on that brink by cowardice. 
 He had considerable influence among a portion of the 
 Baptists, had written largel}^ in defence of their pecu- 
 liar opinions, and had drawn down on himself the 
 severe censure of the most respectable Puritans by 
 attempting to palhate the crimes of Matthias and John 
 of Ley den. It is probable that, had he possessed a lit- 
 tle courage, he would have trodden in the footsteps of 
 the wretches whom he defended. He was, at this time, 
 concealing himself from the officers of justice ; for war- 
 rants were out against him on account of a grossly 
 calumnious paper of which the government had dis- 
 covered him to be the author.^ 
 
 It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and 
 Characters counscl men, such as have been described, 
 
 of the lead- ti i i i i -1 
 
 ing refugees, wcrc likcly to scud to tlic outlaws m the 
 Netherlands. Of the general character of those out- 
 laws an estimate may be formed from a few samples. 
 
 1 Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, book xiv.; Burnet's Own Times, 
 i. 546. 625.; Wade's and Ireton's Narratives, Lansdowne MS. 1152.; West's 
 information in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account. 
 
 2 London Gazette, Jan. 4. ]68|; Ferguson MS. in Eachard's History, 
 lii. 746.; Grey's Narrative; Sprat's True Account; Danvers's Treatise on 
 Baptism; Danvers's Innocency and Truth vindicated; Crosby's History of 
 the r.nglish Baptists.
 
 1085.] JAMES THE SECOND. 117 
 
 One of the most conspicuous among tliem was John 
 AylofFe, a lawyer connected by affinity with 
 the Hydes, and through the Hydes, with 
 James. AylofFe had early made himself remarkable 
 by offering a whimsical insult to the government. At 
 a time when the ascendency of the court of Versailles 
 had excited general uneasiness, he had contrived to put 
 a wooden shoe, the estabhshed type, among the Eng- 
 lish, of French tyranny, into the chair of the House of 
 Commons. He had subsequently been concerned in 
 the Whig plot ; but there is no reason to believe that 
 he was a party to the design of assassinating the royal 
 brothers. He was a man of parts and courage ; but his 
 moral character did not stand liigli. The Puritan di- 
 vines whispered that he was a careless Gallio or some- 
 thing worse, and that, whatever zeal he might profess 
 for civil liberty, the Saints would do well to avoid all 
 connection with him.^ 
 
 Nathaniel Wade was, like AylofFe, a lawyer. He 
 had long resided at Bristol, and had been cele- 
 brated in his own neighbourhood as a vehe- 
 ment republican. At one time he had formed a project 
 of emigrating to New Jersey, where he expected to find 
 institutions better suited to his taste than those of Eno;- 
 land. His activity in electioneering had introduced 
 him to the notice of some Whig nobles. They had 
 employed him professionally, and had, at length, ad- 
 mitted him to their most secret counsels. He had been 
 deeply concerned in the scheme of insurrection, and 
 
 1 Sprat's True Account; Burnet, i. 634. ; Wade's Confession, llarl. MS. 
 6845. 
 
 Lord Howard of Escrick accused Aylofle of proposing to assassinate the 
 Duke of York; but Lord Howard was an abject liar; and tliis story waf 
 not part of his (irigiiial confession, but was added aftenvards by way of 
 Bupplement, and therefore deserves no credit whatever.
 
 118 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 had undertaken to head a rising in his own city. He 
 had also been privy to the more odious plot against the 
 lives of Charles and James. But he always declared 
 that, though privy to it, he had abhorred it, and had 
 attempted to dissuade his associates fi'om carrying their 
 design into effect. For a man bred to civil pursuits, 
 Wade seems to have had, in an unusual degree, that 
 sort of ability and that sort of nerve which make a 
 good soldier. Unhappily his principles and his cour- 
 age proved to be not of sufficient force to support him 
 when the fight was over, and when, in a prison, he had 
 to choose between death and infamy.^ 
 
 Another fugitive was Richard Goodenough, who had 
 Oooj. formerly been Under Sheriff of London. On 
 
 enough. ^|jjg ^i^u liis party had long relied for services 
 of no honourable kind, and especially for the selection 
 of jurymen not likely to be troubled with scruples in 
 political cases. He had been deeply concerned in 
 those dark and atrocious parts of the Whig plot which 
 had been carefully concealed from the most respect- 
 able Whigs. Nor is it possible to plead, in extenuation 
 of his guilt, that he was misled by inordinate zeal for 
 the public good. For it will be seen that, after hav- 
 ing disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, he be- 
 trayed it in order to escape from his well merited 
 punishment.^ 
 
 Very different was the character of Richard Rum- 
 bold. He had held a commission in Crom- 
 well's own regiment, had guarded the scaf- 
 fold before the Banqueting House on the day of the 
 
 1 Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.; Lansdowne MS. 1152.; Hollo- 
 way's narrative in the Appendix to Sprat's True Account. Wade owned 
 that Holloway had told nothing hut truth. 
 
 2 Sprat's True Account and Appendix, passim.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 119 
 
 great execution, had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, 
 and had always shown in the highest degree the quaU- 
 ties which distinguished the invincible army in which 
 he served, courage of the truest temper, fiery enthusi- 
 asm, both poUtical and religious, and, with that en- 
 thusiasm, all the power of selfgovernment which is 
 characteristic of men trained in well disciplined camps 
 to command and to obey. When the republican troops 
 were disbanded, Rumbold became a maltster, and car- 
 ried on his trade near Hoddesdon, in that building 
 from which the Rye House Plot derives its name. It 
 had been suggested, though not absolutely determined, 
 in the conferences of the most violent and unscrupu- 
 lous of the malecontents, that armed men should be 
 stationed in the Rye House to attack the Guards 
 who were to escort Charles and James from New- 
 market to London. In these conferences Rumbold 
 had borne a part from which he would have shrunk 
 with horror if his clear understanding liud not been 
 ovei'clouded, and his manly heart corrupted, by party 
 spirit.^ 
 
 A more important exile was Ford Grey, Lord Grey 
 of Wark. He had been a zealous Exclusion- 
 
 . Lord Grej-. 
 
 1st, had concurred m the design or msurrec- 
 tion, and had been committed to the Tower, but had 
 succeeded in making his keepers drunk, and in eft'ecting 
 his escape to the Continent. His parliamentary abili- 
 ties were gi'eat, and his manners pleasing : but his lile 
 had been sulUed by a great domestic crime. His wife 
 was a daughter of the noble house of Berkeley. Her 
 
 l Sprat's True Account and Appendix; Proceedings against TJunibnld in 
 the Collection of State Trials; Burnet's own Times, i. 633.; Appendix to 
 Fox's History, No. IV.
 
 1 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 sister, tlie Lady Henrietta Berkeley, was allowed to 
 associate and correspond with him as with a brother by 
 blood. A fatal attachment sprang up. The high spirit 
 and strong passions of Lady Henrietta broke through all 
 restraints of virtue and decorum. A scandalous elope- 
 ment disclosed to the whole kingdom the shame of two 
 illustrious families. Grey and some of the agents who 
 had served him in his amour were brought to trial on a 
 charge of conspiracy. A scene un])aralleled in our legal 
 history was exhibited in the Court of King's Bench. 
 The seducer appeared with dauntless front, accompa- 
 nied by his paramour. Nor did the great Whig lords 
 flinch fi'om their friend's side even in that extremity. 
 Those whom he had wronged stood over against him, and 
 were moved to transports of rage by the sight of him. 
 The old Earl of Berkeley poured forth reproaches and 
 curses on the wretched Henrietta. The Countess gave 
 evidence, broken by many sobs, and at length fell down 
 in a swoon. The jury found a verdict of guilty. When 
 the court rose. Lord Berkeley called on all his friends 
 to help him to seize his daughter. The partisans of 
 Grey rallied round her. Swords were drawn on both 
 sides : a skirmish took place in Westminster Hall ; and 
 it was with difficulty that the Judges and tipstaves 
 parted the combatants. In our time such a trial would 
 be fatal to the character of a public man ; but in that 
 age the standard of morality among the great was so 
 low, and party spirit was so violent, that Grey still con- 
 tinued to have considerable influence, though the Pui'i- 
 tans, who formed a strong section of the Whig party, 
 looked somewhat coldly on him.^ 
 
 One part of the character, or rather it may be of the 
 
 1 Grey's Narrative ; his trial in the Collection of State Trials ; Sprat'a 
 True Account.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 121 
 
 fortune, of Grey deserves notice. It was admitted that 
 everywhere, except on the field of battle, he showed a 
 high degree of courage. More than once in embarrass- 
 ing circumstances, when his life and liberty were at 
 stake, the dignity of his deportment and his perfect 
 command of all his faculties extorted praise from those 
 who neither loved nor esteemed him. But as a soldier 
 he incurred, less perhaps by his faiilt than by mischance, 
 the degrading imputation of personal cowardice. 
 
 In this respect he differed widely from his friend the 
 Duke of Monmouth. Ardent and intrepid 
 
 1 r» 1 1 r> 1 1 T»T 1 Monmouth. 
 
 on the field or battle, Monmouth was every- 
 where else effeminate and irresolute. The accident 
 of his birth, his personal courage, and his superficial 
 graces, had placed him in a post for Avhich he was al- 
 together unfitted. After Avitnessins: the ruin of the 
 party of which he had been the nominal head, he had 
 retired to Holland. The Prince and Princess of Or- 
 ange had now ceased to regard him as a rival. Tliey 
 received him most hospitably ; for they hoped that, by 
 treating him with kindness, they should establish a 
 claim to the gratitude of his father. They knew that 
 paternal afi'ection was not yet wearied out, that letters 
 and supplies of money still came secretly from White- 
 hall to Monmouth's retreat, and that Charles frowned 
 on those who sought to pay their court by speaking ill 
 of his banished son. The Duke had been encourajxed 
 to expect that, in a very short time, if he gave no new 
 cause of displeasiire, he Avould be recalled to his native 
 land, and restored to all his high honours and com- 
 mands. Animated by such expectations he had been 
 the life of the Hague during the late winter. He had 
 been the most cons])icuous figure at a succession of balls 
 in that splendid Orange Hall, which blazes on every
 
 122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 side witli tlie most ostentatious colouring of Jordaens 
 and Hoiidthorst.^ He had taught the English coun- 
 try dance to the knowledge of the Dutch ladies, and 
 had in his turn learned from them to skate on the 
 canals. The Princess had accompanied him in his ex- 
 peditions on the ice ; and the figure which she made 
 there, poised on one leg, and clad, in petticoats shorter 
 than are gene^jally worn by ladies so strictly decorous, 
 had caused some wondet and mirth to the foreign min- 
 isters. The sullen gravity which had been character- 
 istic of the Stadtholder's court seemed to have vanished 
 before the influence of the fascinating Englishman. 
 Even the stern and pensive William relaxed into good 
 humour when his brilliant guest appeared.'-^ 
 
 Monmouth meanwhile carefully avoided all that could 
 give offence in the quarter to which he looked for pro- 
 tection. He saw little of any Whigs, and nothing of 
 those violent men who had been concerned in the worst 
 part of the Whig plot. He was therefore loudly ac- 
 cused, by his old associates, of fickleness and ingrati- 
 tude.^ 
 
 By none of the exiles was this accusation urged with 
 more vehemence and bitterness than by Rob- 
 ert Ferguson, the Judas of Dryden's great 
 satire. Ferguson was by birth a Scot ; but England 
 had long been his residence. At the time of the Res- 
 toration, indeed, he had held a living in Kent. He had 
 been bred a Presbytei'ian ; but the Presbyterians had 
 cast him out, and he had become an Independent. He 
 had been master of an academy which the Dissenters 
 
 - In the Pepysian Collection is a print representing one of the balls which 
 about this time William and Mary gave in the Oranje Zaal. 
 
 2 Avaiix Neg. Jan. 25. 1685. Letter from James to the Princess of Or- 
 »Dge dated Jan. 1684, among Birch's Extracts in the British Museum. 
 
 * Grey's Narrative; Wade's Ooufessiou, Lausdowne MS. 1152.
 
 1585.] JAMES THE SECOND. 123 
 
 had set up at Islington as a ri^^al to Westminstei- School 
 and the Charter House ; and he had preached to large 
 confrrecations at a meetino;house in Moorfiekls. He 
 had also publislied some theological treatises which may 
 still be found in the dusty recesses of a few old libra- 
 ries : but, though texts of scripture were always on 
 his lips, those who had pecuniary transactions Avith him 
 Boon found him to be a mere swindler. 
 
 At length he turned his attention almost entirely 
 from theology to the worst part of politics. He be- 
 lonjied to the class whose office it is to render in troubled 
 times to exasperated parties those services from which 
 honest men shrink in disgust and prudent men in fear, 
 the class of fanatical knaves. Violent, malignant, re- 
 gardless of truth, insensible to shame, insatiable of noto- 
 riety, delfghting in intrigue, in tumult, in mischief for 
 its own sake, he toiled during many years in the dark- 
 est mines of faction. He lived among libellers and false 
 witnesses. He was the keeper of a secret purse from 
 which agents too vile to be acknowledged received hire, 
 and the director of a secret press whence pamphlets, 
 bearing no name, were daily issued. He boasted that 
 he had contrived to scatter lampoons about the terrace 
 of Windsor, and even to lay them under the royal i)il- 
 low. In this way of life he was put to many shifts, was 
 forced to assume many names, and at one time had four 
 different lodginjrs in different corners of London. He 
 was deeply engaged in the Rye House Plot. There 
 is, indeed, reason to believe that he Avas the original 
 author of those san<xuinarv schemes which brought so 
 much discredit on the whole Whig party. When the 
 consjMracy was detected and his associates were in dis- 
 may, he bade them farewell with a laugh, and told 
 them that they were novices, that he had been used to
 
 124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 flight, concealment and disguise, and that he should 
 never leave off plotting while he lived. He escaped to 
 the Continent. But it seemed that even on the Conti- 
 nent he was not secure. The English envoys at foreign 
 courts were directed to be on the watch for him. The 
 French government offered a reward of five hundred 
 pistoles to any who would seize him. Nor was it easy for 
 him tc escape notice ; for his broad Scotch accent, his 
 tall and lean figure, his lantern jaws, the gleam of his 
 sharp eyes which were always overhung by his wig, his 
 cheeks inflamed by an eruption, his shoulders deformed 
 by a stoop, and his gait distinguished from that of other 
 men by a peculiar shuffle, made him remarkable wher- 
 ever he appeared. But, though he was, as it seemed, 
 pursued with peculiar animosity, it was whispered that 
 this animosity was feigned, and that the officers of jus- 
 tice had secret orders not to see him. That he was 
 really a bitter malecontent can scarcely be doubted. 
 But there is strong reason to believe that he provided 
 for his own safety by pretending at Whitehall to be a 
 spy on the Whigs, and by furnishing the government 
 with just so much information as sufficed to keep up his 
 credit. This hypothesis furnishes a simple explanation 
 of what seemed to his associates to be his unnatural 
 recklessness and audacity. Being himself out of danger, 
 he always gave his vote for the most violent and peril- 
 ous course, and sneered very complacently at the pusil- 
 lanimity of men who, not having taken the infamous 
 precautions on which he relied, were disposed to think 
 twice before they placed life, and objects dearer than 
 life, on a single hazard.-^ 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 542.; Wood. Ath. Ox. under the name of Owen; Absalom 
 and Achitophel, part ii.; Eaehard, iii. 682. 697.; Sprat's True Account, 
 passim; Noncouformist's Memorial; North's Exaraen, 399.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 125 
 
 As soon as he was in the Low Countries he began to 
 form new projects against the English government, and 
 found among his fellow emigrants men ready to listen 
 to his evil counsels. Monmouth, however, stood obsti- 
 nately aloof; and, without the help of Monmouth's im- 
 mense popularity, it was impossible to effect anything. 
 Yet suc'h was the impatience and rashness of the exiles 
 that they tried to find another leader. They sent an 
 embassy to that solitary retreat on the shores of Lake 
 Leman where Edmund Ludlow, once consj)icuous among 
 the chiefs of the parliamentary army and among the 
 members of the High Court of Justice, had, during 
 many years, hidden himself from the vengeance of the 
 restored Stuarts. The stern old regicide, however, re- 
 fused to quit his hermitage. His work, he said, was 
 done. If- England was still to be saved, she must be 
 saved by younger men.^ 
 
 The unexpect.ed demise of the crown changed the 
 whole aspect of affiiirs. Any hope which the proscribed 
 Whigs might have cherished of returning peaceably to 
 their native land was extincjuished by the death of a 
 careless and goodnatured prince, and by the accession 
 of a prince obstinate in all things, and especially obsti- 
 nate in revenge. Ferguson was in his element. Desti- 
 tute of the talents both of a writer and of a statesman, 
 he had in a high degree the unenviable qualifications 
 of a tempter ; and now, with the malevolent activity 
 and dexterity of an evil spirit, he ran from outlaw to 
 outlaw, chattered in every ear, and stirred u}) in eveiy 
 bosom savaiie animosities and wild desires. 
 
 He no longer des])aired of being able to seduce Mon- 
 mouth. The situation of that unhappy young man was 
 completely changed. While he was dancing and skating 
 1 Wade's Coufessioii. Harl. MS. G845.
 
 126 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ck. Y. 
 
 at the Hague, and expecting every day a summons to 
 London, he was overwhelmed with misery by the tid- 
 ings of his father's death and of his uncle's accession. 
 During the night which followed the arrival of the 
 news, those w^ho lodged near him could distinctly hear 
 his sobs and his piercing cries. He quitted the Hague 
 the next day, having solemnly pledged his word, both 
 to the Prince and to the Princess of Orange, not to 
 attempt anything against the government of England, 
 and having been supplied by them with money to meet 
 immediate demands.^ 
 
 The prospect which lay before Monmouth was not a 
 bright one. There Avas no probability that he would 
 be recalled from banishment. On the Continent his 
 life could no longer be passed amidst the splendour and 
 festivity of a court. His covisins at the Hague seem 
 to have really regarded him with kindness ; but they 
 could no longer countenance him openly without serious 
 risk of producing a rupture between England and Hol- 
 land. William offered a kind and judicious suggestion. 
 The war which was then raging in Hungary, between 
 the Emperor and the Turks, was watched by all Europe 
 with interest almost as great as that which the Cru- 
 sades had excited five hundred years earlier. Many 
 gallant gentlemen, both Protestant and Catholic, were 
 fighting as volunteers in the common cause of Chris- 
 tendom. The Prince advised Monmouth to repair to 
 the imperial camp, and assured him that, if he would 
 do so, he should not want the means of making an ap- 
 pearance befitting an English nobleman. ^ This coun- 
 sel was excellent : but the Duke could not make up 
 
 1 Avaux Neg. Feb. 20. 22. 1685; Monmouth's letter to James from 
 Ringwood. 
 a The Historj- of King William the Third, 2d edition, 1703, vol i. ISO.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 127 
 
 his mind. He retired to Brussels accompanied bj Hen- 
 rietta Wentworth, Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede, 
 a damsel of high rank and ample fortune, who loved 
 him passionately, who had sacrificed for his sake her 
 maiden honour and the hope of a splendid alliance, 
 who had followed him into exile, and whom he be- 
 lieved to be his wife in the sight of heaverf. Under 
 the soothing influence of female friendship, his lacer- 
 ated mind healed fast. He seemed to have found hap- 
 piness in obscurity and repose, and to have forgotten 
 that he had been the ornament of a splendid court and 
 the head of a great party, that he had commanded ar- 
 mies, and that he had aspired to a throne. 
 
 But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson 
 employed all his powers of temptation. Grey, who 
 knew not where to turn for a pistole, and was ready 
 for any undertaking, however desperate, lent his aid. 
 No art was sj)ared which could draw JMonmouth from 
 retreat. To the first invitations Avhich he received 
 from his old associates he returned unfavourable an- 
 swers. He pronounced the difficulties of a descent on 
 England insuperable, protested that he was sick of 
 public life, and begged to be left in the enjoyment of 
 his newly found happiness. But he was little in the 
 habit of resisting skilful and urgent importunity. It is 
 said, too, that he was induced to quit his retirement 
 by the same powerful influence which had made that 
 retirement delightful. Lady Wentworth wished to 
 see him a King. Her rents, her diamonds, her credit 
 were put at his disposal. Monmouth's judgment was 
 not convinced ; but he had not firmness to resist such 
 solicitations.^ 
 
 1 Welwood's Memoirs, App. xv.; IJurnct, i. 030. Grey told a somewhat 
 different story: but he told it to save his life. The Spanish ambassador at 
 
 VOL. II. 9
 
 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Y 
 
 By the English exiles he was joyfully welcomed, and 
 Scotch refu- unanimously acknowledged as their head, 
 gees. g^j. ^j-jgj,g ^,jjg another class of emigrants 
 
 who were not disposed to recognise his supremacy. 
 Misgovernment, such as had never been known in the 
 southern part of our island, had driven from Scotland 
 to the Continent many fugitives, the intemperance of 
 whose political and religious zeal was proportioned to 
 the oppression which they had undergone. These 
 men were not willino; to follow an Eno;lish leader. 
 Even in destitution and exile they retained their punc- 
 tilious national pride, and would not consent that their 
 country should be, in their persons, degraded into a 
 Earl of province. They had a captain of their own, 
 Argyie. Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as 
 chief of the great tribe of Campbell, was known among 
 the population of the Highlands by the proud name of 
 Mac Callum More. His father, the Marquess of 
 Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters, 
 had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First, 
 and was not thought by the Royalists to have atoned 
 for this offence by consenting to bestow the empty title 
 of King, and a state prison in a palace, on Charles the 
 Second. After the return of the royal family the Mar- 
 quess was put to death. His marquisate became ex- 
 tinct ; but his son was permitted to inherit the ancient 
 earldom, and was still among the greatest of the nobles 
 of Scotland. The Earl's conduct during the twenty 
 years which followed the Restoration had been, as he 
 
 the English court, Don Pedro de Ronquillo, in a letter to the governor of 
 the Low Countries written about this time, sneers at Monmouth for living 
 on the bounty of a fond woman, and bints a very unfounded suspicion that 
 the Dul<e's passion was altogether interested. " Hallaudose hoy tan falto 
 de medios que ha menester trasformarse en Amor con Miledi en vista de la 
 necesidad de poder subsistir." — Ronquillo to Grana, '^'"^^^'^ ' 1685.
 
 W85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 129 
 
 afterwards thought, criminally moderate. He had, on 
 some occasions, oi)posed the administration which af- 
 flicted his country : but his opposition had been lan- 
 guid and cautious. His compliances in ecclesiastical 
 matters had given scandal to rigid Presbyterians ; and 
 so far had he been from sliowing any inclination to 
 resistance that, when the Covenanters had been perse- 
 cuted into insurrection, he had brought into the field 
 a large body of his dependents to support the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Such had been his political course until the Duke of 
 York came down to Edinburgh armed with the whole 
 regal authority. The despotic viceroy soon found that 
 he could not expect entire support fi-om Argyle. Since 
 the most powerful chief in the kingdom could not be 
 gained, it was thought.necessary that he should be de- 
 stroyed. On grounds so frivolous that even the spirit 
 of party and the spirit of chicane were ashamed of them, 
 he was brought to trial for treason, convicted, and sen- 
 tenced to death. The partisans of the Stuarts after- 
 wards asserted that it was never meant to carry this 
 sentence into effect, and that the only object of the 
 prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his exten- 
 sive jurisdiction in tlic Highlands. Whether James 
 designed, as his enemies suspected, to commit murder, 
 or only, as his friends affirmed, to commit extortion by 
 threatening to commit murder, cannot now be ascer- 
 tained. "I know nothing of the Scotch law," said 
 Halifax to King Charles ; " but this I know, that we 
 should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which 
 my Lord Argyle has been sentenced." ^ 
 
 1 IVoceedinKs npain?t. Ar<,'yle in the Collection of State Triiils; Burnet, 
 i r)21.: A true imd plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland, 
 I(i84; The Scotch Mist cle;ired; Sir George Mackenzie's Vindication; 
 Lord I'ountainliali's Chronological Notes.
 
 180 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence 
 passed over to Friesland. In that secluded province 
 his father had bought a small estate, as a place of 
 refuge for the family in civil troubles. It was said, 
 among the Scots, that this purchase had been made in 
 consequence of the predictions of a Celtic seer, to whom 
 it had been revealed that Mac Galium More would one 
 day be driven forth fi-om the ancient mansion of his 
 race at Inverary.^ But it is probable that the politic 
 Marquess had been w^arned rather by the signs of the 
 times than by the visions of any prophet. In Friesland 
 Earl Archibald resided during some time so quietly 
 that it was not generally known whither he had fled. 
 From his retreat he carried on a correspondence with 
 his friends in Great Britain, w^as a party to the Whig 
 conspiracy, and concerted with the chiefs of that con- 
 spiracy a plan for invading Scotland.^ This plan had 
 been dropped upon the detection of the Rye House 
 Plot, but became again the subject of his thoughts after 
 the demise of the crown. 
 
 He had, during his residence on the Continent, re- 
 flected much more deeply on religious questions than 
 in the preceding years of his life. In one respect the 
 effect of these reflections on his mind had been perni- 
 cious. His partiality for the synodical form of church 
 government now amounted to bigotry. When he re- 
 membered how long he had conformed to the estab- 
 lished worship, he was overwhelmed with shame and 
 remorse, and showed too many signs of a disposition to 
 atone for his defection by violence and intolerance. 
 He had however, in no long time, an opportunity of 
 proving that the fear and love of a higher Power had 
 
 ' Information of Robert Smith in the App. to Sprat's True Account. 
 * True and plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland.
 
 1886.] JAMES THE SECOND. 131 
 
 nerved him for the most formidable conflicts by which 
 human nature can be tried. 
 
 To his companions in adversity his assistance was of 
 the highest moment. Though proscribed and a fugi- 
 tive, he was still, in some sense, the most powerful sub- 
 ject in the British dominions. In Avealth, even before 
 his attainder, he was probably inferior, not only to the 
 great English nobles, but to some of the opulent es- 
 quires of Kent and Norfolk. But his patriarchal au- 
 thority, an authority which no wealth could give and 
 which no attainder could take away, made him, as a 
 leader of an insurrection, truly formidable. No south- 
 ern lord could feel any confidence that, if he ventured 
 to resist the government, even his own gamekeepers and 
 huntsmen would stand by him. An Earl of Bedford, 
 an EarLof Devonshire, could not engage to bring ten 
 men into the field. Mac Galium More, penniless and 
 deprived of his earldom, might, at any moment, raise 
 a serious civil war. He had only to show himself on 
 the coast of Lorn ; and an army would, in a few days, 
 gather round him. The force, which, in favourable 
 circumstances, he could bring into the field, amounted 
 to five thousand fighting men, devoted to his service, 
 accustomed to the use of target and broadsword, not 
 afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open 
 plain, and pei'haps superior to regular troops in the 
 qualifications requisite for the defence of wild moimtain 
 passes, hidden in mist, and torn by headlong torrents. 
 What such a force, well directed, could eflfect, even 
 against veteran regiments and skilful commanders, was 
 proved, a few years later, at Killiecrankie. 
 
 But, strong as was the claim of Argyle to the confi- 
 dence of the exiled Scots, there was a faction gj^ Patrick 
 among them which regarded him with no "'^'"
 
 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. T 
 
 friendly feeling, and which wished to make use of hia 
 name and influence, without entrusting to him any 
 real power. The chief of this faction was a lowland 
 gentleman, who had been implicated in the Whig 
 ])lot, and had with difficulty eluded the vengeance of 
 the court. Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in Berwick- 
 shire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, 
 but without sufficient reason. It must, however, be 
 admitted that he injured his cause by perverseness as 
 much as he could have done by treachery. He was 
 a man incapable alike of leading and of following, con- 
 ceited, captious, and wrongheaded, an endless talker, 
 a sluggard in action against the enemy, and active only 
 against his own allies. With Hume was closely con- 
 sir John uected another Scottish exile of great note, 
 Cochrane. ^^^io had many of the same faults, Sir John 
 Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald. 
 
 A far higher character belonged to Andrew Fletcher 
 Fletcher of of Saltouu, a mau distinguished by learning 
 Saitoun. ^j^j eloquence, distinguished also by courage, 
 disinterestedness, and public spirit, but of an irritable 
 and impracticable temper. Like many of his most il- 
 lustrious contemporaries, Milton, for example, Harring- 
 ton, Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the mis- 
 government of several successive princes, conceived a 
 strong aversion to hereditaiy monarchy. Yet he was 
 no democrat. He was the head of an ancient Norman 
 house, and was proud of his descent. He was a fine 
 speaker and a fine writer, and was proud of his intel- 
 lectual superiority. Both in his character of gentle- 
 man, and in his character of scholar, he looked down 
 with disdain on the common people, and was so little 
 disposed to entrust them with political power that he
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 133 
 
 thought them unfit even to enjoy personal freedom. It 
 is a curious circumstance that this man, the most honest, 
 fearless, and uncompromising republican of his time, 
 should have been the author of a plan for reducing a 
 large part of the working classes of Scotland to slavery. 
 He bore, in truth, a lively resemblance to those Ro- 
 man Senators who, while they hated the name of King, 
 guarded the privik^ges of tlieir order with inflexible 
 pride against the encroachments of the multitude, and 
 governed their bondmen and bondwomen by means of 
 the stocks and the scourge. 
 
 Amsterdam was the place vvliere tlie leading emi- 
 grants, Scotch and English, assembled. Argyle re- 
 paired thither from Frieshmd, Monmouth from Brabant. 
 It soon appeared that the fugitives had scarcely anything 
 in cTJmmon except hatred of James and impatience to 
 return from banishment. The Scots were jealous of the 
 English, the Enghsh of the Scots. Monmouth's high 
 pretensions were offensive to Argyle, who, proud of 
 ancient nobility and of a legitimate descent from kings, 
 was by no means inclined to do homage to the offspring 
 of a vagrant and ignoble love. But of all the dissen- 
 sions by which the little band of outlaws was distracted 
 the most serious was tliat which arose between Argyle 
 and a portion of his own followers.' Some of unreason- 
 the Scottish exiles had, in a long course of oftheScotd! 
 opposition to tyramiy, been excited into a re^"s^« 
 morbid state of understanding and temper, which made 
 the most just and necessary restraint insupportable to 
 them. Tliey knew that without Argyle they could 
 do notliing. They ought to have known that, unless 
 they Avished to run lieadlong to ruin, they must either 
 repose full confidence in their leader, or relinquish all 
 thoughts of militar}'' enterprise. Experience has fully
 
 134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 proved that in wai* every operation, from the greatest 
 to the smallest, oujiht to be under the absolute direc- 
 tion of one mind, and that eveiy subordinate agent, 
 in his degree, ought to obey implicitly, strenuously, 
 and with the show of cheerfulness, orders which he dis- 
 approves, or of which the reasons are kept secret from 
 him. Representative assemblies, public discussions, and 
 all the other checks by which, in civil aifairs, rulers ai'e 
 restrained fi-om abusing power, are out of place in a 
 camp. Machiavel justly imj^uted many of the disasters 
 of Venice and Florence to the jealousy which led those 
 i-epublics to interfere with every act of their generals.^ 
 The Dutch practice of sending to an army deputies, 
 without whose consent no great blow could be struck, 
 was almost equally pernicious. It is undoubtedly by no 
 means certain that a captain, who has been entrusted 
 with dictatorial power in the hour of peril, will quietly 
 surrender that powder in the hour of triumph ; and this 
 is one of the many considerations which ought to make 
 men hesitate long before they resolve to vindicate pub- 
 lic liberty by the sword. But, if they determine to try 
 the chance of war, they will, if they are wise, entrust 
 to their chief that plenary authority without which war 
 cannot be well conducted. It is possible that, if they 
 give him that authority, he may turn out a Cromwell 
 or a Napoleon. But is almost certain that, if they with- 
 hold from him that authority, their enterprises will end 
 like the enterprise of Argyle. 
 
 Some of the Scottish emigrants, heated with repub- 
 lican enthusiasm, and utterly destitute of the skill neces- 
 sary to the conduct of great affairs, employed all their 
 industry and ingenuity, not in collecting means for the 
 attack which they were about to make on a formidable 
 1 Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, lib. ii. cap. 33.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 135 
 
 enemy, but in devising restraints on their leader's power 
 and securities against liis ambition. The selfcomplacent 
 stupidity with which they insisted on organizing an army 
 as if they liad been organizing a commonweakh woukl 
 be incredible if it had not been frankly and even boast- 
 fully recorded by one of themselves. ^ 
 
 At length all differences were compromised. It was 
 determined that an attempt should be forth- An-ange- 
 
 • 1 1 1 p o 1 1 nifuts for an 
 
 witli made on the western coast or ocotland, attempt on 
 
 11 -iiii ir>ii 11 EnglaoU and 
 
 and that it sJiouid be promptly lollowed by a Scotland. 
 descent on England. 
 
 Argyle was to hold the nominal command in Scot- 
 land : but he was placed under the control of a Com- 
 mittee which reserved to itself all the most important 
 parts of the military administration. This Committee 
 was empowered to detei-mine where the expedition 
 should land, to appoint officers, to superintend the 
 levying of troops, to dole ovit provisions and amminii- 
 tion. All that Avas left to the general was to direct 
 the evolutions of the army in the field, and he was 
 forced to promise that even in the field, except in the 
 case of a surprise, he would do nothing without the 
 assent of a council of war. 
 
 Monmouth was to command in England. His soft 
 mind had, as usual, taken an impress from the society 
 which surrounded him. Ambitious hopes, which had 
 seemed to be extinguished, had revived in his bosom. 
 He remembered the affection with which he had been 
 constantly greeted by the common people in town and 
 country, and expected that they would now rise by hun- 
 dreds of thousands to welcome him. He remembered 
 the good will which the soldiers had always borne him, 
 and flattered himself that they would come over to hiin 
 1 See Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative, ^a«sii«.
 
 136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 by regiments. Encouraging messages reached him in 
 quick succession from London. He was assured that 
 the violence and injustice with which the elections had 
 been carried on had driven the nation mad, that tlie 
 ])rudence of the leading Whigs had with difficulty pre- 
 vented a sanguinary outbreak on the day of the coro- 
 nation, and that all the great Lords who had supported 
 the Exclusion Bill were impatient to rally round him. 
 Wildman, who loved to talk treason in parables, sent 
 to say that the Earl of Richmond, just two hundred 
 yeai's before, had landed in England with a handful of 
 men, and had a few days later been crowned, on the 
 field of Bosworth, with the diadem taken from the head 
 of Richard. Danvers undertook to raise the City. 
 The Duke was deceived into the belief that, as soon as 
 he set up his standard, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, 
 Hampshire, Cheshire would rise in arms.^ He conse- 
 quently became eager for the enterprise from which a 
 few weeks before he had shrunk. His countrymen did 
 not impose on him restrictions so elaborately absurd as 
 those which the Scotch emigrants had devised. All 
 that was required of him was to promise that he would 
 not assume the regal title till his pretensions had been 
 submitted to the judgment of a ftee Parliament. 
 
 It was determined that two Englishmen, Ayloffe and 
 Rumbold, should accompany Argyle to Scotland, and 
 that Fletcher should 20 with Monmouth to England. 
 Fletcher, from the beginning, had augured ill of the en- 
 terprise : but his chivalrous spirit would not suffer him 
 to decline a risk which his friends seemed eager to en- 
 counter. When Grey repeated with approbation what 
 Wildman had said about Richmond and Richard, the 
 well read and thoughtful Scot justly remarked that 
 1 Grey's Narrative i Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.
 
 108O.J JAMES THE SECOND. 1B7 
 
 there was a cfoat difFercnce between the fifteentli cen- 
 tury and tlie seventeentli. Riclniiond was assured of 
 the support of barons, each of whom could bring an 
 army of feudal retainers into the field ; and Richard 
 had not one reijiment of reo;ular soldiers.^ 
 
 The exiles were able to raise, partly from their own 
 resources and partly from the contributions of well 
 wishers in Holland, a sum sufficient for the two expe- 
 ditions. Very little was obtained from London. Six 
 thousand pounds had been expected thence. But in- 
 stead of the money came excuses from Wildman, which 
 ought to have opened the eyes of all who were not 
 wilfully blind. The Duke made up the deficiency by 
 pawning his own jewels and those of Lady Wentworth. 
 Arms, ammunition, and provisions were bought, and 
 several ships which lay at Amsterdam were freighted.^ 
 
 It is remarkable that the most illustrious and the 
 most grossly injured man among the British 
 exiles stood lar aloof from these rash counsels. 
 John Locke hated tyranny and pei'secution as a philos- 
 opher ; but liis intellect and his temper preserved him 
 from the violence of a partisan. He had lived on con- 
 fidential terms with Shaftesbury, and had thus incurred 
 the displeasure of the court. Locke's prudence had, 
 however, been such that it would have been to little 
 purpose to bring him even before the corrupt and par- 
 tial tribunals of that age. In one point, however, he 
 was vulnerable. He was a student of Christ Church 
 in the University of Oxford. It was determined to 
 drive from that celebrated colleire the o;rcatest man 
 of whom it could ever boast. But this was not easy. 
 Locke had, at Oxf()rd, abstained from expressing any 
 opinion on the politics of the day. Spies had been 
 1 Burnet, i. 6;il. 2 Grey's Narrative.
 
 188 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 set about him. Doctors of Divinity and Masters of 
 Arts had not been ashamed to perfomi the vilest of 
 all offices, that of watching the lips of a companion in 
 order to report his words to his ruin. The conversa- 
 tion in the hall had been purposely turned to irritating 
 topics, to the Exclusion Bill, and to the character of the 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, but in vain. Locke neither broke 
 out nor dissembled, but maintained such steady silence 
 and composure as forced the tools of power to own with 
 vexation that never man was so complete a master of 
 his tongue and of his passions. When it was found 
 that treachery could do nothing, arbitrary power was 
 used. After vainly trying to inveigle Locke into a 
 fault, the government resolved to punish him without 
 one. Orders came from Whitehall that he should be 
 ejected ; and those orders the Dean and Canons made 
 haste to obey. 
 
 Locke was travellino; on the Continent for his health 
 when he learned that he had been deprived of his home 
 and of his bread "without a trial or even a notice. The 
 injustice with which he had been treated would have 
 excused him if he had resorted to violent methods of 
 redress. But he was not to be blinded by personal 
 resentment : he augured no good from the schemes of 
 those who had assembled at Amsterdam ; and he quietly 
 repaired to Utrecht, where, while his partnei's in mis- 
 fortune were planning their own destruction, he em- 
 ployed himself in writing his celebrated Letter on 
 Toleration.^ 
 
 1 Le Clerc's Life of Locke; Lord King's Life of Locke; Lord Grenville's 
 Oxford and Locke. Locke must not be confounded with the Anabaptist 
 Nicholas Look, whose name is spelt Locke in Grey's Confession, and who 
 is mentioned in the Lansdowne MS. 1152, and in the Buccleuch narrative 
 appended to Mr. Rose's dissertation. I should hardly think it necessary to 
 tnake this remark, but that the similarity of the two names appears to hav« 
 
 J
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 139 
 
 The English government was early apprised that 
 something was in agitation among the out- Preparations 
 
 1 A • • p -r< 1 1 mailebygov- 
 
 laws. An mvasion ot Jbnojlfind seems not to emment ibr 
 
 , ^1 1 • "^'^ defence 
 
 have been at nrst expected ; but it was ap- of Scotland. 
 prehended that Argyle would sliortly appear in arms 
 among his clansmen. A proclamation Avas accordingly 
 issued directing that Scotland should be put into a state 
 of defence. The militia was ordered to be in readiness. 
 All the clans hostile to the name of Campbell were set 
 in motion. John Murray, Marquess of Athol, was ap- 
 pointed Loi'd Lieutenant of Argyleshire, and, at the 
 head of a great body of his followers, occupied the cas- 
 tle of Inverary. Some suspected persons were arrested. 
 Others were compelled to give hostages. Ships of war 
 were sent to cruise near the isle of Bute ; and part 
 of the army of Ireland was moved to the coast of 
 Ulster.i 
 
 While these preparations were making in Scotland, 
 James called into his closet Arnold Van Cit- conrersa- 
 
 - Ill • 1 1 • T-i 1 1 tion of .lames 
 
 ters, who had long resided m Lngland as with tue 
 
 A 1 1 /• I TT • 1 I-. • ' 1 Hutch am- 
 
 Ambassauor rrom the united i rovmces, and biissadors. 
 Everard Van Dykvclt, who, after the death of Charles, 
 had been sent by the States General on a special mis- 
 sion of condolence and congratulation. The Kino- said 
 that he had received from unquestionable sources in- 
 telligence of designs which were forming against his 
 throne by his banished subjects in Holland. Some of 
 the exiles were cutthroats, whom nothing but the spe- 
 cial providence of God had prevented from committing 
 a foul murder ; and among them was the owner of the 
 spot which had been fixed for the butchery. " Of all 
 
 miBled a man so well acquainted with the historj' of those times as Speaker 
 Onslow. See his note on Burnet, i. G29. 
 
 1 Wodrow, book iii. cliap. ix. ; London Gazette, May 11. 1035; Barilloo 
 May^
 
 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 men living," said the King, " Argyle lias the greatest 
 means of annoying me ; and of all places Holland is 
 that whence a blow may be best aimed against me." 
 The Dutch envoys assured His Majesty that what he 
 had said should instantly be communicated to the gov- 
 ernment which they represented, and expressed their 
 full confidence that every exertion would be made to 
 satisfy him.^ 
 
 They were justified in expressing this confidence. 
 Ineffectual Botli the Priuce of Orange and the States 
 
 attempt to , . . , . 
 
 prevtut Ar- (jeneral were, at this time, most desirous 
 sailing. that the hospitality of their country should 
 
 not be abused for purposes of which the English gov- 
 ernment could justly complain. James had lately 
 held language which encouraged the hope that he 
 would not patiently submit to the ascendency of France. 
 It seemed probable that he would consent to form a 
 close alliance with the United Provinces and the House 
 of Austria. There was, therefore, at the Hague, an 
 extreme anxiety to avoid all that could give him offence. 
 The personal interest of William was also on this occa- 
 sion identical with the interest of his father in law. 
 
 But the case was one which required rapid and vigor- 
 ous action ; and the nature of the Batavian institutions 
 made such action almost impossible. The Union of 
 Utrecht, rudely formed, amidst the agonies of a revo- 
 lution, for the purpose of meeting immediate exigencies, 
 had never been deliberately revised and perfected in a 
 time of tranquillity. Every one of the seven common- 
 wealths which that Union had bound together retained 
 almost all the rights of sovereignty, and asserted those 
 rights punctiliously against the central government. 
 As the federal authorities had not the means of exact* 
 
 1 Register of the Proceedings of the States General, May J^. 1685.
 
 1«W-] JAMES THE SECOND. 141 
 
 ing prompt obedience from the provincial autnorities, 
 so the provincial authorities had not the means of ex- 
 acting prompt obedience from the municipal authorities. 
 Holland alone contained eighteen cities, each of which 
 was, for many purposes, an independent state, jealous 
 of all interference from without. If the rulers of such 
 a city received from the Hague an order which was un- 
 pleasing to them, they either neglected it altogether, 
 or executed it languidly and tardily. In some coun- 
 cils, indeed, the influence of the Prince of Orancre was 
 all powerful. But unfortunately the place w^here the 
 British exiles had congregated, and where their ships 
 had been fitted out, was the rich and populous Amster- 
 dam ; and the magistrates of Amsterdam were the 
 heads of the faction hostile to the federal government 
 and to the House of Nassau. The naval administration 
 of the United Provinces was conducted by five distinct 
 boards of Admiralty. One of those boards sate at 
 Amsterdam, was partly nominated by the authorities 
 of that city, and seems to have been entirely animated 
 by their spirit. 
 
 All the endeavours of the federal government to effect 
 what James desired were frustrated by the evasions of 
 the functionaries of Amsterdam, and b}^ the blunders 
 of Colonel Bevil Skelton, who had just arrived at the 
 Hague as Envoy from England. Skelton had been 
 born in Holland during the English troubles, and was 
 therefore supposed to be peculiarly qualified for his 
 post ; ^ but he was, in truth, unfit for that and for every 
 other diplomatic situation. Excellent judges of charac- 
 ter pronounced him to be the most shallow, fickle, pas- 
 sionate, presumptuous, and garrulous of men.^ He took 
 
 1 This is mentioned in his credentials dated on the 16th of March, 1684. 
 ' Borirepaux to Seignelay, Feb. JL.. 1686.
 
 142 mSTORT OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 no serious notice of the proceedings of the refugees till 
 three vessels which had been equipi)ed for the expedi- 
 tion to Scotland were safe out of the Zuyder Zee, till 
 the arms, ammunition, and provisions were on board, 
 and till the passengers had embarked. Then, instead 
 of applying, as he should have done, to the States Gen- 
 eral, who sate close to his own door, he sent a messen- 
 ger to the magistrates of Amsterdam, with a request 
 that the suspected ships might be detained. The mag- 
 istrates of Amsterdam answered that the entrance of 
 the Zuyder Zee was out of their jurisdiction, and re- 
 ferred him to the federal government. It was notori- 
 ous that this was a mere excuse, and that, if there had 
 been any real wish at the Stadthouse of Amsterdam to 
 prevent Argyle from sailing, no difficulties Avould have 
 been made. Skelton now addressed himself to the 
 States General. They showed every disposition to 
 comply with his demand, and, as the case was urgent, 
 departed from the course which they ordinarily ob- 
 served in the transaction of business. On the same 
 day on which he made his application to them, an order, 
 drawn in exact conformity with his request, was de- 
 spatched to the Admiralty of Amsterdam. But this 
 order, in consequence of some misinformation which he 
 had received, did not correctly describe the situation 
 of the ships. They were said to be in the TexeL 
 They were in the Vhe. The Admiralty of Amster- 
 dam' made this error a plea for doing nothing ; and, 
 before the error could be rectified, the three ships had 
 sailed.^ 
 
 1 Avaux Neg. if^' May yt' May xl- 1685; Sir Patrick Hume's Nar- 
 rative; Letter from the Admiralty of Amsterdam to the States General, 
 dated June 20. 1685; Memorial of Skelton, delivered to the States General 
 May 10. 1685.
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 148 
 
 The last hours which Argyle passed on the coast of 
 Holland were hours of great anxiety. Near Departure of 
 him lay a Dutch man of war whose broadside uoiiand. 
 would in a moment have put an end to his expedition. 
 Round his little fleet a boat was rowing, in which were 
 some persons with telescopes whom he suspected to 
 be spies. But no effectual step was taken for the pur- 
 pose of detaining him ; and on the afternoon of the 
 se cond of May he stood out to sea before a favourable 
 breeze. 
 
 The voyage was prosperous. On the sixth the Ork- 
 neys were in sight. Argyle very unwisely anchored 
 off Kirkwall, and allowed two of his followers to go on 
 shore there. The Bishop ordered them to be arrested. 
 The refligees proceeded to hold a long and animated 
 debate on this misadventure : for, from the beginning 
 to the end of their expedition, however languid and 
 irresolute their conduct might be, they never in debate 
 wanted spirit or perseverance. Some were for an at- 
 tack on Kirkwall. Some were for proceeding without 
 delay to Argyleshire. At last the Earl seized some 
 gentlemen who lived near the coast of the island, and 
 proposed to the Bishop an exchange of prisoners. The 
 Bishop returned no answer ; and the fleet, after losing 
 three days, sailed away. 
 
 This delay was full of danger. It was speedily 
 known at Edinburgh that the rebel squadron y^ ,.„„,, ;„ 
 had touched at the Orkneys. Troops were ^«»""''- 
 instantly put in motion. When the Earl reached his 
 own province, he found that preparations had been made 
 to repel him. At Dunstaffnage he sent his second son 
 Charles on shore to call the Campbells to arms. But 
 Charles returned with gloomy tidings. The herdsmen 
 and fishermen were indeed ready to rally round Mac 
 
 vol,. II. 10
 
 144 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. F. 
 
 Galium More ; but, of the heads of the clan, some 
 were in confinement, and others had fled. Those gen- 
 tlemen who remained at their homes were either well 
 affected to the government or afraid of moving, and re- 
 fused even to see the son of their chief. From Dun- 
 staffnage the small armament proceeded to Campbell- 
 town, near the southern extremity of the peninsula of 
 Kintyre. Here the Earl published a manifesto, drawn 
 up in Holland, under the direction of the Committee, 
 by James Stewart, a Scotch advocate, whose pen was, 
 a few months later, employed in a very different way. 
 In this paper were set forth, with a strength of lan- 
 guage sometimes approaching to scurrility, many real 
 and some imaginary grievances. It was hinted that 
 the late King had died by poison. A chief object 
 of the expedition was declared to be the entire sup- 
 pression, not only of Popery, but of Prelacy, which 
 was termed the most bitter root and offspring of 
 Popery ; and all good Scotchmen were exhorted to 
 do valiantly for the cause of their country and of their 
 God. 
 
 Zealous as Argyle was for what he considered as 
 pure religion, he did not scruple to practise one rite 
 \ialf Popish and half Pagan. The mysterious cross of 
 yew, first set on fire, and then quenched in the blood of 
 a goat, was sent forth to summon all the Campbells, from 
 sixteen to sixty. The isthmus of Tarbet was appointed 
 for the place of gathering. The muster, though small 
 indeed when compared with what it would have been 
 if the spirit and strength of the clan had been un- 
 broken, was still formidable. The whole force as- 
 sembled amounted to about eighteen hundred men. 
 Argyle divided his mountaineers into- three regiments, 
 and proceeded to appoint officers.
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 145 
 
 The bickerings which had begun in Holland had 
 never been intermitted during the whole u;s disputes 
 course or the expedition ; but at iarbet tliey lowers. 
 became more violent than ever. The Committee wished 
 to interfere even with the patriarchal dominion of the 
 E:irl over the Campbells, and would not allow him to 
 settle the military rank of his kinsmen by his own au- 
 thority. While these disputatious meddlers tried to 
 wrest from him his power over the Higlilands, they 
 carried on their own correspondence with the Lowlands, 
 and received and sent letters which were never com- 
 municated to the nominal General. Hume and his 
 confederates had reserved to themselves the superin- 
 tendence of the stores, and conducted this important 
 part of the administration of war with a laxity hardly 
 to be distinguished from dishonesty, suffered the arms 
 to be spoiled, wasted the provisions, and lived riotously 
 at a time when they ought to have set to all beneath 
 them an example of abstemiousness. 
 
 The great question was whether the Highlands or 
 the Lowlands should be the seat of war. The Earl's 
 first object was to establish his authority over his own 
 domains, to drive out the hivading clans which had 
 been poured from Perthshire into Argyleshire, and to 
 take possession of the ancient seat of his family at 
 Inverary. He might then hope to have four or five 
 thousand claymores at his command. With such a 
 force he would be able to defend that wild country 
 against the whole power of the kingdom of Scotland, 
 and would also have secured an excellent base for 
 offensive operations. This seems to have been the 
 wisest course open to him. Rumbold, who had been 
 trained in an excellent military school, and who, as an 
 Englishman, might be supposed to be an impartial
 
 146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 umpire between the Scottish factions, did all ni his 
 power to strengthen the Earl's hands. But Hume and 
 Cochrane were utterly impracticable. Their jealousy 
 of Argyle was, in truth, stronger than their wish for 
 the success of the expedition. They saw that, among 
 his own mountains and lakes, and at the head of an 
 army chiefly composed of his OAvn tribe, he would be 
 able to bear down their opposition, and to exercise the 
 liill authority of a General. They muttered that the 
 only men who had the good cause at heart were the 
 Lowlanders, and that the Campbells took up arms 
 neither for liberty nor for the Church of God, but for 
 Mac Galium More alone. Cochrane declared that he 
 would go to Ayrshire if he went by himself, and with 
 nothing but a pitchfork in his hand. Argyle, after long 
 resistance, consented, against his better judgment, to 
 divide his little army. He remained with Rumbold in 
 the Highlands. Cochrane and Hume were at the head 
 of the force which sailed to invade the Lowlands. 
 
 Ayrshire was Cochrane's object : but the coast of 
 Ayrshire was guarded by English frigates ; and the ad- 
 venturers were under the necessity of running up the 
 estuary of the Clyde to Greenock, then a small fishing 
 village consisting of a single row of thatched hovels, 
 now a great and flourishing port, of which the customs 
 amount to more than five times the whole revenue 
 wdiich the Stuarts derived from the kingdom of Scot- 
 land. A party of militia lay at Greenock : but Coch- 
 rane, who wanted provisions, was determined to land. 
 Hume objected. Cochrane was peremptory, and or- 
 dered an officer, named Elphinstone, to take twenty 
 men in a boat to the shore. But the wrangling spirit 
 of the leaders had infected all ranks. Elphinstone 
 answered that he was bound to obey only reasonable
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 14? 
 
 commands, that he considei*ed this command as mirea- 
 sonable, and, in short, that he would not go. Major 
 Fullarton, a brave man, esteemed by all parties, but 
 })eculiarly attached to Argyle, undertook to land with 
 only twelve men, and did so in spite of a fire from the 
 coast. A slio;ht skirmish followed. The militia fell 
 back. Cochrane entered Greenock and procured a 
 supply of meal, but found no disposition to insurrection 
 among the people. 
 
 In fact, the state of public feeling in Scotland was 
 not such as the exiles, misled bv the infatua- Temper of 
 tion common in all ages to exiles, had sup- nation. 
 posed it to be. The government was, indeed, hateful 
 and hated. But the malecontents were divided into 
 j)arties which were almost as hostile to one another as 
 to their rulers ; nor Avas any of those parties eager to 
 join the invaders. Many thought that the insurrection 
 had no chance of success. The spirit of many had 
 been efiectually broken by long and cruel oppression. 
 There was, indeed, a class of enthusiasts who were 
 little in the habit of calculating chances, and whom 
 oppression had not tamed but maddened. But these 
 men saw little difierence between Argyle and James. 
 Their wrath had been heated to such a temperature 
 that what every body else would have called boiling 
 zeal seemed to them Laodicean lukewarmness. The 
 Earl's past life had been stained by what they regarded 
 as the vilest apostasy. The very Highlanders whom he 
 now summoned to extirpate Prelacy he had a few years 
 betbre summoned to defend it. And were slaves who 
 knew nothing and cared nothing about religion, who 
 were ready to fight for synodical government, for Epis- 
 copacy, for Popery, ju.st as Mac Galium More might be 
 pleased to command, fit allies for the people of God ?
 
 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 The manifesto, indecent and intolerant as was its tone, 
 was, in the view of these fanatics, a cowardly and 
 worldly performance. A settlement such as Argyle 
 would have made, such as was afterwards made by a 
 mightier and happier deliverer, seemed to them not 
 vrorth a struggle. They wanted not only freedom of 
 conscience for themselves, but absolute dominion over 
 the consciences of others, not only the Presbyterian 
 doctrine, polity, and worship, but the Covenant in its 
 utmost rigour. Nothing would content them but tliat 
 every end for which civil society exists should be sac- 
 rificed to the ascendency of a theological system. One 
 who believed no form of church government to be worth 
 a breach of Christian charity, and who recommended 
 comprehension and toleration, was, in their phrase, 
 halting between Jehovah and Baal. One who con- 
 demned such acts as the murder of Cardinal Beatoun 
 and Archbishop Sharpe fell into the same sin for which 
 Saul had been rejected from being King over Israel. 
 All the rules, by which, among civilised and Christian 
 men, the horrors of war are mitigated, were abomina- 
 tions in the sight of the Lord. Quarter was to be 
 neither taken nor given. A Malay running a-muck, 
 a mad dog pursued by a crowd, were the models to be 
 imitated by warriors fighting in just selfdefence. To 
 reasons such as guide the conduct of statesmen and 
 generals the minds of these zealots were absolutely im- 
 pervious. That a man should A^enture to urge such 
 reasons was sufficient evidence that he was not one of 
 the faithfiil. If the divine blessing were withheld, little 
 would be eifected by crafty politicians, by veteran cap- 
 tains, by cases of arms from Holland, or by regiments 
 of unregenerate Ctdts from the mountains of Lorn. If, 
 on the other hand, the Lord's time were indeed come,
 
 1685.) JAMES THE SECOND. 149 
 
 he could still, as of old, cause the foolish things of the 
 world to confound the wise» and could save alike by 
 many and by few. The broadswords of Athol and the 
 bayonets of Claverhouse would be put to rout by weap- 
 ons as insignificant as the sling of David or the pitcher 
 of Gideon.^ 
 
 Cochrane, having found it impossible to raise the 
 population on the south of the Clyde, rejoined Argyle, 
 who Avas in the island of Bute. The Earl now again 
 proposed to make an attempt upon Inverary. Again 
 he encountered a pertinacious opposition. The seamen 
 sided with Hume and Cochrane. The Highlanders 
 were absolutely at the command of their chieftain. 
 There was reason to fear that the two parties would 
 come to blows ; and the dread of such a disaster in- 
 duced the Committee to make some concession. The 
 castle of Ealan Ghierig, situated at the mouth of Loch 
 Riddan, was selected to be the chief place of arms. 
 The military stores were disembarked there. The 
 sqviach'on was moored close to the walls in a place where 
 it was protected by rocks and shallows such as, it Avas 
 thought, no fi-igate could pass. Outworks were thrown 
 up. A battery was planted with some small guns 
 taken from the ships. The command of the fort was 
 most unwisely given to Elphinstone, who had already 
 proved himself much more disposed to argue with his 
 commnnders than to fight the enemy. 
 
 And now, during a few hours, there was some show 
 of vigour. Rumbold took the castle of Ardkinglass. 
 The Earl skirmished successfully with Athol's troops, 
 
 1 If any person is inclined to suspect that I have exaggerated the absunl- 
 itj' and ferocity of these men, I would advise him to read two hooks, wliich 
 will convince him that I have rather softened than overcharged the por- 
 trait, the " Hind let loose," and "Faithful Contendings displayed."
 
 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Oh. V 
 
 and was about to advance on Inverary, when alarming 
 news from the ships and factions in the Committee 
 forced him to turn back. The King's frigates had come 
 nearer to Ealan Ghierig than had been thought pos- 
 sible. The Lowland gentlemen positively refiised to 
 advance further into the Highlands. Argyle hastened 
 back to Ealan Ghierig. There he proposed to make 
 an attack on the frigates. His ships, indeed, were ill 
 fitted for such an encounter. But they M'^ould have 
 been supported by a flotilla of thirty large fishing boats, 
 each well manned with armed Highlanders. The Com- 
 mittee, however, refused to listen to this plan, and 
 effectually counteracted it by raising a mutiny among 
 the sailors. 
 
 All was now confusion and despondency. The pro- 
 visions had been so ill managed by the Committee that 
 there was no longer food for the troops. The High- 
 landers consequently deserted by hundreds ; and the 
 Earl, brokenhearted by his misfortunes, yielded to the 
 urgency of those who still pertinaciously insisted that 
 he should march into the Lowlands. 
 
 The little army therefore hastened to the shore of 
 Loch Long, passed that inlet by night in boats, and 
 landed in Dumbartonshire. Hither, on the following 
 morning, came news that the frigates had forced a pas- 
 sage, that all the Earl's ships had been taken, and that 
 Elphinstone had fled from Ealan Ghierig without a 
 blow, leaving the castle and stores to the enemy. 
 
 All that remained was to invade the Lowlands under 
 every disadvantage. Argyle resolved to make a bold 
 push for Glasgow. But, as soon as this resolution was 
 announced, the very men, who had, up to that moment, 
 been urging him to hasten into the low country, took 
 fright, argued, remonstrated, and, when argument and
 
 less.] JAME3 THE SECOND. 151 
 
 remonstrance proved vain, laid a scheme for seizing 
 the boats, making their own escape, and leaving their 
 General and his clansmen to conquer or perish unaided. 
 This scheme failed ; and the poltroons who had formed 
 it were compelled to share with braver men the risks 
 of the last venture. 
 
 During the march through the country which lies 
 between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, the insurgents 
 were constantly infested by parties of militia. Some 
 skirmishes took place, in which the Earl had the ad- 
 vantage ; but the bands which he repelled, falling back 
 before him, spread the tidings of his approach, and, 
 soon after he had crossed the river Leven, he found a 
 strong body of regular and ix'regular troops prepared to 
 encounter him. 
 
 He was for giving battle. Ayloffe was of the same 
 opinion. Hume, on the other hand, declared that to 
 engage the enemy would be madness. He saw one 
 regiment in scarlet. More might be behind. To attack 
 such a force was to rush on certain death. The best 
 course was to remain quiet till night, and then to give 
 the enemy the slip. 
 
 A sharp altercation followed, which was with diffi- 
 culty quieted by the mediation of Rumbold. It was 
 now evening. The hostile armies encamped at no great 
 distance from each other. The Eai'l ventured to pro- 
 pose a night attack, and was again overruled. 
 
 Since it was determined not to fiirht, nothino- was 
 left but to take the step which Hume had Arsyie's 
 recommended. There Avas a chance, that by perscd. 
 decamping secretly, and hastening all night across 
 heaths and morasses, the Earl might gain many miles 
 on the enemy, and might reach Glasgow without fur- 
 ther obstruction. The watch fires were left burning •
 
 152 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 and tlie march began. And now disaster followed dis- 
 aster fast. The guides mistook the track across the 
 moors, and led the army into boggy ground. Military 
 order could not be preserved by undisciplined and dis- 
 heartened soldiers under a dark sky, and on a treacher- 
 ous and uneven soil. Panic after panic spread through 
 the broken ranks. Every sight and sound was thought 
 to indicate the approach of pursuers. Some of the offi- 
 cers contributed to spread the terror which it was their 
 duty to calm. The army had become a mob ; and the 
 mob melted fast away. Great numbers fled under cover 
 of the night. Rumbold and a few other brave men 
 whom no danger could have scared lost their way, and 
 were unable to rejoin the main body. When the day 
 broke, only five hundred fugitives, wearied and dis- 
 pirited, assembled at Kilpatrick. 
 
 All thought of prosecuting the war was at an end : 
 and it was plain that the chiefs of the expedition would 
 have sufficient difficulty in escaping with their lives. 
 They fled in diffi^rent directions. Hume reached the 
 Continent in safety. Cochrane was taken and sent up 
 Argyiea ^o Loudou. Argyle hoped to find a secure 
 pnsouer. asylum under the roof of one of his old ser- 
 vants who lived near Kilpatrick. But this hope was 
 disappointed ; and he was forced to cross the Clyde. 
 He assumed the dress of a peasant, and pretended to 
 be the guide of Major Fullarton, whose courageous 
 fidelity was proof to all danger. The friends journeyed 
 together through Renfrewshire as far as Inchinnan. 
 At that place the Black Cart and the White Cart, two 
 streams which now flow through prosperous towns, and 
 tui'n the wheels of many factories, but which then held 
 their quiet course through moors and sheepwalks, mingle 
 before they join the Clyde. The only ford by which
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 153 
 
 the travellers could cross was guarded by a party of 
 militia. Some questions were asked. Fullarton tried 
 to draw suspicion on himself, in order that his com- 
 panion might escape unnoticed. But the minds of the 
 questioners misgave them that the guide was not the 
 rude clown that he seemed. They laid hands on him. 
 He broke loose and sprang into the water, but was in- 
 stantly chased. He stood at bay for a short time against 
 five assailants. But he had no arms except his pocket 
 pistols, and they were so wet, in consequence of his 
 plunge, that they would not go oiF. He was struck to 
 the ground with a broadsword, and secured. 
 
 He owned iiimself to be the Earl of Argyle, probably 
 in the hope that his great name would excite the awe 
 and pity of those who had seized Iiim. And indeed they 
 were much moved. For they were plain Scotchmen of 
 humble rank, and, though in arms for the crown, prob- 
 ably cherished a preference for the Calvinistic church 
 government and worship, and had been accustomed to 
 I'cverence their captive as the head of an illustrious 
 house and as a champion of the Protestant religion. 
 But, though they were evidently touched, and though 
 some of them even wept, they were not disposed to re- 
 linquish a large reward and to incur the vengeance of 
 an implacable government. They therefore conveyed 
 their prisoner to Renfrew. The man who bore the 
 chief part in the arrest was named Riddell. On this 
 account the whole race of Riddclls was, durino: more 
 than a century, held in abhorrence by the great tribe 
 of Campbell. Within living memory, when a Riddell 
 visited a fair in Argyleshire, he found it necessary to 
 assume a false name. 
 
 And now commenced the brightest part of Argyle's 
 sareer. His enterprise had hitherto brought on him
 
 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V, 
 
 nothing but reproach and derision. His great error 
 was that he did not resolutely refuse to accept the 
 name without the power of a general. Had he re- 
 mained quietly at his retreat in Friesland, he would 
 in a few years have been recalled with honour to his 
 country, and would have been conspicuous among the 
 ornaments and the props of constitutional monarchy. 
 Had he conducted his expedition according to his own 
 views, and carried with him no followers but such as 
 were prepared implicitly to obey all his orders, he 
 might possibly have effected something great. For 
 what he wanted as a captain seems to have been, not 
 courage, nor activity, nor skill, but simply authority. 
 He should have known that of all wants this is the 
 most fatal. Armies have triumphed under leaders who 
 possessed no very eminent qualifications. But what 
 army commanded by a debating club ever escaped dis- 
 comfiture and disgrace ? 
 
 The great calamity which had fallen on Argyle had 
 this advantage, that it enabled him to show, by proofs 
 not to be mistaken, what manner of man he was. From 
 the day when he quitted Friesland to the day when his 
 followers separated at Kilpatrick, he had never been a 
 free agent. He had borne the responsibility of a long 
 series of measures which his judgment disapproved. 
 Now at length he stood alone. Captivity had restored 
 to him the noblest kind of liberty, the liberty of gov- 
 erning himself in all his words and actions according 
 to his own sense of the right and of the becoming. 
 From that moment he became as one inspired with 
 new wisdom and virtue. His intellect seemed to be 
 strengthened and concentrated, his moral character to 
 be at once elevated and softened. The insolence of 
 the conquerors spared nothing that could try the tem-
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 155 
 
 per of a man proud of ancient nobility and of patri 
 arclial dominion. The prisoner was dragged through 
 Edinburgh in triumph. He walked on foot, bare- 
 headed, up the whole length of that stately street 
 which, overshadowed by dark and gigantic piles of 
 stone, leads from Holvrood House to the Castle. Be- 
 fore him marched the hangman, bearing the ghastly 
 instrument which was to be used at the quartering 
 block. The victorious party had not forgotten that, 
 thirty-five yeai's before this time, the father of Argyle 
 had been at the head of the faction which put Mont- 
 rose to death. Before that event the houses of Graham 
 and Cam[)bell had borne no love to each other ; and 
 they had ever since been at deadly feud. Care was 
 taken that the prisoner should pass through the same 
 irate and the same streets through which Montrose had 
 been led to the same doom.^ When the Earl reached 
 the Castle his legs were put in irons, and he was in- 
 formed that he had but a few days to live. It had 
 been determined not to brinjj him to trial for his recent 
 offence, but to put him to death under the sentence 
 pronounced against him several years before, a sentence 
 so flagitiously unjust that the most servile and obdurate 
 lawyers of that bad age could not speak of it without 
 shame. 
 
 But neither the ignominious procession up the High 
 Street, nor the near view of death, had power to dis- 
 turb the gentle and majestic patience of Argyle. His 
 fortitude was tried by a still more severe test. A j)aj)er 
 of interrogatories was laid before him by order of the 
 Privj' Council. He replied to those questions to which 
 
 1 A few words which were in the first five editions have been omitted in 
 iViis ])late. IKtc and in iinotlicr passage I had, as Mr. Aytoiin has ob.served, 
 iiiisiaUcn the City (hiards, «hi«ii were conuiiandod hy an ollici.T naukuj 
 (iialiaiii, ('(ir tlic I 'rairouns ol' (^iialiani ut' Claverhouse.
 
 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cir. V 
 
 lie could reply without clangor to any of his friends, 
 and refused to say more. He was told that unless he 
 returned fuller answers he should be put to the torture. 
 James, who was doubtless sorry that he could not feast 
 his own eyes with the sight of Argyle in the boots, sent 
 down to Edinburgh positive orders that nothing should 
 be omitted which could wring out of the traitor in- 
 formation against all who had been concerned in the 
 treason. But menaces were vain. With torments 
 and death in immediate prospect, Mac Galium More 
 thought far less of himself than of his poor clansmen. 
 " I was busy this day," he wrote from his cell, " treat- 
 ing for them, and in some hopes. But this evening 
 orders came that I must die upon Monday or Tuesday ; 
 and I am to be put to the torture if I answer not all 
 questions upon oath. Yet I hope God shall support 
 me." 
 
 The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magna- 
 nimity of the victim had moved the conquerors to un- 
 wonted compassion. He himself remarked that at first 
 they had been very harsh to him, but that they soon 
 began to treat him with respect and kindness. God, 
 he said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he 
 did not, to save himself from the utmost cruelty of his 
 enemies, betray any of his friends. On the last morn- 
 ing of his hfe he wrote these words : " I have named 
 none to their disadvantage. I thank God he hath sup- 
 ported me wonderfriUy." 
 
 He composed his own epitaph, a short poem, full of 
 meaning and spirit, simple and forcible in style, and 
 not contemptible in versification. In this little piece 
 he complained that, though his enemies had repeatedl^i 
 decreed his death, his friends had been still more cruel. 
 A comment on these expressions is to be found in a let- 
 ter which he addressed to a lady residisig in Holland.
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 157 
 
 She liad furnislied him with a large sura of money for 
 his expedition, and he thought her entitled to a full 
 explanation of the causes which had led to his failure. 
 He acquitted his coadjutors of treachery, but described 
 their folly, their ignorance, and their factious perverse- 
 ness, in terms which their own testimony has since 
 })roved to have been richly deserved. He afterwards 
 doubted whether he had not used lano-uao-e too severe 
 to become a dying Christian, and, in a separate paper, 
 begged his fi-iend to suppress what he had said of these 
 men. " Only this I must acknowledge," he mildly 
 added ; " they were not governable." 
 
 Most of his few remaining hours were passed in de- 
 votion, and in aftectionate intercourse with some mem- 
 bers of his family. He professed no repentance on ac- 
 count of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great 
 emotion, his former com})liance in spiritual things with 
 the pleasure of the government. He had, he said, been 
 justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of 
 coAvardice and dissimulation was not worthy to be the 
 instrument of salvation to the State and Church. Yet 
 the cause, lie frequently repeated, was the cause of 
 God, and would assuredly triumph. " I do not," he 
 said, " take on myself to be a prophet. But I have a 
 strong impression on my spirit, that deliverance Avill 
 come very suddenly." It is not strange that some 
 zealous Presbyterians should have laid up his saying 
 in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have at- 
 tributed it to divine inspiration. 
 
 So effectually had religious faith and hope, cooperat- 
 ing with natural courage and equanimity, composed his 
 sjHrits that, on the very day on which he Avas to die, 
 he dined with appetite, conversed with gaiety at table, 
 and, after his last meal, lay down, as he Avas wont, to
 
 158 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. V. 
 
 take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind 
 might be in full vii^our when he should mount the seal- 
 fold. At this time one of the Lords of the Council, 
 who had probably been bred a Presbyterian, and had 
 been seduced by interest to join in oppressing the 
 Church of which he had once been a member, came 
 to the Castle with a message from his brethren, and de- 
 manded admittance to the Eai'l. It was answered that 
 the Earl was asleep. The Privy Councillor thought 
 'hat this was a subterfuge, and insisted on entering. 
 The door of the cell was softly opened ; and there lay 
 Argyle on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid 
 sleep of infancy. The conscience of the renegade smote 
 him. He turned away sick at heart, ran out of the 
 Castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady of his 
 family who lived hard by. There he flung himself on 
 a couch, and gave himself up to an agony of remorse 
 and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks 
 and groans, thought that he had been taken with sud- 
 den illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. 
 " No, no," he said ; " that will do me no good." She 
 prayed him to tell her what had disturbed him. " I 
 have been," he said, " in Argyle's prison. I have seen 
 him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as 
 
 ever man did. But as for me ." 
 
 And now the Earl had risen from his bed, and had 
 prepared himself for what was yet to be endured. Ho 
 was first brought down the High Street to the Council 
 House, where he was to remain during the short in- 
 terval which was still to elapse before the execution. 
 During that interval he asked for pen and ink, and 
 wrote to his wife. " Dear heart, God is unchangeable. 
 He hath always been good and gracious to me; and no 
 })lace alters it. Forgive me all my faults ; and now 
 comfort thyself in him, in whom only true comfoit is
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 159 
 
 to be found. The Lord be with thee, bless and com- 
 fort thee, mv dearest. Adieu." 
 
 It was now time to leave the Council House. The 
 divines who attended tlie prisoner were not Hisexccu- 
 of his own persuasion ; but he listened to "°"' 
 them with civiHtj, and exhorted them to caution their 
 flocks against those doctrines which all Protestant 
 churches unite in condemning. He mounted the scaf- 
 fold, where the rude old guillotine of Scotland, called 
 the Maiden, awaited him, and addressed the people in 
 a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of 
 his sect, but breathing the spirit of serene piety. His 
 enemies, he said, he forgave, as he hoped to be for- 
 given. Only a single acrimonious expression escaped 
 him. One of the episcopal clergymen who attended 
 him went to the edge of the scaffold, and called out in 
 a loud voice, " My Lord dies a Protestant." " Yes," 
 said the Earl, stepping forward, " and not only a Prot- 
 estant, but with a heart hatred of Popery, of Prelacy, 
 and of all superstition." He then embraced his friends, 
 ])ut into their hands some tokens of remembrance for 
 his wife and children, kneeled down, laid his head on 
 the block, prayed during a few minutes, and gave the 
 sio-nal to the executioner. His head was fixed on the 
 top of the Tol booth, Avhere tiie head of Montrose hud 
 formerly decayed.^ 
 
 1 The authors from whom I have tsiken the history of Argj'le's expedi- 
 tion are Sir Patrick Huine, who was an eyewitness of what he related, and 
 Wodrow, who liad access to materials of tiie greatest value, among which 
 were the Earl's own papers. AVherever there is a question of veracity be- 
 tween Arjryle and Hume, I have no doubt that Argyle's narrative ought 
 to be followed. 
 
