By the Jacobites this new ally was eagerly welcomed. They were at that

moment busied with schemes in which the help of a veteran plotter was

much needed. There had been a great stir among them from the day on

which it had been announced that William had determined to take the

command in Ireland; and they were all looking forward with impatient

hope to his departure.--He was not a prince against whom men lightly

venture to set up a standard of rebellion. His courage, his sagacity,

the secrecy of his counsels, the success which had generally crowned

his enterprises, overawed the vulgar. Even his most acrimonious

enemies feared him at least as much as they hated him. While he was at

Kensington, ready to take horse at a moment's notice, malecontents who

prized their heads and their estates were generally content to vent

their hatred by drinking confusion to his hooked nose, and by squeezing

with significant energy the orange which was his emblem. But their

courage rose when they reflected that the sea would soon roll between

him and our island. In the military and political calculations of that

age, thirty leagues of water were as important as three hundred leagues

now are. The winds and waves frequently interrupted all communication

between England and Ireland. It sometimes happened that, during a

fortnight or three weeks, not a word of intelligence from London reached

Dublin. Twenty English counties might be up in arms long before any

rumour that an insurrection was even apprehended could reach Ulster.

Early in the spring, therefore, the leading malecontents assembled in

London for the purpose of concerting an extensive plan of action, and

corresponded assiduously both with France and with Ireland.

Such was the temper of the English factions when, on the twentieth of

March, the new Parliament met. The first duty which the Commons had to

perform was that of choosing a Speaker. Trevor was proposed by Lowther,

was elected without opposition, and was presented and approved with the

ordinary ceremonial. The King then made a speech in which he especially

recommended to the consideration of the Houses two important subjects,

the settling of the revenue and the granting of an amnesty. He

represented strongly the necessity of despatch. Every day was precious,

the season for action was approaching. "Let not us," he said, "be

engaged in debates while our enemies are in the field." [595]

The first subject which the Commons took into consideration was the

state of the revenue. A great part of the taxes had, since the accession

of William and Mary, been collected under the authority of Acts passed

for short terms, and it was now time to determine on a permanent

arrangement. A list of the salaries and pensions for which provision was

to be made was laid before the House; and the amount of the sums thus

expended called forth very just complaints from the independent members,

among whom Sir Charles Sedley distinguished himself by his sarcastic

pleasantry. A clever speech which he made against the placemen

stole into print and was widely circulated: it has since been often

republished; and it proves, what his poems and plays might make us

doubt, that his contemporaries were not mistaken in considering him as a

man of parts and vivacity. Unfortunately the ill humour which the sight

of the Civil List caused evaporated in jests and invectives without

producing any reform.

The ordinary revenue by which the government had been supported before

the Revolution had been partly hereditary, and had been partly drawn

from taxes granted to each sovereign for life. The hereditary revenue

had passed, with the crown, to William and Mary. It was derived from the

rents of the royal domains, from fees, from fines, from wine licenses,

from the first fruits and tenths of benefices, from the receipts of the

Post Office, and from that part of the excise which had, immediately

after the Restoration, been granted to Charles the Second and to his

successors for ever in lieu of the feudal services due to our ancient

kings. The income from all these sources was estimated at between four

and five hundred thousand pounds, [596]

Those duties of excise and customs which had been granted to James for

life had, at the close of his reign, yielded about nine hundred thousand

pounds annually. William naturally wished to have this income on the

same terms on which his uncle had enjoyed it; and his ministers did

their best to gratify his wishes. Lowther moved that the grant should

be to the King and Queen for their joint and separate lives, and

spoke repeatedly and earnestly in defence of this motion. He set forth

William's claims to public gratitude and confidence; the nation rescued

from Popery and arbitrary power; the Church delivered from persecution;

the constitution established on a firm basis. Would the Commons deal

grudgingly with a prince who had done more for England than had ever

been done for her by any of his predecessors in so short a time, with

a prince who was now about to expose himself to hostile weapons and

pestilential air in order to preserve the English colony in Ireland,

with a prince who was prayed for in every corner of the world where a

congregation of Protestants could meet for the worship of God? [597] But

on this subject Lowther harangued in vain. Whigs and Tories were equally

fixed in the opinion that the liberality of Parliaments had been the

chief cause of the disasters of the last thirty years; that to

the liberality of the Parliament of 1660 was to be ascribed the

misgovernment of the Cabal; that to the liberality of the Parliament

of 1685 was to be ascribed the Declaration of Indulgence, and that the

Parliament of 1690 would be inexcusable if it did not profit by a long,

a painful, an unvarying experience. After much dispute a compromise

was made. That portion of the excise which had been settled for life on

James, and which was estimated at three hundred thousand pounds a year,

was settled on William and Mary for their joint and separate lives. It

was supposed that, with the hereditary revenue, and with three hundred

thousand a year more from the excise, their Majesties would have,

independent of parliamentary control, between seven and eight hundred

thousand a year. Out of this income was to be defrayed the charge both

of the royal household and of those civil offices of which a list had

been laid before the House. This income was therefore called the Civil

List. The expenses of the royal household are now entirely separated

from the expenses of the civil government; but, by a whimsical

perversion, the name of Civil List has remained attached to that portion

of the revenue which is appropriated to the expenses of the royal

household. It is still more strange that several neighbouring nations

should have thought this most unmeaning of all names worth borrowing.

Those duties of customs which had been settled for life on Charles and

James successively, and which, in the year before the Revolution, had

yielded six hundred thousand pounds, were granted to the Crown for a

term of only four years, [598]

William was by no means well pleased with this arrangement. He thought

it unjust and ungrateful in a people whose liberties he had saved to

bind him over to his good behaviour. "The gentlemen of England," he said

to Burnet, "trusted King James who was an enemy of their religion and of

their laws; and they will not trust me by whom their religion and their

laws have been preserved." Burnet answered very properly that there was

no mark of personal confidence which His Majesty was not entitled

to demand, but that this question was not a question of personal

confidence. The Estates of the Realm wished to establish a general

principle. They wished to set a precedent which might secure a remote

posterity against evils such as the indiscreet liberality of former

Parliaments had produced. "From those evils Your Majesty has delivered

this generation. By accepting the gift of the Commons on the terms on

which it is offered Your Majesty will be also a deliverer of future

generations." William was not convinced; but he had too much wisdom and

selfcommand to give way to his ill humour; and he accepted graciously

what he could not but consider as ungraciously given, [599]

The Civil List was charged with an annuity of twenty thousand pounds to

the Princess of Denmark, in addition to an annuity of thirty thousand

pounds which had been settled on her at the time of her marriage. This

arrangement was the result of a compromise which had been effected with

much difficulty and after many irritating disputes. The King and Queen

had never, since the commencement of their reign, been on very good

terms with their sister. That William should have been disliked by a

woman who had just sense enough to perceive that his temper was sour and

his manners repulsive, and who was utterly incapable of appreciating his

higher qualities, is not extraordinary. But Mary was made to be loved.

So lively and intelligent a woman could not indeed derive much pleasure

from the society of Anne, who, when in good humour, was meekly stupid,

and, when in bad humour, was sulkily stupid. Yet the Queen, whose

kindness had endeared her to her humblest attendants, would hardly have

made an enemy of one whom it was her duty and her interest to make a

friend, had not an influence strangely potent and strangely malignant

been incessantly at work to divide the Royal House against itself.

The fondness of the Princess for Lady Marlborough was such as, in a

superstitious age, would have been ascribed to some talisman or potion.

Not only had the friends, in their confidential intercourse with each

other, dropped all ceremony and all titles, and become plain Mrs. Morley

and plain Mrs. Freeman; but even Prince George, who cared as much for

the dignity of his birth as he was capable of caring for any thing but

claret and calvered salmon, submitted to be Mr. Morley. The Countess

boasted that she had selected the name of Freeman because it was

peculiarly suited to the frankness and boldness of her character; and,

to do her justice, it was not by the ordinary arts of courtiers that she

established and long maintained her despotic empire over the feeblest of

minds, She had little of that tact which is the characteristic talent of

her sex; she was far too violent to flatter or to dissemble: but, by

a rare chance, she had fallen in with a nature on which dictation and

contradiction acted as philtres. In this grotesque friendship all

the loyalty, the patience, the selfdevotion, was on the side of the

mistress. The whims, the haughty airs, the fits of ill temper, were on

the side of the waiting woman.

Nothing is more curious than the relation in which the two ladies stood

to Mr. Freeman, as they called Marlborough. In foreign countries people

knew in general that Anne was governed by the Churchills. They knew also

that the man who appeared to enjoy so large a share of her favour was

not only a great soldier and politician, but also one of the finest

gentlemen of his time, that his face and figure were eminently handsome,

his temper at once bland and resolute, his manners at once engaging

and noble. Nothing could be more natural than that graces and

accomplishments like his should win a female heart. On the Continent

therefore many persons imagined that he was Anne's favoured lover; and

he was so described in contemporary French libels which have long been

forgotten. In England this calumny never found credit even with the

vulgar, and is nowhere to be found even in the most ribald doggrel that

was sung about our streets. In truth the Princess seems never to have

been guilty of a thought inconsistent with her conjugal vows. To her

Marlborough, with all his genius and his valour, his beauty and his

grace, was nothing but the husband of her friend. Direct power over

Her Royal Highness he had none. He could influence her only by the

instrumentality of his wife; and his wife was no passive instrument.