 See also lUiniet, i. G-'U. and the life of Bresson, published by Dr. Mac 
 (;rie. The account of the Scotch rebellion in the Life of .Tames the Second, 
 is a ridiculous romance, not written by the King himself, nor derived from 
 liis papers, but composed by a .Jacobite who did not even take the troublfl 
 to look at the map of the seat of war. 
 
 vol.. II. 11
 
 160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Tlie head of the brave and sincere, tliough not 
 Execution blamcless Rumbold, was already on the West 
 of Rumbold. p^^.j. ^,f Edinburgh. Surrounded by factious 
 and cowardly associates, he had, through the whole cam- 
 paign, behaved himself like a soldier trained in the 
 school of the great Protector, had in council strenu- 
 ously supported the autliority of Argyle, and had in 
 the field been distinguished by tranquil intrepidity. 
 After the dispersion of the army he was set upon by a 
 party of militia. He defended himself desperately, and 
 would have cut his way through them, had they not 
 hamstringed his horse. He was brought to Edinburgh 
 mortally wounded. The wish of the government was 
 that he should be executed in England. But he was 
 so near death that, if he was not hanged in Scotland, 
 he could not be hanged at all ; and the pleasure of 
 hanging him was one which the conquerors could not 
 bear to forego. It was indeed not to be expected that 
 they would show much lenity to one who was regarded 
 as the chief of the Rye House plot, and who was the 
 owner of the building from Avhich that plot took its 
 name : but the insolence with which they treated the 
 dying man seems to our more humane age almost in- 
 credible. One of the Scotch Privy Councillors told 
 him that he was a confounded villain. " I am at peace 
 with God," answered Rumbold, calmly ; " how then 
 can I be confounded ? " 
 
 He was hastily tried, convicted, and sentenced to be 
 hanged and quartered within a few hours, near the 
 City Cross in the High Street. Though unable to 
 stand without the support of two men, he maintained 
 his fortitude to the last, and under the gibbet raised his 
 feeble voice against Popery and tyranny with such ve- 
 hemence tliat the officers ordered the drums to strike 
 
 I
 
 1«86.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 161 
 
 up, lest the people should hear him. He was a friend, 
 he said, to limited monarchy. But he never would 
 believe that Providence had sent a few men into the 
 world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions 
 ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. " I desire," 
 he cried, " to bless and magnify God's holy name for 
 this, that I stand here, not for any wrong that I have 
 done, but for adhering to his cause in an evil day. If 
 every hair of my head were a man, in this quarrel I 
 would venture them all." 
 
 Both at his trial and at his execution he spoke of 
 assassination with the abhorrence Avhich became a <rood 
 Christian and a brave soldier. He had never, he pro- 
 tested, on the faith of a dyino; man, harboured the 
 thought of committing such villany. But he frankly 
 owned that, in conversation with his fellow conspira- 
 tors, he had mentioned his own house as a place where 
 Charles and James mio;ht with advantao;e be attacked, 
 and that much had been said on the subject, though 
 nothing had been determined. It may at first sight 
 seem that this acknowledgment is inconsistent with his 
 declaration that he had always regarded assassination 
 with horror. But the truth appears to be that he was 
 imposed upon by a distinction which deluded many of 
 his contemporaries. Nothing would have induced him 
 to piit poison into the food of the two princes, or to 
 poniard them in their sleep. But to make an unex- 
 pected onset on the troop of Life Guards which sur- 
 rounded the royal coach, to exchange sword cuts and 
 pistol shots, and to take the cliance of slaying or of 
 being slain, was, in his view, a lawful military opera- 
 tion. Ambuscades and surprises were among the or- 
 dinary incidents of war. Every old soldier, Cavalier 
 or Roundhead, had been engaged hi sucli entei-prises.
 
 162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 If in the skirmish the King should fall, he would fall 
 by fair iigliting and not by murder. Precisely the 
 same reasoning was employed, after the Revolution, 
 by James himself and by some of his most devoted 
 followers, to justify a wicked attempt on the life of 
 William the Third. A band of Jacobites was commis- 
 sioned to attack the Prince of Orange in his winter 
 quarters. The meaning latent under this specious 
 phrase was that the Prince's throat was to be cut as he 
 went in his coach from Richmond to Kensington. It 
 may seem strange that such fallacies, tire dregs of the 
 Jesuitical casuistiy, should have had power to seduce 
 men of heroic spirit, both Whigs and Tories, into a 
 crime on which divine and human laws have justly set 
 a peculiar note of infamy. But no sophism is too gross 
 to delude minds distempered by party spirit.^ 
 
 Argyle, who survived Rumbold a few hours, left a 
 dying testimony to the virtues of the gallant English- 
 man. " Poor Rumbold was a great support to me, and 
 a brave man, and died Christianly." ^ 
 
 Ayloffe showed as much contempt of death as either 
 Death of Argyle or Rumbold : but his end did not, 
 Ayio£fe. ]jj,q theirs, edify pious minds. Though po- 
 
 1 Wodrow, III. ix. 10.; Western Martyrology; Burnet, i. 633.; Fox's 
 History Appendix iv. I can find no way, except that indicated in the 
 text, of reconciling Rumbold's denial that he had ever admitted into his 
 mind the thought of assassination with his confession that he had himself 
 mentioned liis own house as a convenient place for an attack on the royal 
 brothers. The distinction which I suppose him to have taken was taken 
 by another Rye House conspirator, who was, like him, an old soldier of the 
 Commonwealth, CaptaJn Walcot. On Walcot's trial. West, the witness 
 for the crown, said, " Captain, you did agree to be one of those that were 
 to fight the Guards." " What, then, was the reason," asked Chief Justice 
 Pemberton, " that he would not kill the King?" "He said," answered 
 West, " that it was a base thing to kill a naked man, and he would not 
 do it." 
 
 a Wodrow, III. ix. 9.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 163 
 
 litical sympathy liad drawn him towards the Puritans, 
 he had no rehgious sympathy with them, and was in- 
 deed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. 
 He belonged to that section of the Whigs which souglit 
 for models rather among the patriots of Greece and 
 Rome than among the prophets and judges of Israel. 
 lie was taken prisoner, and carried to Glasgow. There 
 he attempted to destroy himself with a small penknife : 
 but, though he gave himself several wounds, none of 
 them proved mortal, and he had strength enough left 
 to bear a journey to London. He was brought befoi'e 
 the Privy Council, and interrogated by the King, but 
 had too much elevation of mind to save himself by 
 informing against others. A story was current among 
 the Whigs that the King said, " You had better be 
 fi'ank with me, Mr. Aylotfe. You know that it is in 
 my power to pardon you." Then, it was rumoured, 
 the captive broke his sullen silence, and answered, 
 *' It may be in your power ; but it is not in your 
 nature." He was executed under his old outlawry 
 before the gate of the Temple, and died with stoical 
 composure.^ 
 
 In the meantime the vengeance of the conquerors 
 was mercilessly wreaked on the people of Deyastation 
 Argj'leshire. Many of the Campbells were shire. 
 hanged by Athol without a trial ; and he was with dif- 
 ficulty restrained by the Privy Council from taking 
 more lives. The country to the extent of thirty mik's 
 round Inverary was wasted. Houses were burned, tlie 
 stones of mills were broken to pieces, fruit trees were 
 cut down, and the very roots seared with fire. The 
 nets and fishing boats, the sole means by which many 
 
 1 Wade'.s Narnitivc, Ilarl. MS. 6845.; Burnet, i. 634.; Van CitterVs De* 
 •patch of '"J " 1685. ; Luttrcll's Diary of the same date.
 
 llU HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 iiiliabitaiits of the coast subsisted, were des'royed. 
 More than three hundred rebels and malecontents were 
 transported to the colonies. Many of them were also 
 sentenced to mutilation. On a single day the hangman 
 of Edinburgh cut olF the ears of thirty-five prisoners. 
 Several women were sent across the Atlantic after being 
 first branded in the cheek with a hot iron. It was 
 even in contemplation to obtain an act of Parliament 
 proscribing the name of Campbell, as the name of Mac 
 Gregor had been proscribed eighty years before.^ 
 
 Argyle's expedition appears to haA^e produced little 
 sensation in the south of the island. The tidincrs of 
 his landing reached London just before the English 
 Parliament met. The King mentioned the news from 
 the throne; and the Houses assured him that they 
 would stand by him against every enemy. Nothing 
 more was required of them. Over Scotland they had 
 no authority ; and a war of which the theatre was so 
 distant, and of which the event might, almost from the 
 first, be easily foreseen, excited only a languid interest 
 in London. 
 
 But, a week before the final dispersion of Argyle's 
 Ineffectual ^^^'^^V' England was agitated by the news that 
 pr^vent^ '" ^ ^^^orc formidable invader had landed on her 
 frZ"i^vh)g ^"^'^^ shores. It had been agreed among the 
 Houand. refugccs that Monmouth should sail from 
 Holland six days after the departure of the Scots. He 
 had deferred his expedition a short time, probably in 
 the hope that most of the troops in the south of the 
 island would be moved to the north as soon as war 
 broke out in the Highlands, and that he should find no 
 
 ^ Wodrow, III. ix. 4. and III. ix. 10. Wodrow gives from the Acts of 
 Council the names of all the prisoners who were transported, mutilated, ol 
 Oraudrd.
 
 1886.] JAMES THE SECOND. 165 
 
 force ready to oppose him. When at length he was 
 desirous to proceed, the wind had become adverse and 
 violent. 
 
 While his small fleet lay tossing in the Texel, a con- 
 test was going on among the Dutch authorities. The 
 States General and the Prince of Orange were on one 
 side, the Town Council and Admiralty of Amsterdam 
 on the other. 
 
 Skelton had delivered to the States General a list of 
 the refugees whose residence in the United Provinces 
 caused uneasiness to his master. The States General, 
 anxious to grant every reasonable request which James 
 could make, sent copies of the list to the provincial 
 autliorities. The provincial authorities sent copies to 
 the municipal authorities. The magistrates of all the 
 towns were directed to take such measures as mio-lit 
 prevent the proscribed Whigs from molesting the Eng- 
 lish government. In general those directions were 
 obeyed. At Rotterdam in particular, where the influ- 
 ence of William was all powerful, sucli activity was 
 shown as called forth warm acknowledo;ments from 
 James. But Amsterdam was the chief seat of the emi- 
 grants ; and the governing body of Amsterdam would 
 see nothing, hear nothino;, know of nothino-. The Hiirh 
 Bailifl" of the city, who was himself in daily communi- 
 cation with Ferguson, reported to the Hague that he 
 did not know where to find a single one of the refu- 
 gees ; and with this excuse the federal government 
 was forced to be content. The truth was that the Eno-- 
 lish exiles were as well known at Amsterdam and as 
 much stared at in the streets as if they had been 
 Chinese. 1 
 
 1 Sbelton's letter is dated the ^\h of May, 1G86. It will be found, to- 
 gether with a letter of tlie Schout or High Bailiff" of Amsterdam, in a little
 
 166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 A few days later, Skelton received orders from his 
 court to request that, in consequence of the dangers 
 which threatened his master's throne, the three Scotch 
 regiments in the service of the United Provinces might 
 be sent to Great Britain without delay. He applied 
 to the Prince of Orange ; and the prince undertook 
 to manage the matter, but predicted that Amsterdam 
 would raise some difficulty. The prediction proved 
 correct. The deputies of Amsterdam refused to con- 
 sent, and succeeded in causing some delay. But the 
 question was not one of those on which, by the consti- 
 tution of the republic, a single city could prevent the 
 wish of the majority from being carried into effect. 
 The influence of William prevailed ; and the troops 
 were embarked with great expedition.^ 
 
 Skelton was at the same time exerting himself, not 
 indeed very judiciously or temperately, to stop the 
 ships which the English refugees had fitted out. He 
 expostulated in warm terms with the Admiralty of 
 Amsterdam. The negligence of that board, he said) 
 
 volume published a few months later, and entitled, " Histoire des Ev6ne- 
 mens Tragiques d'Angleterre." The documents inserted in that work are, 
 as far as 1 have examined tlieni, given exactly from the Dutch archives, 
 except that Skelton's French, whicii was not the purest, is slightly cor- 
 rected. See also Grey's Narrative. 
 
 Goodenough, on his examination after the battle of Sedgemoor, said. 
 " The Schciut of Amsterdam was a particular friend, to this last design." 
 Lansdowne MS. 1152. 
 
 It is not worth while to refute those writers who represent the Prince of 
 Orange as an accomplice in Monmouth's enterprise. The circumstance oe 
 ■which they chiefly rely is that the authorities of Amsterdam took no effect- 
 ual steps for preventing the expedition from sailing. This circumstance if 
 in truth the strongest proof that the expedition was not favoured by Wil- 
 liam. No person, not profoundly ignorant of the institutions and politics 
 of Holland, would hold thf Stadtholder answerable for the proceedings of 
 the heads of the Loevestcin part}'. 
 
 1 Avaux, Neg. June J^. JL. j^. 1685; Letter of the Prince of Orange 
 to Lord Rochester, June 9. 1685.
 
 } 
 
 1M5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 167 
 
 had already enabled one band of rebels to invade Brit- 
 ain. For a second error of the same kind there could 
 be no excuse. He peremptorily demanded that a large 
 vessel, named the Helderenbei'gh, might be detained. 
 It was pretended that this vessel was bound for the 
 Canaries. But, in truth, she had been freighted by 
 Monmouth, carried twenty-six guns, and was loaded 
 with arms and ammunition. The Admiralty of Am- 
 sterdam replied that the liberty of trade and navigation 
 was not to be restrained for light reasons, and that the 
 Helderenbergh could not be stopped without an order 
 from the States General. Skelton, whose uniform 
 practice seems to have been to begin at the w^-ong end, 
 now had recourse to the States General. The States 
 General gave the necessary orders. Then the Admi- 
 ralty of Amsterdam pretended that there was not a 
 sufficient naval force in the Texel to seize so large a 
 ship as the Helderenbergh, and suffered Monmouth to 
 sail unmolested.^ 
 
 The weather was bad : the vo3'age was long ; and 
 several English men of war were cruising in the Chan- 
 nel. But Monmouth escaped both the sea and the 
 enemy. As he passed by the clilfs of Dorsetshire, it 
 was thought desirable to send a boat to the beach with 
 one of the refugees named Thomas Dare. This man, 
 though of low mind and manners, had great influence 
 at Taunton. He was directed to hasten thither across 
 the country, and to ay)prise his friends that Monmouth 
 would soon be on English ground.^ 
 
 On the mornino; of the eleventh of June the Hel- 
 
 1 Van Citters, June 9 ., June Xi. 1685. Tift correspondence of Skelton 
 w th the States General and witli the Admiralty of Amsterdam is in the 
 anhives ut tlie Hague. Some pieces will be found in the Ev6nemcns Tra- 
 giques d'Angleterre. See also IJuruet, i. 040. 
 
 - Wade's confession in the Ilardwicke Papers; Harl. MS. 6845.
 
 168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 derenbergh, accompanied by two smaller vessels, ap- 
 HisarriTai pearcd off the port of Lyme. That town is a 
 at Lyme. small knot of steep and narrow alleys, lying 
 on a coast wild, rocky, and beaten by a stormy sea. 
 The place was then chiefly remarkable for a pier which, 
 in the days of the Plantagenets, had been constructed 
 of stones, miliewn and uncemented. This ancient 
 work, known by the name of the Cob, inclosed the 
 only haven w^here, in a space of many miles, the fisher- 
 men could take refuge from the tempests of the Chan- 
 nel. 
 
 The appearance of the three ships, foreign built and 
 without colours, perplexed the inhabitants of Lyme ; 
 and the uneasiness increased when it was found that 
 the Customhouse officers, who had gone on board ac- 
 cording to usage, did not return. The town's people 
 repaired to the cliffs, and gazed long and anxiously, 
 but could find no solution of the mystery. At length 
 seven boats put off from the largest of the strange 
 vessels, and rowed to the shore. From these boats 
 landed about eighty men, well armed and appointed. 
 Among them were Monmouth, Grey, Fletcher, Fergu- 
 son, Wade, and Anthony Buyse, an officer who had 
 been in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg;.^ 
 
 Monmouth commanded silence, kneeled down on the 
 shore, thanked God for having preserved the friends of 
 liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and 
 implored the divine blessing on what was yet to be 
 done by land. He then drew his sword and led his 
 men over the cliffs into the town. 
 
 As soon as it wa^ known under what leader and for 
 what purpose the expedition came, the enthusiasm of 
 
 1 See Buyse's evidence against Jlonmouth and Fletcher in the Collection 
 of State Trials.
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 169 
 
 the populace burst through all restraints. The little 
 town was m an uproar with men running to and fro, 
 and shouting " A Monmouth ! a Monmouth ! the Prot- 
 estant religion ! " Meanwliile the ensign of the adven- 
 turers, a blue flag, was set up in the market place. 
 The military stores were deposited in the town hall ; 
 and a Declaration setting forth the objects of the expe- 
 dition was read from the Cross.^ 
 
 This Declaration, the masterpiece of Ferguson's 
 genius, was not a grave manifesto such as ^^ deciara- 
 ought to be put forth by a leader drawing the ^^' 
 sword for a great public cause, but a libel of the lowest 
 class, both in sentiment and lano:uao:e.^ It contained 
 undoubtedly many just charges against the government. 
 But these charges were set forth in the prolix and 
 inflated style of a bad pamphlet ; and the paper con- 
 tained other charges of which the whole disgrace falls 
 on those who made them. The Duke of York, it was 
 positively affirmed, had burned down London, had 
 strangled Godfrey, had cut the throat of Essex, and 
 had poisoned the late King. On account of those vil- 
 lainous and unnatural crimes, but chiefly of that exe- 
 crable fact, the late horrible and barbarous ])arricide, — 
 such was the copiousness and such the felicity of Fer- 
 guson's diction, — James was declared a mortal and 
 bloody enemy, a tyrant, a murderer, and an usurper. 
 No treaty should be made with him. The sword 
 should not be sheathed till he had been brouo;ht to 
 condign punisjunent as a traitor. The government 
 should be settled on principles favourable to liberty. 
 
 1 Journals of the House of Commons, June 13. 1685; Harl. MS. 6845.; 
 Lansdowiie MS. 1152. 
 
 2 Burnet, i. G41.; Goodcnoufjh's confession in the Lansdowne MS. 1152. 
 Copies of the Declaration, as originally printed, are very rare; but there is 
 one at the British Museum.
 
 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 All Protestant sects should be tolerated. The forfeited 
 charters should be restored. Parliaments should be 
 held annually, and should no longer be prorogued or 
 dissolved by royal caprice. The only standing force 
 should be the militia. The militia should be commanded 
 by the Sheriffs ; and the Sheriffs should be chosen by 
 the freeholders. Finally Monmouth declared that he 
 could prove himself to have been born in lawful wed- 
 lock, and to be, by right of blood. King of England, but 
 that, for the present, he waived his claims, that he 
 would leave them to the judgment of a free Parliament, 
 and that, in the meantime, he desired to be considered 
 only as the Captain General of the English Protestants 
 who were in arms against tyranny and Popery. 
 
 Disgraceful as this manifesto was to those who put it 
 His popu- forth, it was not unskilfully framed for the 
 theWe°of purposc of Stimulating the passions of the 
 England. yulgar. In the West the effect was great. 
 The gentry and clergy of that part of England were 
 indeed, with few exceptions, Tories. But the yeomen, 
 the traders of the towns, the peasants, and the artisans 
 were generally animated by the old Roundhead spirit. 
 Many of them were Dissenters, and had been goaded 
 by petty persecution into a temper fit for desperate 
 enterprise. The great mass of the population abhorred 
 Popery and adored Monmouth. He was no stranger to 
 tiiem. His progress through Somersetshire and Dev- 
 onshire in the summer of 1680 was still fresh in the 
 memory of all men. He was on that occasion sumpt- 
 uously entertained by Thomas Thynne at Longleat 
 Hall, then, and perhaps still, the most magnificent 
 country house in England. From Longleat to Exeter 
 the hedges were lined with shouting spectators. The 
 roads were strewn with boughs and flowers. The mul-
 
 l««6.] JAMES THE SECOND. 171 
 
 titude, in their eagerness to see and touch their favour- 
 ite, broke down the pahngs of parks, and besieged the 
 mansions where he was feasted. When he reached 
 Chard his escort consisted of five thousand horsemen. 
 At Exeter all Devonshire had been gathered together 
 to welcome him. One striking part of the show was a 
 company of nine hundred young men who, clad in a 
 white uniform, marched before him into the city.^ The 
 tuni of fortune which had alienated the gentry from 
 his cause had produced no eifect on the common people. 
 To them he was still the good Duke, the Protestant 
 Duke, the rightful heir whom a vile conspiracy kept 
 out of his own. They came to his standard in crowds. 
 All the clerks whom he could employ were too few to 
 take down the names of the recruits. Before he had 
 been twenty-four hours on English ground he was at 
 the head of fifteen hundred men. Dare arrived from 
 Taunton with forty horsemen of no very martial ap- 
 pearance, and brought encouraging intelligence as to 
 the state of public feeling m Somersetshire. As yet 
 all seemed to promise well.^ 
 
 But a force was collecting at Bridport to oppose the 
 insurgents. On the thirteenth of June the red regi- 
 ment of Dorsetshire militia came pouring into that town. 
 The Somersetshire, or yellow regiment, of which Sir 
 Williani Portman, a Tory gentleman of great note, was 
 CJoloiR'l, was exi)ected to arrive on the following day.^ 
 The Duke determined to strike an immediate blow. 
 A detachment of his troops was preparing to march to 
 P>ridport when a disastrous event threw the whole camp 
 into confusion. 
 
 1 Historical Accnimt of tti," JAf,. ami m.itrn.inimous Actions of the most 
 ilhistrious I'n.ttsfaiit I'linic .lanics, Duke of Monmouth, 1G83. 
 - Wiule's confession, Ilardwicke I'ajiers; Axe Papers; Harl. MS. 684t 
 » Harl. MS. G845
 
 172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Fletcher of Saltoun had been appointed to command 
 the cavahy under Grey. Fletcher was ill mounted ; 
 and indeed there were few chargers in the camp which 
 had not been taken from the plough. When lie was 
 ordered to Bridport, he thought that the exigency of the 
 case warranted him in borrowing, without asking per- 
 mission, a fine horse belonmna; to Dare. Dare resented 
 this liberty, and assailed Fletcher with gross abuse. 
 Fletcher kept his temper better than any who knew 
 him expected. At last Dare, presuming on the pa- 
 tience with which his insolence was endured, ventured 
 to shake a switch at the high born and high spirited Scot. 
 Fletcher's blood boiled. He drew a pistol and shot 
 Dare dead. Such sudden and violent revenge would 
 not have been thought strange in Scotland, where the 
 law had always been weak, where he who did not right 
 himself by the strong hand was not likely to be righted 
 at all, and where, consequently, human life was held 
 almost as cheap as in the worst governed provinces of 
 Italy. But the people of the southern part of the isl- 
 and were not accustomed to see deadly weapons used 
 and blood spilled on account of a rude word or gesture, 
 except in duel between gentlemen with equal arms. 
 There was a general cry for vengeance on the foreigner 
 who had murdered an Englishman. Monmouth could 
 not resist the clamour. Fletcher, who, when his first 
 burst of rage had spent itself, was overwhelmed with 
 remorse and sorrow, took refuge on board of the Hel- 
 derenbergh, escaped to the Continent, and repaired to 
 Hungary, where he fought bravely against the com- 
 mon enemy of Christendom.^ 
 
 Situated as the insurgents were, the loss of a man 
 
 1 Buyse's evidence in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet, i. 942.; 
 Ferguson's MS. quoted b}' Eachard.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 173 
 
 of parts and energy was not easily to be repaired. 
 Early on the mornino; of the following; day, Encounter 
 the fourteenth of June, Grey, accompanied with the 
 1)V Wade, marched with about five hun- Bndport. 
 (Ired men to attack Bndport. A confused and inde- 
 cisive action took place, such as was to be expected 
 when two bands of ploughmen, officered by country 
 gentlemen and barristers, were opposed to each other. 
 For a time Monmouth's men drove the militia before 
 them. Then the militia made a stand, and Monmouth's 
 men retreated in some confusion. Grey and his cavalry 
 never stopped till they were safe at Lyme again : but 
 Wade rallied the infantry, and brought them off in 
 o;ood order.^ 
 
 There was a violent outcry against Grey ; and some 
 of the adventurers pressed Monmouth to take a severe 
 course. Monmouth, however, would not listen to this 
 advice. His lenity has been attributed by some writers 
 to his good nature, which undoubtedly often amounted 
 to weakness. Others have supposed that he was un- 
 willing to deal harshly with the only peer who served in 
 his army. It is probable, however, that the Duke, who, 
 though not a general of the highest order, understood 
 war very much better than the preachers and lawyers 
 who were always obtruding their advice on him, made 
 allowances which people altogether inexpert in military 
 attiiirs never thought of making. In justice to a man 
 who has had few defenders, it must be observed that 
 the task, which, throughout this campaign, was assigned 
 to Grey was one which, if he had been the boldest and 
 nu'st skilful of soldiers, he could scarcely have performed 
 in such a manner as to gain credit. He was at the head 
 of the cavalry. It is notorious that a horse soldier 
 1 Loudon Gazette, June 18. 1685; Wade's Confession, Hardwicke Papers.
 
 174 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 requires a longer training than a foot soldier, and that 
 the war horse requires a longer training than his rider. 
 Something may be done with a raw infantry which has 
 enthusiasm and animal courage : but nothino; can be 
 more helpless than a raw cavalry, consisting of yeomen 
 and tradesmen mounted on cart horses and post horses ; 
 and such was the cavalry which Grey commanded. Tlie 
 wonder is, not that his men did not stand fire with reso- 
 lution, not that they did not use their weapons with 
 vigour, but that they were able to keep their seats. 
 
 Still recruits came in by hundreds. Arming and 
 drilling went on all day. Meantime the news of the in- 
 surrection had spread fast and wide. On the evening 
 on which the Duke landed, Gregory Alford, Mayor of 
 Lyme, a zealous Tory, and a most bitter persecutor of 
 Nonconformists, sent off' his servants to give the alarm 
 to the gentry of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, and 
 hi:nself took horse for the West. Late at night he 
 stopped at Honiton, and thence despatched a few hur- 
 ried lines to London with the ill tidings.^ He then 
 pushed on to Exeter, where he found Christopher Monk, 
 Duke of Albemarle. This, nobleman, the son and heir 
 of George Monk, the restorer of the Stuarts, was Lord 
 Lieutenant of Devonshire, and was then holding a mus- 
 ter of mihtia. Four thousand men of the trainbands 
 were actually assembled under his command. He seems 
 to have thought that, with this force, he should be able 
 at once to crash the rebellion. He therefore marched 
 towards Lyme. 
 
 But when, on the afternoon of Monday the fifteenth 
 Encounter of JuHC, he readied Axminster, he found the 
 
 of the rebels . . , , , 
 
 witii the msurgents di'awn up there to encounter hnu. 
 Axminster. They presented a resolute front. Four field 
 
 i Lords' Journals, June 13. 1685.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 175 
 
 pieces were pointed against tlie royal troops. The 
 tliick hedges, which on each side overhung the narrow 
 lanes, were lined with musketeers. Albemarle, how- 
 ever, was less alarmed by the preparations of the enemy 
 than by the spirit which appeared in his own ranks. 
 Such was Monmouth's popularity among the common 
 people of Devonshire that, if once the trainbands had 
 caught sight of his well known face and figure, they 
 would probably have gone over to him in a body. 
 
 Albemarle, therefore, though he had a great supe- 
 riority of force, thought it advisable to retreat. The 
 retreat soon became a rout. The whole countiy was 
 strewn with the arms and unifoi'ms which the fugitives 
 had throwm away ; and, had Monmouth urged the pur- 
 suit with vigour, he would probably have taken Exeter 
 without a blow. But he Avas satisfied with the advan- 
 tage which he had gained, and thought it desirable that 
 his reciniits should be better trained before they were 
 employed in any hazardous service. He therefore 
 marched towards Taunton, where he arrived on the 
 eighteenth of June, exactly a week after his land- 
 ing. ^ 
 
 The Court and the Parliament had been greatly 
 moved by the news from the West. At five Newaoftho 
 in the morning of Saturday the thirteenth of e-S"o 
 Jime, the King had received the letter which ^°"'^°"- 
 the Mayor of Lyme had despatched from Honiton. 
 The Privy Council was instantly called together. Or- 
 ders were given that the strength of every company of 
 infantry and of every troop of cavalry should be in- 
 creased. Commissions were issued for the levying of 
 
 1 Wade's Confession; Ferguson MS.; Axe Papers, TIarl. MS. G845. ; 
 Oldinixon, 701, 702. Oldmixon, who was then a boy, lived very near the 
 scene of these events. 
 
 VOL. u. 12
 
 176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 new regiments. Alford's communication was laid be- 
 Loyaity of fore the Lords ; and its substance was commu- 
 ment. nicated to the Commons by a message. The 
 
 Commons examined the couriers who had arrived from 
 tlie West, and instantly ordered a bill to be brought in 
 for attainting Monmouth of high treason. Addresses 
 wei'e voted assuring the King that both his peers and 
 his people were determined to stand by him with life 
 and fortune against all his enemies. At the next meet- 
 ing of the Houses they ordered the declaration of the 
 rebels to be burned by the hangman, and passed the 
 bill of attainder through all its stages. That bill re- 
 ceived the royal assent on the same day ; and a reward 
 of five tliousand pounds was promised for the apprehen- 
 sion of Monmouth. 1 
 
 The fact that Monmouth was in arms against the 
 government was so notorious that the bill of attainder 
 became a law with only a faint show of opposition from 
 one or two peers, and has seldom been severely cen- 
 sured even bv Whig historians. Yet, Avhen we con- 
 sider how important it is that legislative and judicial 
 functions should be kept distinct, how important it is that 
 common fame, however strong and general, should not 
 be received as a legal proof of guilt, how important it is 
 to maintain the rule that no man shall be condemned to 
 death without an opportunity of defending himself, and 
 how easily and speedily breaches in great principles, 
 when once made, are widened, we shall probably be 
 disposed to think that the course taken by the Parlia- 
 ment was open to some objection. Neither House had 
 before it anything which even so corrupt a judge as 
 Jeffreys could have directed a jury to consider as proof 
 
 1 London Gazette, June 18. 1685; Lords' and Commons' Journals June 
 13. and 15.; Dutch Despatch, June 15.
 
 1M5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 177 
 
 of Monmouth's crime. The messengers examined by 
 the Commons were not on oath, and might therefore 
 have related mere fictions Avithout incurring the ])enal- 
 ties of perjury. The Lords, who might have adminis- 
 tered an oath, appear not to have examined any wit- 
 ness, and to liave had no evidence before tliem except 
 the letter of the Mayor of Lyme, which, in the eye of 
 the law, was no evidence at all. Extreme danger, it is 
 true, justifies extreme remedies. But the act of at- 
 tainder was a remedy which could not operate till all 
 danger was over, and which would become superfluous 
 at the very moment at which it ceased to be null. 
 While Monmouth was in arms it was impossible to exe- 
 cute him. If he should be vanquished and taken, there 
 would be no hazard and no difficulty in trying him. It 
 was afterwards remembered as a curious circumstance 
 that, among the zealous Tories who went up with the 
 bill from the House of Commons to the bar of the 
 Lords, was Sir John Fenwick, member for Northum- 
 berland.^ This gentleman, a few years later, had oc- 
 casion to reconsider the whole subject, and then came 
 to the conclusion that acts of attainder are altoo-ether 
 unjustifiable. 
 
 The Parliament gave other proofs of loyalty in this 
 hour of peril. The Commons authorised the King to 
 raise an extraordinary sum of four hundred thousand 
 pounds for iiis present necessities, and, that he might 
 have no difficulty in finding the money, proceeded to 
 devise new imposts. The scheme of taxing houses 
 lately built in the capital was revived and strenuously 
 supported by the country gentlemen. It was resolved 
 not only that such houses should be taxed, but that a 
 
 1 Oliiinixon is wrong in saying that Feinviuk carried up tlie bill. It was 
 »»rricd up, as appears from tlie Journals, by Lord Aiicrain. See Delainere's 
 Observations on the Attainder of the lute Duke of Monmouth.
 
 178 mSTOTlY OF ENGLAND. [Cif. V. 
 
 bill should be broiifrht in prohibitino- the layino; of any 
 new foundations within the bills of mortality. The 
 resolution, however, was not carried into effect. Pow- 
 erful men who had land in the suburbs, and who hoped 
 to see new streets and squares rise on their estates, 
 exerted all their influence against the project. It was 
 found that to adjust the details would be a work of 
 time ; and the King's wants were so pressing that he 
 thought it necessary to quicken the movements of the 
 House by a gentle exhortation to speed. The plan of 
 taxing buildings was therefore relinquished ; and new 
 duties were imposed for a term of five years on foreign 
 silks, linens, and spirits.^ 
 
 The Tories of the Lower House proceeded to intro- 
 duce what they called a bill for the preservation of the 
 King's person and government. They proposed that 
 it should be high treason to say that Monmouth was 
 legitimate, to utter any words tending to bring the 
 person or government of the sovereign into hatred or 
 contempt, or to make any motion in Parliament for 
 changing the order of succession. Some of these pro- 
 visions excited general disgust and alarm. The Whigs, 
 few and weak as they Avere, attempted to rally, and 
 found themselves reinforced by a considerable number 
 of moderate and sensible Cavaliers. Words, it was 
 said, may easily be misunderstood by a dull man. They 
 may easily be misconstrued by a knave. What was 
 spoken metaphorically may be apprehended literally. 
 What was spoken ludicrously may be apprehended 
 seriously. A particle, a tense, a mood, an emphasis, 
 may make the whole difference between guilt and in- 
 nocence. The Saviour of mankind himself, in Avhose 
 blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, had 
 
 Commons' Journals of June 17, 18, and 19. 1685 ; Reresby's Memoirs.
 
 M85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 179 
 
 been called in question for words spoken. False wit- 
 nesses had suppressed a syllable which wo\ild have 
 made it clear that those words were figurative, and had 
 thus furnished the Sanhedrim with a pretext under 
 which the foulest of all judicial murders had been pei'- 
 petrated. With such an example on record, who could 
 affirm that, if mere talk were made a substantive trea- 
 son, the most loyal subject would be safe ? These 
 arguments produced so great an effect that in the com- 
 mittee amendments were introduced which greatly mit- 
 igated the severity of the bill. But the clause which 
 made it high treason in a member of Parliament to 
 ])ropose the exclusion of a prince of the blood seems 
 to have raised no debate, and was retained. That 
 clause was indeed altogether unimportant, except as 
 a proof of the ignorance and inexperience of the hot- 
 lieaded Royalists who thronged the House of Commons. 
 Had they learned the first rudiments of legislation, they 
 would have seen that the enactment to which they at- 
 tached so much value would be superfluous while the 
 Parliament was disposed to maintain the order of suc- 
 cession, and would be repealed as soon as there was a 
 Parliament bent on chanping the order of succession.^ 
 
 The bill, as amended, was passed and carried up to 
 the Lords, but did not become law. The King had 
 obtained from the Parliament all the pecuniary assist- 
 ance that he could exj)ect ; and he conceived that, 
 while rebellion was actually raging, the loyal nobility 
 and sentry would be of more use in their counties than 
 at Westminster. He therefore hurried their delibera- 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, June 10. 29. 1G85; Lord Lon.sdale's IMemoirs, 8, 9.', 
 Burnet, i. 639. 'I'lie bill, ;\s amniuiod b}' tlio coniinittee, will be found in 
 Mr. Fox's historical work, Ap|>i'n(ii.\, iii. If IJurnet's account be correct, 
 the odVnce.s which, by the amended bill, were made punishable only with 
 civil incapacities were, by the original bill, made capita!
 
 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. t<^H. V. 
 
 tions to a close, and, on the second of July, dismissed 
 them. On the same day the royal assent was given to 
 a law reviving that censorship of the press which had 
 terminated in 1679. This object was effected by a 
 few words at the end of a miscellaneous statute which 
 continued several expiring acts. The courtiers did not 
 think that they had gained a triumph. The Whigs did 
 not utter a murmur. Neither in the Lords nor in the 
 Commons was there any division, or even, as far as can 
 now be learned, any debate on a question which would, in 
 our age, convulse the whole frame of society. In truth, 
 the change was slight and almost imperceptible ; for, 
 since the detection of the Rye House Plot, the liberty 
 of unlicensed printing had existed only in name. Dur- 
 ing many months scarcely one Whig pamphlet had 
 been published except by stealth ; and by stealth such 
 pamphlets might be published still.* 
 
 The Houses then rose. They were not prorogued, 
 but only adjourned, in order that, when they should 
 reassemble, they might take up their business in the 
 exact state in which they had left it.^ 
 
 While the Parliament was devising sharp laws against 
 Eeception of Moumouth and his partisans, he found at 
 
 Monmouth .,.,., ,, 
 
 at Taunton. 1 auutou a reccptiou which might well en- 
 courage him to hope that his enterprise would have a 
 prosperous issue. Taunton, like most other towns in 
 the south of England, was, in that age, more important 
 than at present. Those towns have not indeed de- 
 clined. On the contrary, they are, with very few ex- 
 ceptions, larger and richer, better built and better ^ 
 peopled, than in the seventeenth century. But, though |. 
 they have positively advanced, they have relatively 
 
 1 1 Jac. II. c. 17. Lords' Journals, July 2. 1G85. 
 
 2 Lords' and Commons' Journals, July 2. 1G85.
 
 1M6.] JAMES THE SECOND. 181 
 
 gone back. They have been far outstripped in wealth 
 and population by the great manufacturing and com- 
 mercial cities of the north, cities which, in the time of 
 the Stuarts, were but beginning to be known as seats 
 of industry. When Monmouth marched into Taunton 
 it was an eminently prosperous place. Its markets were 
 plentifully supplied. It was a celebrated seat of the 
 woollen manufacture. The people boasted that they lived 
 in a land flowing with milk and honey. Nor was this 
 language held only by partial natives ; for ever}^ stran- 
 ger who climbed the graceful tower of St. Mary Mag- 
 dalene owned that he saw beneath him the most fertile 
 of English valleys. It was a country rich with orchards 
 and green pastures, among which were scattered, in 
 gay abundance, manor houses, cottages, and village 
 spires. The townsmen had long leaned towards Pres- 
 byterian diviiiity and Whig politics. In the great civil 
 war Taunton had, through all vicissitudes, adhered to 
 the Parliament, had been twice closely besieged by 
 Goring, and had been twice defended with heroic valour 
 by Robert Blake, afterwards the renowned Admiral of 
 the Ctmimonwealth. Whole streets had been burned 
 down by the mortars and grenades of the Cavaliers. 
 Food had been so scarce that the resolute governor had 
 announced his intention to put the garrison on rations 
 of horse flesh. But the spirit of the town had never 
 been subdued either by fire or by hunger.^ 
 
 Tiie Restoration had produced no effect on the tem- 
 per of the Taunton men. They had still continued to 
 celebrate the anniversary of the happy day on which 
 the siege laid to their town bv the roval army had been 
 raised ; and their stubborn attacnment to the old cause 
 had excited so much fear and resentment at Whitehall 
 
 1 Savage's edition of Toulmin's History of Taunton.
 
 182 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 that, by a royal order, tlieir moat had been filled up, 
 and their wall demolished to the foundation. ^ The pu- 
 ritanical spirit had been kept" up to the height among 
 them by the precepts and example of one of the most 
 celebrated of the dissenting clergy, Joseph Alleine. 
 AUeine was the author of a tract, entitled, An Alarm 
 to the Unconverted, which is still popular both in Eng- 
 land and in America. From the gaol to which he was 
 consigned by the victonous Cavaliers, he addressed to 
 his loving friends at Taunton many epistles breathing 
 the spirit of a truly heroic piety. His frame soon sank 
 under the effects of study, toil, and persecution : but 
 his memory was long cherished with exceeding love 
 and reverence by those whom he had exhorted and 
 catechized.^ 
 
 The children of the men who, forty years before, had 
 manned the ramparts of Taunton against the Royalists, 
 now welcomed Monmouth with transports of joy and 
 affection. Every door and window was adorned with 
 wreaths of flowers. No man appeared in the streets 
 without wearing in his hat a green bough, the badge of 
 the popular cause. Damsels of the best families in the 
 town wove colours for the insurgents. One flag in 
 particular was embroidered gorgeously with emblems 
 of royal dignity, and was offered to Monmouth by a 
 train of young girls. He received the gift with the 
 winning courtesy which distinguished him. The lady 
 who headed the procession presented him also with a 
 small Bible of great price. He took it with a show of 
 reverence. " I come," he said, " to defend the truths 
 contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must be 
 BO, with my blood." ^ 
 
 1 Sprat's True Account; Touhnin's Historj' of Taunton. 
 
 2 Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, 1672; Noncouformists' Memorial. 
 « Harl. MS. 700G.; Oldmixon, 702.; Eachard, iii. 763.
 
 1686,] JAMES THE SECOND. 18B 
 
 But, while Monmouth eujoyed the applause of the 
 multitude, he could not but perceive, with concern and 
 apprehension, that the higher classes were, with scarcely 
 an exception, hostile to his undertaking, and that no 
 rising had taken place except in the counties where he 
 had himself appeared. He had been assui-ed by agents, 
 who professed to have derived their information from 
 Wildman, that the whole Whig aristocracy was eager 
 to take arms. Nevertheless more than a week had 
 now elapsed since the blue standard had been set up at 
 Lyme. Day labourers, small farmers, shopkeepers, ap- 
 prentices, dissenting preachers, had flocked to the rebel 
 camp : but not a single peer, baronet, or knight, not a 
 single member of the House of Commons, and scarcely 
 any esquire of sufficient note to have ever been in the 
 commission of the peace, had joined the invaders. Fer- 
 guson, who, ever since the death of Charles, had been 
 Monmouth's evil angel, had a suggestion ready. The 
 Duke had put himself into a false position by declining 
 the royal title. Had he declared himself sovereign of 
 England, his cause would have worn a show of legality. 
 At present it was impossible to reconcile his Declara- 
 tion with the principles of the constitution. It was 
 clear that either Monmouth or his uncle was rifrhtful 
 King. Monmouth did not venture to pronounce him- 
 self the rightful King, and yet denied that his uncle 
 was so. Those who foucjht for James fouirht for the 
 only person who ventured to claim the throne, and 
 were therefore clearly in their duty, according to the 
 laws of the realm. Those who fought for Monmouth 
 fought for some vmknown ])olity, which was to be set 
 up by a convention not yet in existence. None could 
 wonder that men of high rank and ample fortune stood 
 aloof from an enterprise which tlireatened with destruc-
 
 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 tlon that system in the permanence of which they were 
 deeply interested. If the Duke would assert his legiti- 
 macy and assume the crown, he would at once remove 
 this objection. The question would cease to be a ques- 
 tion between the old constitution and a new constitu- 
 tion. It would be merely a question of hereditaiy right 
 between two princes. 
 
 On such grounds as these Ferguson, almost imme- 
 H? takes the diately after the landing, had earnestly pressed 
 tit.« of King, ^jjg ijxike to proclaim liimself King ; and Grey 
 was of the same opinion. Monmouth had been very 
 willing to take this advice ; but Wade and other repub- 
 licans had been refractory ; and their chief, with his 
 usual pliability, had yielded to their arguments. At 
 Taunton the subject was revived. Monmouth talked 
 in private with the dissentients, assured them that he 
 saw no other way of obtaining the support of any por- 
 tion of the aristocracy, and succeetled in extorting 
 their reluctant consent. On the morning of the twen- 
 tieth of June he was proclaimed in the market place 
 of Taunton. His followers repeated his new title with 
 affectionate dehght. But, as some confusion might have 
 arisen if he had been called King James the Second, 
 they commonly used the strange appellation of King 
 Monmouth ; and by this name their unhappy favourite 
 was often mentioned in the western counties, within 
 the memory of persons still living.^ 
 
 Within twenty-four hours after he had assumed the 
 regal title, he put forth several proclamations headed 
 with his sign manual. By one of these he set a price 
 on the head of his I'ival. Another declared the Parlia- 
 
 1 Wade's Confession; Goodenough's Confession, Harl. MS. 1152.; Old- 
 inixon, 702. Ferguson's denial is quite undeserving of credit. A copy of 
 the proclamation is in the Harl. MS. 7006. 
 
 II
 
 1686] JAMES THE SECOND. 185 
 
 mcnt then sittinix at Westminster an unlawful assem- 
 bly, and commanded the members to disperse. The 
 tliird forbade the people to pay taxes to the usurper. 
 The fourth pronounced Albemarle a traitor.^ 
 
 Albemarle transmitted these proclamations to London 
 merely as specimens of folly and impertinence. They 
 produced no effect, except wonder and contempt ; nor 
 had Monmouth any reason to think that the assump- 
 tion of royalty had improved his position. Only a 
 week had elapsed since he had solemnly bound him- 
 self not to take the crown till a free Parliament should 
 have acknowledged his rights. By breaking that en- 
 gagement he had incurred the imputation of levity, if 
 not of perfidy. The class which he had hoped to con- 
 ciliate still stood aloof. The reasons which prevented 
 the great Whio- lords and oentlemen from recognising 
 him as their Kine were at least as strong as those which 
 had prevented them from rallying round him as their 
 Captain General. They disliked indeed the person, the 
 religion, and the politics of James. But James was no 
 longer young. His eldest daughter was justly popular. 
 She was attached to the reformed faith. She was mar- 
 ried to a j)rince who was the hereditary chief of the Prot- 
 estants of the Continent, to a rrince who had been bred 
 in a republic, and whose sentiments were supposed to 
 be such as became a constitutional King. Was it wise 
 to incur the horrors of civil war, for the mere chance 
 of being able to effect immediately what nature would, 
 without bloodshed, without any violation of law, effect, 
 in all ]>rob;ibility, before many years should have ex- 
 ])ired? Perhaps there might be I'casons for pulling down 
 James. But what reason could be given for setting 
 
 1 Copies of the last throe proclainatinns are in the British Museum. Ilarl. 
 MS. 700G. I'he lirst I have never seen; but it is mentioned by Wade.
 
 186 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 up Monmouth? To exclude a prince from the throne 
 on account of unfitness was a course agreeable to Whig 
 principles. But on no principle could it be proper to 
 exclude rightful heirs, who were admitted to be, not 
 only blameless, but eminently qualified for the highest 
 ])ublic trust. That Monmouth was legitimate, nay, 
 lliat he thought himself legitimate, intelligent men could 
 not believe. He was therefore not merely an usurper, 
 but an usurper of the worst sort, an impostor. If he 
 made out any semblance of a case, he could do so only 
 by means of forgery and perjury. All honest and sen- 
 sible persons were unwilling to see a fraud which, if 
 practised to obtain an estate, would have been punished 
 with the scourge and the pillory, rewarded with the 
 English crown. To the old nobility of the realm it 
 seemed insupportable tliat the bastard of Lucy Walters 
 should be set up high above the lawful descendants of 
 the Fitzalans and De Veres. Those who were capable 
 of looking forward must have seeu that, if Monmouth 
 should succeed in overpowering the existing govern- 
 ment, there would still remain a war between him and 
 the House of Orange, a war which might last longer 
 and produce more misery than the war of the Roses, a 
 war which might probably break up the Protestants of 
 Europe into hostile parties, might arm England and 
 Holland against each other, and might make both those 
 countries an easy prey to France. The opinion, there- 
 fore, of almost all the leading Whigs seems to have 
 been that Monmouth's enterprise could not fail to end 
 in some great disaster to the nation, but that, on the 
 whole, his defeat w^ould be a less disaster than his 
 victory. 
 
 It was not only by the inaction of the Whig aristoc- 
 racy that the invaders were disappointed. The wealth 
 
 II
 
 M85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 187 
 
 and power of London had sufficed in the preceding 
 generation, and might again suffice, to turn the scale 
 in a civil conflict. The Londoners had formerly given 
 many proofs of their hatred of Po])ery and of their 
 affi^ction for the Protestant Duke. He had too readily 
 believed that, as soon as he landed, there would be a 
 rising in the capital. But, though advices came down 
 to him that many thousands of the citizens had been 
 enrolled as volunteers for the good cause, nothing was 
 done. The plain ti'utli Avas that the agitators who had 
 urged him to invade England, who had promised to rise 
 on the first signal, and who had perhaps imagined, while 
 the danger was remote, that they should have the cour- 
 age to keep their promise, lost heart when the critical 
 time drew near. Wildman's fright was such that he 
 seemed to have lost his vrnderstanding. The craven 
 Danvers at first excused his inaction by saying that he 
 would not take up arms till Monmouth was proclaimed 
 King, and, when Monmouth had been proclaimed King, 
 turned round and declared that good republicans were 
 absolved from all eno-ao-ements to a leader who had so 
 shamefully broken faith. In every age the vilest speci- 
 mens of human nature are to be found among; dema- 
 gogues.^ 
 
 On the dav followino- that on which Monmouth had 
 assumed the regal title he marched from Taunton to 
 Bridgewater. His own spirits, it was remarked, were 
 not high. The acclamations of the devoted thousands 
 who surrounded him wherever he turned could not 
 dispel the gloom which sate on his brow. Those 
 who had seen him during his progress through Somer- 
 setshire five years before could not now observe with- 
 out pity the traces of distress and anxiety on those 
 1 Grey's Narrative; Ferguson's MS., Eachard, iii. 754.
 
 188 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. Y, 
 
 soft and pleasing features which had won so many 
 hearts.^ 
 
 Ferguson was in a very different temper. With this 
 man's knavery was strangely mingled an eccentric van- 
 ity which resembled madness. The thought that he 
 had raised a rebellion and bestowed a crown had turned 
 his head. He swaggered about brandishing his naked 
 sword, and crying to the crowd of spectators who had 
 assembled to see the army march out of Taunton, 
 " Look at me ! You have heard of me. I am Fer- 
 guson, the famous Ferguson, the Ferguson for whose 
 head so many hundred pounds have been offered." 
 And this man, at once unprincipled and brainsick, had 
 in his keeping the understanding and the conscience of 
 the unhappy Monmouth.^ 
 
 Bridgewater was one of the few towns which still 
 Hisreeep- had somo Whig magistrates. The mavor 
 Bridgewater. and aldermen came in their robes to welcome 
 the Duke, walked before him in procession to the high 
 cross, and there proclaimed him King. His troops 
 found excellent quarters, and were furnished with 
 necessaries at httle or no cost by the people of the 
 town and neighbourhood. He took up his residence 
 in the Castle, a building which had been honoured 
 by several royal visits. In the Castle field his army 
 was encamped. It now consisted of about six thou- 
 sand men, and might easily have been increased to 
 double the number, but for the want of arms. The 
 Duke had brouoht with him from the Continent but a 
 scanty supply of pikes and muskets. Many of his fol- 
 lowers had, therefore, no other weapons than such as 
 could be fashioned out of the tools which they had used 
 
 1 Persecution Exposed, by John Whiting. 
 
 2 Harl. MS. 6845.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 189 
 
 in husbandly or mining. Of these rude implements of 
 war the most formidable was made by fastening the 
 blade of a scythe erect on a strong pole.^ The tithing 
 men of the country round Taunton and Bridgewater 
 received orders to search everywhere for scythes and 
 to bring all that could be found to the camp. It was 
 impossible, however, even with the help of these con- 
 trivances, to supply the demand ; and great numbers 
 who were desirous to enlist were sent awav.^ 
 
 The foot were divided into six regiments. Many of 
 the men had been in the militia, and still wore their 
 uniforms, red and yellow. The cavalry were about a 
 thousand in number : but most of them had only large 
 colts, such as were then bi'ed in great herds on the 
 marshes of Somersetshire for the purpose of supplyinf^ 
 London with coach horses and cart horses. These ani- 
 mals were so far from being fit for any military purpose 
 that they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and 
 became ungovernable as soon as they heard a gun fired 
 or a drum beaten. A small body guard of forty young 
 men, well ai'med and mounted at their own charo;e, at- 
 tended Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who 
 were enriched by a thriving coast trade, furnished him 
 with a small sum of money.^ 
 
 All this time the forces of the government were fast 
 assembling. On the west of the rebel army p^^ aratiow 
 Albemarle still kept too;ether a larse body "^^^'^s^y- 
 
 ' f' » J erniueiit to 
 
 of Devonshire militiu. On the east the train- °pp''^" '"">• 
 bands of Wiltshire had mustered under the command 
 of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. On the north 
 
 1 One of tlu'se weapons nia_v still be seen in the Tower. 
 
 2 Grey's Narrativ*; Pasciiall's Narrative in the Appendix to Ileywood'i 
 Vindication. 
 
 8 Oldmixon, 702.
 
 190 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 east, Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, was in arms. 
 The power of Beaufort bore some faint resemblance to 
 that of the great barons of the fifteenth century. He 
 was President of Wales and Lord Lieutenant of four 
 English counties. His official tours through the ex- 
 tensive region in which he represented the majesty of 
 the throne were scarcely inferior in pomp to royal prog- 
 resses. His household at Badminton was regulated 
 after the fashion of an earlier generation. The land to 
 a great extent round his pleasure grounds was in his 
 own hands ; and the labourers who cultivated it formed 
 part of his family. Nine tables were every day spread 
 under his roof for two hundred persons. A crowd of 
 gentlemen and pages were under the orders of his 
 steward. A whole troop of cavalry obeyed the master 
 of the horse. The fame of the kitchen, the cellar, the 
 kennel and the stables was spread over all England. 
 The gentry, many miles round, were proud of the 
 magnificence of their great neighbour, and were at the 
 same time charmed by his affability and good nature. 
 He was a zealous Cavalier of the old school. At this 
 crisis, therefore, he used his whole influence and au- 
 thority in support of the crown, and occupied Bristol 
 with the trainbands of Gloucestershire, who seem to 
 have been better disciplined than most other troops of 
 that description. 1 
 
 In the counties more remote from Somersetshire the 
 supporters of the throne were on the alert. The militia 
 of Sussex began to march westward, under the com- 
 mand of Richard, Lord Lumley, who, though he had 
 lately been converted from the Roman Catholic religion, 
 
 I North's Life of Guildford, 132. ; Accounts of Beaufort's progress through 
 Wales and the neighbouring counties are in the Loudon Gazettes of July 
 1684; Letter of Beaufort to Clarendon, June 19. 1685.
 
 1886.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 191 
 
 was still firm in his allegiance to a Roman Catholic 
 kino-. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, called ont the 
 array of Oxfordshire. John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, 
 ■who was also Dean of Christchurch, summoned the 
 undergraduates of his University to take arms for 
 the crown. The gownsmen crowded to give in their 
 names. Christchurch alone furnished near a hundred 
 pikemen and musketeers. Young noblemen and gen- 
 tlemen commoners acted as officers ; and the eldest son 
 of the Lord Lieutenant was Colonel.' 
 
 But it was chiefly on the regular troops that the 
 King relied. Churchill had been sent westward with 
 the Blues ; and Feversham was following Avith all the 
 forces that could be spared from the neighbourhood of 
 London. A courier had started for Holland with a 
 letter directing Skelton instantly to request that the 
 three English regiments in the Dutch seiwice might 
 be sent to the Thames. When the request was made, 
 the party hostile to the House of Orange, headed by 
 the deputies of Amsterdam, again tried to cause delay. 
 But the energy of William, who had almost as much at 
 stake as James, and who saw Monmouth's progress with 
 serious uneasiness, bore down opposition ; and in a few 
 days tlie troops sailed.^ The three Scotch regiments 
 were already in England. They had arrived at Graves- 
 end in excellent condition, and James had reviewed 
 them on Blackheath. He repeatedly declared to the 
 Dutch Ambassador that he had never in his life seen 
 finer or better disciplined soldiers, and had expressed 
 the warmest gratitude to the Prince of Orange and the 
 States for so valuable and seasonable a reinforcement. 
 
 1 Bishop Fell to Clarendon, June 20.; Abingdon to Clarendon, June 20. 
 25, 26. 1685; Lansdowne MS. 846. 
 « Avaux, July i\- ^. 1685. 
 VOL. II. 13
 
 192 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 This satisfaction, however, was not unmixed. Excel- 
 lently as the men went through their drill, they were 
 not untainted with Dutch politics and Dutch divinity. 
 One of them was shot and another flogged for di'ink- 
 ing the Duke of Monmouth's health. It was there- 
 fore not thought advisable to place them in the post 
 of danger. They were kept in the neighbourhood 
 of London till the end of the campaign. But their 
 arrival enabled the King to send to the West some 
 infantry which would otherwise have been wanted in 
 the capital.^ 
 
 While the government was thus prepai'ing for a con- 
 flict with the rebels in the field, precautions of a differ- 
 ent kind were not neglected. In London alone two 
 hundred of those persons who were thought most likely 
 to be at the head of a Whig movement were arrested. 
 Among the prisoners were some merchants of great 
 note. Every man who was obnoxious to the court 
 went in fear. A general gloom overhung the capital. 
 Business languished on the Exchange ; and the theatres 
 were so generally deserted that a new opera, written 
 by Dryden, and set off by decorations of unprece- 
 dented magnificence, was Avithdi-awn, because the re- 
 ceipts would not cover the expenses of the perform- 
 ance.^ The magistrates and clergy were everywhere 
 active. The Dissenters were everywhere closely 
 observed. In Cheshire and Shropshire a fierce per- 
 secution raged : in Northamptonshire arrests were 
 numerous ; and the gaol of Oxford was crowded with 
 prisoners. No Puritan divine, however moderate his 
 opinions, however guarded his conduct, could feel any 
 
 1 Van Citters, ^£lB., July ^%., July ^. 1085; Avaux Neg. July iV-i 
 L'>ii'l(iu Gazette, July 0. 
 3 Barillou, July yq. 1685 ; Scott's preface to Albion and Albatiius.
 
 1885.] JAMES THE SECOND. 193 
 
 confidence that he should not be torn from his family 
 and flung into a dungeon.^ 
 
 Meanwhile Monmouth advanced from Brido-cwater, 
 harassed through the whole march by Churchill, who 
 ap|)ears to have done all that, with a handful of men, 
 it was possible for a brave and skilful officer to effect. 
 The rebel army, much annoyed both by the enemy and 
 by a heavy fall of rain, halted in the evening of the 
 twenty-second of June at Glastonbury. The houses 
 of the little town did not afford shelter for so laro;e a 
 force. Some of the troops were therefore quartered 
 in the churches, and others lighted their fires among 
 the venerable ruins of the Abbey, once the wealthiest 
 religious house in our island. From Glastonbury the 
 Duke marched to Wells, and from Wells to Shepton 
 Mallet.2 
 
 Hitherto he seems to have wandered from place to 
 place with no other object than that of col- nis design 
 lecting troops. It was now necessary for ""^"^'o'- 
 him to form some plan of military operations. His 
 first scheme was to seize Bristol. Many of the chief 
 inhabitants of that important place were Whigs. One 
 of the ramifications of the Whig plot had extended 
 thither. The garrison consisted only of the Glouces- 
 tershire trainbands. If Beaufort and his rustic fol- 
 lOAvers could be overpowered before the regular troops 
 arrived, the rebels would at once find themselves pos- 
 sessed of ample pecuniaiy resources : the credit of 
 Monmouth's arms would be raised ; and his friends 
 
 throughout the kincrdom would be encouraged to de- 
 cs o & 
 
 1 Abingdon to Clarendon, June 2'J. 1685. Life of Philip Henry, by 
 Bates. 
 
 * r.oiulon (mzctte, .luno 22. and June 25. 1685; Wade's Confession; 
 Oldinixon, 703.; Hail. MS. 6845.
 
 194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 clare themselves. Bi'istol had fortifications which, on 
 the north of the Avon towards Gloucestershire, were 
 weak, but on the south towards Somersetshire were 
 much stronger. It was therefore determined that the 
 attack should be made on the Gloucestershire side. 
 But for this purpose it was necessary to take a circui- 
 tous route, and to cross the Avon at Keynsham. The 
 bridge at Keynsham had been partly demolished by the 
 militia, and was at present impassable. A detach- 
 ment was therefore sent forward to make the neces- 
 sary repairs. The other troops followed more slowly, 
 and on the evening of the twenty-fourth of June halted 
 for repose at Pensford. At Pensford they were only 
 five miles from the Somersetshire side of Bristol ; but 
 the Gloucestershire side, which could be reached only 
 by going round through Keynsham, was distant a long 
 day's march. ^ 
 
 That night was one of great tumult and expectation 
 in Bristol, The pailisans of Monmouth knew that he 
 was almost within sight of their city, and imagined that 
 he would be among them before daybreak. About an 
 hour after sunset a merchantman lying at the quay 
 took fire. Such an occurrence, in a port crowded with 
 shipping, could not but excite great alarm. The whole 
 I'iver was in commotion. The sti'eets were crowded. 
 Seditious cries were heard amidst the darkness and 
 confusion. It was afterwards asserted, both bv Whijxs 
 and by Tories, that the fire had been kindled by the 
 friends of Monmouth, in the hope that the trainbands 
 would be busied in preventing the conflagration from 
 spreading, and that in the meantime the rebel army 
 would make a bold push, and would enter the city on 
 the Somersetshire side. If such was the design of the 
 
 1 Wade's Confession.
 
 16«5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 19ft 
 
 iiicendlaries, it completely failed. Beaufort, instead of 
 sending his men to the quay, kept them all night drawn 
 up under arms round the beautiful church of St. Mary 
 Redcliff, on the south of the Avon. He would see 
 Bristol burned down, he said, nay, he would burn it 
 down himself, rather than that it should be occupied by 
 tiaitors. He was able, with the help of some regular 
 cavalry which had joined him from Chippenham a few 
 hours before, to prevent an insurrection. It might 
 have been beyond his power at once to overawe the 
 malecontents within the walls and to repel an attack 
 from without : but no such attack was made. The 
 fire, which caused so much commotion at Bristol, was 
 distinctly seen at Pensford. Monmouth, however, did 
 not think it expedient to change his plan. He re- 
 mained quiet till sunrise, and then marched to Keyns- 
 ham. There he found the bridge repaired. He de- 
 termined to let his army rest during the afternoon, and, 
 as soon as night came, to proceed to Bristol.^ 
 
 But it was too late. The Kino;'s forces were now 
 near at hand. Colonel Oglethorpe, at the head of 
 about a hundred men of the Life Guards, dashed into 
 Keynsham, scattered two troops of rebel horse which 
 ventured to oppose him, and retired after inflicting 
 much injury and sufferino; little. In these uereiin- 
 
 '' '' . , ^ . qulshes that 
 
 cu'cumstances it was thouglit necessary to design, 
 ri'linquish the design on Bristol.^ 
 
 But what, was to be done? Several schemes were 
 l)r()))osed and discussed. It was suggested that Mon- 
 mouth might hasten to Gloucester, might cross the 
 Sev^.rn there, might break down the bridge behind 
 
 1 Wade's Confession; Oldniixon, 703.; Ilarl. MS. 6845.; Charge of 
 Jeffreys to the grand jun' of Bristol, Sept. 21. 1685. 
 * London Gazette, June 29. 1685; Wade'« Confession.
 
 196 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch, V. 
 
 him, and, with his right flank protected by the river 
 might march through Worcestershire into Shropshii-e 
 and Cheshire. He had formerly made a progress 
 throuoh tliose counties, and had been received there 
 with as much enthusiasm as in Somersetshire and Dev- 
 onshire. His pi"esence might revive the zeal of his old 
 friends ; and his army might in a few days be swollen 
 to double its present numbers. 
 
 On full consideration, however, it appeai'ed that this 
 plan, though specious, was impracticable. The rebels 
 were ill shod for such work as they had lately under- 
 gone, and were exhausted by toiling, day after day, 
 througli deep mud under heavy rain. Harassed and 
 impeded as they would be at every stage by the 
 enemy's cavalry, they could not hope to reach Glouces- 
 ter without being overtaken by the main body of the 
 royal troops, and forced to a general action under every 
 disadvantage. 
 
 Then it was proposed to enter Wiltshire. Persons 
 who professed to know that county well assured the 
 Duke that he would be joined there by such strong 
 reinforcements as Avould make it safe for him to give 
 battle.^ 
 
 He took this advice, and turned towards Wiltshire. 
 He first summoned Bath. But Bath was strongly 
 garrisoned for the King ; and Feversham was fast ap- 
 proaching. The rebels, therefore, made no attempt on 
 the walls, but hastened to Philip's Norton, whei'e they 
 halted on the evening of the twenty-sixth of June. 
 
 Feversham followed them thither. Early on the 
 morning of the twenty-seventh they were alarmed by 
 tidings that he was close at hand. They got into order, 
 and hned the hedges leading to the town. 
 
 1 Wade's Confession.
 
 1«86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 197 
 
 The advanced guard of the royal army soon appeared. 
 It consisted of about five hundi'ed men, cx)mmanded by 
 the Duke of Grafton, a youth of bold spirit and rough 
 manners, who was probably eager to sliow that he had 
 no share in the disloyal schemes of his half brother. 
 Grafton soon found himself in a deep lane with fences 
 on both sides of him, from which a galling fire of mus- 
 ketry was kept up. Still he pushed boldly on till he 
 came to the entrance of Philip's Norton, skinnisuat 
 
 1 1 • 1 Philip's 
 
 There his way was crossed by a barricade, Norton. 
 fi'om which a third fire met him full in front. His 
 men now lost heart, and made the best of their way 
 back. Before they got out of the lane more than a 
 hundred of them had been killed or wounded. Graf- 
 ton's retreat was intercepted by some of the rebel cav- 
 alry : but he cut his way gallantly through them, and 
 came off safe.^ 
 
 The advanced guard, thus repulsed, fell back on the 
 main body of the royal forces. The two armies were 
 now face to face ; and a few shots were exchanged that 
 did little or no execution. Neither side was impatient 
 to come to action. Feversham did not \\nsh to figlit 
 till his artillery came up, and fell back to Bradford. 
 Monmouth, as soon as the night closed in, quitted his 
 position, marched southward, and by daybreak arrived 
 at Frome, where he hoped to find reinforcements. 
 
 Frome was as zealous in his caiise as either Taunton 
 or Bridgewater, but could do nothing to serve him. 
 There had been a rising a few days before ; and Mon- 
 mouth's Declaration had been posted up in the market 
 ])lace. But the news of this movement had been car- 
 ried to the Earl of Pembroke, Avho lay at no great 
 distance with the Wiltshire militia. He had instantly 
 
 1 Loudon Gazette, Jul}- 2. 1G85; Burillon, July ^ ; Wade's Confession
 
 198 HISTOEY OP ENGLAND. [CM. V. 
 
 marched to Frome, had routed a mob of rustics who, 
 with scythes and pitchforks, attempted to oppose him, 
 had entered the town and had disarmed the inhabi- 
 tants. No weapons, therefore, were left there ; nor was 
 Monmouth able to furnish any.^ 
 
 The rebel army was in evil case. The march of the 
 Despondence preceding nio;ht had been wearisome. The 
 
 of Mon- ^ . . 
 
 mouth. rain had fallen in torrents ; and the roads 
 
 had been mere quagmires. Nothing was heard of the 
 promised succours from Wiltshire. One messenger 
 brought news that Argyle's forces had been dispersed 
 m Scotland. Another reported that Feversham, hav- 
 ing been joined by his artillery, was about to advance. 
 Monmouth understood war too well not to know that 
 his followers, with all their courage and all their zeal, 
 were no match for regular soldiers. He had till lately 
 flattered himself with the hope that some of those regi- 
 ments Avhich he had formerly commanded would pass 
 over to his standard : but that hope he was now com- 
 pelled to relinquish. His heart failed him. He could 
 scarcely muster firmness enough to give orders. In 
 his misery he complained bitterly of the evil counsel 
 lors who had induced him to quit his happy retreat in 
 Brabant. Against Wildman in particular he broke 
 forth iirto violent imprecations.^ And now an igno- 
 minious thought rose in his weak and agitated mind. 
 He would leave to the mercy of the government the 
 tliousands who had, at his call and for his sake, aban- 
 doned their quiet fields and dwellings. He would steal 
 away with his chief officers, would gain some seaport 
 before his flight was suspected, would escape to the 
 Continent, and would forget liis ambition and his 
 
 1 London Gazette, June 29. 1685; Van Citters, j^, ^^ . 
 a Harl. MS. 6845. ; Wade's Confession.
 
 16M.] JAMES THE SECOND. 199 
 
 shame in the arms of Lady Went worth. He seiionsly 
 discussed this scheme with his leading advisers. Some 
 of them, trembhng for their necks, hstened to it with 
 approbation : but Grey, who, by the admission of his 
 detractors, was intrepid everywhere except when 
 swords were clashing and guns going off around him, 
 opposed the dastardly pro})Osition with great ardour, 
 and implored the Duke to face every danger rather 
 than requite with ingratitude and treachery the de- 
 voted attachment of the Western peasantry'".-'- 
 
 The scheme of flight was abandoned : but it was not 
 now easy to form any plan for a campaign. To advance 
 towards London would have been madness ; for the 
 road lay right across Salisbury Plain ; and on that vast 
 open space regular troops, and above all regular cav- 
 alry, would have acted with every advantage against 
 undisciplined men. At this juncture a report reached 
 the camp that the rustics of the marshes near Ax- 
 bridge had risen in defence of the Protestant religion, 
 had armed themselves with flails, bludgeons, and pitch- 
 forks, and were assemblino; by thousands at Bridge- 
 water. Monmouth determined to return thither, and 
 to strengthen himself with these new allies.^ 
 
 The rebels accordingly proceeded to Wells, and ar- 
 rived there in no amiable temper. They were, with 
 few exceptions, hostile to Prelacy ; and they showed 
 their hostility in a way very little to their honour. 
 They not only tore the lead from the roof of the mafic- 
 nificent Cathedral to make bullets, an act for which 
 they might fairly plead the necessities of war, but 
 wantonly defaced the ornaments of the building. Grey 
 with difficulty preserved the altar from the insults of 
 
 1 Wade's Confession; Eacbard, iii. 766. 
 * Wade's Confession.
 
 200 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 some ruffians who wished to carouse round it, by tak- 
 ino; his stand before it with his sword drawn.^ 
 
 On Thui'sday, the second of July, Monmouth again 
 He returns entered Bridgewater, in circumstances far 
 water. less checrino; than those in which he had 
 
 marched thence ten days before. The reinforcement 
 which he found there was inconsiderable. The royal 
 army was close upon him. At one moment he thought 
 of fortifying the town ; and hundreds of labourers were 
 summoned to dig trenches and throw up mounds. Then 
 his mind recurred to the plan of marching into Chesh- 
 ire, a plan which he had rejected as impracticable when 
 he was at Keynsham, and which assuredly was not 
 more practicable now that he was at Bridgewater.^ 
 
 While he was thus wavering between projects equal- 
 rhe royal ly hopclcss, the King's forces came in sight, 
 camps^at They consisted of about two thousand five 
 sedgemoor. j^^^j^j^.gfj regular troops, and of about fifteen 
 hundred of the Wiltshire militia. Early on the morn- 
 ing of Sunday, the fifth of July, they left Somerton, 
 and pitched their tents that day about three miles from 
 Bridgewater, on the plain of Sedgemoor. 
 
 Doctor Peter Mew, Bishop of Winchester, accompa- 
 nied them. This prelate had in his youth borne arms 
 for Charles the First against the Parliament. Neither 
 his years nor his profession had wholly extinguished 
 his martial ardour ; and he probably thought that the 
 appearance of a father of the Protestant Church in the 
 King's camp might confirm the loyalty of some honest 
 men who were wavering between their horror of Pop- 
 ery and their horror of rebellion. 
 
 The steeple of the parish church of Bridgewater is 
 
 1 London Gazette, July 6. 1685; Van Citters, July ^8^. ; Oldmixon, 70* 
 
 ' Wade's Confession.
 
 Ifl85.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 201 
 
 said to be the loftiest in Somersetshire, and commands 
 a wide view over the surrounding country. Mon- 
 mouth, accompanied by some of his officers, went up 
 to the top of the square tower from which the s})ire 
 ascends, and observed through a telescope the position 
 of the enemy. Beneath him lay a flat expanse, now 
 rlcli with cornfields and apple trees, but then, as its 
 name imports, for the most part a dreary morass. 
 When the rains were heavy, and the Parret and its 
 ti-ibutary streams rose above their banks, this tract was 
 often flooded. It was indeed anciently part of that great 
 swamp which is renowned in our early chronicles as 
 having arrested the progress of two successive races of 
 invaders, which long protected the Celts against the 
 aggressions of the kings of Wessex, and which shel- 
 tered Alfred from the pursuit of the Danes. In those 
 remote times this region could be traversed only in 
 boats. It was a vast pool, wherein were scattered 
 many islets of shifting and treacherous soil, overhung 
 with rank jungle, and swarming with deer and wild 
 swine. Even in the days of the Tudors, the traveller 
 whose journey lay from Ilchester to Bridgewater was 
 forced to make a circuit of several miles in order to 
 avoid the waters. When Monmouth looked upon 
 Sedgemoor, it had been partially reclaimed by art, 
 and was intersected by many deep and wide ti'enches 
 which, in that country, are called rliines. In the 
 midst of the moor rose, clustering round the towers 
 of churches, a few vilhiges, of wliich the names seem 
 to indicate that they once were surrounded by waves. 
 In one of these villages, called Weston Zoyland, the 
 royal cavalry lay ; and Feversham had fixed his head 
 (juarters there. Many persons still living have seen 
 the daughter of the servant girl who waited on him
 
 202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 that day at table ; and a large dish of Persian ware, 
 which was set before him, i^ still carefully preserved in 
 the neighbourhood. It is to be observed that the pop- 
 ulation of Somersetshire does not, like that of the man- 
 ufacturing districts, consist of emigrants from distant 
 places. It is by no means unusual to find farmers who 
 cultivate the same land which their ancestors cultivated 
 when the Plantagenets reigned in England. The Som- 
 ersetshire traditions are, therefore, of no small value to 
 an historian.^ 
 
 At a greater distance from Bridgewater lies the vil- 
 lage of Middlezoy. In that village and its neighbour- 
 hood, the Wiltshire militia were quartered, under the 
 command of Pembroke. 
 
 On the open moor, not far from Chedzoy, were en- 
 camped several battalions of regular infantry. Mon- 
 mouth looked gloomily on them. He could not but 
 remember how, a few years before, he had, at the head 
 of a column composed of some of those very men, driven 
 before him in confusion the fierce enthusiasts who de- 
 fended Bothwell Bridge. He could distinguish among 
 the hostile ranks that gallant band which was then 
 called, from the name of its Colonel, Dumbarton's regi- 
 ment, but which has long been known as the first of the 
 line, and which, in all the four quarters of the world, 
 has nobly supported its early reputation. " I know 
 those men," said Monmouth ; " they will fight. If I 
 had but them, all would go well ! " ^ 
 
 Yet the aspect of the enemy was not altogether dis- 
 
 1 Matt. West. Flor. Hist., a. d. 788; MS. Chronicle quoted by Mr. Sharon 
 Turner in the History of the Anftlo-Saxons, book IV. chap. xix. ; Dra)'toirs 
 Polyolbion, iii.; Leland's Itinerary; Oldmixon, 703. Oldmixon was then 
 at Bridgewater, and probably saw the Duke on the church tower. The dish 
 mentioned in the text is the property of Mr. Stradling, who has taken laud 
 able pains to preserve the relics and traditions of the Western insurrection 
 
 2 Oldmixon, 703. 
 
 I
 
 1«85.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 203 
 
 couraging. The three divisions of the royal army lay 
 far apart fi'om one another. There was an a])pearance 
 of negligence arid of relaxed discipline in all their move- 
 ments. It was reported that they were drinking them- 
 selves drunk with the Zoyland cider. The incapacity 
 of Feversham, who commanded in chief, was notorious. 
 Even at this momentous crisis he thought only of eating 
 and sleeping. Churchill wns indeed a captain equal to 
 tasks far more arduous than that of scattering a crowd 
 of ill armed and ill trained peasants. But the genius, 
 which, at a later period, humbled six Marshals of 
 France, was not now in its proper place. Feversham 
 told Churchill little, and gave him no encouragement 
 to offer any suggestion. The lieutenant, conscious of 
 superior abilities and science, impatient of the control 
 of a chief whom he despised, and trembling for tlie fate 
 of the army, nevertheless preserved his characteristic 
 selfcommand, and dissembled his feelings so well that 
 Feversham praised his submissive alacrity, and prom- 
 ised to report it to the King.^ 
 
 Monmouth, having observed the disposition of the 
 royal forces, and having been apprised of the state in 
 which they were, conceived that a night attack might 
 be attended with success. He resolved to run the haz- 
 ard, and preparations were instantly made. 
 