Though it is impossible to discover, in any thing that she ever did,

said or wrote, any indication of superior understanding, her fierce

passions and strong will enabled her often to rule a husband who was

born to rule grave senates and mighty armies. His courage, that courage

which the most perilous emergencies of war only made cooler and more

steady, failed him when he had to encounter his Sarah's ready tears

and voluble reproaches, the poutings of her lip and the tossings of her

head. History exhibits to us few spectacles more remarkable than that

of a great and wise man, who, when he had combined vast and profound

schemes of policy, could carry them into effect only by inducing one

foolish woman, who was often unmanageable, to manage another woman who

was more foolish still.

In one point the Earl and the Countess were perfectly agreed. They were

equally bent on getting money; though, when it was got, he loved to

hoard it, and she was not unwilling to spend it, [600] The favour of the

Princess they both regarded as a valuable estate. In her father's reign,

they had begun to grow rich by means of her bounty. She was naturally

inclined to parsimony; and, even when she was on the throne, her

equipages and tables were by no means sumptuous, [601] It might have

been thought, therefore, that, while she was a subject, thirty thousand

a year, with a residence in the palace, would have been more than

sufficient for all her wants. There were probably not in the kingdom two

noblemen possessed of such an income. But no income would satisfy the

greediness of those who governed her. She repeatedly contracted debts

which James repeatedly discharged, not without expressing much surprise

and displeasure.

The Revolution opened to the Churchills a new and boundless prospect of

gain. The whole conduct of their mistress at the great crisis had proved

that she had no will, no judgment, no conscience, but theirs. To

them she had sacrificed affections, prejudices, habits, interests. In

obedience to them, she had joined in the conspiracy against her father;

she had fled from Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and

mire, to a hackney coach; she had taken refuge in the rebel camp; she

had consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the

Prince of Orange. They saw with pleasure that she, over whom they

possessed such boundless influence, possessed no common influence over

others. Scarcely had the Revolution been accomplished when many Tories,

disliking both the King who had been driven out and the King who had

come in, and doubting whether their religion had more to fear from

Jesuits or from Latitudinarians, showed a strong disposition to rally

round Anne. Nature had made her a bigot. Such was the constitution of

her mind that to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere,

without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin.

In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged

in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court

of her brother in law she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in

favour of a general union among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy

made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the

Royal Family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial

aversion. While a large party was disposed to make her an idol, she was

regarded by her two artful servants merely as a puppet. They knew that

she had it in her power to give serious annoyance to the government; and

they determined to use this power in order to extort money, nominally

for her, but really for themselves. While Marlborough was commanding

the English forces in the Low Countries, the execution of the plan was

necessarily left to his wife; and she acted, not as he would doubtless

have acted, with prudence and temper, but, as is plain even from her own

narrative, with odious violence and insolence. Indeed she had passions

to gratify from which he was altogether free. He, though one of the most

covetous, was one of the least acrimonious of mankind; but malignity

was in her a stronger passion than avarice. She hated easily; she hated

heartily; and she hated implacably. Among the objects of her hatred were

all who were related to her mistress either on the paternal or on the

maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess

could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her

the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well

knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they

might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she

detested them all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon and Rochester. Now

was the time to wreak the accumulated spite of years. It was not enough

to obtain a great, a regal, revenue for Anne. That revenue must be

obtained by means which would wound and humble those whom the favourite

abhorred. It must not be asked, it must not be accepted, as a mark of

fraternal kindness, but demanded in hostile tones, and wrung by force

from reluctant hands. No application was made to the King and Queen. But

they learned with astonishment that Lady Marlborough was indefatigable

in canvassing the Tory members of Parliament, that a Princess's party

was forming, that the House of Commons would be moved to settle on Her

Royal Highness a vast income independent of the Crown. Mary asked her

sister what these proceedings meant. "I hear," said Anne, "that my

friends have a mind to make me some settlement." It is said that the

Queen, greatly hurt by an expression which seemed to imply that she and

her husband were not among her sister's friends, replied with unwonted

sharpness, "Of what friends do you speak? What friends have you except

the King and me?" [602] The subject was never again mentioned between

the sisters. Mary was probably sensible that she had made a mistake in

addressing herself to one who was merely a passive instrument in the

hands of others. An attempt was made to open a negotiation with the

Countess. After some inferior agents had expostulated with her in

vain, Shrewsbury waited on her. It might have been expected that

his intervention would have been successful; for, if the scandalous

chronicle of those times could be trusted, he had stood high, too high,

in her favour, [603] He was authorised by the King to promise that, if

the Princess would desist from soliciting the members of the House of

Commons to support her cause, the income of Her Royal Highness should

be increased from thirty thousand pounds to fifty thousand. The Countess

flatly rejected this offer. The King's word, she had the insolence to

hint, was not a sufficient security. "I am confident," said Shrewsbury,

"that His Majesty will strictly fulfil his engagements. If he breaks

them I will not serve him an hour longer." "That may be very honourable

in you," answered the pertinacious vixen, "but it will be very poor

comfort to the Princess." Shrewsbury, after vainly attempting to move

the servant, was at length admitted to an audience of the mistress.

Anne, in language doubtless dictated by her friend Sarah, told him that

the business had gone too far to be stopped, and must be left to the

decision of the Commons, [604]

The truth was that the Princess's prompters hoped to obtain from

Parliament a much larger sum than was offered by the King. Nothing less

than seventy thousand a year would content them. But their cupidity

overreached itself. The House of Commons showed a great disposition to

gratify Her Royal Highness. But, when at length her too eager adherents

ventured to name the sum which they wished to grant, the murmurs were

loud. Seventy thousand a year at a time when the necessary expenses of

the State were daily increasing, when the receipt of the customs was

daily diminishing, when trade was low, when every gentleman, every

farmer, was retrenching something from the charge of his table and

his cellar! The general opinion was that the sum which the King was

understood to be willing to give would be amply sufficient, [605] At

last something was conceded on both sides. The Princess was forced to

content herself with fifty thousand a year; and William agreed that

this sum should be settled on her by Act of Parliament. She rewarded the

services of Lady Marlborough with a pension of a thousand a year; [606]

but this was in all probability a very small part of what the Churchills

gained by the arrangement.

After these transactions the two royal sisters continued during many

months to live on terms of civility and even of apparent friendship. But

Mary, though she seems to have borne no malice to Anne, undoubtedly felt

against Lady Marlborough as much resentment as a very gentle heart is

capable of feeling. Marlborough had been out of England during a great

part of the time which his wife had spent in canvassing among the

Tories, and, though he had undoubtedly acted in concert with her, had

acted, as usual, with temper and decorum. He therefore continued to

receive from William many marks of favour which were unaccompanied by

any indication of displeasure.

In the debates on the settling of the revenue, the distinction between

Whigs and Tories does not appear to have been very clearly marked. In

truth, if there was any thing about which the two parties were agreed,

it was the expediency of granting the customs to the Crown for a time

not exceeding four years. But there were other questions which called

forth the old animosity in all its strength. The Whigs were now in a

minority, but a minority formidable in numbers, and more formidable in

ability. They carried on the parliamentary war, not less acrimoniously

than when they were a majority, but somewhat more artfully. They brought

forward several motions, such as no High Churchman could well support,

yet such as no servant of William and Mary could well oppose. The Tory

who voted for these motions would run a great risk of being pointed at

as a turncoat by the sturdy Cavaliers of his county. The Tory who voted

against those motions would run a great risk of being frowned upon at

Kensington.

It was apparently in pursuance of this policy that the Whigs laid on the

table of the House of Lords a bill declaring all the laws passed by the

late Parliament to be valid laws. No sooner had this bill been read than

the controversy of the preceeding spring was renewed. The Whigs were

joined on this occasion by almost all those noblemen who were connected

with the government. The rigid Tories, with Nottingham at their head,

professed themselves willing to enact that every statute passed in 1689

should have the same force that it would have had if it had been passed

by a parliament convoked in a regular manner; but nothing would induce

them to acknowledge that an assembly of lords and gentlemen, who

had come together without authority from the Great Seal, was

constitutionally a Parliament. Few questions seem to have excited

stronger passions than the question, practically altogether unimportant,

whether the bill should or should not be declaratory. Nottingham, always

upright and honourable, but a bigot and a formalist, was on this subject

singularly obstinate and unreasonable. In one debate he lost his temper,

forgot the decorum which in general he strictly observed, and narrowly

escaped being committed to the custody of the Black Rod, [607] After

much wrangling, the Whigs carried their point by a majority of seven,

[608] Many peers signed a strong protest written by Nottingham. In

this protest the bill, which was indeed open to verbal criticism, was

impolitely described as being neither good English nor good sense. The

majority passed a resolution that the protest should be expunged; and

against this resolution Nottingham and his followers again protested,

[609] The King was displeased by the pertinacity of his Secretary of

State; so much displeased indeed that Nottingham declared his intention

of resigning the Seals; but the dispute was soon accommodated. William

was too wise not to know the value of an honest man in a dishonest age.