 It was Sunday ; and his followers, who had, for the 
 most part, been brought up after the Puritan fashion, 
 passed a great part of the day in religious exercises. 
 The Castle Field, in which the army was encamped, 
 presented a spectacle such as, since the disbanding of 
 Cromwell's soldiers, England had never seen. The 
 dissenting preachers who had tiiken arms against Pop- 
 ery^ and some of whom had probably fought in the 
 
 1 Churchill to Clarendon, July 4. 1685.
 
 204 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch V. 
 
 great civil war, prayed and preached in red coats and 
 huge jackboots, with swords by their sides. Ferguson 
 was one of those who harangued. He took for his text 
 the awful imprecation by whicli the Israelites who dwelt 
 beyond Jordan cleared themselves from the charge igno- 
 rantly brought against them by their brethren on the 
 other side of the river. " The Lord God of Gods, the 
 Lord God of Gods, he knoweth ; and Israel he shall 
 know. If it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against 
 the Lord, save us not this dav." ^ 
 
 That an attack was to be made under cover of the 
 night was no secret in Bridgewater. The town was 
 full of women, who had repaired thither by hundreds 
 from the surrounding region, to see their husbands, 
 sons, lovers, and brothers once more. There were 
 many sad partings that day ; and many parted never to 
 meet again .^ The report of the intended attack came 
 to the ears of a young girl who was zealous for the 
 King. Though of modest character, she had the cour- 
 age to resolve that she would herself bear the intelli- 
 gence to Feversham. She stole out of Bridgewater, 
 and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp 
 was not a place where female innocence could be safe. 
 Even the officers, despising alike the irregular force to 
 which they were opposed, and the negligent general 
 who commanded them, had indulged largely in wine, 
 and were ready for any excess of licentiousness and 
 cruelty. One of them seized the unhappy maiden, re- 
 fused to listen to her errand, and brutally outraged her. 
 She fled in agonies of rage and shame, leaving the 
 wicked army to its doom.^ 
 
 1 Oldmixon, 703.; Observator, Aug. 1. 1685. 
 8 Paschall's Narrative in Hey wood's Appendix. 
 
 8 Kennet, ed. 1719, iii 4.32. I am forced to believe that this lamentable 
 Btory is true. The Bishop declares that it was communicated to him in the
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 205 
 
 And now the time for the gi'eat hazard drew near. 
 The night was not ill suited for such an enterprise. 
 The moon was indeed at the full, and the northern 
 streamers were shining brilliantly. But the mai'sh fog 
 lay so thick on Sedgemoor that no object could be dis- 
 cerned there at the distance of fifty paces.^ 
 
 The clock struck eleven ; and the Duke with his body 
 guard rode out of the Castle. He was not in ^^^^^^ ^f 
 the frame of mind which bents one who is Sedgemoor. 
 about to sti'ike a decisive blow. The very cliildren 
 who pressed to see him pass observed, and long remem- 
 bered, that his look was sad and full of evil augury. 
 His army marched by a circuitous path, near six miles 
 in length, towards the royal encampment on Sedge- 
 moor. Part of the route is to this day called War 
 Lane. The foot were led by Monmouth himself. The 
 horse were confided to Grey, in spite of the remon- 
 strances of some who remembered the mishap at Brid- 
 port. Orders were given that strict silence should be 
 preserved, that no drum should be beaten, and no shot 
 fired. The word by which the insurgents were to rec- 
 otrnise one another in the darkness was Soho. It had 
 doubtless been selected in allusion to Soho Fields in 
 London, where their leader's palace stood.^ 
 
 year 1718 by a brave officer of the Hliies, •who had fonjrht at Sedgemoor, and 
 who had hiniselt'seen the poor girl depart in an agon}- of distress. 
 
 1 Narrative of an oflioer of the Horse Guards in Kennet, ed. 1719, iii. 
 432. ; M.S. Journal of the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr. Edward Dummer; 
 Dryden's Hind and ranthcr, part II. The lines of Dryden are remark- 
 able: — 
 
 " Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky 
 
 For Jainfs's late nocturnal victory, 
 
 The ple(l(;e of liis jilniighty patron's love. 
 
 The fireworks which his nn(;i'ls made above. 
 
 I Sivw mysolf Uu' Iniiihcnt easy li;;ht 
 
 Gild the lirciwii Imnor ami disiicl the night. 
 
 The nies.scn.iri'r with s|>i*il the tidings bore, 
 
 News which three lalioiiriu;; nations did restore; 
 
 Hut hcaven'w own Nuntius wa.-! arrived befon,'." 
 
 • It has been said by many writers, and among them bj- I'ennant, that
 
 206 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch V. 
 
 At about one in the morning of Monday the sixth of 
 July, the rebels were on the open moor. But between 
 them and the enemy lay three broad rhines filled witli 
 water and soft mud. Two of these, called the Black 
 Ditch and the Langmoor Rhine, Monmouth knew that 
 lie must pass. But, strange to say, the existence of a 
 trench, called the Bussex Rhine, which immediately 
 covered the royal encampment, had not been mentioned 
 to him by any of his scouts. 
 
 The wains which carried the ammunition remained 
 at the entrance of the moor. The horse and foot, in a 
 long narrow column, passed the Black Ditch by a cause- 
 way. There was a similar causeway across the Lang- 
 moor Rhine : but the guide, in the fog, missed his way. 
 There was some delay and some tumult before the error 
 could be rectified. At length the passage was effected : 
 but, in the confusion, a pistol went off. Some men of 
 the Horse Guards, who were on watch, heard the report, 
 and perceived that a great multitude was advancing 
 through the mist. They fired their carbines, and gal- 
 loped off in different directions to give the alarm. Some 
 hastened to Weston Zoyland, where the cavalry lay. 
 One trooper spurred to the encampment of the infantiy, 
 and cried out vehemently that the enemy was at hand. 
 The drums of Dumbarton's regiment beat to arms ; and 
 the men got fast into their ranks. It was time ; for 
 Monmouth was already drawing up his army for action. 
 He ordered Grey to lead the way with the cavalry, 
 and followed himself at the head of the infantry. Grey 
 ])ushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested 
 by the Bussex Rhine. On the opposite side of the 
 
 the district in London called Soho derived its name from the watchword of 
 Monmouth's army at Sedgemoor. Mention of Soho Fields will be found in 
 booits printed before the Western insurrection ; for example, in Chamber- 
 layne'a State of England, tr.S4
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 207 
 
 ditch the King's foot were" hastily forming in order of 
 battle. 
 
 "For whom are you?" called out an officer of the 
 Foot Guards. " For the King," replied a voice from 
 the ranks of the rebel cavalry. "For which King?" 
 Avas then demanded. The answer was a shout of 
 " King Monmouth," mingled with the war cry, which 
 forty years before had been inscribed on the colours of 
 the parliamentary regiments, " God with us." The 
 royal troops instantly fired such a volley of musketry 
 as sent the rebel horse flying in all directions. The 
 world agreed to ascribe this ignominious rout to 
 Grey's pusillanimity. Yet it is by no means clear that 
 Cluu'chill would have succeeded better at the head of 
 men who had never before handled arms on horseback, 
 and whose horses were unused, not only to stand fire, 
 but to obey the rein. 
 
 A few minutes after the Duke's horse had dispersed 
 themselves over the moor, his infantry came up run- 
 ning fast, and guided through the gloom by the lighted 
 matches of Dumbarton's ree-iment. 
 
 Monmouth was startled by finding that a broad and 
 profound trench lay between him and the camp which 
 ho had hoped to surprise. The insurgents halted on 
 the edge of the rhine, and fired. Part of the royal in- 
 fantry on the opposite bank returned the fire. During 
 three quarters of an hour the roar of the musketry was 
 incessant. The Somersetshire peasants behaved them- 
 selves as if they had been veteran soldiers, save only 
 that they levelled their pieces too high. 
 
 But now the other divisions of the royal army were 
 
 in motion. The Life Guards and Blues came pricking 
 
 fast from Weston Zoyland, and scattered in an instant 
 
 some of Grey's horse, who had attempted to rally. The 
 VOL. II. 14
 
 208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 ftigitives spread a panic among their comrades in the 
 rear, who had charge of the ammunition. The waggon- 
 ers drove off at full speed, and never stopped till they 
 were many miles from the field of battle. Monmouth 
 had hitherto done his part like a stout and able war- 
 rior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand, en- 
 couraging his infantry by voice and by example. But 
 he was too well acquainted with military affairs not to 
 know that all was over. His men had lost the advan- 
 tage which surprise and darkness had given them. They 
 were deserted by the horse and by the ammunition 
 waggons. The King's forces were now united and in 
 good order. Feversham had been awakened by the 
 firing, had got out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had 
 looked at himself well in the glass, and had come to see 
 what his men were doing. Meanwhile, what was of 
 much more importance, Churchill had rapidly made an 
 entirely new disposition of the royal infantry. The day 
 was about to break. The event of a conflict on an 
 open plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtfuh 
 Yet Monmouth should have felt that it was not for him 
 to fly, while thousands whom affection for him had hur- 
 ried to destruction were still fighting manfully in his 
 cause. But vain hopes and the intense love of life 
 prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal caA'^alry 
 would soon intercept his retreat. He mounted and 
 rode fi'om the field. 
 
 Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. 
 The Life Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues 
 on the left : but the Somersetshire clowns, with their 
 scythes and the but ends of their muskets, faced the 
 royal horse like old soldiers. Oglethorpe made a vigor- 
 ous attempt to break them and was manfully repulsed. 
 Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterwards 
 
 I
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 209 
 
 obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the other 
 flank. His men were beaten back. He was himself 
 struck to the ground, and lay for a time as one dead. 
 But the struggle of the hardy rustics could not last. 
 Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were heard 
 of " Ammunition ! for God's sake ammunition ! " But 
 no ammunition was at hand. And now the King's 
 artillery came up. It had been posted half a mile off, 
 on the high road fi'om Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater. 
 So defective were then the appointments of an English 
 army that there would have been much difficulty in 
 dragging the great guns to the place where the battle 
 was raging, had not the Bishop of Winchester offered 
 his coach horses and traces for the purpose. This in- 
 terference of a Christian prelate in a matter of blood 
 has, with strange inconsistency, been condemned by 
 some Whio; writers who can see nothino; criminal in the 
 conduct of the numerous Puritan ministers then in 
 arms against the government. Even when the guns 
 had arrived, there was such a want of gunners that a 
 sergeant of Dumbarton's regiment was foi'ced to take 
 on himself the management of several pieces.^ The 
 cannon, however, though ill served, brought the en- 
 gagement to a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel 
 battalions began to shake ; the ranks broke ; the King's 
 cavalry charged again, and bore down everything be- 
 fore them ; the King's infantry came pouring across the 
 ditch. Even in that extremity the Mendip miners stood 
 bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly. But 
 the rout was in a few minutes com])lete. Three hun- 
 
 1 There i? a warrant of -lanics directing that forty pouii(l>! should be paid 
 U> Sergeant Weeiiis, of i)iniiliartoii"s rogimeiit, "for good service in the 
 •ctioii at Sedgemoor in firing the great guns against the rebels." — Hlstor* 
 ical Record of the First or Uoyal Kcgiincnt of Foot.
 
 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 dred of the soldiers had been killed or wounded. Of 
 
 the rebels more than a thousand lay dead on the moor.^ 
 
 So ended the last fight, deserving the name of battle, 
 
 1 James the Second's account of the battle of Sedgemoor in Lord Haid- 
 wicke's State Papers; Wade's Confession; Ferguson's MS. Narrative in 
 Eachard, iii. 768. ; Narrative of an officer of the Horse Guards in Kennet, 
 ed. 1719, iii. 432.; London Gazette, .July 9. 1685; Oldinixon,703.; Pasdia'.l's 
 Narrative; Burnet, i. 643.; Evelyn's Diary, July 8.; Citters, July -V. ; 
 Barillon, July -9-.; Reresby's Memoirs ; the Duke of Buckingham's Huttlu 
 of Sedgemoor, a Farce; MS. Journal of the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr. 
 Edward Dummer, then .serving in the train of artillery employed by His 
 Majesty for the suppression of the same. The last mentioned manuscript is 
 in the Pepysian library, and is of the greatest value, not on account of the 
 narrative, which contains little that is remarkable, but on account of the 
 plans, which exhibit the battle in four or five different stages. 
 
 " The history of a battle," says the greatest of living generals, " is not 
 unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little 
 events of which the great result is the battle won or lost; but no individual 
 can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they oc- 
 curred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance 
 
 Just to show you how little reliance can be placed even on what are sup- 
 posed the best accounts of a battle, I mention that there are some circum- 
 stances mentioned in General 's account which did not occur as he 
 
 relates them. It is impossible to say when each important occurrence took 
 place, or in what order." —Wellington Papers, Aug. 8. and 17. 1815. 
 
 The battle concerning which the Duke of Wellington wrote thus was that 
 of Waterloo, fought only a few weeks before, by broad day, under his own 
 vigihmt and experienced eye. What, then, must he the difficulty of com- 
 piling from twelve or thirteen narratives an account of a battle fought more 
 than a hundred and sixty years ago in such darkness that not a man of 
 those engaged could see fifty paces before him ? The difficulty is aggravat 
 ed by the circumstance that those witnesses who had the best opportunity 
 of knowing the truth were by no means inclined to tell it. The paper which 
 I have placed at the head of my list of authorities was evidently drawn up 
 with extreme partiality to Feversham. Wade was writing under the dread 
 of the halter. Ferguson, who was seldom scrupulous about the truth of his 
 assertions, lied on this occasion like Bobadil or ParoUes. Oldmixon, who 
 was a boy at Bridgewater when the battle was fought, and passed a gieat 
 part of his subsequent life there, was so much under the influence of local 
 passions that his local information was useless to hira. His desire to magnily 
 the valour of the Somersetshire peasants, a valour which their enemies ac- 
 knowledged, and which did not need to be set off by exaggeration and fic- 
 tion, led him to compose an absurd romance. The eulogy which Barillon, 
 a Frenchman accustomed to despise raw levies, pronounced on the van- 
 quished army, is of much more value. " Son infanterie fit fort bien. On 
 eat de la peine a les rompre, et les soldats combattoient avec les crosse*
 
 l«W.J JAMES THE SECOND. 211 
 
 that has been fought on English ground. The iinpi-cs- 
 sion left on the simple inhabitants of the neighbourhood 
 was deep and lasting. Tliat impression, indeed, has 
 been frequently renewed. For even in our own time 
 the plough and the spade have not seldom turned up 
 ghastly memorials of the slaughter, skulls, and thigh- 
 bones, and strange weapons made out of implements of 
 husbandly. Old peasants related very recently that, 
 in their childhood, they were accustomed to play on 
 the moor at the fight between King James's men and 
 King Monmouth's men, and that King Monmouth's 
 men always raised the cry of Soho.^ 
 
 What seems most extraordinary in the battle of 
 Sedgemoor is that the event should have been for a 
 moment doubtful, and that the rebels should have re- 
 sisted so long. That five or six thousand colliers and 
 ploughmen should contend during an hour with half 
 that number of regular cavah-y and infantry would now 
 be thought a miracle. Our wonder will, perhaps, be 
 diminished when we remember that, in the time of 
 James the Second, the discipline of the regular army 
 was extremely lax, and that, on the other hand, the 
 peasantry were accustomed to serve in the militia. 
 The difference, therefore, between a regiment of the 
 foot guards and a regiment of clowns just enrolled, 
 though doubtless considerable, was by no means what 
 it now is. Monmouth did not lead a mere mob to 
 
 ill' tiiousquet et les scies qii'ils avoient au bout de grands bastons au lieu do 
 |)iiques." 
 
 Little is now to be learned by visiting the field of battle; for the face of 
 the country has been greatly (luuiged; and the old Busscx Hliine, on the 
 banks of which the great struggle took place, has long disappeared. The 
 Uhine now called by that name is of later date, and takes a dillcrent course. 
 
 1 have derived much assistance from Mr. Roberts's account of the lialllc. 
 Life of MonniDUth, chap. xxii. His narrative is in the main conlirmed by 
 Uunimer's i)lans. 
 
 ' I learned these things from persons living close to Sedgemoor.
 
 212 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V, 
 
 attack good soldiers. For his followers were not alto- 
 gether without a tincture of soldiership ; and Fever- 
 sham's troops, when compared with English troops of 
 our time, might almost be called a mob. 
 
 It was four o'clock : the sun was rising ; and the 
 routed army came pouring into the streets of Bridge- 
 water. The uproar, the blood, the gashes, the ghastly- 
 figures which sank down and never rose again, spread 
 horror and dismay through the town. The pursuers, 
 too, were close behind. Those inhabitants who had 
 favoured the insiu'rection expected sack and massacre, 
 and implored the protection of their neighbours who 
 professed the Roman Catholic religion, or had made 
 themselves conspicuous by Tory politics ; and it is ac- 
 knowledged by the bitterest of Whig historians that 
 this protection was kindly and generously given. ^ 
 
 During that day the conquerors continued to chase 
 Pursuit of the fugitives. The neighbouring villagers 
 the rebels, j^^^ remembered with what a clatter of 
 horsehoofs and what a storm of curses the whirlwind 
 of cavalry swept by. Before evening five hundred 
 prisoners had been crowded into the parish church of 
 Weston Zoyland. Eighty of them were wounded ; 
 and five expired within the consecrated walls. Great 
 numbers of labourers were impressed for the purpose 
 of burying the slain. A few, who were notoriously 
 partial to the vanquished side, were set apart for the 
 hideous office of quartering the captives. The tithing 
 men of the neighbouring parishes were busied in set- 
 ting up gibbets and providing chains. All this while 
 the bells of Western Zoyland and Chedzoy rang joy- 
 ously, and the soldiers sang and rioted on the moor 
 amidst the corpses. For the farmers of the neighbour- 
 
 1 Oldmixon, 704.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 218 
 
 hood had made haste, as soon as the event of tlie fight 
 was known, to send hogsheads of their best cider as 
 peace offerings to the victors. '^ 
 
 Feversham passed for a goodnatured man : but he 
 was a foreigner, ignorant of the laws and Military 
 careless of the feelings of the English. He «^«'"i«°°«- 
 was accustomed to the military license of France, and 
 had learned from his great kinsman, the conqueror and 
 devastator of the Palatinate, not indeed how to conquer, 
 but how to devastate. A considerable number of pris- 
 oners were immediately selected for execution. Among 
 them was a youth famous for his speed. Hopes Avere 
 held out to hitn that his life would be spared if he could 
 run a race with one of the colts- of the marsh. The 
 space through which the man kept up with the horse is 
 still marked by well known bounds on the moor, and is 
 about three quarters of a mile. Feversham was not 
 ashamed, after seeing the performance, to send the 
 wretched performer to the gallows. The next day a 
 long line of gibbets appeared on the road leading from 
 Bridgewater to Weston Zoyland. On each gibbet a 
 prisoner was suspended. Four of the sufferers were 
 left to rot in irons.^ 
 
 Meanwhile Momnouth, accompanied by Grey, by 
 Buyse, and by a few other friends, was fly- FiiRUtof 
 ing from the field of battle. At Chedzoy he M"°°>o"'h. 
 stojiped a moment to mount a fresh horse and to hide 
 his blue riband and his George. He then hastened 
 towards the Bristol Channel. From the risino; ground 
 on tlie north of the field of battle he saw tlie flash and 
 the smoke of the last volley fired by liis deserted fol- 
 lowers. Before six o'clock he was twenty miles from 
 
 1 Locke's Western Rebellion; Stradling's Chilton I'riory. 
 
 ' Locke's Western Kubtllion; Stradling's Chilton Priorj' ; Oldmixon, 
 
 ro4.
 
 214 HISTOBY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 Sedgemoor. Some of his companions advised him to 
 cross the water, and to seek refuge in Wales ; and this 
 would undoubtedly have been his wisest course. He 
 would have been in Wales many hours before the news 
 of his defeat was known there ; and, in a country so wild 
 and so remote from the seat of government, he might 
 have remained long undiscovered. He determined^ 
 however, to push for Hampshire, in the hope that he 
 might lurk in the cabins of deer stealers among the 
 oaks of the New Forest, till means of conveyance to 
 the Continent could be procured. He therefore, with 
 Grey and the German, turned to the south east. But 
 the way was beset with dangers. The three fugitives 
 had to traverse a country in which every one already 
 knew the event of the battle, and in which no traveller 
 of suspicious appearance could escape a close scrutiny. 
 They rode on all day, shunning towns and villages. 
 Nor was this so difficult as it may now appear. For 
 men then living could remember the time when the 
 wild deer ranged freely through a succession of forests 
 from the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire to the south- 
 ern coast of Hampshire.^ At length, on Cranbourne 
 Chase, the strength of the horses failed. They were 
 therefore turned loose. The bridles and saddles were 
 concealed. Monmouth and his friends procured rustic 
 attire, disguised themselves, and proceeded on foot to- 
 wards the New Forest. They passed the night in the 
 open air : but before morning they were surrounded 
 on every side by toils. Lord Lumley, who lay at 
 Ringwood with a strong body of the Sussex militia, 
 had sent forth parties in every direction. Sir William 
 Portman, with the Somerset militia, had formed a chain 
 of posts from the sea to the northern extremity of Dor- 
 1 Aubrey's Natural History ofWiltshire, 1691.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 216 
 
 set. At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey, who 
 had wandered from his friends, was seized by two of 
 the Sussex scouts. He submitted to his fate with the 
 calmness of one to wliom suspense was more intoler- 
 able than despair. " Since we landed," he said, " I 
 have not had one comfortable meal or one quiet night." 
 It could hardly be doubted that the chief rebel was not 
 far off. The pursuers redoubled their vigilance and 
 activity. The cottages scattered over the heathy coun- 
 try on the boundaries of Dorsetshire and Hampshire 
 were strictly examined by Lumley ; and the clown with 
 whom Monmouth had chano-ed clothes Avas discovered. 
 Portman came with a strong body of horse and foot to 
 assist in the search. Attention was soon drawn to a 
 place well fitted to shelter fugitives. It was an exten- 
 sive tract of land separated by an inclosure from the 
 open country, and divided by numerous hedges into 
 small fields. In some of these fields the rye, the pease, 
 and the oats were high enough to conceal a man. 
 Others were overgrown with fern and brambles. A 
 poor woman reported that she had seen two strangers 
 lurking in this covert. The near prospect of reward 
 animated the zeal of the troops. It was agreed that 
 every man who did his duty in the search should have 
 a share of the promised five thousand pounds. The 
 outer fence was strictly guarded : the space within was 
 examined with indefatigable diligence ; and several 
 dogs of quick scent were turned out among the bushes. 
 The day closed before the work could be completed : 
 but careful watch was kept all night. Thirty times 
 the fugitives ventured to look through the outer hedge : 
 but everywhere they found a sentinel on the alert : 
 once they were seen and fired at ; they then separated 
 and concealed themselves in different hiding places.
 
 216 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 At sunrise the next morning the search recom- 
 menced, and Buyse was found. He owned 
 that he had parted from the Duke only a few 
 hours before. The corn and copsewood were now 
 beaten with more care than ever. At lenirth a o:aunt 
 figure was discovered hidden in a ditch. The pursuers 
 sprang on their prey. Some of them were about to 
 fire : but Portman forbade all violence. The prisoner's 
 dress was that of a shepherd ; his beard, prematurely 
 grey, was of several days' growth. He trembled greatly, 
 and was unable to speak. Even those who had often 
 seen him were at first in doubt whether this were truly 
 the brilliant and graceful Monmouth. His pockets 
 were searched by Portman, and in them were found, 
 among some raw pease gathered in the rage of hunger, 
 a watch, a pui'se of gold, a small treatise on fortifica- 
 tion, an album filled with songs, receipts, prayers, and 
 charms, and the George with which, many years before, 
 King Charles the Second had decorated his favourite 
 son. Messengers were instantly despatched to White- 
 hall with the ffood news, and with the George as a 
 token that the news was true. The yrisoner was con- 
 veyed under a strong guard to Ringwood.^ 
 
 And all was lost ; and nothing remained but that he 
 should prepare to meet death as became one who had 
 thought himself not unworthy to wear the crown of 
 William the Conqueror and of Richard the Lion- 
 hearted, of the hero of Cressy and of the hero of A gin- 
 court. The captive might easily have called to mind 
 other domestic examples, still better suited to his con- 
 
 1 Account of the manner of taking the late Duke of Monmouth, pub- 
 lished by His Majesty's command. Gazette de France, July ' 1. 1685; 
 Eachanl, iii. 770.; Burnet, i. (544., and Dartmouth's note; Van Citters, July 
 ^. 1685. 
 
 II
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 217 
 
 dition. Within a hundred years, two sovereigns whose 
 blood ran in his veins, one of them a dehcate woman, 
 had been placed in the same situation in which he now 
 stood. They had shown, in the prison and on the scaf- 
 fold, virtue of which, in the season of prosperity, they 
 had seemed incapable, and had half redeemed great 
 crimes and errors by enduring with Christian meek- 
 ness and princely dignity all that victorious enemies 
 could inflict. Of cowardice Monmouth had never been 
 accused ; and, even had he been Avanting in constitu- 
 tional courage, it might have been expected that the 
 defect would be supplied by pride and by despair. The 
 eyes of the whole world were upon him. The latest 
 generations Avould know how, in that extremity, he had 
 borne himself. To the brave peasants of the West he 
 owed it to show that they had not poured forth their 
 blood for a leader unworthy of their attachment. To 
 her who had sacrificed everything for his sake he owed 
 it so to bear himself that, though she might weep for 
 him, she should not blush for him. It Avas not for 
 him to lament and su])plicate. His reason, too, should 
 have told him that lamentation and supplication would 
 be unavailing. He had done that Avhich could never 
 be forgiven. He was in the grasp of one who never 
 forgave. 
 
 But the fortitude of Monmouth was not that highest 
 sort of fortitude which is derived from reflection and 
 from selfrespect ; nor had nature given him one of those 
 stout hearts from which neither adversity nor peril can 
 extort any sign of weakness. His couran-e rose and 
 fell with his animal spirits. It Avas sustained on the 
 field of battle by the excitement of action, by the hope 
 of victoi-y, by the strange influence of synij^athy. All 
 such aids Avere noAV taken aAvay. The spoiled darling
 
 218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V, 
 
 of the court and of the populace, accustomed to be 
 loved and worshipped wherever he appeared, was now 
 surrounded by stern gaolers in whose eyes he read his 
 doom. Yet a few hours of gloomy seclusion, and he 
 must die a violent and shameful death. His heart sank 
 within him. Life seemed to be worth purchasing by 
 any humiliation ; nor could his mind, always feeble, 
 and now distracted by terror, perceive that humiliation 
 must degrade, but could not save him. 
 
 As soon as he reached Rino-wood he wrote to the 
 His letter to King. The letter was that of a man whom 
 the King. ^ craven fear had made insensible to shame. 
 He professed in vehement terms his remorse for his 
 treason. He affirmed that, when he promised his 
 cousins at the Hague not to raise troubles in England, 
 he had fiilly meant to keep his word. Unhappily he 
 had afterwards been seduced from his allegiance by 
 some horrid people who had heated his mind by calum- 
 nies and misled him by sophistry : but now he abhorred 
 them : he abhorred himself. He begged in piteous 
 terms that he might be admitted to the royal presence. 
 There was a secret which he could not trust to paper, 
 a secret which lay in a single word, and which, if he 
 spoke that word, would secure the throne against all 
 danger. On the following day he despatched letters, 
 imploring the Queen Dowager and the Lord Treasurer 
 to intercede in his behalf.^ 
 
 When it is was known in London how he had abased 
 himself the general surprise was great ; and no man 
 was more amazed than Barillon, who had resided in 
 England during two bloody proscriptions, and had seen 
 
 1 The letter to the Khig was printed at the time bv authority ; that to 
 the Queen Dowager will be found in Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters; that to 
 Rochester in the Clarendon Correspondence.
 
 1685.J JAMES THE SECOND. 219 
 
 numerous victims, both of the Opposition and of the 
 Court, submit to their fate without womanish entreaties 
 and lamentations. 1 
 
 Monmouth and Grey remained at Ringwood two 
 days. They were then carried up to London, He is carried 
 under the guard of a large body of regular *° London, 
 troops and militia. In the coach with the Duke was 
 an officer whose orders were to stab the prisoner if 
 a rescue were attempted. At every town along the 
 road the trainbands of the neighbourhood had been 
 mustered under the command of the principal gentry. 
 The march lasted three days, and terminated at Vaux- 
 hall, where a regiment, commanded by George Legge, 
 Lord Dartmouth, was in readiness to receive the pris- 
 onei's. They Avere put on board of a state barge, and 
 carried down the river to Whitehall Stairs. Lumley 
 and Portman had alternately watched the Duke day 
 and night till they had brought him within the walls 
 of the palace.^ 
 
 Both the demeanour of Monmouth and that of Grey, 
 during the journey, filled all observers with surprise. 
 Monmouth was altogether unnerved. Grey was not 
 only calm but cheerful, talked pleasantly of horses, 
 dogs, and field sports, and even made jocose allusions 
 to the perilous situation in which lie stood. 
 
 The King cannot be blamed for determining that 
 Monmouth should suffer death. Everyman who heads 
 a rebellion against an established government stakes 
 his hfe on the event: and rebellion was the smallest 
 part of Monmouth's crime. He had declared ao-ainst 
 
 1 " On trouve," he wrote, " fort ii rcdire icy qu'il ayt fait unc chose si 
 pen oidinaiie atix Aiifi;lois." July U.. Ifi85. 
 
 2 Account of the manner of takiii;; the Duke of Monmouth; Gazette, July 
 16.1685; Van Cittors, July ^^.
 
 220 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii V. 
 
 his uncle a war without quarter. In the manifesto 
 put forth at Lyme, James had been held up to execra- 
 tion as an incendiary, as an assassin who had strangled 
 one innocent man and cut the throat of another, and, 
 lastly, as the poisoner of his own brother. To spare 
 an enemy wdio had not scrupled to resort to such ex- 
 tremities- would have been an act of rare, perhaps of 
 blamable generosity. But to see him and not to spare 
 him was an outrage on humanity and decency.^ This 
 outrage the King resolved to commit. The arms of 
 the prisoner were bound behind him with a silken 
 cord ; and, thus secured, he was ushered into the 
 presence of the implacable kinsman whom he had 
 wronged. 
 
 Then Monmouth threw himself on the ground, and 
 His inter- crawlcd to the King's feet. He wept. He 
 the King. tried to embrace his uncle's knees with his 
 pinioned arms. He begged for life, only life, life at 
 any price. He owned that he had been guilty of a 
 great crime, but tried to throw the blame on others, 
 particularly on Argyle, who Avould rather have put 
 his legs into the boots than have saved his own life 
 by such baseness. By the ties of kindred, by the 
 memory of the late King, who had been the best and 
 truest of brothers, the unhappy man adjured James 
 to show some mercy. James gravely replied that this 
 repentance was of the latest, that he was sorry for the 
 misery which the prisoner had brought on himself, 
 but that the case was not one for lenity. A Decla- 
 ration, filled with atrocious calumnies, had been put 
 forth. The regal title had been assumed. For treasons 
 
 J Barillon was evidently much shocked. " II se vient," he says, " de 
 passer icy une chose bien extraordinaire et fort opposes a I'usage ordinaire 
 des autres nations." July ^|^. 1085.
 
 1«85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 221 
 
 BO aggravated there could be no pardon on this side of 
 the grave. The poor terrified Duke vowed that he 
 had never wished to take the crown, but had been 
 led into that fatal error by others. As to the Declara- 
 tion, he had not written it : he had not read it : he 
 had signed it without looking at it : it was all the 
 work of Ferguson, that bloody villain Ferguson. " Do 
 you expect me to believe," said James, Avith contempt 
 but too well merited, " that you set your hand to a 
 paper of such moment without knowing what it con- 
 tained ? " One depth of infamy only remained ; and 
 even to that the prisoner descended. He was preemi- 
 nently the champion of the Protestant religion. The 
 interest of that religion had been his plea for con- 
 spiring against the government of his father, and for 
 bringing on his country the miseries of civil war : yet 
 he was not ashamed to hint that he was inclined to be 
 reconciled to the Church of Rome. The King eagerly 
 offered him spiritual assistance, but said nothing of par- 
 don or respite. " Is there then no hope ? " asked Mon- 
 mouth. James turned away in silence. Then Mon- 
 mouth strove to rally his courage, rose from his knees, 
 and retired with a firmness which he had not shown 
 since his overthrow. ^ 
 
 Grey was introduced next. He behaved with a 
 propriety and fortitude which moved even the stern 
 and resentful King, frankly owned himself guilty, made 
 no excuses, and did not once stoop to ask his life. 
 Both the prisoners were sent to the Tower by water. 
 There was no tumult ; but many thousands of people, 
 with anxiety and sorrow in their faces, tried to catcli a 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 644.; Evelyn's Diary, July 15. ; Sir .1. Braniston's Memoirs; 
 Rereshy's Memoirs ; Jame.s to the I'rince of Orange, .Inly 14. 1G35 ; BaiiUon. 
 i<uly ^0 ; Buccleudi JIS.
 
 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 glimpse of the captives. The Duke's resolution failed 
 as soon as he had left the royal presence. On his 
 way to his prison he bemoaned himself, accused his 
 followers, and abjectly implored the intercession of 
 Dartmouth. " 1 know, my Lord, that you loved my 
 father. For his sake, for God's sake, try if there be 
 any room for mercy." Dartmouth replied that the 
 King had spoken the truth, and that a subject who 
 assumed the regal title excluded himself from all hope 
 of pardon.^ 
 
 Soon after Monmouth had been lodged in the Tower, 
 he was informed that his wife had, by the royal com- 
 mand, been sent to see him. She was accompanied by 
 the Earl of Clarendon, Keeper of the Privy Seal. Her 
 husband received her very coldly, and addressed almost 
 all his discourse to Clarendon, whose intercession he 
 earnestly implored. Clarendon held out no hopes ; 
 and that same evening two prelates. Turner, Bishop 
 of Ely, and Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, arrived 
 at the Tower with a solemn message from the King. 
 It was Monday night. On Wednesday morning Mon- 
 mouth was to die. 
 
 He was greatly agitated. The blood left his cheeks ; 
 and it was some time before he could speak. Most of 
 the short time which remained to him he wasted in 
 vain attempts to obtain, if not a pardon, at least a 
 respite. He wrote piteous letters to the King and to 
 several courtiers, but in vain. Some Roman Catholic 
 divines were sent to him from court. But they soon 
 discovered that, though he would gladly have purchased 
 his life by renouncing the religion of Avhich lie had 
 professed himself in an especial manner the defender, 
 
 1 James to the Prince of Orange, July 14. 1685 ; Dutch despatch of the 
 same date; Luttrell's Diary; Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 646.
 
 less.] JAMES THE SECOND. 223 
 
 yet, if he was to die, he would as soon die without 
 their absokition as with it.^ 
 
 Nor were Ken and Turner much better pleased with 
 his frame of mind. The doctrine of nonresistance was, 
 in their view, as in the view of most of their brethren, 
 the distinguishing badge of the Anghcan Church. The 
 two Bishops insisted on Monmouth's owning that, in 
 drawing the SAvord against the government, he had 
 committed a great sin ; and, on this ])oint, they found 
 him obstinately heterodox. Nor was this his only 
 heresy. He maintained that his connection with Lady 
 Wentworth was blameless in the sight of God. He 
 had been married, he said, when a child. He had 
 never cared for his duchess. The happiness which he 
 had not found at home he had sought in a round of 
 loose amours, condemned by religion and morality. 
 Henrietta had reclaimed him from a life of vice. To 
 her he had been strictly constant. They had, by com- 
 mon consent, offered up fervent prayers for the divine 
 guidance. After those prayers they had found their 
 affection for each other strengthened ; and they could 
 then no longer doubt that, in the sight of God, they 
 were a wedded pair. The Bishops were so much 
 scandalized by this view of the conjugal relation that 
 they refused to administer the sacrament to the pris- 
 oner. All that they could obtain from him was a 
 promise that, during the single night which still re- 
 mained to him, he would pray to be enlightened if he 
 were in error. 
 
 On the Wednesday morning, at his jiarticular re- 
 quest. Doctor Thomas Tenison, who then held the vic- 
 arage of St. Martin's, and, in that important cure, had 
 
 1 Buccleuch MS.; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 37.; Orig. Mem.; 
 Van Citters, July .^^. 1680; Gazette de France, Aug. i , 
 
 VOL. 11. 15
 
 224 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. ?. 
 
 obtained the higli esteem of the public, came to the 
 Tower. From Tenisoii, wliose opinions were known 
 to be moderate, the Duke expected more indulgence 
 than Ken and Turner were disposed to show. But 
 Tenison, whatever might be his sentiments concerning 
 nonresistance in the abstract, thought the late rebelhon 
 rash and wicked, and considered Monmouth's notion 
 respecting marriage as a most dangerous delusion. 
 Monmouth was obstinate. He had prayed, he said, 
 for the divine direction. His sentiments remained un- 
 changed ; and he could not doubt that they were cor- 
 rect. Tenison's exhortations were in a milder tone 
 than those of the Bishops. But he, like them, thought 
 that he should not be justified in administering the 
 Eucharist to one whose penitence was of so unsatis- 
 factory a nature.! 
 
 The hour drew near : all hope Avas over ; and Mon- 
 mouth had passed from pusillanimous fear to the apathy 
 of despair. His children were brought to his room 
 that he might take leave of them, and were followed 
 by his wife. He spoke to her kindly, but without emo- 
 tion. Though she was a woman of great strength of 
 mind, and had little cause to love him, her miseiy was 
 such that none of the bystanders could refrain from 
 weeping. He alone was unmoved.^ 
 
 It was ten o'clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of 
 His exe- ^^^^ Towcr was ready. Monmouth requested 
 cution. j^jg spii'itual advisers to accompany him to the 
 
 place of execution ; and they consented : but they told 
 him that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a 
 perilous state of mind, and that, if they attended him, 
 
 1 Buccleuch MS.; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 37,38.; Grig 
 Mem.; Burnet, i. 645.; Tenison's account in Kennet, iii. 432. Ed. 3719- 
 3 Buceleuch MS.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 226 
 
 it would be their duty to exhort hiui to the last. As 
 he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted 
 tliem with a smile, and mounted the scaffold with a 
 firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to the chim- 
 ney tops with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, 
 in awful silence, broken oidy by sighs and the noise 
 of weeping, listened for the last accents of the dar- 
 ling of the people. " I shall say little,'' he began. " I 
 come here, not to speak, but to die. I die a Protes- 
 tant of the Church of England." The Bishops inter- 
 rupted him, and told him that, unless he acknowledged 
 resistance to be sinful, he was no member of their 
 church. He went on to speak of his Henrietta. She 
 was, he said, a young lady of virtue and honour. He 
 loved her to the last, and he could not die without 
 giving utterance to his feelings. The Bishops again 
 interfered and beooed him not to use such laneuajie. 
 Some altercation followed. The divines have been 
 accused of dealing harshly with the dying man. But 
 they appear to have only discharged what, in their 
 view, was a sacred duty. Monmouth knew their prin- 
 ciples, and, if he wished to avoid their importunity, 
 should have dispensed with their attendance. Their 
 general arguments against resistance had no effect on 
 him. But when they reminded him of the ruin which 
 he had brought on his brave and loving followers, of 
 the blood which had been shed, of the souls whicii 
 had been sent unprepared to the great account, he 
 was touched, and said, in a softened voice, " I do own 
 that. I am sorry that it ever happened." They prayed 
 with him long and fei-vently ; and he joined in their 
 petitions till they invoked a blessing on the King. He 
 remained silent. " Sir," said one of the Bishops, 
 "do you not pray for the Kin<i; with us?" JVIoiunouth
 
 226 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 paused some time, and, after an internal struggle, ex- 
 claimed " Amen." But it was in vain that the prelates 
 implored him to address to the soldiers and to the 
 people a few words on the duty of obedience to the 
 government. "I will make no speeches," he exclaimed. 
 " Only ten words, my Lord." He turned away, called 
 his servant, and put into the man's hand a toothpick 
 case, the last token of ill starred love. " Give it," he 
 said, " to that person." He then accosted John Ketch 
 the executioner, a wretch who had butchered many 
 brave and noble victims, and whose name has, during 
 a century and a half, been vulgarly given to all who 
 have succeeded him in his odious office.^ " Here," sai(? 
 the Duke, " are six guineas for you. Do not hack me 
 as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you 
 stnick him three or four times. My servant will give 
 you some more gold if you do the work well." He 
 then undressed, felt the edge of the axe, expressed some 
 fear that it was not sharp enough, and laid his head on 
 the block. The divines in the meantime continued to 
 ejaculate with great energy; "God accept your repent- 
 ance ; God accept your imperfect repentance." 
 
 The hano;man addressed himself to his office. But 
 he had been disconcerted by what the Duke had said. 
 The first blow inflicted only a slight wound. The 
 Duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked re- 
 proachfully at the executioner. The head sank down 
 
 1 The name of Ketch was often associated with that of Jeffreys in the 
 lampoons of those days. 
 
 " While Jeffreys on the bench, Ketch on the gibbet sits," 
 says one poet. In tlie 3'ear which followed Monmouth's execution Ketch 
 was turned out of his office for insulting one of the Sheriffs, and was suc- 
 ceeded by a butcher named Rose. But in four months Rose himself was 
 banged at Tyburn, and Ketch was reinstated. Luttrell's Diary, Jan. 20. 
 and jMay 28. 1686. See a curious note by Dr. Grey, on Hudibras, part iii. 
 canto ii. line 1534.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 227 
 
 once more. The stroke Avas repeated again and again ; 
 but still the neck was not severed, and the body con- 
 tinned to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from 
 the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe witli a curse. 
 "I cannot do it," he said; "my heart fails me." 
 " Take up the axe, man," cried the sheriff. " Fling 
 him over the rails," roared the mob. At length the 
 axe was taken up. Two more blows extinguished the 
 last remains of life ; but a knife was used to separate 
 the head from the shoulders. The crowd was wrought 
 up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was 
 in danger of being torn in pieces, and was conveyed 
 away under a strong guard. ^ 
 
 In the meantime many handkerchiefs were dipped in 
 the Duke's blood ; for, by a large part of the multitude 
 he was regarded as a martyr wlio had died for the 
 Protestant religion. The head and body were jilaced 
 in a cofhn covered with black velvet, and were laid 
 privately under the communion table of St. Peter's 
 Chapel in the Tower. Within four years the pavement 
 of the chancel was a^ain disturbed, and hard bv the 
 remains of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jetfre^-s. 
 In truth there is no sadder spot on the earth than that 
 little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in 
 Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's, with genius and 
 virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable 
 renown ; not, as in our humblest churches and church- 
 yards, with everything that is most enflearing in social 
 and domestic charities ; but with wliatever is darkest in 
 hmnan nature and in human destiny, with the savage 
 triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, 
 
 1 Account of the exccutiiin of Mdnmouth, signed by the divines who at« 
 tended iiini. Buctlt'ucli MS.; IJuriii;!, i. G40. ; Van Cittcrs, July XI. I(i85; 
 LuttieH's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, July 15.; Barillon, July ^^.
 
 228 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the 
 miseries of fallen greatness and of blicrlited fame. 
 Thither have been carried, through successive ages, 
 by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner 
 following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the 
 captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles 
 of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither 
 was borne, before the window where Jane Grey was 
 praying, the mangled corpse of Guilford Dudley. Ed- 
 ward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Pi'otector of 
 the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he mur- 
 dered. There has mouldered away the headless trunk 
 of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Cardinal of 
 Saint Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived in a better 
 age, and to have died in a better cause. There are 
 laid John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord 
 High Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, 
 Lord High Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, 
 on whom nature and fortune had lavished all their 
 bounties in vain, and whom valour, grace, genius, royal 
 favour, popular applause, conducted to an early and 
 ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the 
 great house of Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Nor- 
 folk, and Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and 
 there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring 
 statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers ; Margaret of 
 Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet, 
 and those two fair Queens who perished by the jealous 
 rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the 
 dust of Monmouth mingled.^ 
 
 Yet a few months, and the quiet, village of Todding- | 
 
 1 I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the barbarous stupidity 
 which has transformed this most interesting little church into the likeneM 
 of a meetinghouse in a manufacturing town. '
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 229 
 
 ton, in Bedfordshire, witnessed a still sadder funeral. 
 Near that village stood an ancient and stately hall, the 
 seat of the Wentworths. The transept of the parish 
 church had long been their burial })lace. To that 
 burial place, in the sjjring which followed the death of 
 Monmouth, was borne the coffin of the young Baroness 
 Wentwoith of Nettlestede. Her familj^ reared a sumjjt- 
 uous mausoleum over her remains : but a less costly 
 memorial of her was long contemplated with far deeper 
 interest. Her name, carved by the hand of him whom 
 she loved too well, was, a few years ago, still discerni- 
 ble on a tree in the adjoining park. 
 
 It was not by Lady Wentworth alone that the mem- 
 ory of Monmouth was cherished with idol- His memory 
 atrous fondness. His hold on the hearts of ^ff«™'^«'i ^y 
 the people lasted till the generation which p®"'''®- 
 had seen him had passed away. Ribands, buckles, 
 and other trifling articles of apparel which he had worn, 
 were treasured up as precious relics by those who had 
 fought under him at Sedgemoor. Old men who long 
 survived him desired, when they were dying, that these 
 trinkets might be buried with them. One button of 
 gold thread which narrowly escaped this fote may still 
 be seen at a house which overlooks the field of battle. 
 Nay, such was the devotion of the people to their un- 
 hajjpy favourite that, in the face of the strongest evi- 
 dence by which the fact of a death was ever verified, 
 many continued to cherish a hope that he was still liv- 
 ing, and that he would again appear in arms. A ]ier- 
 son, it was said, who was remarkably like Monmouth 
 had sacrificed himself to save the- Protestant hero. 
 The vulgar long continued, at every important crisis, 
 to whis])or that the time Avas at hand, and that King 
 Monmouth would soon show himself In 1()86, a
 
 230 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 knave who had pretended to be the Duke, and had 
 levied contributions in several villages of Wiltshire, 
 was apprehended, and whipped from Newgate to Ty- 
 burn. In 1698, when England had long enjoyed con- 
 stitutional freedom under a new dynasty, the son of 
 an innkeeper passed himself on the yeomanry of Sussex 
 as their beloved Monmouth, and defrauded many who 
 were by no means of the lowest class. Five hundred 
 pounds were collected for him. The farmers provided 
 him with a horse. Their wives sent him baskets of 
 chickens and ducks, and were lavish, it was said, of 
 favours of a more tender kind ; for, in gallantry at 
 least, the counterfeit was a not unworthy representa- 
 tive of the original. When this impostor was thrown 
 into prison for his fraud, his followers maintained him 
 in luxury. Several of them appeared at the bar to 
 countenance him when he was tried at the Horsham 
 assizes. So long did this delusion last that, when 
 George the Third had been some years on the English 
 throne, Voltaire thought it necessary gravely to con- 
 ftite the hypothesis that the man in the iron mask was 
 the Duke of Monmouth. ^ 
 
 1 Observator, August 1. 1635; Gazette de France, Nov. 2. 1686; Letter 
 from Humphrey Wanley, dated Aug. 25. 1698, in the Aubrey Collection; 
 Voltaire, Diet. Phil. Tliere are, in the Pepysian Collection, several ballads 
 written after Monmouth's death, which represent him as living, and pre- 
 dict his speedy return. I will give two specimens: 
 
 " Though this is a dismal story 
 
 Of the fall of my design, 
 Yet I '11 come again in glory, 
 
 If I Uve till eighty-nine ; 
 For I '11 have a stronger army. 
 
 And of ammuiiition store." 
 
 "Then shall Monmouth in his glories 
 Unto his English friends appear, 
 And will stifle all such stories 
 As are vended everywhere. 
 
 " They 'U see I was not so degraded, 
 
 To be taken gathering pease, 
 
 Or in a cock of hay up braided. 
 
 What strange stories now are these ! " 
 
 Again :
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 231 
 
 It is, perhaps, a fact scarcely less remarkable that, 
 to this day, the inhabitants of some parts of tlie west 
 of England, wlien any bill affecting their interests is 
 before the House of Lords, think themselves entitled 
 to claim the help of the Duke of Buccleuch, the de- 
 scendant of the unfortunate leader for whom their an- 
 cestors bled. 
 
 The history of Monmouth would alone suffice to re- 
 fute the imputation of inconstancy which is so fre- 
 quently thrown on the common people. The common 
 people are sometimes yiconstant ; for they are human 
 beings. But that they are inconstant as compared 
 with the educated classes, with aristocracies, or with 
 princes, may be confidently denied. It would be easy 
 to name demagogues whose popularity has remained 
 undimished while sovereigns and parliaments have 
 withdrawn their confidence from a long; succession of 
 statesmen. When Swift had survived his faculties 
 many years, the Irish populace still continued to light 
 bonfires on his birthday, in commemoration of the 
 services which they fancied that he had rendered to 
 his country when his mind was in full vigour. While 
 seven administrations were raised to power and hurled 
 from it in consequence of court intrigues or of changes 
 in the sentiments of the higher classes of society, the 
 profligate Wilkes retained his hold on the affections 
 of a rabble whom he pillaged and ridiculed. Politi- 
 cians, who, in 1807, had sovight to curry favour with 
 George the Third by defending Caroline of Bruns- 
 wick, were not ashamed, in 1820, to curry favour with 
 George the Fourth by persecuting her. But in 1820, 
 as in 1807, tlie Avhole body of working men was fa- 
 natically devoted to her c-ause. So it was with Mon- 
 mouth. In 1680 he had been adored alike by the
 
 232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. Y. 
 
 gentry and by the peasantry of the west. In 1685 he 
 came again. To the gentry he had become an object 
 of aversion : but by the peasantry he was still loved 
 with a love strong as death, with a love not to be ex- 
 tinguished by misfortunes or faults, by the flight from 
 Sedgemoor, by the letter from Ringwood, or by the 
 tears and abject supplications at Whitehall. The 
 charge which may with justice be brought against the 
 common people is, not that they are inconstant, but 
 that they almost invariably choose their favourite so ill 
 that their constancy is a vice aijd not a virtue. 
 
 While the execution of Monmouth occupied the 
 .rueities of tlioughts of the Loudoucrs, the counties which 
 In the West, had Hscn against the government were endur- 
 ing all that a ferocious soldiery could inflict. Fever- 
 sham had been summoned to the court, where hon- 
 ours and rewards which he little deserved awaited 
 him. He was made a Knight of the Garter and Cap- 
 tain of the first and most lucrative troop of Life 
 Guards : but Court and City laughed at his military 
 exploits ; and the wit of Buckingham gave forth its 
 last feeble flash at the expense of the general who had 
 won a battle in bed.^ Feversham left in command at 
 Bridsewater Colonel Percy Kirke, a mili- 
 
 Kirke. ^ j ' 
 
 tary adventurer whose vices had been devel- 
 oped by the worst of all schools, Tangier. Kirke had 
 during some years commanded the garrison of that town, 
 and had been constantly employed in hostilities against 
 tribes of foreign barbarians, ignorant of the laws which 
 regulate the warfare of civilised and Christian nations. 
 Within the ramparts of his fortress he was a despotic 
 prince. The only check on his tyranny was the fear 
 of being called to account by a distant and a careless 
 1 London Gazette, August 3. 1685; the Battle of Sedgemoor, a Farce.
 
 1886.] JAMES THE SECOND. 233 
 
 government. He miglit tlierefore safely proceed to the 
 most audacious excesses of rapacity, licentiousness and 
 cruelty. He lived with boundless dissoluteness, and 
 procured by extortion the means of indulgence. No 
 goods could be sold till Kirke had had the refusal of 
 them. No question of right could be decided till Kirke 
 had been bribed. Once, merely ft'om a malignant 
 whim, he staved all the wine in a vintner's cellar. On 
 another occasion he drove all the Jews from Tanmer. 
 Two of them he sent to the Spanish inquisition, which 
 forthwith burned them. Under this iron domination 
 scarce a complaint was heard ; for hatred was effectually 
 kept down by terror. Two persons who had been refrac- 
 tory were found murdered ; and it was universally be- 
 lieved that they had been slain by Kirke's order. When 
 his soldiers displeased him he flogged them with merci- 
 less severity : but he indemnified them by permitting 
 them to sleep on watch, to reel drunk about the streets, 
 to rob, beat, and insult the merchants and the laboui'ers. 
 When Tangier was abandoned, Kirke returned to 
 England. He still continued to command his old sol- 
 diers, who were designated sometimes as the First Tan- 
 gier Regiment, and sometimes as Queen Catharine's 
 Regiment. As they had been levied for the purpose 
 of waging war on an infidel nation, they bore on their 
 flag a Christian emblem, the Paschal Lamb. In allu- 
 sion to this device, and with a bitterlv ironical mean- 
 ing, these men, the rudest and most ferocious in the 
 English army, were called Kirke's Lambs. The regi- 
 ment, now the second of the line, still retains this an- 
 cient badge, which is however thrown into the shade 
 by decorations honoui'ably earned in Egypt, in Spain, 
 and in the heart of Asia.^ 
 
 * Pepys's Diiirv, kept at Tjinfjier; Historical Records of the Second or 
 Qaeen's Koyal F!i'j;inu-nt of Foot.
 
 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Such was the captain and such the soldiers who were 
 now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. From 
 Bridcrewater Kirke marched to Taunton. He was 
 accompanied by two carts filled with wounded rebels 
 whose gashes had not been dressed, and by a long drove 
 of prisoners on foot, who were chained two and two. 
 Several of these he lianged as soon as he reached Taun- 
 ton, without the form of a trial. Thev were not suffered 
 even to take leave of their nearest relations. The sign 
 post of the White Hart Inn served for a gallows. It is 
 said that the work of death went on in sight of the win- 
 dows where the officers of the Tangier regiment were 
 carousing, and that at every health a wretch was turned 
 off. When the legs of the dying men quivered in the 
 last agony, the colonel ordered the drums to strike up. 
 He would give the rebels, he said, music to their danc- 
 ing. The tradition runs that one of the captives was not 
 even allowed the indulgence of a speedy death. Twice 
 he was suspended fi'om the sign post, and twice cut 
 down. Twice he was asked if he repented of his treason ; 
 and twice he replied that, if the thing were to do again, 
 he would do it. Then he was tied up for the last time. 
 So many dead bodies were quartered that the execu- 
 tioner stood ankle deep in blood. He was assisted by 
 a poor man whose loyalty was suspected, and who was 
 compelled to ransom his own life by seething the re- 
 mains of his friends in pitch. The peasant who had 
 consented to perform this hideous office afterwards re- 
 turned to his plough. But a mark like that of Cain 
 was upon him. He was known through his village by 
 the horrible name of Tom Boilman. The rustics long 
 continued to relate that, though he had, by his sinful 
 and shameful deed, saved himself from the vengeance 
 of the Lambs, he had not escaped the vengeance of a
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 235 
 
 higher power. In a great storm he fled for sliel- 
 ter under an oak, and was there struck dead by liglit- 
 nino;.^ 
 
 The number of those who wei*e thus butchered can- 
 not now be ascertained. Nine were entered in the 
 parish registers of Taunton : but those registers con- 
 tain the names of such only as had Christian burial. 
 Those who were hanged in chains, and those whose 
 heads and limbs were sent to the neighbourins villajres, 
 must have been much more numerous. It was be- 
 lieved in London, at the time, that Kirke put a hun- 
 dred captives to death during the week which followed 
 the battle.2 
 
 Cruelty, however, was not this man's only passion. 
 He loved money ; and was no novice in the arts of ex- 
 tortion. A safe conduct mioht be bought of him for 
 thirty or forty pounds ; and such a safe conduct, though 
 of no value in law, enabled the purchaser to pass the 
 posts of the Lambs without molestation, to reach a sea- 
 port, and to fly to a foreign country. The ships which 
 were bound for New Eno;land were crowded at this 
 jimcture with so many fugitives from Sedgemoor that 
 there was great danger lest the water and 'provisions 
 should fail.^ 
 
 Kirke was also, in his own coarse and ferocious way, 
 a man of pleasure ; and nothing is more probable than 
 that he employed his power for the purpose of gi'atify- 
 ing his licentious appetites. It was reported that he 
 conquered the virtue of a beautiful woman by promis-* 
 
 1 Bloody Assizes; Burnet, i. CAT.; Luttrell's Diary, July 15. lOSS; 
 Locke's AVestern Rubullioii; Toulinin's Ilistor}' of Taunton, editel bf 
 Savage. 
 
 2 Luttrell's Diary, July 1.5. Ui8.5; Toulmin's Hi.story of Taunton. 
 • Oldiuixou, 705.; Lite and Errors of John Duntou, chap. vii.
 
 236 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 mg to spare the life of one to whom she was strongly 
 attached, and that, after she had yielded, he showed 
 her suspended on the gallows the lifeless remains of him 
 for whose sake she had sacrificed her honour. This 
 tale an impartial judge must reject. It is unsupported 
 by proof. The earliest authority for it is a poem writ- 
 ten by Pomfret. The respectable historians of that age, 
 while they speak with just severity of the crimes of 
 Kirke, either omit all mention of this most atrocious 
 crime, or mention it as a thing rumoured but not proved. 
 Those who tell the story tell it with such variations as 
 deprive it of all title to credit. Some lay the scene at 
 Taunton, some at Exeter. Some make the heroine of 
 the tale a maiden, some a married woman. The relation 
 for whom the shameful ransom was paid is described 
 by some as her father, by some as her brother, and by 
 some as her husband. Lastly the story is one which, 
 long before Kirke was born, had been told of many 
 other oppressors, and had become a favourite theme of 
 novelists and dramatists. Two politicians of the fif- 
 teenth century, Rhynsault, the favourite of Charles the 
 Bold of Burgundy, and Oliver le Dain, the favourite 
 of Lewis the Eleventh of France, had been accused of 
 the same crime. Cintio had taken it for the subject 
 of a romance : Whetstone had made out of Cintio's 
 narrative the rude play of Promos and Cassandra ; 
 and Shakspeare had borrowed from Whetstone the 
 plot of the noble tragicomedy of Measure for Measure. 
 As Kirke was not the first, so he was not the last, to 
 whom this excess of wickedness was popularly im- 
 puted. During the reaction which followed the Jaco- 
 bin tyranny in France, a very similar charge was 
 brought against Joseph Lebon, one of the most odious 
 agents of the Committee of Public Safety, and, after
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 237 
 
 inquiry, was admitted even by his prosecutors to be 
 unfounded.-^ 
 
 The government was dissatisfied with Kirke, not 
 on account of the barbarity with which he had treated 
 his needy prisoners, but on account of the interested 
 lenity which he had shown to rich dehnquents.^ He 
 was soon recalled from the west. A less irreo;ular 
 and more cruel massacre was about to be perpetrated. 
 The vengeance was deferred during some weeks. 
 It Avas thought desirable that the Western Circuit 
 sliould not begin till the other circuits had terminated. 
 In the mean time the gaols of Somersetshire and Dor- 
 setshire were filled with thousands of captives. The 
 chief friend and protector of these unhappy men in 
 tbeir extremity was one who abhorred their religious 
 and political oi)inions, one whose order they hated, and 
 to whom they had done unprovoked wrong, Bishop Ken. 
 That good prelate used all his influence to soften the 
 gaolers, and retrenched from his own episcopal state 
 that he might be able to make some addition to the 
 coarse and scanty fare of tliose who had defaced his be- 
 loved Cathedral. His conduct on this occasion was of 
 a ])iece with his whole life. His intellect was indeed 
 darkened by many superstitions and prejudices: but 
 
 1 The silence of Whig writers so credulous and so malevolent as Old- 
 mixou and the compilers of the Western Martyrolof^y would alone seem to 
 me to settle the question. It also deserves to be remarked that the story 
 of KhynsHult is told by Steele in the Spectator, No. 491. Surely it is hardly 
 possible to believe that, if a crime exactly resembliii}^ that of llhvnsault 
 bad been committed within living memory in England by an oHicer of 
 James the Second, Steele, who was indiscreetlj' and unseasonably forward 
 to display his Whiggism, would have made no allusion to that fact. For 
 the case of Lebon, see the Mouiteur, 4 Messidor. Pan 3. 
 
 2 Sunderland to Kirke, .luly 14. and 28. 1G8.5. " His Majesty," says 
 Sunderland, " commands me to signify to you his dislike of these proceed- 
 ings, and desires you to take care that no person concerned in the rebellion 
 be at large." It is but just to add that, in the same letter, Kirke is blamed 
 for allowing his soldiers to live at free c^uarter.
 
 238 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 his moral character, when impartially reviewed, sus- 
 tains a comparison with any in ecclesiastical history, 
 and seems to approach, as near as human infirmity per- 
 mits, to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue. ^ 
 
 His labour of love was of no long duration. A 
 Jeffreys sets rapid and effectual gaol delivery was at hand. 
 western ck- Early ill September, Jeffreys, accompanied by 
 ''"''• four other judges, set out on that circuit of 
 
 which the memory will last as long as our race and lan- 
 guage. The officers who commanded the troops in the 
 districts through which his course lay had orders to 
 furnish him with whatever military aid he might re- 
 quire. His ferocious temper needed no spur ; yet a 
 spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord 
 Keeper had given way. He had been deeply morti- 
 fied by the coldness of the King and" by the insolence 
 of the Chief Justice, and could find little consolation in 
 looking back on a life, not indeed blackened by any 
 atrocious crime, but sullied by cowardice, selfishness, 
 and servility. So deeply was the unhappy man hum- 
 bled that, when he appeared for the last time in West- 
 minster Hall, he took with him a nosegay to hide his 
 face, because, as he afterwards owned, he could not 
 bear the eyes of the bar and of the audience. The 
 prospect of his approaching end seems to have inspired 
 him with unwonted courage. He determined to dis- 
 
 o 
 
 1 I should be verj- glad if I could give credit to the popular story that Ken, 
 immediately after the battle of Sedgemoor, represented to the chiefs of the 
 royal army the illegality of military executions. He would, I doubt not, 
 have exerted all his influence on the side of law and of mercy, if he had 
 been present. But there is no trustworthy evidence that he was then in 
 the West at all. Indeed what we know about his proceedings at this time 
 amounts veiy nearly to proof of an alibi. It is certain from the Journals 
 of the House of Lords that, on the Thursday before the battle, he was at 
 Westminster. It is equally certain that, on the Monday after tiie battle, 
 he was with Monmouth in the Tower; and, in that age, a journey from 
 London to Bridgewater and back again was no light thing.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 239 
 
 charge his conscience, requested an audience of the 
 King, spoke earnestly of the dangers inseparable from 
 violent and arbitrary counsels, and condemned the 
 lawless cruelties which the soldiers had committed in 
 Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London to 
 die. He breathed his last a few days after the Judges 
 ?et out for the West. It was immediately notified to 
 Jeffreys that he might expect the Great Seal as the re- 
 ward of faithful and vigorous service.^ 
 
 At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his com- 
 mission. Hampshire had not been the the a- Trial of AUce 
 ti'e of war ; but many of the vanquished reb- '^ '^' 
 els had, like their leader, fled thither. Two of them, 
 John Hickes, a Nonconformist divine, and Richard 
 Nelthorpe, a lawyer who had been outlawed for his 
 share in the Rye House Plot, had sought refuge at the 
 house of Alice, widow of John Lisle. John Lisle had 
 sate in the Long; Parliament and in the Hioh Court of 
 Justice, had been a Commissioner of the Great Seal in 
 the days of the Commonwealth, and had been created 
 a lord by Cromwell. The titles given by the Protector 
 had not been recognised by any government Mdiich had 
 ruled England since the downfall of his house ; but 
 they appear to have been often used in convei'sation 
 even by Royalists. John Lisle's widow was therefore 
 commonly known as the Lady Alice. She was related 
 to many respectable, and to some noble, families ; and 
 she was generally esteemed even by the Tory gentle- 
 men of her county. For it was well known to them 
 that she had deeply regretted some violent acts in which 
 her husband had borne a part, that she had shed bitter 
 
 1 North's Life of Guiltlfonl, 2G0.-263. 273.; Mackintosh's View of the 
 Reign of James the Second, page 16, note; Letter of Jeffreys to Sunder 
 land, Sept. 5. 1685. 
 
 VOL. II. 16
 
 240 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 tears for Charles the First, and that she had protected 
 and relieved many Cavaliers in their distress. The 
 same womanly kindness, which had led her to befriend 
 the Royalists in their time of trouble, would not suffer 
 her to refuse a meal and a hiding place to the wretched 
 men who now intreated her to protect them. She took 
 them into her house, set meat and drink before them, 
 and showed them where they miglit take rest. The 
 next morning her dwelling was surrounded by soldiers. 
 Strict search was made. Hickes Avas found concealed 
 in the malthouse, and Nelthorpe in the chimney. If 
 Lady Alice knew her guests to have been concerned in 
 the insurrection, she was undoubtedly guilty of what in 
 strictness is a capital crime. For the law of principal 
 and accessory, as respects high treason, then was, and 
 is to this day, in a state disgraceful to English juris- 
 prudence. In cases of felony, a distinction, founded on 
 justice and reason, is made between the pi'incipal and 
 the accessory after the fact. He who conceals from 
 justice one whom he knows to be a murderer, is liable 
 to punishment, but not to the punishment of murder ; 
 but he who shelters one whom he knows to be a 
 traitor is, according to all our jurists, guilty of high 
 treason. It is unnecessary to point out the absurdity 
 and cruelty of a law Avhich includes under the same 
 definition, and visits with the same penalty, offences 
 Iving at the opposite extremes of the scale of guilt. The 
 feeling which makes the most loyal subject shrink from 
 the thought of giving up to a shameful death the rebel 
 who, vanquished, hinited down, and in mortal agony, 
 begs for a morsel of bread and a cup of water, may be 
 a weakness : but it is surely a weakness very nearly 
 allied to virtue, a weakness which, constituted as hu- 
 man beings are, we can hardly eradicate from the mind
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 241 
 
 without eradicating many noble and benevolent senti- 
 ments. A wise and good ruler may not think it right 
 to sanction this weakness ; but he will generally con- 
 nive at it, or punish it very tenderly. In no case will 
 he treat it as a crime of the blackest dye. Whether 
 Flora Macdonald was justified in concealing the attainted 
 heir of the Stuarts, whether a braA^e soldier of our own 
 time was justified in assisting the escape of Lavalette, 
 are questions on which casuists may differ : but to class 
 such actions with the crimes of Guy Faux and Fieschi is 
 an outrage to humanity and common sense. Such, how- 
 ever, is the classification of our law. It is evident that 
 nothinji but a lenient administration could make such a 
 state of the law endurable. And it is just to say that, 
 during many generations, no English government, save 
 one, has treated with rigour persons guilty merely of 
 harbouring defeated and flying insurgents. To women 
 especially has been granted, by a kind of tacit prescrip- 
 tion, the right of indulging, in the midst of havoc and 
 vengeance, that compassion which is tlie most endear- 
 ing of all their charms. Since the beoinnino; of the 
 great civil war, numerous rebels, some of them liir more 
 important than Hickes or Nelthorj)e, have been pro- 
 tected against the severity of victorious governments 
 by female adroitness and generosity. But no Eng- 
 lish ruler who has been thus bafHed, the savage and 
 im])lacable James alone excepted, has had the bar- 
 barity even to think of putting a lady to a cruel and 
 shameful death for so venial and amiable a trans- 
 
 gression. 
 
 Odious as the law was, it was strained for the pur- 
 pose of destroying Alice Lisle. She could not, accord- 
 ing to the doctrine laid down by the highest authority, 
 be convicted till after the conviction of the rebels whom
 
 I 
 
 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 she had harboured. ^ She was, however, set to the 
 bar before either Hickes or Nelthoi-pe had been tried. 
 It was no easy matter in such a case to obtain a verdict 
 for the crown. The witnesses prevaricated. The jury? 
 consisting of the principal gentlemen of Hampshire, 
 shrank from the thought of sendina; a fellow creature to 
 the stake for conduct which seemed deserving rather of 
 praise than of blame. Jeffreys was beside himself with 
 fury. This was the first case of treason on the circuit ; 
 and there seemed to be a strong probability that his 
 prey would escape him. He stormed, cursed, and 
 swore in lancmag-e which no wellbred man would have 
 used at a race or a cockfight. One witness named 
 Dunne, partly from concern for Lady Alice, and partly 
 from fright at the threats and maledictions of the Chief 
 Justice, entirely lost his head, and at last stood silent. 
 " Oh how hard the truth is," said Jeffreys, " to come 
 out of a lying Presbyterian knave." The witness, after 
 a pause of some minutes, stammered a few unmeaning 
 words. " Was there ever," exclaimed the judge, with 
 an oath, " was there ever such a villain on the face of 
 the earth ? Dost thou believe that there is a God ? 
 Dost thou believe in hell fire ? Of all the witnesses 
 that I ever met with I never saw thy fellow." Still 
 the poor man, scared out of his senses, remained mute ; 
 and again Jeffreys burst forth. " I hope, gentlemen 
 of the jury, that you take notice of the horrible carriage 
 of this fellow. How can one help abhorring both these 
 men and their religion ? A Turk is a saint to such a 
 fellow as this. A Pagan would be ashamed of such 
 villany. Oh blessed Jesus ! What a generation of 
 vipers do we live among ! " "I cannot tell what to 
 say, my Lord," faltered Dunne. The judge again broke 
 
 1 See the preamble of the Act of Parliament reversing her attainder.
 
 1585.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 243 
 
 foi'tli into a volley of oaths. "Was there ever," he 
 cried, " such an impudent rascal ? Hold the candle to 
 him that we may see his brazen face. You, gentlemen, 
 that are of counsel for the crown, see that an infor- 
 mation for perjury be preferred against this fellow." 
 After the witnesses had been thus handled, the Lady 
 Ahce was called on for her defence. She began by 
 saying, what may possibly have been true, that, though 
 she knew Hickes to be in trouble when she took him in, 
 she did not know or suspect that he had been concerned 
 in the rebelHon. He was a divine, a man of peace. It 
 had, therefore, never occurred to her that he could 
 have borne arms against the government ; and she had 
 sup])Osed that he wished to conceal himself because 
 warrants were out against him for field preaching. The 
 Chief Justice began to storm. " But I will tell you. 
 There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting Pres- 
 bytei'ians but, one way or another, had a hand in the 
 rebellion. Presbytery has all manner of villany in it. 
 Nothing but Presbytery could have made Dunne such a 
 rogue. Show me a Presbyterian ; and I '11 show thee 
 a lying knave." He summed up in the same style, de- 
 claimed during an hour against Whigs and Dissenters, 
 and reminded the jury that the prisoner's husband had 
 borne a part in the death of Charles the First, a fact 
 which had not been proved by any testimony, and which, 
 if it had been proved, would haA'e been utterly irrelevant 
 to the issue. The jury retired, and remained long in 
 consultation. The judge grew im])atient. He could 
 not conceive, he said, how, in so plain a case, they 
 should even have left the box. He sent a messenjier 
 to tell them that, if they did not instantly return, he 
 would adjourn the court and lock them up all night. 
 Thus put to the torture, they came, but came to say
 
 244 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. Y. 
 
 that they doubted whether the charge had been made 
 out. Jeffreys expostulated with them vehemently, and, 
 after another consultation, they gave a reluctant verdict 
 of Guilty. 
 
 On the following morning sentence was pronounced. 
 Jeftrevs oave directions that Alice Lisle should be 
 burned alive that very afternoon. This excess of bar- 
 barity moved the pity and indignation even of the class 
 which was most devoted to the crown. The clergy of 
 Winchester Cathedral remonstrated with the Chief Jus- 
 tice, who, brutal as he was, was not mad enough to risk 
 a quarrel on such a subject with a body so much re- 
 spected by the Tory party. He consented to put off 
 the execution five days. During that time the friends 
 of the prisoner besought James to show her mercy. 
 Ladies of high rank interceded for her. Feversham, 
 whose recent victory had increased his influence at 
 court, and who, it is said, had been bribed to take the 
 compassionate side, spoke in her favour. Clarendon, 
 the King's brother in law, pleaded her cause. But all 
 was vain. The utmost that could be obtained was that 
 her sentence should be commuted from burning to 
 beheading. She was put to death on a scaffold in the 
 market place of Winchester, and underwent her fate 
 with serene courage.^ 
 
 In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim : but, 
 The Bloody ^^^ ^^^ ^^7 foUowiug her execution, Jeffreys 
 Assizes. reached Dorchester, the principal town of the 
 county in which Monmouth had landed, and the judi- 
 cial massacre began. 
 
 The court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, 
 with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the mul- 
 
 1 Trial of Alice Lisle in the Collection of State Trials; Act of the First 
 of William and Mary for annulling and making void the Attainder of Alice 
 Lisle, widow; Burnet, i. 649.; Caveat against the Wbigs.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 245 
 
 titude to indicate a bloody purpose. It was also ru- 
 moured that, when the clergyman who preached the 
 assize sermon inforced the duty of mercy, the ferocious 
 mouth of the Judge was distorted by an ominous grin. 
 These things made men augur ill of what was to follow. ^ 
 
 More than thi'ee hundred prisoners were to be tried. 
 The work seemed heavy ; but Jeffreys had a contrivance 
 for making it light. He let it be understood that the 
 only chance of obtaining pardon or respite was to plead 
 guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put themselves on 
 their country and were convicted, were oi-dered to be 
 tied up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded 
 guilty by scores. Two hundred and ninety-two re- 
 ceived sentence of death. The whole number hanged 
 in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. 
 