The very scrupulosity which made Nottingham a mutineer was a security

that he would never be a traitor, [610]

The bill went down to the Lower House; and it was full expected that the

contest there would be long and fierce; but a single speech settled the

question. Somers, with a force and eloquence which surprised even an

audience accustomed to hear him with pleasure, exposed the absurdity of

the doctrine held by the high Tories. "If the Convention,"--it was thus

that he argued,--"was not a Parliament, how can we be a Parliament? An

Act of Elizabeth provides that no person shall sit or vote in this House

till he has taken the old oath of supremacy. Not one of us has taken

that oath. Instead of it, we have all taken the new oath of supremacy

which the late Parliament substituted for the old oath. It is therefore

a contradiction to say that the Acts of the late Parliament are not now

valid, and yet to ask us to enact that they shall henceforth be valid.

For either they already are so, or we never can make them so." This

reasoning, which was in truth as unanswerable as that of Euclid,

brought the debate to a speedy close. The bill passed the Commons within

forty-eight hours after it had been read the first time, [611]

This was the only victory won by the Whigs during the whole session.

They complained loudly in the Lower House of the change which had been

made in the military government of the city of London. The Tories,

conscious of their strength, and heated by resentment, not only refused

to censure what had been done, but determined to express publicly and

formally their gratitude to the King for having brought in so many

churchmen and turned out so many schismatics. An address of thanks was

moved by Clarges, member for Westminster, who was known to be attached

to Caermarthen. "The alterations which have been made in the City," said

Clarges, "show that His Majesty has a tender care of us. I hope that

he will make similar alterations in every county of the realm." The

minority struggled hard. "Will you thank the King," they said, "for

putting the sword into the hands of his most dangerous enemies? Some of

those whom he has been advised to entrust with military command have not

yet been able to bring themselves to take the oath of allegiance to him.

Others were well known, in the evil days, as stanch jurymen, who were

sure to find an Exclusionist guilty on any evidence or no evidence."

Nor did the Whig orators refrain from using those topics on which all

factions are eloquent in the hour of distress, and which all factions

are but too ready to treat lightly in the hour of prosperity. "Let us

not," they said, "pass a vote which conveys a reflection on a large body

of our countrymen, good subjects, good Protestants. The King ought to be

the head of his whole people. Let us not make him the head of a party."

This was excellent doctrine; but it scarcely became the lips of men who,

a few weeks before, had opposed the Indemnity Bill and voted for the

Sacheverell Clause. The address was carried by a hundred and eighty-five

votes to a hundred and thirty-six, [612]

As soon as the numbers had been announced, the minority, smarting

from their defeat, brought forward a motion which caused no little

embarrassment to the Tory placemen. The oath of allegiance, the Whigs

said, was drawn in terms far too lax. It might exclude from public

employment a few honest Jacobites who were generally too dull to be

mischievous; but it was altogether inefficient as a means of binding the

supple and slippery consciences of cunning priests, who, while affecting

to hold the Jesuits in abhorrence, were proficients in that immoral

casuistry which was the worst part of Jesuitism. Some grave divines had

openly said, others had even dared to write, that they had sworn fealty

to William in a sense altogether different from that in which they had

sworn fealty to James. To James they had plighted the entire faith which

a loyal subject owes to a rightful sovereign; but, when they promised

to bear true allegiance to William, they meant only that they would not,

whilst he was able to hang them for rebelling or conspiring against him,

run any risk of being hanged. None could wonder that the precepts and

example of the malecontent clergy should have corrupted the malecontent

laity. When Prebendaries and Rectors were not ashamed to avow that they

had equivocated, in the very act of kissing the New Testament, it was

hardly to be expected that attorneys and taxgatherers would be more

scrupulous. The consequence was that every department swarmed with

traitors; that men who ate the King's bread, men who were entrusted with

the duty of collecting and disbursing his revenues, of victualling his

ships, of clothing his soldiers, of making his artillery ready for the

field, were in the habit of calling him an usurper, and of drinking to

his speedy downfall. Could any government be safe which was hated and

betrayed by its own servants? And was not the English government exposed

to the dangers which, even if all its servants were true, might well

excite serious apprehensions? A disputed succession, war with France,

war in Scotland, war in Ireland, was not all this enough without

treachery in every arsenal and in every custom house? There must be an

oath drawn in language too precise to be explained away, in language

which no Jacobite could repeat without the consciousness that he was

perjuring himself. Though the zealots of indefeasible hereditary right

had in general no objection to swear allegiance to William, they would

probably not choose to abjure James. On such grounds as these, an

Abjuration Bill of extreme severity was brought into the House of

Commons. It was proposed to enact that every person who held any office,

civil, military, or spiritual, should, on pain of deprivation, solemnly

abjure the exiled King; that the oath of abjuration might be tendered by

any justice of the peace to any subject of their Majesties; and that, if

it were refused, the recusant should be sent to prison, and should lie

there as long as he continued obstinate.

The severity of this last provision was generally and most justly

blamed. To turn every ignorant meddling magistrate into a state

inquisitor, to insist that a plain man, who lived peaceably, who obeyed

the laws, who paid his taxes, who had never held and who did not expect

ever to hold any office, and who had never troubled his head about

problems of political philosophy, should declare, under the sanction

of an oath, a decided opinion on a point about which the most learned

Doctors of the age had written whole libraries of controversial books,

and to send him to rot in a gaol if he could not bring himself to swear,

would surely have been the height of tyranny. The clause which required

public functionaries to abjure the deposed King was not open to the same

objections. Yet even against this clause some weighty arguments

were urged. A man, it was said, who has an honest heart and a sound

understanding is sufficiently bound by the present oath. Every such

man, when he swears to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to King

William, does, by necessary implication, abjure King James. There

may doubtless be among the servants of the State, and even among the

ministers of the Church, some persons who have no sense of honour or

religion, and who are ready to forswear themselves for lucre. There may

be others who have contracted the pernicious habit of quibbling away the

most sacred obligations of morality, and who have convinced themselves

that they can innocently make, with a mental reservation, a promise

which it would be sinful to make without such a reservation. Against

these two classes of Jacobites it is true that the present test affords

no security. But will the new test, will any test, be more efficacious?

Will a person who has no conscience, or a person whose conscience can be

set at rest by immoral sophistry, hesitate to repeat any phrase that you

can dictate? The former will kiss the book without any scruple at all.

The scruples of the latter will be very easily removed. He now swears

allegiance to one King with a mental reservation. He will then abjure

the other King with a mental reservation. Do not flatter yourselves that

the ingenuity of lawgivers will ever devise an oath which the ingenuity

of casuists will not evade. What indeed is the value of any oath in

such a matter? Among the many lessons which the troubles of the last

generation have left us none is more plain than this, that no form of

words, however precise, no imprecation, however awful, ever saved, or

ever will save, a government from destruction, Was not the Solemn League

and Covenant burned by the common hangman amidst the huzzas of tens

of thousands who had themselves subscribed it? Among the statesmen and

warriors who bore the chief part in restoring Charles the Second, how

many were there who had not repeatedly abjured him? Nay, is it not well

known that some of those persons boastfully affirmed that, if they had

not abjured him, they never could have restored him?

The debates were sharp; and the issue during a short time seemed

doubtful; for some of the Tories who were in office were unwilling to

give a vote which might be thought to indicate that they were lukewarm

in the cause of the King whom they served. William, however, took care

to let it be understood that he had no wish to impose a new test on his

subjects. A few words from him decided the event of the conflict. The

bill was rejected thirty-six hours after it had been brought in by a

hundred and ninety-two votes to a hundred and sixty-five, [613]

Even after this defeat the Whigs pertinaciously returned to the attack.

Having failed in one House they renewed the battle in the other. Five

days after the Abjuration Bill had been thrown out in the Commons,

another Abjuration Bill, somewhat milder, but still very severe, was

laid on the table of the Lords, [614] What was now proposed was that

no person should sit in either House of Parliament or hold any office,

civil, military, or judicial, without making a declaration that he would

stand by William and Mary against James and James's adherents. Every

male in the kingdom who had attained the age of sixteen was to make the

same declaration before a certain day. If he failed to do so he was

to pay double taxes and to be incapable of exercising the elective

franchise.

On the day fixed for the second reading, the King came down to the House

of Peers. He gave his assent in form to several laws, unrobed, took his

seat on a chair of state which had been placed for him, and listened

with much interest to the debate. To the general surprise, two noblemen

who had been eminently zealous for the Revolution spoke against the

proposed test. Lord Wharton, a Puritan who had fought for the Long

Parliament, said, with amusing simplicity, that he was a very old man,

that he had lived through troubled times, that he had taken a great many

oaths in his day, and that he was afraid that he had not kept them all.

He prayed that the sin might not be laid to his charge; and he declared

that he could not consent to lay any more snares for his own soul and

for the souls of his neighbours. The Earl of Macclesfield, the captain

of the English volunteers who had accompanied William from Helvoetsluys

to Torbay, declared that he was much in the same case with Lord Wharton.

Marlborough supported the bill. He wondered, he said, that it should

be opposed by Macclesfield, who had borne so preeminent a part in the

Revolution. Macclesfield, irritated by the charge of inconsistency,

retorted with terrible severity: "The noble Earl," he said, "exaggerates

the share which I had in the deliverance of our country. I was ready,

indeed, and always shall be ready, to venture my life in defence of her

laws and liberties. But there are lengths to which, even for the sake of

her laws and liberties, I could never go. I only rebelled against a bad

King; there were those who did much more."

Marlborough, though not easily discomposed, could not but feel the edge

of this sarcasm; William looked displeased; and the aspect of the whole

House was troubled and gloomy. It was resolved by fifty-one votes to

forty that the bill should be committed; and it was committed, but

never reported. After many hard struggles between the Whigs headed

by Shrewsbury and the Tories headed by Caermarthen, it was so much

mutilated that it retained little more than its name, and did not seem

to those who had introduced it to be worth any further contest, [615]

The discomfiture of the Whigs was completed by a communication from the

King. Caermarthen appeared in the House of Lords bearing in his hand

a parchment signed by William. It was an Act of Grace for political

offences.

Between an Act of Grace originating with the Sovereign and an Act of

Indemnity originating with the Estates of the Realm there are some

remarkable distinctions. An Act of Indemnity passes through all the

stages through which other laws pass, and may, during its progress, be

amended by either House. An Act of Grace is received with peculiar marks

of respect, is read only once by the Lords and once by the Commons,

and must be either rejected altogether or accepted as it stands,

[616] William had not ventured to submit such an Act to the preceding

Parliament. But in the new Parliament he was certain of a majority.

The minority gave no trouble. The stubborn spirit which had, during two

sessions, obstructed the progress of the Bill of Indemnity had been

at length broken by defeats and humiliations. Both Houses stood up

uncovered while the Act of Grace was read, and gave their sanction to it

without one dissentient voice.

There would not have been this unanimity had not a few great criminals

been excluded from the benefits of the amnesty. Foremost among them

stood the surviving members of the High Court of Justice which had

sate on Charles the First. With these ancient men were joined the two

nameless executioners who had done their office, with masked faces, on

the scaffold before the Banqueting House. None knew who they were, or

of what rank. It was probable that they had been long dead. Yet it

was thought necessary to declare that, if even now, after the lapse of

forty-one years, they should be discovered, they would still be liable

to the punishment of their great crime. Perhaps it would hardly have

been thought necessary to mention these men, if the animosities of the

preceding generation had not been rekindled by the recent appearance of

Ludlow in England. About thirty of the agents of the tyranny of James

were left to the law. With these exceptions, all political offences,

committed before the day on which the royal signature was affixed to the

Act, were covered with a general oblivion, [617] Even the criminals who

were by name excluded had little to fear. Many of them were in foreign

countries; and those who were in England were well assured that, unless

they committed some new fault, they would not be molested.

The Act of Grace the nation owed to William alone; and it is one of his

noblest and purest titles to renown. From the commencement of the

civil troubles of the seventeenth century down to the Revolution,

every victory gained by either party had been followed by a sanguinary

proscription. When the Roundheads triumphed over the Cavaliers, when the

Cavaliers triumphed over the Roundheads, when the fable of the Popish

plot gave the ascendency to the Whigs, when the detection of the Rye

House Plot transferred the ascendency to the Tories, blood, and more

blood, and still more blood had flowed. Every great explosion and every

great recoil of public feeling had been accompanied by severities which,

at the time, the predominant faction loudly applauded, but which, on a

calm review, history and posterity have condemned. No wise and humane

man, whatever may be his political opinions, now mentions without

reprehension the death either of Laud or of Vane, either of Stafford or

of Russell. Of the alternate butcheries the last and the worst is that

which is inseparably associated with the names of James and Jeffreys.

But it assuredly would not have been the last, perhaps it might not

have been the worst, if William had not had the virtue and the firmness

resolutely to withstand the importunity of his most zealous adherents.

These men were bent on exacting a terrible retribution for all they had

undergone during seven disastrous years. The scaffold of Sidney, the

gibbet of Cornish, the stake at which Elizabeth Gaunt had perished in

the flames for the crime of harbouring a fugitive, the porches of the

Somersetshire churches surmounted by the skulls and quarters of murdered

peasants, the holds of those Jamaica ships from which every day the

carcass of some prisoner dead of thirst and foul air had been flung to

the sharks, all these things were fresh in the memory of the party which

the Revolution had made, for a time, dominant in the State. Some chiefs

of that party had redeemed their necks by paying heavy ransom. Others

had languished long in Newgate. Others had starved and shivered, winter

after winter, in the garrets of Amsterdam. It was natural that in the

day of their power and prosperity they should wish to inflict some part

of what they had suffered. During a whole year they pursued their scheme

of revenge. They succeeded in defeating Indemnity Bill after Indemnity

Bill. Nothing stood between them and their victims, but William's

immutable resolution that the glory of the great deliverance which he

had wrought should not be sullied by cruelty. His clemency was peculiar

to himself. It was not the clemency of an ostentatious man, or of

a sentimental man, or of an easy tempered man. It was cold,

unconciliating, inflexible. It produced no fine stage effects. It drew

on him the savage invectives of those whose malevolent passions he

refused to satisfy. It won for him no gratitude from those who owed to

him fortune, liberty and life. While the violent Whigs railed at his

lenity, the agents of the fallen government, as soon as they found

themselves safe, instead of acknowledging their obligations to him,

reproached him in insulting language with the mercy which he had

extended to them. His Act of Grace, they said, had completely refuted

his Declaration. Was it possible to believe that, if there had been any

truth in the charges which he had brought against the late government,

he would have granted impunity to the guilty? It was now acknowledged

by himself, under his own hand, that the stories by which he and his

friends had deluded the nation and driven away the royal family were

mere calumnies devised to serve a turn. The turn had been served; and

the accusations by which he had inflamed the public mind to madness were

coolly withdrawn, [618] But none of these things moved him. He had done

well. He had risked his popularity with men who had been his warmest

admirers, in order to give repose and security to men by whom his name

was never mentioned without a curse. Nor had he conferred a less benefit

on those whom he had disappointed of their revenge than on those whom he

had protected. If he had saved one faction from a proscription, he

had saved the other from the reaction which such a proscription would

inevitably have produced. If his people did not justly appreciate his

policy, so much the worse for them. He had discharged his duty by them.

He feared no obloquy; and he wanted no thanks.

On the twentieth of May the Act of Grace was passed. The King then

informed the Houses that his visit to Ireland could no longer be

delayed, that he had therefore determined to prorogue them, and that,

unless some unexpected emergency made their advice and assistance

necessary to him, he should not call them again from their homes till

the next winter. "Then," he said, "I hope, by the blessing of God, we

shall have a happy meeting."

The Parliament had passed an Act providing that, whenever he should

go out of England, it should be lawful for Mary to administer the

government of the kingdom in his name and her own. It was added that he

should nevertheless, during his absence, retain all his authority. Some

objections were made to this arrangement. Here, it was said, were

two supreme Powers in one State. A public functionary might receive

diametrically opposite orders from the King and the Queen, and might not

know which to obey. The objection was, beyond all doubt, speculatively

just; but there was such perfect confidence and affection, between the

royal pair that no practical inconvenience was to be apprehended, [619]

As far as Ireland was concerned, the prospects of William were much

more cheering than they had been a few months earlier. The activity

with which he had personally urged forward the preparations for the

next campaign had produced an extraordinary effect. The nerves of

the government were new strung. In every department of the military

administration the influence of a vigorous mind was perceptible.