 From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The 
 civil war had barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. 
 Here, therefore, comparatively few persons were capi- 
 tally punished. Somersetshire, the chief seat of the re- 
 bellion, had been reserved for the last and most fearful 
 vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty- 
 three prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on 
 every market place, on the green of every large village 
 which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed 
 corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters 
 stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the traveller 
 sick with horror. In many parishes the peasantry could 
 not assemble in the house of God without seeing; the 
 gliastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the 
 porch. The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits 
 rose higher and higher as the work went on. He 
 laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way tliat 
 
 ^ Bloody Assizes
 
 246 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 many tliought him drunk from morning to niglit. But 
 in him it was not easy to distinguish tlie madness pro- 
 duced by evil passions from the madness produced by 
 brandy. A prisoner affirmed that the witnesses who 
 appeared against him were not entitled to credit. One 
 of them, he said, was a Papist, and another a prostitute. 
 " Thou impudent rebel," exclaimed the judge, " to re- 
 flect on the King's evidence ! I see thee, villain, I see 
 thee already with the halter round thy neck." Another 
 produced testimony that he was a good Protestant. 
 " Protestant ! " said Jeffreys ; " you mean Presby- 
 terian. I 'U hold you a wager of it. I can smell a 
 Presbyterian forty miles." One wretched man moved 
 the pity even of bitter Tories. " My Lord," they said, 
 *' this poor creature is on the parish." " Do not trouble 
 yourselves," said the Judge, " I will ease the parish of 
 the burden," It was not only against the prisoners that 
 his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and noblemen of high 
 consideration and stainless loyalty, who ventured to 
 bring to his notice any extenuating circumstance, were 
 almost sure to receive what he called, in the coarse 
 dialect which he had learned in the pothouses of White- 
 chapel, a lick with the rough side of his tongue. Lord 
 Stawell, a Tory peer, who could not conceal his horror 
 at the remorseless manner in which his poor neighbours 
 were butchered, was punished by having a corj)se sus- 
 pended in chains at his pai'k gate.^ In such spectacles 
 originated many tales of terror, which were long told 
 over the cider by the Christmas fires of the farmers of 
 Somersetshire. Within the last forty years peasants, in 
 some districts, well knew the accursed spots, and passed 
 them unwillingly after sunset.^ 
 
 1 Locke's Western Rebellion. 
 
 2 This I can attest from my own childish recollections.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 247 
 
 Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors 
 than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. 
 It is certain that the number of persons whom he put to 
 death in one month, and in one shire, very much ex- 
 ceeded the number of all the political offenders who have 
 been put to death in our island since the Revolution. 
 The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 were of longer dura- 
 tion, of wider extent, and of more formidable aspect 
 than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. It has 
 not been generally thought that, either after the rebel- 
 lion of 1715, or after the rebellion of 1745, the House 
 of Hanover erred on the side of clemency. Yet all 
 the executions of 1715 and 1745 added together will 
 appear to have been few indeed when compared with 
 those which disgraced the Bloody Assizes. The num- 
 ber of the rebels whom Jeffreys hanged on this circuit 
 was three hundred and twenty.^ 
 
 Such havoc must have excited disgust even if the 
 sufferers had been generally odious. But they were, 
 for the most part, men of blameless life, and of high 
 religious profession. They were regarded by them- 
 selves, and by a large prcjportion of their neighbours, 
 not as wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with 
 blood the truth of the Protestant religion. Very few 
 of the convicts professed any repentance for what tliey 
 had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan sj)irit, 
 met death, not merely with fortitude, but with exulta- 
 tion. It was in vain that the ministers of the Estab- 
 lished Church lectured them on the guilt of rebellion 
 and on the importance of priestly absolution. The 
 
 1 Lord I-onsdale s^ays seven hundred; Burnet six hundred. I have fol- 
 lowed the list wiiich the .Ju<li,'es sent to the Trensurv, and wliicli may still 
 be 8eei\ there in the letter liodk of 1(585. See the liloody .Assizes; Lncke'a 
 Western Rebellion; the Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys; Burnet, i. 648.; Each- 
 ard, iii. 775. ; Oldmixon, 705.
 
 248 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. T. 
 
 claim of the King to unbounded authority in things 
 temporal, and the claim of the clergy to the spiritual 
 power of binding and loosing, moved the bitter scorn 
 of the intrepid sectaries. Some of them composed 
 hymns in the dungeon, and chaunted them on the 
 fatal sledge. Christ, they sang while they were un- 
 dressing for the butchery, would soon come to rescue 
 Zion and to make war on Babylon, would set up his 
 standard, would blow his trumpet, and would requite 
 his foes tenfold for all the evil which had been inflicted 
 on his servants. The dying words of these men were 
 noted down ; their farewell letters were kept as treas- 
 ures ; and, in this way, with the help of some invention 
 and exaggeration, was formed a copious supplement to 
 the Marian martyrology,^ 
 
 A few cases deserve special mention. Abraham 
 Abraham Holmcs, a retired officer of the parliamen- 
 Hoimes. ^^^y army, and one of those zealots who 
 would own no Kino; but Kino; Jesus, had been taken 
 at Sedgemoor. His arm had been frightfully mangled 
 and shattered in the battle ; and, as no surgeon was at 
 hand, the stout old soldier amputated it himself. He 
 was carried up to London, and examined by the King 
 in Council, but would make no submission. " I am an 
 aged man," he said ; " and what remains to me of life 
 is not worth a falsehood or a baseness. I have always 
 been a repubhcan ; and I am so still." He was sent 
 back to the West and hanged. The peonle remarked 
 with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to 
 drag him to the gallows became restive and went back. 
 Holmes himself doubted not that the Angel of the 
 Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way sword in 
 
 1 Some of the prayers, exhortations, and hymns of the sufferers will b« 
 fonnd in the Bloody Assizes.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 249 
 
 hand, invisible to human eyes, but. visible to the Infe- 
 rior animals. " Stop, gentlemen," he cried, " let me 
 go on foot. There is more in this than you think. 
 Remember how the ass saw him whom the prophet 
 could not see." He walked manfully to the gallows, 
 harangued the people with a smile, prayed fervently 
 that God would hasten the downfall of Antichrist and 
 the deliverance of England, and went up the ladder 
 with an apology for mounting so awkwardly. " You 
 see," he said, " I have but one arm." ^ 
 
 Not less courageously died Christopher Battiscombe, 
 a young Templar of good family and fn'tune ohristopher 
 who, at Dorchester, an agreeable provincial i^''^"'«'^o»'i'e- 
 town proud of its taste and refinement, was regarded 
 by all as the model of a fine gentleman. Great in- 
 terest was made to save him. It was believed throuo-h 
 the west of England that he was engaged to a young 
 lady of gentle blood, the sister of the Sheriff, that she 
 threw herself at the feet of Jeffreys to beg for mercy, 
 and that Jeffi'eys drove her from him with a jest so 
 hideous that to repeat it would be an offence against 
 decency and humanity. Her lover suffered at Lyme 
 piously and courageously.^ 
 
 A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of 
 two gallant brothers, William and Benjamin Theiiew- 
 Hewling. The}'' were young, handsome, ac- ''"^*'' 
 complished, and \v(>ll connected. Their maternal grand- 
 father was named Kiliin. He was one of the first mer- 
 
 1 Bloody Assizes; Locke's Western Rebellion; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs; 
 Account of the Hattle of Sed^emoor in the Ilardwickc Papers. 
 
 'I'hc story ill Clarke's Life of .lames the Second, ii. 43., is not taken from 
 the King's manuscripts, and sufficiently refutes itself. 
 
 - 151ondy Assizes; Locke's Western I{cl)ellion: Huinhle Petition of 
 Widows and fatherless Children in the West of England; Panegyric on 
 Lord JeflVeys.
 
 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 chants in London, and was o-enerallv considered as the 
 head of the Baptists. The chief justice behaved to 
 Wilham Hewhng on the trial with characteristic bru- 
 tahty. " You have a grandfather," he said, " who 
 deserves to be hanged as ricldy as you." The poor 
 lad, who was only nineteen, suffered death with so 
 much meekness and fortitude, that an officer of the 
 army who attended the execution, and who had made 
 himself remarkable by rudeness and severity, was 
 strangely melted, and said, " I do not believe that 
 my Lord Cliief Justice himself could be proof against 
 this." Hopes were entertained that Benjamin would 
 be pardoned. One victim of tender years was surely 
 enough for one house to furnish. Even Jeffreys was, 
 or pretended to be, inclined to lenity. The truth was 
 that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large ex- 
 pectations, and whom, therefore, he could not treat as 
 he generally treated intercessors, pleaded strongly for 
 the afflicted family. Time was allowed for a reference 
 to London. The sister of the prisoner went to White- 
 hall with a petition. Many courtiers wished her suc- 
 cess ; and Churchill, among whose numerous faults 
 cruelty had no place, obtained admittance for her. 
 " I wish well to your suit with all my heart," he said, 
 as they stood together in the antechamber ; " but do 
 not flatter yourself with hopes. This marble," and he 
 laid his hand on the chimney piece, " is not harder than 
 the King." The prediction proved true. James was 
 inexorable. Benjamin Hewling died with dauntless 
 courage, amidst lamentations in which the soldiers who 
 kept guard round the gallows could not refi'ain from 
 joining.^ 
 
 1 As to the Hewlings, I have followed Kiffin's Memoirs, and Mr. Hew- 
 ling Luson's narrative, which -vvill be found in the second edition of the
 
 1685.) JAMES THE SECOND. 261 
 
 Yet those rebels who were doomed to deatli were 
 less to be pitied than some of the survivors. Several 
 prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to bring home 
 the charo;e of hisrh treason were convicted of misde- 
 meanours, and were sentenced to scourging not less 
 terrible than that which Oates had undergone. A 
 woman for some idle words, such as had been uttered 
 by half the women in the districts where the war had 
 raged, was condemned to be whipped through all the 
 market towns in the county of Dorset. She suffered 
 part of her punishment before Jeffreys returned to 
 London : but, when he was no longer in the West, 
 the eaolers, with the humane connivance of the mao'is- 
 trates, took on themselves the responsibility of sparing 
 her any further torture. A still more fright- v„„isi,ni,,„t 
 ful sentence was passed on a-lad named Tut- '^f'^'"''''""- 
 chin, who was tried for seditious words. He was, as 
 usual, inteiTupted in his defence by ribaldr}^ and scur- 
 rility from the judgment seat. " You are a rebel ; and 
 all your family have been rebels since Adam. They 
 tell me that you are a poet. I '11 cap verses with 
 you." The sentence was that the boy should be im- 
 prisoned seven years, and should, during that period, 
 be flo<x<xed throujth everv market town in Dorsetshire 
 every year. The women in tiie galleries burst into 
 tears. The clerk of the arraigns stood up in great 
 disorder. " My lord," said he, " the prisoner is very 
 young. There are many market towns in our county. 
 The sentence amounts to whipping once a fortnight for 
 seven years." "If he is a young man," said Jeffreys, 
 " he is an old rogue. Ladies, you do not know the 
 
 Hughes Corrcspondi'iire, vol. ii. Appendix. The accounts in Locke's West- 
 ern Hebellion ami in the I'anefjyric on .IcHreys are full of errors. Great 
 part of the account in the i'loody Assizes was written by Kiffin, and ai;ree« 
 word for word witli liis Memoirs.
 
 252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 villain as well as I do. The punishment is not half 
 bad enough for him. All the interest in England shall 
 not alter it." Tutchin in his despair petitioned, and 
 probably with sincerity, that he might be hanged. 
 Fortunately for him he was, just at this conjuncture, 
 taken ill of the smallpox and given over. As it seemed 
 highly improbable that the sentence would ever be ex- 
 ecuted, the Chief Justice consented to remit it, in re- 
 turn for a bribe which reduced the prisoner to poverty. 
 The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild, was 
 exasperated to madness by what he had undergone. 
 He lived to be known as one of the most acrimonious 
 and pertinacious enemies of the House of Stuart and 
 of the Tory party.^ 
 
 The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported 
 Rebels ^'^^ eight hundred and forty-one. These 
 
 transported, ^gn^ morc wrctchcd than their associates 
 who suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and be- 
 stowed on persons who enjoyed favour at court. The 
 conditions of the gift were that the convicts should be 
 carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be 
 emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their 
 banishment should be some West Indian island. This 
 last article was studiously framed for the purpose of 
 aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New Eng- 
 land or New Jersey they would have found a popula- 
 tion kindly disposed to them and a climate not unfa- 
 vourable to their health and vigour. It was therefore 
 determined that they should be sent to colonies where 
 a Puritan could hope to inspire little sympatliy, and 
 where a labourer born in the temperate zone could 
 hope to enjoy little health. Such was the state of the 
 slave market that these bondmen, long as was the pas- 
 
 * See Tutchin's account of his own case in the Bloodv Assizes
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 268 
 
 sage, and sickly as they were likely to prove, were still 
 very valuable. It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on 
 an average, each of them, after all charges were paid, 
 would be worth from ten to fifteen jwunds. There 
 was therefore much angry com})etition for grants. 
 Some Tories in the West conceived that they had, by 
 their exertions and sufferings during the insurrection, 
 earned a right to share in the profits which had been 
 eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall. 
 The courtiers, however, were victorious.^ 
 
 The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the 
 neffroes who are now carried from Conoo to Brazil. It 
 a])})ears from the best information which is at present 
 accessible that more than one fifth of those who were 
 shii)ped were flung to the sharks before the end of the 
 voyage. The human cargoes were stowed close in the 
 holds of small vessels. So little space was allowed that 
 the wretches, many of whom were still tormented by 
 unhealed wounds, could not all lie down at once with- 
 out lying on one another. They were never suffered 
 to go on deck. The hatchway Avas constantly watched 
 by sentinels armed with hangers and blunderbusses. In 
 the dungeon below all was darkness, stench, lamenta- 
 tion, disease and death. Of ninety-nine convicts who 
 were carried out in one vessel, twenty-two died before 
 they reached Jamaica, although the voyage was per- 
 formed with unusual sjieed. The sui'vivors when they 
 arrived at their house of bondajre were mere skeletons. 
 During some weeks coarse biscuit and fetid water had 
 been doled out to them in such scanty measure that 
 any one of them could easily have consumed the ration 
 which was assigned to five. They were, therefore, in 
 
 1 Sunderland to .leffrej's, Sept. 14. 1685; Jeflreys to the King, Sept. 19. 
 
 1685, in the State Paper OiTk-c.
 
 254 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. LCh. V. 
 
 such a state tliat the merchant to whom they had been 
 consigned found it expedient to fatten them before sell- 
 ing them.^ 
 
 Meanwhile the property both of the rebels who had 
 Confiscation suffered death, and of those more unfortunate 
 
 andextor- • i • i i • i 
 
 tion. men who were withenng under the tropical 
 
 sun, was fought for and torn in pieces by a crowd of 
 greedy informers. By law a subject attainted of trea- 
 son forfeits all his substance ; and this law was en- 
 forced after the Bloody Assizes with a rigour at once 
 cruel and ludicrous. The brokenhearted widows and 
 destitute orphans of the labouring men whose corpses 
 hung at the cross roads were called upon by the agents 
 of the Treasury to explain what had become of a 
 basket, of a goose, of a flitch of bacon, of a keg of cider, 
 of a sack of beans, of a truss of hay.^ While the hum- 
 bler retainers of the government were pillaging the 
 families of the slaughtered peasants, the Chief Justice 
 was fast accumulating a fortune out of the plunder of 
 a higher class of Whigs. He traded largely in par- 
 dons. His most lucrative transaction of this kind was 
 with a gentleman named Edmund Prideaux. It is 
 certain that Pi'ideaux had not been in arms against 
 the government ; and it is probable that his only crime 
 was the wealth which he had inherited from his father, 
 an eminent lawyer who had been high in office un- 
 der the Protector. No exertions were spared to make 
 out a case for the crown. Mercy was offered to some 
 
 1 The best account of the sufferings of those rebels who were sentenced to 
 transportation is to be found in a verj' curious narrative written by John 
 Coad, an honest, Godfearing carpenter, who joined Monmouth, was badly 
 wounded at Philip's Norton, was tried by Jeffreys, and was sent to Jamaica. 
 The original manuscript was kindly lent to me by Mr. Phippard, to whom 
 It belongs. 
 
 2 In the Treasury records of the autumn of 1685 are several letters di- 
 recting search to be made for trifles of this sort.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 255 
 
 prisoners on condition that tliey would bear evidence 
 against Prideaux. The unfortunate man lay long in 
 gaol, and at length, overcome by fear of the gallows, 
 consented to pay fifteen thousand ])ounds for his lib- 
 eration. This great sum was received by Jeffreys. 
 He bought with it an estate, to which the people gave 
 the name of Aceldama, from that accursed field which 
 was purchased with the price of innocent blood. ^ 
 
 He was ably assisted in the work of extortion by 
 the crew of parasites who Avere in the habit of drink- 
 ing and lauohino; with him. The office of these men 
 was to drive hard baro-ains with convicts under the 
 strong terrors of death, and with parents trembling 
 for the lives of children. A portion of the spoil was 
 abandoned by Jeffreys to his agents. To one of his 
 boon companions, it is said, he tossed a pardon for a 
 rich traitor across the table durino; a revel. It was not 
 safe to have recourse to any intercession except that of 
 his creatures ; for he guarded his profitable monopoly 
 of mercy Avith jealous care. It was even suspected 
 that he sent some persons to the gibbet solely because 
 they had applied for the royal clemency through chan- 
 nels independent of him.^ 
 
 Some courtiers nevertheless contrived to obtain a 
 small share of this traffic. The ladies of the Rapacity of 
 Queen's hoiisehold distinguished themselves .'n*;i^in,e" 
 preeminently by raj)acity and hardhearted- ^'''^"'*" 
 ness. Part of the disgrace which they incurred falls 
 on their mistress : for it was solely on account of the 
 relation in which they stood to her that they were 
 able to enrich themselves by so odious a trade ; and 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, Oct. 9., Nov. 10., Dec. 26. 1690; Oldmixon, 706.; 
 Panegyric on Jeft'reys. 
 
 * Life and Death of Lord Jeffreys; Panegyric on Jeffreys; Kiffiu'e Jle- 
 moire. 
 
 VOL. II. 17
 
 256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. ▼. 
 
 there can be no question that she might with a word 
 or a look have restrained them. But in truth she en- 
 couraged them by her evil example, if not by her ex- 
 press approbation. She seems to have been one of that 
 large class of persons who bear adversity better than 
 ])rosperity. While her husband was a subject and an 
 exile, shut out from public employment, and in immi- 
 nent danger of being deprived of his birthright, the 
 suavity and humility of her manners conciliated the 
 kindness even of those who most abhorred her religion. 
 But when her good fortune came her good nature dis- 
 appeared. The meek and affable Duchess turned out 
 an ungracious and haughty Queen.^ The misfortunes 
 which she subsequently endured have made her an 
 object of some interest ; but that interest would be not 
 a little heightened if it could be shown that, in the 
 season of her greatness, she saved, or even tried to 
 save, one single victim from the most frightful pro- 
 scription that England has ever seen. Unhappily the 
 only request that she is known to have preferred touch- 
 ing the rebels was that a hundred of those who were 
 sentenced to transportation might be given to her.^ 
 The profit which she cleared on the cargo, after making 
 large allowance for those who died of hunger and fever 
 during the passage, cannot be estimated at less than a 
 thousand guineas. We cannot wonder that her attend- 
 ants should have imitated her unprincely greediness 
 and her unwomanly cruelty. They exacted a thousand 
 pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant of Bridgewater, 
 who had contributed to the military chest of the rebel 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 3G8.; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4. 168f, July 13. 1686. la eB« 
 
 of the satires of that time are these lines: 
 
 " When Duchess, she was gentle, mild, and civil ; 
 When Queen, she proved a raging furious devil." 
 
 « Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14. 1685.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 257 
 
 army. But the prfj on which they pounced most 
 eager] 3'' was one which it might have been thought that 
 even the most ungentle natures would have spared. 
 Already some of the girls who had presented the stand- 
 ard to Monmouth at Taunton had cruelly expiated 
 their offence. One of them had been thrown into a 
 prison where an infectious malady was raging. She 
 had sickened and died there. Another had presented 
 iierself at the bar before Jeffi'eys to beg for mercy. 
 " Take her, gaoler," vociferated the judge, with one of 
 those frowns which had often struck terror into stouter 
 hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew her hood 
 over her face, followed the gaoler out of court, fell ill 
 of fright, and in a few hours was a corpse. Most of 
 the young ladies, however, who had walked in the pro- 
 cession, were still alive. Some of them were under ten 
 years of age. All had acted under the orders of their 
 schoolmistress, without knowing that they were com- 
 mitting a crime. The Queen's maids of honour asked 
 the royal permission to wring money out of the parents 
 of the poor children ; and the permission was granted. 
 An order Avas sent down to Taunton that all these 
 little girls should be seized and imprisoned. Sir Fran- 
 cis Warre, of Hestercombe, the Tory member for 
 Bridge water, was requested to undertake the office of 
 exactino; the ransom. He was charged to declare in 
 strong lanffuao-e that the maids of lionour would not 
 endure delay, that they Avere determined to prosecute 
 to outlawry, unless a reasonable sum were forthcoming, 
 and that by a reasonable sum was meant seven thou- 
 sand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any 
 part in a transaction so scandalous. The maids of hon- 
 our then requested William Penn to act for them ; and 
 Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should seem
 
 258 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cm. Y. 
 
 that a little of tlie pertinacious scrupulosity which he 
 had often sliown about taking off his hat would not 
 have been altogether out of place on this occasion. He 
 probably silenced the remonstrances of his conscience 
 by repeating to himself that none of the money which 
 he extorted would go into his own pocket ; that if he 
 refused to be the agent of the ladies they would find 
 agents less humane ; that by complying he should in- 
 crease his influence at the court, and that his influence 
 at the court had already enabled him, and might still 
 enable him, to render great services to his oppressed 
 brethren. The maids of honour were at last forced to 
 content themselves with less than a third part of what 
 they had demanded. ^ 
 
 No Enghsh sovereign has ever given stronger proofs 
 of a cruel nature than James the Second. Yet his 
 ci'uelty was not more odious than his mercy. Or per- 
 haps it may be more correct to say that his mercy and 
 his cruelty were such that each reflects infamy on the 
 other. Our horror at tlie fate of the simple clowns, 
 the young lads, the delicate women, to whom he was 
 inexoi-ably severe, is increased when we find to whom 
 and for what considerations he granted his pardon. 
 
 The rule by which a prince ought, after a rebellion, 
 to be guided in selecting rebels for punishment is per- 
 fectly obvious. The ringleaders, the men of rank, for- 
 tune and education, whose power and whose artifices 
 have led the multitude into error, are the proper ob- 
 jects of severity. The deluded populace, Avhen once 
 the slaughter on the field of battle is over, can scarcely 
 be treated too leniently. This rule, so evidently agree- 
 
 1 Locke's Western Rebellion ; Toulmin's History of Taunton, edited by 
 Savage; Letter of the Duke of Somerset to Sir F. Warre; Letter of Sun- 
 derland to Penn, Feb. 13. 168|, from the StiJte Paper Office, in the Mack- 
 intosh Collection. (1848.)
 
 1«85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 259 
 
 able to justice and humanity, was not only not observed, 
 it was inverted. While those who ought to have been 
 spared were slaughtered by hundreds, the few who 
 might with propriety have been left to the utmost 
 rigour of the law were spared. This eccentric clem- 
 ency has perplexed some writers, and has drawn forth 
 ludicrous eulomes from others. It Avas neither at all 
 mysterious nor at all praiseworthy. It may be dis- 
 tinctly traced in every case either to a sordid ot to a 
 malignant motive, either to thirst for money or to thirst 
 for blood. 
 
 In the case of Grey there was no mitigating circum- 
 stance. His parts and knowledge, the rank cases of 
 which he had inherited in the state, and the ^'^''^'' 
 high command which he had borne in the rebel army, 
 would have pointed him out to a just government as a 
 much fitter object of punishment than Alice Lisle, 
 than William Hewling, than any of the hundreds of 
 ignorant peasants whose skulls and quarters were ex- 
 posed in Somersetshire. But Grey's estate w^as large 
 and was strictly entailed. He had only a life interest 
 in his property ; and he could forfeit no more interest 
 than he had. If he died, his lands at once devolved on 
 the next heir. If he were pardoned, he would be able 
 to ])ay a large ransom. He was therefore suffered to 
 redeem himself by giving a bond for forty thousand 
 pounds to the Lord Treasurer, and smaller sums to 
 other courtiers.^ 
 
 Sir John Cochrane had held amono; the Scotch rebels 
 the same rank which had been held by Grey 
 in the west of Ii^nirland. That Cochrane 
 should be forgiven by a prince vindictive beyond all 
 
 1 Bumet, i. 646., and Speaker Onslow's note; Clarendon to Rochester, 
 May 8. 168G.
 
 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. \C,h. V 
 
 example, seemed incredible. But. Cociirane was the 
 younger son of a rich family ; it was therefore only by 
 sparing him that money could be made out of him. 
 His father, Lord Dundonald, offered a bribe of five 
 thousand pounds to the priests of the royal household ; 
 and a pardon was granted.^ 
 
 Samuel Storey, a noted sower of sedition, who had 
 storey been Commissary to the rebel army, and who 
 
 had inflamed the ignorant populace of Somer- 
 setshire by vehement harangues in which James had 
 been described as an incendiary and a poisoner, was 
 admitted to mercy. For Storey was able to give im- 
 portant assistance to Jeffreys in wringing fifteen thou- 
 sand pounds out of Prideaux.2 
 
 None of the traitors had less right to expect fa- 
 wade, Good- vour than Wade, Goodenough, and Ferguson. 
 Fergiisdn. Thcse three chiefs of the rebellion had fled 
 together fi-om the field of Sedgemoor, and had reached 
 the coast in safety. But they had found a frigate cruis- 
 ing near the spot where they had hoped to embark. 
 They had then separated. Wade and Goodenough 
 were soon discovered and brought up to London. 
 Deeply as they had been implicated in the Rye House 
 Plot, conspicuous as they had been among the chiefs 
 of the Western insurrection, they were suffered to 
 live, because they had it in their power to give in- 
 formation which enabled the King to slaughter and 
 plunder some persons whom he hated, but to whom he 
 had never yet been able to bring home any crime. ^ 
 
 How Ferguson escaped was, and still is, a mystery. 
 
 J Burnet, i. 634. 
 
 * Calamy's Memoirs; Commons' Journals, Dec. 2(5. 1690; Sunderland t« 
 Jefireys, Sept. 14. 1685; Privy Council Book, Feb. 26. 168|. 
 » linsdowne JIS. 1152.; Harl. MS. 6845.; London Gazette, July 20. 1686,
 
 1686.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 261 
 
 Of all the enemies of the government he was, without 
 doubt, the most deeply ci'iminal. He was the original 
 author of the plot for assassinating the royal brothers. 
 He had written that Declaration which, for insolence, 
 malignity, and mendacity, stands unrivalled even among 
 the libels of those stormy times. He had instigated 
 Monmouth first to invade the kingdom, and then to 
 usurp the crown. It was reasonable to expect that a 
 strict search would be made for the arch traitor, as he 
 was often called ; and such a search a man of so sin- 
 gular an aspect and dialect could scarcely have eluded. 
 It was confidently reported in the coffee houses of 
 London that Ferguson was taken ; and this report 
 found credit with men who had excellent opportunities 
 of knowino; the truth. The next thino; that was heard 
 of him was that he was safe on the Continent. It was 
 strongly suspected that he had been in constant com- 
 munication with the ffovernment against which he was 
 constantly plotting, that he had, while urging his asso- 
 ciates to every excess of rashness, sent to Whitehall 
 just so much information about their proceedings as 
 might suffice to save his OAvn neck, and that therefore 
 orders had been given to let him escape.^ 
 
 1 Many writers have asserted, without the slightest foundation, that a 
 pardon was pranted to Ferguson b_v James. Some have been go absurd as 
 to cite tliis imaginary pardon, which, if it were real, would prove on'}- that 
 Ferguson was a court spy, in proof of the inagnaniinity and benignitj' of 
 the prince who beheaded Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Fergu- 
 son was not only not specially pardoned, but was excluded by name from 
 the general pardon published in the following spring. (I^ondon Gazette, 
 March 15. 168A ) If, as the pul)'ic suspected, and as soenis probable, in- 
 dulgence was shown to him, it was indulgence of which James was, not 
 without rea-son, ashamed, and which was, as far as possible, kept secret. 
 The reports which were current in I^nndon at the time are mentioned in 
 the Obscrvator, Aug. 1. 1(>8.5. 
 
 Sir John Keresln", who ought to have been well informed, positively 
 affirms that Ferguson was taken three days after the liaftle of Sedgemoor 
 But Sir John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore hav*
 
 262 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V 
 
 And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned 
 to claim his reward. He arrived at Windsor from the 
 West, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror behind 
 him. The hatred with which he was regarded bv the 
 people of Somersetshii'e has no parallel in our histor\'. 
 It was not to be quenched by time or by political 
 changes, was long transmitted from generation to gen- 
 eration, and raged fiercely against his innocent prog- 
 eny. When he had been many years dead, when his 
 name and title were extinct, his granddaughter the 
 Countess of Pomfret, travelling along the western 
 road, was insulted by the populace, and found that 
 she could not safely venture herself among the de- 
 scendants of those who had witnessed the Bloody As- 
 sizes. ^ 
 
 But at the court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. 
 He was a judge after his master's own heart. James 
 had watched the circuit with interest and delight. In 
 his drawing room and at his table he had frequently 
 talked of the havoc which was making among his dis- 
 affected subjects with a glee at which the foreign minis- 
 ters stood aghast. With his own hand he had penned 
 accounts of what he facetiously called his Lord Chief 
 Justice's campaign in the West. Some hundreds of 
 rebels, His Majesty wrote to the Hague, had been 
 condemned. Some of them had been hanged : more 
 should be hanged : and the rest should be sent to the 
 plantations. It was to no purpose that Ken wrote to 
 implore mercy for the misguided people, and described 
 with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his dio- 
 
 been wrong as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from 
 Goodenoiigh's confession (Lansdowne MS. 1152.), it is clear that, a fort- 
 night after tiie battle, Ferguson had not been caught, and was supposed to 
 be still lurking in England. 
 1 Granger's Biographical History.
 
 1B85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 263 
 
 ccse. He complained tliat it was impossible to walk 
 along the highways without seeing some terrible spec- 
 tacle, and that the whole air of Somersetshire was 
 tainted with death. The King read, and remained, 
 according to the saying of Churchill, hard as the mar- 
 ble chimney pieces of Whitehall. At Windsor the 
 irieat seal of England was put into the hands -Jeffreya 
 
 f-^ o i made Lord 
 
 of Jeffreys, and in the next London Gazette chancellor, 
 it was solemnly notified that this honour was the re- 
 ward of the man}' eminent and faithful services which 
 he had rendered to the crown. ^ 
 
 At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke 
 with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge 
 and the wicked King attempted to vindicate themselves 
 by throwing the blame on each other. Jeff'reys, in the 
 Tower, protested that, in his utmost cruelty, he had 
 not gone beyond his master's express orders, nay, that 
 he had fallen short of them. James, at Saint Ger- 
 main's, would willingly have had it believed that his 
 own inclinations had been on the side of clemency, 
 and that unmerited obloquy had been brought on him 
 by the violence of his minister. But neither of these 
 hardhearted men must be absolved at the expense of 
 the other. The plea set up for James can be proved 
 under his own hand to be false in fact. The plea of 
 Jeff'reys, even if it be true in fact, is utterly worth- 
 less. 
 
 The slaughter in the West was over. The slaughter 
 in London was about to begin. The govern- Trial and 
 
 " ~ ^ ^ execution 
 
 ment was peculiarly desirous to find victims of comish. 
 amonir the m-eat Whio- merchants of the Citv. They 
 had, in the last reign, been a formidable part of the 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 648. ; James to the Prince of Orange, Sept. 10. and 24. 1686 
 Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs; London Gazette, Oct. 1. 1085.
 
 264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cn. V. 
 
 strength of tlie opposition. They were wealthy ; and 
 their wealth was not, like that of many noblemen and 
 country gentlemen, protected by entail against forfeit- 
 ure. In tlie case of Grey, and of men situated hke 
 him, it was impossible to gratify cruelty and rapacity at 
 once : but a rich trader might be both hanged and plun- 
 dered. The commercial grandees, however, though in 
 general hostile to Popery and to arbitrary power, had 
 yet been too scrupulous or too timid to incur the guilt 
 of hiffh treason. One of the most considerable among 
 them was Henry Cornish. He had been an Alderman 
 under the old charter of the City, and had filled the 
 office of Sheriff when the question of the Exclusion 
 Bill occupied the public mind. In politics he was a 
 Whig : his religious opinions leaned towards Presby- 
 terianism : but his temper was cautious and moderate. 
 It is not proved by trustworthy evidence that he ever 
 approached the verge of treason. He had, indeed, 
 when Sheriff, been very unwilling to employ as his 
 deputy a man so violent and unprincipled as Good- 
 enough. When the Rye House Plot Avas discovered, 
 great hopes were entertained at Whitehall that Cornish 
 would appear to have been concerned : but these hopes 
 were disappointed. One of the conspirators, indeed, 
 John Rumsey, was ready to swear anything : but a 
 singlfe witness was not sufficient ; and no second wit- 
 ness could be found. More than two years had since 
 elapsed. Cornish thought himself safe : but the eye 
 of the tyrant was upon him. Goodenougli, terrified by 
 the near prospect of death, and still harbouring malice 
 on account of the unfavourable opinion which had 
 always been entertained of him by his old mastei*, 
 consented to supply the testimony which had hitherto 
 been wanting. Cornish was arrested while transacting
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 266 
 
 business on the Exchange, was hurried to gaol, was 
 kept there some days in sohtary confinement, and was 
 brought altogether unprepared to the bar of tlie Old 
 Bailey. The case against liim rested wholly on tlie 
 evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both Avere, 
 by their own confession, accomplices in the plot with 
 which they charged the prisoner. Both were impelled 
 by the sti'ongest pressure of hope and fear to criminate 
 liim. Evidence was produced which proved that Good- 
 enough was also under tlie influence of personal enmity. 
 Rumsey's story was inconsistent with the story whicii 
 he had told when he appeared as a witness against 
 Lord Russell. But these thino-s were urjred in vain. 
 On the bench sate three judges who had been with 
 Jeffreys in the West ; and it was remarked by those 
 M'ho watched their deportment that they had come 
 back from the carnage of Taunton in a fierce and 
 excited state. It is indeed but too true that the taste 
 for blood is a taste which even men not naturally cruel 
 may, by habit, speedily acquire. The bar and tlie 
 bench united to browbeat the unfortunate Whi*:. The 
 jury, named by a courtly Sheriff, readily found a ver- 
 dict of guilty ; and, in spite of the indignant murmurs 
 of the pubh'c, Cornish suffered death within ten days 
 after he had been arrested. That no circumstance of 
 degradation might be wanting, the gibbet was set up 
 where King Street meets Cheapside, in sight of the 
 house where he had long lived in general respect, of 
 the Exchange where his credit had always stood higli, 
 and of the Guildliall where he had distiumiished him- 
 self as a popular leader. He died with courage and 
 with many ])ious expressions, but showed, by look and 
 gesture, such strong resentment at the barbai-ity and 
 injustice with which he had been treated, that his ene-
 
 2G6 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 mies spread a calumnious report concerning him. He 
 was drunk, they said, or out of his mind, when he was 
 turned off. WilHam Penn, however, who stood neat 
 the gallows, and whose prejudices were all on the side 
 of the government, afterwards said that he could see 
 in Cornish's deportment nothing but the natural indig- 
 nation of an innocent man slain under the forms of 
 law. The head of the murdered magistrate was placed 
 over the Guildhall.^ 
 
 Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which 
 Trial and disgraced the sessions of that autumn at the 
 
 executions of ^,,"7 t-« -i * i l 
 
 Ferniey aod (Jld Bailev. Anionff the persons concerned 
 
 Elizabeth • i -r. i r >^i 1 
 
 Gaunt. m the Kye House riot was a man named 
 
 James Burton. By his own confession he had been 
 present when the design of assassination was discussed 
 by his accomplices. When the conspiracy was de- 
 tected, a reward was offered for his apprehension. 
 He was saved from death by an ancient matron of 
 the Baptist persuasion, named Elizabeth Gaunt. This 
 woman, with the peculiar manners and phraseology 
 which then distinguished her sect, had a large char- 
 ity. Her life was passed in relieving the unhappy of 
 all religious denominations, and she was well known 
 as a constant visitor of the gaols. Her political and 
 theological opinions, as well as her compassionate dis- 
 position, led her to do everything in her power for 
 Burton. She procured a boat which took him to 
 Gravesend, where he got on board of a ship bound 
 for Aiusterdam. At the moment of parting she put 
 into his hand a sum of money which, for her means, 
 was very large. Burton, after living some time in 
 
 1 Trial of Cornish in the Collection of State Trials; Sir J. Hawles's 
 Remarks on Mr. Cornish's Trial; Burnet, i. 651. ; Bloody Assizes; Stat 
 1 Gul. & Mar.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 267 
 
 exile, returned to England with Monmouth, fought at 
 Sedgemoor, fled to London, and took refuge in the 
 house of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. 
 Fernley was very poor. He Avas besieged by creditors. 
 He knew that a reward of a hundred pounds had been 
 offered by the government for the apprehension of 
 Burton. But the honest man was incapable of betray- 
 ing one who, in extreme peril, had come under the 
 shadow of his roof. Unhappily it was soon noised 
 abroad that the anger of James was more strongly 
 excited against those who harboured rebels than against 
 the rebels themselves. He had publicly declared that 
 of all forms of treason the hiding of traitors from his 
 vengeance was the most unpardonable. Burton knew 
 this. He delivered himself up to the government ; and 
 he gave information against Fernley and Elizabeth 
 Gaunt. They were brought to trial. The villain 
 whose life they had preserved had the heart and the 
 forehead to appear as the principal witness against them. 
 They were convicted. Fernley was sentenced to the 
 gallows, Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even after all 
 the horrors of that year, many thought it impossible 
 that these judgments should be carried into execution. 
 But the King was without pity. Fernley was hanged. 
 Elizabeth Gaunt was burned alive at Tyburn cm the 
 same day on which Cornish suffered death in Cheap- 
 side. She left a paper written, indeed, in no graceful 
 style, yet such as was read by many thousands with 
 comj)assion and horror. " My fault," she said, "was 
 one which a prince might well have forgiven. I did 
 but relieve a poor family, and lo ! I must die for it." 
 She complained of the insolence of the judges, of the 
 ferocity of the gaoler, and of the tyranny of him, the 
 great one of all, to whose pleasure she and so many
 
 268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cm. ▼. 
 
 other victims had been sacrificed. In as far as they 
 had injured herself, she forgave them : but, in that 
 they were implacable enemies of that good cause which 
 would yet revive and flourish, she left them to the 
 judgment of the King of Kings. To the last she pre- 
 served a tranquil courage, which reminded the specta- 
 tors of the most heroic deaths of which they had read 
 in Fox. William Penn, for whom exhibitions which 
 humane men generally avoid seem to have had a strong 
 attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where he had seen 
 Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth 
 Gaunt burned. He afterwards related that, when she 
 calmly disposed the straw about her in such a manner 
 as to shorten her sufferings, all the bystanders burst into 
 tears. It was much noticed that, while the foulest 
 judicial murder which had disgraced even those times 
 was perpetrating, a tempest burst forth, such as had 
 not been known since that great hurricane which had 
 raged round the death bed of Oliver. The oppressed 
 Puritans reckoned up, not without a gloomy satisfac- 
 tion, the houses which had been blown down, and the 
 ships which had been cast away, and derived some con- 
 solation from thinkinoc that heaA'en was bearing! awful 
 testimony against the iniquity which afflicted the earth. 
 Since that terrible day no woman has suffered death in 
 England for any political offence. ^ 
 
 It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned 
 Trial and ex- his pardou. The government was bent on 
 
 ecution of , . . . „ i • i i 
 
 Bateman. clestroynig a victun of no high rank, a sur- 
 geon in the city, named Bateman. He had attended 
 Shaftesbury professionally, and had been a zealous 
 
 1 Trials of Femleyaiid Elizabeth Gaunt, in the Collection of State Trials; 
 Burnet, i. 649.; Bloody Assizes; Sir J. Bramston's Memoirs; Luttrell's 
 Kary, Oct. 23. 1685.
 
 1885.] JAMES THE SECOND. 269 
 
 Exclusionist. He may possibly have been privy to 
 the Whig plot ; but it is certain that he had not been 
 one of the leading conspirators ; for, in the great 
 mass of depositions published by the government, his 
 name occurs only once, and then not in connection 
 with any crime bordering on high treason. From his 
 indictment, and from the scanty account which re- 
 mains of his trial, it seems clear that he was not even 
 accused of participating in the design of murdering the 
 royal brothers. The malignity with which so obscure 
 a man, guilty of so slight an offence, was hunted down, 
 while traitors far more criminal and far more eminent 
 were allowed to ransom themselves by giving evidence 
 against him, seemed to require explanation ; and a dis- 
 graceful explanation was found. When Oates, after 
 his scourging, was carried into Newgate insensible, and, 
 as all thought, in the last agony, he had been bled and 
 his wounds had been dressed by Bateman. This was 
 an offence not to be forgiven. Bateman was arrested 
 and indicted. The witnesses against him were men of 
 infamous character, men, too, who were swearing for 
 their own lives. None of them had yet got his par- 
 don ; and it was a popular saying, that they fished for 
 prey, like tame cormorants, with ropes round their 
 necks. The prisoner, stupified by illness, was unable 
 to articulate or to understand what passed. His son 
 and daughter stood by him at the bar. They read as 
 well as they could some notes which he had set down, 
 and examined his witnesses. It was to little purpose. 
 He was convicted, hanged, and quartered.^ 
 
 Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the 
 
 1 Bateman's Trial in the Collection of State Trials; Sir John Hawles's 
 Remarks. It is worth while to compare Thomas Lee's evidence on thii 
 •ccceion with his confession previously published by authority.
 
 270 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 condition of the Puritans been so deplorable as at that 
 Cruel perse- time. Nevor had soies been SO actively em- 
 
 cutioD of , , . , . . ^ 
 
 theProtes- ployed ui detecting congregations. JNever 
 
 tant Dissent- i j • i • i 
 
 ers. had magistrates, grand jurors, rectors and 
 
 churchwardens been so much on the alert. Many 
 Dissenters were cited before the ecclesiastical courts. 
 Others found it necessary to purchase the connivance 
 of the agents of the government by presents of hogs- 
 heads of wine, and of gloves stuffed with guineas. It 
 was impossible for the separatists to pray together 
 without precautions such as are employed by coiners 
 and receivers of stolen goods. The places of meeting 
 were frequently changed. Worship was performed 
 sometimes just before break of day and sometimes 
 at dead of night. Round the building where the lit- 
 tle flock was gathered sentinels were posted to give 
 the alarm if a stranger drew near. The minister in 
 disguise was introduced through the garden and the 
 back yard. In some houses there were trap doors 
 through which, in case of danger, he might descend. 
 Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, 
 the walls were often broken open, and secret passages 
 were made from dwelling to dwelHng. No psalm was 
 sung ; and many contrivances were used to prevent 
 the voice of the preacher, in his moments of fervour, 
 from being heard beyond the walls. Yet, with all this 
 care, it was often found impossible to elude the vigil- 
 ance of informers. In the suburbs of London, es] e- 
 cially, the law was enforced with the utmost rigour. 
 Several opulent gentlemen were accused of holding 
 conventicles. Their houses were strictly searched, 
 and distresses were levied to the amount of many thou- 
 sands of pounds. The fiercer and bolder sectaries, 
 thus diiven from the shelter of roofs, met in the open
 
 1685.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 271 
 
 air, and determined to repel force by force. A Mid- 
 dlesex justice, who had learned that a nightly prayer 
 meeting was held in a gravel pit about two miles from 
 London, took with him a strong body of constables, 
 broke in upon the assembly, and seized the preacher. 
 But the congregation, which consisted of about two 
 hundred men, soon rescued their pastor, and put the 
 magistrate and his officers to flioht.^ This, how- 
 ever, was no ordinary occui'rence. In general the 
 Puritan spirit seemed to be more effectually cowed at 
 this conjuncture than at any moment before or since. 
 The Tor}'' pamplileteers boasted that not one fanatic 
 dared to move tongue or pen in defence of his religious 
 opinions. Dissenting ministers, however blameless in 
 life, however eminent for learning and abilities, could 
 not venture to walk the streets for fear of outrages, 
 whicli were not only not repressed, but encouraged, by 
 those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Some 
 divines of great fame were in prison. Among these 
 was Richard Baxter. Others, who had, during a quar- 
 ter of a century, borne up against oppression, now lost 
 heart, and quitted the kingdom. Among these was 
 John Howe. Great numbers of persons who had been 
 accustomed to fi-equent conventicles repaired to the 
 parish churches. It was remarked that the schis- 
 matics who had been terrified into this show of con- 
 formity might easily be distinguished by the difficuUy 
 which they had in finding out the collect, and by the 
 awkward manner in which they bowed at the name of 
 Jesus.'-^ 
 
 1 Van Cillers. Ocl. ^|. 1685. 
 
 2 Neal's Ilislory of the I'urilnns, Calamy's Account of the ejected Minis- 
 ters, and the Nonconformists' Mi nioiial, contain aliuiidant proofs of the se- 
 verity of tiiis persecution. Howe's farewell letter to his flock will be found 
 in the interesting life of that great man, by Mr. Rogers. Howe complaim 
 
 VOL. II. 18
 
 272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Througli many years the autumn of 1685 was re- 
 membered by the Nonconformists as a time of misery 
 and terror. Yet in that autumn might be discerned 
 the first faint indications of a great turn of fortune ; 
 and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant 
 King and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding 
 against each other for the support of the party which 
 both had so deeply injured. 
 
 that he could not venture to show himself in the streets of London, and 
 that his health had suffered from want of air and exercise. But the most 
 vivid picture of the distress of the Nonconformists is furnished by their 
 deadly enemy, J»»«traDge, in the Observators of September and October, 
 1686.
 
 1*85.1 JAMES THE SECOND. 278 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 James was now at the height of power and pros- 
 perity. Both in Eno-land and in Scotland lie The power of 
 
 James at the 
 
 had vanquished his enemies, and had pun- height. 
 ished them with a severity which had indeed excited 
 their bitterest hatred, but had, at the same time, effect- 
 ually quelled their courage. The Whig party seemed 
 extinct. The name of Whig was never used except as 
 a term of reproach. The Parliament was devoted to 
 the King ; and it was in his power to keep that Parlia- 
 ment to the end of his reign. The Church was louder 
 than ever in professions of attachment to him, and had, 
 during the late insurrection, acted up to those profes- 
 sions. The Judges were his tools ; and if they ceased 
 to be so, it was in his power to remove them. The 
 corporations were filled with his creatures. His reve- 
 nues far exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride 
 rose high. He was not the same man who, a few 
 months before, in doubt whether his throne might not 
 be overturned in an hour, had implored foreign help 
 with unkingly su])j)lications, and had accepted it with 
 tears of gratitude. Visions of dominion and glory rose 
 before him. He already saw himself, in imagination, 
 the umpire of Europe, the cham])ion of many states 
 oppressed by one too powerful monarchy. So early as 
 the month of June he had assured the United Prov- 
 inces tliat, as soon as the affairs of England were settled, 
 he would show the world how little he feared France. 
 In conformity with these assurances, he, within a month
 
 271 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cb. V\. 
 
 after the battle of Sedjxemoor, concluded with the States 
 General a defensive treaty, framed in the very spirit 
 of the Triple League. It was regarded, both at the 
 Hague and at Versailles, as a most significant circum- 
 stance that Halifax, who was the constant and mortal 
 enemy of French ascendency, and who had scarcely 
 ever before been consulted on any grave affair since the 
 beginning of the reign, took the lead on this occasion, 
 and seemed to have the royal ear. It was a circum- 
 stance not less significant that no previous commiTuica- 
 tion was made to Barillon. Both he and his master 
 were taken by surprise. Lewis was much troubled, 
 and expressed great, and not unreasonable, anxiety as 
 to the ulterior designs of the prince who had lately been 
 his pensioner and vassal. There were strong rumours 
 that William of Orange was busied in organizing a great 
 confederacy, which was to include both branches of the 
 House of Austria, the United Provinces, the kingdom 
 of Sweden, and the electorate of Brandenburg. It now 
 seemed that this confederacy wovild have at its head the 
 King and Parliament of England-^ 
 
 In fact, necrotiations tendino; to such a result were 
 Hisforei<'n actually Opened. Spain proposed to form a 
 policy. close alliance with James ; and he listened to 
 
 the proposition Avith favour, though it was evident that 
 such an alliance would be little less than a declaration 
 of war against France. But he postponed his final de- 
 cision till after the Parliament should have reassembled. 
 The fate of Christendom depended on the temper in 
 which he might then find the Commons. If they were 
 disposed to acquiesce in his plans of domestic govern- 
 ment, there would be nothing to prevent him from in- 
 
 1 Avaux Iseg., Aug. _6 . 1G85; Despatch of Van Citters and his col- 
 leagues, inclosing the treaty, Aug. 14-.; Lewis to Barillon, Aug. 14.- §q-
 
 1«6.] JAMES THE SECOND. 275 
 
 terfering with vigour and authoi*itj in the great dispute 
 which must soon be brouglit to an issue on the Conti 
 nent. If they were refractory, lie must rehnquish all 
 thought of arbitrating between contending nations, must 
 again implore French assistance, must again submit to 
 French dictation, must sink into a potentate of the tliird 
 or fourth class, and must indemnify himself for the con- 
 tempt with which he would be regarded abroad by tri- 
 umphs over law and public opinion at home. 
 
 It seemed, indeed, that it would not be easy for him 
 to demand more than the Commons Avere dis- His plans of 
 posed to give. Already they had abundantly govemment. 
 proved that they were desirous to maintain his prerog- 
 atives unimpaired, and that they were by no means 
 extreme to mark his encroachments on the rio-hts 
 of the people. Indeed, eleven twelfths of the mem- 
 bers were either dependents of the court, or zealous 
 Cavaliers from the country. There were few things 
 which such an assembly could pertinaciously refuse to 
 the Sovereign ; but, happily for the nation, those few 
 things were the very things on which James had set 
 his heart. 
 
 One of his objects was to obtain a repeal of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, which he hated, as it The Habeas 
 was natural that a tyrant should hate the corpus Act. 
 most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on 
 tyranny. This feeling remained dee])ly fixed in his 
 mind to the last, and appears in the instructions which 
 he drew up, in exile, for the guidance of his son.^ But 
 the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed during the as- 
 cendency of the Whigs, was not more dear to the Whigs 
 than to the Tories. It is indeed not wonderful that 
 
 1 Instructions headed, " For my son the Prince of Wales, 1692," in the 
 Stuart Papers.
 
 276 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 tills great law should be highly prized by all English- 
 men without distinction of party : for it is a law which, 
 not by circviitous, but by direct operation, adds to the 
 security and liappiness of every inhabitant of the realm. ^ 
 
 James had yet another design, odious to the party 
 Thestandiug whicli had sct him on the throne and which 
 """y- had upheld him there. He wished to form a 
 
 great standing army. He had taken advantage of the 
 late insurrection to make large additions to the military 
 force which his brother had left. The bodies now des- 
 ignated as the first six regiments of dragoon guards, the 
 third and fourth regiments of dragoons, and the nine 
 regiments of infantry of the line, from the seventh to 
 the fifteenth inclusive, had just been raised.^ The 
 effect of these augmentations, and of the recall of the 
 garrison of Tangier, was that the number of regular 
 troops in England had, in a few months, been increased 
 from six thousand to near twenty thousand. No Eng- 
 lish King had ever, in time of peace, had such a force 
 at his command. Yet even with this force James was 
 not content. He often repeated that no confidence 
 could be placed in the fidelity of the trainbands, that 
 they sympathized with all the passions of the class to 
 which they belonged, that, at Sedgemoor, there had 
 been more militia men in the rebel army than in the 
 royal encampment, and that, if the throne had been de- 
 fended only by the array of the counties, Monmouth 
 would have marched in triumph from Lyme to Lon- 
 don. 
 
 The revenue, large as it was when compared with 
 
 1 " The Habeas Corpus," said Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories, to 
 Boswell, " is the single advantage which our government has over that of 
 other countries " 
 
 '^ See the Historical Records of Regiments, published under the supervia- 
 bn of the Adjutant General.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 277 
 
 that of former Kings, barely sufficed to meet this new 
 charge. A great part of the produce of the new taxes 
 was absorbed by the naval expenditure. At the close 
 of the late reign the whole cost of the army, the Tan- 
 gier regiments included, had been under three hundred 
 thousand pounds a year. Six hundred thousand pounds 
 a year would not now suffice,^ If any further aug- 
 mentation were made, it would be necessary to demand 
 a supply from Parliament ; and it was not likely that 
 Parliament would be in a complying mood. The very 
 name of standing army was hateful to the whole nation, 
 and to no part of tlie nation more hateful than to the 
 Cavalier gentlemen who filled the Lower House. In 
 their minds a standing army was inseparably associated 
 with the Rump, with the Protector, with the spoliation 
 of the Church, with the purgation of the Universities, 
 with the abolition of the peerage, with the murder of 
 the King, with the sullen reign of the Saints, with cant 
 and asceticism, with lines and sequestrations, with the 
 insults which Major Generals, sprung from the dregs of 
 the people, had offered to the oldest and most honour- 
 able flimihes of the kingdom. There was, moreover, 
 scai'cely a baronet or a squire in the Parliament who 
 did not owe part of his importance in his own county 
 to his rank in the militia. If that national force were 
 set aside, the gentry of England must lose much of 
 their dignity and influence. It was therefore probable 
 that the King would Hnd it more difficult to obtain funds 
 .or the sujjpoi't of his army than even to obtain the re- 
 peal of the Habeas Corpus Act. 
 
 1 Barillon, Dec. ^^. 1685. He had studied the subject much. "C'est 
 ui. dc'ttail," he .says, -'doiit j'ai connoi.ssance." It appear.s from the Trea.s- 
 ury Warrant Book that tlie charfre of the army for the year lOvST was fixed 
 on the first of January at 623, 104^. 9s. lid.
 
 278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 But both the designs which have been mentioned 
 Designs in Were Subordinate to one great design on which 
 Ro^anoato" ^hc Kiug's wliole soul was bent, but which 
 ohc religion, ^^^^g abhorred by those Tory gentlemen who 
 were ready to shed their blood for his rights, abhorred 
 by that Church which had never, during three genera- 
 tions of civil discord, wavered in fidelity to his house, 
 abhorred even by that army on which, in the last ex- 
 tremity, he must rely. 
 
 His religion was still under proscription. Many rig- 
 orous laws against Roman Catholics appeared on the 
 Statute Book, and had, within no long time, been rig- 
 orously executed. The Test Act excluded from civil 
 and military office all who dissented from the Church 
 of England ; and, by a subsequent Act, passed when the 
 fictions of Gates had driven the nation wild, it had 
 been provided that no person should sit in either House 
 of Parliament without solemnly abjuring the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation. That the King should wish to 
 obtain for the Church to which he belonged a complete 
 toleration was natural and right ; nor is there any rea- 
 son to doubt that, by a little patience, prudence, and 
 justice, such a toleration might have been obtained. 
 
 The extreme antipathy and dread with which the 
 English people regarded his religion was not to be as- 
 cribed solely or chiefly to theological animosity. That 
 salvation might be found in the Church of Rome, nay, 
 that some members of that Church had been amon^ the 
 brightest examples of Christian virtue, was admitted 
 by all divines of the Anglican communion and by the 
 most illustrious Nonconformists. It is notorious that 
 the penal laws against Popery were strenuously de- 
 fended by many who thought Arianism, Quakerism, 
 and Judaism more dangerous, in a spiritual point of
 
 1«5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 279 
 
 view, than Popery, and who yet showed no disposition 
 to enact similar laws against Avians, Quakers, or Jews. 
 It is easy to explain why the Roman Catholic was 
 treated with less indulo-ence than was shown to men 
 who renounced the doctrine of the Nicene fathers, and 
 even to men who had not been admitted by baptism 
 within the Christian pale. There was among the Eng- 
 lish a strong conviction that the Roman Catholic, where 
 the interests of his relio-ion were concerned, thoucjht 
 himself free from all the ordinary rules of morality, nay, 
 that he thought it meritorious to violate those rules if, 
 by so doing, he could avert injury or reproach from the 
 Church of which he was a member. Nor was this 
 opinion destitute of a show of reason. It was impossi- 
 ble to deny that Roman Catholic casuists of great emi- 
 nence had written in defence of equivocation, of mental 
 reservation, of perjury, and even of assassination. Nor, 
 it was said, had the speculations of this odious school of 
 sophists been barren of results. The massacre of Saint 
 Bartholomew, the murder of the first William of Or- 
 ange, the murder of Henry the Third of France, the 
 numerous conspiracies which had been formed against 
 the life of Elizabeth, and, above all, the gunpowder 
 treason, were constantly cited as instances of the close 
 connection between vicious theory and vicious practice. 
 It was alleged that every one of these crimes had been 
 prompted or api)lauded by Roman Catholic divines. 
 The letters which Everard Digby wrote in lemon juice 
 from the Tower to his wife had recently been published, 
 and were often quoted. He was a scholar and a gen- 
 tleman, upright in all ordinary dealings, and strongly 
 impressed with a sense of duty to God. Yet he had 
 been deeply concerned in the plot for blowing up King, 
 Lords, and Commons, and had, on the brink of eternity,
 
 280 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 declared that it was incomprehensible to him how any 
 Roman Catholic should think such a design sinful. The 
 inference po})ularly drawn from these things was that, 
 however fliir the general character of a Papist might be, 
 there was no excess of fraud or cruelty of which he was 
 not capable when the safety and honour of his Church 
 were at stake. 
 
 The extraordinary success of the fables of Gates is 
 to be chiefly ascribed to the prevalence of this opinion. 
 It was to no purpose that the accused Roman Catholic 
 appealed to the integrity, humanity, and loyalty which 
 he had shown through the whole course of his life. It 
 was to no purpose that he called crowds of respectable 
 witnesses, of his own persuasion, to contradict mon- 
 strous romances invented by the most infamous of man- 
 kind. It was to no pur])ose that, with the halter round 
 his neck, he invoked on himself the whole veno;eance of 
 the God before whom, in a few moments, he must ap- 
 pear, if he had been guilty of meditating any ill to his 
 prince or to his Protestant fellow countrymen. The 
 evidence which he produced in his favour proved only 
 how little Popish oaths were worth. His very virtues 
 raised a presumption of his guilt. That he had before 
 him death and judgment in immediate prospect only 
 made it more likely that he would deny what, without 
 injury to the holiest of causes, he could not confess. 
 Among the unhappy men who were convicted of the 
 murder of Godfrey was one Protestant of no high char- 
 acter, Henry Berry. It is a remai^kable and well at- 
 tested circumstance, that Berry's last words did more to 
 shake the credit of the plot than the dying declarations 
 of all the pious and honourable Roman Catholics who 
 underwent the same fate.^ 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 447.
 
 l«86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 281 
 
 It was not only by the ignorant populace, it was not 
 only by zealots in whom fanaticism had extinguished 
 all reason and charity, that the Roman Catholic was 
 regarded as a man the very tenderness of whose con- 
 science might make him a false Avitness, an incendiary, 
 or a murderer, as a man who, where his Church was 
 concerned, shrank from no atrocity and could be bound 
 by no oath. If there were in that age two persons in- 
 clined by their judgment and by their temper to tol- 
 eration, those persons were Tillotson and Locke. Yet 
 Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of schis- 
 matics and heretics brought on him the I'eproach of 
 heterodoxy, told the House of Commons from the pul- 
 pit that it was their duty to make effectual provision 
 against the propagation of a religion more mischievous 
 that irreligion itself, of a religion which demanded from 
 its followers services directly opposed to the first prin- 
 ciples of morality. His temper, he truly said, was 
 prone to lenity ; but his duty to the community forced 
 him to be, in this one instance, severe. He declared 
 that, in his judgment. Pagans who had never heard 
 the name of Christ, and who were guided only by the 
 light of nature, were more trustworthy members of 
 civil society than men who had been formed in the 
 schools of the P()])ish casuists.^ Locke, in the cele- 
 brated treatise in which lie laboured to show that even 
 the grossest forms of idolatry ought not to be prohibited 
 under penal sanctions, contended that the Church which 
 taught men not to kee]) faith with heretics had no claim 
 to toleration. 2 
 
 It is evident that, in such circumstances, the greatest 
 
 1 Tillotson's Sermon, preached before the House of Commons, Nov i 
 1678. 
 • Locke, First Letter on Toleration.
 
 282 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 service which an Enghsh Roman Catholic could render 
 to his brethren in the faith was to convince the public 
 that, whatever some too subtle theorists might have 
 written, whatever some rash men might, in times of 
 violent excitement, have done, his Church did not hold 
 that any end could sanctify means inconsistent with 
 morality. And this great service it was in the power 
 of James to render. He was King. He was more 
 powerful than any English King had been within the 
 memory of the oldest man. It depended on him 
 whether the reproach which lay on his religion should 
 be taken away or should be made permanent. 
 
 Had he conformed to the laws, had he kept his 
 promises, had he abstained from employing any un- 
 righteous methods for the propagation of his own theo- 
 logical tenets, had he suspended the operation of the 
 penal statutes by a large exercise of his unquestionable 
 prerogative of mercy, but, at the same time, carefully 
 abstained from violating the civil or ecclesiastical con- 
 stitution of the realm, the feeling of his people must 
 have undergone a rapid change. So conspicuous an ex- 
 ample of good faith punctiliously observed by a Popish 
 prince towards a Protestant nation would have quieted 
 the public apprehensions. Men who saw that a Roman 
 Catholic might safely be suffered to direct the whole 
 executive administration, to command the army and 
 navy, to convoke and dissolve the legislature, to appoint 
 the Bishops and Deans of the Church of England, would 
 soon have ceased to fear that any great evil would arise 
 from allowing a Roman Catholic to be captain of a com- 
 pany or alderman of a borough. It is probable that, 
 in a few years, the sect so long detested by the nation 
 would, with general applause, have been admitted to 
 office and to Parliament. 
 
 If, on the other hand, James should attempt to pro-
 
 1«M] JAMES THE SECOND. 288 
 
 mote the interest of his Church by violatino- the ftin- 
 darnental laws of his kingdom and the solemn promises 
 which he had repeatedly made in the face of the whole 
 world, it could hardly be doubted that the charges 
 which it had been the fashion to bring against the 
 Roman Catholic religion would be considered by all 
 Protestants as fully established. For, if ever a Roman 
 Catholic could be expected to keep faith with heretics, 
 James might have been expected to keep faith with the 
 Anglican clergy. To them he owed his crown. But 
 for their strenuous opposition to the Exclusion Bill he 
 would have been a banished man. He had repeatedly 
 and emphatically acknowledged the debt which he 
 owed to them, and had vowed to maintain them in all 
 their legal rights. If he could not be bound by ties 
 like these, it must be evident that, where his supersti- 
 tion was concerned, no tie of gratitude or of honour 
 could bind him. To trust him would thenceforth be 
 impossible ; and, if his people could not trust him, 
 what member of his Church could they trust ? He 
 was not supposed to be constitutionally or habitually 
 treacherous. To his blunt manner, and to his want 
 of consideration for the feelings of others, he owed a 
 much higher reputation for sincerity than he at all de- 
 served. His eulogists affected to call him James the 
 Just. If then it should appear that, in turning Papist, 
 he had also turned dissembler and promise-breaker, 
 what conclusion was likely to be drawn by a nation al- 
 ready disposed to believe that Popery had a pernicious 
 influence on the moral character ? 
 
 For these I'casons many of the most eminent Roman 
 Catholics of that age, and among them the violation of 
 Supremo Pontiff, were of opinion that the "le I'^st Act 
 interest of their Church in our island would be most
 
 284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Oh. VL 
 
 effectually promoted by a moderate and constitutional 
 policy. But such reasoning had no effect on the slow 
 understanding and imperious temper of James. In his 
 eao-erness to remove the disabilities under which the 
 professors of his religion lay, he took a course which 
 convinced the most enlightened and tolerant Protes- 
 tants of his time that those disabilities were essential to 
 the safety of the state. To his policy the English Ro- 
 man Catholics owed three years of lawless and insolent 
 triumph, and a hundred and forty years of subjection 
 and degradation. 
 
 Many members of his Church held commissions in 
 the newly raised regiments. This breach of the law for 
 a time passed uncensured : for men were not disposed 
 to note every irregularity which was committed by a 
 King suddenly called upon to defend his crown and his 
 life asainst rebels. But the danger was now over. The 
 insurgents had been vanquished and punished. Their 
 unsuccessful attempt had strengthened the government 
 which they had hoped to overthrow. Yet still James 
 continued to grant commissions to unqualified persons ; 
 and speedily it was announced that he was determined 
 to be no longer bound by the Test Act, that he hoped 
 to induce the Parliament to repeal that Act, but that, 
 if the Parliament proved refractory, he would not the 
 less have his own way. 
 
 As soon as this was known, a deep murmur, the fore- 
 Disgniceof Tunuer of a tempest, gave him warning that 
 Halifax. ^i-jg spirit bcfore which his grandfather, his 
 father, and his brother had been compelled to recede, 
 though dormant, Avas not extinct. Opposition appeared 
 first in the cabinet. Haliftix did not attempt to conceal 
 his diso-ust and alarm. At the Council board he cour- 
 ag'^ously gave utterance to those feelings which, as it
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 285 
 
 soon appeared, pervaded the whole nation. None of 
 his colleagues seconded him ; and the subject dropped. 
 He was summoned to tlie royal closet, and had two 
 lone conferences with his master. James tried the 
 effect of comphments and blandishments, but to no 
 purpose. Halifax positively refused to promise that 
 lie would give his vote in the House of Lords for the 
 repeal either of the Test Act or of* the Habeas Corpus 
 Act. 
 
 Some of those who were about the King advised him 
 not, on the eve of the meeting of Parliament, to drive 
 the most eloquent and accomplished statesman of the 
 age into opposition. They represented that Halifax 
 loved the dignity of office, that, while he continued to 
 be Lord President, it would be hardly possible for him 
 to put forth his whole strength against the government, 
 and that to dismiss him from his high post was to eman- 
 cipate him from all restraint. The King was peremp- 
 tory. Halifsix was informed that his services were no 
 longer needed ; and his name was struck out of the 
 Council Book.i 
 
 His dismission produced a great sensation not only 
 in England, but also at Paris, at Vienna, and General dis- 
 at the Hague : for it was well known, that <'°"^'''- 
 he had always laboured to counteract the influence 
 exercised by the court of Versailles on English affairs. 
 Lewis expressed great pleasure at the news. The 
 ministers of the United Provinces and of the House of 
 Austria, on the other hand, extolled the wisdom and 
 virtue of the discarded statesman in a manner which 
 gave great offence at Whitehall. James was particu- 
 larly angiy with the secretary of the imperial legation, 
 
 1 Council Book. The erasure ia dated Oct. 21. 1685. Burillou, Oct. I^.
 
 286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 who did not scruple to say that the eminent service 
 which HaKfax had performed in the debate on the 
 Exclusion Bill had been requited with gross ino-rati- 
 tude.i 
 
 It soon became clear that Halifax would have many 
 followers. A portion of the Tories, with their old 
 leader, Danby, at their head, began to hold Whiggish 
 language. Even the prelates hinted that there was a 
 point at which the loyalty due to the prince must yield 
 to higher considerations. The discontent of the chiefs 
 of the army was still more extraordinary and still more 
 formidable. Already began to appear the first symp- 
 toms of that feeling which, three years later, impelled 
 so many officers of high rank to desert the royal stand- 
 ard. Men who had never before had a scruple had 
 on a sudden become strangely scrupulous. Churcliill 
 gentlj^ whispered that the King was going too far. 
 Kirke, just returned from his western butchery, swore 
 to stand by the Protestant religion. Even if he ab- 
 jured the faith in which he had been bred, he would 
 never, he said, become a Papist. He was already be- 
 spoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a 
 solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco to turn 
 Mussulman.^ 
 
 While the nation, agitated by many strong emotions. 
 Persecution lookcd anxiously forward to the reassembling 
 French Hu- of the Houscs, tidings, which increased the 
 guenots. prevailing excitement, arrived from France. 
 
 The long and heroic struggle which the Huguenots 
 had maintained against the French government had 
 
 1 Barillon, n^;^' 1685 ; Lewis to Barillon, ^^7-5; ; Nov. _6,. 
 
 2 There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of the sympfom* 
 of discontent among the Tories in a letter of Halifax to Chesterfield, writ- 
 ten Id October, 1685. Burnet, i. 684.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 287 
 
 been brought to a final close by the ability and vigour 
 of Richelieu. That great statesman vanquished them ; 
 but he confirmed to them the liberty of conscience which 
 had been bestowed on them by the edict of Nantes. 
 They were suffered, under some restraints of no galling 
 kind, to worship God according to their own ritual, 
 and to write in defence of their own docti'ine. They 
 were admissible to political and militarj'^ employment ; 
 nor did their heresy, during a considerable time, prac- 
 tically impede their rise in the world. Some of them 
 commanded the armies of the state ; and otliers pre- 
 sided over important departments of the civil admin- 
 vstration. At length a change took place. Lewis the 
 Fourteenth had, fi'om an early age, regarded the Cal- 
 vinists with an aversion at once religious and political. 
 A.S a zealous Roman Catholic, he detested their theo- 
 logical dogmas. As a prince fond of arbitrary power, 
 he detested those republican theories which were inter- 
 mingled with the Genevese divinity. He gradually 
 retrenched all the privileges which the schismatics 
 enjoyed. He interfered with the education of Protes- 
 tant children, confiscated property bequeathed to Prot- 
 estant consistories, and on frivolous pretexts shut up 
 Protestant churches. The Protestant ministers were 
 harassed by the tax gatherers. The Protestant magis- 
 trates were deprived of the honour of nobility. The 
 Protestant officers of the roj^al liousehold were informed 
 that His Majesty dispensed with their services. Orders 
 were given tliat no Protestant should be admitted into 
 the legal professicm. The oppressed sect showed some 
 faint signs of that spirit which in the preceding century 
 had bidden defiance to the whole power of the House 
 ofValois. Massacres and executions followed. Dra- 
 goons were quartered in the towns where the heretics 
 
 VOL. II. 19
 
 288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cu. VI 
 
 were numerous, and in the country seats of the heretic 
 gentry ; and the cruelty and licentiousness of these rude 
 missionaries was sanctioned or leniently censured by 
 the government. Still, however, the edict of Nantes, 
 though practically violated in its most essential pro- 
 visions, had not been formally rescinded ; and the King 
 repeatedly declared in solemn public acts that he was 
 resolved to maintain it. But the bigots and flatterers 
 who had his ear gave him advice which he was but 
 too willing to take. They represented to him that his 
 rigorous policy had been eminently successful, that 
 little or no resistance had been made to his will, that 
 thousands of Huguenots had already been converted, 
 that, if he would take the one decisive step which yet 
 remained, those who were still obstinate would speedily 
 submit, France would be purged from the taint of 
 heresy, and her prince would have earned a heavenly 
 crown not less gloriovis than that of Saint Lewis. 
 These arguments prevailed. The final blow was 
 struck. The edict of Nantes was revoked ; and a 
 crowd of decrees against the sectaries appeared in 
 rapid succession. Boys and girls were torn from their 
 parents and sent to be educated in convents. All 
 Calvinistic ministers were commanded either to abjure 
 their religion or to quit their country within a fortnight. 
 The other professors of the reformed faith were for- 
 bidden to leave the kingdom ; and, in order to prevent 
 them from making their escape, the outports and fron- 
 tiers were strictly guarded. It was thought that the 
 flocks, thus separated from the evil shepherds, would 
 soon return to the true fold. But in spite of all the 
 vigilance of the military police there was a vast emi- 
 gration. It was calculated that, in a few months, 
 fifty thousand families quitted France for ever. Nor
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 289 
 
 were the refugees sucli as a country can well spare. 
 Tliey were generally persons of intelligent minds, of 
 industrious habits, and of austere morals. In the list 
 are to be found names eminent in war, in science, in 
 literature, and in art. Some of the exiles offered their 
 swords to William of Orano;e, and distino-uished them- 
 selves by the fury with which they fought against their 
 persecutor. Others avenged themselves with weapons 
 still more formidable, and, by means of the presses 
 of Holland, England, and Germany, inflamed, dur- 
 ing thirty years, the public mind of Europe against 
 the French government. A more peaceful class erect- 
 ed silk manufactories in the eastern suburb of Lon- 
 don. One detachment of emiirrants tauirht the Sax- 
 ons to make the stuffs and hats of which France had 
 hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another planted the 
 first vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good 
 Hope.^ 
 
 In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of 
 Rome would have eagerly applauded a prince who had 
 made vigorous war on heresy. But such was the 
 hatred inspired by the injustice and haughtiness of 
 Lewis that, when he became a persecutor, the courts 
 of Spain and Rome took the side of religious liberty, 
 and loudly reprobated the cruelty of turning a savajre 
 and licentious soldiery loose on an mioffending people.^ 
 One cry of grief and rage rose fi'om the whole of Prot- 
 
 1 The contemporaiy tracts in various lan^uaj^es on the subject of this 
 |.ersccution are iiMHiiiRT.ible. An cniineiitly clear, terse, and spirited sum- 
 mary will be found in Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XFV. 
 
 ■•' " Misionarios cm()otadoR,'* says Ronquillo. " Apostoli armati," says 
 Innocent. There is, in the Mackintosh Collection, a remarkable letter on 
 this .subject from Ronquillo, dated ^'^"^^j '^' 1686. See Venier, Relatione 
 -Ji Francia, 1689, quoted by Professor Ranke in his Romischen Papste 
 book viii.
 
 290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Oh. VI. 
 
 estant Europe. The tidings of the revocation of the 
 edict of Nantes reached England about a week before 
 the day to which the Parhament stood adjourned. It 
 was clear then that the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva 
 was still the s])irit of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 Lewis was not inferior to James in generosity and hu- 
 manity, and was certainly far superior to James in all 
 the abilities and acquirements of a statesman. Lewis 
 had, like James, repeatedly promised to respect the 
 privileges of his Protestant subjects. Yet Lewis was 
 now avowedly a persecutor of the reformed religion. 
 What reason was there, then, to doubt that James 
 waited only for an opportunity to follow the example ? 
 He was already forming, in defiance of the law, a mili- 
 taxy force officered to a great extent by Roman Cath- 
 olics. Was there anything unreasonable in the appre- 
 hension that this force might be employed to do what 
 the French dragoons had done ? 
 