Abundant supplies of food, clothing and medicine, very different in

quality from those which Shales had furnished, were sent across Saint

George's Channel. A thousand baggage waggons had been made or collected

with great expedition; and, during some weeks, the road between London

and Chester was covered with them. Great numbers of recruits were sent

to fill the chasms which pestilence had made in the English ranks. Fresh

regiments from Scotland, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland had landed

in the Bay of Belfast. The uniforms and arms of the new corners clearly

indicated the potent influence of the master's eye. With the British

battalions were interspersed several hardy bands of German and

Scandinavian mercenaries. Before the end of May. the English force in

Ulster amounted to thirty thousand fighting men. A few more troops and

an immense quantity of military stores were on board of a fleet which

lay in the estuary of the Dee, and which was ready to weigh anchor as

soon as the King was on board, [620]

James ought to have made an equally good use of the time during which

his army had been in winter quarters. Strict discipline and regular

drilling might, in the interval between November and May, have turned

the athletic and enthusiastic peasants who were assembled under his

standard into good soldiers. But the opportunity was lost. The Court of

Dublin was, during that season of inaction, busied with dice and claret,

love letters and challenges. The aspect of the capital was indeed not

very brilliant. The whole number of coaches which could be mustered

there, those of the King and of the French Legation included, did not

amount to forty, [621] But though there was little splendour there was

much dissoluteness. Grave Roman Catholics shook their heads and said

that the Castle did not look like the palace of a King who gloried in

being the champion of the Church, [622] The military administration was

as deplorable as ever. The cavalry indeed was, by the exertions of some

gallant officers, kept in a high state of efficiency. But a regiment of

infantry differed in nothing but name from a large gang of Rapparees.

Indeed a gang of Rapparees gave less annoyance to peaceable citizens,

and more annoyance to the enemy, than a regiment of infantry. Avaux

strongly represented, in a memorial which he delivered to James, the

abuses which made the Irish foot a curse and a scandal to Ireland. Whole

companies, said the ambassador, quit their colours on the line of march

and wander to right and left pillaging and destroying; the soldier takes

no care of his arms; the officer never troubles himself to ascertain

whether the arms are in good order; the consequence is that one man in

every three has lost his musket, and that another man in every three

has a musket that will not go off. Avaux adjured the King to prohibit

marauding, to give orders that the troops should be regularly exercised,

and to punish every officer who suffered his men to neglect their

weapons and accoutrements. If these things were done, His Majesty might

hope to have, in the approaching spring, an army with which the enemy

would be unable to contend. This was good advice; but James was so far

from taking it that he would hardly listen to it with patience. Before

he had heard eight lines read he flew into a passion and accused the

ambassador of exaggeration. "This paper, Sir," said Avaux, "is

not written to be published. It is meant solely for Your Majesty's

information; and, in a paper meant solely for Your Majesty's

information, flattery and disguise would be out of place; but I will not

persist in reading what is so disagreeable." "Go on," said James very

angrily; "I will hear the whole." He gradually became calmer, took

the memorial, and promised to adopt some of the suggestions which it

contained. But his promise was soon forgotten, [623]

His financial administration was of a piece with his military

administration. His one fiscal resource was robbery, direct or indirect.

Every Protestant who had remained in any part of the three southern

provinces of Ireland was robbed directly, by the simple process of

taking money out of his strong box, drink out of his cellars, fuel from

his turf stack, and clothes from his wardrobe. He was robbed indirectly

by a new issue of counters, smaller in size and baser in material than

any which had yet borne the image and superscription of James. Even

brass had begun to be scarce at Dublin; and it was necessary to ask

assistance from Lewis, who charitably bestowed on his ally an old

cracked piece of cannon to be coined into crowns and shillings, [624]

But the French king had determined to send over succours of a very

different kind. He proposed to take into his own service, and to form by

the best discipline then known in the world, four Irish regiments. They

were to be commanded by Macarthy, who had been severely wounded and

taken prisoner at Newton Butler. His wounds had been healed; and he had

regained his liberty by violating his parole. This disgraceful breach

of faith he had made more disgraceful by paltry tricks and sophistical

excuses which would have become a Jesuit better than a gentleman and a

soldier. Lewis was willing that the Irish regiments should be sent to

him in rags and unarmed, and insisted only that the men should be stout,

and that the officers should not be bankrupt traders and discarded

lacqueys, but, if possible, men of good family who had seen service. In

return for these troops, who were in number not quite four thousand, he

undertook to send to Ireland between seven and eight thousand excellent

French infantry, who were likely in a day of battle to be of more use

than all the kernes of Leinster, Munster and Connaught together, [625]

One great error he committed. The army which he was sending to assist

James, though small indeed when compared with the army of Flanders or

with the army of the Rhine, was destined for a service on which the fate

of Europe might depend, and ought therefore to have been commanded by a

general of eminent abilities. There was no want of such generals in

the French service. But James and his Queen begged hard for Lauzun, and

carried this point against the strong representations of Avaux, against

the advice of Louvois, and against the judgment of Lewis himself.

When Lauzun went to the cabinet of Louvois to receive instructions, the

wise minister held language which showed how little confidence he felt

in the vain and eccentric knight errant. "Do not, for God's sake, suffer

yourself to be hurried away by your desire of fighting. Put all your

glory in tiring the English out; and, above all things, maintain strict

discipline." [626]

Not only was the appointment of Lauzun in itself a bad appointment: but,

in order that one man might fill a post for which he was unfit, it was

necessary to remove two men from posts for which they were eminently

fit. Immoral and hardhearted as Rosen and Avaux were, Rosen was a

skilful captain, and Avaux was a skilful politician. Though it is not

probable that they would have been able to avert the doom of Ireland, it

is probable that they might have been able to protract the contest; and

it was evidently for the interest of France that the contest should be

protracted. But it would have been an affront to the old general to put

him under the orders of Lauzun; and between the ambassador and Lauzun

there was such an enmity that they could not be expected to act

cordially together. Both Rosen and Avaux, therefore, were, with many

soothing assurances of royal approbation and favour, recalled to

France. They sailed from Cork early in the spring by the fleet which had

conveyed Lauzun thither, [627] Lauzun had no sooner landed than he found

that, though he had been long expected, nothing had been prepared for

his reception. No lodgings had been provided for his men, no place of

security for his stores, no horses, no carriages, [628] His troops had

to undergo the hardships of a long march through a desert before

they arrived at Dublin. At Dublin, indeed, they found tolerable

accommodation. They were billeted on Protestants, lived at free

quarter, had plenty of bread, and threepence a day. Lauzun was appointed

Commander in Chief of the Irish army, and took up his residence in the

Castle, [629] His salary was the same with that of the Lord Lieutenant,

eight thousand Jacobuses, equivalent to ten thousand pounds sterling, a

year. This sum James offered to pay, not in the brass which bore his own

effigy, but in French gold. But Lauzun, among whose faults avarice had

no place, refused to fill his own coffers from an almost empty treasury,

[630]

On him and on the Frenchmen who accompanied him the misery of the Irish

people and the imbecility of the Irish government produced an effect

which they found it difficult to describe. Lauzun wrote to Louvois that

the Court and the whole kingdom were in a state not to be imagined by a

person who had always lived in well governed countries. It was, he

said, a chaos, such as he had read of in the book of Genesis. The whole

business of all the public functionaries was to quarrel with each other,

and to plunder the government and the people. After he had been about

a month at the Castle, he declared that he would not go through such

another month for all the world. His ablest officers confirmed his

testimony, [631] One of them, indeed, was so unjust as to represent the

people of Ireland not merely as ignorant and idle, which they were, but

as hopelessly stupid and unfeeling, which they assuredly were not. The

English policy, he said, had so completely brutalised them, that they

could hardly be called human beings. They were insensible to praise and

blame, to promises and threats. And yet it was pity of them; for they

were physically the finest race of men in the world, [632]

By this time Schomberg had opened the campaign auspiciously. He had with

little difficulty taken Charlemont, the last important fastness which

the Irish occupied in Ulster. But the great work of reconquering the

three southern provinces of the island he deferred till William should

arrive. William meanwhile was busied in making arrangements for the

government and defence of England during his absence. He well knew that

the Jacobites were on the alert. They had not till very lately been an

united and organized faction. There had been, to use Melfort's phrase,

numerous gangs, which were all in communication with James at Dublin

Castle, or with Mary of Modena at Saint Germains, but which had no

connection with each other and were unwilling to trust each other, [633]

But since it had been known that the usurper was about to cross the sea,

and that his sceptre would be left in a female hand, these gangs

had been drawing close together, and had begun to form one extensive

confederacy. Clarendon, who had refused the oaths, and, Aylesbury, who

had dishonestly taken them, were among the chief traitors. Dartmouth,

though he had sworn allegiance to the sovereigns who were in possession,

was one of their most active enemies, and undertook what may be called

the maritime department of the plot. His mind was constantly occupied

by schemes, disgraceful to an English seaman, for the destruction of

the English fleets and arsenals. He was in close communication with some

naval officers, who, though they served the new government, served

it sullenly and with half a heart; and he flattered himself that by

promising these men ample rewards, and by artfully inflaming the jealous

animosity with which they regarded the Dutch flag, he should prevail on

them to desert and to carry their ships into some French or Irish port,

[634]

The conduct of Penn was scarcely less scandalous. He was a zealous and

busy Jacobite; and his new way of life was even more unfavourable than

his late way of life had been to moral purity. It was hardly possible

to be at once a consistent Quaker and a courtier: but it was utterly

impossible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a conspirator. It

is melancholy to relate that Penn, while professing to consider even

defensive war as sinful, did every thing in his power to bring a foreign

army into the heart of his own country. He wrote to inform James that

the adherents of the Prince of Orange dreaded nothing so much as an

appeal to the sword, and that, if England were now invaded from France

or from Ireland, the number of Royalists would appear to be greater than

ever. Avaux thought this letter so important, that he sent a translation

of it to Lewis, [635] A good effect, the shrewd ambassador wrote, had

been produced, by this and similar communications, on the mind of King

James. His Majesty was at last convinced that he could recover his

dominions only sword in hand. It is a curious fact that it should have

been reserved for the great preacher of peace to produce this conviction

in the mind of the old tyrant, [636] Penn's proceedings had not escaped

the observation of the government. Warrants had been out against him;

and he had been taken into custody; but the evidence against him had not

been such as would support a charge of high treason: he had, as with

all his faults he deserved to have, many friends in every party; he

therefore soon regained his liberty, and returned to his plots, [637]

But the chief conspirator was Richard Graham, Viscount Preston, who had,

in the late reign, been Secretary of State. Though a peer in Scotland,

he was only a baronet in England. He had, indeed, received from Saint

Germains an English patent of nobility; but the patent bore a date

posterior to that flight which the Convention had pronounced an

abdication. The Lords had, therefore, not only refused to admit him to

a share of their privileges, but had sent him to prison for presuming to

call himself one of their order. He had, however, by humbling himself,

and by withdrawing his claim, obtained his liberty, [638] Though the

submissive language which he had condescended to use on this occasion

did not indicate a spirit prepared for martyrdom, he was regarded by his

party, and by the world in general, as a man of courage and honour. He

still retained the seals of his office, and was still considered by

the adherents of indefeasible hereditary right as the real Secretary of

State. He was in high favour with Lewis, at whose court he had formerly

resided, and had, since the Revolution, been intrusted by the French

government with considerable sums of money for political purposes, [639]

While Preston was consulting in the capital with the other heads of the

faction, the rustic Jacobites were laying in arms, holding musters, and

forming themselves into companies, troops, and regiments. There were

alarming symptoms in Worcestershire. In Lancashire many gentlemen had

received commissions signed by James, called themselves colonels and

captains, and made out long lists of noncommissioned officers and

privates. Letters from Yorkshire brought news that large bodies of men,

who seemed to have met for no good purpose, had been seen on the moors

near Knaresborough. Letters from Newcastle gave an account of a great

match at football which had been played in Northumberland, and was

suspected to have been a pretext for a gathering of the disaffected. In

the crowd, it was said, were a hundred and fifty horsemen well mounted

and armed, of whom many were Papists, [640]

Meantime packets of letters full of treason were constantly passing and

repassing between Kent and Picardy, and between Wales and Ireland.

Some of the messengers were honest fanatics; but others were mere

mercenaries, and trafficked in the secrets of which they were the

bearers.

Of these double traitors the most remarkable was William Fuller. This

man has himself told us that, when he was very young, he fell in with a

pamphlet which contained an account of the flagitious life and horrible

death of Dangerfield. The boy's imagination was set on fire; he devoured

the book; he almost got it by heart; and he was soon seized, and ever

after haunted, by a strange presentiment that his fate would resemble

that of the wretched adventurer whose history he had so eagerly read,

[641] It might have been supposed that the prospect of dying in Newgate,

with a back flayed and an eye knocked out, would not have seemed very

attractive. But experience proves that there are some distempered minds

for which notoriety, even when accompanied with pain and shame, has an

irresistible fascination. Animated by this loathsome ambition, Fuller

equalled, and perhaps surpassed, his model. He was bred a Roman

Catholic, and was page to Lady Melfort, when Lady Melfort shone at

Whitehall as one of the loveliest women in the train of Mary of Modena.

After the Revolution, he followed his mistress to France, was repeatedly

employed in delicate and perilous commissions, and was thought at Saint

Germains to be a devoted servant of the House of Stuart. In truth,

however, he had, in one of his journeys to London, sold himself to the

new government, and had abjured the faith in which he had been brought

up. The honour, if it is to be so called, of turning him from a

worthless Papist into a worthless Protestant he ascribed, with

characteristic impudence, to the lucid reasoning and blameless life of

Tillotson.

In the spring of 1690, Mary of Modena wished to send to her

correspondents in London some highly important despatches. As these

despatches were too bulky to be concealed in the clothes of a single

messenger, it was necessary to employ two confidential persons. Fuller

was one. The other was a zealous young Jacobite called Crone. Before

they set out, they received full instructions from the Queen herself.

Not a scrap of paper was to be detected about them by an ordinary

search: but their buttons contained letters written in invisible ink.

The pair proceeded to Calais. The governor of that town furnished them

with a boat, which, under cover of the night, set them on the low

marshy coast of Kent, near the lighthouse of Dungeness. They walked to

a farmhouse, procured horses, and took different roads to London. Fuller

hastened to the palace at Kensington, and delivered the documents

with which he was charged into the King's hand. The first letter which

William unrolled seemed to contain only florid compliments: but a pan

of charcoal was lighted: a liquor well known to the diplomatists of that

age was applied to the paper: an unsavoury steam filled the closet; and

lines full of grave meaning began to appear.

The first thing to be done was to secure Crone. He had unfortunately had

time to deliver his letters before he was caught: but a snare was laid

for him into which he easily fell. In truth the sincere Jacobites were

generally wretched plotters. There was among them an unusually large

proportion of sots, braggarts, and babblers; and Crone was one of these.

Had he been wise, he would have shunned places of public resort, kept

strict guard over his lips, and stinted himself to one bottle at a meal.

He was found by the messengers of the government at a tavern table in

Gracechurch Street, swallowing bumpers to the health of King James,

and ranting about the coming restoration, the French fleet, and the

thousands of honest Englishmen who were awaiting the signal to rise in

arms for their rightful Sovereign. He was carried to the Secretary's

office at Whitehall. He at first seemed to be confident and at his

ease: but when Fuller appeared among the bystanders at liberty, and in a

fashionable garb, with a sword, the prisoner's courage fell; and he was

scarcely able to articulate, [642]

The news that Fuller had turned king's evidence, that Crone had been

arrested, and that important letters from Saint Germains were in the

hands of William, flew fast through London, and spread dismay among all

who were conscious of guilt, [643] It was true that the testimony of one

witness, even if that witness had been more respectable than Fuller, was

not legally sufficient to convict any person of high treason. But Fuller

had so managed matters that several witnesses could be produced to

corroborate his evidence against Crone; and, if Crone, under the strong

terror of death, should imitate Fuller's example, the heads of all the

chiefs of the conspiracy would be at the mercy of the government. The

spirits of the Jacobites rose, however, when it was known that Crone,

though repeatedly interrogated by those who had him in their power, and

though assured that nothing but a frank confession could save his life,

had resolutely continued silent. What effect a verdict of Guilty and the

near prospect of the gallows might produce on him remained to be seen.

His accomplices were by no means willing that his fortitude should be

tried by so severe a test. They therefore employed numerous artifices,

legal and illegal, to avert a conviction. A woman named Clifford, with

whom he had lodged, and who was one of the most active and cunning

agents of the Jacobite faction, was entrusted with the duty of keeping

him steady to the cause, and of rendering to him services from which

scrupulous or timid agents might have shrunk. When the dreaded day

came, Fuller was too ill to appear in the witness box, and the trial

was consequently postponed. He asserted that his malady was not natural,

that a noxious drug had been administered to him in a dish of porridge,

that his nails were discoloured, that his hair came off, and that able

physicians pronounced him poisoned. But such stories, even when they

rest on authority much better than that of Fuller, ought to be received

with great distrust.

While Crone was awaiting his trial, another agent of the Court of

Saint Germains, named Tempest, was seized on the road between Dover and

London, and was found to be the bearer of numerous letters addressed to

malecontents in England, [644]

Every day it became more plain that the State was surrounded by dangers:

and yet it was absolutely necessary that, at this conjuncture, the able

and resolute Chief of the State should quit his post.

William, with painful anxiety, such as he alone was able to conceal

under an appearance of stoical serenity, prepared to take his departure.

Mary was in agonies of grief; and her distress affected him more than

was imagined by those who judged of his heart by his demeanour, [645] He

knew too that he was about to leave her surrounded by difficulties

with which her habits had not qualified her to contend. She would be in

constant need of wise and upright counsel; and where was such counsel to

be found? There were indeed among his servants many able men and a

few virtuous men. But, even when he was present, their political and

personal animosities had too often made both their abilities and their

virtues useless to him. What chance was there that the gentle Mary would

be able to restrain that party spirit and that emulation which had been

but very imperfectly kept in order by her resolute and politic lord?

If the interior cabinet which was to assist the Queen were composed

exclusively either of Whigs or of Tories, half the nation would be

disgusted. Yet, if Whigs and Tories were mixed, it was certain that

there would be constant dissension. Such was William's situation that he

had only a choice of evils.