 James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects 
 E£fectofthat by the couduct of the court of Versailles. 
 {^England. In truth, that court had acted as if it had 
 meant to embarrass and annoy him. He was about 
 to ask from a Protestant legislature a full toleration for 
 Roman Catholics. Nothing, therefore, could be more 
 unwelcome to him than the intelligence that, in a 
 neighbouring country, toleration had just been with- 
 drawn by a Roman Catholic government from Prot- 
 estants. His vexation was increased by a speech which 
 the Bishop of Valence, in the name of the Galilean 
 clergy, addressed at this time to Lewis the Fourteenth. 
 The pious Sovereign of England, the orator said, looked 
 to the most Clu-istian King for support against a he- 
 retical nation. It was remarked that the members of 
 the House of Commons showed particular anxiety to
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 291 
 
 procure copies of this harangue, and that it was read 
 bv all Eno;lishmen with indiiination and alarm. ^ James 
 was desirous to counteract the impression which these 
 things had made, and was also at that moment by no 
 means unwilling to let all Europe see that he was not 
 the slave of" France. He therefore declared publicly 
 that he disapproved of the manner in which the Hu- 
 guenots had been treated, granted to the exiles some 
 relief from his privy purse, and, by letters under his 
 great seal, invited his subjects to imitate his liber- 
 ality. In a very few months it became clear that all 
 this compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajol- 
 ing his Parliament, that he regarded the refugees 
 with mortal hatred, and that he regretted nothing 
 so much as his oAvn inability to do what Lewis had 
 done. 
 
 On the ninth of November the Houses met. The 
 Commons were summoned to the bar of the Meeting of 
 Lords ; and tlu; King spoke from the throne. fp^J'i^tiofthe 
 His speech had been composed by himself ^°^' 
 Pie congratulated his loving subjects on the suppression 
 of the rebellion in the West: but he added that the 
 speed with which that rebellion had risen to a formida- 
 ble height, and the length of time during which it had 
 continued to rage, must convince all men how little 
 dependence could be placed on the militia. He had, 
 therelbre, made additions to the regular army. Plie 
 chai'ge of that army would henceforth be more than 
 double of what it had been ; and he trusted that the 
 Commons would grant him the means of defraying the 
 increased exi)ense. He then informed his hearers that 
 
 1 " Mi dicono die tiitti qiicsli parlamciitarii iie hanno voluto copia, il 
 che assolutamente avrii causato pessiine imprcssioni." — Adda, Nov. JL. 
 1685. See Evelyn'a Diary, Nov. 3.
 
 292 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii VL 
 
 he had employed some officers who had not taken the 
 test ; but he knew these officers to be fit for pubhc 
 trust. He feared that artful men miVht avail them- 
 selves of this irregularity to disturb the harmony which 
 existed between himself and his Parliament. But he 
 would speak out. He was determined not to part with 
 servants on whose fidelity he could rely, and whose help 
 he might perhaps soon need.^ 
 
 This explicit declaration that he had broken the laws 
 An opposition which wcrc regarded by the nation as the 
 m^^o^ """ chief safeguards of the established religion, 
 Commons. j^j^j ^]-,^^ j-^g ^^^ rcsolvcd to pcrsist in break- 
 ing those laws, was not likely to sooth the excited 
 feelings of his subjects. The Lords, seldom disposed 
 to take the lead in opposition to a government, con- 
 sented to vote him formal thanks for what he had said. 
 But the Commons were in a less complying mood. 
 When they had returned to their own House there 
 was a long silence ; and the faces of many of the most 
 respectable members expressed deep concern. At 
 length Middleton rose and moved the House to go in- 
 stantly into committee on the King's speech : but Sir 
 Edmund Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who 
 was supposed to speak the sentiments of Danby, pro- 
 tested against this course, and demanded time for con- 
 sideration. Sir Thomas Claro-es, maternal uncle of 
 the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished in Par- 
 liament as a man of business and a vigilant steward of 
 the public money, took the same side. The feeling of 
 the House could not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, insisted that the delay 
 should not exceed forty-eight hours ; but he was over- 
 
 * Lords' Journals, Nov. 9. 1685. " Vengo assicurato," says Adda, " clM 
 S. M. stessa abbia composto il discorso." — Despatch of Nov. ^. 1686.
 
 W85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 293 
 
 ruled ; and it was resolved that the discussion should 
 be postponed for three dajs.^ 
 
 The interval was well employed by those who took 
 the lead against the court. They had indeed no light 
 work to perform. In three days a country party was 
 to be organized. The difficulty of the task is in our 
 age not easily to be appreciated ; for in our age all the 
 nation assists at every deliberation of the Lords and 
 Commons. What is said by the leaders of the min- 
 istry and of the opposition after midnight is read by 
 the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of 
 Northumberland and Cornwall in the afternoon, and 
 in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland on the 
 morrow. In our age, therefore, the stages of legis- 
 lation, the rules of debate, the tactics of fliction, the 
 opinions, temper, and style of every active member of 
 either House, are famihar to hundreds of thousands. 
 Every man who now enters Parliament possesses what, 
 in the seventeenth century, would have been called a 
 great stock of parliamentary knowledge. Such knowl- 
 edge was then to be obtained only by actual parlia- 
 mentary service. The difference between an old and a 
 new member Avas as great as the difference between a 
 veteran soldier and a recruit just taken from the plough ; 
 and James's Parliament contained a most unusual pro- 
 portion of new members, who had brought from their 
 country seats to Westminster no political knowledge 
 and many violent prejudices. These gentlemen hated 
 the Papists, but hated the Whigs not less intensely, and 
 regarded the King with superstitious veneration. To 
 form an opposition out of such materials was a feat 
 
 1 Commons' Journals; Bramston's Memoirs; James Van Leouwen to 
 ihe States General, Nov. ^^. 1685. Van Leeuwen was secretary of the 
 Dutch embassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of Van 
 Citters. As to Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98.
 
 294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cm. VI 
 
 which required the most skilful and delicate manage- 
 ment. Some men of great weight, however, undertook 
 the work, and performed it with success. Several ex- 
 perienced Whig politicians, who had not seats in that 
 Parliament, gave useful advice and information. On 
 the day preceding that which had been fixed for the 
 debate, man^^ meetings were held at which the leaders 
 instructed the novices ; and it soon appeared that these 
 exertions had not been thrown awaj.^ 
 
 The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was 
 Sentiments well uudcrstood that a few days would now 
 
 of foreign i • i i • i i i • 
 
 governments, accidc the great question, whether the King 
 of England was or was not to be the vassal of the King 
 of France. The ministers of the House of Austria were 
 most anxious that James should give satisfaction to his 
 Parliament. Innocent had sent to London two persons 
 charged to inculcate moderation, both by admonition 
 and by examj)le. One of them was John Leybiirn, an 
 English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal 
 Howard, and who, with some learning and a rich vein 
 of natural humour, was the most cautious, dexterous, 
 and taciturn of men. He had recently been conse- 
 crated Bishop of Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apos- 
 tolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an 
 Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and 
 courtly manners, had been appointed Nuncio. These 
 functionaries were eagerly welcomed by James. No 
 Roman Catholic Bishop had exercised spiritual functions 
 in the island during more than half a century. No 
 Nuncio had been received here durinsi; the hundred and 
 twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the death 
 of Mary. Ley burn was lodged in Whitehall, and re- 
 ceived a pension of a thousand pounds a year. Adda 
 
 1 Barillon, Nov. ^. 1685.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 295 
 
 did not yet assume a public character. He passed for 
 a foreigner of rank whom curiosity had brought to Lon- 
 don, appeared daily at court, and was treated with high 
 consideration. Both the Papal emissaries did their best 
 to diminish, as much as possible, the odium iuseparable 
 from the offices which they filled, and to restrain the 
 rash zeal of James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared 
 that nothing could be more injurious to the interests of 
 the Church of Rome than a rupture between the King 
 and the Parliament.^ 
 
 Barillon was active on the other side. The instruc- 
 tions which he received from Versailles on this occasion 
 well deserve to be studied ; for they furnish a key to 
 the policy systematically pursued by his master towards 
 England during the twenty years which preceded our 
 revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, 
 ■were alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there 
 that James would ally himself closely with the House 
 of Austria, as soon as he should be assured that his 
 Parliament would give him no trouble. In these cir- 
 cumstances, it was evidently the interest of France that 
 the Parliament should prove refractory. Barillon was 
 therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions 
 against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he 
 was to omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious 
 zeal and the kingly pride of James ; but at the same 
 time it might be desirable to have some secret connnu- 
 nication with the malecontents. Such communication 
 
 >■ Dodd's Church History, Van Leeuwen, Nov. 11. 1685; Barillon, Dec. 
 24. 1085. Barillon says of Adda, "On I'avoit fait pii'venir que lasurett^et 
 I'avaiitage dt's Catholiqucs coiisistoient dans uiic ri'iiiiion entiere de sa Ma- 
 jesty Hritannique et de .son parleinent." Letters of Innocent to .James, dated 
 ^~-' and y!'— ^''^^' I'^^spa'^^^'ies of Adda, Nov. ^^. and Nov. ^g, 1085. 
 'lie very interesting correspondence of Adda, copied from the i'apal ar- 
 Uuves, is iu the British Museum.
 
 296 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 would indeed be hazardous and would require the ut- 
 most adroitness ; yet it might perhaps be in the power 
 of the Ambassador, without committing himself or his 
 government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for 
 the laws and liberties of England, and to let it be un- 
 derstood that those laws and liberties were not regarded 
 by his master with an unfriendly eye.^ 
 
 Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not 
 Committee forcsce how spcedilv and how completely his 
 
 of the Com- , i i i i i i i • 
 
 nions on the uueasuiess woulcl DC removecl by the obstmacy 
 
 King's . . 
 
 speech. and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of 
 
 November the House of Commons resolved itself into a 
 committee on the royal speech. The Solicitor General, 
 Heneage Finch, was in the chair. The debate was 
 conducted by the chiefs of the new country party with 
 rare tact and address. No expression indicating dis- 
 respect to the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels was 
 suffered to escape. The Western insurrection was al- 
 ways mentioned with abhorrence. Nothing was said of 
 the barbarities of Kirke and Jeffreys. It was admitted 
 that the heavy expenditure which had been occasioned 
 by the late troubles justified the King in asking some 
 further supply : but strong objections were made to the 
 augmentation of the army and to the infraction of the 
 Test Act. 
 
 The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to 
 have carefully avoided. They harangued, however, 
 with some force on the great superiority of a regular 
 army to a militia. One of them tauntingly asked 
 whether the defence of the kingdom was to be en- 
 trusted to the beefeaters. Another said that he should 
 be glad to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who 
 
 1 This most remarkable despatch bears date the ^^th of November 1685 
 and will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 297 
 
 had iled in confusion before Monmouth's scytheinen, 
 would have faced the household troops of Lewis. But 
 these arguments had little effect on Cavaliers who still 
 remembered with bitterness the stern rule of the Pro- 
 tector. The general feeling was forcibly expressed bj 
 the first of the Tory country gentlemen of Encrland, 
 Edward Seymour. He admitted that the militia was 
 not in a satisfactory state, but maintained that it might 
 be remodelled. The remodelling might require money ; 
 but, for his own part, he would rather give a million to 
 keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear, than 
 half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever 
 be afraid. Let the trainbands be disciplined ; let the 
 navy be strengthened ; and the country would be se- 
 cure. A standing army was at best a mere drain on the 
 public resources. The soldier was withdrawn from all 
 useful labour. He produced nothing : he consumed the 
 fruits of the industry of other men ; and he domineered 
 over those by whom he was supported. But the nation 
 was now threatened, not only with a standing army, 
 but with a Popish standing army, with a standing army 
 officered by men who might be very amiable and lion 
 ourable, but who were on principle enemies to the 
 constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden, mem- 
 ber for the county of Kent, spoke on the same side 
 with great keenness and loud applause. Sir Richard 
 Tem|)le, one of the few Whigs who had a seat in that 
 Parliament, dexterously accommodating his speech to 
 the temper of his audience, reminded the House that a 
 standing army had been found, by experience, to be as 
 dangerous to the just authority of princes as to the 
 Aberty of nations. Sir John ^laynard, the most learned 
 lawyer of his time, took part in the debate. He was 
 now mor-r than eighty years old, and could well re-
 
 298 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. TL 
 
 member tlie political contests of the reign of James the 
 First. He had sate in the Long Parliament, and had 
 taken part with the Roundheads, hut had always been 
 for lenient counsels, and had laboured to brine; about 
 a general reconciliation. His abilities, which ao-e had 
 not impaired, and his professional knowledge, which had 
 long overawed all Westminster Hall, commanded the 
 ear of the House of Commons. He, too, declared him- 
 self against the augmentation of the regular forces. 
 
 After much debate, it was resolved that a supply 
 should be granted to the crown ; but it was also re- 
 solved that a bill should be brought in for makino- the 
 militia more efficient. This last resolution was tanta- 
 mount to a declaration against the standing army. The 
 King was greatly displeased ; and it was whispered that, 
 if things went on thus, the session would not be of long 
 duration.^ 
 
 On the morrow the contention was renewed. The 
 language of the country party was perceptibly bolder 
 and sharper than on the preceding day. That para- 
 graph of the King's speech which related to supply pre- 
 ceded the paragraph which related to the test. On this 
 ground Middleton proposed that the paragraph relating 
 to supply should be first considered in committee. The 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, Nov. 12. 1685; Van Leeuwen, Nov. 1|-. ; Barillon, 
 Nov. 1^. ; Sir Jolin Braniston's Memoirs. The best report of the debates of 
 the Commons in November, 1685, is one of which the historj'- is somewhat 
 curious. There are two manuscript copies of it in the British Museum, Harl. 
 7187. ; Lans. 253. In these copies the names of the speakers are given at 
 length. The author of the Life of James published in 1702 transcribed 
 this report, but gave only the initials of the speakers. The editors of Chand- 
 ler's Debates and of the Parliamentary History guessed from these initials 
 at the names, and sometimes guessed wrong. They ascribe to Waller a 
 very remarkable speech, which will hereafter be mentioned, and which was 
 really made by Windham, member for Salisbury. It was with some con- 
 cern that I found myself forced to give up the belief that the last words ut« 
 tered in public by Waller were so honourable to him.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 299 
 
 opposition moved the previous question. They con- 
 tended that the reasonable and constitutional practice 
 was to grant no money till grievances had been re- 
 dressed, and that thei'e would be an end of this practice 
 if the House thought itself bound servileh- to follow the 
 order in which matters were mentioned by the King 
 from the throne. 
 
 The division was taken on the question whether 
 Middleton's motion should be put. The Noes were 
 ordered by the Speaker to go forth into the lobby. 
 They resented this much, and complained loudly of his 
 servility and partiality : for they conceived that, accord- 
 ing to the intricate and subtle rule which was then in 
 force, and which, in our time, was superseded by a 
 more rational and convenient practice, they were en- 
 titled to keep their seats ; and it was held by all the 
 parliamentary tacticians of that age that the party 
 which staved in the House had an advantao;e over the 
 party which went oxxt ; for the accommodation on the 
 benches was then so deficient that no person who had 
 been fortunate enoufrh to get a o-ood seat was willinii to 
 lose it. Nevertheless, to the dismay of the ministers, 
 many persons on whose votes the court had absolutely 
 depended were seen moving towards the door. Among 
 them was Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, and 
 son of Sir Stephen Fox, Clerk of the Green Cloth. 
 The Paymaster had been induced by his friends to 
 absent himself during part of the discussion. But his 
 anxiety had become insupportable. He came down to 
 the Speaker's chamber, heard part of the debate, with- 
 drew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between 
 conscience and five thousand pounds a year, took a 
 manly resolution and rushed into the House just in 
 time to vote. Two officers of the army, Colonel John
 
 SOO HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cw. VI. 
 
 Darcy, son of the Lord Conyers, and Captain James 
 Kendall, withdrew to the lobby. Middleton went 
 down to the bar and ex])ostulated warmly with them. 
 He particularly addressed himself to Kendall, a needy 
 retainer of the court, who had, in obedience to the 
 royal mandate, been sent to Parhament by a packed 
 corporation in Cornwall, and who had recently obtamed 
 a grant of a hundred head of rebels sentenced to trans- 
 portation. "Sir," said Middleton, "have not you a 
 troop of horse in His Majesty's service ? " " Yes, my 
 Lord," answered Kendall : " but my elder brother is 
 just dead, and has left me seven hundred a year." 
 
 When the tellers had done their office it appeared 
 Defeat of the tluxt the Aycs wcre one hundred and eighty- 
 government. ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^ Noes ouc hundred and eighty- 
 three. In that House of Commons which had been 
 brought together by the unscrupulous use of chicanery, 
 of corruption, and of violence, in that House of Com- 
 mons of which James had said that more than eleven 
 twelfths of the members were such as he would him- 
 self have nominated, the court had sustained a defeat 
 on a vital question.^ 
 
 In consequence of this vote the expressions which the 
 King had used respecting the test were taken into con- 
 sideration. It was resolved, after much discussion, 
 tluit an address should be presented to him, reminding 
 him that he could not legally continue to employ offi- 
 cers who refused to quality, and pressing him to give 
 snch directions as might quiet the apprehensions and 
 jealousies of his people.^ 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, Nor. 13. 1G85; Bramston's Memoirs; Reresby's 
 ]\ri'moirs; Barilkm, Nov. ^|.; Van Leeuwen, Nov. 1|. ; Meinoir.s of Sir 
 Sli-|)lien Vox, 1717; The Case of the Church of England iairl\' stated, 
 Burnet, i. 666. and Speaker Onslow's note. 
 
 2 Commons' Journals, Nov. 1C85; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS. 253.
 
 l«86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 301 
 
 A motion was tlien made that the Lords should be 
 requested to join in the address. Whether this motion 
 was honestly made by the opposition, in the hope that 
 the concurrence of the peers would add weight to the 
 remonstrance, or artfully made by the courtiers, in the 
 hope that a breach between the Houses might be the 
 consequence, it is now impossible to discover. The 
 proposition was rejected.^ 
 
 The House then resolved itself into a committee, for 
 the purpose of considering the amount of supply to be 
 granted. The King wanted fourteen hundred thousand 
 pounds : but the ministers saw that it would be vain 
 to ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer mentioned twelve hundred thousand pounds. 
 The chiefs of the opposition replied that to vote for 
 such a grant would be to vote for the permanence of 
 the present military establishment : they were disposed 
 to give only so much as might suffice to keep the 
 regular troops on foot till the militia could be remod- 
 elled ; and they therefore proposed four hundred thou- 
 sand pounds. The courtiers exclaimed against this 
 
 1 The conflict of testimony on this subject is most extraordinary; and, af- 
 ter long consideration, I must own tiiat the balance seems to me to be exact- 
 ly poised. In the Life of James (1702), the motion is represented as a court 
 motion. This account is confirmed hy a remarkable passap;e in tlic Stuart 
 Papers, which was corrected by the Pretender himself. (Clarke's Life of 
 .Tames the Second, ii. 55.) On the otlier hand, Reresby, who was present, 
 and Harillon, who oujjht to have be(;n well informed, represent the motion 
 as an opposition motion. The Ilarleian and Lansdowne manuscripts dilTi'r 
 in the sinfjle word on which the wliole depends. Unfortunately Bramston 
 was not at the House that day. James Van Leeuwen mentions the motion 
 and the division, but does not aild a word which can throw the smallest 
 lij^ht on the state of parties. I must own myself unable to draw with cim- 
 fidence any inference from the mimes 9f the tellers. Sir Joseph Williamson 
 and Sir Francis Rus.sell for the majority, and Lord Ancram and Sir Henry 
 (toodricke for the minority. I siiould have thonj^ht Lord .\ncram likely 
 to po with the court, and Sir Henry Goodricke likely to go with the opiw- 
 sition.
 
 302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cn. VT 
 
 motion as unworthy of the House and disrespectful to 
 the King;: but thev were manfullv encountered. One 
 of the western members, John Windham, wlio sate 
 for Sahsbury, especially distinguished himself. He had 
 always, he said, looked with dread and aversion on 
 standing, armies ; and recent experience had strength- 
 ened those feelino-s. He then ventured to touch on a 
 theme which had hitherto been studiously avoided. 
 He described the desolation of the western counties. 
 The people, he said, were weary of the oppression of 
 the troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of 
 still fouler crimes which the law called felonies, but 
 for which, when perpetrated by this class of felons, no 
 redress could be obtained. The King's servants had 
 indeed told the House that excellent lailes had been 
 laid down for the government of the army ; but none 
 could venture to say that these rules had been ob- 
 served. What, then, was the inevitable inference? 
 Did not the contrast between the paternal injunctions 
 issued from the throne and the insupportable tyranny 
 of the soldiers prove that the army was even now too 
 strong for the prince as well as for the people ? The 
 Commons might surely, with perfect consistency, while 
 they reposed entire confidence in the intentions of His 
 Majesty, refuse to make any addition to a force which 
 it was clear that His Majesty could not manage. 
 
 The motion that the sum to be granted should not 
 Second de- cxcced four hundred thousand pounds, was 
 government, lost by twelvc votcs. This victory of the 
 ministers was little better than a defeat. The leaders 
 of the country party, nothing disheartened, retreated 
 a little, made another stand, and proposed the sum 
 of seven hundred thousand pounds. The committee 
 divided again, and the courtiers were beaten by two
 
 1688.] JAMES THE SECOND. 303 
 
 hundred and twelve votes to one hundred and sev- 
 enty.^ 
 
 On the following day the Commons went in pro- 
 cession to Whitehall with their address on The King 
 the subject of the test. The King receiv- IZ!^^^ 
 ed them on his throne. The address was ™°°®" 
 drawn up in respectful and affectionate language ; 
 for the great majority of those who had voted for it 
 were zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and had 
 readily agreed to insert some complimentary phrases, 
 and to omit every word which the courtiers thought 
 offensive. The answer of James was a cold and sullen 
 reprimand. He declared himself greatly displeased 
 and amazed that the Commons should have profited so 
 little by the admonition which he had given them. 
 " But," said he, " however you may proceed on your 
 part, I will be very steady in all the promises which I 
 have made to you." ^ 
 
 The Commons reassembled in their chamber, dis- 
 contented, yet somewhat overawed. To most of them 
 the King was still an object of filial reverence. Three 
 moi'e years iilled with bitter injuries, and with not less 
 bitter insults, were scarcely sufficient to dissolve the 
 ties which hound the Cavalier gentry to the throne. 
 
 The Speaker repeated the substance of the King's 
 reply. There was, for some time, a solemn stillness ; 
 then the order of the day was read in regular course ; 
 and the House wont into committee on the bill for re- 
 modelliu": the militia. 
 
 In a few hours, however, the spirit of the opposition 
 revived. When, at the close of the day, the Speaker 
 
 » Commons' Jonrnala, Nov. 16. 1085; Ilarl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS. 236. 
 « Commons' Journals, Nov. 17, 13. 1685. 
 vol,. II. 20
 
 304 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 resumed the chair, Wharton, tlie boldest and most 
 Coke com- active of the Whigs, proposed that a time 
 Se Com- should bo appointed for taking His Majesty's 
 respecMo'"' <i"swer ijito Consideration. John Coke, mem- 
 theKing. j^^.j. f^j, Derby, though a noted Tory, sec- 
 onded W^harton. " I hope," he said, "that we are all 
 Englishmen, and that we shall not be frightened from 
 our duty by a few high words." 
 
 It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole 
 House was in a tempest. " Take down his words," 
 " To the bar," " To the Tower," resounded from 
 every side. Those who were most lenient proposed 
 that the offender should be repx'imanded : but the min- 
 isters vehemently insisted that he should be sent to 
 prison. The House might pardon, they said, offences 
 committed against itself, but had no I'ight to pardon 
 an insult offered to the crown. Coke was sent to the 
 Tower. The indiscretion of one man had deranged 
 the whole system of tactics which had been so ably 
 concerted by the chiefs of the opposition. It was in 
 vain that, at that moment, Edward Seymour attempted 
 to rally his followers, exhorted them to fix a day for 
 discussing the King's answer, and expressed his confi- 
 dence that the discussion would be conducted with the 
 respect due from subjects to the sovereign. The mem- 
 bers were so much cowed by the royal displeasure, and 
 so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, that it 
 would not have been safe to divide.^ 
 
 The House adjourned ; and the ministers flattered 
 themselves that the spirit of opposition was quelled. 
 But on the morrow, the nineteenth of November, new 
 and alarming symptoms appeared. The time had ar- 
 
 1 Commons' Journals, Nov. 18. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS. 253.; 
 Bumet, i. 667.
 
 1685.] JAMES THE SECOND. 305 
 
 rived for taking into consideration the petitions which 
 had been presented from all parts of England against 
 the late elections. When, on the first meetino; of the 
 Parliament, Seymour had complained of the force and 
 fraud by which the government had prevented the 
 sense of constituent bodies from being fairly taken, he 
 had found no seconder. But many who had then 
 flinched from his side had subsequently taken heart, 
 and, with Sir John Lowther, member for Cumberland, 
 at their head, had, before the recess, suggested that 
 there ought to be an inquiry into the abuses which had 
 so much excited the public mind. The House was 
 now in a much more angry temper; and many voices 
 were boldly raised in menace and accusation. The 
 ministers were told that the nation expected, and should 
 have, signal redress. Meanwhile it was dexterously 
 intimated that the best atonement which a gentleman 
 who had been brought into the House by irregular 
 means could make to the public was to use his ill ac- 
 quired power in defence of the religion and liberties 
 of his country. No member who, in that crisis, did 
 his duty had anything to fear. It might be necessary 
 to unseat him ; but the whole influence of the opposi- 
 tion should be employed to procure his reelection.^ 
 
 On the same day it became clear that the spirit of 
 opposition had spread from the Commons to opposition 
 the Lords, and even to the episcopal bench. ^„'n,entln 
 William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took ThVi"aH^of 
 the lead in the Upper House ; and he was »«^""«'"-^«- 
 
 1 Lonsdale'fe Memoirs. Burnet tells us (i. 667.) that a sharp debate about 
 eWctions took jvlai'e in tho House of Commons aller Coke's committal. 
 It must thcrefoic liave bi'en on the 19th of November; for Coke was roni- 
 mitti-d late on the 18ih, and the I'arliament was prorofjued on the 20th. 
 Burnet's narrative is coiilirmed by the Journals, from whiclj it appears 
 that several eWctions were under discussion on the lOth.
 
 306 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 well qualified to do so. Tn wealth and influence he 
 was second to none of the English nobles ; and the 
 general voice designated him as the finest gentleman 
 of his time. His magnificence, his taste, his talents, 
 his classical learning, his high spirit, the grace and ur- 
 banity of his manners, were admitted by his enemies. 
 His eulogists, unhappily, could not pretend that his 
 morals had escaped untainted from the widespread con- 
 tagion of that age. Though an enemy of Popery and 
 of arbitrary power, he had been averse to extreme 
 courses, had been willing, when the Exclusion Bill 
 was lost, to agree to a compromise, and had never been 
 concerned in the illegal and imprudent schemes which 
 had brought discredit on the Whig party. But, while 
 blaming part of the conduct of his friends, he had not 
 failed to perform zealously the most arduous and peril- 
 ous duties of friendship. He had stood near Russell 
 at the bar, had parted from him on the sad morning 
 of the execution with close embraces and with many 
 bitter tears, nay, had offered to manage an escajie at 
 the hazard of his own life.^ This great nobleman 
 now proposed that a day should be fixed for consid- 
 ering the royal speech. It was contended, on the 
 other side, that the Lords, by voting thanks for the 
 speech, had precluded themselves from complaining of 
 it. But this objection was treated with contempt by 
 Halifax. " Such thanks," he said with the sarcastic 
 pleasantry in which he excelled, " imply no approba- 
 ti(m. We are thankful whenever our gracious Sover- 
 eign deigns to speak to us. Especially thankful are 
 we when, as on the present occasion, he speaks out, 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 560.; Funeral Sermon of the Duke of Devonshire, preached 
 by Kennet, 1708; Travels of Cosmo III. in England; The Hazard of a 
 
 Death-bed Repentance argued from the Remorse of Conscience of W , 
 
 late U of I) , when dvint;;, a most absurd pamphlet by John Dufi- 
 
 toii \\hich reached a tenth edition.
 
 Ifia5.] JAMES THE SECOND. 307 
 
 t 
 
 and ffives us fair Avarnino; of what wc are to siif- 
 fer." 1 Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of London, spoke 
 strongly for the motion. Though not gffted The Bishop 
 with eminent abihties, nor deeply versed in the 
 learning of his profession, he was always heard by the 
 House with respect ; for he was one of the few clergy- 
 men who could, in that age, boast of noble blood. His 
 own loyalty, and the loyalty of his family, had been 
 signally proved. His father, the second Earl of North- 
 ampton, had fought bravely for King Charles the First, 
 and, surrounded by the parliamentary soldiers, had 
 fallen, sword in hand, refusing to give or take quarter. 
 The Bishop himself, before he was ordained, had borne 
 arms in the Guards ; and, though he generally did his 
 best to preserve the gravity and sobriety befitting a 
 prelate, some flashes of his mihtary spirit would, to the 
 last, occasionally break forth. He had been entrusted 
 with the relio-ious education of the two Princesses, and 
 had acquitted himself of that important duty in a man- 
 ner which had satisfied all good Protestants, and had 
 secured to him considerable influence over the minds of 
 his pupils, especially of the Lady Anne.^ He now de- 
 clared that he was empowered to speak the sense of his 
 brethren, and that, in their opinion and in his own, the 
 whole civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm 
 was in danger. 
 
 One of the most remarkable speeches of that day 
 was made by a young man, Avhose eccentric viscom.t 
 career was destined to amaze Europe. This ""•■''•'"»'■ 
 was Charles Mordaunt, Viscount jNIordaunt, widely re- 
 nowned, many yeai-s later, as Earl of Peterborough. 
 
 1 Bramston's Memoirs. liuniet is iiicorroct ixith as to the time when the 
 remark was iiinde and ;is tn the (lerson who made it. In Ilalil'a.x's Letter 
 to a Dissenter will be found a roniarlcablc allusion to this discussion. 
 
 ' Wood, Ath. Ox. ; Gooch's Funeral Sermon on Bishop Compton
 
 308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 t 
 
 Already lie had given abundant proofs of liis courage, 
 of his capacity, and of that strange unsoundness of mind 
 which made his courage and capacity almost useless to 
 his country. Already he had distinguished himself 
 as a wit and a scliohxr, as a soldier and a sailor. He 
 had even set his heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and 
 Bossuet. Though an avowed freethinker, he had sate 
 up all night at sea to compose sei-mons, and had with 
 great difficulty been prevented from edifying the crew 
 of a man of war with his pious oratory.' He now ad- 
 dressed the House of Peers, for the first time, with 
 characteristic eloquence, sprightliness, and audacity. 
 He blamed the Commons for not having taken a bolder 
 line. " They have been afraid," he said, " to speak 
 out. They have talked of apprehensions and jealousies. 
 What have apprehension and jealousy to do here ? Ap- 
 prehension and jealousy are the feelings with which we 
 regard future and uncertain evils. The evil which we 
 are considering is neither future nor uncertain. A 
 standing army exists. It is officered by Papists. We 
 have no foreign enemy. There is no rebelUon in the 
 land. For what, then, is this force maintained, except 
 for the purpose of subverting our laws and establishing 
 that arbitrary power which is so justly abhorred by 
 Englishmen ?"^ 
 
 1 Teonge's Diary. 
 
 2 Barillon has given the best account of this debate. I will extract his 
 report of Mordaunt's speech. " Milord Mordaunt, quoique jeune, pnrla 
 avec Eloquence et force. II dit que la question n'c'toit pas r^duite, comme 
 la Chambre des Communes le prtiteiidoit, a guerir des jalousies et defiances, 
 qui avoieiit lieu dans les choses incertaines; mais que ce qui ce passoit 
 
 e r^toit pas, qn'il y avoit une annee sur pied qui subsistoit, et qui 
 etoit remplie d'otticiers Catholiques, qui ne pouvoit etre conserv^e que 
 pour le renversement des loix, et que la subsistance de Tarmee, quand 
 il n'y a aucune guerre ni au dedans ni au dehors, (5toit I'cJtablissement 
 du gouvernement arbitraire, pour lequel les Anglois out une aversion <u 
 bien fondee."
 
 1885.] JAMES THE SECOND. 309 
 
 Jeffi'eys spoke against the motion in the coarse and 
 savage style of which he was a master ; but he soon 
 found that it was not quite so easy to browbeat the 
 proud and powerful barons of England in their own 
 hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended 
 on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at liis 
 mercy. A man whose life had been passed in attack- 
 ing and domineering, whatever may be his talents and 
 courage, generally makes a poor figure when he is 
 vigorously assailed : for, being unaccustomed to stand 
 on the defensive, he becomes confused ; and the knowl- 
 edge that all those whom he has insulted are enjoying 
 his confusion confuses him still more. Jeffreys was 
 now, for the first time since he had become a great 
 man, encountered on equal terms by adversaries who 
 did not fear him. To the general delight, he passed 
 at once from the extreme of insolence to the extreme 
 of meanness, and could not refrain from weeping with 
 rage and vexation.^ Nothing indeed was wanting to 
 his humiliation ; for the House was crowded by about 
 a hundred peers, a larger nimiber than had voted even 
 on the great day of the Exclusion Bill. The King, too, 
 was present. His brother had been in the habit of at- 
 tending the sittings of the Lords for amusement, and 
 used often to say that a debate was as entertaining as 
 a comedy. James came, not to be diverted, but in the 
 hope that his presence might impose some restraint on 
 the discussion. He was disappointed. The sense of 
 the House was so strongly manifested that, after a clos- 
 
 1 He was ven' easily moved to tears. " He could not," saj's the author 
 of the Panet:3Tic, " rel'niin from weeping on bold aH'roiits." And again: 
 '• They talk of his hectoring and proud carriage; what could he more hum- 
 ble than for a man in his great post to crj- and sob?" In the answer to 
 the Panegyric it is said that " his having no command of his tears spoiled 
 bim for a hypocrite."
 
 810 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 ing speech, of great keenness, from Halifax, tlie courtiers 
 did not venture to divide. An early day was fixed for 
 taking the royal speech into consideration ; and it was 
 ordered that every peer who was in or near the capital 
 should be in his place. ^ 
 
 On the following morning the King came down, in 
 his robes, to the House of Lords. The Usher 
 of the Black Rod summoned the Commons 
 to the bar ; and the Chancellor announced that the 
 Parliament was prorogued to the tenth of February.^ 
 The members who had voted a2:ainst the court were 
 dismissed from the public service. Charles Fox quitted 
 the Pay Office. The Bishop of London ceased to be 
 Dean of the Chapel Royal, and his name was struck 
 out of the list of Privy Councillors. 
 
 The effect of the prorogation was to put an end to 
 a legal proceeding of the highest importance. Thomas 
 Grey, Earl of Stamford, sprung from one of the most 
 illustrious houses of England, had been recently ar- 
 rested and committed close prisoner to the Tower on a 
 charge of high treason. He was accused of having 
 been concerned in the Rye House Plot. A true bill 
 had been found against him by the grand jury of the 
 City of London, and had been removed into the House 
 of Lords, the only court before which a temporal peer 
 can, during a session of Parliament, be arraigned for 
 any offence higher than a misdemeanour. Tiie first of 
 December had been fixed for the trial ; and orders had 
 
 1 Lords' Journals, Nov. 19. 1685; Barillon, ^°'''^-.; Dutch Despatch, 
 Nov. f^. ; Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 19.; Burnet, i. 665. The closing speech 
 of Halifax is mentioned by the Nuncio in his despatch of Nov. il. Adda, 
 about a month later, bears strong testimony to Halifax's powers. 
 
 " Da questo uomo che ha gran credito nel parlamento, e grande elo- 
 quenza, non si possono attendere che fiere contradizioni, e nel partito Regio 
 non vi e un uomo da contrapporsi." Dec. 31. 
 
 2 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Nov. 20. 1685.
 
 M85.] JAMES THE SECOND. 311 
 
 been given that Westminster Hall should be fitted up 
 with seats and hangings. In consequence of the pro- 
 rogation, the hearing of the cause was postponed for 
 an indefinite period ; and Stamford soon regained his 
 liberty.^ 
 
 Three other Whigs of great eminence were in con- 
 finement when the session closed, Charles Gerard, Lord 
 Gerard of Brandon, eldest son of the Earl of Maccles- 
 field, John Hampden, grandson of the renowned leader 
 of the Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord Dela- 
 mere. Gerard and Hampden were accused of having 
 taken part in the Rye House Plot : Delamere of hav- 
 ing; abetted the Western insurrection. 
 
 It was not the intention of the government to put 
 either Gerard or Hampden to death. Grey Tnaisof 
 had stipulated for their lives before he con- ^dof'""'^'"'* 
 sented to become a witness ao-ainst them.^ Hampden. 
 But there was a still stronger reason for sparing them. 
 They were heirs to large property : but their fathers 
 were still living. The court could therefore get little 
 in the way of forfeiture, and migiit get much in the 
 way of ransom. Gerard was tried, and, from tlie very 
 scanty accounts which have come down to us, seems to 
 have defended himself with great sj)irit and force. He 
 boasted of the exertions and sacrifices made by his fam- 
 ily in the cause of Charles the First, and proved Rum- 
 soy, the witness who had murdered Russell by telling 
 one story and Cornish by telling anotlier, to be utterly 
 undeserving of credit. The jury, witli some hesitation, 
 found a verdict of Guilty. After long imprisonment 
 Gerard was suffered to redeem himself.^ Hampden 
 
 1 Lords' Journals, Nov. 11. 17, 18. 1(185. 
 
 2 Burnet, i. 646. 
 
 • Braraston'a Memoirs; Luttrell's Diary.
 
 312 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch.VI 
 
 had inherited the political opinions and a large share 
 of the abilities of his grandfather, but had degenerated 
 from the uprightness and the courage by which his 
 grandfather had been distinguished. It appears that 
 the prisoner was, with cruel cunning, long kept in an 
 agony of suspense, in order that his family might be in- 
 duced to pay largely for mercy. His spirit sank under 
 the terrors of death. When brought to the bar of the 
 Old Bailey he not only pleaded guilty, but disgraced 
 the illustrious name which he bore by abject submis- 
 sions and entreaties. He protested that he had not 
 been privy to the design of assassination ; but he owned 
 that he had meditated rebellion, professed deep re- 
 pentance for his offence, implored the intercession of 
 the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal clemency were 
 extended to him, his whole life should be passed in 
 evincing his gratitude for such goodness. The Whigs 
 were furious at his pusillanimity, and loudly declared 
 him to be far more deserving of blame than Grey, who, 
 even in turning King's evidence, had preserved a cer- 
 tain decorum. Hampden's life was spared ; but his 
 family paid several thousand pounds to the Chancellor. 
 Some courtiers of less note succeeded in extortino- 
 smaller sums. The unhappy man had spirit enough to 
 feel keenly the degradation to which he had stooped. 
 He survived the day of his ignominy several years. He 
 lived to see his party triumphant, to be once more an 
 important member of it, and to make his persecutors 
 tremble in their turn. But his prosperity was embit- 
 tered by one insu])portable recollection. He never re- 
 gained his cheerfulness, and at length died by his own 
 hand.' 
 
 1 See the trial in the Collection of State Trials; Bramston's Memoirs; 
 Burnet, i. 647.; Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689.
 
 1«86-] JAMES THE SECOND. 318 
 
 That Delamere, if he had needed the royal mercy, 
 would have found it is not very probable. It iriniofDeia 
 is certain that eveiT advantao;e which the let- "'""'■ 
 ter of tlie law gave to the government was used against 
 him Avithout scruple or shame. He was in a difierent 
 situation fi'om that in which Stamford stood. The in- 
 dictment against Stamford had been removed into the 
 House of Lords during the session of Parliame^it, and 
 therefore could not be prosecuted till the Parliament 
 should reassemble. All the peers would then have 
 voices, and would be judges as well of law as of fact. 
 But the bill against Delamere was not found till after 
 the prorogation.^ He was therefore within the juris- 
 diction of the Court to which belongs, durino- a recess 
 of Parliament, the cognizance of treasons and felonies 
 committed by temporal peers ; and this Court was 
 then so constituted that no prisoner charged with a 
 political offence coukl expect an impartial trial. The 
 King named a Lord High Steward. The Lord Higli 
 Steward named, at his discretion, certain peers to sit 
 on their accused brother. The number to be sum- 
 moned was indefinite. No challeno;e was allowed. 
 A simple majority, provided that it consisted of twelve, 
 was sufficient to convict. The Hio;h Steward was 
 sole judge of the law ; and the Lords Triers formed 
 merely a jury to pronounce on the question of fact. 
 Jeffi-eys was appointed High Steward. He selected 
 thirty Triers ; and the selection was characteristic of 
 the man and of the times. All the thirty were in ])oh'- 
 tics vehemently opposed to the prisoner. Fifteen of 
 them were colonels of regiments, and might be removed 
 from their lucrative commands at the pleasure of the 
 King. Among the remaining fifteen were the Lord 
 1 Lords' Journals, Nov. 9, 10. 16. 1685.
 
 814 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 Treasurer, the principal Secretary of State., the Steward 
 of the Houseliold, the Comi)troller of the Household, 
 tlie Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, the 
 Queen's Chamberlain, and other persons who were 
 bound by strong ties of interest to the government. 
 Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages 
 over the humbler culpi'its who had been arraigned at 
 the Okl Bailey. There the jurymen, violent partisans, 
 taken for a single day by courtly Sheriffs from the mass 
 of society and speedily sent back to mingle with that 
 mass, wer'^ under no restraint of shame, and being little 
 accustomed to weigh evidence, followed without scruple 
 the directions of the bench. But in the High Steward's 
 Court every Ti-ier was a man of some experience in 
 grave affairs. Every Trier filled a considerable space 
 in the public eye. Every Trier, beginning from the 
 lowest, had to rise separately and to give in his verdict, 
 on his honour, before a great concourse. That verdict, 
 accompanied with his name, would go to every part of 
 the world, and would live in history. Moreover, though 
 the selected nobles were all Tories, and almost all place- 
 men, many of them had begun to look with uneasiness 
 on the King's proceedings, and to doubt whether the 
 case of Delamere might not soon be their own. 
 
 Jeffreys conducted himself, as was his wont, inso- 
 lently and unjustly. He had indeed an old grudge to 
 stimulate his zeal. He had been Chief Justice of Ches- 
 ter when Delamere, then Mr. Booth, represented that 
 county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly complained 
 to the Commons that the dearest interests of his con- 
 stituents were intrusted to a drunken jackpudding.^ 
 The revengeful judge was now not ashamed to resort 
 
 * Speech on the Corruption of the Judges in Lord Delamere's work^ 
 1694.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 315 
 
 to artifices whicli even in an advocate would have been 
 culpable. He reminded the Lords Triers, in very sig- 
 nificant lano-uase, that Delamere had, in Parliament, 
 objected to the bill for attainting Monmouth, a fact 
 which was not, and could not be, in evidence. But it 
 was not in the power of JeftVeys to overawe a synod of 
 ])eers as lie had been in the habit of overawing common 
 juries. The evidence for the crown would probably 
 have been thought amply sufficient on the Western 
 Circuit or at the City Sessions, but could not for a 
 moment impose on such men as Rochester, Godolphin, 
 and Churchill ; nor were they, with all their faults, 
 dej)raved enough to condemn a fellow creature to death 
 against the plainest rules of justice. Grey, Wade, and 
 Goodenough were produced, but could only repeat what 
 they had heard said by Monmouth and by Wildman's 
 emissaries. The principal witness for the prosecution, 
 a miscreant named Saxton, who had been concerned in 
 tlie rebellion, and who was now labouring to earn his 
 jjardon by swearing against all who were obnoxious to 
 the gov^ernment, was proved by overwhelming evidence 
 to have told a series of falsehoods. All the Triers, from 
 Churchill who, as junior baron, spoke first, up to the 
 Treasurer, pronounced, on their honour, that Delamere 
 was not guilty. The gravity and pomp of the whole 
 proceeding made a deep impression even on the Nun- 
 cio, accustomed as he was to the ceremonies of Rome, 
 ceremonies which, in solemnity and splendour, exceed 
 all that the rest of the world can show.^ The King, 
 who was present, and was unable to complain of a 
 decision evidently just, went into a rage with Saxton, 
 and vowed that the wretch should first bo pilloried 
 
 * Fu una funzione picna di gravita, di ordine, e di graii fipecioaitk. 
 Adda, Jan. i-^. 1G86.
 
 316 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 before Westminster Hall for perjury, and then sent 
 down to the West to be hanged, drawn, and quartered 
 for treason.^ 
 
 The public joy at the acquittal of Delamere was 
 Effect of his great. The reign of terror was over. The 
 acquittal. innoccut bcgau to breathe freely, and false 
 accusers to tremble. One letter written on this occa- 
 sion is scarcely to be read without tears. The widow 
 of Russell, in her retirement, learned the good news 
 with mingled feelings. " I do bless God," she wrote, 
 " that he has caused some stop to be put to the shedding 
 of blood in this poor land. Yet when I should rejoice 
 with them that do rejoice, I seek a corner to weep in. 
 I find I am capable of no more gladness ; but every 
 new circumstance, the very comparing my night of 
 sorrow after such a day, with theirs of joy, does, from 
 a reflection of one kind or another, rack my uneasy 
 mind. Though I am far from wishing the close of theirs 
 like mine, yet I cannot refrain giving some time to la- 
 ment mine Avas not like theirs." ^ 
 
 And now the tide was on the turn. The death of 
 Stafford, witnessed with signs of tenderness and re- 
 morse by the populace to whose rage he was sacrificed, 
 marks the close of one proscription. The acquittal of 
 Delamere marks the close of another. The crimes 
 which had disgraced the stormy tribuneship of Shaftes- 
 bury had been fearfully expiated. The blood of inno- 
 cent Papists had been avenged more than tenfold by 
 tlie blood of zealous Protestants. Another great reac- 
 tion had commenced. Factions were fast taking new 
 forms. Old allies were separating. Old enemies were 
 
 18 
 
 57. 
 
 1 The Trial is in the Collection of State Trials. Van Leeuwen, Jan 44 
 \ 1686. 
 
 2 Lady Russell to Dr. Fltzwilliain, Jan. 15. 1686.
 
 1«W.] JAMES THE SECOND. 317 
 
 uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through all the 
 ranks of the party lately dominant. A hope, still in- 
 deed faint and indefinite, of victory and revenge, ani- 
 mated the party which had lately seemed to be extinct. 
 With such omens the eventful and troubled year 1G85 
 terminated, and the year 1686 began. 
 
 The j)rorogation had relieved the King from the gen- 
 tle remonstrances of tiie Houses : but he had parties in 
 still to listen to remonstrances, similar in sub- t"^*^ '■""''• 
 stance, though uttered in a tone even more cautious and 
 subdued. Some men who had hitherto served him but 
 too strenuously for their own fame and for the public 
 welfare had begun to feel painful misgivings, and occa- 
 sionally ventured to hint a small part of what they felt. 
 
 During many years the zeal of the English Tory for 
 hereditary monarchy and his zeal for the es- Feeling of 
 tablished religion had grown up together and tant Tories. 
 had strengthened each other. It had never occurred 
 to him that the two sentiments, which seemed insepa- 
 rable and even identical, might one day be found to be 
 not only distinct but incompatible. From the com- 
 mencement of the strife between the Stuarts and the 
 Commons, the cause of the crown and the cause of the 
 hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one. Charles the 
 First was regarded by the Church as her own martyr. 
 If Charles the Second had plotted against her, he had 
 plotted in secret. In public he had ever professed him- 
 self her grateful and devoted son, had knelt at her 
 altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had succeeded 
 in persuading the great body of her adherents that he 
 lelt a sincere preference for her. Whatever conflicts, 
 therefore, the honest Cavalier miglit have had to main- 
 tain against Whigs and Roundheads, he had at least 
 been hitherto undisturbed by conflict in his own mind.
 
 318 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. TI. 
 
 He had seen the path of duty plain before him. 
 Through good and evil he was to be true to Church 
 and King. But, if those two august and venerable 
 powers, which had hitherto seemed to be so closely- 
 connected that those who were true to one could not 
 be false to the other, should be divided by a deadly 
 enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take ? 
 What situation could be more trying than that of a 
 man distracted between two duties equally sacred, be- 
 tween two affections equally ardent ? How was he to 
 give to Csesar all that was Caesar's, and yet to with- 
 hold from God no part of what was God's ? None who 
 felt thus could have watched, without deep concern 
 and gloomy forebodings, the dispute between the King 
 and the Parliament on the subject of the test. If 
 James could even now be induced to reconsider his 
 course, to let the Houses reassemble, and to comply 
 with their wishes, all might yet be well. 
 
 Such were the sentiments of the King's two kins- 
 men, the Earls of Clarendon and Rochester. The 
 power and favour of these noblemen seemed to be great 
 indeed. The younger brother was Lord Treasurer and 
 prime minister ; and the elder, after holding the Privy 
 Seal during some months, had been appointed Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland. The venerable Ormond took the 
 same side. Middleton and Preston, who, as managers 
 of the House of Commons, had recently learned by 
 proof how dear the established religion was to the loyal 
 gentry of England, were also for moderate counsels. 
 
 At the very beginning of the new year these states- 
 men and the great party w^hich they represented had to 
 suffer a cruel mortification. That the late King had 
 been at heart a. Roman Catholic had been, during some 
 months, suspected and whispered, but not formally an-
 
 168«.] JAMES THE SECOND. 319 
 
 nonnced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be made 
 without great scandal. Charles had, times without 
 number, declared himself a Protestant, and had been 
 in the habit of receivino- the Eucharist from the Bish- 
 ops. Those churchmen who had stood by him in 
 his difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate 
 remembrance of him, must be filled with shame and 
 indignation by learning that his whole life had been 
 a lie, that, while he professed to belong to their com- 
 munion, he had really regarded them as heretics, 
 and that the demagogues who had represented him 
 as a concealed Papist had been the only people who 
 had formed a correct judgment of his character. Even 
 Lewis understood enough of the state of public feeling 
 in England to be aware that the divulging of tlie truth 
 
 o too 
 
 might do harm, and had, of his own accord, prom- 
 ised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret.^ 
 James, while his power was still new, had thought that 
 on this point it was advisable to be cautious, and had 
 not ventured to inter his brother with the rites of the 
 Church of Rome. For a time, therefore, every man 
 was at liberty to believe what he wished. The Pa])ists 
 claimed the deceased prince as their proselyte. The 
 Whigs execrated him as a hypocrite and a renegade. 
 The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy as a 
 calumny which Papists and Wliigs had, for very differ- 
 ent reasons, a common interest in circulating. James 
 now took a step which greatly disconcerted Publication 
 
 1 1 I A 1 • n^ .of i)ap(>rs 
 
 tlie wliole Anglican party, iwo papers, m found in the 
 
 ... 1 !• .1 • 1 xl Strong' 1. OX 
 
 which were set forth very concisely tlie argu- of chaiics ir. 
 ments ordinarily used by Roman Catholics against 
 Protestants, had been found in Charles's strong box, 
 and appeared to be in iiis handwriting. These papers 
 
 1 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. ^a. 1G86. 
 
 VOL. II. 21
 
 820 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 James showed triumphantly to several Protestants, 
 and declared that, to his knowledge, his brother had 
 lived and died a Roman Catholic.^ One of the per- 
 sons to whom the manuscripts were exhibited was 
 Archbishop Sancroft. He read them with much emo- 
 tion, and remained silent. Such silence was only 
 the natural effect of a struggle between respect and 
 vexation. But James supposed that the Primate was 
 struck dumb by the irresistible force of reason, and 
 eagerly challenged his Grace to produce, with the help 
 of the whole episcopal bench, a satisfactory reply. 
 " Let me have a solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike 
 style ; and it may have the effect which you so much 
 desire of binnging me over to your Church." The 
 Archbishop mildly said that, in his opinion, such an 
 answer might, without much difficulty, be written, but 
 declined the controversy on the plea of reverence for the 
 memory of his deceased master. This plea the King 
 considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished disputant.^ 
 Had His Majesty been well acquainted with the polem- 
 ical literature of the preceding century and a half, he 
 would have known that the documents to which he 
 attached so much value might have been composed by 
 any lad of fifteen in the college of Douay, and con- 
 tained nothing which had not, in the opinion of all 
 Protestant divines, been ten thousand times refuted. 
 In his ignorant exultation he ordered these tracts to be 
 printed with the utmost pomp of typography, and ap- 
 pended to them a declaration attested by his sign 
 manual, and certifying that the originals were in his 
 brother's own hand. James himself distributed the 
 whole edition among his courtiers and among the peo- 
 
 1 Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 2. 1685. 
 
 2 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 9., Orlg. Mem.
 
 16SG.] JAMES THE SECOND. 321 
 
 pie of humbler rank who ci'owded round his coach. 
 He gave one copy to a young woman of mean condition 
 whom he supposed to be of his own religious persuasion, 
 and assured her that she would be greatly edified and 
 comforted by the perusal. In requital of his kindness 
 she delivered to him, a few days later, an epistle ad- 
 juring him to come out of the mystical Babylon and to 
 dash from his lips the cup of fornications.^ 
 
 These things gave great uneasiness to Tory church- 
 men. Nor were the most respectable Roman Feeling of 
 Catholic noblemen much better pleased. They aMe"T<miau 
 might indeed have been excused if passion had, ^•'^''''"'"=^- 
 at this conjuncture, made them deaf to the voice of pm- 
 dence and justice : for they had suffered much. Prot- 
 estant jealousy had degraded tiiem from the rank to 
 which they were born, had closed the doors of the Par- 
 liament House on the heirs of barons who had sioned 
 the Charter, had pronounced the command of a com- 
 ])any of foot too high a trust for the descendants of the 
 generals who had conquered at Flodden and Saint Qucn- 
 tin. There was scarcely one eminent peer attached to 
 the old faith whose honour, whose estate, whose life 
 had not been in jeopardy, who had not passed months 
 in the Tower, who had not often anticipated for him- 
 self the fate of Stiiff'ord. Men who had been so lone 
 and cruelly o})pressed might have been pardoned if they 
 had eagerly seized the first opportunity of obtaining at 
 once greatness and revenge. But neither fanaticism 
 nor ambition, neither resentment for past wrongs nor 
 the intoxication produced by sudden good fortune, could 
 prevent the most distinguished Roman Catholics from 
 
 1 Van l.eeiiwen, .Ian. l . and it. 1C8G. Her letter, though very lonjr 
 *n(l very absurd, was thouglit worth sending to the States General as a 
 sign ul (he times.
 
 822 HISTORY OF ENCxLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 ])erceiving that the prosperity which they at length en- 
 joyed was only temporary, and, unless wisely used, 
 might be fatal to them. They had been taught, by a 
 cruel expex'ience, that the antipathy of the nation to 
 their religion was not a fancy which would yield to the 
 mandate of a prince, but a profound sentiment, the 
 growth of five generations, diffused through all ranks 
 and parties, and intertwined not less closely with the 
 principles of the Tory than with the principles of the 
 Whig. It was indeed in the power of the King, by the 
 exercise of his prerogative of mercy, to suspend the 
 operation of the penal laws. It might hereafter be in 
 his power, by discreet management, to obtain from the 
 Parliament a repeal of the acts which imposed civil dis- 
 abilities on those who professed his religion. But, if 
 he attempted to subdue the Protestant feeling of Eng- 
 land by rude means, it was easy to see that the violent 
 compression of so powerful and elastic a spring would 
 be followed by as violent a recoil. The Roman Catho- 
 lic peers, by prematurely attempting to force their way 
 into the Privy Council and the House of Lords, might 
 lose their mansions and their ample estates, and might 
 end their lives as traitors on Tower Hill, or as beggars 
 at the porches of Italian convents. 
 
 Such was the feeling of William Herbert, Earl of 
 Powis, who was generally regarded as the chief of the 
 Roman Catholic aristocracy, and who, according to 
 Gates, was to have been prime minister if the Popish 
 plot had succeeded. John Lord Bellasyse took the 
 same view of the state of affairs. In his youth he had 
 fought gallantly for Charles the First, had been re- 
 warded after the Restoration with high honours and 
 commands, and had quitted them when the Test Act 
 was passed. With these distinguished leaders all the
 
 I 
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 323 
 
 noblest and most opulent members of their church con- 
 curred, except Lord Arundell of Wardour, an old man 
 fast smkino; into second childhood. 
 
 But there was at the court a small knot of Roman 
 Catholics whose hearts had been ulcerated by c^abai of vio- 
 old injuries, whose heads had been turned by catiaoiics. 
 recent elevation, who were impatient to climb to the 
 highest honours of the state, and who, having little to 
 lose, were not troubled by thoughts of the day of reck- 
 oning. One of these was Roger Palmer, Eai'l 
 of Castelmaine in Ireland, and husband of the 
 Duchess of Cleveland. His title had notoriously been 
 purchased by his wife's dishonour and his own. His 
 fortune was small. His temi)er, naturally ungentle, 
 had been exasperated by his domestic vexations, by the 
 public reproaches, and by what he had undergone in 
 the days of the Popish plot. He had been long a pris- 
 oner, and had at length been tried for his life. Ha])- 
 pily for him, he was not put to the bar till the hrst 
 burst of popular rage had spent itself, and till the credit 
 of the false witnesses had been blown upon. He had 
 therefore escaped, though very narrowly.^ With Cas- 
 telmaine was allied one of the most favoured 
 of his wife's hundred lovers, Henry Jennyn, 
 whom James had lately created a peer by the title of 
 Lord Dover. Jermyn had been distinguished more 
 than twenty years before by his vagrant amours and 
 his desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, and 
 was eager to retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of 
 lucrative posts from which the laAvs excluded him.^ 
 
 ^ See his trial in the Collection of State Trials, and his curious manifesto, 
 printed in 1681. 
 
 2 Mdmoires de Grammont; Pepys's Diary, Aug. 19. 1602. Bonrcpaux to 
 Seignelay, Feb. ^l^. 1686.
 
 324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 To the same party belonged an intriguing pushing 
 Irishman named White, who had been much 
 
 White. 
 
 abroad, who had served the House of Aus- 
 tria as sometliing between an envoy and a spy, and who 
 had been rewarded for his services with the title of 
 Marquess of Albeville.^ 
 
 Soon after the prox'ogation this reckless faction was 
 
 strengthened by an important reinforcement. 
 
 Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, the fiercest 
 
 and most uncompromising of all those who hated the 
 
 liberties and religion of England, arrived at court from 
 
 Dublin. 
 
 Talbot was descended from an old Norman family 
 which had been long settled in Leinster, which had 
 there sunk into degeneracy, which had adopted the 
 manners of the Celts, which had, like the Celts, ad- 
 hered to the old religion, and which had taken part 
 with the Celts in the rebellion of 1641. In his youth 
 he had been one of the most noted sharpers and bul- 
 lies of London. He had been introduced to Charles 
 and James when they were exiles in Flanders, as a man 
 fit and ready for the infamous service of assassinating 
 the Protector. Soon after the Restoration, Talbot at- 
 tempted to obtain the favour of the royal family by a 
 service more infamous still, A plea was wanted which 
 might ju.stify the Duke of York in breaking that prom- 
 ise of marriage by which he had obtained from Anne 
 Hyde the last proof of female affection. Such a plea 
 Talbot, in concert with some of his dissolute compan- 
 ions, undertook to furnish. They agreed to describe 
 the poor young lady as a creature without virtue, shame, 
 or delicacy, and made up long romances about tender 
 interviews and stolen favours. Talbot in particular 
 1 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Feb. -ij.. 1686.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 825 
 
 related how, in one of his secret visits to lier, he had 
 unluckily overturned the Chancellor's inkstand upon 
 a pile of papers, and how cleverly she had averted a 
 discovery by laying the blame of the accident on her 
 monkey. These stories, which, if they had been true, 
 would never have passed the lips of any but the basest 
 of mankind, were pure inventions. Talbot was soon 
 forced to own that they were so ; and he owned it 
 Mathout a blush. The injured lady became Duchess 
 of York. Had her husband been a man really upright 
 and honourable, he would have driven from his presence 
 with indignation and contempt the wretches who had 
 slandered her. But one of the peculiarities of James's 
 character was that no act, however wicked and shame- 
 ful, which had been prompted by a desire to gain his 
 favour, ever seemed to him deserving of chsapprobation. 
 Talbot continued to frequent the court, appeared daily 
 with brazen front before the princess whose ruin he 
 had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of 
 chief pandar to her husband. In no long time White- 
 hall was thrown into confusion by the news that Dick 
 Talbot, as he was commonly called, had laid a plan to 
 murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo was sent to 
 the Tower : but in a few days he was again swaggering 
 about the galleries, and carrying billets backward and 
 forward between his j)atron and the ugliest maids of 
 honour. It was in vain that old and discreet counsel- 
 lors implored the royal brothers not to countenance this 
 bad man, who had nothing to recommend him excej^t 
 liis fine person and his taste in dress. Talbot was not 
 oidy welcome at the palace when the bottle or the dice- 
 box was ffoino; round, but was heard with attention on 
 matters of business. He affected the character of an 
 Irish patriot, and pleaded, with great audacity, and some-
 
 326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 times with success, the cause of his countrymen whose 
 estates had been confiscated. He took cai'e, however, 
 to be well paid for his services, and succeeded in ac- 
 quiring, partly by the sale of his influence, partly by 
 gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three 
 thousand pounds a year. For under an outward show 
 of levity, profusion, improvidence, and eccentric im- 
 pudence, he was in truth one of the most mercenary 
 and crafty of mankind. He was now no longer young, 
 and was expiating by severe svifferings the dissolute- 
 ness of his youth : but age and disease had made no 
 essential change in his character and manners. He 
 still, whenever he opened his mouth, ranted, cursed and 
 swore with such frantic violence that superficial observ- 
 ers set him down for the wildest of libertines. The 
 multitude was unable to conceive that a man who, even 
 when sober, was more furious and boastful than others 
 when they were drunk, and who seemed utterly inca- 
 pable of disguising any emotion or keeping any secret, 
 could really be a coldhearted, farsighted, scheming 
 sycophant. Yet such a man was Talbot. In truth his 
 hypocrisy was of a fiir higher and rarer sort than the 
 hypocrisy which had flourished in Barebone's Parlia- 
 ment. For the consummate hypocrite is not he wh(? 
 conceals vice behind the semblance of virtue, but he 
 who makes the vice which he has no objection to show 
 a stalking horse to cover darker and more profit<ible 
 ^^ce which it is for his interest to hide. 
 
 Talbot, raised by James to the earldom of Tyrconnel, 
 had commanded the troops in Ireland during the nine 
 months which elapsed between the termination of the 
 viceroyalty of Ormond and the commencement of the 
 viceroyalty of Clarendon. When the new Lord Lieu- 
 tenant was about to leave London for Dublin, the Gen-
 
 1C86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 327 
 
 eral was summoned from Dublin to London. Dick 
 Talbot had long been well known on the road which 
 he had now to travel. Between Chester and the capi- 
 tal there was not an inn where he had not been in a 
 brawl. He was now more insolent and turbulent tiian 
 ever. He pressed horses in defiance of law, swore at 
 the cooks and postilions, and almost raised mobs by his 
 insolent rodomontades. The Refox-mation, he told the 
 people, had ruined everything. But fine times were 
 coming. The Catholics would soon be uppermost. 
 The heretics should pay for all. Raving and blas- 
 j)iieming incessantly, like a demoniac, he came to the 
 court.^ As soon as he was there, he allied himself 
 closely with Castelmaine, Dover, and Albeville. These 
 men called with one voice for war on the constitution 
 of the Church and the State. They told their master 
 that he owed it to his I'eligion and to the dignity of 
 his crown to stand firm against the outcry of heretical 
 demaoooues, and exhorted him to let the Parliament 
 see from the first that he would be master in spite of 
 <)l)position, and that the oidy effect of opposition would 
 be to make him a hard master. 
 
 Each of the two parties into which the court Avas 
 divided had zealous foreign allies. The min- FepUnj^of 
 
 /» o • PI V-i • 1 p 1 the ministers 
 
 isters of Spam, of the Lmpu'e, and of the offonitju 
 
 . goTL-rn- 
 
 States General were now as anxious to sup- ments. 
 port Rochester as they had formerly been to sujiport 
 Vlalifax. All the niffuence of Barillon was employed 
 on the other side ; and Barillon was assisted by an- 
 other French agent, inferior to him in station, but 
 superior in abilities, Bonrepaux. Barillon was not 
 
 1 M^moircs dc Grainmont ; l-ilV dl Kilwanl, l!ail of ClaiXMidon ; Cone- 
 hpondence of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, /J'iss/w, particularly the letter dated 
 Dec. 29. 1685; Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers; Ellis Correspond- 
 ence, Jan. 12. 1686.
 
 828 HISTORY OF EXGLAN]). |Cii. VI 
 
 without parts, and possessed in larr^e measure the 
 graces and accomphshments which then distinguislied 
 the French gentry. But his capacity was scarcely 
 equal to what his great place required. He had be- 
 come sluggish and self indulgent, liked the pleasures 
 of society and of the table better than business, and 
 on great emergencies generally waited for admoni- 
 tions and even for reprimands from Versailles before 
 he showed much activity.^ Bonrepaux had raised 
 himself from obscurity by the inteUigence and indus- 
 try which he had exhibited as a clerk in the depart- 
 ment of the marine, and was esteemed an adept in 
 the mystery of mercantile politics. At the close of 
 the year 1685, he was sent to London, charged with 
 several special commissions of high importance. He 
 was to lay the ground for a treaty of commerce ; he 
 was to ascertain and report the state of the English 
 fleets and dockyards ; and he was to make some over- 
 tures to the Huguenot refugees, who, it was supposed, 
 had been so effectually tamed by penury and exile, that 
 they would thankfully accept almost any terms of recon- 
 ciliation. The new Envoy's origin was plebeian ; his 
 stature was dwarfish, his countenance was ludicrously 
 ugly, and his accent was that of his native Gascony : 
 but his strong sense, his keen penetration, and his 
 lively wit eminently qualified him for his post. In 
 spite of every disadvantage of birth and figure he was 
 soon known as a pleasing companion and as a skil- 
 ful diplomatist. He contrived, while flii'ting with the 
 Duchess of Mazarin, discussing literary questions with 
 Waller and Saint Evremond, and corresponding with 
 
 1 See his later correspondence, ;?rtss;»i ; St. Evremond, /j^ss/zh ; Madame 
 Je S^vign^'s Letters in the beginning of 1689. See also the instructions to 
 Tallard after the peace of Ryswick, in the French Archives.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 329 
 
 La Fuiitaine, to acquire a considerable knowledge of 
 English politics. His skill in maritime affairs recom- 
 mended him to James, who had, during many years, 
 paid close attention to the business of the Admiralty, 
 and understood that business as well as he was capable 
 of understanding anything. They conversed every day 
 long and freely about the state of the shipping and the 
 dockyards. The result of this intimacy was, as might 
 have been expected, that the keen and vigilant French- 
 man conceived a great contempt for the King's abilities 
 and character. The world, he said, had much over- 
 rated His Britannic Majesty, who had less capacity 
 than Chai-les, and not moi*e virtue. ^ 
 
 The two envoys of Lewis, though pursuing one ob- 
 ject, very judiciously took different patlis. They made 
 a partition of the court. Bonrepaux lived chiefly with 
 Rochester and Rochester's adherents. Bariilon's con- 
 nections were chiefly with the opposite faction. The 
 consequence was that they sometimes saw the same 
 event in different points of view. The best account 
 now extant of the contest which at this time agitated 
 Whitehall is to be found in their despatches. 
 
 As each of the two parties at the Court of James had 
 the support of foreign princes, so each had also The Pope 
 tlie support or an ecclesiastical authority to derof.)«;-=us 
 which the King paid great deference. The eSother. 
 Supreme Pontiff' was for legal and moderate courses ; 
 and his sentiments were expressed by the Nuncio and 
 by the Vicar Apostolic.^ On the other side was a body 
 
 1 St. Simon, AFomoires, 1G97, 1719; St. Evremond; La Fontaine; Bonre- 
 paux to Seifinelay, y—j-^ ^^^- A* ■'*'^^- 
 
 2 Adda, Nov. ^., Dec. ^. and Dec. |1. IGSr,. In these despntches 
 Adda gives stronj; reasons lor compromisins matters l)y aholisliin^^ the 
 penal laws and leaving the test. He rails the quarrel witli the Parliament 
 « "gran disgrazia." He repeatci'Iy hnits that the King might, by a con-
 
 330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 of which the weight balanced even the weight of the 
 Papacy, the mighty Order of Jesus. 
 
 That at this conjuncture these two great spiritual 
 poAvers, once, as it seemed, inseparably alhed, should 
 have been opposed to each other, is a most important 
 and remarkable circumstance. During a period of little 
 less than a thousand years the regular clergy had been 
 the chief support of the Holy See. By that See they 
 had been protected from episcopal interference ; and 
 the protection which they had received had been amply 
 repaid. But for their exertions it is probable that the 
 Bishop of Rome would have been merely the honorary 
 president of a vast aristocracy of prelates. It was by 
 the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the Seventh 
 was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian 
 Cassars and against the secular priesthood. It was by 
 the aid of the Dominicans and Franciscans that In- 
 nocent the Third crushed the Albigensian sectaries. 
 The Order Three centuries later the Pontificate, ex- 
 oi je*us. posed to new dangers more formidable than 
 had ever before threatened it, was saved by a new 
 religious order, which was animated by intense enthu- 
 siasm and organized with exquisite skill. When the 
 Jesuits came to the rescue, they found the Papacy 
 in extreme peril: but fi'om that moment the tide of 
 battle turned. Protestantism, which had, during a 
 whole generation, candied all before it, was stopped in 
 its progress, and rapidly beaten back from the foot of 
 the Alps to the shores of the Baltic. Before the Order 
 had existed a hundred years, it had filled the whole 
 world with memorials of great things done and suffered 
 
 stitutional policy, have obtained much for the Roman Catholics, and that 
 the attempt to relieve them illegally is likely to bring great calamities on 
 them.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 331 
 
 for the faith. No reh'gious community could produce a 
 list of men so variously distinguished : none had ex- 
 tended its operations over so vast a space ; yet in none 
 had there ever been such perfect unity of feeling and 
 action. There was no region of the globe, no walk 
 of speculative or of active life, in which Jesuits were 
 not to be found. They guided the counsels of Kings. 
 They deciphered Latin inscriptions. They observed 
 the motions of Jupiter's satellites. They published 
 whole libraries, controversy, casuistry, history, treatises 
 on optics, Alcaic odes, editions of the fathers, madri- 
 gals, catechisms, and lampoons. The liberal education 
 of youth passed almost entirely into their hands, and 
 was conducted by them with conspicuous ability. They 
 appear to have discovered the precise point to which 
 intellectual culture can be carried without risk of in- 
 tellectual emancij)ation. Enmity itself was compelled 
 to own that, in the art of managino- and formino; the 
 tender mhid, they had no equals. Meanwhile they 
 assiduously and successfiilly cultivated the eloquence 
 of the pulpit. With still greater assiduity and still 
 greater success they applied themselves to the ministry 
 of the confessional. Throughout Roman Catholic Eu- 
 rope the secrets of every government and of almost every 
 family of note were in their keeping. Tiiey glided from 
 one Protestant country to another under innumerable 
 disguises, as gay Cavaliers, as simple rustics, as Puritan 
 preachers. They wandered to countries which neither 
 mercantile avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever im- 
 pelled any stranger to explore. They were to be 
 found in the garb of Mandarins, su])erintending the ob- 
 servatory at Pekin. They were to be found, sjkuIc in 
 hand, teaching the rudiments of agriculture to the 
 savages of Paraguay. Yet, whatever might be their
 
 382 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cii. VI 
 
 residence, whatever might be their employment, tlieir 
 spirit was the same, entire devotion to the common 
 cause, unreasoning obedience to the central authority. 
 None of them liad chosen his dwelling place or his 
 vocation for himself. Whether the Jesuit should live 
 under the arctic circle or under the equator, whether 
 he should pass his life in arranging gems and collating 
 manuscripts at the Vatican or in persuading naked 
 barbarians under the Southern Cross not to eat each 
 other, were matters which he left with profound sub- 
 mission to the decision of others. If he was wanted 
 at Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. If 
 he w^as wanted at Bagdad, he was toiling through the 
 desert with the next caravan. If his ministry was 
 needed in some country where his life was more in- 
 secure than that of a wolf, v^^here it was a crime to 
 harbour him, where the heads and quarters of his 
 brethren, fixed in the public places, showed him what 
 he had to expect, he went without remonstrance or 
 hesitation to his doom. Nor is this heroic spirit yet 
 extinct. When, in our own time, a new and terrible 
 pestilence passed round the globe, when, in some great 
 cities, fear had dissolved all the ties which hold society 
 together, when the secular clergy had forsaken their 
 flocks, when medical succour was not to be purchased 
 by gold, when the strongest natural affections had 
 yielded to the love of life, even then the Jesuit was 
 found by the pallet which bishop and curate, physi- 
 cian and nurse, father and mother, had deserted, bend- 
 ing over infected lips to catch the faint accents of con- 
 fession, and holding up to the last, before the expiring 
 penitent, the image of the expiring Redeemer. 
 