All these difficulties were increased by the conduct of Shrewsbury. The

character of this man is a curious study. He seemed to be the petted

favourite both of nature and of fortune. Illustrious birth, exalted

rank, ample possessions, fine parts, extensive acquirements, an

agreeable person, manners singularly graceful and engaging, combined

to make him an object of admiration and envy. But, with all these

advantages, he had some moral and intellectual peculiarities which made

him a torment to himself and to all connected with him. His conduct

at the time of the Revolution had given the world a high opinion, not

merely of his patriotism, but of his courage, energy and decision. It

should seem, however, that youthful enthusiasm and the exhilaration

produced by public sympathy and applause had, on that occasion, raised

him above himself. Scarcely any other part of his life was of a piece

with that splendid commencement. He had hardly become Secretary of State

when it appeared that his nerves were too weak for such a post. The

daily toil, the heavy responsibility, the failures, the mortifications,

the obloquy, which are inseparable from power, broke his spirit,

soured his temper, and impaired his health. To such natures as his the

sustaining power of high religious principle seems to be peculiarly

necessary; and unfortunately Shrewsbury had, in the act of shaking off

the yoke of that superstition in which he had been brought up, liberated

himself also from more salutary bands which might perhaps have braced

his too delicately constituted mind into stedfastness and uprightness.

Destitute of such support, he was, with great abilities, a weak man,

and, though endowed with many amiable and attractive qualities, could

not be called an honest man. For his own happiness, he should either

have been much better or much worse. As it was, he never knew either

that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude, or that

abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and insensibility. Few

people who have had so little power to resist temptation have suffered

so cruelly from remorse and shame.

To a man of this temper the situation of a minister of state during the

year which followed the Revolution must have been constant torture.

The difficulties by which the government was beset on all sides, the

malignity of its enemies, the unreasonableness of its friends, the

virulence with which the hostile factions fell on each other and on

every mediator who attempted to part them, might indeed have discouraged

a more resolute spirit. Before Shrewsbury had been six months in office,

he had completely lost heart and head. He began to address to William

letters which it is difficult to imagine that a prince so strongminded

can have read without mingled compassion and contempt. "I am

sensible,"--such was the constant burden of these epistles,--"that I am

unfit for my place. I cannot exert myself. I am not the same man that I

was half a year ago. My health is giving way. My mind is on the rack.

My memory is failing. Nothing but quiet and retirement can restore me."

William returned friendly and soothing answers; and, for a time, these

answers calmed the troubled mind of his minister, [646] But at length

the dissolution, the general election, the change in the Commissions

of Peace and Lieutenancy, and finally the debates on the two Abjuration

Bills, threw Shrewsbury into a state bordering on distraction. He was

angry with the Whigs for using the King ill, and yet was still more

angry with the King for showing favour to the Tories. At what moment and

by what influence, the unhappy man was induced to commit a treason, the

consciousness of which threw a dark shade over all his remaining years,

is not accurately known. But it is highly probable that his mother, who,

though the most abandoned of women, had great power over him, took a

fatal advantage of some unguarded hour when he was irritated by finding

his advice slighted, and that of Danby and Nottingham preferred. She was

still a member of that Church which her son had quitted, and may have

thought that, by reclaiming him from rebellion, she might make some

atonement for the violation of her marriage vow and the murder of her

lord, [647] What is certain is that, before the end of the spring of

1690, Shrewsbury had offered his services to James, and that James had

accepted them. One proof of the sincerity of the convert was demanded.

He must resign the seals which he had taken from the hand of the

usurper, [648] It is probable that Shrewsbury had scarcely committed his

fault when he began to repent of it. But he had not strength of mind to

stop short in the path of evil. Loathing his own baseness, dreading

a detection which must be fatal to his honour, afraid to go forward,

afraid to go back, he underwent tortures of which it is impossible to

think without commiseration. The true cause of his distress was as yet

a profound secret; but his mental struggles and changes of purpose were

generally known, and furnished the town, during some weeks, with topics

of conversation. One night, when he was actually setting out in a state

of great excitement for the palace, with the seals in his hand, he was

induced by Burnet to defer his resignation for a few hours. Some days

later, the eloquence of Tillotson was employed for the same purpose,

[649] Three or four times the Earl laid the ensigns of his office on the

table of the royal closet, and was three or four times induced, by

the kind expostulations of the master whom he was conscious of having

wronged, to take them up and carry them away. Thus the resignation was

deferred till the eve of the King's departure. By that time agitation

had thrown Shrewsbury into a low fever. Bentinck, who made a last effort

to persuade him to retain office, found him in bed and too ill for

conversation, [650] The resignation so often tendered was at length

accepted; and during some months Nottingham was the only Secretary of

State.

It was no small addition to William's troubles that, at such a moment,

his government should be weakened by this defection. He tried, however,

to do his best with the materials which remained to him, and finally

selected nine privy councillors, by whose advice he enjoined Mary to be

guided. Four of these, Devonshire, Dorset, Monmouth, and Edward

Russell, were Whigs. The other five, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham,

Marlborough, and Lowther, were Tories, [651]

William ordered the Nine to attend him at the office of the Secretary of

State. When they were assembled, he came leading in the Queen, desired

them to be seated, and addressed to them a few earnest and weighty

words. "She wants experience," he said; "but I hope that, by choosing

you to be her counsellors, I have supplied that defect. I put my kingdom

into your hands. Nothing foreign or domestic shall be kept secret from

you. I implore you to be diligent and to be united." [652] In private

he told his wife what he thought of the characters of the Nine; and it

should seem, from her letters to him, that there were few of the number

for whom he expressed any high esteem. Marlborough was to be her guide

in military affairs, and was to command the troops in England. Russell,

who was Admiral of the Blue, and had been rewarded for the service which

he had done at the time of the Revolution with the lucrative place

of Treasurer of the Navy, was well fitted to be her adviser on all

questions relating to the fleet. But Caermarthen was designated as the

person on whom, in case of any difference of opinion in the council,

she ought chiefly to rely. Caermarthen's sagacity and experience were

unquestionable; his principles, indeed, were lax; but, if there was any

person in existence to whom he was likely to be true, that person was

Mary. He had long been in a peculiar manner her friend and servant: he

had gained a high place in her favour by bringing about her marriage;

and he had, in the Convention, carried his zeal for her interests to a

length which she had herself blamed as excessive. There was, therefore,

every reason to hope that he would serve her at this critical

conjuncture with sincere good will, [653]

One of her nearest kinsmen, on the other hand, was one of her bitterest

enemies. The evidence which was in the possession of the government

proved beyond dispute that Clarendon was deeply concerned in the

Jacobite schemes of insurrection. But the Queen was most unwilling that

her kindred should be harshly treated; and William, remembering through

what ties she had broken, and what reproaches she had incurred, for his

sake, readily gave her uncle's life and liberty to her intercession.

But, before the King set out for Ireland, he spoke seriously to

Rochester. "Your brother has been plotting against me. I am sure of it.

I have the proofs under his own hand. I was urged to leave him out of

the Act of Grace; but I would not do what would have given so much pain

to the Queen. For her sake I forgive the past; but my Lord Clarendon

will do well to be cautious for the future. If not, he will find that

these are no jesting matters." Rochester communicated the admonition to

Clarendon. Clarendon, who was in constant correspondence with Dublin and

Saint Germains, protested that his only wish was to be quiet, and that,

though he had a scruple about the oaths, the existing government had not

a more obedient subject than he purposed to be, [654]

Among the letters which the government had intercepted was one from

James to Penn. That letter, indeed, was not legal evidence to prove that

the person to whom it was addressed had been guilty of high treason; but

it raised suspicions which are now known to have been well founded. Penn

was brought before the Privy Council, and interrogated. He said very

truly that he could not prevent people from writing to him, and that he

was not accountable for what they might write to him. He acknowledged

that he was bound to the late King by ties of gratitude and affection

which no change of fortune could dissolve. "I should be glad to do

him any service in his private affairs: but I owe a sacred duty to

my country; and therefore I was never so wicked as even to think of

endeavouring to bring him back." This was a falsehood; and William was

probably aware that it was so. He was unwilling however to deal harshly

with a man who had many titles to respect, and who was not likely to be

a very formidable plotter. He therefore declared himself satisfied,

and proposed to discharge the prisoner. Some of the Privy Councillors,

however, remonstrated; and Penn was required to give bail, [655]

On the day before William's departure, he called Burnet into his closet,

and, in firm but mournful language, spoke of the dangers which on every

side menaced the realm, of the fury or the contending factions, and of

the evil spirit which seemed to possess too many of the clergy. "But my

trust is in God. I will go through with my work or perish in it. Only

I cannot help feeling for the poor Queen;" and twice he repeated with

unwonted tenderness, "the poor Queen." "If you love me," he added, "wait

on her often, and give her what help you can. As for me, but for one

thing, I should enjoy the prospect of being on horseback and under

canvass again. For I am sure I am fitter to direct a campaign than to

manage your House of Lords and Commons. But, though I know that I am in

the path of duty, it is hard on my wife that her father and I must be

opposed to each other in the field. God send that no harm may happen to

him. Let me have your prayers, Doctor." Burnet retired greatly moved,

and doubtless put up, with no common fervour, those prayers for which

his master had asked, [656]

On the following day, the fourth of June, the King set out for Ireland.