 But with the admirable energy, disinterestedness, 
 and selfdevotion which were characteristic of the So-
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 333 
 
 ciety, great "sices were mingled. It was alleged, and 
 not without foundation, that the ardent public spirit 
 which juade the Jesuit regardless of his ease, of his 
 liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless of 
 truth and of mercy ; that no means which could pro- 
 mote the interest of his religion seemed to him un- 
 lawful, and that by the interest of his religion he tt)o 
 often meant the interest of his Society. It was alleged 
 that, in the most atrocious plots recorded in history, 
 his agency could be distinctly traced ; that, constant 
 only in attachment to the fraternity to which he be- 
 longed, he was in some countries the most dangerous 
 enemy of freedom, and in others the most dangerous 
 enemy of order. The mighty victories which he boasted 
 that he had achieved in the cause of the Church were, 
 in the judgment of many illustrious members of that 
 Church, rather apparent than real. He had indeed 
 laboured with a wonderful show of success to reduce 
 the world under her laws ; but he had done so by 
 relaxing her laws to suit the temper of the world. 
 Instead of toiling; to elevate human nature to the noble 
 standard fixed by divine precept and example, he had 
 lowered the standard till it was beneath the average 
 level of human nature. He orloried in multitudes of 
 converts who had been baptized in the remote regions 
 of the East : but it was reported that from some of 
 those converts the facts on which the whole theoloc^v 
 of the Gospel depends had been cunningly concealed, 
 and that others were permitted to avoid persecution 
 by bowing down before the images of false gods, while 
 internally repeating Paters and Aves. Nor was it only 
 in heathen countries that such arts were said to be 
 practised. It was not strange that people of all ranks, 
 and especially of the highest ranks, crowded to the
 
 334 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 confessionals in the Jesuit temples ; for from those con- 
 fessionals none went discontented away. There the 
 priest was all things to all men. He showed .just so 
 much rigour as might not drive those who knelt at his 
 spiritual tribunal to the Dominican or the Franciscan 
 church. If he had to deal with a mind truly devout, 
 he spoke in the saintly tones of the primitive fathers : 
 but with that large part of mankind who have religion 
 enough to make them uneasy when they do wrong, 
 and not religion enough to keep them from doing 
 wrong, he followed a very different system. Since he 
 could not reclaim them from guilt, it was his business 
 to save them from remorse. He had at his command 
 an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded con- 
 sciences. In the books of casuistry which had been 
 written by his brethren, and printed with the approba- 
 tion of his superiors, were to be found doctrines con- 
 solatory to transgressors of every class. There the 
 bankrupt was taught how he might, without sin, secrete 
 his goods from liis creditors. The servant was taught 
 how he might, without sin, run oif with his master's 
 plate. The pandar was assured that a Christian man 
 might innocently earn his living by carrying letters and 
 messages between married women and their gallants. 
 The high spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France 
 were gratified by a decision in favour of duelling. 
 The Italians, accustomed to darker and baser modes of 
 vengeance, were glad to learn that they might, with- 
 out anv crime, shoot at their enemies from behind 
 hedges. To deceit was given a license sufficient to 
 destroy the whole value of human contracts and of 
 human testimony. In truth, if society continued to 
 hold together, if life and property enjoyed any security, 
 it was because common sense and common human-
 
 1680.] JAMES THE SECOND. 335 
 
 itv restiaint'd men from doino; what the Order of 
 Jesus assured them that they might with a safe eon- 
 science do. 
 
 So strangely were good and evil intermixed in the 
 character of these celebrated brethren ; and the inter- 
 mixture was the secret of their gigantic power. That 
 power could never have belonged to mere hypocrites. 
 It could never have belonged to rimd moralists. It 
 was to be attained only by men sincerely enthusiastic 
 in the pursuit of a great end, and at the same time un- 
 scrupulous as to the choice of means. 
 
 From the first the Jesuits had been bound by a pe- 
 culiar allegiance to the Pope. Their mission had been 
 not less to quell all mutiny within the Church than to 
 repel the hostility of her avowed enemies. Their doc- 
 trine was in the highest deoq-ee what has been called on 
 our side of the Alps Ultramontane, and differed almost 
 as much from the doctrine of Bossuet as from that of 
 Luther. They condemned the Gallican liberties, the 
 claim of oecumenical councils to control the Holy See, 
 and the claim of Bishops to an independent commission 
 from heaven. Lainez, in the name of the whole fra- 
 ternity, proclaimed at Trent, amidst the applause of 
 the creatures of Pius the Fourth, and the murmurs of 
 French and Spanish prelates, that the government of 
 the faithful had been committed by Christ to the Pope 
 alone, that in the Pope alone all sacerdotal authority 
 was concentrated, and that through the Pope alone 
 priests and bisliops derived whatever power they pos- 
 sessed.' During many years the union between the 
 Supreme Pontiff's and the Order had continued un- 
 broken. Had that union been still unbroken when 
 James the Second ascended the English tlu'one, had 
 
 1 Fra Paolo, lib. vii.; Pallavicino, lib. xviii. cap. 15. 
 VOL. 11. 22
 
 ooG HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii. VL 
 
 the influence of the Jesuits as well as the influence of 
 tlie Pope been exerted in favour of a moderate and 
 constitutional policy, it is probable that the great revo- 
 lution which in a short time changed the whole state of 
 European affairs would never have taken place. But, 
 even before the middle of the seventeenth century, the 
 Society, proud of its services and confident in its 
 strength, had become impatient of the yoke. A gen- 
 eration of Jesuits sprang up, who looked for protection 
 and guidance rather to the court of France than to the 
 court of Rome ; and this disposition was not a little 
 strengthened when Innocent the Eleventh was raised 
 to the papal throne. 
 
 The Jesuits were, at that time, engaged in a war to 
 the death against an enemy whom they had at first dis- 
 dained, but whom they had at length been forced to 
 regard with respect and fear. Just when their pros- 
 perity was at the height, they were braved by a hand- 
 ful of opponents, who had indeed no influence with the 
 rulers of this world, but who were strong in religious 
 faith and intellectual energy. Then followed a long, 
 a strange, a glorious conflict of genius against power. 
 The Jesuit called cabinets, tribunals, universities to his 
 aid ; and they responded to the call. Port Royal ap- 
 pealed, not in vain, to the hearts and to the understand- 
 ings of millions. The dictators of Christendom found 
 themselves, on a sudden, in the position of culprits. 
 They were arraigned on the charge of having system- 
 atically debased the standai'd of evangelical morality, 
 for the purpose of increasing their OAvn influence ; and 
 the charge was enforced in a manner which at once 
 arrested the attention of the whole world : for the chief 
 accuser was Blaise Pascal. His intellectual powers 
 were such as have rarely been bestowed on any of the
 
 1886.] JAMES THE SECOND. 337 
 
 children of men ; and the vehemence of the zeal which 
 animated him was but too well proved by the cruel 
 penances and vigils under which his macerated frame 
 sank into an early grave. His spirit was the spirit of 
 Saint Bernard : but the delicacy of his wit, the purity, 
 the energy, the simplicity of his rhetoric, had never 
 been equalled, except by the great masters of Attic 
 eloquence. All Europe read and admired, laughed and 
 wept. The Jesuits attempted to reply : but their feeble 
 answers were received by the public with shouts of 
 mockery. They wanted, it is true, no talent or accom- 
 plishment into which men can be drilled by elaborate 
 discipline ; but such discipline, though it may bring 
 out the powers of ordinary minds, has a tendency to 
 suffocate, rather than to develope, original genius. It 
 was universally acknowledged that, in the litei'ary con- 
 test, the Jansenists were completely victorious. To the 
 Jesuits nothing was left but to oppress the sect which 
 they could not confute. Lewis the Fourteentii was 
 now their chief su])port. His conscience had, fi"om 
 boyhood, been in their keeping ; and he had learned 
 from them to abhor Jansenism quite as much as he ab- 
 horred Protestantism, and very much more than he 
 abhorred Atheism. Innocent the Eleventh, on the 
 other hand, leaned to the Jansenist opinions. The 
 consequence Avas, that the Society found itself in a 
 situation never contemplated by its founder. Tlie 
 Jesuits were estranged from the Supreme Pontiff; and 
 they were closelv allied with a prince who proclaimed 
 himself the champion of the Gallican liberties and the 
 enemy of Ultramontane pretensions. The Order there- 
 fore became in England an instrument of the designs of 
 Lewis, and laboured, with a success which the Roman 
 Catholics afterwards long and bitterly deploivd, tu
 
 338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 widen the breach between the King and the Parlia- 
 ment, to thwart the Nuncio, to undermine the power 
 of the Lord Ti'easurer, and to support the most des- 
 perate schemes of Tyrconnel. 
 
 Thus on one side were the Hydes and the wliole 
 body of Tory churclmien, Powis and all the most re- 
 spectable noblemen and ge-ntlemen of the King's own 
 faith, the States General, the House of Austria, and 
 the Pope. On the other side were a few Roman 
 Catholic adventurers, of broken fortune and tainted 
 reputation, backed by France and by the Jesuits. 
 
 The chief representative of the Jesuits at Whitehall 
 was an English brother of the Order, who 
 
 Father Petre. i i i • • i -tt-* 
 
 had, dunng some tmie, acted as Viceprovm- 
 cial, who had been long regarded by James with pecu- 
 liar favour, and who had lately been made Clerk of the 
 Closet. This man, named Edward Petre, was de- 
 scended from an honourable family. His manners 
 were courtly : his speech was flowing and plausible ; 
 but he was weak and vain, covetous and ambitious. 
 Of all the evil counsellors who had access to the royal 
 ear, he bore, perhaps, the largest part in the ruin of 
 the House of Stuart. 
 
 The obstinate and imperious nature of the King gave 
 The King's great advantages to those who advised him to 
 
 temper and , „ . , , , . , i i • 
 
 opinions. be hmi, to yield notnnig, and to make hmi- 
 self feared. One state maxim had taken possession of 
 his small understanding, and was not to be dislodged by 
 reason. To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of 
 attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, 
 was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn per- 
 sons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their 
 inferiors. He asserted a proposition ; and, as often as 
 wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 339 
 
 erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same 
 words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once dis- 
 ])0sed of all objections.^ " I will make no conces- 
 sions," he often repeated ; " my father made conces- 
 sion, and he was beheaded." ^ Even if it had been 
 true that concession had been fatal to Charles the First, 
 a man of sense would have known that a single experi- 
 ment is not sufficient to establish a general rule even in 
 sciences much less complicated than the science of gov- 
 ernment ; that, since the beo-inning of the world, no 
 two political experiments were ever made of which all 
 the conditions were exactly alike ; and that the only 
 way to learn civil prudence from history is to examine 
 and compare an immense number of cases. But, if the 
 single instance on which the King relied proved any- 
 thing, it proved that he was in the wrong. There can 
 be little doubt that, if Charles had frankly made to the 
 Short Parliament, which met in the spring of 1640, but 
 one half of the concessions which he made, a few 
 months later, to the Long Parliament, he would have 
 lived and died a powerful King. On the other hand, 
 there can be no doubt whatever that, if he had refused 
 to make any concession to the Long Parliament, and 
 had resorted to arms in defence of the ship money and 
 of the Star Chamber, he would have seen, in the hos- 
 tile ranks, Hyde and Falkland side by side with Hollis 
 and Hampden. It would indeed be more correct to 
 say that, if he had refused to make any concession, he 
 would not have been able to resort to arms ; for not 
 iwenty Cavaliers would have joined his standard. It 
 
 1 This was the practice of Iiis daughter Anne; and Marlborougli said 
 that she had learned it froin licr fatlier. — Vindication of the Duchess of 
 Marllmroiitch. 
 
 2 Down t(i tho time of ilic trial tif the Bishops, James went on telling 
 Adda that all the calaniitifs of Charles the First were " per la troppa in* 
 duigenza." — Despatch of '^^^^^^ 1688.
 
 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 was to his large concessions alone that he owed the 
 support of that great body of noblemen and gentlemen 
 who fought so long and so gallantly in his cause. But 
 it would have been useless to represent these things to 
 James. 
 
 Another fatal delusion had taken possession of his 
 mind, and was never dispelled till it had ruined him. 
 He firmly believed that, do what he might, the mem- 
 bers of the Church of England would act up to their 
 principles. It had, he knew, been proclaimed from ten 
 thousand pulpits, it had been solemnly declared by the 
 University of Oxford, that even tyranny as fi'ightful as 
 that of the most depraved of the Cassars did not justify 
 subjects in resisting the royal authority ; and hence he 
 was weak enough to conclude that the whole body of 
 Tory gentlemen and clergymen would let him plunder, 
 oppress, and insult them without lifting an arm against 
 him. It seems strange that any man should have 
 passed his fiftieth year without discovering that people 
 sometimes do what they think wrong : and James had 
 only to look into his own heart for abundant proof that 
 even a strong sense of religious duty will not always 
 prevent frail human beings from indulging their pas- 
 sions in defiance of divine laws, and at the risk of awful 
 penalties. He must have been conscious that, though 
 he thought adultery sinful, he was an adulterer : but 
 nothing could convince him that any man who professed 
 to think rebellion sinful woxild ever, in any extremity, 
 ue a rebel. The Church of England was, in his view, 
 a passive victim, which he might, without danger, out- 
 rage and torture at his -pleasure ; nor did he ever see 
 his error till the Universities were preparing to coin 
 their plate for the purpose of supplying the military 
 chest of his enemies, and till a Bishop, long renowned 
 for loyalty, had thrown aside the cassock, put on jack-
 
 1683] JAMES THE SECOND. 341 
 
 boots, and taken the command of a regiment of insur- 
 gents. 
 
 In these fatal folHes the King was artfully encour- 
 aged by a minister who had been an Exclu- TheKingen- 
 bionist, and who still called himself a Prot- ^"^^^Vby 
 estant, the Earl of Sunderland. The motives sunderiand. 
 and conduct of this unprincipled politician have often 
 been misrepresented. He was, in his own lifetime, 
 accused by the Jacobites of having, even before the 
 beginning of the reign of James, determined to bring 
 about a revolution in favour of the Prince of Orange, 
 and of having, with that view, recommended a succes- 
 sion of outrages on the civil and ecclesiastical constitu- 
 tion of the realm. This idle story has been repeated 
 down to our own days by ignorant writers. But no 
 well informed historian, whatever might be his preju- 
 dices, has condescended to adopt it : for it rests on no 
 evidence whatever ; and scarcely any evidence would 
 convince reasonable men that Sunderland deliberately 
 incurred guilt and infamy in order 'to bring about a 
 change by which it was clear that he could not possi- 
 bly be a gainer, and by which, in fact, he lost immense 
 wealth and influence. Nor is there the smallest reason 
 for resorting to so strange a hypothesis. For the truth 
 lies on the surface. Crooked as this man's course was, 
 the law which determined it was simj)le. His conduct 
 is to be ascribed to the alternate influence of cuj)idity 
 and fear on a mind highly susceptible of botli those pas- 
 nions, and quicksighted rather than farsighted. He 
 wanted more power and more money. More power 
 he could obtain only at Rochester's expense ; and the 
 obvious way to obtiiin power at Rocliester's expense 
 was to encourage the dishke wlu'cli the King felt for 
 Rochester's moderate counsels. Money could be most
 
 312 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Oh. VL 
 
 easily and most largely obtained from the court of Ver- 
 sailles; and Sunderland was eager to sell himself to 
 that court. He had no jovial generous vices. He cared 
 little for wine or for beauty : but he desired riches 
 with an ungovernable and insatiable desire. The ])as- 
 sion for play raged in him without measure, and had 
 not been tamed by ruinous losses. His hereditary for- 
 tune was ample. He had long filled lucrative posts, 
 and had neglected no art Avhich could make them more 
 lucrative : but his ill luck at the hazard table was such 
 that his estates were daily becoming more and more 
 encumbered. In the hope of extricating himself from 
 his embarrassments, he beti'ayed to Barillon all the 
 schemes adverse to France which had been meditated 
 in the English cabinet, and hinted that a Secretary of 
 State could in such times render services for which it 
 might be wise in Lewis to pay largely. The A mbassa- 
 dor told his master that six thousand guineas was the 
 smallest gratification that could be offered to so hn- 
 portant a minister-. Lewis consented to go as high as 
 twenty-five thousand crowns, equivalent to about five 
 thousand six hundred pounds sterling. It was agreed 
 that Sunderland should receive this sum yearly, and 
 that he should, in return, exert all his influence to pre- 
 vent the reassembling of the Parliament.^ 
 
 He joined himself therefore to the Jesuitical cabal, 
 and made so dexterous an use of the influence of that 
 cabal that he was appointed to succeed Halifax in the 
 high dignity of Lord President without being required 
 
 1 Barillon, Nov. 1|. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, ^^^-- In a highly 
 curious paper which was written in 1687, almost certaTnly by Botirepaux, 
 and which is now in the French archives, Sunderland is described thus: — 
 " La passion qu'il a pour le jeu, et les pertes considerables qu'il y fait, 
 incommodent fort ses affaires. II n'aime pas le vin; et il hait lea 
 femrnes."
 
 '686.] .AMES THE SECOND. 343 
 
 to resign the far more active and lucrative post of Sec- 
 retary.^ He felt, however, that he could never hope 
 to obtain paramount influence in the court while he was 
 supposed to belong to the Established Church. All 
 religions were the same to him. In private circles, 
 indeed, he was in the habit of talking with profane 
 contempt of the most sacred things. He therefore de- 
 termined to let the King have the delight and glory of 
 effecting a conversion. Some management, however, 
 was necessary. No man is utterly witliout regard for 
 the opinion of his fellow creatures ; and even Sunder- 
 land, though not very sensible to shame, flinched from 
 the infamy of public apostasy. He played his part with 
 rare adroitness. To the world he sliowed himself as 
 a Protestant. 'In the royal closet he assumed the char- 
 acter of an earnest inquirer after truth, who was almost 
 persuaded to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and 
 who, while waiting for fuller illumination, was disposed 
 to render every service in his power to the professors 
 of the old foith. James, who was never very discern- 
 ing, and who in religious matters was absolutely blind, 
 suffered himself, notwithstandino; all that he had seen 
 of human knavery, of the knavery of courtiers as a 
 class, and of the knavery of Sunderland in particu- 
 lar, to be duped into the belief that divine grace had 
 touched the most false and callous of human hearts. 
 During many months the wily minister continued to 
 be regarded at court as a promising catechumen, with- 
 out exhibiting himself to the public in the character of 
 a renccrade.'^ 
 
 -» 
 
 1 It appears from (he Council Book tliat he took tis place as president 
 on the 4tli of December, 1685. 
 
 2 Bonropuux was not so easily deceived as .Tames. " En son particulier 
 il (Sunderland) n'en profe.ssc aucune (religion), et en parle fort librement. 
 Ces sortes de discours seroient en execration en France. Ici ils sont ordi-
 
 844 HISTORY OF ENGLam^. [Ch. VI. 
 
 He early suggested to the King tlie expediency of 
 appointing a secret committee of Roman Catholics to 
 advise on all matters affecting the interests of their re- 
 ligion. This committee met sometimes at Chiffinch's 
 lodgings, and sometimes at the official apartments of 
 Sunderland, who, though still nominally a Protestant, 
 was admitted to all its deliberations, and soon obtained 
 a decided ascendency over the other members. Every 
 Friday the Jesuitical cabal dined with the Secretary. 
 The conversation at table was free ; and the weak- 
 nesses of the prince whom the confederates hoped to 
 manage were not spared. To Petre Sunderland prom- 
 ised a Cardinal's hat ; to Castelmaine a splendid em- 
 bassy to Rome ; to Dover a lucrative command in the 
 Guards ; and to Tyrconnel high employment in Ire- 
 land. Thus bound together by the strongest ties of 
 interest, these men addressed themselves to the task of 
 subverting the Treasurer's power.^ 
 
 There were two Protestant members of the cabinet 
 Perfidy of ^'^^^ ^"^o^^ ^o decided part in the struggle. 
 Jefifreys. Jeffreys was at this time tortured by a cruel 
 internal malady which had been aggravated by intem- 
 perance. At a dinner which a wealthy Alderman gave 
 to some of the leading members of the government, the 
 Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor were so drunk 
 that they stripped themselves almost stark naked, and 
 were with difficulty prevented from climbing up a sign- 
 post to drink His Majesty's health. The pious Treas- 
 urer escaped with nothing but the scandal of the de- 
 bauch : but the Chancellor brought on a violent fit of 
 
 naires parmi un certain nombre de gens du pais." — Bonrepaux to Seigne 
 lay, 7-^-r 1687. 
 
 1 Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 74. 77. Grig. Mem.; Sheridan 
 MS.; Barillon, March 1|. 1686.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 345 
 
 his complaint. His life was for some time thought to 
 be in serious danger. James expressed great uneasi- 
 ness at the thought of losing a minister who suited him 
 so well, and said, with some trntli, that the loss of such 
 a man could not be easily repaired. Jeffreys, when he 
 became convalescent, promised his snpport to both the 
 contending parties, and waited to see which of them 
 w(mld prove victorious. Some curious proofs of his 
 duplicity are still extant. It has been already said that 
 the two French agents who were then resident in Lon- 
 don had divided the EnoHsh court between them. 
 Bonrepaux was constantly with Rochester ; and Baril- 
 lon lived with Sunderland. Lewis was informed in 
 the same week by Bonrej)aux that the Chancellor was 
 entirely with the Treasurer, and by Barillon that the 
 Chancellor was in league with the Secretary.^ 
 
 Godolphin, cautious and taciturn, did his best to pre- 
 serve neutrality. His opinions and wishes 
 were undoubtedly with Rochester ; but his 
 office made it necessary for him to be in constant at- 
 tendance on the Queen ; and he was natu- 
 rally unwilling to be on bad terms with her. 
 There is indeed reason to believe that he regarded 
 her with an attachment more romantic than often 
 finds place in the hearts of veteran statesmen ; and 
 circumstances, which it is now necessary to relate, 
 had thrown her entirely into the hands of the Jesu- 
 itical cabal.^ 
 
 The King, stern as was his temper and grave as was 
 
 1 TJeresbv's Memoirs; Luttrell'a Diarv, Feb. 2. 1085; Barillon, Feb. Ju. 
 
 Jnn. 28. -, " Jnn. US. ' *> >♦ 
 
 T,-\— , ; nonrc'paux, ,, . ,-• 
 
 2 Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 621. In a contemporary satire it is re- 
 marked tiiat Godolphin 
 
 " Beats tinio with politic head, and :ill approvos. 
 Pleased with the charge of the Queen's muff and gloves "
 
 346 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. L^h. VI. 
 
 his deportment, was scarcely less under the influence 
 Amours of of female attractions than his more lively and 
 the King. amiable brother had been. The beauty, in- 
 deed, which distinguished the favourite ladies of Charles 
 was not necessary to James. Barbara Palmer, Eleanor 
 Gwynn, and Louisa de Querouaille were among the 
 finest women of their time. James, when young, had 
 surrendered his liberty, descended below his rank, and 
 incurred the displeasure of his family for the coarse 
 features of Anne Hyde. He had soon, to the great 
 diversion of the whole court, been drawn away from his 
 plain consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. 
 His second wife, though twenty years younger than him- 
 self, and of no unpleasing face or figure, had fi-equent 
 reason to complain of his inconstancy. But of all his 
 Catharine iHicit attachments the strongest was that which 
 sediey. ^^^^^^ j^j^^^ ^^ Catharine Sedley. 
 
 This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sed- 
 ley, one of the most brilliant and profligate wits of the 
 Restoration. The licentiousness of his writings is not 
 redeemed by much grace or vivacity ; but the charms 
 of his conversation were acknowledged even by sober 
 men who had no esteem for his character. To sit near 
 him at the theatre, and to hear his criticisms on a new 
 play, was regarded as a privilege.^ Dryden had done 
 him the honour to make him a principal interlocutor in 
 the Dialogue on Dramatic Poesy. The morals of Sed- 
 ley were such as, even in that age, gave great scandal. 
 He on one occasion, after a wild revel, exhibited him- 
 self without a shred of clothing in the balcony of a 
 tavern near Covent Garden, and harangued the people 
 who were passing in language so indecent and profane 
 that he was driven m by a shower of brickbats, was 
 
 1 Pepys, Oct. 4. 1664. 
 
 I
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 347 
 
 prosecuted for a misdemeanour, was sentenced to a 
 heavy fine, and was reprimanded by tlie Court of 
 King's Bench in the most cutting terms. ^ His daughter 
 had inherited his abilities and his impudence. Personal 
 charms she had none, with the exception of two brill- 
 iant eyes, the lustre of which, to men of delicate taste, 
 seemed fierce and unfeminine. Her form was lean, 
 her countenance haggard. Charles, though he liked 
 her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and said that 
 the priests must have recommended her to his brother 
 by way of penance. She well knew that she was not 
 handsome, and jested freely on her own homeliness. 
 Yet, with strange inconsistency, she loved to adorn her- 
 self magnificently, and drew on herself much keen ridi- 
 cule by appearing in the theatre and the ring plastered, 
 painted, clad in Brussels lace, glittering with diamonds, 
 and affectino; all the graces of eighteen. ^ 
 
 The nature of her influence over James is not easily 
 to be explained. He was no longer young. He was a 
 religious man ; at least he was willing to make for his 
 religion exertions and sacrifices from which the great 
 majority of those who are called religious men would 
 shrink. It seems strange that any attractions should 
 have drawn him into a course of life which he must 
 have regarded as highly criminal ; and in this case 
 none could understand where the attraction lay. Cath- 
 arine herself was astonished by the violence of his 
 passion. " It cannot be my beauty," she said ; " for 
 he must see that I have none ; and it cannot be 
 my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have 
 any." 
 
 At the moment of the King's accession a sense of the 
 
 1 Pepys, July 1. 1663. 
 
 2 See Dorset's satirical lines on her.
 
 348 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 new responsibility which lay on him made his mind for 
 a time peculiarly open to religious impressions. He 
 formed and announced many good resolutions, spoke in 
 public with great severity of the impious and licentious 
 manners of the age, and in private assured his Queen 
 and his confessor that he would see Catharine Sedley no 
 more. He wrote to his mistress intreating her to quit 
 the apartments which she occupied at Whitehall, and to 
 go to a house in Saint James's Square which had been 
 splendidly furnished for her at his expense. He at the 
 same time promised to allow her a large pension from 
 his privy purse. Catharine, clever, strongminded, in- 
 trepid, and conscious of her power, refused to stir. In 
 a few months it began to be whispered that the services 
 of Chiffinch were again employed, and that the mistress 
 frequently passed and repassed through that private 
 door through which Father Huddleston had borne the 
 host to the bedside of Charles. The King's Protestant 
 ministers had, it seems, conceived a hope that their 
 master's infatuation for this woman might cure him of 
 the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to 
 attack their religion. She had all the talents which 
 could qualify her to play on his feelings, to make game 
 of his scruples, to set before him in a strong light the 
 difficulties and dangers into which he was running head- 
 intrigues of long. Rochester, the champion of the Church, 
 favour of excrtcd himself to strengthen her influence. 
 Sedley. Ormoud, who is popularly regarded as the per- 
 
 sonification of all that is pui^e and highminded in the 
 English Cavalier, encouraged the design. Even Lady 
 Rochester was not ashamed to cooperate, and to cooper' 
 ate in the very worst way. Her office was to direct the 
 jealousy of the injured wife towards a young lady who 
 was perfectly innocent. The whole court took notice of 
 
 I
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 349 
 
 the coldness and rudeness with which the Queen treated 
 the poor girl on whom suspicion had been tin-own : but 
 the cause of Her Majesty's ill humour was a mystery. 
 For a time the intrigue went on prosperously and 
 secretly. Catharine often told the King plainly what 
 the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to hint 
 in the most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, 
 was at stake : the old dotard Arundell and the bluster- 
 ing Tyrconnel would lead him to his ruin. It is possi- 
 ble that her caresses might have done what the united 
 exhortations of the Lords and the Commons, of the 
 House of Austria and the Holy See, had failed to do, bvit 
 for a strange mishap which changed the whole face of 
 attkirs. James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make 
 his mistress Countess of Dorchester in her own right. 
 Catharine saw all the peril of such a step, and declined 
 the invidious honour. Her lover was obstinate, and 
 himself forced the patent into her hands. She at last 
 accepted it on one condition, Avhich shows her confi- 
 dence in her own power and in his weakness. She 
 made him give her a solemn promise, not that he would 
 never quit her, but that, if he did so, he would himself 
 announce his resolution to her, and grant her one part- 
 ing interview. 
 
 As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the 
 whole palace was in an uproar. The warm blood of 
 Italy boiled in the veins of the Queen. Proud of her 
 youth and of her charms, of her high rank and of her 
 stainless chastity, she could not without agonies of grief 
 and rage see hei'sclf deserted and insulted for such a 
 rival. Rochester, ])erliaps remembering how patiently, 
 after a short stiiioi>Ie, Catharine of Brajianza had con- 
 sented to treat the mistresses of Charles with politeness, 
 nad expected that, after a little complaining and jxmt-
 
 350 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 ing, Mary of Modena would be equally submissive. It 
 was not so. She did not even attempt to conceal fi'om 
 the eyes of the world the violence of her emotions. 
 Day after day the courtiers who came to see her dine 
 observed that the dishes were removed untasted fi'om 
 the table. She suffered the tears to stream down her 
 cheeks unconcealed in the presence of the whole circle 
 of ministers and envoys. To the King she spoke with 
 wild vehemence. " Let me go," she cried. " You 
 have made your woman a Countess : make her a Queen. 
 Put my crown on her head. Only let me hide myself 
 in some convent, where I may never see her more." 
 Then, more soberly, she asked him how he reconciled 
 his conduct to his religious professions. "You are 
 ready," she said, " to put your kingdom to hazard for 
 the sake of your soul ; and yet you are throwing away 
 your soul for the sake of that creature." Father Petre, 
 on bended knees, seconded these remonstrances. It was 
 his duty to do so ; and his duty was not the less sti'en- 
 uoiisly performed because it coincided with his interest. 
 The King went on for a time sinning and repenting. 
 In his hours of remorse his penances were severe. 
 Mary treasured up to the end of her life, and at her 
 death bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, the scourge 
 with which he had vigorously avenged her wrongs upon 
 his own shoulders. Nothino; but Catharine's absence 
 could put an end to this struggle between an ignoble 
 love and an ignoble superstition. James wrote, implor- 
 ing and commanding her to depart. He owned that 
 he had promised to bid her farewell in person. " But I 
 know too well," he added, " the power which you have 
 over me. I have not strength of mind enough to keep 
 my resolution if I see you." He offered her a yacht to 
 convey her with all dignity and comfort to Flanders,
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 851 
 
 and thi-eatened that if she did not go quietly she should 
 be sent away by force. She at one time worked on his 
 feelings by pretending to be ill. Then she assTimed the 
 airs of a mart}^', and impudently proclaimed herself a 
 sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then again she 
 adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the 
 King to remove her. She would try the right with 
 him. While the Great Charter and the Habeas Corpus 
 Act were the law of the land, she would live where she 
 jileased. " And Flanders," she cried ; " never ! I 
 have learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of 
 Mazarin ; and that is never to trust myself in a country 
 where there are convents." At length she selected 
 Ireland gs the place of her exile, probably because the 
 brother of her patron Rochester was viceroy there. 
 Afler many delays she departed, leaving the victory to 
 the Queen. 1 
 
 The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be 
 imperfect, if it were not added that there is still extant 
 a religious meditation, written by the Treasurer, with 
 his own hand, on the very same day on which the intel- 
 ligence of his attempt to govern his master by means 
 of a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to Ver- 
 sailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a 
 spirit of more fervent and exalted piety than this effu- 
 sion. Hypocrisy cannot be suspected : for the paper 
 was evidently meant only for the writer's own eye, and 
 was not published till he had been more than a century 
 
 1 The chief materials for the liistory of this intrigue are tlie despatches 
 ef I$arillou and Bonrepaux at tlie beginning of tlie year 1G86. See BarilUm, 
 
 T^TT ' Feb 7 ^^^' A'' ^^^- l'?" r^^- M ■' *"^ Honrepaux nnder the first 
 four dates; Evelyn's Diary, .Ian. 19.; Reresby's Memoirs; Rurnet, i. 682.; 
 Sheridan MS.; Chaillot AIS.; Adda's Despatches, ^"'\^ and ^-^'-^^ 1086. 
 
 r fh. ' . r en. o. 
 
 Adda writes like a pious, but weak and ignorant man. He appears to have 
 known nothing of .James's past life. 
 
 VOL 11. 23
 
 352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fCii. VI 
 
 in his grave. So much is history stranger than fiction ; 
 and so true is it that nature has caprices wliicli art 
 dai-es not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture 
 to bring on the stage a grave prince, in the decline of 
 life, ready to sacrifice his crown in order to serve the 
 interests of his religion, indefatigable in making prose- 
 lytes, and yet deserting and insulting a virtuous wife 
 who had youth and beauty for the sake of a profligate 
 ])aramour who had neither. Still less, if possible, would 
 a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping 
 to tlie wicked and shameful part of a procurer, and 
 calling in his wife to aid him in that dishonourable office, 
 yet, in his moments of leisure, retiring to his closet, 
 and there secretly pouring out his soul to h^ God in 
 })enitent tears and devout ejaculations.^ 
 
 The Treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous 
 Decline of mcaus for the purpose of obtaining a laudable 
 
 Kochester's i i i i . 
 
 influeace. eud, he had committed, not only a crime, but 
 a folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected, 
 indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused 
 their recent conduct as well as they could ; and she 
 occasionally pretended to use her influence in their 
 favour : but she must have been more or less than 
 woman if she had really forgiven the conspiracy which 
 had been formed against her dignity and her domestic 
 
 1 The meditation bears date - , " 168|.. Bonrepaux, in his despatch 
 of the same day, says, " L'intrigue avoit ^te conduite par Milord Rochester 
 et sa feniitie. . . . Leur projet 6toit de faire gouverner le Roy d'Angleterre 
 par la nouvelle conitesse. lis s'^toient assures d'elle." While Bonrepaux 
 was writing thus, Rochester was writing as follows: " Oh God, teach me so 
 to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me 
 to number the days that I have spent in vanitj' and idleness, and teach me 
 to number those that I have spent in sin and wickedness. Oh God, teach 
 me to number the days of my affliction too, and to give thanks for all that 
 is come to me from thy hand. Teach me likewise to number the dajiB 
 of this world's greatness, of which I have so great a share; and teach me to 
 look upon them as vanity and vexation of spirit."
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. SoS 
 
 hapjdness by the family of her husband's first wife. 
 The Jesuits strongly represented to the King the dan- 
 ger which he had so narrowl}^ escaped. His rejmtation, 
 they said, his peace, his soul, had been put in peril by 
 the machinations of his prime minister. The Nuncio, 
 who would gladly have counteracted the influence of 
 the violent party, and cooperated with the moderate 
 members of the cabinet, could not honestly or decently 
 separate himself on this occasion from Father Petre. 
 James himself, when parted by the sea from the channs 
 which had so stronglv fascinated him, could not but 
 regard with resentment and contempt those who had 
 sought to govern him by means of his vices. What 
 had passed must have had the effect of raising his own 
 Church in his esteem, and of lowerino; the Church of 
 England. The Jesuits, whom it was the fashion to 
 represent as the most unsafe of spiritual guides, as 
 sophists who refined away the whole system of evan- 
 gelical morality, as sycophants who owed their influence 
 chiefly to the indulgence with which they treated the 
 sins of the great, had reclaimed him from a life of guilt 
 by rebukes as sharp and bold as those which David had 
 heard from Nathan and Herod from the Baptist. On 
 the other hand, zealous Protestants, whose favourite 
 theme was the laxity of Popish casuists and the wicked- 
 ness of doing evil that good might come, had attempted 
 to obtain advantages for their own Church in a way 
 which all Christians regarded as highly criminal. The 
 victory of the cabal of evil counsellors was therefore 
 complete. The King looked coldly on Rochester. The 
 courtiers and foreign ministers soon perceived that the 
 Lord Treasurer was prime minister only in name. He 
 continued to offer his advice daily, and had the mortifi- 
 cation to find it daily rejected. Yet he could not pre-
 
 854 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ICh. VI. 
 
 vail on himself to I'eHnquish the outward show of power 
 and the emoluments which he directly and indirectly 
 derived from his great place. He did his best, there- 
 fore, to conceal his vexations from the public eye. But 
 his violent passions and his intemperate habits disqual- 
 ified him for the part of a dissembler. His gloomy 
 looks, when he came out of the council chamber, 
 showed how little he was pleased with what had passed 
 at the board ; and, when the bottle had gone round 
 freely, words escaped him which betrayed his uneasi- 
 ness.^ 
 
 He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and 
 unpopular measures followed one another in rapid suc- 
 cession. All thought of returning to the policy of the 
 Triple Alliance was abandoned. The King explicitly 
 avowed to the ministers of those continental powers 
 with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that 
 all his views had undergone a change, and that Eng- 
 land was still to be, as she had been under his grand- 
 father, his father, and his brother, of no account in 
 Europe. " I am in no condition," he said to the Span- 
 ish Ambassador, " to trouble myself about what passes 
 abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take 
 their course, to establish my authority at home, and to 
 do something for my religion." A few days later he 
 announced the same intentions to the States General.^ 
 From that time to the close of his ignominious reisn, he 
 made no serious effort to escape fi-om vassalage, though, 
 to the last, he could never hear, without transports of 
 rage, that men called him a vassal. 
 
 1 " Je vis Milord Rochester comme il sortoit du conseil fort chagrin; et, 
 Bur la fin du souper, il liii en ^chappe quelque chose." Bonrepaux, Feb. 
 ^. 1686. See also Barillon, March JL, JL, 
 
 •■i Barillon, "Ji, April il 1686. 
 
 ' Apri I. ' 22
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 355 
 
 The two events which proved to the public that Sxm- 
 derland and Sunderland's party were victorious were 
 the prorogation of the Parliament from February to 
 May, and the departure of Castelmaine for Rome with 
 the appointments of an Ambassador of the highest 
 lank.i 
 
 Hitherto all the business of the English oovernment 
 at the papal court had been transacted by John Caryl. 
 This gentleman was known to his contemporaries as a 
 man of fortune and fashion, and as the author of two 
 successful plays, a tragedy in rhyme which had been 
 made popular by the action and recitation of Betterton, 
 and a comedy which owes all its value to scenes bor- 
 rowed from Moliere. These pieces have long been for- 
 gotten ; but what Caryl could not do for himself has 
 been done for him by a more powerful genius. Half 
 a line in the Rape of the Lock has made his name im- 
 mortal. 
 
 Caryl, who was, like all the other respectable lioman 
 Catholics, an enemy to violent courses, had casteim.une 
 acquitted himself of his delicate errand at K-me! 
 Rome with good sense and good feeling. The business 
 confided to him was well done ; but he assumed no 
 pubhc character, and carefully avoided all display. His 
 mission, therefore, ])ut the government to scarcely any 
 charge, and excited scarcely any munnurs. His place 
 was now most unwisely su])plied by a costly and osten- 
 tatious embassy, offensive in the highest degree to the 
 people of England, and by no means welcome to the 
 court of Rome. Castelmaine had it in chame to de- 
 mand a Cardinal's hat for his confederate Petre. 
 
 About the same time the King began to show, in 
 
 1 London Gazette, Feb. 11. 1C8A; Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 8.; Van Leeu 
 fi ;n, Feb. ^n^. ; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 75. Orig. Mem.
 
 356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 an unequivocal manner, the feeling which he really 
 The iiugue entertained towards the banished Hupuenots. 
 
 nots ill treat; _ _ o 
 
 ed by James While he liad still hoped to cajole his Par- 
 liament into submission and to become the head of 
 an European coalition against France, he had affected 
 to blame the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and to 
 pity the unhappy men whom persecution had driven 
 from their country. He had caused it to be announced 
 that, at every church in the kingdom, a collection 
 would be made under his sanction for their benefit. 
 A proclamation on this subject had been drawn up 
 in terms which might have wounded the pride of a 
 sovereign less sensitive and vainglorious than Lewis. 
 But all was now changed. The principles of the treaty 
 of Dover were again the principles of the foreign 
 policy of England. Ample apologies were therefore 
 made for the discourtesy with which the English gov- 
 ei'nraent had acted towards France in showinjr favour 
 to exiled Frenchmen. The proclamation which had 
 displeased Lewis was recalled.^ The Huguenot minis- 
 ters were admonished to speak with reverence of their 
 oppressor in their public discourses, as they would 
 answer it at their peril. James not only ceased to 
 express commiseration for the sufferers, but declared 
 that he believed them to harbour the worst designs, 
 and owned that he had been guilty of an error in coun- 
 tenancing them. One of the most eminent of the refu- 
 gees, John Claude, had published on the Continent a 
 small volume in which he described with great force 
 the sufferings of his brethi-en. Barillon demanded that 
 uome opprobrious mark should be put on his book. 
 James complied, and in fidl council declared it to be 
 his pleasure that Claude's libel should be burned by the 
 
 1 Van Leeuwen, ^^ 1686. 
 
 I
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 357 
 
 hangman before the Royal Exchange. Even Jeffreys 
 was startled, and ventured to represent that such a 
 proceeding was without example, that the book was 
 wi'itten in a foreign tongue, that it had been printed 
 at a foreign press, that it related entirely to transac- 
 tions which had taken place in a foreign country, and 
 that no English government had ever animadverted on 
 such works. James would not suffer tlie question to 
 be discussed. " My resolution," he said, " is taken. 
 It has become the fashion to treat Kings disrespect- 
 fully ; and they must stand by each other. One King 
 should always take another's part : and I have par- 
 ticular reasons for showing this respect to the King 
 of France." There was silence at the board. The 
 order was forthwith issued; and Chiude's pamphlet 
 Avas committed to the flames, not without the deep 
 murmurs of many who had always been reputed steady 
 loyalists.^ 
 
 The promised collection was long put off under vari- 
 ous pretexts. The King would gladly have broken his 
 word ; but it was pledged so solemnly that he could 
 not for very shame retract.''^ Nothing, however, which 
 could cool the zeal of congregations was omitted. It 
 had been expected that, according to the practice usual 
 on such occasions, the people would be exhorted to 
 libei'ality fi'om the pulpits. But James was deter- 
 mined not to tolerate declamations against his religi(m 
 and his ally. The Archbishop of Canterbury was 
 therefore commanded to infonn the clergy that they 
 
 1 Barillon, ^~^', May ^3^. 1G8G ; Van Citters, May ^T^. ; Evelyn's Uiarj-, 
 M.iy 5.; Luttrell's Ukiry of the same date; Privy Council Book, May 2. 
 
 2 Ladv Russell to Dr. Fitzwillinm, .Tan. 22. ICSO : l'.arilIon, Feb. X& ^''-f-^' 
 1686. " Ce prince fenioiirne," says Biirillon, " une f^rande aversion pour 
 eux, et aurait bien voulii sc. dispenser de la coUecte, qui est ordoun^ en 
 leur faveur: mais il n'a pas cm (jue cela (lit possible."
 
 858 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cii VI. 
 
 must merely read the brief, and must not presume to 
 preach on the sufFermgs of tlie French Protestants. ^ 
 Nevertheless the contributions were so laro-e tliat, after 
 all deductions, the sum of forty thousand pounds was 
 paid into the Chamber of London. Perhaps none 
 of the munificent subscriptions of our own age has 
 borne so great a proportion to the means of the 
 nation.^ 
 
 The King was bitterly mortified by the large amount 
 of the collection which had been made in obedience to 
 his own call. He knew, he said, what all this liberality 
 meant. It was mere Whiggish spite to himself and his 
 religion.^ He had already resolved that the money 
 should be of no use to those M'hom the donors wished 
 to benefit. He had been, during some weeks, in close 
 communication with the French embassy on this sub- 
 ject, and had, with the approbation of the court of 
 Versailles, determined on a course which it is not very 
 easy to reconcile with those principles of toleration to 
 which he afterwards pretended to be attached. The 
 refugees were zealous for the Calvinistic discipline and 
 woi'ship. James therefore gave orders that none should 
 receive a crust of bread or a basket of coals who did 
 not first take the sacrament according- to the Ano-lican 
 ritual.* It is strange that this inhospitable rule should 
 have been devised by a prince who afii^cted to consider 
 the Test Act as an outrao;e on the rights of conscience : 
 
 1 Barillon, ^^- 1686. 
 
 ' Mar. 4. 
 
 2 Account of the commissioners, dated March 15. 1688. 
 
 3 " Le Roi d'Angleterre connait bieii que les gens mal intentionn^s pour 
 hv sont les plus prompts et les plus disposes a donner considerablement. . . . 
 Sa Majesty Britannique connoit bien qu'il auroit et6 a propos de ne point 
 ordonner de coUecte, et que les gens mal iuteiitionnt's contre la religion 
 Catholique et contre lui se servent de cette occasion pour temoigner leut 
 z61e." —Barillon, April i|. 1686. 
 
 * Barillon, Feb.^., ^^^' April .^. 1686; Lewis to Barillon, Mar. ^
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 359 
 
 for, however unjustifiable it may be to establish a sacra- 
 mental test for the purpose of ascertaining whether men 
 are fit for civil and military office, it is surely much 
 more unjustifiable to establish a sacramental test for 
 the purpose of ascertaining whether, in their 'extreme 
 distress, they are fit objects of charity. Nor had James 
 the plea Avhich may be urged in extenuation of the guilt 
 of almost all other persecutors : for the religion which 
 he commanded the refugees to profess, on pain of being 
 left to starve, was not his own religion. His conduct 
 towards them was therefore less excusable than that of 
 Lewis : for Lewis oppressed them in the hope of bring- 
 ing them over from a damnable heresy to the true 
 Church : James oppressed them only for the purpose 
 of forcing them to apostatize from one damnable heresy 
 to another. 
 
 Several Commissioners, of whom the Chancellor was 
 one, had been appointed to dispense the public alms. 
 When they met for the first time, Jeffreys announced 
 the royal pleasure. The refugees, he said, were too 
 generally enemies of monarchy and episcopacy. If 
 they wished for relief, they must become members of 
 the Church of England, and must take the sacrament 
 from the hands of his chaplain. Many exiles, who 
 had come full of gratitude and hope to apply for suc- 
 cour, heard their sentence, and went brokenhearted 
 away.i 
 
 May was now approaching ; and that month had been 
 fixed for the meeting of the Houses : but they ih© dispeng- 
 were again prorogued to November.'^ It was '""^ ''°^^"' 
 not strange that the King did not wish to meet them : 
 
 1 Barillon, April ^. 1G86; Lad}' Russell to Dr. Fitavilliam, April 14 
 •* He sent away many," she says, " with sad hearts." 
 8 London Gazette of May 13. 1686.
 
 360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 for he had determined to adopt a policy which he knew 
 to be, in the highest degree, odious to them. From his 
 predecessors he had inherited two prerogatives, of which 
 the Hmits had never been defined with strict accuracy, 
 and which, if exerted without any hmit, would of them- 
 selves have sufficed to overturn the whole polity of the 
 State and of the Church. These were the dispensing 
 power and the ecclesiastical supremacy. By means 
 of the dispensing power the King proposed to admit 
 Roman Catholics, not merely to civil and military, 
 but to spiritual, offices. By means of the ecclesiastical 
 supremacy he hoped to make the Anglican clergy 
 his instruments for the destruction of their own re- 
 ligion. 
 
 This scheme developed itself by degrees. It was not 
 thought safe to begin by granting to the whole Roman 
 Catholic body a dispensation from all statutes imposing 
 penalties and tests. For nothing was more fully estab- 
 lished than that such a dispensation was illegal. The 
 Cabal had, in 1672, put forth a general Declaration of 
 Indulgence. The Commons, as soon as they met, had 
 protested against it. Charles the Second had ordered 
 it to be cancelled in his presence, and had, both by his 
 own mouth and by a written message, assured the 
 Houses that the step which had caused so much com- 
 plaint should never be drawn into precedent. It would 
 have been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a 
 barrister of reputation to argue in defence of a prerog- 
 ative which the Sovereign, seated on his throne in full 
 Parliament, had solemnly renounced a few years before. 
 But it was not quite so clear that the King might not, 
 on special grounds, grant exemptions to individuals by 
 name. The first object of James, therefore, was to ob- 
 tain from the courts of common law an acknowledc;-
 
 1686.] ' JAMES THE SECOND. , 361 
 
 ment that, to this extent at least, he possessed the dis- 
 pensing power. 
 
 But, though his pretensions wei'e moderate when 
 compared with those whicli he put forth a Dismission 
 few months later, he soon found that he had Judges. 
 asainst him ahnost the whole sense of Westminster 
 Hall. Four of the Judges gave him to understaiid 
 that they could not, on this occasion, serve his pur- 
 pose ; and it is remarkable that all the four were vio- 
 lent Tories, and that among them were men who had 
 accompanied Jeffreys on the Bloody Circuit, and who 
 had been consenting to the death of Cornish and of 
 Elizabeth Gaunt. Jones, the Chief Justice of the Com- 
 mon Pleas, a man who had never before shrunk from 
 any drudgery, however cruel or servile, now held in 
 the royal closet language which might have become the 
 lips of the purest magistrates in our history. He was 
 plainly told that he must either give up his opinion or 
 his place, " For my place," he answered, " I care little. 
 I am old and worn out in tlie service of the crown ; but 
 I am mortified to find that your Majesty thinks me ca- 
 pable of giving a judgment whicli none but an ignorant 
 or a dishonest man could give." " I am determined," 
 said the King, " to have twelve Judges who will be 
 all of my mind as to this matter." " Your Majesty," 
 answered Jones, " may find twelve Judges of your 
 mind, but hardly twelve lawj'^ers." ^ He was dis- 
 missed together with Montague, Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer, and two puisne Judges, Neville and Charl- 
 ton. One of the new Judges was Chi-ist(^j>her jNlilton, 
 younger brother of the great poet. Of Christopher 
 little is known except that, in the time of the civil war, 
 he had been a Royalist, and that he now, in his old age, 
 1 Reresby's Memoirs; Eachard, iii. 797.; Kenaet, iii. 451.
 
 362. HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VX 
 
 leaned towards Popery. It. does not appear that he 
 was ever formally reconciled to the Church of Rome : 
 but he certainly had scruples about communicating 
 with the Church of England, and had therefore a 
 strong interest in supporting the dispensing power.^ 
 
 The King found his counsel as refractory as his 
 Judges. The first barrister who learned that he was 
 expected to defend the dispensing power was the So- 
 licitor General, Heneage Finch. He peremptorily re- 
 fused, and w^as turned out of office on the followino- 
 day.2 The Attorney General, Sawyer, was ordered to 
 draw warrants authorising members of the Chui'ch of 
 Rome to hold benefices belonging to the Church of 
 England. Sawyer had been deeply concerned in some 
 of the harshest and most unjustifiable prosecutions of 
 that age ; and the Whigs abhorred him as a man 
 stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney : but on 
 this occasion he showed no want of honesty or of res- 
 olution. " Sir," said he, " this is not merely to dis- 
 pense with a statute ; it is to annul the whole statute 
 law from the accession of Elizabeth to the present day. 
 I dare not do it ; and I implore Your Majesty to con- 
 sider whether such an attack upon the rights of the 
 Church be in accordance with your late gracious prom- 
 ises." 2 Sawyer would have been instantly dismissed 
 as Finch had been, if the government could have found 
 a successor : but this was no easy matter. It was ne- 
 cessary for the protection of the rights of the crown 
 that one at least of the crown lawyers should be a man 
 of learning, ability, and expenence ; and no such man 
 
 1 London Gazette, April 22. and 29. 1686; Barillon, April i|.. ; Evelyn's 
 Diary, June 2.; Luttrcll, June 8.; Dodd's Cliurch History. 
 
 2 North's Life of Guildford, 288. 
 ' Reresby's Memoirs.
 
 1686.J JaMES TUE SECOND. 363 
 
 was willing to defend the dispensing power. The At- 
 torney General was therefore permitted to retain his 
 place during some months. Thomas Powis, an insig- 
 nificant man, who had no qualification for high em- 
 l)!oyment except servility, was appointed Solicitor. 
 
 The preliminary arrangements were now complete. 
 There was a Solicitor General to argue for case of sir 
 the dispensing power, and a bench of Judges uaies. 
 to decide in favour of it. The question was therefore 
 speedily brought to a hearing. Sir Edward Hales, a 
 gentleman of Kent, had been converted to Popery in 
 days when it was not safe for any man of note openly 
 to declare himself a Papist. He had kept his secret, 
 and, when questioned, had affirmed that he was a Prot- 
 estant with a solemnity which did little credit to his 
 principles. When James had ascended the throne, 
 disguise was no longer necessary. Sir Edward pub- 
 licly apostatized, and was rewarded with the command 
 of a regiment of foot. He had held his commission 
 more than three months without taking the sacrament. 
 He was therefore liable to a penalty of five hundred 
 pounds, which an informer might recover by action of 
 debt. A menial servant was employed to bring a suit 
 for this sum in the Court of King's Bench. Sir Ed- 
 ward did not dispute the facts alleged against him, but 
 pleaded that he had letters patent authorising him to 
 hold his commission notwithstanding the Test Act. 
 The plaintiff demurred, that is to say, admitted Sir 
 Edward's plea to be true in fact, but denied that it was 
 a sufficient answer. Thus was raised a simple issue of 
 law to be decided by the court. A barrister, who was 
 notoriously a tool of the government, appeared for the 
 mock plaintiff, and made some feeble objections to the 
 defendant's plea. The new Solicitor General replied.
 
 364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 The Attorney General took no part in the proceedings. 
 Judgment was given by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir 
 Edward Herbert. He announced tliat he had sub- 
 mitted the question to all the twelve Judges, and that, in 
 the opinion of eleven of them, the King might lawfully 
 dispense with penal statutes in particular cases, and for 
 special reasons of grave importance. The single dis- 
 sentient, Baron Street, was not removed from his place. 
 He was a man of morals so bad that his own relations 
 shrank from him, and that the Prince of Orange, at 
 the time of the Revolution, was advised not to see him. 
 The character of Street makes it impossible to believe 
 that he would have been more scrupulous than his 
 brethren. The character of James makes it impossi- 
 ble to believe that a refractory Baron of the Exchequer 
 would have been permitted to retain his post. There 
 can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that the dissenting 
 Judge was, like the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counsel, 
 acting collusively. It was important that there should 
 be a great preponderance of authority in favour of the 
 dispensing power ; yet it was important that the bench, 
 which had been carefully packed for the occasion, 
 should appear to be independent. One Judge, there- 
 fore, the least respectable of the twelve, was permitted, 
 or more probably commanded, to give his voice against 
 the prerogative.^ 
 
 The power which the courts of law had thus recog- 
 nised was not suffered to lie idle. Within a month 
 ifter the decision of the King's Bench had been pro- 
 nounced, four Roman Catholic Lords were sworn of 
 the Privy Council. Two of them, Powis and Bel- 
 
 ^ See the ncconnt of the case in the Collection of State Trials ; Van Citters, 
 
 May 4 ., ""r^^' 1686; Evelyn's Diarv, June 27.; Luttrell's Diaiy, June 
 •' Yf ' July 2. - 
 
 21. As to Street, see Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 27. 1688.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 365 
 
 lasyse, were of the moderate party, and probably took 
 their seats with reluctance and with many sad fore- 
 bodings. The other two, Arundell and Dover, had 
 no such misoivino;s.^ 
 
 The dispensing power was, at the same time, em- 
 ployed for the purpose of enabling Roman ^oman 
 Catholics to hold ecclesiastical preferment. authoI-K^d 
 The new Solicitor readily drew the warrants c?eSiS 
 in which Sawyer had refused to be concerned, ^'^"^^fi^"*- 
 One of these warrants was in favour of a wretch 
 named Edward Sclater, who had two livings 
 which he was determined to keep through 
 all changes. He administered the sacrament to his 
 parishioners according to the rites of the Church of 
 England on Palm Sunday 1686. On Easter Sun- 
 day, only seven days later, he was at mass. The 
 royal dispensation authorised him to retain the emolu- 
 ments of his benefices. To the remonstrances of the 
 patrons from whom he had received his preferment he 
 replied in terms of insolent defiance, and, while the 
 Roman Catholic cause prospered, put forth an absurd 
 treatise in defence of his apostasy. But, a very few 
 weeks after the Revolution, a great congregation as- 
 sembled at Saint Mary's in the Savoy, to see him re- 
 ceived again into the bosom of the Church which he 
 had deserted. He read his recantation with tears 
 flowing from his eyes, and pronounced a bitter in- 
 vective against the Popish priests whose arts had se- 
 duced him.^ 
 
 1 London Gazette, Julj' 19. 1686. 
 
 ■•* 'I'lie letters patent arc; in Gutch's Colloctanea Curiosa. The date is the 
 3d of May, I08(i. Si:e Sdater's Consensus Veteruni; Gee's ruply, oniillcd 
 Veteres Vindicati; Dr. Antiiony Ilorncck's account of Mr. Sclater's recan- 
 tation of the errors of I'opery on tiie 5th of May, 1G8'J; Dodd's Church 
 History, part viii. book ii. art. 3.
 
 366 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 Scarcely less infamous was the conduct of Obadiah 
 Walker Walker. He was an aged priest of the 
 Church of England, and was well known in 
 the University of Oxford as a man of learning. He 
 had in the late reign been suspected of leaning towards 
 Popery, but had outwardly conformed to the established 
 religion, and had at length been chosen Master of Uni- 
 vei'sity College. Soon after the accession of James, 
 Walker detei'mined to throw off the disguise which he 
 had hitherto worn. He absented himself from the 
 public worship of the Church of England, and, with 
 some fellows and undergraduates whom he had per- 
 verted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. One 
 of the first acts performed by the new Solicitor Gen- 
 eral was to draw up an instrument which authorised 
 Walker and his proselytes to hold their benefices, not- 
 withstanding their apostasy. Builders were imme- 
 diately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an 
 oratory. In a few weeks the Roman Catholic rites 
 were publicly pei'formed in University College. A 
 Jesuit was quartered there as chaplain. A press was 
 established there under royal license for the printing 
 of Roman Catholic tracts. During two years and a 
 half. Walker continued to make war on Protestantism 
 with all the rancour of a renegade : but when fortune 
 turned he showed that he wanted the courage of a 
 martyr. He was brought to the bar of the House of 
 Commons to answer for his conduct, and was base 
 enough to protest that he had never changed his re- 
 ligion, that he had never cordially approved of the 
 doctrines of the Church of Rome, and that he had 
 never tried to bring any other person within the 
 pale of that Church. It was hardly worth while 
 to violate the most sacred obhgations of law and of 
 
 II
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 367 
 
 plighted faith, for the purpose of making such converts 
 as these. ^ 
 
 In a short time the King went a step further. Sclater 
 and Walker had only been permitted to keep, The deanery 
 after they became Papists, the preferment chureil^^ivea 
 which had been bestowed on them while they caHiou^''" 
 passed for Protestants. To confer a high office in 
 die Established Church on an avowed enemy of that 
 Church was a far bolder \'iolation of the laws and of 
 the royal word. But no course was too bold for James. 
 The Deaneiy of Christchurch became vacant. That 
 office was, both in dignity and in emolument, one of 
 the highest in the University of Oxford. The Dean 
 was charged with the government of a greater number 
 of youths of high connections and of great hopes than 
 could be found in any other college. He was also the 
 head of a Cathedral. In both ciiaracters it was ne- 
 cessary that he should be a member of the Church of 
 England. Nevertheless John Massey, who was notori- 
 ously a member of the Church of Rome, and who had 
 not one single recommendation, except that he was a 
 member of the Church of Rome, was appointed by 
 virtue of the dispensing power; and soon within the 
 walls of Christchurch an altar was decked, at which 
 mass was daily celebrated.^ To the Nuncio the King 
 Baid that what had been done at Oxford should very 
 soon be done at Cam bridge .^ 
 
 Yet even this was a small evil compared with that 
 which Protestants had good ground to appre- Di,po,ai of 
 hend. It seemed but too probable that the '^^i'op"<=s- 
 
 1 Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Dodil, viii. ii. 3.; Wood. Ath. Ox.; Ellis 
 Correspondence, Feb. 27. 1680; Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689. 
 
 * Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa; Wood's Atlienaj Oxonicnses; Dialogue 
 between a Churchman and a Di:sscntcr, IGS'J. 
 
 « Adda, July ^. 1086. 
 
 VOL. II. 24
 
 368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 whole government of the Anglican Church would 
 shortly pass into the hands of her deadliest enemies. 
 Three important sees had lately become vacant, that 
 of York, that of Chester, and that of Oxford. The 
 Bishopric of Oxford was given to Samuel Parker, a 
 parasite, whose religion, if he had any religion, was that 
 of Rome, and who called himself a Protestant only be- 
 cause he was encumbered with a wife. " I wished," 
 the King said to Adda, " to appoint an avowed Catho- 
 lic : but the time is not come. Parker is well inclined 
 to us ; he is one of us in feeling ; and by degrees he 
 will bring round his clergy." ^ The Bishopric of Chester, 
 vacant by the death of John Pearson, a great name both 
 in philology and in divinity, was bestowed on Thomas 
 Cartwright, a still viler sycophant than Parker. The 
 Archbishopric of York remained several years vacant. 
 As no good reason could be found for leaving so impor- 
 tant a place unfilled, men suspected that the nomina- 
 tion was delayed only till the King could venture to 
 place the mitre on the head of an avowed Papist. It 
 is indeed highly probable that the Church of England 
 was saved from this outrage solely by the good sense 
 and good feeling of the Pope. Without a special dis- 
 pensation from Rome no Jesuit could be a Bishop ; and 
 Innocent could not be induced to grant such a disj)en- 
 sation to Petre. 
 
 James did not even make any secret of his intention 
 iiesoiuHon to cxort vigorously and systematically for the 
 usehiseccie- dcstruction of the Established Church all the 
 
 siiistical su- i . i i i i i j TT 
 
 premacy powers which he possessed as her head. He 
 Church. plainly said that, by a wise dispensation of 
 Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means 
 of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry 
 
 1 Adda, ^- 1686. 
 
 ' Aug. 9.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 369 
 
 and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully 
 belonged to the Holy See. That dominion had, in the 
 course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, 
 and would be held by him in trust for the Holy See. 
 He was authorised by law to repress spiritual abuses ; 
 and the first spiritual abuse wdiich he would repress 
 should be the liberty which the Anglican clergy as- 
 sumed of defending their own religion and of attacking 
 the doctrines of Rome.^ 
 
 But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesias- 
 tical supremacy which had devolved on him, ju, difflcui- 
 was by no means the same great and terrible *"^" 
 prerogative which Elizabeth, James the First, and 
 Charles the First had possessed. The enactment which 
 annexed to the crown an almost boundless visitatorial 
 authority over the Church, though it bad never been 
 foi-mally repealed, had really lost a great part of its 
 force. The substantive law^ remained ; but it remained 
 unaccompanied by any formidable sanction or by any 
 efficient system of procedure, and was therefore little 
 more than a dead letter. 
 
 The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual 
 dominion assumed by her father and resigned by her 
 sister, contained a clause authorisino; the sovereicn to 
 constitute a tribunal which might investigate, reform, 
 and punish all ecclesiastical delincpiencies. Under the 
 authority given by this clause, the Court of High Com- 
 
 1 " Ce prince m'a (lit quu Dieu avoit perinis que toutes les loix qui ont 
 it6 faites pour t'tablir la religion Prote.staute, et dtHruire la religion Catho- 
 lique, servent pr(?sentenient de fondement b, ce qu'il veut faire pour I'dfab- 
 lisseinent de la vraie rC'ligion, et le niettent en droit d'exercer un pouvoir 
 encore plus grand que eelui (jn'ont les rois Catlioluiues sur les aftaires eccld- 
 Biasti(iues dans les autres pays." — Barillon, .July X^. 16H6. To Adda His 
 Majesty said, a few days later, "Che I'autorita coneessale dal parlaiuento 
 Bopra rEeclesiastico senza alcun limite con fine contrario fosse adesso pet 
 
 July ^. 
 
 serv'ire al vautaggio de' medesimi Cattolici." t—^ — - 
 
 "" All.'. Z.
 
 370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 mission was created. That court was, during many 
 years, the terror of Nonconformists, and, under the 
 harsh administration of Laud, became an object of fear 
 and hatred even to those who most loved the Estabhshed 
 Church. When the Long Parhament met, the High 
 Commission was generally regarded as the most griev- 
 ous of the many gi-ievances under which the nation la- 
 boured. An act was therefore somewhat hastily passed, 
 which not only took away from the Crown the power 
 of appointing visitors to superintend the Church, but 
 abolished all ecclesiastical courts without distinction. 
 After the Kestoration, the Cavaliers who filled the 
 House of Commons, zealous as they were for the pre- 
 rogative, still remembered with bitterness the tyranny 
 of the High Commission, and were by no means dis- 
 posed to revive an institution so odious. They at 
 the same time thought, and with reason, that the 
 statute which had swept away all the courts Christian 
 of the realm, without providing any substitute, was 
 open to grave objection. They accordingly repealed 
 that statute, with the exception of the part which re- 
 lated to the High Commission. Thus, the Archidi- 
 aconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of 
 Arches, the Court of Peciiliars, and the Court of Del- 
 egates were revived : but the enactment by which 
 Elizabeth and her successors had been empowered to 
 appoint Commissioners with visitatorial authority over 
 the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, 
 with the utmost strength of language, to be completely 
 abrogated. It is therefore as clear as any point of con- 
 stitutional law can be that James the Second was not 
 competent to appoint a Commission with power to visit 
 and govern the Church of England.^ But, if this were 
 
 1 The whole question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a little con-
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 371 
 
 BO, it was to little purpose that the Act of Supremacy, 
 in high sounding words, empowered him to amend 
 what was amiss in that Church. Nothins but a ma- 
 chinery as stringent as that which the Long Parliament 
 had destroyed could force the Anglican clergy to be- 
 come his ajTonts for the destruction of the Anolican 
 doctrine and disci})line. He therefore, as early as the 
 month of April 1686, determined to create a new Court 
 of High Commission. This design was not immediately 
 executed. It encountered the opposition of every min- 
 ister who was not devoted to Fi-ance and to the Jesuits. 
 It was regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation 
 of the law, and by Churchmen as a direct attack upon 
 the Church. Perhaps the contest might have lasted 
 longer, but for an event which Avounded the pride and 
 inflamed the rage of the King. He had, as supreme 
 ordinary, ])ut forth directions, charging the clergy of 
 the establishment to abstain from touchino; in their dis- 
 courses on controverted points of doctrine. Thus, while 
 sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic reliixion were 
 preached on every Sunday and holiday within the pre- 
 cincts of the royal palaces, the Church of the state, the 
 Church of the great majority of the nation, was for- 
 bidden to explain and vindicate her own princi|)les. 
 The spirit of the whole clerical order rose against this 
 injustice. William Sherlock, a divine of distinguished 
 abilities, who had written with sharpness against Whigs 
 and Dissenters, and had been rewai'ded by the govern- 
 ment with the Mastership of the Temple and with a 
 pension, was one of the first who incurred the royal 
 disj)leasure. His pension was stopped, and he was se- 
 
 temporary tract, entitled "The King's Power in Matters Ecclesiastical fair- 
 ly stated." See alsoa concise but forcible arguiucnt by Archbisliop San- 
 troft. Doyly's Life of SancrotY, i. 220.
 
 372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 verely reprimanded.^ John Sharp, Dean of Norwich 
 and Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields, soon gave still 
 greater offence. He was a man of learning and fervent 
 piety, a preacher of great fame, and an exemplary parish 
 priest. In politics he was, like most of his brethren, a 
 Tory, and had just been appointed one of the royal chap- 
 lains. He received an anonymous letter which purported 
 to come from one of his parishioners who had been stag- 
 gered by the arguments of Roman Catholic theologians, 
 and who was anxious to be satisfied that the Church 
 of England was a branch of the true Church of Christ. 
 No divine, not utterly lost to all sense of religious duty 
 and of professional honour, could refuse to answer such 
 a call. On the following Sunday Sharp delivered an 
 animated discourse against the high pretensions of the 
 see of Rome. Some of his expressions were exagger- 
 ated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to Whitehall. 
 It was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely 
 of the theological disquisitions which had been found in 
 the strong box of the late King, and which the present 
 King had pviblished. Compton, the Bishop of London, 
 received orders from Sunderland to suspend Sharp till 
 the royal pleasure should be further known. The 
 Bishop was in great perplexity. His recent conduct in 
 the House of Lords had given deep offence to the court. 
 Already his name had been struck out of the list of 
 Privy Councillors. Already he had been dismissed 
 from his office in the royal chapel. He was unwilling 
 to give fresh provocation : but the act which he was 
 directed to perfoi'm was a judicial act. He felt that it 
 was unjust, and he was assured by the best advisers 
 that it was also illegal, to inflict punishment without 
 giving any opportunity for defence. jHe accordingly, 
 
 1 Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18. l''8|.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 873 
 
 in tlie humblest terms, represented his difficulties to the 
 King, and privately requested Sharp not to appear in 
 tlie pulpit for the present. Reasonable as were Comp- 
 ton's scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, James 
 was greatly incensed. What insolence to plead either 
 natui'al justice or positive law in oj^position to an ex- 
 press command of the Sovereign ! Sharp was forgot- 
 ten. The Bishop became a mark for the whole ven- 
 geance of the government.^ The King felt jj^ creates a 
 more painfully than ever the want of that H*^ghCom-°^ 
 tremendous engine which had once coerced ""'^""o- 
 refractory ecclesiastics. He probably knew that, for 
 a few angry words uttered against his father's govern- 
 ment. Bishop Williams had been suspended by the 
 High Commission from all ecclesiastical dignities and 
 functions. The desion of revivino; that formidable tri- 
 bunal was pushed on more eagez'ly than ever. In July 
 London was alarmed by the news that the King had, 
 in direct defiance of two acts of Parliament drawn in 
 the strongest terms, entrusted the whole government 
 of the Church to seven Commissioners.^ The words in 
 which the jurisdiction of these officers was described 
 were loose, and might be stretched to almost any ex- 
 tent. All colleges and grammar schools, even those 
 founded by the liberality of private benefactors, were 
 placed under the authority of the new board. All who 
 depended for bread on situations in the Church or in 
 academical institutions, from the Primate down to the 
 youngest curate, from the Vicechancellors of Oxford 
 
 ' The best account of tliese transactions is in the Life of Sharp, hv liia 
 son. Van Citters, ^j;"^~ 1086. 
 
 2 Harillon, '^,^1' IfiSii. Van Citters, July |Q.; Privy Council Book, 
 July 17.: Kills Correspondence, July 17.; Evelyn's Diary, July 14.; Lut 
 treli's Diary, Aug. 5, 6.
 
 874 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 and Cambridge doAvri to the Immblest pedagogue who 
 taught Corderius, were subjected to this despotic tri- 
 bunal. If any one of those many thousands was sus- 
 pected of doing or saying anything distasteful to the 
 government, the Commissioners miglit cite him before 
 them. In their mode of dealing with him they were 
 fettered by no rules. They were themselves at once 
 prosecutors and judges. The accused party was to be 
 fuxuished with no copy of the charge. He was ex- 
 amined and crossexamined. If his answers did not 
 give satisfaction, he was liable to be suspended from his 
 office, to be ejected from it, to be pronounced incapable 
 of holding any preferment in future. If he were con- 
 tumacious, he might be excommunicated, or, in other 
 words, be deprived of all civil rights and imprisoned 
 for life. He might also, at the discretion of the court, 
 be loaded with all the costs of the proceeding by which 
 he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal was given. 
 The Commissioners nvere directed to execute their office 
 notwithstanding any law which might be, or might 
 seem to be, inconsistent with these regulations. Lastly, 
 lest any person should doubt that it was intended to 
 I'evive that terrible court from which the Lono; Parlia- 
 ment had freed the nation, the new Visitors were di- 
 rected to use a seal bearing exactly the same device 
 and the same superscription with the seal of the old 
 High Commission.^ 
 
 The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His 
 ])resence and assent were declared necessary to every 
 proceeding. All men knew how unjustly, insolently, 
 and barbarously he had acted in courts where he had 
 
 1 The device was a rose and crown. Before the device was the initial 
 letter of the Sovereign's name; after it the letter R. Round the seal was 
 this inscription, " Sigillum commissariorum regiae majestatis ad causas ec- 
 clesiasticas."
 
 leSfi.j JAMES THE SECOND. 375 
 
 been, to a certain extent, restrained by the known laws 
 of England. It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee 
 how he would conduct himself in a situation in which 
 he was at entire liberty to make forms of procedure 
 and rules of evidence for himself. 
 
 Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates 
 and three laymen. The name of Archbishop Bancroft 
 stood first. But he was fully convinced that the court 
 was illegal, that all its judgments would be null, and 
 that by sitting in it he should incur a serious responsi- 
 bility. He therefore determined not to comply with 
 the royal mandate. He did not, however, act on this 
 occasion with that courage and sincerity which he 
 showed when driven to extremity two years later. He 
 begged to be excused on the plea of business and ill 
 health. The other members of the board, he added, 
 were men of too much ability to need* his assistance. 
 These disingenuous apologies ill became the Primate of 
 all England at such a crisis ; nor did they avert the royal 
 displeasure. Sancroft's name was not indeed struck out 
 of the list of Privy Councillors : but, to the bitter mor- 
 tification of the friends of tiie Church, he was no longer 
 summoned on Council days. " If," said the King, 
 " he is too sick or too busy to go to the Commission, 
 it is a kindness to relieve him from attendance at 
 Council." 1 
 
 The government found no similar difficulty with 
 Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop of the great and opulent see 
 of Durham, a man nobly born, and raised so high in 
 his profession that he could scarcely wish to rise higher, 
 but mean, vain, and cowardly. He had been made 
 Dean of the Chapel Royal when the Bishop of London 
 
 1 Appendix to Clarendon's Diary; Van Citters, Oct. « . 1G8G; Barillon, 
 Oct. ^. ; Doyly's Life of Sancrott.
 
 376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 was banished from the palace. The honour of being 
 an Ecclesiastical Commissioner turned Crewe's head. 
 It was to no purpose that some of his friends repre- 
 sented to him the risk which he ran by sitting in an 
 illegal tribunal. He was not ashamed to answer that 
 he could not live out of the royal smile, and exult- 
 ingly expressed his hope that his name would appear 
 in history, a hope which has not been altogether dis- 
 appointed.^ 
 
 Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the third 
 clerical Commissioner. He was a man to whose talents 
 posterity has scarcely done justice. Unhappily for his 
 fame, it has been usual to print his verses in collections 
 of the British poets ; and those who judge of him by his 
 verses miist consider him as a servile imitator, who, 
 without one spark of Cowley's admirable genius, mim- 
 icked whatever was least commendable in Cowley's 
 manner: but those who are acquainted with Sprat's 
 prose writings will form a very different estimate of his 
 powers. He was indeed a great master of our lan- 
 guage, and possessed at once the eloquence of the 
 }n-eacher, of the controversialist, and of the historian. 
 His moral character might have passed with little cen- 
 sure had he belonged to a less sacred {)rofession ; for the 
 worst that can be said of him is that he was indolent, 
 luxurious, and worldly : but such failings, though not 
 commonly regarded as very heinous in men of secular 
 callings, are scandalous in a prelate. Tiie Archbishopric 
 of York was vacant ; Sprat hoped to obtain it, and there- 
 fore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical board : but he 
 was too goodnatured a man to behave harshly ; and he 
 was too sensible a man not to know that he micjht at 
 some future time be called to a serious account by a 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 676.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 377 
 
 Parliament. He therefore, thougli he consented to act, 
 tried to do as little miscliief, and to make as few ene- 
 mies, as possible.^ 
 
 The three remaining Commissioners were the Lord 
 Treasurer, the Lord President, and the Chief Justice 
 of the King's Bench. Rochester, disapproving and 
 murmuring, consented to serve. Much as he had to 
 endure at the court, he could not bear to quit it. Much 
 as lie loved the Church, he could not bring himself to 
 sacrifice for her sake his white staff, his patronage, his 
 salary of eight thousand pounds a year, and the far 
 larger indirect emoluments of his office. He excused 
 his conduct to others, and perhaps to himself, by plead- 
 ing that, as a Commissioner, he might be able to pre- 
 vent much evil, and that, if he refused to act, some 
 person less attached to the Protestant religion would 
 bo found to fill the vacant place. Sunderland was the 
 i-ei)resentative of the Jesuitical cabal. Herbert's recent 
 decision on the question of the dispensing power seemed 
 to prove that he woidd not flinch from any service 
 which the King might require. 
 
 As soon as the Commission had been opened, tlie 
 Bishop of London was cited before the new „ 
 tribunal. He appeared. " I demand of you," nlstopof" 
 said Jeffreys, " a direct and positive answer, ^""^don. 
 Why did not you suspend Dr. Sharp ? " 
 
 The Bishop requested a copy of the Commission in 
 oi-der that he might know by what authority he was 
 thus interrogated. " If you mean," said Jeffreys, " to 
 dispute our authoi-ity, I sliall take another course with 
 you. As to the Commission, I do not doubt that you 
 have seen it. At all events yon may see it in any 
 coffeehouse for a penny." The insolence of the Chan- 
 1 Burnet, i. 675. ii. 029.; Sprat's Letters to Dorset.
 
 378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 cellor s reply appears to have shocked the other Com- 
 missioners, and lie Avas forced to make some awkward 
 apologies. He then returned to the point from which 
 he had started. " This," he said, " is not a court in 
 which written charges are exhibited. Our proceed- 
 ings are summary, and by word of mouth. The ques- 
 tion is a plain one. Why did you not obey the King ? " 
 With some difficulty Compton obtained a brief delay, 
 and the assistance of counsel. When the case had 
 been heard, it was evident to all men that the Bishop 
 had done only what he was bound to do. The Treas- 
 urer, the Chief Justice, and Sprat were for acquittal. 
 The King's wrath was moved. It seemed that his 
 Ecclesiastical Commission would fail him as his Tory 
 Parliament had failed him. He offered Rochester a 
 simple choice, to pronounce the Bishop guilty, or to 
 quit the Treasury. Rochester was base enough to 
 yield. Compton was suspended from all spiritual func- 
 tions ; and the charge of his great diocese was com- 
 mitted to his judges, Spi*at and Crewe. He continued, 
 however, to reside in his palace and to receive his reve- 
 nues ; for it was known that, had any attempt been 
 made to deprive him of his temporalities, he would have 
 put himself under the protection of the common law ; 
 and Herbert himself declared that, at common law, 
 judgment must be given against the crown. This con- 
 sideration induced the King to pause. Only a few 
 weeks had elapsed since he had packed the courts 
 of Westminster Hall in order to obtain a decision 
 in favour of his dispensing power. He now found 
 that, unless he packed them again, he should not be 
 able to obtain a decision in favour of the proceed- 
 ings of his Ecclesiastical Commission. He determined, 
 therefore, to postpone for a short time the confis-
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 379 
 
 cation of the freehold property of refractory clergy- 
 
 men.^ 
 
 The temper of the nation was indeed such as mio-ht 
 well make him hesitate. During some months Di<scontent 
 discontent had been steadily and rapidly in- the'^'ifbiic 
 creasing. The celebration of the Roman uoman"*^ 
 Catholic worship had long been prohibited by ri(ei'""j 
 Act of Parliament. During several genera- ^^^'^ents. 
 tions no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to ex- 
 hibit himself in any public place with the bado-es of 
 his office. Against the regular clergy, and against the 
 restless and subtle Jesuits by name, liad been enacted 
 a succession of rigorous statutes. Every Jesuit who set 
 foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered. A reward was offered for his detection. 
 He was not allowed to take advantage of the general 
 rule, that men are not bound to accuse themselves. 
 Whoever was suspected of being a Jesuit might be in- 
 terrogated, and, if he refused to answer, might be sent 
 to prison for life.^ These laws, though they had not, 
 except when there was supposed to be some peculiar 
 danger, been strictly executed, and though they had 
 never prevented Jesuits fi'om resorting to England, 
 had made disguise necessary. But all disguise was 
 now thrown off. Injudicious members of the King's 
 Church, encouraged by him, took a pride in defying 
 statutes which were still of undoubted vaHdity, and feel- 
 ings which had a stronger hold of the national mind 
 than at any former period. Roman Catliolic chapels 
 rose all over the country. Cowls, girdles of ropes, and 
 strings of beads constantly appeared in the streets, and 
 
 1 Burnet, i. G77.; liaiilloii, Sept. ^. 168G. The public proceedings an 
 in the Collection ot'Stiitc Trials. 
 » 27 Eliz. c. 2.; 2 Jac. 1. c. 4.; 3 Jac. 1. c. 5.
 
 380 HI.STOBY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 astonislied a population, the oldest of whom had never 
 seen a conventual garb except on the stage. A convent 
 rose at Clerkenwell on the site of the ancient cloister 
 of Saint John. The Franciscans occupied a mansion 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Carmelites were quar- 
 tered in the City. A society of Benedictine monks 
 was lodged in Saint James's Palace. In the Savoy a 
 spacious house, including a church and a school, was 
 built for the Jesuits.^ The skill and care with which 
 those fathers had, during several generations, con- 
 ducted the education of youth, had drawn forth reluc- 
 tant praises from the wisest Protestants. Bacon had 
 pronounced the mode of instruction followed in the 
 Jesuit colleges to be the best yet known in the world, 
 and had warmly expressed his regret that so admirable 
 a system of intellectual and moral discipline should be 
 employed on the side of error.^ It was not improba- 
 ble that the new academy in the Savoy might, under 
 royal patronage, prove a formidable rival to the great 
 foundations of Eton, Westminster, and Winchester. 
 Indeed, soon after the school was opened, the classes 
 consisted of four hundred boys, about one half of 
 whom were Protestants. The Protestant pupils were 
 not required to attend mass : but there could be no 
 doubt that the influence of able preceptors, devoted 
 to the Roman Catholic Church, and versed in all the 
 arts which win the confidence and aifection of youth, 
 would make many converts. 
 
 These things produced great excitement among the 
 populace, which is always more moved by 
 
 Wots. ' ' . , .11 1 • 
 
 what nnpresses the senses than by what is 
 addressed to the reason. Thousands of rude and igno- 
 
 > Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 79, 80. Orig. Mem. 
 2 De Augineiitis, i. vi. 4.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 381 
 
 rant men, to whom the dispensing power and the Eccle- 
 siastical Commission were words without a meaning, 
 saw with dismay and indignation a Jesuit college rising 
 on the banks of the Thames, friars in hoods and gowns 
 Avalking in the Strand, and crowds of devotees pressing 
 in at the doors of temples where homage was paid to 
 graven images. Riots broke out in several parts of 
 the country. At Coventry and Worcester the Roman 
 Catholic worship was violently interrupted.^ At Bris- 
 tol the rabble, countenanced, it was said, by the mag- 
 istrates, exliibited a profane and indecent pageant, in 
 which the Virgin Mary was represented by a buffoon, 
 and in which a mock host was carried in procession. 
 Soldiers were called out to disperse the mob. The 
 mob, then and ever since one of the fiercest in the king- 
 dom, resisted. Blows were exchanged, and serious 
 hurts inflicted.^ The agitation was great in the capi- 
 tal, and greater in the City, properly so called, than at 
 Westminster. For the people of Westminster had been 
 accustomed to see among them the private chapels of 
 Roman Catliolic Ambassadors : but the City had not, 
 within living memory, been polluted by any idolatrous 
 exhibition. Now, however, the resident of the Elector 
 Palatine, encouraged by the King, fitted up a chapel 
 in Lime Street. The heads of the corporation, though 
 men selected for office on account of their known Tory- 
 ism, protested against this proceeding, which, as they 
 said, the ablest gentlemen of the long robe regarded as 
 illegal. The Lord Mayor was ordered to appear before 
 the Privy Council. " Take heed what you do," said 
 the King. " Obey me ; and do not trouble yourself 
 either about gentlemen of the long robe or gentlemen 
 of the short robe." The Chancellor took up the word, 
 
 1 Van Citters, May ^. KJSG. 
 
 '•* Vail Ciltcis, May | J. 1G3G. Adda, May ^.
 
 382 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 and reprimanded the unfortunate magistrate with the 
 genuine eloquence of the Old Bailey bar. The chapel 
 was opened. All the neighbourhood was soon in com- 
 motion. Great crowds assembled in Cheapside to attack 
 the new mass house. The priests were insulted. A 
 crucifix was taken out of the building and set up on 
 the parish pump. The Lord Mayor came to quell the 
 tumult, but was received with cries of " No wooden 
 gods." The trainbands were ordered to disperse the 
 crowd : but the trainbands shared in the popular feel- 
 ing ; and murmurs were heard from the canks, " We 
 cannot in conscience fight for Popery." ^ 
 
 The Elector Palatine was, like James, a sincere and 
 zealous Catholic, and was, like James, the ruler of a 
 Protestant people ; but the two princes resembled each 
 other little in temper and understanding. The Elector 
 had promised to respect the rights of the Church which 
 he found established in his dominions. He had strictly 
 kept his word, and had not suffered himself to be pro- 
 voked to any violence by the indiscretion of preachers 
 who, in their antipathy to his faith, occasionally forgot 
 the respect which they owed to his person.^ He learned, 
 with concern, that great offence had been given to the 
 people of London by the injudicious act of his represent- 
 ative, and, much to his honour, declared that he would 
 forego the privilege to which, as a sovereign prince, he 
 was entitled, rather than endanger the peace of a great 
 city. *' I, too," he wrote to James, " have Protestant 
 subjects ; and I know with how much caution and deli- 
 cacy it is necessary that a Catholic prince so situated 
 
 1 Ellis Correspondence, April 27. 1(J86; Barillon, April i|..; Van Citters, 
 April ^, • Privy Council Book, March 26. ; Luttrell's Diary ; Adda, '^t^'' 
 
 March 26. ... 2 April 23. 
 April 5. ' ^P'''' 12^- IvilTsT 
 
 * Burnet's Travels.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 383 
 
 should act." James, instead of expressing gratitude 
 for this humane and considerate conduct, turned the 
 letter into ridicule before the foreio;n ministers. It was 
 determined that the Elector should have a chapel in the 
 City whether he would or not, and that, if the train- 
 bands refused to do their duty, their place should be 
 supplied by the Guards.^ 
 
 The effect of these disturbances on trade was serious. 
 The Dutch minister infonned the States General that 
 the business of the Exchange was at a stand. The 
 Commissioners of the Customs reported to the King 
 that, during the month which followed the opening of 
 Lime Street Chapel, the receipt in the port of the 
 Thames had fallen off by some thousands of pounds.^ 
 Several Aldermen, who, though zealous royalists ap- 
 pointed under the new charter, Avere deeply interested 
 in the commercial prosperity of their city, and loved 
 neither Popery nor martial law, tendered their resigna- 
 tions. But the King was resolved not to yield. He 
 formed a camp on Hounslow Heath, and col- a camp 
 
 . . . . r> 1 formed at 
 
 lected there, within a circumference of about uounsiow. 
 two miles and a half, fourteen battalions of foot and 
 thirty-two squadrons of horse, amounting to thirteen 
 thousand fighting men. Twenty-six pieces of artillery, 
 and many wains laden with arms and ammunition, were 
 dragged from the Tower through the City to Houns- 
 low.^ The Londoners saw this great force assembled 
 ' in their neichbourhood with a terror which familiarity 
 soon diminished. A visit to Hounslow became their 
 favourite amusement on holidays. The camp presented 
 
 1 Barillon, ^p-^' 1686. 
 
 ' June 6. 
 
 Van CittcTs, ^^'f'^ 168G. 
 8 Kllis Correspondence, Juno 26. 1686; Van Citteis, July ^.; Luttrell's 
 Diary, July I'J. 
 
 TOL. II. 26
 
 384 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ck. VI. 
 
 the appearance of a vast fair. Mingled witli the mus- 
 keteers and dragoons, a multitude of fine gentlemen 
 and ladies from Soho Square, sharpers and painted 
 women from Whitefriars, invalids in sedans, monks in 
 hoods and gowns, lacqueys in rich liveries, pedlars, or- 
 ange girls, mischievous apprentices and gaping clowns, 
 was constantly passing and repassing through the long 
 lanes of tents. From some pavilions were heard the 
 noises of drunken revelry, from others the curses of 
 gamblers. In truth the place was merely a gay sub- 
 urb of the capital. The King, as was amply proved 
 two years later, had greatly miscalculated. He had 
 forgotten that vicinity operates in more ways than one. 
 He had hoped that his army would overawe London : 
 but the result of his pohcy was that the feelings and 
 opinions of London took complete possession of his 
 army.i 
 
 Scarcely indeed had the encampment been formed 
 when there were rumours of quarrels between the Prot- 
 estant and Popish soldiers.^ A little tract, entitled A 
 humble and hearty Address to all English Protestants 
 in the Army, had been actively circulated through the 
 ranks. The writer vehemently exhorted the troops 
 to use their arms in defence, not of the mass book, but 
 of tho'Bible, of the Great Charter, and of the Petition 
 of Right. He was a man already under the frown of 
 power. His character was remarkable, and his histoiy 
 not uninstructive. 
 
 1 See the contemporary poems, entitled Hounslow Heath and Caesar's 
 
 Ghost; Evelyn's Diary, June 2. 1686. A ballad in the Pepysian collection 
 
 contains the following lines: — 
 
 " I liked the place beyond expressing, 
 I ne'er ?aw a camp so fine. 
 Not a maid iu a plain dressing. 
 But might taste a glass of wine." 
 
 * Luttrell's Diary, June 18. 1686.
 
 1««61 JAMES THE SECOND. 385 
 
 His name was Samuel Johnson. He was a priest of 
 the Church of England, and had been chap- gamuei 
 lain to Lord Russell. Johnson was one of •'°''"*°'»- 
 those persons who are mortally hated by their oppo- 
 nents, and less loved than respected by their allies. His 
 morals were pure, his religious feelings ardent, his 
 learning and abilities not contemptible, his judgment 
 weak, his temper acrimonious, turbulent, and uncon- 
 querably stubborn. His profession made him pecul- 
 iarly odious to the zealous supporters of monarchy ; for 
 a republican in holy orders was a strange and almost 
 an unnatural being. During the late reio;n Johnson 
 had published a book entitled Julian the Apostate. The 
 object of this work was to show that the Christians of 
 the fourth century did not hold the doctrine of nonre- 
 sistance. It was easy to produce passages from Chrys- 
 ostom and Jerome written in a spirit very different from 
 that of the Anglican divines who preached against the 
 Exclusion Bill. Johnson, however, went further. He 
 attempted to revive the odious imputation wliich had, 
 for very obvious reascms, been thrown by Libnnius on 
 the Christian soldiers of Julian, and insinuated that the 
 dart which slew the imperial renegade came, not from 
 the enemy, but from some Rumbold or Ferguson in the 
 Roman ranks. A hot controversy followed. Whig and 
 Toiy disputants wrangled fiercely about an obscure pas- 
 sage, in which Gregory of Nazianzus praises a pious 
 Bishop who was going to bastinado somebody. Tlie 
 Whigs maintained that the holy man was going to bas- 
 tinado the Emperor ; the Tories that, at the worst, he 
 was only going to bastinado a captain of the guard. 
 Johnson prepared a reply to his assailants, in which ho 
 drew an elaborate ])arallel between JuHan and James, 
 then Duke of York. Julian liad, during many years,
 
 886 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. TL 
 
 pretended to abhor idolatry, while in heart an idolater. 
 Julian had, to serve a turn, occasionally affected respect 
 for the rights of conscience. Julian had punished cities 
 which were zealous for the true religion, by taking 
 away their municipal privileges. Julian had, by his 
 flatterers, been called the Just. James was provoked 
 beyond endurance. Johnson was prosecuted for a libel, 
 convicted, and condemned to a fine which he had no 
 means of paying. He was therefore kept in gaol ; and 
 it seemed likely that his confinement would end only 
 with his life.i 
 
 Over the room which he occupied in the King's 
 Bench prison lodged another offender whose 
 character well deserves to be studied. This 
 was Hugh Speke, a young man of good family, but of 
 a singularly base and depraved nature. His love of 
 mischief and of dark and crooked ways amounted almost 
 to madness. To cause confusion without being found 
 out was his business and his pastime ; and he had a rare 
 skill in using honest enthusiasts as the instruments of 
 his coldblooded malice. He had attempted, by means 
 of one of his puppets, to fasten on Charles and James 
 the crime of murdering Essex in the Tower. On this 
 occasion the agency of Speke had been traced ; and, 
 though he succeeded in throwing the greater part of the 
 blame on his dupe, he had not escaped with impunity. 
 He was now a prisoner ; but his fortune enabled him to 
 live with comfort ; and he was under so little restraint 
 that he was able to keep up regular communication with 
 one of his confederates who managed a secret press. 
 
 Johnson was the very man for Speke's purposes, 
 zealous and intrepid, a scholar and a practised contro- 
 
 1 See the memoirs of Johnson, prefixed to the folio edition of his life, hia 
 Julian, and his answers to his opponents. See also Hickes's Jovian. 
 
 J
 
 1686.J JAMES THE SECOND. 387 
 
 versialist, yet as simple as a child. A close intimacy 
 sprang up between the two fellow prisoners. Johnson 
 wrote a succession of bitter and vehement treatises 
 which Speke conveyed to the printer. When the camp 
 was formed at Hounslow, Speke urged Johnson to 
 compose an addi'ess which might excite the troops to 
 mutiny. The paper was instantly drawn up. Many 
 thousands of copies were struck off and brought to 
 Speke's room, whence they were distributed over the 
 whole country, and especially among the soldiers. A 
 milder government than that which then ruled England 
 would have been moved to high resentment by such a 
 provocation. Strict search was made. A subordinate 
 agent who had been employed to circulate the address 
 saved himself by giving up Johnson ; and Johnson was 
 not the man to save himself by giving up Speke. An 
 information was filed, and a conviction ob- Proceedings 
 tained without difficulty. Julian Johnson, as Johnson. 
 he was popularly called, was sentenced to stand thrice 
 in the pillory, and to be whipped from Newgate to Ty- 
 burn. The Judge, Sir Francis Withins, told the crim- 
 inal to be thankful for the great lenity of the Attorney 
 General, who might have treated the case as one of 
 high treason. " I ow^e him no thanks," answered John- 
 son, dauntlessly. " Am I, whose only crime is that I 
 have defended the Church and the laws, to be grateful 
 for being scourged like a dog, while Popish scribblers 
 are suffered daily to insult tiie Church and to violate 
 the laws with impunity ? " The energy with which he 
 spoke was such that both the Judges and the crown 
 lawyers thought it necessary to vindicate themselves, 
 and protested that they knew of no Popish publications 
 such as those to which the prisoner alluded. He in- 
 stantly drew from his pocket some Roman Catholic
 
 888 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. TL 
 
 books and trinkets which were then freely exposed for 
 sale under the royal patronage, read aloud the titles of 
 the books, and threw a rosary across the table to the 
 King's counsel. " And now," he cried with a loud 
 voice, " I lay this information before God, before this 
 court, and before the English people. We shall soon 
 see whether Mr. Attorney will do his duty." 
 
 It was resolved that, before the punishment was in- 
 flicted, Johnson should be degraded from the priest- 
 hood. The prelates who had been charged by the 
 Ecclesiastical Commission with the care of the diocese 
 of London cited him before them in the chapter house 
 of Saint Paul's Cathedral. The manner in which he 
 went through the ceremony made a deep impression on 
 many minds. When he was stripped of his sacred robe 
 he exclaimed, " You are taking away my gown because 
 I have tried to keep your gowns on your backs." The 
 only part of the formalities which seemed to distress 
 him was the plucking of the Bible out of his hand. 
 He made a faint struggle to retain the sacred book, 
 kissed it, and burst into tears. " You cannot," he 
 said, " deprive me of the hopes which I owe to it." 
 Some attempts were made to obtain a remission of the 
 flogging. A Roman Catholic priest offered to intercede 
 in consideration of a bribe of two hundred pounds. 
 The money was raised ; and the priest did his best, 
 but in vain. " Mr. Johnson," said the King, "has the 
 spirit of a martyr ; and it is fit that he should be one." 
 William the Third said, a few years later, of one of the 
 most acrimonious and intrepid Jacobites, " He has set 
 his heart on being a martyr, and I have set mine on 
 disappointing him." These two speeches would alone 
 suffice to explain the widely different fates of the two 
 princes.
 
 1686.] JABIES THE SECOND. 889 
 
 The day appointed for the flogging came. A whip 
 of nine laslies was used. Three hundred and seventeen 
 stripes were inflicted ; but tlie sufferer never winced. 
 He afterwards said that the pain was cruel, but that, 
 as he was dragged at tlie tail of the cart, he remem- 
 bered haw patiently the cross had been borne up Mount 
 Calvary, and was so much supported by the thought 
 that, but for the fear of incurring the suspicion of vain 
 glory, he would have sung a psalm with as firm and 
 cheerful a voice as if he had been worshipping God in 
 the congregation. It is impossible not to wish that so 
 much heroism had been less alloyed by intemperance 
 and intolerance.^ 
 
 Among the clergy of the Church of England John- 
 son found no symi)athy. He had attempted zeai of the 
 
 •/ ^ i- '' ^1 Anglican 
 
 to iustify rebellion ; he had even hinted ap- clergy 
 
 . . . ... against 
 
 probation of regicide ; and they still, in spite Popery. 
 of much provocation, clung to the doctrine of non- 
 resistance. But they saw with alarm and concern the 
 progress of what they considered as a noxious supersti- 
 tion, and, while they abjured all thought of defending 
 their religion by the sword, betook themselves man- 
 fully to weapons of a different kind. To controver- 
 preach against the eri'ors of Popery was now s'^i writings. 
 regarded by them as a point of duty and a point of hon- 
 our. The London clergy, who were then in abilities 
 and influence decidedly at the head of their profession, 
 set an example which was bravely followed by their 
 ruder brethren all over the country. Had only a few- 
 bold men taken this freedom, they would probably have 
 
 1 Life of Johnson, prefixed to his work.s; Secret History of the happy 
 Revolution, by Hugh Speite; State Trials; Van Citteis, |);t^ IfiSG. Van 
 C'ittors gives tlie best account of the trial. I have seen a broadside which 
 confirms his narrative.
 
 390 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 been at once cited before the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sion ; but it was hardly possible to punish an offence 
 which was committed every Sunday by thousands of 
 divines, from Berwick to Penzance. The presses of 
 the capital, of Oxford, and of Cambridge, never rested. 
 The act which subjected literature to a censorship did 
 not seriously impede the exertions of Protestant con- 
 troversialists ; for that Act contained a proviso in favour 
 of the two Universities, and authorised the publication 
 of theological works licensed by the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. It was therefore out of the power of the 
 government to silence the defenders of the established 
 religion. They were a numerous, an intrepid, and a 
 well appointed band of combatants. Among them 
 were eloquent declaimers, expert dialecticians, scholars 
 deeply read in the writings of the fathers and in all 
 parts of ecclesiastical history. Some of them, at a 
 later period, turned against one another the formida- 
 ble arms which they had wielded against the common 
 enemy, and by their fierce contentions and insolent 
 triumphs brought reproach on the Church which they 
 had saved. But at present they formed an united 
 phalanx. In the van appeared a rank of steady and 
 skilful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Pri- 
 deaux, Whitby, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. The rear was 
 brought up by the most distinguished bachelors of arts 
 who were studying for deacon's orders. Conspicuous 
 amongst the recruits whom Cambrido-e sent to the field 
 was a distinguished pupil of tlie great Newton, Henry 
 Wharton, who had, a few months before, been senior 
 wrangler of his year, and whose early death was soon 
 after deplored by men of all parties as an irreparable 
 Voss to letters.^ Oxford was not less proud of a youth, 
 I See the preface to Henry Wharton's Posthumous Sermons.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 391 
 
 whose great powers, first essayed in tliis conflict, after- 
 wards troubled the Church and the State during forty 
 eventful years, Francis Atterbury, By such men as 
 these every question in issue between the Papists and 
 the Protestants was debated, sometimes in a popular 
 style which boys and women could comprehend, some- 
 times with the utmost subtlety of logic, and sometimes 
 with an immense display of learning. The pretensions 
 of the HoTy See, the authority of tradition, purgatory, 
 transubstantiation, the saci'ifice of the mass, the ado- 
 ration of the host, the denial of the cup to the laity, 
 confession, penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the 
 invocation of saints, the adoration of images, the celi- 
 bacy of the clergy, the monastic vows, the practice of 
 celebrating public worship in a tongue unknown to the 
 multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome, the 
 history of the Reformation, the characters of the chief 
 reformers, were copiously discussed. Great numbers 
 of absurd legends about miracles wrought by saints and 
 relics were translated from the Italian, and published 
 as specimens of the priestcraft by which the greater 
 part of Christendom had been fooled. Of the tracts 
 put forth on these subjects by Anglican divines during 
 the short reign of James the Second many have prob- 
 ably perislied. Those which may still be found in our 
 great libraries make up a mass of near twenty thou- 
 sand pages. ^ 
 
 The Roman Catholics did not yield the victory with- 
 out a struggle. One of them, named Henry The Roman 
 Hills, had been appointed jirinter to the royal <^'''"'°>"' 
 
 Divines over 
 matched 
 
 household and chapel, and had been placed 
 
 1 This I can attest from my own researches. There is an excellent col- 
 lection in the British Museum. Birch tells us, in his Life of Tillntson, that 
 Archbishop Wake had not been al)le to form even a perfect catalogue of 
 mU the tracts published in this controversy.
 
 892 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 by the King at the head of a great office in London 
 from which theological tracts came forth by hundreds. 
 Obadiah Walker's press was not less active at Oxford. 
 But, with the exception of some bad translations of 
 Bossuet's admirable works, these establishments put 
 forth nothing of the smallest value. It was indeed 
 impossible for any intelhgent and candid Roman Cath- 
 olic to deny that the champions of his Church were, 
 in every talent and acquirement, completely over- 
 matched. The ablest of them would not, on the other 
 side, have been considered as of the third rate. Many 
 of them, even when they had something to say, knew 
 not how to say it. They had been excluded by their 
 relicrion from Encrlish schools and universities ; nor had 
 they ever, till the accession of James, found England an 
 agreeable, or even a safe, residence. They had there- 
 fore passed the greater part of their lives on the Con- 
 tinent, and had almost unlearned their mother tongue. 
 When they preached, their outlandish accent moved 
 the derision of the audience. They spelt like washer- 
 women. Their diction was disfigured by foreign idi- 
 oms ; and, when they meant to be eloquent, they 
 imitated, as well as they could, what was considered 
 as fine writing in those Italian academies where rhet- 
 oric had then reached the last stage of corruption. 
 Disputants labouring under these disadvantages would 
 scax'cely, even with truth on their side, have been able 
 to make head against men whose style is eminently 
 distinguished by simple purity and grace. -"^ 
 
 1 Cardinal Howard spoke strongly to Burnet at Rome on this subject. 
 Burnet, i. 662. There is a curious passage to the same effect in a despatch 
 ofBarillon: but I have mislaid the reference. 
 
 One of the Roman Catholic divines who engaged in this controversy, a 
 Jesuit named Andrew Pulton, whom Mr. Oliver, in his biography of the 
 Order, pronounces to have been a man of distinguished ability, very frankly
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 393 
 
 The situation of England in the year 1686 cannot 
 be better described than in the words of the French 
 Ambassador. " The discontent," he wrote, " is gi'eat 
 and general : but the fear of incurring still worse evils 
 restrains all who have anything to lose. The King 
 openly expresses his joy at finding himself in a situ- 
 ati(m to strike bold strokes. He likes to be compli- 
 mented on this svxhject. He has talked to me about it, 
 and has assured me that he will not flinch." ^ 
 
 Meanwhile in other parts of the empire events of 
 grave importance had taken place. The situ- gf-^t,, ^f 
 ation of the episcopalian Protestants of Scot- ''^™"'"<'- 
 land differed widely from that in which their English 
 brethren stood. In the south of the island the religion 
 of the state was the religion of the people, and had a 
 strength altogether independent of the strength derived 
 
 owns his deficiencies. " A. P. having been eighteen years out of his own 
 country, pretends not yet to any perfection of the English expression or 
 urlhograpliy." His spelling is indeed deplorable. In one of his letti^rs 
 ui iglit is j)ut for write, woed lor would. He challenged Tenison to dispute 
 with liini in Latin, that they might be on equal terms. In a contemporary 
 satire, entitled The Advice, is the following couplet: — 
 
 " Send Pulton to be lashod at Busby's school, 
 That he in print no longer pl.iy the fool." 
 
 Another Konian Catholic, named William Clench, wrote a treatise on 
 the Pope's supremacj-, and dedicated it to the Queen in Italian. The fol- 
 lowing specimen of his style may suftice. " del sagro marito fortnnata 
 consorte! () dulcc allcviauiento d' atTari alti ! O grato ristoro di pensicri 
 noiosi, ni'l cui petto latteo, lucente specchio d'illibata matronal pudicizia, 
 ncl cui seno odorato, come in porto d'amor, si ritira il Giacomo! beata 
 regia coppia ! felice inserto tra I'invincibil leoni e le candide aqiiile ! " 
 
 Clench'.s English is of a piece with his Tuscan. For example, " Peter 
 signifies an inexpugnable rock, able to evacuate all the plots of hell's 
 divan, and naulVairate all the lurid designs of empoisoned heretics." 
 
 Another Roman Catholic treatise, entitled " The Church of England truly 
 represented," begins by informing us that "the ignis fatuus of reformation, 
 which had grown to a cnniet by many acts of spoil and ra|iine, ha'l been 
 ushered into Kngland, purified of the filth which it had contracted among 
 the lakes of the Alp<." 
 
 1 Barillon, .luly ^n ig8G.
 
 394 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 from the support of the government. The sincere con- 
 formists were far more numerous than the Papists and 
 the Protestant Dissenters taken together. The Estab- 
 lished Church of Scotland was the Church of a minor- 
 ity. The lowland population was generally attached 
 to the Presbyterian discipline. Prelacy was abhorred 
 by the great body of Scottish Protestants, both as art 
 unscriptural and as a foreign institution. It was re- 
 garded by the disciples of Knox as a relic of the 
 abominations of Babylon the Great. It painfully re- 
 minded a people proud of the memory of Wallace and 
 Bruce that Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded 
 to a fairer inheritance, had been independent in name 
 only. The episcopal polity was also closely associated 
 in the public mind with all the evils produced by 
 twenty-five years of corrupt and cruel maladministra- 
 tion. Nevertheless this polity stood, though on a nar- 
 row basis and amidst fearful storms, tottering indeed, 
 yet upheld by the civil magistrate, and leaning for sup- 
 port, whenever danger became serious, on the power 
 of England. The records of the Scottish Parliament 
 were thick set with laws denouncing veno-eance on those 
 who in any direction strayed from the prescribed pale. 
 By an Act passed in the time of Knox, and breathing 
 his spirit, it was a high crime to hear mass, and the third 
 offence was capital.^ An Act recently passed, at the 
 instance of James, made it death to preach in any Pres- 
 byterian conventicle whatever, and even to attend such 
 a conventicle in the open air.^ The Eucharist was not, 
 as in England, degraded into a civil test ; but no per- 
 son could hold any office, could sit in Parliament, or 
 could even vote for a member of Parliament, without 
 
 1 Act Pari. Aug. 24. 1560; Dec. 15. 1567. 
 
 2 Act Pari. May 8. 1685.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. o95 
 
 subscribing, under the sanction of an oath, a declara- 
 tion which condemned in the strongest terms the prin- 
 ciples both of the Papists and of the Covenanters.^ 
 
 In the Privy Council of Scotland there were two 
 parties corresponding to the two parties which Queens- 
 were contending against each other at White- ^^"^" 
 hall. William Douglas, Duke of Queensberry, was 
 Lord Treasurer, and had, during some years, been con- 
 sidered as first minister. He was nearly connected by 
 affinity, by similarity of opinions, and by similarity of 
 temper, with the Treasurer of England. Both were 
 Tories : both were men of hot temper and strong prej- 
 udices ; both were ready to support their master in 
 any attack on the civil liberties of his people ; but both 
 were sincerely attached to the Established Clmrch. 
 Queensberry had eai-ly notified to the court that, if 
 any innovation affecting that Church were contem- 
 plated, to such innovation he could be no party. But 
 among his colleagues Avere several men not less uiijirin- 
 cipled than Sunderland. In truth the Council chamber 
 at Edinburgh had been, during a quarter of a century, 
 a seminaiy of all public and all private vices; and some 
 of the politicians whose character had been formed there 
 had a peculiar hardness of heart and forehead to which 
 Westminster, even in that bad age, could hardly show 
 anything quite equal. The Chancellor, James p^^.^^ 
 Drummond, Earl of Perth, and his brother, 
 the Secretary of State, John Lord IMelfort, ^^"^^f"^*- 
 were bent on supplanting Queensberry. The Chan- 
 cellor had already an unquestionable title to the royal 
 favour. He had broujiht into use a little steel thumb- 
 screw which gave such exquisite torment that it had 
 wruno; confessions even out of men on whom Hig 
 
 1 Act Pari. Aug. 31. 1681.
 
 396 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 Majesty's favourite boot had been tried in vain.^ But 
 it was well known that even barbarity was not so sure 
 their apos- ^ ^^^J ^^ ^^^^ heart of James as apostasy. To 
 *^^^' apostasy, therefore, Perth and Melfort re- 
 
 sorted with a certain audacious baseness which no Eng- 
 lish statesman could hope to emulate. They declared 
 that the papers found in the strong box of Charles the 
 Second had converted them both to the true faith ; and 
 they began to confess and to hear mass.^ How little 
 conscience had to do with Perth's change of religion he 
 amply proved by taking to wife, a few weeks later, in 
 direct defiance of the laws of the Church which he had 
 just joined, a lady who was his cousin german, with- 
 out waiting for a dispensation. When the good Pope 
 learned this, he said, with scorn and indignation Avhich 
 well became him, that this was a strange sort of con- 
 version.^ But James was more easily satisfied. The 
 apostates presented themselves at Whitehall, and there 
 received such assurances of his favour, that they ven- 
 tured to brine; direct charges against the Treasurer. 
 Those charges, however, were so evidently frivolous 
 that James was forced to acquit the accused minister ; 
 and many thought that the Chancellor had ruined him- 
 self by his malignant eagerness to ruin his rival. There 
 were a few, however, who judged more correctly. 
 Halifax, to whom Perth expressed some apprehensions, 
 answered with a sneer that there was no danger. " Be 
 of good cheer, my Lord ; thy faith hath made thee 
 whole." The prediction was correct. Perth and Mel- 
 fort went back to Edinburgh, the real heads of the 
 government of their country.* Another member of the 
 Scottish Privy Council, Alexander Stuart, Earl of 
 
 1 Burnet, i. 584. 2 ibid. i. 652. 653. 
 
 8 Ibid. i. 678. * Ibid. i. U53. 
 
 I
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 397 
 
 Murray, tlie descendant and heir of tlie Regent, ab- 
 jured the religion of which his ilkistrious ancestor had 
 been the foremost champion, and declared himself a 
 member of the Church of Rome. Devoted as Queens- 
 berry had always been to the cause of prerogative, he 
 could not stand his ground against competitors who were 
 willing to pay such a price for the favour of the court. 
 He had to endure a succession of mortifications and hu- 
 miliations similar to those which, about the same time, 
 began to embitter the life of his friend Roches- Favour 
 ter. Royal letters came down authorising theRoumn 
 Papists to hold offices without taking the test. ^^'^°^'' '" 
 
 ligion in 
 Scotland. 
 
 The clergy were strictly charged not to re- 
 flect on the Roman Catholic religion in their discourses. 
 The Chancellor took on himself to send the macers of 
 the Privy Council round to the few printers and book- 
 sellers who could then be found in Edinburoli, chare- 
 ing them not to publish any work without his license. 
 It was well understood that this order was intended 
 to prevent the circulation of Protestant treatises. One 
 honest stationer told the messengei-s that he had in his 
 shop a book which reflected in very coarse terms on 
 Popery, and begged to know whether he might sell it. 
 They asked to see it ; and he showed them a copy 
 of the Bible.i A cargo of images, beads, crosses and 
 ctnsers arrived at Leith directed to Lord Perth. The 
 imj)ortation of such articles had long been considered 
 as illegal ; but now the officers of the customs allowed 
 the superstitious garments and trinkets to pass.^ In a 
 short time it was known that a Popish chapel had been 
 iitlea up in the Chancellor's house, and that mass was 
 /egularly said there. The mob rose. The jy^^^^^ 
 mansion where the idolatrous rites were cele- K'1'"*'«'8'» 
 1 Fouutaiuball, Jan. 28. 108^. 2 Fountainhall, Jan. 11. 108^.
 
 398 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 brated was fiercely attacked. The iron bars which pro- 
 tected the windows were wrenched off. Lady Perth 
 and some of lier female friends wei'e pelted with mud. 
 One rioter was seized, and ordered by the Privy Coun- 
 cil to be whipped. His fellows rescued him and beat 
 the hangman. The city was all night in confusion. 
 The students of the University mingled with the crowd 
 and animated the tumult. Zealous burghers drank the 
 health of the college lads and confusion to Papists, and 
 encouraged each other to face the troops. The troops 
 were already under arms.^ They were received with 
 a shower of stones, which wounded an officer. Orders 
 were given to fire ; and several citizens were killed. The 
 disturbance was serious ; but the Drummonds, inflamed 
 by resentment and ambition, exaggerated it strangely. 
 Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any 
 person, who liad not witnessed what had passed, to be- 
 lieve that a sedition as formidable as that of Masaniello 
 had been raging at Edinburgh. The brothers in re- 
 turn accused the Treasurer, not only of extenuating the 
 crime of the insurgents, but of having himself prompted 
 it, and did all in their power to obtain evidence of his 
 guilt. One of the ringleaders, who had been taken, was 
 offered a pardon if he would own that Queensberry had 
 set him on ; but the same religious enthusiasm, which 
 had impelled the unhappy prisoner to criminal violence, 
 prevented him fi:om purchasing his life by a calumny. 
 He and several of his accomplices were hanged. A 
 soldier, who was accused of exclaiming, during the 
 affray, that he should like to run his sword through a 
 Papist, was shot ; and Edinburgh was again quiet : 
 out the sufferers were regarded as martyrs ; and the 
 
 1 [Two lines in the first five editions were omitted on the final revision, 
 for reasons stated in the author's note, supra, page 155.]
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 399 
 
 Popish Chancellor became an object of mortal hatnid, 
 which in no long time was largely gratified.^ 
 
 The Kino; was much incensed. The news of the 
 tumult reached him when the Queen, assisted Anger of the 
 by the Jesuits, had just ti:iumphed over Lady ^'"^• 
 Dorchester and her Protestant allies. The malecon- 
 tents should find, he declared, that the only effect of 
 the resistance offered to his will was to make him more 
 and more resolute.^ He sent orders to the Scottish 
 Council to punish the guilty with the utmost severity, 
 and to make unsparing use of the boot.^ He pretended 
 to be fully convinced of the Treasurer's innocence, and 
 wrote to that minister in gracious words ; but the gra- 
 cious words were accompanied by ungracious acts. 
 The Scottish Treasury was put into commission in spite 
 of the earnest remonstrances of Rochester, who proba- 
 bly saw his own fate prefigured in that of his kinsman.* 
 Queensberry was, indeed, named First Commissioner, 
 and was made President of the Privy Council : but his 
 fall, though thus broken, was still a fall. He was also 
 removed from the government of the castle of Edin- 
 burgh, and was succeeded in that confidential post by 
 the Duke of Gordon, a Roman Catholic.^ 
 
 And now a letter arrived from London, fully explain- 
 ing to the Scottish Privy Council the inten- iiis plana 
 tions of the Kino;. What he wanted was that Scotland. 
 the Roman Catholics should be exempted from all laws 
 
 1 Fountainhall, Jan. 31. and Fub. 1. 1G8|.; Burnet, i. 678. ; Trials of 
 David Mowbray and Alexander Keith, in the Collection of State Trials; 
 Eonrepaux, Feb. 11. 
 
 2 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. i|. 1686. 
 
 8 Fountainhall, Feb. 16.; VVodrow, book iii. chap. x. sec. 3. "We re- 
 quire," Ilis Majesty graciously wrote, " that you spare no legal trial by 
 torture or otherwise." 
 
 * Bonrepaux, Feb. J|. 1686. 
 
 6 Fountainhall, Jlartli 11. KiSC; Adda, March i . 
 
 VOh. II. 26
 
 400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 imposing penalties and disabilities on account of non- 
 conformity, but that the persecution of the Covenanters 
 should go on without mitigation.^ This scheme en- 
 countered strenuous opposition in the Council. Some 
 niembers were unwilling to see the existing laws re- 
 laxed. Others, who wei'e by no means averse to 
 relaxation, felt that it would be monstrous to ad- 
 mit Roman Catholics to the hio-hest honours of the 
 state, and yet to leave unrepealed the Act which made 
 it death to attend a Presbyterian conventicle. The 
 answer of the board was, therefoi*e, less obsequious 
 than usual. The King in reply sharply reprimanded 
 Deputation his uudutiful Couucillors, and ordered three 
 privj- coun- of them, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George 
 to London. Lockhart, and General Drummond, to attend 
 him at Westminster. Hamilton's abilities and knowl- 
 edge, though by no means such as would have sufficed 
 to raise an obscure man to eminence, appeared highly 
 respectable in one who was premier peer of Scotland. 
 Lockhart had loner been regarded as one of the first 
 jurists, logicians, and orators that his country had pro- 
 duced, and enjoyed also that sort of consideration which 
 is derived from large possessions ; for his estate was 
 such as at that time very few Scottish nobles possessed.^ 
 He had been lately appointed President of the Court 
 of Session. Drummond, a cousin of Perth and Mel- 
 fort, was commander of the forces in Scotland. He 
 was a loose and profane man : but a sense of honour 
 which his two kinsmen wanted restrained him from a 
 public apostasy. He lived and died, in the significant 
 phrase of one of his countrymen, a bad Christian, but 
 a good Protestant. 3 
 
 1 This letter is dated March 4. 1686. 
 
 2 Barillon, April ^|. 1«86; Buraet, i. 370. 
 
 8 The words are fn a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 401 
 
 Jamrs was pleased by the dutiful language which the 
 three Councilloi's used when first tliey appeared before 
 him. He spoke higldy of them to Barillon, and partic- 
 ularly extolled Lockliart as the ablest and most eloquent 
 Scotchman living. They soon proved, however, less 
 tractable than had been expected ; and it was rumoured 
 at court that they had been perverted by the company 
 which they had kept in London. Hamilton lived much 
 with zealous churchmen ; and it might be feared that 
 Lockhart, who was related to the Wharton family, had 
 fallen into still worse society. In truth it was natural 
 that statesmen fresh from a country where opposition in 
 any other form than that of insurrection and assassina- 
 tion had long been almost unknown, and where all that 
 was not lawless fury was abject submission, should have 
 been struck by the earnest and stubborn, yet sober, dis- 
 content which pervaded England, and should have been 
 emboldened to try the experiment of constitutional 
 resistance to the royal will. They indeed declared 
 themselves willing; to grant large relief to the Roman 
 Catholics ; but on two conditions ; first, that similar 
 indulgence sliould be extended to the Calvinistic secta- 
 ties ; and, secondly, that the King should bind himself 
 by a solemn promise not to attempt anything to the 
 prejudice of the Protestant religion. 
 
 Both conditions wei-e highly distasteful to James. 
 He reluctantly agreed, however, after a dis- Th«irncgo- 
 
 ,.,,', , ■, , . . tiations with 
 
 pute which lasted several days, that some m- the King, 
 dulgence should be granted to the Presbyterians : but 
 he would by no means consent to allow them the full 
 liix'rty which he demanded for members of his own 
 communion.^ To the second condition proposed by the 
 
 1 Some words of Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They would alone 
 eufficc to decide a question which ignorance and parly spirit have done
 
 402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. L*^H. VI 
 
 three Scottish Counoillors he positively refiised to listen. 
 The Protestant religion, he said, was false ; and he 
 would not give any guarantee that he would not use 
 his power to the prejudice of a false religion. The 
 altercation was long, and was not brought to a conclu- 
 sion satisfactory to either party. ^ 
 
 The time fixed for the meetino; of the Scottish Estate?* 
 Meeting of drcw near ; and it was necessary that the 
 Estates. three Councillors should leave London to at- 
 tend their parliamentary duty at Edinburgh. On this 
 occasion another affront was offered to Queensberry. 
 In the late session he had held the office of Lord Hi^h 
 Commissioner, and had in that capacitj'- represented the 
 majesty of the absent King. This dignity, the greatest 
 to which a Scottish noble could aspire, was now trans- 
 ferred to the renegade Murray. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth of April the Parliament met at 
 They prove Edinburgh. A letter from the King was read. 
 refractory, jj^ exhortcd the Estatcs to give relief to his 
 Roman Catholic subjects, and offered in return a free 
 trade with England and an amnesty for political of- 
 fences. A committee was appointed to draw up an an- 
 swer. Tliat committee, though named by Murray, and 
 composed of Privy Councillors and courtiers, framed a 
 reply, full indeed of dutiful and respectful expressions, 
 yet clearly indicating a determination to refuse what 
 the King demanded. The Estates, it was said, would 
 go as far as their consciences would allow to meet His 
 Majesty's wishes respecting his subjects of the Roman 
 Catholic religion. These expressions were far from 
 
 much to perplex. " Cette libertc? accord^e aux nonconform istes a faite una 
 grande difficulte, et a ^te d(5battue pendant plusieurs jours. Le Roy 
 d'Angleterre avoit fort envie que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberty 
 de I'exercice de leur religion." April 1-9 1686. 
 1 Barillon, April ||.. 1G86; Van Cittefs, April 13. .|a. May -9-.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 403 
 
 satisfying the Chancellor ; yet, such as they were, he was 
 foi'ced to content himself with them, and even had some 
 difficulty in persuading the Parliament to adopt them. 
 Objection was taken by some zealous Protestants to the 
 mention made of the Roman Catholic religion. There 
 was no such religion. There Avas an idolatrous apos- 
 tasy, which the laws punished with the halter, and to 
 which it did not become Christian men to give flatter- 
 ing titles. To call such a superstition Catholic was to 
 give up the whole question which was at issue between 
 Rome and the reformed Churches. The offer of a free 
 trade with Eno-land was treated as an insult. " Our 
 fathers," said one orator, " sold their King for southern 
 gold ; and we still lie under the reproach of that foul 
 bargain. Let it not be said of us that we have sold 
 our God ! " Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, one of 
 the Senators of the College of Justice, suggested the 
 words, " the persons commonly called Roman Catho- 
 lics." " Would you nickname His Majesty ? " ex- 
 claimed the Chancellor. The answer drawn by the 
 committee was carried ; but a large and respectable mi- 
 nority voted against the proposed words as too courtly.^ 
 It was remarked that the representatives of the towns 
 were, almost to a man, against the government. Hith- 
 erto those members had been of small account in the 
 Parliament, and had generally been considered as the 
 retainers of ])owerful noblemen. They now showed, 
 for the first time, an ind(>pendence, a resolution, and a 
 spirit of combination which alarmed the court.^ 
 
 The answer was so unpleasing to James that he did 
 not suffer it to be ])rinted in the Gazette. Soon he 
 learned that a law, such as he wished to see passed, 
 would not even be brought in. The Lords of Articles, 
 
 1 Fountainhall, May G. 1686. 2 ibid. June 15 1686.
 
 404 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 whose business was to draw up the acts on which the 
 Estates were afterwards to deliberate, were virtually 
 nominated by himself. Yet even the Lords of Articles 
 proved refractory. When they met, the three Privy 
 Councillors who had lately returned from London took 
 the lead in opposition to the royal will. Hamilton de- 
 clared plainly that he could not do what was asked. 
 He was a faithful and loyal subject ; but there was a 
 limit imposed by conscience. " Conscience ! " said the 
 Chancellor : " conscience is a vague word, which sig- 
 nifies any thing or nothing." Lockhart, who sate in 
 Parliament as representative of the great county of 
 Lanark, struck in. "If conscience," he said, "be a 
 word without meaning, we will change it for another 
 phrase which, I hope, means something. For con- 
 science let us put the fundamental laws of Scotland." 
 These words raised a fierce debate. General Drum- 
 mond, who represented Perthshire, declared that he 
 ao-reed with Hamilton and Lockhart. Most of the 
 Bishops present took the same side.^ 
 
 I Van Citters, May ^1. 1686. Van Citters informed the States that he 
 liad his intelligence from a sure hand. 1 will transcribe part of his narra- 
 tive. It is an amusing specimen of the pyebald dialect in which the Dutch 
 diplomatists of that age corresponded. 
 
 " Des konigs missive, boven en behalven den Hoog Commissaris aen- 
 sprake, aen het parlement afgesonden, gelyck dat altoos gehruyckelyck is, 
 waerby Syne Majesteyt nu in genere versocht hieft de mitigatie der rigour- 
 euse ofte sanglante wetten van het Eyck jegens het Pausdom, in het Gen- 
 erale Comitde des Articles (soo men het daer naemt) na ordre gestelt en 
 gelesen synde, in 't voteren, den Hertog van Hamilton onder anderen klaer 
 uyt seyde dat hy daertoe niet sonde verstaen, dat hy anders genegen was 
 den konig in alien voorval getrouw te dienen volgens het dictamen syner 
 conscientie: 't gene reden gaf aen de Lord Canceller de Grave Perts te 
 seggen dat het woort conscientie niets en beduyde, en alleen een individuum 
 vagum was, waerop der Chevalier Locquard dan vcrder gingh; wil man 
 niet verstaen de betyckenis van het woordt conscientie, sno sal ik in forti- 
 oribus seggen dat wy meynen volgens de fondamentale wetten van het 
 ryck." 
 
 There is, in the Hind Let Loose, a curious passage to which I should have
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 405 
 
 It was plain that, even in the Committee of Articles, 
 James could not command a majority. He was morti- 
 fied and irritated by the tidings. He held warm and 
 menacing language, and punished some of his mutinous 
 servants, in the hope that the rest Avould take warning. 
 Several persons were dismissed from tlie Council board. 
 Several were deprived of pensions, which formed an im- 
 portant part of their income. Sir George Mackenzie 
 of Rosehauo:h was the most distinouished victim. He 
 had lono; held the office of Lord Advocate, and had 
 taken such a part in the persecution of the Covenant- 
 ers that to this day he holds, in the estimation of the 
 austere and godly peasantiy of Scotland, a place not 
 far removed from the unenviable eminence occupied by 
 Claverhouse. The legal learning of Mackenzie was 
 not profound : but, as a scholar, a wit, and an orator, 
 he stood high in the opinion of his countrymen ; and 
 his renown had spread even to the coffeehouses of 
 London and the cloisters of Oxford. The remains of 
 his forensic speeches prove him to have been a man 
 of parts, but are somewhat disfigured by what he 
 doubtless considered as Ciceronian graces, interjections 
 which show more art than passion, and elaborate amj)li- 
 fications, in which epithet rises above epithet in weari- 
 some climax. He had now, for the first time, been 
 found scrupulous. He was, therefore, in spite of all 
 his claims on the gratitude of the government, deprived 
 of his office. He retired into the country, and soon 
 af\er went up to London for the purjiose of clearing 
 himself, but was refused admission to the royal pres- 
 
 given no credit, but for this despatch of Van Citters. " They cannot endure 
 HO niudi as to hear of the name of conscience. One that was well acquaint 
 with tile Council's humour in tills point told a gentleman tliat was f;"'"{i 
 before them, ' I be>eecii you, wtiatevcr you do, speait iiotiiing of conscienca 
 before the Lords, for tliey cannot abide to hear that word.' "
 
 406 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 ence.i While the King was thus trying to terrify the 
 Lords of Articles into submission, the popular voice 
 encouraged them to persist. The utmost exertions 
 of the Chancellor could not prevent the national sen- 
 timent from expressing itself through the pulpit and 
 the press. One tract, written with such boldness and 
 acrimony that no printer dared to put it in type, was 
 widely circulated in manuscript. The papers which 
 appeared on the other side of the question had much 
 less effect, though they were disseminated at the public 
 charge, and though the Scottish defenders of the gov- 
 ernment were assisted by an English auxiliary of great 
 note, Lestrange, who had been sent down to Edin- 
 burgh, and lodged in Holyrood House.^ 
 
 At length, after three weeks of debate, the Lords of 
 Articles came to a decision. They proposed merely 
 that Roman Catholics should be permitted to worship 
 God in private houses without incurring any penalty , 
 and it soon appeared that, far as this measure was fi'om 
 coming up to the King's demands and expectations, the 
 Estates either would not pass it at all, or would pass it 
 with great restrictions and modifications. 
 
 While the contest lasted the anxiety in London was 
 intense. Every report, every line, from Edinburgh 
 was eagerly devoured. One day the story ran that 
 Hamilton had given way and that the government 
 would carry every point. Then came intelligence that 
 the opposition had rallied and was more obstinate than 
 ever. At the most critical moment orders were sent 
 to the postoffice that the bags from Scotland should be 
 transmitted to Whitehall. Durino- a whole week not a 
 single private letter from beyond the Tweed was de- 
 livered in London. In our age such an interruption of 
 1 Fountainhall, May 17. 1686. 2 Wodrow, III. x. 3. 
 
 J
 
 are 
 
 lied. 
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 407 
 
 communication would throw the whole island into con- 
 fusion : but there was then so little trade and corre- 
 spondence between England and Scotland that the 
 inconvenience was probably much smaller than has 
 been often occasioned in our own time by a short de- 
 lay in the arrival of the Indian mail. While the ordi- 
 nary channels of information were thus closed, the 
 crowd in the galleries of Whitehall observed with at- 
 tention the countenances of the King and his ministers. 
 It was noticed, Avith great satisfaction, that, after every 
 express from the North, the enemies of the Protestant 
 religion looked more and more gloomy. At length, 
 to the general joy, it was announced that iheyi 
 the struggle was over, that the government '^'^°"'^"* 
 had been unable to carry its measures, and that the 
 Lord High Commissioner had adjourned the Parlia- 
 ment.i 
 
 If James had not been proof to all warning, these 
 events would have sufficed to warn him. A Arbitrary 
 few months before this time the most obse- goverimient 
 quious of English Parliaments had refused to i^s™'^'^"'^- 
 submit to his pleasure. But the most obsequious of 
 English Parliaments might be regarded as an indepen- 
 dent and even as a mutinous assembly when compared 
 with any Parhament that had ever sate in Scotland ; and 
 the servile spii-it of Scottish Parliaments was always to 
 be found in the highest perfection, extracted and con- 
 densed, among the Lords of Articles. Yet even the 
 Lords of Articles had been refractory. It was plain 
 that all those classes, all those institutions, which, up to 
 this year, had been considered as the strongest supports 
 of monarchical power, must, if the King persisted in 
 
 1 Van Citters, ^^-i June i ., June *, 1686; Fourtainhall. June 15.,- 
 
 ' Junt*. 7. TT ' t -f 
 
 Luttreirs Diary, June 2. l(i.
 
 408 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 his insane policy, be reckoned as parts of the strength 
 of the opposition. All these signs, however, were lost 
 upon him. To every expostulation he had one answer : 
 he would never give way ; for concession had ruined 
 his father ; and his unconquerable firmness was loudly 
 applauded by the French embassy and by the Jesuitical 
 cabal. 
 
 He now proclaimed that he had been only too gra- 
 cious when he had condescended to ask the assent of 
 the Scottish Estates to his wishes. His prerogative 
 would enable him not only to protect those whom he 
 favoured, but to punish those who had crossed him. 
 He was confident that, in Scotland, his dispensing 
 power would not be questioned by any court of law. 
 There was a Scottish Act of Supremacy which gave 
 to the sovereifjn such a control over tlie Church as 
 might have satisfied Henry the Eighth. Accordingly 
 Papists were admitted in crowds to offices and honours. 
 The Bishop of Dunkeld, who, as a Lord of Parliament, 
 had opposed the government, was arbitrarily ejected 
 from his see, and a successor was appointed. Queens- 
 berry was stripped of all his employments, and was 
 ordered to remain at Edinburgh till the accounts of the 
 Treasury during his administration had been examined 
 and approved.^ As the representatives of the towns 
 had been found the most unmanageable part of the 
 Parliament, it was determined to make a revolution 
 in every burgh throughout the kingdom. A similar 
 change had recently been effected in England by judi- 
 cial sentences : but in Scotland a simple mandate of 
 the prince was thought sufficient. All elections of 
 magistrates and of town councils were prohibited ; and 
 the King assumed to himself the right of filhng up tlie 
 
 1 Fountainhall, June 21. 1636.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 409 
 
 chief municipal offices.^ In a formal letter to the Privy 
 Council he annomiced his intention to fit up a Roman 
 Catliolic chapel in his palace of Holyrood ; and he gaA-e 
 orders that the Judges should he directed to treat all 
 the laws against Papists as null, on pain of his high 
 displeasure. He however comforted the Protestant 
 Episcopalians by assuring them that, though he was 
 determined to protect the Roman Catholic Churci) 
 against them, he Avas equally determined to protect 
 them against any encroachment on the part of the fa- 
 natics. To this communication Perth proposed an 
 answer couched in the most servile terms. The Coun- 
 cil now contained many Papists; the Protestant mem- 
 bers who still had seats had been cowed by the King's 
 obstinacy and seventy ; and only a few faint murmurs 
 were heard. Hamilton threw out against the dispens- 
 ing power some hints which he made haste to explain 
 away. Lockhart said that he would lose his head 
 rather than sign such a letter as the Chancellor had 
 drawn, but took care to say this in a whisj)er which 
 was lieard only by friends. Perth's Avords were adopteil 
 witii inconsiderable modifications ; and the royal com- 
 mands Avere obeyed ; but a sullen discontent spread 
 through that minority of the Scottish nation by the aid 
 of which the government had hitherto held the major- 
 ity down.^ 
 
 When the historian of this troubled reio;n turns to 
 Ireland, his task becomes pecuHai"U- difhciilt 
 
 111' Tr- 1 !/■ Ireland. 
 
 and delicate. His steps, — to borroAV the nne 
 image used on a similai- occasion by a Roman poet, — 
 are on the thin crust of ashes, beneath Avhich the lava 
 is still gloAving. The seventeenth century has, in that 
 
 1 Fountainhall, September 16. 1G86. 
 
 a Fountainhall, Sept. 16.; Wodiow, III. x. 3.
 
 410 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 unhappy country, left to the nineteenth a fatal heritage 
 of mahgnant passions. No amnesty for the mutual 
 wrongs inflicted by the Saxon defenders of London- 
 derry, and by the Celtic defenders of Limerick, has 
 ever been granted from the heart by either race. To 
 this day a more than Spartan hauglitiness alloys the 
 many noble qualities which characterize the children 
 of the victors, while a Helot feeling, compounded of 
 awe and hatred, is but too often discernible in the 
 children of the vanquished. Neither of the hostile 
 castes can justly be absolved from blame ; but the chief 
 blame is due to that shortsighted and headstrong prince 
 who, placed in a situation in which he might have 
 reconciled them, employed all his power to inflame 
 their animosity, and at length forced them to close in 
 a grapple for life and death. 
 
 The grievances under which the members of his 
 state of the Church laboured in Ireland differed widely 
 BubjectoT from those which he Avas attempting to re- 
 reiigion. move in England and Scotland. The L'ish 
 Statute Book, afterwards polluted by intolerance as bar- 
 barous as that of the dark ages, then contained scarce a 
 single enactment, and not a single stringent enactment, 
 imposing any penalty on Papists as such. On our side 
 of Saint George's Channel every priest who received a 
 neophyte into the bosom of the Church of Rome was 
 liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. On the 
 other side he incurred no such danger. A Jesuit who 
 landed at Dover took his life in his hand ; but he 
 walked the streets of Dublin in security. Here no man 
 could hold office, or even earn his livelihood as a bar- 
 rister or a schoolmaster, without previously taking the 
 oath of supremacy : but in Ireland a public functionary 
 was not held to be under the necessity of taking that
 
 1686.J JAMES THE SECOND. 411 
 
 oatli unless it were foi'inally tendered to liim.^ It there- 
 fore did not exclude from employment any person 
 whom the government wished to promote. The sacra- 
 mental test and the declaration against transubstantia- 
 tion were unknown ; nor was either House of Parlia- 
 ment closed by law against any religious sect. 
 
 It might seem, therefore, that the Irish Roman 
 Catholic was in a situation which his English Hostmtyof 
 and Scottish brethren in the faith might well '''^*^' 
 envy. In fact, however, his condition was more pitiable 
 and irritating than theirs. For, though not persecuted 
 as a Roman Catholic, he was oppressed as an Irishman. 
 In his country the same line of demarcation which sepa- 
 rated religions separated races ; and he was of the con- 
 quered, the subjugated, the degraded race. On the 
 same soil dwelt tw^o populations, locally intermixed, 
 morally and politically sundered. The difference of 
 religion was by no means the only difference, or even 
 the chief difference, which existed between them. 
 They sprang from different stocks. They spoke dif- 
 ferent languages. They had different national char- 
 acters as strongly opjwsed as any two national char- 
 acters in Europe. They were in widely different 
 stages of civilisation. Between two such popula- 
 tions there could be little sympathy ; and centuries 
 of calamities and wrongs had generated a strong antip- 
 athv. The relation in which the minority stood to 
 the majority resembled the relation in which the fol- 
 
 1 Tlie provisions of the Irish Act of Siiprcniac}', 2 Eliz. cliap. 1., arc sub- 
 Btantiall}' the same with those of the English Act of Supremacy,! Kliz. 
 chap. 1.: but the Enj;lish act was soon found to l)e defective; and the 
 defect was supplied by a niori' stringent act, 5 Eliz. chap. 1. No such sup- 
 plementary law was made in Irt'.laiid. That tin- construction nu'ntioned in 
 the text was put on the Irish Act o*" Supremacy, we are told by Archbishop 
 Kinp: State of Ireland, chMp. ii. sec. 9. lie calls this construction Jesuit- 
 ical ; but I cannot see it in that light.
 
 412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 lowers of William the Conqueror stood to the Saxon 
 churls, or the relation in which the followers of Cortes 
 stood to the Indians of Mexico. 
 
 The appellation of Irish was then given exclusively 
 to the Celts and to those families which, though not of 
 Celtic origin, had in the course of ages degenerated 
 into Celtic manners. These people, probably about 
 a million in number, had, with few exceptions, ad- 
 hered to the Church of Rome. Among them resided 
 about two hundred thousand colonists, proud of their 
 Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith.^ 
 
 The great preponderance of numbers on one side was 
 Aboriginal Hiorc than Compensated by a great superi- 
 peasantry. qy[{,j yf intelh'geuce, vigour, and organization 
 on the other. The English settlers seem to have been, 
 in knowledge, energy, and perseverance, rather above 
 than below the average level of the population of the 
 mother country. The aboriginal peasantry, on the 
 contraiy, were in an almost savage state. They never 
 worked till they felt the sting of hunger. They were 
 content with accommodation inferior to that which, in 
 happier countries, was provided for domestic cattle. Al- 
 ready the potato, a root which can be cultivated with 
 scarcely any art, industry, or capital, and which cannot 
 be long stored, had become the food of the common 
 people.^ From a people so fed diligence and fore- 
 thought were not to be expected. Even within a 
 few miles of Dublin, the traveller, on a soil the rich- 
 est and most verdant in the world, saw with dis- 
 gust the miserable burrows out of which sqvialid and 
 
 1 Political Anatomy of Ireland. 
 
 2 Political Anatomy of Iieland, 1672; Irish Hudibras, 1689; John Bun- 
 ion's Account of Ireland, 1099. 
 
 I
 
 168G.] JAMES THE SECOND. 413 
 
 half naked barbarians stared wildly at him as he 
 passed.^ 
 
 The aboriginal aristocracy retained in no common 
 measure the pride of birth, but had lost the Abonrfnai 
 influence which is derived from wealth and aristocracy. 
 power. Their lands had been divided by Cromwell 
 among his followers. A portion, indeed, of the vast 
 territory which he had confiscated had, after the resto- 
 ration of the House of Stuart, been given back to the 
 ancient proprietors. But much the greater part was 
 still held by English emigrants under the guarantee of 
 an Act of Parliament. This act had been in force a 
 quarter of a century ; and under it mortgages, settle- 
 ments, sales, and leases without number had been made. 
 The old Irish gentry were scattered over the whole 
 world. Descendants of Milesian chieftains swai'med 
 in all the courts and camps of the Continent. Those 
 despoiled proprietors who still remained in their native 
 land, brooded gloomily over their losses, pined for the 
 opulence and dignity of which they had been deprived, 
 and cherished wild hopes of another revolution. A 
 person of this class was described by his countrymen 
 as a gentleman who would be rich if justice were done, 
 as a gentleman who had a fine estate if he could only 
 get it.'^- He seldom betook himself to any peaceful call- 
 ing. Trade, indeed, he thought a far more disgraceful 
 resource than marauding. Sometimes he turned free- 
 booter. Sometimes he contrived, in defiance of the 
 law, to live by coshering, that is to say, by quartering 
 himself on the old tenants of his family, who, wretched 
 as was their own condition, could not refuse a jiortion 
 of their pittance to one Avliom they still regarded as tlieil 
 
 1 Clarondoii to Roclicster, May 4. 168f>. 
 
 a Bishop Malonj-'s Letter to Bishop Tyrrel, March 8. 1689.
 
 414 HISTORY OP ENGLAND, [Ch. VL 
 
 rightful lord.^ The native gentleman who had been 
 so fortunate as to keep or to regain some of his land too 
 often lived like the petty prince of a savage tribe, and 
 indemnified himself for the humiliations which the dom- 
 inant race made him suffer by governing his vassals 
 despotically, by keeping a rude haram, and by mad- 
 dening or stupefying himself daily with strong drink.^ 
 t'olitically he was insignificant. No statute, indeed, 
 excluded him ft-om the House of Commons : but he 
 .tad almost as little chance of obtaining a seat there as 
 u man of colour has of being chosen a Senator of the 
 \jnited States. In fact only one Papist had been re- 
 turned to the Irish Parliament since the Restoration: 
 Tiie whole legislative and executive power was in the 
 hands of the colonists ; and the ascendency of the rul- 
 ing caste was upheld by a standing army of seven thou- 
 sand men, on whose zeal for what was called the Eng- 
 lish mterest full reliance could be placed.^ 
 
 On a close scrutiny it would have been found that 
 neither the Irishry nor the Englishry formed a perfectly 
 homogeneous body. The distinction between those 
 Irish who were of Celtic blood, and those Irish who 
 sprang from the followers of Strongbow and De Burgh, 
 was not altogether effaced. The Fitzes sometimes per- 
 mitted themselves to speak with scorn of the Os and 
 Macs ; and the Os and Macs sometimes repaid that 
 scorn with aversion. In the preceding generation one 
 of the most powerful of the O'Neills refused to pay any 
 
 1 Statute 10 & 11 Charles I. chap. 16. ; King's State of the Protestants 
 of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 8. 
 
 2 King, chap. ii. sec. 8. Miss Edgeworth's King Corny belongs to a later 
 and much more civilised generation ; but whoever has studied that admi- 
 rable portrait can form some notion of what King Corny's great grandfather 
 must have been. 
 
 * King, chap. iii. sec. 2. 
 
 J
 
 16W-] JAMES THE SECOND. 415 
 
 mark of respect to a Roman Catliolic gentleman of 
 old Norman descent. " Tliey say that the family has 
 been here four hundred years. No matter. I hate the 
 clown as if he had come yesterday."^ It seems, how- 
 ever, that such feelings were rare, and that the feud 
 which had long raged between the aboi-iginal Celts and 
 the degenerate English had nearly given place to the 
 fiercer feud which separated both races from the mod- 
 ern and Protestant colony. 
 
 The colony had its own internal disputes, both na- 
 tional and rehgious. The majority was Eng- state of the 
 lish ; but a large minority came from the coiSny. 
 south of Scotland. One half of the settlers belonged to 
 the Established Church ; the other half were Dissenters. 
 But in Ireland Scot and Southron were strongly bound 
 together by their common Saxon origin. Churchman 
 and Presbyterian were strongly bound together by their 
 common Protestantism. All the colonists had a com- 
 mon language and a common pecuniar}^ interest. They 
 were surrounded by common enemies, and could be safe 
 only by means of common precautions and exertions. 
 The few penal laws, tiierefore, which had been made in 
 Ireland against Protestant Noncontbrmists, were a dead 
 Ietter.2 The bigotry of the most sturdy churchman 
 would not bear exportation across St. George's Chan- 
 nel. As soon as the Cavalier arrived in Ireland, and 
 found that, without the hearty and courageous assist- 
 ance of his Puritan neighbours, he and all his family 
 would run imminent risk of being murdered by Popish 
 marauders, his hatred of Puritanism, in spite of himself, 
 
 1 Sheridan MS.; Preface to tlic first volume of the Hibernia Anglic*na, 
 1G90; Secret Consults of the Koinish Tarty in Ireljind, 1089. 
 
 2 " There was a free lihorty of coiiseicnie by connivance, though not by 
 Ihe law."— King, chap. iii. sci-. 1. 
 
 VOL,, n. 27
 
 416 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 began to languisli and die away. It was remarked by 
 eminent men of both parties that a Protestant who, in 
 Ireland, was called a high Tory would in England have 
 been considered as a moderate Whig.^ 
 
 The Protestant Nonconformists, on their side, en- 
 dured, with more patience than could have been ex- 
 pected, the sight of the most absurd ecclesiastical 
 establishment that the world has ever seen. Four 
 Archbishops and eighteen Bishops were employed in 
 looking after about a fifth part of the number of church- 
 men who inhabited the single diocese of London. Of 
 the parochial clergy a lai'ge proportion were pluralists 
 and resided at a distance from their cures. There were 
 some who drew from their benefices incomes of little 
 less than a thousand pounds a year, without ever per- 
 forming any spiritual function. Yet this monstrous in- 
 stitution was much less disliked by the Puritans settled 
 in Ireland than the Church of England by the English 
 sectaries. For in Ii'eland relimous divisions were sub- 
 ordinate to national divisions ; and the Presbyterian, 
 while, as a theologian, he could not but condemn the 
 established hierai'chy, yet looked on that hierarchy 
 with a sort of complacency when he considered it as 
 a sumptuous and ostentatious trophy of the victory 
 achieved by the great race from which he sprang. ^ 
 
 ' 1. In a letter to James found among Bishop Tyrrel's papers, and dated 
 Aug. 14. 1686, are some remarkable expressions. " There are few or none 
 Protestants in that country but such as are joined with the "Whigs against 
 the common enem\'." And again: " Those that passed for Tories here" 
 (that is in England) " publicly espouse the Whig quarrel on the other side 
 the water." Swift said the same thing to King William a few years later: 
 " 1 remember when I was last in England I told the King that the highest 
 Tories we had with us would make tolerable Whigs there." — Letter con- 
 cerning the Sacramental Test. 
 
 '^ The wealth and negligence of the established clergy of Ireland are 
 mentioned in the strongest terms by the Lord Lieutenant Clarendon, a most 
 unexceptionable witness.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 417 
 
 Thus the grievances of the Irish Roman CathoHc had 
 liardly anything in common with the grievances of the 
 Encrhsh Roman Cathohc. The Roman Cathohc of Lan* 
 casliire or Staftbrdsliire had only to turn Protestant ; 
 and he was at once, in all respects, on a level with his 
 neighbours : but, if the Roman Catholics of Munster 
 and Connaught had turned Protestants, they would 
 still have continued to be a subject people. Whatever 
 evils the Roman Catholic suffered in England were the 
 effects of harsh legislation, and might have been reme- 
 died by a more liberal legislation. But between the 
 two populations which inhabited Ireland there was an 
 inequality which legislation had not caused and could 
 not remove. ■ The dominion which one of those popu- 
 lations exercised over the other was the dominion of 
 wealth over poverty, of knowledge over ignorance, of 
 civilised over uncivilised man. 
 
 James himself seemed, at the commencement of his 
 reign, to be perfectly aware of these truths. Course 
 
 mi 1- • r- t' 1 11 -1 whichJaraef 
 
 i lie distractions oi Ireland, he said, arose, not ou^iht to 
 from the differences between the Catholics lowed. 
 and the Protestants, but from the differences between 
 the Irish and the English.^ The consequences which 
 he should have drawn from this just proposition were 
 sufficiently obvious ; but unhappily for himself and for 
 Ireland he failed to perceive them. 
 
 If only national animosity could be allayed, there 
 could be little doubt that religious animosity, not being 
 kept alive, as in England, by cruel penal acts and strin- 
 gent test acts, would of itself fade away. To allay a 
 national animusity such as that which the two races in- 
 habiting: Ireland felt for each other could not be the 
 
 o 
 
 1 Clarendon reminds tlift King of this in a letter dnti'd March 14. 1684. 
 "It certainly is," Clarendon adds, " a most true notion."
 
 418 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 work of a few years. Yet it was a work to wliicli a 
 wise and good prince might have contributed much ; 
 and James would have undertaken that work with ad- 
 vantages such as none of his predecessors or succes- 
 sors possessed. At once an Englishman and a Roman 
 Catholic, he belonged half to the ruling and half to the 
 subject caste, and was therefore peculiarly qualified to 
 be a mediator between them. Nor is it difficult to 
 trace the course which he ought to have pursued. He 
 ought to have determined that the existing settlement 
 of landed property should be inviolable ; and he ought 
 to have announced that determination in such a manner 
 as effectually to quiet the anxiety of the neAV proprie- 
 tors, and to extinguish any wild hopes which the old 
 proprietors might entertain. Whether, in the great 
 transfer of estates, injustice had or had not been com- 
 mitted, was immaterial. That transfer, just or unjust, 
 had taken place so long ago, that to reverse it would be 
 to unfix the foundations of society. There must be a 
 time of limitation to all rights. After thirty-five years 
 of actual possession, after twenty-five years of posses- 
 sion solemnly guaranteed by statute, after innumerable 
 leases and releases, mortgages and devises, it was too 
 late to search for flaws in titles. Nevertheless some- 
 thing might have been done to heal the lacerated feel- 
 ings and to raise the fallen fortunes of the Irish gentry. 
 The colonists were in a thriving condition. They had 
 greatly improved their property by building, planting, 
 and enclosing. The rents had almost doubled within a 
 few years ; trade was brisk ; and the revenue, amount- 
 ing to about three hundred thousand pounds a year, 
 more than defrayed all the charges of the local govern- 
 ment, and afforded a surplus which was remitted to 
 England. There was no doubt that the next Parlia-
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 419 
 
 ment which should meet at Du])lin, though represent- 
 ing almost exclusively the English interest, would, in 
 return for the King's promise to maintain that interest 
 in all its legal rights, willingly grant to him a very con- 
 siderable sum for the purpose of indemnifying, at least 
 in part, such native families as had been wrongfully de- 
 spoiled. It was thus that in our own time the French 
 government put an end to the disputes engendered by 
 the most extensive confiscation that ever took place in 
 Europe. And thus, if James had been guided by the 
 advice of his most loyal Protestant counsellors, he would 
 have at least greatly mitigated one of the chief evils 
 which afflicted Ireland.^ 
 
 Having done this, he should have laboured to recon- 
 cile the hostile races to each other bv impartiallv de- 
 fending the nVhts and restrainino; the excesses of both. 
 He should have punished with equal severity the native 
 who indulged in the license of barbarism, and the 
 colonist who abused the strength of civilisation. As 
 far as the legitimate authority of the crown extended, — • 
 and in Ireland it extended far, — no man who was 
 qualified for office by integrity and ability should have 
 been considered as disqualified by extraction or by 
 creed for any public trust. It is probable that a Roman 
 Catholic King, with an ample revenue absolutely at his 
 disposal, would, without much difficulty, have secured 
 the cooperation of the Roman Catholic prelates and 
 priests in the great work of reconciliation. Much, how- 
 ever, must still have been left to the healing influence 
 of time. The native race woidd still have had to learn 
 from the colonists industry and forethought, the arts of 
 
 1 Clarendon stronplj' recommended this course, and was of opinion that 
 the Irish Parliament would do its part, ^ee his letter to Ormond, Aug. 28. 
 1686.
 
 420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch.VI. 
 
 life, and the language of England. Thei*e could not 
 be equality between men wlio lived in houses and men 
 who lived in sties, between men who were fed on bread 
 and men who were fed on potatoes, between men who 
 spoke the noble tongue of great philosophers and poets 
 and men who, with a perverted pride, boasted that 
 they could not writhe their mouths into chattering such 
 a jargon as that in which the Advancement of Learn- 
 ing and the Paradise Lost were written.^ Yet it is 
 not unreasonable to believe that, if the gentle policy 
 which has been described had been steadily followed 
 by the government, all distinctions would gradually 
 have been effaced, and that there would now have 
 been no more trace of the hostihty which has been the 
 curse of Ireland than there is of the equally deadly 
 hostility which once raged between the Saxons and the 
 Normans in England. 
 
 Unhappily James, instead of becoming a mediator 
 became the fiercest and most reckless of parti- 
 
 His errors. _ i /> 1 1 • i • • f 
 
 sans. Instead or allaying the annnosity ot 
 the two populations, he inflamed it to a height before 
 unknown. He determined to reverse their relative 
 position, and to put the Protestant colonists under the 
 feet of the Popish Celts.- To be of the established 
 religion, to be of the English blood, was, in his view, 
 a disqualification for civil and military employment. 
 He meditated the design of again confiscating and again 
 portioning out the soil of half the island, and showed 
 his inclination so clearly that one class was soon agi- 
 tated by terrors which he afterwards vainly wished to 
 sooth, and the other by hopes which he afterwards vainly 
 
 1 It was an O'Neill of great eminence who said that it did not becoine 
 bim to writhe his mouth to chatter English. Preface to the first volume oi 
 the Hibernia Anglicana.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 421 
 
 wished to restrain. But this was the smallest part of 
 his guilt and madness. He deliberately resolved, not 
 merely to give to the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland 
 the entire dominion of their own country, but also to 
 use them as his instruments for setting up arbitrary gov- 
 ei'nment in Enoland. The event was such as mi^ht have 
 been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with the 
 stubborn hardihood of their race. The motlier country 
 justly regarded their cause as her own. Then came 
 a desperate struggle for a tremendous stake. Every-- 
 thing dear to nations was wagered on both sides : nor 
 can we justly bhune either the Irishman or the Eng- 
 lishman fur obeying, in that extremity, the law of self- 
 preservation. The contest was terrible, but short. The 
 weaker went down. His fate was cruel ; and yet for 
 the cruelty with which he was treated there was, not 
 indeed a defence, but an excuse : for, though he suf- 
 fered all that tyranny could inflict, he suffered notliing 
 that he would not himself have inflicted. The effect 
 of the insane attempt to subjugate England by means 
 of Ireland was tliat the Irisli became hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water to the Enghsh. The old proprie- 
 toi's, by their effort to recover what tliey had lost, lost 
 the greater part of what they- had retained. The mo- 
 mentary ascendency of Popery produced such a series of 
 barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book 
 of Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christen- 
 dom. Such were the bitter fruits of the policy of James. 
 We have seen that one of his first acts, after he 
 became King, was to recall Ormond from Ireland. 
 Ormond was the he^id of the Euiilish interest in that 
 kingdom : he was firmly attached to the Protestant 
 religion ; and his power far exceeded that of an ordi- 
 nary Lord Lieutenant, first, because he was in rank
 
 422 msTORY OF England. [Ch. vi. 
 
 and wealth the greatest of the colonists, and, secondly, 
 because he was not only the chief of the civil adminis- 
 tration, but also commander of the forces. The King 
 was not at that time disposed to commit the govern- 
 ment wholly to Irish hands. He had indeed been 
 heard to say tliat a native viceroy would soon become 
 an independent sovereign.^ For the present, therefore, 
 he determined to divide the power which Ormond had 
 possessed, to entrust the civil administration to an 
 English and Protestant Lord Lieutenant, and to give 
 the command of the army to an Irish and Roman 
 Catholic General. The Lord Lieutenant was Claren- 
 don; the General was Tyrconnel. 
 
 Tyrconnel sprang, as has already been said, from 
 one of those degenerate families of the Pale which 
 were populai'ly classed with the aboriginal population 
 of Ireland. He sometimes, indeed, in his rants, talked 
 with Normaii haughtiness of the Celtic barbarians : ^ 
 but all his sympathies were really with the natives. 
 The Protestant colonists he hated ; and they returned 
 his hati'ed. Clarendon's inchnations were very differ- 
 ent : but he was, from temper, interest, and principle, 
 an obsequious courtier. His spirit was mean ; his cir- 
 cumstances were embarrassed ; and his mind had been 
 deeply imbued with the political doctrines which the 
 Church of England had in that age too assiduously 
 taught. His abilities, however, were not contempti- 
 ble ; and, under a good King, he would probably have 
 been a respectable viceroy. 
 
 1 Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers. I ought to acknowledge the 
 courtesy with which Mr. Glover assisted me in my search for this valuable 
 manuscript. James appears, from the instructions which he drew up for 
 his son in 1692, to have retained to the last the notion that Ireland could 
 not without danger be entrusted to an Irish Lord Lieutenant 
 
 * Sheridan MS.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 423 
 
 About three quarters of a year elapsed between the 
 recall of Ormond and the arrival of Claren- oiarcmion 
 
 arrives in 
 
 don at Dublm. During that interval the Ireland as 
 
 '-' 1 T 1 Lord Lieu- 
 
 King w^as represented by a board of Lords tenant. 
 
 Justices : but the military administration was in Tyr- 
 connel's hands. Already the designs of the court 
 began gi'adually to unfold themselves. A royal order 
 came from Whitehall for disarming the population. 
 This order Tyrconnel strictly executed as respected 
 the English. Though the country was infested by pred- 
 atory bands, a Protestant gentleman could scarcely 
 obtain permission to keep a brace of pistols. The 
 native peasantry, on the other hand, were suffered to 
 retain their weapons.^ The joy of the colonists was 
 therefore great, when at length, in December 1685, 
 Tyrconnel went to London and Clarendon came to 
 Dublin. But it soon appeared that the government 
 was really directed, not at Dublin, but in London. 
 Every mail that crossed St. George's Channel brouiiht 
 tidings of the boundless influence which Tyrconnel 
 exercised on Irish affairs. It was said that he was 
 to be a Marquess, that he was to be a Duke, that 
 he was to have the connnand of the forces, that 
 he was to be entrusted with the task of remodellinor 
 the army and the courts of justice.^ Claren- ^^ ^^^4;. 
 don was bitterly mortified at finding himself fi""'"""- 
 a subordinate member of that administration of which 
 he had expected to be the head. He complained that 
 whatever he did was misrepresented by his detractors, 
 and that the gravest resolutions touciiing the country 
 which he governed were adopted at Westminster, made 
 
 * Clarendon to Rochester, Jan. 19. 1684 ; Secret Consults of the Rom 
 ish I'arty in Ireland, 1690. 
 « Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 27. 1G8.|.
 
 424 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI 
 
 known to the public, discussed at coffee houses, com- 
 municated in hundreds of private letters, some weeks 
 before one hint had been given to the Lord Lieutenant. 
 His own personal dignity, he said, mattered little : but 
 it was no light thing that the representative of the 
 majesty of the throne should be made an object of con- 
 Panic among tempt to the people.^ Panic spread fast 
 the colonists, anioug the English when they found that the 
 viceroy, their fellow countryman and fellow Protestant, 
 was unable to extend to them the protection which they 
 had expected from him. They began to know by bitter 
 experience what it is to be a subject caste. They were 
 harassed by the natives with accusations of treason and 
 sedition. This Protestant had corresponded with Mon- 
 mouth : that Protestant had said something disrespect- 
 ful of the King four or five years ago, when the Ex- 
 clusion Bill was under discussion ; and the evidence of 
 the most infamous of mankind was ready to substan- 
 tiate every charge. The Lord Lieutenant expressed his 
 apprehension that, if these' practices were not stopped, 
 there would soon be at Dublin a reign of terror similar 
 to that which he had seen in London, when every man 
 held his life and honour at the mercy of Oates and 
 Bedloe.2 
 
 Clarendon was soon informed, by a concise despatch 
 from Sundei'land, that it had been resolved to make 
 without delay a complete change in both the civil and 
 the military government of Ireland, and to bring a 
 large number of Roman Catholics instantly into office. 
 His Majesty, it was most ungraciously added, had taken 
 counsel on these matters with persons more competent 
 
 1 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, March 2. 168i ; and to Roch- 
 ester, March 14. 
 a Clarendon to Sunderland, Feb. 26. 1685.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 425 
 
 to advise liira than liis inexperienced Lord Lieutenant 
 could possibly be.^ 
 
 Before this letter reached the viceroy the intelligence 
 which it contained had, through many channels, ar- 
 rived in Ireland. The terror of the colonists was ex- 
 treme. Outnumbered as they were by the native pop- 
 ulation, their condition would be pitiable indeed if the 
 native poi>ulation were to be armed against them with 
 the whole power of the state : and nothing less than 
 this was threatened. The English inhabitants of Dub- 
 lin passed each other in the streets Avith dejected looks. 
 On the Exchange business was suspended. Land- 
 owners hastened to sell their estates for whatever could 
 be got, and to remit the purchase money to England. 
 Traders began to call in their debts and to make prep- 
 arations for retiring from business. The alarm soon 
 affected the revenue.^ Clarendon attempted to inspire 
 the dismayed settlers with a confidence which he was 
 himself fiir from feeling. He assured them that their 
 proj)erty -would he held sacred, and that, to his certain 
 knowledge, the King was fully determined to maintain 
 the Act of Settlement which iinarantee-d their rio-ht to 
 the soil. But liis letters to England were in a very 
 different strain. He ventured even to expostulate with 
 the King, and, without blaming His Majesty's inten- 
 tion of employing Roman Catholics, expressed a strong 
 opinion that the Roman Catholics who might be em- 
 ployed should be Englishmen.^ 
 
 The reply of James was dr}' and cold. He declared 
 that he had no intention of depriving tlie English colo- 
 nists of their land, but that he regarded a large por- 
 
 1 Sunderland to Clnrendon, March 11. 168i. 
 3 Clarendon to Rochost.T, 'March 14. 1685.. 
 3 Clarendon to Jnnics, March 4. 168>.
 
 426 
 
 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 
 
 [Ch. VL 
 
 tion of them as liis enemies, and that, since he con- 
 sented to leave so much property in the hands of his 
 enemies, it was the more necessary that the civil and 
 military administration should be in the hands of his 
 friends.^ 
 
 Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of 
 the Privy Council ; and orders were sent to corpora- 
 tions to admit Roman Catholics to municipal advan- 
 tages.^ Many officers of the army were arbitrarily 
 deprived of their commissions and of their bread. It 
 was to no purpose that the Lord Lieutenant pleaded 
 the cause of some whom he knew to be good soldiers 
 and loyal subjects. Among them were old Cavaliers, 
 who had fought bravely for monarchy, and who bore 
 the marks of honourable wounds. Their places were 
 supplied by men who had no recommendation but their 
 rehgion. Of the new Captains and Lieutenants, it 
 was said, some had been cowherds, some footmen, 
 some noted marauders ; some had been so used to 
 wear brogues that they stumbled and shuffled about 
 strangely in their military jack boots. Not a few of 
 the officers who were discarded took refuse in the 
 Dutch service, and enjoyed, four years later, the pleas- 
 ure of driving their successors before them in igno- 
 minious rout from the margin of the Boyne.* 
 
 The distress and alarm of Clarendon were increased 
 by news which reached him through private channels. 
 Without his approbation, without his knowledge, prep- 
 arations were making for arming and drilling the whole 
 
 1 James to Clarendon, April 6. 1686. 
 
 2 Sunderland to Clarendon, Maj' 22. 1686; Clarendon to Ormond, MaJ 
 30.; Clarendon to Sunderland, July 6. 11. 
 
 8 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, June 1. 1686; to Rochenter, 
 June 12.; King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. ii. .sec. 6, 7.; 
 Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 427 
 
 Celtic population of the country of which he was the 
 nominal governor. Tyrconnel from London directed 
 the design ; and the prelates of the Roman Catholic 
 Church were his agents. Every priest had been in- 
 structed to prepare an exact list of all his male parish- 
 ioners capable of bearing arms, and to forward it to 
 his Bishop.^ 
 
 It had already been rumoured that Tyi-connel would 
 soon return to Dublin armed with extraordinary and 
 independent ]>owers ; and the rumour gathered strength 
 daily. The Lord Lieutenant, whom no insult could 
 drive to resign the pomp and emoluments of his place, 
 declared that he should submit cheerfully to the royal 
 pleasure, and approve himself in all things a faithful 
 and obedient subject. He had never, he said, in his 
 life, had any difference with Tyrconnel, and he trusted 
 that no difference would now arise. ^ Clarendon ap- 
 pears not to have recollected that there had once been 
 a plot to ruin the fame of his innocent sister, and that 
 in that plot Tyrconnel had borne a chief part. This 
 is not exactly one of the injuries which high spirited 
 men most readily jjardon. But, in the wicked court* 
 where the Hydes had long been pushing their fortunes, 
 such injuries were easily forgiven and forgotten, not 
 from magnanimity or Christian charity, but from mera 
 baseness and want of moral sensibility. In ArriTaiof 
 June 168G, Tyrconnel came. His commis- JiDubmi' 
 sion authorised him only to command the ■" *^'^°«'"*'- 
 troops : but he brought with him royal instructions 
 touching all parts of the administration, and at once 
 took the real government of the island into his own 
 hands. On the day after his arrival he exi)licitly said 
 that commissions nuist be largelv given to Roman 
 
 I riii-^r.^jon t(, Rorheatcr Mav 15 168« 
 ^ Ibia May 11. 1688
 
 I 
 
 428 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 Catholic oflicers, and that room must be made for them 
 by dismissing more Protestants. He pushed on the 
 remodelHng of the army eagerly and indefatigably. It 
 was indeed the only part of the flinctions of a Com- 
 mander in Chief which he was competent to perform ; 
 for, though courageous in brawls and duels, he knew 
 nothing of military duty. At the very first review 
 which he held, it was evident to all who were near to 
 him that he did not know how to draw up a regiment.^ 
 His partial- To tum Englishmen out and to put Irishmen 
 
 ityandvio- . • f- • .i i • • i i 
 
 lence. m was, m his View, the beginnmg and the 
 
 end of the administration of war. He had the inso- 
 lence to cashier the Captain of the Lord Lieutenant's 
 own Body Guard : nor was Clarendon aware of what 
 had happened till he saw a Roman Catholic, whose 
 face was quite unknown to him, escorting the state 
 coach.2 The change was not confined to the officers 
 alone. The ranks were completely broken up and re- 
 composed. Four or five hundred soldiers were turned 
 out of a single regiment chiefly on the ground that 
 they were below the proper stature. Yet the most 
 unpractised eye at once perceived that they were taller 
 and better made men than their successors, whose wild 
 and squalid appearance disgusted the beholders.^ Or- 
 ders were given to the new officers that no man of the 
 Protestant religion was to be suffered to enlist. The 
 recruiting parties, instead of beating their drums for 
 volunteers at fairs and markets, as had been the old 
 pi'actice, repaired to places to which the Roman Cath- 
 olics were in the habit of making pilgrimages for pur- 
 poses of devotion. In a few weeks the General had 
 
 1 Clarenilon to Rochester, June 8. 1686. 
 
 2 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. 
 
 s Chireiulon to Rochester, June 26. and July 4. 1686; Apology for the 
 l'roie>t;iiits of Ireland, 1689.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 429 
 
 introduced more than two thousand natives into the 
 ranks ; and the people about him confidently affirmed 
 that by Christmas day not a man of English race would 
 be left in the whole army.^ 
 
 On all questions which arose in the Privy Council, 
 Tyrconnel showed similar violence and partiality. John 
 Keating, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a man 
 distinguished by ability, integrity, and loyalty, repre- 
 sented with great mildness that perfect equality was 
 all that the General could reasonably ask for his own 
 Church. The King, he said, evidently meant that no 
 man fit for public trust should be excluded because he 
 was a Ron^an Catholic, and that no man unfit for 
 public trust should be admitted because he was a 
 Protestant. Tyrconnel immediately began to curse 
 and swear. " I do not know what to say to that ; I 
 would have all Catholics in."^ The most judicious 
 Irishmen of his own religious persuasion were dismayed 
 at his rashness, and ventured to remonstrate with him ; 
 but he drove them from him with imprecations.^ His 
 brutality was such that many thought him mad. Yet 
 it was less strange than the shameless volubility with 
 which he uttered falsehoods. He had lono- before 
 earned the nickname of Lying Dick Talbot ; and, at 
 Whitehall, auv wild fiction was commonly desio-nated 
 as one of Dick Talbot's truths. He now daily proved 
 that he was well entitled to this unenviable reputation. 
 Indeed in him mendacity was almost a disease. He 
 would, after giving orders for the dismission of English 
 officers, take them into his closet, assure them of his 
 confidence and friendship, and implore heaven to con- 
 
 1 Clarendon to Rochester, July 4. 22. 1686; to Sunderland, July 6.j 
 U» the Kinj^, Au^. 14. 
 * Clarendon to liochester, June 19. 1686. 
 « Ibid. June 22. 1686.
 
 430 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 found him, sink him, blast him, if he did not take good 
 care of their interests. Sometimes those to whom he 
 had thus perjured himself learned, before the day 
 closed, that he had cashiered them.^ 
 
 On his arrival, though he swore savagely at the Act 
 of Settlement, and called the English interest a foul 
 thing, a roguish thing, and a damned thing, he yet 
 pretended to be convinced that the distribution of prop- 
 erty could not, after the lapse of so many years, be 
 He is bent on altered.^ But, when he had been a few 
 theAJTof"^ weeks at Dublin, his language changed. He 
 Settlement, jjp^^j^ ^q harauguo Vehemently at the Coun- 
 cil board on the necessity of giving back the land to 
 the old owners. He had not, however, as yet, obtained 
 his master's sanction to this fatal project. National feel- 
 ing still struggled feebly against superstition in the mind 
 of James. He was an Englishman : he was an Eng- 
 lish King ; and he could not, without some misgivings, 
 consent to the destruction of the greatest colony that 
 England had ever planted. The English Roman Cath- 
 olics with whom he was in the habit of taking counsel 
 were almost unanimous in favour of the Act of Settle- 
 ment. Not only the honest and moderate Powis, but 
 the dissolute and headstrong Dover, gave judicious and 
 patriotic advice. Tyrconnel could hardly hope to coun- 
 teract at a distance the effect which such advice must 
 He returns produco ou the royal mind. He determined 
 to England. ^.^ plead the cause of his caste in person ; 
 and accordingly he set out, at the end of August, for 
 England. 
 
 His presence and his absence were equally dreaded 
 
 1 Sheridan MS.; King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. iii. 
 itec. 3. sec. 8. There is a most striking instance of Tyrconnel's impudent 
 mendacity in Clarendon's letter to Rochester, Julj' 22. 1686. 
 
 • Clarendon to Rochester, June 8. 1686.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 431 
 
 by the Lord Lieutenant. It was, indeed, painful to be 
 daily browbeaten by an enemy : but it was not less 
 painful to know that an enemy was daily breathing 
 calumny and evil counsel in the royal ear. Clarendon 
 was overwhelmed by manifold vexations. He made a 
 progress through the country, and found that he was 
 everywhere treated by the Irish population with con- 
 tempt. The Roman Catholic priests exhorted their 
 conjireCTations to withhold from him all marks of hon- 
 our. The native gentry, instead of coming to pay 
 their respects to him, remained at their houses. The 
 native peasantry everywhere sang Celtic ballads in 
 praise of Tyrconncl, who would, they doubted not, soon 
 rea})pear to complete the humiliation of their oppressors.^ 
 The viceroy had scarcely returned to Dublin, The King 
 from his unsatisfactory tour, when he received ^^tu'ciaren- 
 letters which inforaied him that he had in- ^°°' 
 curred the King's serious displeasure. His Majesty — 
 so these letters ran — expected his servants not only 
 to do what he commanded, but to do it from the heart, 
 and with a cheerful countenance. The Lord Lieuten- 
 ant had not, indeed, refused to cooperate in the reform 
 of the army and of the civil administration ; but his 
 cooperation had been reluctant and ])erfunctory : his 
 looks had betrayed his feelings; and everybody saw 
 that he disapproved of the policy which ho was em- 
 ployed to carry into effect.^ In great anguish of mind 
 he wrote to defend himself; but he Avas sternly told 
 that his defence was not satisfactory. He then, in the 
 most abject terms, declared that he would not attempt 
 to justify himself, that he acquiesced in the royal judg- 
 
 1 Clarendon to Rochester, Sept. 23. and Oct. 2. 1686; Secret Consnlti 
 of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. 
 » Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 6. 1686. 
 VOL. II. 28
 
 4B2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. \Ca. VL ^. 
 
 ment, be it what it might, that he prostrated himself Hi 
 in the dust, that he implored pardon, that of all peni- 
 tents he was the most sincere, that he should think it 
 glorious to die in his Sovereign's cause, but found it 
 impossible to live under his Sovereign's displeasure. 
 Nor was this mere interested hypocrisy, but, at least 
 in part, unaffected slavishness and poverty of spirit ; 
 for in confidential letters, not meant for the royal eye, 
 he bemoaned himself to his family in the same strain. | 
 
 He was miserable ; he was crushed ; the wrath of the 
 King was insupportable ; if that wrath could not be l 
 
 mitigated, life would not be worth having.^ The poor 
 man's terror increased when he learned that it had 
 been determined at Whitehall to recall him, and to 
 appoint, as his successor, his rival and calumniator, 
 Tyrconnel.^ Then for a time the prospect seemed to 
 clear ; the King was in better humour ; and during 
 a few days Clarendon flattered himself that his broth- 
 er's intercession had prevailed, and that the crisis was 
 passed.^ 
 
 In truth the crisis was only beginning. While Clar- 
 Bochester endou was trying to lean on Rochester, Roch- 
 ti^jtesnitl ester was unable longer to sup]iort himself, 
 cai cabal. ^^ jj-^ j^.^land the elder brother, thouo-h re- 
 taining the guard of honour, the sword of state, and 
 the title of Excellency, had really been superseded 
 by the Connnander of the Forces, so in England, the 
 younger brother, though holding the white staff, and 
 walking, by virtue of his high office, before the gi'eatest 
 hereditary nobles, was fast sinking into a mere financial 
 clerk. The Parliament was again prorogued to a dis- 
 
 1 Clarendon to the King and to Rochester, Oct. 23. 1686. 
 » Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 29, 30. 1686. 
 « Ibid. Nov. 27. 1686.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 433 
 
 tant day, in opposition to the Treasurer's known wishes. 
 He was not even told that there was to be another 
 prorogation, but was left to learn the news from the 
 Gazette. Tlie real direction of affairs had passed to . 
 the cabal which dined with Sunderland on Fridays. 
 The cabinet met only to hear the despatches from for- 
 eign courts read : nor did those despatches contain 
 anything which was not known on the Royal Ex- 
 change ; for all the English Envoys had received orders 
 to put into the official letters only the common talk of 
 antechambei's, and to reserve important secrets for pri- 
 vate communications which were addressed to James 
 himself, to Sunderland, or to Petre.^ Yet the victorious 
 faction was not content. The King was assured by 
 those whom he most trusted that the obstinacy with 
 which the nation opposed his designs was really to be 
 imputed to Rochester. How could the people believe 
 that their Sovereign was unalterably resolved to per- 
 severe in the course on which he had entered, when 
 they saw at his right hand, ostensibly first in power 
 and trust among his counsellors, a man who notorious- 
 ly regarded that course with strong disap])robation ? 
 Every step which had been taken with the object of 
 humbling; the Church of Eno-land, and of elevating the 
 Church of Rome, had been opposed by the Treasurer. 
 True it was that, when he had found opposition vain, 
 he had gloomily submitted, nay, that he had some- 
 times even assisted in carrying into effect the very 
 plans against which he had most earnestly contended. 
 True it was that, though he disliked the Ecclesiastical 
 Commission, he had consented to be a Commissioner. 
 True it was that he liad, wliile declaring that he could 
 see nothing blamable in tlie conduct of the Bishop 
 1 Barillon, Sept. il. 1G86; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 99.
 
 434 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 of London, voted sullenly and reluctantly for the sen- 
 tence of suspension. But this was not enough. A 
 prince, engaged in an entei'prise so important and 
 arduous as that on which James was bent, had a right 
 to expect from his first minister, not unwilling and 
 ungracious acquiescence, but zealous and strenuous 
 cooperation. While such advice was daily given to 
 James by those in whom he reposed confidence, he 
 received, by the penny post, many anonymous letters 
 filled with calumnies against the Lord Treasurer. 
 This mode of attack had been contrived by Tyrconnel, 
 and was in perfect harmony with every part of his in- 
 famous life.-^ 
 
 The King hesitated. He seems, indeed, to have 
 really regarded his brother in law with personal kind- 
 ness, the effect of near affinity, of long and familiar 
 intercourse, and of many mutual good oflSces. It 
 seemed probable that, as long as Rochester continued 
 to submit himself, though tardily and with mumiurs, 
 to the royal pleasure, he would continue to be in name 
 prime minister. Sunderland, therefore, with exquisite 
 cunning, suggested to his master the propriety of ask- 
 ing the only proof of obedience which it was quite 
 certain that Rochester never would give. At present, 
 — such was the language of the artful Secretary, — it 
 was impossible to consult with the first of the King's 
 servants respecting the object nearest to the King's 
 heart. It was lamentable to think that religious prej- 
 udices should, at such a conjuncture, deprive the gov- 
 ernment of such valuable assistance. Perhaps those 
 prejudices might not prove insurmountable. Then the 
 deceiver whispered that, to his knowledge, Rochester 
 had of late had some misgivings about the points in dis- 
 
 » Sheridan MS.
 
 1086.] JAMES THE SECOND. 435 
 
 pute between the Protestants and Catholics.^ This 
 was enough. The King eagerly cauglit at Attempts of 
 the hint. He began to flatter himself that eZvert'" 
 he might at once escape from the disagree- ^o'^'^ester. 
 able necessity of removing a friend, and secure an able 
 coadjutor for the great work which was in progress. 
 He was also elated by the hope that he might have 
 the merit and the glory of saving a fellow creature 
 from perdition. He seems, indeed, about this time, 
 to have been seized with an unusually violent fit of 
 zeal for his religion ; and this is the more remark- 
 able, because he had just relapsed, after a short in- 
 terval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which all Chris- 
 tian divines condemn as sinful, and which, in an elderly 
 man married to an agreeable young wife, is regarded 
 even by people of the world as disreputable. Lady 
 Dorchester had returned from Dublin, and was again 
 the King's mistress. Her return was politically of 
 no importance. She had learned by experience the 
 folly of attempting to save her lover from the de- 
 struction to which he was running headlonji. She 
 therefore suffered the Jesuits to guide his political con- 
 duct ; and they, in return, suffered her to wheedle him 
 out of money. She was, however, only one of several 
 abandoned women who at this time shared, with his 
 beloved Church, the dominion over his mind.^ He 
 seems to have determined to make some amends for 
 neglecting the M^'lfare of his own soul by taking care 
 of the souls of others. He set himself, therefore, to 
 labour, with real good will, but with the good will of a 
 coarse, stern, and arbitiary mind, for the conversion of 
 his kinsman. Every audience which the Treasurer ob 
 
 ^ Clarke's F.ife of.Iaines (lie Secoml, ii. 100. 
 
 2 Barillon, Sept. ^. 1686 ; Bonrepaux, June 4. 1687.
 
 436 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VI. 
 
 tained was spent in arguments about the authority of 
 the Church and the worship of images. Rochester was 
 firmly resolved not to abjure his religion ; but he had 
 no scruple about employing in selfdefence artifices as 
 discreditable as those wliich had been used against him. 
 He affected to speak like a man whose mind was not 
 made up, professed himself desirous to be enlightened 
 if he was in error, borrowed Popish books, and listened 
 with civility to Popish divines. He had several inter- 
 views with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, 
 the chaplain and almoner of the Queen Dowager, and 
 with Bonaventure Giffard, a theologian trained to po- 
 lemics in the schools of Douay. It Avas agreed that 
 there should be a formal disputation between these 
 doctors and some Protestant clergymen. The King told 
 Rochester to choose any ministers of the Established 
 Church, with two exceptions. The proscribed persons 
 were Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most 
 popular preacher of that age, and in manners the most 
 inoffensive of men, had been much connected with some 
 leading Whiss ; and Stillingfleet, who was renowned as 
 a consummate master of all the weapons of controversy, 
 had given still deeper offence by publishing an answer 
 to the papers which had been found in the strong box 
 of Charles the Second. Rochester took the two royal 
 chaplains who happened to be in waiting. One of them 
 was Simon Patrick, whose commentaries on the Bible 
 still form a part of theological libraries ; the other vras 
 Jane, a vehement Tory, who had assisted in drawing 
 up that decree by which the University of Oxford had 
 solemnly adopted the worst follies of Filmer. The con- 
 ference took place at Whitehall on the thirtieth of No- 
 vember. Rochester, who did not wish it to be known 
 that he had even consented to hear the arguments of
 
 1«86.] JAMES THE SECOND. 437 
 
 Popish priests, stipulated for secrecy. No auditor wao 
 suffered to be present except the King. The subject 
 discussed was the real presence. The Roman CathoHc 
 divines took on themselves the burden of the proof. 
 Patrick and Jane said little ; nor was it necessary that 
 they should say much ; for the Earl himself undertook 
 to defend the doctrine of his Church, and, as was his 
 habit, soon warmed with conflict, lost his temper, and 
 asked Avith great vehemence whether it was expected 
 that he should change his I'eligion on such frivolous 
 grounds. Then he remembered how much he was risk- 
 mg, began again to dissemble, complimented the dispu- 
 tants on their skill and learning, and asked time to 
 consider what had been said.^ 
 
 Slow as James was, he could not but see that this 
 was mere trifling. He told Barillon that Rochester's 
 language was not that of a man honestly desirous of 
 arriving at the truth. Still the King did not like to 
 propose directly to his brother in law the simple choice, 
 apostasy or dismissal : but, three days after tlie confer- 
 ence, Barillon waited on the Treasurer, and, with much 
 circumlocution and many expressions of friendly con- 
 cern, broke the unpleasant truth. " Do you mean," 
 said Rochester, bewildered by the involved and cere- 
 monious phrases in wliich the intimation was made, 
 " that, if I do not turn Catholic, the consequence will 
 be that I shall lose my place ? " "I say nothing al)()ut 
 consequences," answered the wary diplomatist. *■' I 
 only come as a friend to express a hope that you will 
 take care to keep your place." " But surely," said 
 
 1 Barillon, Dec. J^. 1686; Burnet, i. 684.; Clarke's Life of James the Sec- 
 ond, ii. 100. ; Dodd's Church History. I have tried to frame a fair narra- 
 tive out of these roiiflictinp; materials. It seems clear to me, from Roehester's 
 >»wn papers, that he was on tliis occasion bj' no means so stuhborn as he 
 has been represented by Burnet and by the biographer of James.
 
 488 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. YL 
 
 Rochester, " the plain meaning of all this is that I must 
 turn Catholic or go out." He put many questions for 
 the purpose of ascertaining whether the communication 
 was made by authority, but could extort only vague 
 and mysterious replies. At last, affecting a confidence 
 which he was far from feelinfr, he declared that Barillon 
 must have been imposed upon by idle or malicious re- 
 ports. " I tell you," he said, " that the King will not 
 dismiss me, and I will not resign. I know him : he 
 knows me ; and I fear nobody." The Frenchman an- 
 swered that he was charmed, that he was ravished to 
 hear it, and that his only motive for interfering was a 
 sincere anxiety for the prosperity and dignity of his ex- 
 cellent friend the Treasurer. And thus the two states- 
 men parted, each flattering himself that he had duped 
 the otlier.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, in spite of all injunctions of secrecy, the 
 news that the Lord Treasurer had consented to be in- 
 structed in the doctrines of Popery had spread fast 
 through London. Patrick and Jane had been seen 
 going in at that mysterious door which led to Chiffinch's 
 apartments. Some Roman Catholics about the court 
 had, indiscreetly or artflilly, told all, and more than 
 all, that they knew. The Tory churchmen waited 
 anxiously for fuller information. They were mortified 
 to think that their leader should even have pretended 
 to waver in his opinion ; but they could not believe that 
 he would stoop to be a renegade. The unfortunate 
 minister, toi'tured at once by his fierce passions and his 
 low desires, annoyed by the censures of the public, 
 annoyed by the hints which he had received from Ba- 
 rillon, afraid of losing character, afraid of losing office, 
 repaired to the royal closet. He w^as determinevl to 
 
 1 From Rochester's Minutes, dated Dec. 3. 1G86.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 439 
 
 keep his place, if it could be kept by any villany but 
 one. He would pretend to be shaken in his religious 
 opinions, and to be half a convert : he would promise 
 to give strenuous support to that policy which he had 
 hitherto opposed : but, if he were driven to extremity, 
 he would refuse to change his religion. He began, 
 therefore, by telling the King that the business in which 
 His Majesty took so much interest was not sleeping, 
 that Jane and GifFard were eno-asred in consultino; books 
 on the points in dispute between the Churches, and 
 that, when these researches were over, it would be de- 
 sirable to have another conference. Then he com- 
 plained bitterly that all the town was apprised of what 
 ought to have been carefully concealed, and tliat some 
 persons, who, from their station, might be sujjposed to 
 be well informed, reported strange things as to the royal 
 intentions. " It is whispered," he said, " that, if I do 
 not do as your Majesty would have me, I shall not be 
 suffered to continue in my present station." The King 
 said, with some general expressions of kindness, that it 
 was difficult to prevent people from talking, and that 
 loose reports were not to be regarded. These vague 
 phrases were not likely to quiet the perturbed mind of 
 the minister. His agitation became violent, and he be- 
 gan to plead for his place as if he had been pleading for 
 his life. " Your Majesty sees that I do all in my power 
 to obey you. Indeed I will do all that I can to obey 
 you in every thing. I will serve you in your own way. 
 Nay," he cried, in an agony of baseness, " I will do 
 what I can to believe as you would have me. But do 
 not let me be told, while I am trying to bring my mind 
 to this, that, if I find it imijossible to comply, I must 
 lose all. For I must needs tell yom- Mnjesty that there 
 are other considerations." " Oh, you must needs," ex-
 
 440 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Cn. VI. 
 
 claimed the King, with an oath. For a single word of 
 honest and manly sonnd, escaping in the midst of all 
 this abject supplication, was sufficient to move his anger. 
 " I hope, sir," said poor Rochester, " that I do not 
 offend you. Surely your Majesty could not think well 
 of me if I did not say so." The King recollected him- 
 self, protested that he was not offended, and advised the 
 Treasurer to disregard idle rumours, and to confer again 
 with Jane and Giftard.^ 
 
 After this conversation, a fortnight elapsed before the 
 Dismission decisivo blow fell. That fortnight Rochester 
 ofBochester. p^gggj in intriguing and imploring. He at- 
 tempted to interest in his favour those Roman Catholics 
 who had the greatest influence at court. He could not, 
 he said, renounce his own religion : but, with that single 
 reservation, he would do all that they could desire. 
 Indeed, if he might only keep his place, they should 
 find that he could be more useful to them as a Protes- 
 tant than as one of their own communion.^ His wife, 
 who was on a sick bed, had already, it was said, sohcited 
 the honour of a visit from the much injured Queen, and 
 had attempted to work on Her Majesty's feelings of 
 compassion.^ But the Hydes abased themselves in 
 vain. Petre regarded them with peculiar malevolence, 
 and was bent on their ruin.* On the evening of the 
 seventeenth of December the Earl was called into the 
 royal closet. James was unusually discomposed, and 
 even shed tears. The occasion, indeed, could not but 
 call up some recollections which might well soften even 
 a hard heart. He expressed his regret that his duty 
 
 1 From Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 4. 1686. 
 
 2 Barillon, Dec. |o. 1686. 
 8 Burnet, i. 684. 
 
 * Bonrepaux, -j^^ 1687.
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 441 
 
 made it impossible for him to indulge his private par- 
 tiahties. It was absolutely necessaiy, he said, that 
 those who had the chief direction of his affairs should 
 partake his opinions and feelings. He owned that he 
 had very great personal obligations to Rochester, and 
 tiiat no fault could be found with the way in which the 
 financial business had lateh'- been done : but the office 
 of Lord Treasurer was of such high importance that, in 
 general, it ought not to be entrusted to a single person, 
 and could not safely be entrusted by a Roman Catholic 
 King to a person zealous for the Church of England. 
 " Think better of it, my Lord," he continued. " Read 
 again the papers from my brother's box. I will give 
 you a little more time for consideration, if you desire 
 it." Rochester saw that all was over, and that the 
 wisest course left to him was to make his retreat with 
 as much money and as much credit as possible. He 
 succeeded in both objects. He obtained a pension of 
 four thousand pounds a year for two lives on the post 
 office. He had made great sums out of the estates of 
 traitors, and carried with him in particular Grey's bond 
 for forty thousand pounds, and a grant of all the estate 
 which the crown had in Grey's extensive property.^ 
 No person had ever quitted office on terms so advan- 
 tageous. To the applause of the sincere friends of the 
 Established Church Rochester had, indeed, ver^^ slender 
 claims. To save his ])lace he had sate in that tribunal 
 which had been illegally created for the purpose of per- 
 secuting her. To save his place he had given a dis- 
 honest vote for degrading one of her most eminent 
 ministers, had affected to doubt her orthodoxy, had 
 
 1 Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 19. 1G86; Barillon, ";^" IGSf ; Burnet, i. 
 685.; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 102., Treasury Warrant Book, 
 Dec. 29. 1G86.
 
 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Cit. VI 
 
 listened with the outward show of docility to teachers 
 who called her schisniatical and heretical, and had 
 offered to cooperate strenuously with her deadliest ene- 
 mies in their designs against her. The highest praise 
 to which he was entitled was this, that he had shrunk 
 from the exceeding wickedness and baseness of publicly 
 abjuring, for lucre, the religion in which he had been 
 brought up, which he believed to be true, and of which 
 he had long made an ostentatious profession. Yet he 
 was extolled by the great body of Churchmen as if he 
 had been the bravest and purest of martyrs. The Old 
 and New Testaments, the Marty rologies of Eusebius 
 and of Fox, wei'e ransacked to find parallels for his 
 heroic piety. He was Daniel in the den of lions, Sha- 
 drach in the fiery furnace, Peter in the dungeon of 
 Hei'od, Paul at the bar of Nero, Ignatius in the amphi- 
 theatre, Latimer at the stake. Among the many facts 
 which prove that the standard of honour and virtue 
 among the public men of that age was low, the admira- 
 tion excited by Rochester's constancy is, perhaps, the 
 most decisive. 
 
 In his fall he drao;o;ed down Clarendon. On the 
 Dismission scventli of January 1687, the Gazette an- 
 don.' nounced to the people of London that the 
 
 Treasury was put into commission. On the eighth 
 Tyrconnei arrived at Dublin a despatch formally signi- 
 uty. fying that in a month Tyrconnei would as- 
 
 sume the government of Ireland. It was not without 
 great difliculty that this man had sui-mounted the nu- 
 merous impediments which stood in the way of his 
 ambition. It was well known that the extermination 
 of the English colony in Ireland was the object on 
 which his heart was set. He had, therefore, to over- 
 come some scruples in the royal mind. He had to
 
 1686.] JAMES THE SECOND. 443 
 
 surmount the opposition, not merely of all tlie Protes- 
 tant members of the government, not merely of the 
 moderate and respectable heads of the Roman Catholic 
 body, but even of several members of the Jesuitical 
 cabal. ^ Sunderland shrank from the thought of an 
 Irish revolution, religious, political, and social. To the 
 Queen Tyrconnel was personally an object of aversion. 
 Powis was therefore suggested as the man best quali- 
 fied for the viceroyalty. He was of illustrious birth ; 
 he was a sincere Roman Catholic : and yet he was 
 generally allowed by candid Protestants to be an hon- 
 est man and a good Englishman. All opposition, how- 
 ever, yielded to Tyrconnel's energy and cunning. He 
 fawned, bullied, and bribed indefatigably. Petre's 
 help was secured by flattery. Sunderland was plied 
 ai, once with promises and menaces. An immense 
 price was offered for his support, no less than an an- 
 nuity of five thousand pounds a year fi'om Ireland, re- 
 deemable by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. 
 If this proposal were rejected, Tyrconnel threatened 
 to let the King know that the Lord President had, at 
 the Friday dinners, described His Majesty as a fool 
 who must be governed either by a woman or by a 
 priest. Sunderland, pale and trembling, offered to 
 procure for Tyrconnel supreme military connnand, 
 enormous aj)])ointments, anything but the viceroyalty : 
 but all comj)romise was rejected ; and it was necessary 
 to yield. Mary of Modena herself was not free from 
 
 1 Bishop Maldiiy in a letter to Bishop Tyrrel says, "Never a Catholic 
 or other Eii{i;li>ii will ever think or make a step, nor suffer the Kinjif to 
 make a step for your restauration, but leave you as you were hitherto, and 
 leave your eiR'inics over your heads: nor is there any Eiifflislunan, Catho- 
 lic or other, of what quality or degree soever alive, that will stick to sac- 
 rifice all Ireland for to save the least interest of his own in England, and 
 would as willingly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of whatsoever 
 religion as by the Irish."
 
 444 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 suspicion of corruption. There was in London a re- 
 nowned chain of pearls which was valued at ten thou- 
 sand pounds. It had belonged to Prince Rupert ; and 
 by him it had been left to Margaret Hughes, a courte- 
 san who, towards the close of his life, had exercised a 
 boundless empire over him. Tyrconnel loudly boasted 
 that with this chain he had purchased the support of 
 the Queen. There were those, however, who sus- 
 pected that this story was one of Dick Talbot's truths, 
 and that it had no more foundation than the calumnies 
 which, twenty-six yeai's before, he had invented to 
 blacken the fame of Anne Hyde. To the Roman 
 Catholic courtiers generally he spoke of the uncertain 
 tenure by which they held offices, honours, and emolu- 
 ments. The King might die tomorrow, and might 
 leave them at the mercy of a hostile government and 
 a hostile rabble. But, if the old faith could be made 
 dominant in Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that 
 country could be destroyed, there would still be, in 
 the worst event, an asylum at hand to which they 
 might retreat, and where they might either negotiate 
 or defend themselves with advantage. A Popish 
 priest was hired with the promise of the mitre of 
 Waterford to preach at Saint James's against the Act 
 of Settlement ; and his sermon, though heard with 
 deep disgust by the English part of the auditory, was 
 not without its effect. The struggle which patriotism 
 had for a time maintained against bigotry in the royal 
 mind was at an end. " There is work to be done in 
 Ireland," said James, " which no Englishman will 
 do." 1 
 
 All obstacles were at length removed ; and in 
 February 1687, Tyrconnel began to rule his native 
 1 The best account of these transactions is in the Sheridan MS.
 
 1687.] JAMES THE SECOND. 445 
 
 country with tlie power and appointments of Lord 
 Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of Lord Dep- 
 uty. 
 
 His arrival spread dismay through the whole English 
 population. Clarendon was accompanied, or Dismay of 
 speedily followed, across St. George's Chan- coJonSts'^'* 
 nel, by a large proportion of'the most respect- ir«'a.ud. 
 able inhabitants of Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and 
 artificers. It was said that fifteen hundred families 
 emigrated in a few days. The panic was not unrea- 
 sonable. The work of putting the colonists down un- 
 der the feet of the natives went rapidly on. In a short 
 time almost every Privy Councillor, Judge, Sheriff', 
 Mayor, Alderman, and Justice of the Peace was a Celt 
 and a Roman Catholic. It seemed that thino-s would 
 soon be i-ipe for a general election, and that a House 
 of Commons bent on abrogatuig the Act of Settlement 
 Avould easily be assembled.^ Those who had lately 
 been the lords of the island now cried out, in the bit- 
 terness of their souls, that they had become a prey and 
 a laughingstock to their own serfs and menials ; that 
 houses were burnt and cattle stolen with impunity ; 
 that the new soldiers roamed the country, pillagino-, 
 insulting, ravishing, maiming, tossing one Protestant 
 in a blanket, tying up another by the hair and scourg- 
 ing him ; that to appeal to the law was vain ; that 
 Irish Judges, Sheriffs, juries, and witnesses were all 
 in a league to save Irish criminals ; and that, even 
 without an Act of Parliament, the whole soil would 
 soon change hands ; for that, in every action of eject- 
 ment tried mider the administration of Tyrconnel, 
 
 1 Sheridan 1\[S.; Oldmixon's Memoirs of Ireland; Kinp's State of the 
 Protestants of Ireland, particularly chapter iii. ; Apology for the Piotea- 
 Unts of Ireland, 1G89.
 
 446 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Ch. VL 
 
 judgment had been given for the natiA^e against the 
 Englishman.^ 
 
 While Clarendon was at Dublin the Privy Seal had 
 been in the hands of Commissioners. His friends hoped 
 that it would, on his return to London, be again deliv- 
 ered to him. But the King and the Jesuitical cabal 
 had determined that the disgrace of the Hydes should 
 be complete. Lord Arundell of Wardour, a Roman 
 Catholic, received the Privy Seal. Bellasyse, a Roman 
 Catholic, was made First Lord of the Treasury ; and 
 Dover, another Roman Catholic, had a seat at the 
 board. The appointment of a ruined gambler to such 
 a trust would alone have sufficed to disgust the public. 
 The dissolute Etherege, who then resided at Ratisbon 
 as English envoy, could not refrain from expressing, 
 with a sneer, his hope that his old boon companion, 
 Dover, would keep the King's money better than his 
 own. In order that the finances might not be ruined 
 by incapable and inexperienced Papists, the obsequious, 
 diligent and silent Godolphin was named a Commis- 
 sioner of the Treasury, but continued to be Chamber- 
 lain to the Queen.^ 
 
 The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch 
 Effect of the in the reign of James. From that time it 
 
 tall of the '^ 
 
 Hydes. was clcar that what he really wanted was 
 
 not liberty of conscience for the members of his own 
 church, but liberty to persecute the members of other 
 churches. Pretending to abhor tests, he had himself 
 imposed a test. He thought it hard, he thought it 
 monstrous, that able and loyal men should be excluded 
 fi'om the public service solely for being Roman Cath- 
 
 1 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. 
 a London Gazette, Jan. G. and March 14. 168|; Evelyn's Diary, March 
 10. Etheresre's letter to Dover is in the British Museum. 
 
 I
 
 1687.] JAMES THE SECOND. 447 
 
 oHcs. Yet he had himself turned out of office a Treas- 
 urer, whom he admitted to be both loyal and able, 
 solely for being a Protestant. The cry was that a 
 general proscription was at hand, and that every public 
 functionary must make up his mind to lose his soul or 
 to lose his place. ^ Who indeed could hope to stand 
 where the Hydes had fallen ? They were the broth- 
 ers in law of the King, the uncles and natural guar- 
 dians of his children, his friends from early youth, his 
 steady adherents in advei'sity and peril, his obsequious 
 servants since he had been on the throne. Their sole 
 crime was their religion ; and for this crime they had 
 been discarded. In great perturbation men began- to 
 look round for help ; and soon all eyes were fixed on 
 one whom a rare concurrence both of personal quali- 
 ties and of. fortuitous circumstances pointed out as the 
 deliverer. 
 
 1 " Pare che gVi animi sono inaspriti della voce die corre per il popolo, 
 d'esser cacciato il detto ministro per non essere Oattolico, percio tirarsi ai 
 esterminio do' Protestanti." — Adda, '2fl_ll: 1687. 
 
 Jan. 10. 
 ▼OL. II. S9
 
 II
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 As this is the first occasion on which I cite the corre- Despatche* 
 Bpondonce of the Dutch ministers at the English court, I ^^j^^^^tg^.'!? 
 ought here to mention that a series of their despatches, 22, note, 
 from the accession of James the Second to his fliglit, 
 forms one of tlie most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collection. 
 The subsequent despatches, down to the settlement of the govern- 
 ment in February, 1689, I procured from the Hague. The Dutch 
 arcliives have been far too little explored. They abound with in- 
 formation interesting in the highest degree to every Englishman. 
 Tliey are admirably arranged ; and they are in the charge of gentle- 
 men whose courtesy, liberality, and zeal for the interests of litera- 
 ture, cannot be too highly praised. I wish to acknowledge, in the 
 strongest manner, my own obligations to Mr. De Jonge and to Mr. 
 Van Zwanne. 
 
 [For a different view of the character of the father of 
 the Churchills, and of the youth of John Churchill, see T^^ ^p"^a?' 
 broker's article in the Qnarlerli/ Review, Vol. 84, pp. 008- 
 tilO ; The New " Kxamm," by John Paget, Esq., pp. 7-19; and 
 Blackwood's Mar/azine for August, 1860.] 
 
 It ha.>< been confiilently asserted, by persons who have -vvodrow's 
 not taken the trouble to look at the authority to which I atithoritj'. 
 have referred, that I have grossly calumniated these un- ^" °°' "°*®* 
 fortunate men ; that 1 do not understand the Calvinistic theology ; 
 and that it is impossible that members of the Church of Scotland can 
 have refused to pray for any man, on the ground that he was not one 
 of the elect. 
 
 I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in 
 his History, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That nar- 
 rative is signed by two eye-witnesses; and Wodrow, before he pnb- 
 lislied it, submitted it to a lliinl eye-witness who ])ronounced it 
 strictly accurate. From tli;it narrative I will extract the only words 
 which bear on the point in (juestion : "When all the tln-ee were 
 taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to 
 the west side of the town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if 
 they would pray for King James VII. They answered, they would
 
 450 APPENDIX. 
 
 pray for all within the election of grace. Balfour said, Do you 
 question the King's election? Tliey answered, sometimes they 
 questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and said 
 they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ's 
 vicegerent, and so, without one word more, commanded Thomas 
 Cook to go to his prayers, for he should die." 
 
 In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable ; and I shall 
 not easily be convinced that any writer now living understands tlie 
 feelings and opinions of the Covenanters better than Wodrow did. 
 (1857.) 
 
 Graham, of [Mr. Macaulay has adopted the traditional view of the 
 
 p'^^ss'^se*" character of Claverhouse, which represents him as a 
 fiend incarnate. His contemporaries describe him as an 
 accomplished gentleman and gallant soldier, — as a man of spotless 
 honour, of eminent social virtues, and of an unselfish loyalty. The 
 question has been examined at length with a full review of the 
 authorities, by Professor Aytoua. See Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, 
 in Notes and Appendix. See also The New " Examen," by John 
 Paget, Barrister at Law, Blackwood's edition, pp. 194-255, for an 
 elaborate defence of Claverhouse, republished from Blackwood's 
 Muijazine of August, 1860. 
 
 In addition to the version of John Brown's story, by Wodrow, 
 and the version by Walker, which differ from each other, and both 
 of them from the version of Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Paget copies tiie 
 original despatch which Claverhouse sent to the Duke of Queens- 
 bury, then head of the government in Scotland, giving an account 
 of Brown's execution, written two days after it occurred. This 
 despatch was preserved among the Queensbury papers, and was first 
 published recently by Mr. Mark Napier, in his Memoirs of Dundee. 
 The evidence amounts to proof that John Brown was an avowed 
 and determined rebel, amenable as such to the law, — that he refused 
 to swear not to take arms against the King, saying that he knew 
 no King, — and that he refused to take the oath of abjuration, which 
 was equivalent to a plea of guilty on an indictment for high treason. 
 The law was harsh, but the facts seem to bring the death of John 
 Brown within the ordinary rules of military executions, — and 
 perhaps there is no good reason for believing that it was attended 
 with any other horrors than those which are inseparable from such 
 an event.] 
 
 Narcissus •^ copy of this Diary, from July, 1685, to September, 
 
 Luttreir.s 1690, is among the Mackintosh papers. To the rest I 
 222 note ' ^^^ allowed access, by the kindness of the warden of 
 All Souls' College, where the original manuscript is de- 
 posited. The Delegates of the Press of the University of Oxford,
 
 APPENDIX. V)l 
 
 have since pnblishecl tlie whole, in six substantial volumes, wliioh 
 
 will, I am afraid, find liltlu favour with roadcrs who seek only for 
 
 amusement, but which will always be useful as materials for history. 
 
 (1857.) 
 
 [Mr. J. VV. Croker considered that the allegation of William's 
 
 William's complicity with Monmouth, which Mr. Ma- complicity 
 ,. , , ■ . , ... , , ■n'lth Mon- 
 
 caulay did not think worth retutin<r, is completely mouth. P. 
 
 established by the authority of Dalrymple, and the de- ^*^''- 
 spatches of D'Avaux. See the passages cited in the Quarterly 
 Review, Vol. 84, pp. 616-6'21. The critic adds, that William suffi- 
 ciently testified his interest in Monmouth's attempt by his fa- 
 vour to the survivors of it. At the Revolution he rewarded Lord 
 Grey with an earldom, — and Ferguson with a sinecure place of 
 five hundred pounds a year in the royal household ; and the obscure 
 printer of Monmouth's Declaration sought refuge with the Prince 
 of Orange, returned with him, and was made stationer to their 
 Majesties William and Mary.] 
 
 The letter of Sunderland is as follows : — 
 
 " Whitehall, Feb. 13, 168.5-6. 
 " Mr. Penne, 
 
 " Her Majestj''s Maids of Honour having acquainted v\iiiiam 
 me that they designe to employ you and Mr. Walden in lh,'.T..,u"iton 
 making a composition with the Relations of the Maids of Maids. 
 Taunton for the high Misdemeanour they have been ' "'"" ' °° ' 
 guilty of, I do at their request hereby let you know that His Majesty 
 has been pleased to give their Fines to the said Maids of Honour, and 
 therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden and you to make the most 
 advantageous composition you can in their behalfe. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 " Sdnderland." 
 
 That the person to whom this letter was addressed was William 
 Penn, the Quaker, was not doubted by Sir James Mackintosh, who 
 first brought it to light, or, as far as lam aware, by any other person, 
 till after the publication of the first part of this History'. It has since 
 been confidently asserted that the letter was addressed to a certain 
 George Penne, who appears from an old account book lately dis- 
 covered to have been concerned in a negoti.-ition for the ransom of 
 one of Monmouth's followers, named Azariah Pinney. 
 
 If I thought that I had committed an error, I siiould, I hope, have 
 the honesty to acknowledge it. But, after full consideration, I am 
 •atisfied that Sundprland's letter was addressed to William Penn. 
 
 Much has been said about the way in whicli the name is spelt
 
 452 APPENDIX. 
 
 Tlie Quaker, we are told, was not Mr. Penne, but Mr. Penn. I feel 
 assured tliat no peuson conversant with the books and manuscripts 
 of the seventeenth century will attach any importance to this arj^u- 
 ment. It is notorious that a proper name was then thought to be 
 well spelt if the sound were preserved. To go no further than the 
 persons who, in Penn's time, held the Great Seal, one of them is some- 
 times Hyde and sometimes Hide : another is JefTeries, Jeffries, Jeffe- 
 reys, and Jeffreys : a third is Somers, Sommers, and Summers : a 
 fourth is Wright and Wrighte ; and a fifth is Cowper and Cooper. 
 The Quaker's name was spelt in three ways. He, and his father the 
 Admiral before him, invariably, as far as I have observed, sfjelt it 
 Penn : but most people spelt it Pen ; and there were some who ad- 
 hered to the ancient form, Penne. For example, William the father 
 is Penne in a letter from Disbrowe to Thurloe, dated on the 7tli of 
 December 1654 ; and William the son is Penne in a newsletter of the 
 22d of September 1688, printed in the Ellis Correspondence. In 
 Richard Ward's Life and Letters of Henry More, printed in 1710, the 
 name of the Quaker will be found spelt in all the three ways, Penn 
 in the index. Pen in page 197, and Penne in page 311. The name is 
 Penne in the Commission which the Admiral carried out with him 
 on his expedition to the West Indies. Burchett, who became Sec- 
 retary to the Admiralty soon after the Revolution, and remained 
 in office long after the accession of the House of Hanover, always, 
 in his Naval History, wrote the name Penne. Surely it cannot be 
 thought strange that an old-fashioned spelling, in which the Sec- 
 retary of the Admiralty persisted so late as 1720, should have been 
 used at the office of the Secretary of State in 1686. I am quite 
 confident that, if the letter which we are considering had been of 
 a different kind, if Mr. Penne had been informed that, in conse- 
 quence of his earnest intercession, the King had been graciously 
 pleased to grant a free pardon to the Taunton girls, and if I had 
 attempted to deprive the Quaker of the credit of that intercession 
 on the ground that his name was not Penne, the very persons who 
 now complain so bitterly that I am unjust to his memory would 
 have complained quite as bitterly, and, I must say, with much more 
 reason. 
 
 I think myself, therefore, perfectly justified in considering the 
 names, Penn and Penne, as the same. To which, then, of the two 
 persons who bore that name, George or William, is it probable that 
 the letter of the Secretary of State was addressed ? 
 
 George was evidently an adventurer of a very low class. All that 
 we learn about him from the papers of the Pinney family is that he 
 Wits employed in the purchase of a pardon for the younger son of 
 a dissenting minister. The whole sum which appears to have [lassed
 
 APPENDIX. 453 
 
 though George's hands on tliis occasion was sixtv-five pounds. His 
 commission on the transaction must tiieretbre liave been small 
 The only other information whicli we have about liim is that he, 
 sometime later, applied to the government for a favour which wai 
 very far from being an honour. In England the Groom Porter of 
 the Palace liad a jurisdiction over games of chance, and made some 
 very dirty gain by issuing lottery tickets and licensing hazard tables. 
 CJeorge appears to have petitioned for a similar privilege in the 
 American colonies. 
 
 William Penn was, during the reign of James the Second, the 
 most active and powerful solicitor about the Court. 1 will quote the 
 words of his admirer Croese. " Quum autem Pennus tanta gratia 
 plurimum apud regem valeret, et per id perplures sibi amicos ac- 
 quireret, ilium omnes, etiani qui modo aliqua notitia orant conjuncti, 
 quoties aliquid a rege postulandum agendumve apud regem essot, 
 adire, ambire, orare, ut eos apud regem adjuvaret." He was over- 
 whelmed by business of this kind, " obrutus negotiationibus cura- 
 tionibusque." His house and the approaches to it were every day 
 blocked up by crowds of persons who came to request his good 
 offices ; " domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium et supplican- 
 tium." From the FountainhiUl papers it appears that his influence 
 was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from himself 
 that, at this time, he was always toiling for others, that he was a daily 
 suitor at Whitehall, and that, if he had chosen to sell his influence, 
 he could, in little more than three years, have put twenty thousand 
 pounds into his pocket, and obtained a hundred tiiousand more for 
 the improvement of the colony of which he was proprietor. 
 
 Such was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, 
 was tlie more likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunder- 
 land's letter related ? Was it George or William, an agent of the 
 lowest or of the highest class? The persons interested were ladies 
 of rank and fashion, resident at the palace, where (iuorge would 
 liardly have been admitted into an outer room, but where William 
 was every day in the presence chamber and was frequently callvd 
 into the closet. The greatest nobles in the kingdom were zealous 
 and active in the cause of their fair friends, nobles with whom Wil- 
 liam lived in habits of familiar intercourse, but who would hardly 
 have thought George lit company for their grooms. The sum in 
 question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not largo when com- 
 pared with the masses of wealth with whicli William had constantly 
 to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only ransom 
 which is known to have i)assed through the hands of Georyc. These 
 considerations would siiHiee to raise a strong presumption that Sun- 
 derland's letter was addressed to William, and not to (Jeorge : but 
 there is a still stronger argument behind.
 
 454 APPENDIX. 
 
 It is most important to observe that the person to whom this let- 
 ter was addressed was not the first person whom tlie Maids of Hon- 
 our had requested to act for them. They applied to liim, because 
 anotlier person, to wliom the}' had previously applied, liad, after some 
 correspondence, declined the office. From their first application we 
 learn with certainty what sort of person they wished to employ. If 
 their first application had been made to some obscure pettifogger or 
 needy gambler, we should be warranted in believing that the Penne 
 to whom their second application was made was George. If, on the 
 other hand, tlieir first application was made to a gentleman of the 
 highest consideration, we can hardly be wrong in saying that the 
 Penne to whom their second application was made must have been 
 William. To whom, then, was their first application made ? It was 
 to Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, a Baronet and a Member of 
 Parliament. The letters are still extaTit in which the Duke of 
 Somerset, the proud Duke, not a man very likely to have corre- 
 Bponded with George Penne, pressed Sir Francis to undertake the 
 commission. The latest of those letters is dated about three weeks 
 before Sunderland's letter to Mr. Penne. Somerset tells Sir Francis 
 that the town clerk of Bridgewater, whose name, I may remark in 
 passing, is spelt sometimes Bird and sometimes Birde, had ottered 
 his services, but that those services had been declined. It is clear, 
 therefore, that the Maids of Honour were desirous to have an agent 
 of high station and character. And they were right. For the sum 
 which they demanded was so- large that no ordinary jobber could 
 safely be entrusted with the care of their interests. 
 
 As Sir Francis Warre excused himself from undertaking the nego- 
 tiation, it became necessary for the Maids of Honour and their ad- 
 visers to choose somebody wlio might supply his place ; and they 
 chose Penne. Which of the two Pennes, then, must have been 
 their choice, George, a petty broker to whom a percentage on sixty- 
 five pounds was an object, and whose highest ambition was to derive 
 an infamous livelihood from cards and dice, or William, not inferior 
 in social position to any commoner in the kingdom ? Is it possible 
 to believe that the ladies who, in January, employed the Duke of 
 Somerset to procure for them an agent in the first rank of the Fng- 
 lish gentry, and who did not think an attorney, though occupying 
 a respectable post in a respectable corporation, good enough for their 
 purpose, would, in February, have resolved to trust everytliing to a 
 fellow who was as much below Bird as Bird was below AYarre 1 
 
 But, it is said, Sunderland's letter is dry and distant; and he 
 never would have written in such a style to William Penn with 
 whom he was on friendly terms. Can it be necessary for me to 
 reply that the official communications which a Minister of State 
 
 I
 
 APIENDIX. 455 
 
 makes to his dearest friends and nearest relations are as cold and 
 formal as those whicli he makes to strangers '! AVill it be contended 
 that the General Wellesley, to whom the Marquis Wellesley, wlien 
 Governor of India, addressed so many letters beginning;- with " Sir," 
 and ending with " I have tlie honour to be your obedient servant," 
 CJinnot possibly have been his Lordship's brother Arthur 'f 
 
 But, it is said, Oldmixon tells a different story. According to him, 
 a Popish lawyer, named Brent, and a subordinate jobber, named 
 Crane, were the agents in the matter of the Taunton girls. Now it 
 is notorious that of all our historians Oldmixon is the least trust- 
 worthy. His most positive assertion would be of no value when 
 opposed to such evidence as is furnished by Sunderland's letter. 
 But Oldmixon asserts nothing positively. Not only does he not 
 assert positively that Brent and Crane acted for the Maids of Hon- 
 our : but he does not even assert positively that the Maids of Honour 
 were at all concerned. He goes no further than " It was said," and 
 " It was reported." It is plain therefore that he was very imper- 
 fectly informed. 1 do not think it impossil)le, liowever, that tiiere 
 may have been some foundation for the rumour winch he mentions. 
 We have seen that one busy lawyer, named Bird, volunteered to 
 look alter the interest of the Maids of Honour, and that they were 
 forced to tell him that they did not want liis services. Other i)ersons, 
 and among them the two whom Oldmixon names, may have tried to 
 thrust then'iselves into so lucrative a job, and may, by pretending to 
 interest at Court, have succeeded in obtaining a little money from 
 terrified families. But nothing can be more clear than that the au- 
 thorised agent of the Maids of Honour was the Mr. Penne to whom 
 the Secretary of State wrote ; and I firmly believe that Mr. Penne 
 to have been William the Quaker. 
 
 If it be said that it is incredible that so good a man would have 
 been concerned in so bad an affair, I can only answer that this 
 afliiir was very far indeed from being the worst in which he was 
 concerned. 
 
 For these reasons I leave the text, and shall leave it, exactly as it 
 originally stood. (1857.) 
 
 [When a public man is arraigned on an odious charge wiiii.im 
 a century and a half after his death, he can neither ^,''"',',■^",'* . 
 plead to tlie indictment nor be heard in his own de- Honour, 
 fence; and being therefore tried ex parte, he sliould be P- -58. 
 convicted only on the clearest and most conclusive proof. W« 
 think, therefore, that Mr. Macaulay would have best consulted his 
 character for candor and trutlifulness, by withdrawing tiis charge 
 against the great Quaker, as soon as he ascertained that the letter of 
 Sunderland was not addressed to William Penn, as the transcript
 
 i5Q APPENDIX. 
 
 was erroneously addressed in the Mackintosh Collection, and as the 
 letter is erroneously cited in the Mackintosh History of tlie Revo- 
 lution. The moment this error was established, there was an end 
 of the case, — for as long as there was another I'en, Penn, or Penne 
 in England, for whom the letter might well enough have been in- 
 tended, the assumption tliat it was intended for William Penn, be- 
 comes matter merely of conjecture and inference. Against censure 
 based on mere conjecture or inference, the fame of the dead should 
 be secure. 
 
 But we do not wish to evade this question by a plea to the juris- 
 diction, or a demurrer to the evidence. It may safely be dealt with 
 upon the merits. After a full examination of it, we are bound to 
 say that it is as clear as anything which rests on evidence, or on tlie 
 want of evidence, that William Penn neither accepted the commis- 
 sion of the Maids of Honour, as Mr. Macaulay positively asserts, 
 nor received their instructions, as Sir James Mackintosli alleges, with 
 regret; that he never became their agent, and was never requested 
 to serve in that capacity. 
 
 The only evidence extant relating to this transaction, is document- 
 ary. When the fines of the Taunton girls were given to the maids 
 of honour, the Maids of Honour applied to the Duke of Somerset, 
 the lord lieutenant of the county. The Duke addressed to Sir 
 Francis Warre, who resided at Hestercombe, in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, the following letter: — 
 
 " I do here send you a list of the Taunton Maydes. You living 
 soe near to Taunton makes me think that you know some of them, 
 therefore pray send me word by the first oportunity whether any of 
 these are in custody and whoe they are ; and if any one of these are 
 not in custody, lett them be secured, especially the schoole-mistress, 
 and likewise send me word if you know any one of these, because 
 there are some friends of mine thatl believe upon easy ternies might 
 get theire pardon of the King. Pray send me an answer by the 
 first opportunity, and in so doing this you will oblige your humble 
 servant. 
 
 " LoNnoN, Dec. 12, 1685. Somerset." 
 
 The reply of Sir Francis is not extant, but the tenor of it can l;e 
 inferred from the rejoinder of Somerset. The reply was an acknowl- 
 edgment of the Duke's letter, declining nothing, but suggesting tliat 
 the matter seemed to be already in the hands of a Mr. Bird. To 
 this Somerset replied that Bird's interference was unauthorised, and 
 tliat he had been advised not to trouble himself more with the af- 
 feir. This objection being thus removed, Somerset added, — " If
 
 APPENDIX. 457 
 
 /ou will procedo on this matter according to my former letter, you 
 will infinitely oblige your humble servant." It is probable that Sir 
 Francis did not much fancy the commission, but he was too politic 
 to seem inditierent to interests that could command such powerful 
 intercession as that of the Duke of Somerset. This view of the 
 matter seems to have suggested itself to the Duke, and in the ho])e 
 of rendering the service less objectionable, he wrote within a week 
 afterwards to Sir Francis that if he would recommend somebody to 
 " bussle and stir about " in the matter, — somebody tliat he could 
 " trust," to " ease " him of the unpleasant part of the business^ — the 
 Maids of Honour would send him a power of attorney. He knew 
 there would be dirty work to do, and he thought a Somersetshire 
 Haroiiet might regard it as beneath his dignity, however anxious 
 he might be as a politician to stand well with persons about tiie 
 t/'ourt. 
 
 Now read Mr. Macaulay's account of the great Quaker's position 
 at this time, and imagine the surprise with whicli the Duke would 
 have received a reply from Sir Francis to the effect that he knew an 
 honest fellow by the name of William Penn, whom he thouglit he 
 could trust, and that he was just the man of all otiiers to " bussle 
 and stir about " and " ease " him of the dirty work in the premises, 
 if the maids would send him their power of attorney. The Duke 
 would have thought, no doubt, that his Tory friend in Somersetsitire 
 was out of his senses. 
 
 Giving the parties concerned time enough to exchange letters and 
 look up a suitable person, next comes the important letter of Sun- 
 derland, which was theconscqtience, no doubt, of the comniunicatioii 
 from Sir Francis Warre, called for by the letter of Somerset. This 
 letter Mr. Macaulay persists in regarding as proof positive tliat 
 William Pemi accepted the commission of the Maids of Honour, and 
 executed it. He assigns the following reasons for his belief: — 
 
 1. Because Sir James Mackintosh had no doubt of it. 
 
 2. Because the name of the Quaker was sometinu's spelt I'enne. 
 
 3. Because from the nature of the transaction, it is clear that the 
 maids of hono.ur would have naturally selected a man like Williiim 
 I'enn. 
 
 4. Because Oldmixon, wlio names other agents, was the least trust 
 worthy of historians. 
 
 5. Because William Penn had done worse things. 
 
 To this we reply, — !. That Sir James P/Iackintosh had nothing 
 before him but the transcript of the letter from the St.ite Paper 
 Office, addressed erroneously to William Penn. He had thenforc 
 no reason to doubt. What his judgment was on the evidence bifore 
 him, furnishes no index to what his judgment would have been with
 
 458 APPENDIX. 
 
 the knowledge that the letter was addressed to Mr. Penne, and with 
 the additional facts in relation to George Penne, now before us. 
 
 2. We admit that no conclusive argument can be drawn from the 
 Bpelling of tlie name. But it is reasonable to suppose, in the absence 
 of i)roof to the contrary, that a letter is intended for the person 
 whose name is correctly spelled on the address, and not for some- 
 body else. Nor is it credible that Sunderland, who had known 
 Penn from his boyhood, should not have known how he spelled his 
 name, or should have failed to spell it in the same way. 
 
 3. The argument drawn from the respective characters of the two 
 agents is conclusive, but not in the sense in which Mr. Macaulay 
 understands it. We know from Somerset's letters the kind of man 
 the maids wanted. The more, theretbre, Mr. Macaulay magnifies the 
 social standing of William Penn, and detracts from that of George 
 Penne, the more firmly he establishes that it was George and not 
 William whose services the maids required; that it was George and 
 not William whom Somerset described in his letter to Sir Francis 
 Warre; that it was George and not William whom Sir Francis 
 recommended as answering to that description ; and that it was 
 George and not William whom the Maids of Honour, in pursuance 
 of the result of tliat correspondence, souglit to employ. Sought to 
 employ, we say ; because there is not a scintilla of evidence that 
 any body by the name of Pen, Penn, or Penne, accepted or exe- 
 cuted the commission. 
 
 4. This brings us to Oldmixon, who tells the story, and gives ua 
 the names of the agents in tiie following terms : — 
 
 "This money," [the sums paid for the pardons,] "and a great 
 deal more, was said to be for the Maids of Honour ; whose agent 
 Brent, the Popish lawyer, had an under-agent, one Crane of Bridge- 
 water, and 't is supposed that both of them paid themselves very 
 bountifully out of the money that was raised by this means ; some 
 instances of which are within my knowledge." Oldmixon, Vol. 2, p. 
 708. 
 
 This is the only historical statement we have to the point, and it is 
 conclusive. It is contemporaneous. It is from a person who lived 
 long in the neighbourhood where the events took place, and was 
 favourably situated to obtain correct information. It is from a per- 
 son, who, if he mis-stated, mis-stated from design, and it is difficult 
 to imagine any sufficient motive for such a design. Oldmixon was 
 a Whig partisan, and wrote history in the interest of the Whigs. 
 But this does not affect his credibility where no question of partisan- 
 ship is involved. Mr. Macaulay cites him over and over again in 
 his account of the events connected with the insurrection of Mon- 
 mouth, and alludes more than once to the opportunities he enjoyed
 
 APPENDIX. 45.9 
 
 of being specially well informed in regard to them. It is too late 
 for him to object to his own witness, except for special cause shown ; 
 and he shows no special cause for distrust in this connection. A 
 witness whose uncontradicted testimony on a point like tiiis cannot 
 be relied upon, ought not to be vouched as authority for anytliing. 
 
 6. With regard to the allegation, thrown in as a makeweiglit, 
 that William Penn has been guilty of worse things, we have only to 
 say that in doubtful cases a man's good character is sometimes given 
 in evidence, but we are not aware that a general bad character can 
 be shown to aid in the conviction for a specific crime. What would 
 we think of a judge who should attempt to obtain the conviction of 
 a prisoner charged with theft by insinuating that on some other oc- 
 casion he had committed murder f 
 
 We fear that in this case we must say of Mr. Macaulay, as Mr. 
 Macaulay said many years ago of Mr. Gladstone, — " Of intentional 
 misrepresentation we are quite sure that he is incapable. But we 
 caimot acquit him of that unconscious disingenuousness from which 
 the most upright man, when strongly attaclied to an opinion, is 
 seldom wholly free." See William Penn, an Historical Diajraphii, hy 
 Hepwortli Dixon ; London, 1856, pp. xiv-xx. 2Vie New " Examm," by 
 J. Pcufet, Esq. ; Edinburgh and London, 1861, pp. 266-280.] 
 
 ESD or VOL. n.
 
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