Prince George had offered his services, had equipped himself at great

charge, and fully expected to be complimented with a seat in the royal

coach. But William, who promised himself little pleasure or advantage

from His Royal Highness's conversation, and who seldom stood on

ceremony, took Portland for a travelling companion, and never once,

during the whole of that eventful campaign, seemed to be aware of the

Prince's existence, [657] George, if left to himself, would hardly have

noticed the affront. But, though he was too dull to feel, his wife felt

for him; and her resentment was studiously kept alive by mischiefmakers

of no common dexterity. On this, as on many other occasions, the

infirmities of William's temper proved seriously detrimental to the

great interests of which he was the guardian. His reign would have been

far more prosperous if, with his own courage, capacity and elevation of

mind, he had had a little of the easy good humour and politeness of his

uncle Charles.

In four days the King arrived at Chester, where a fleet of transports

was awaiting the signal for sailing. He embarked on the eleventh of

June, and was convoyed across Saint George's Channel by a squadron of

men of war under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, [658]

The month which followed William's departure from London was one of the

most eventful and anxious months in the whole history of England. A

few hours after he had set out, Crone was brought to the bar of the Old

Bailey. A great array of judges was on the Bench. Fuller had recovered

sufficiently to make his appearance in court; and the trial proceeded.

The Jacobites had been indefatigable in their efforts to ascertain the

political opinions of the persons whose names were on the jury list.

So many were challenged that there was some difficulty in making up the

number of twelve; and among the twelve was one on whom the malecontents

thought that they could depend. Nor were they altogether mistaken; for

this man held out against his eleven companions all night and half the

next day; and he would probably have starved them into submission had

not Mrs. Clifford, who was in league with him, been caught throwing

sweetmeats to him through the window. His supplies having been cut off,

he yielded; and a verdict of Guilty, which, it was said, cost two of the

jurymen their lives, was returned. A motion in arrest of judgment was

instantly made, on the ground that a Latin word indorsed on the back

of the indictment was incorrectly spelt. The objection was undoubtedly

frivolous. Jeffreys would have at once overruled it with a torrent of

curses, and would have proceeded to the most agreeable part of his duty,

that of describing to the prisoner the whole process of half hanging,

disembowelling, mutilating, and quartering. But Holt and his brethren

remembered that they were now for the first time since the Revolution

trying a culprit on a charge of high treason. It was therefore desirable

to show, in a manner not to be misunderstood, that a new era had

commenced, and that the tribunals would in future rather err on the side

of humanity than imitate the cruel haste and levity with which Cornish

had, when pleading for his life, been silenced by servile judges. The

passing of the sentence was therefore deferred: a day was appointed

for considering the point raised by Crone; and counsel were assigned to

argue in his behalf. "This would not have been done, Mr. Crone,"

said the Lord Chief Justice significantly, "in either of the last two

reigns." After a full hearing, the Bench unanimously pronounced the

error to be immaterial; and the prisoner was condemned to death.

He owned that his trial had been fair, thanked the judges for their

patience, and besought them to intercede for him with the Queen, [659]

He was soon informed that his fate was in his own hands. The government

was willing to spare him if he would earn his pardon by a full

confession. The struggle in his mind was terrible and doubtful. At one

time Mrs. Clifford, who had access to his cell, reported to the Jacobite

chiefs that he was in a great agony. He could not die, he said; he was

too young to be a martyr, [660] The next morning she found him cheerful

and resolute, [661] He held out till the eve of the day fixed for his

execution. Then he sent to ask for an interview with the Secretary of

State. Nottingham went to Newgate; but, before he arrived, Crone

had changed his mind and was determined to say nothing. "Then," said

Nottingham, "I shall see you no more--for tomorrow will assuredly be

your last day." But, after Nottingham had departed, Monmouth repaired

to the gaol, and flattered himself that he had shaken the prisoner's

resolution. At a very late hour that night came a respite for a week,

[662] The week however passed away without any disclosure; the gallows

and quartering block were ready at Tyburn; the sledge and axe were at

the door of Newgate; the crowd was thick all up Holborn Hill and along

the Oxford Road; when a messenger brought another respite, and Crone,

instead of being dragged to the place of execution, was conducted to the

Council chamber at Whitehall. His fortitude had been at last overcome

by the near prospect of death; and on this occasion he gave important

information, [663]

Such information as he had it in his power to give was indeed at that

moment much needed. Both an invasion and an insurrection were hourly

expected, [664] Scarcely had William set out from London when a great

French fleet commanded by the Count of Tourville left the port of Brest

and entered the British Channel. Tourville was the ablest maritime

commander that his country then possessed. He had studied every part

of his profession. It was said of him that he was competent to fill any

place on shipboard from that of carpenter up to that of admiral. It was

said of him, also, that to the dauntless courage of a seaman he united

the suavity and urbanity of an accomplished gentleman, [665] He now

stood over to the English shore, and approached it so near that his

ships could be plainly descried from the ramparts of Plymouth.

From Plymouth he proceeded slowly along the coast of Devonshire and

Dorsetshire. There was great reason to apprehend that his movements had

been concerted with the English malecontents, [666]

The Queen and her Council hastened to take measures for the defence of

the country against both foreign and domestic enemies. Torrington took

the command of the English fleet which lay in the Downs, and sailed to

Saint Helen's. He was there joined by a Dutch squadron under the command

of Evertsen. It seemed that the cliffs of the Isle of Wight would

witness one of the greatest naval conflicts recorded in history. A

hundred and fifty ships of the line could be counted at once from the

watchtower of Saint Catharine's. On the cast of the huge precipice of

Black Gang Chine, and in full view of the richly wooded rocks of Saint

Lawrence and Ventnor, were mustered the maritime forces of England and

Holland. On the west, stretching to that white cape where the waves roar

among the Needles, lay the armament of France.

It was on the twenty-sixth of June, less than a fortnight after William

had sailed for Ireland, that the hostile fleets took up these positions.

A few hours earlier, there had been an important and anxious sitting of

the Privy Council at Whitehall. The malecontents who were leagued with

France were alert and full of hope. Mary had remarked, while taking her

airing, that Hyde Park was swarming with them. The whole board was of

opinion that it was necessary to arrest some persons of whose guilt the

government had proofs. When Clarendon was named, something was said

in his behalf by his friend and relation, Sir Henry Capel. The other

councillors stared, but remained silent. It was no pleasant task to

accuse the Queen's kinsman in the Queen's presence. Mary had scarcely

ever opened her lips at Council; but now, being possessed of clear

proofs of her uncle's treason in his own handwriting, and knowing that

respect for her prevented her advisers from proposing what the public

safety required, she broke silence. "Sir Henry," she said, "I know, and

every body here knows as well as I, that there is too much against my

Lord Clarendon to leave him out." The warrant was drawn up; and Capel

signed it with the rest. "I am more sorry for Lord Clarendon," Mary

wrote to her husband, "than, may be, will be believed." That evening

Clarendon and several other noted Jacobites were lodged in the Tower,

[667]

When the Privy Council had risen, the Queen and the interior Council of

Nine had to consider a question of the gravest importance. What orders

were to be sent to Torrington? The safety of the State might depend

on his judgment and presence of mind; and some of Mary's advisers

apprehended that he would not be found equal to the occasion. Their

anxiety increased when news came that he had abandoned the coast of the

Isle of Wight to the French, and was retreating before them towards

the Straits of Dover. The sagacious Caermarthen and the enterprising

Monmouth agreed in blaming these cautious tactics. It was true that

Torrington had not so many vessels as Tourville; but Caermarthen thought

that, at such a time, it was advisable to fight, although against odds;

and Monmouth was, through life, for fighting at all times and against

all odds. Russell, who was indisputably one of the best seamen of the

age, held that the disparity of numbers was not such as ought to cause

any uneasiness to an officer who commanded English and Dutch sailors. He

therefore proposed to send to the Admiral a reprimand couched in terms

so severe that the Queen did not like to sign it. The language was much

softened; but, in the main, Russell's advice was followed. Torrington

was positively ordered to retreat no further, and to give battle

immediately. Devonshire, however, was still unsatisfied. "It is my duty,

Madam," he said, "to tell Your Majesty exactly what I think on a matter

of this importance; and I think that my Lord Torrington is not a man to

be trusted with the fate of three kingdoms." Devonshire was right; but

his colleagues were unanimously of opinion that to supersede a commander

in sight of the enemy, and on the eve of a general action, would be a

course full of danger, and it is difficult to say that they were wrong.

"You must either," said Russell, "leave him where he is, or send for him

as a prisoner." Several expedients were suggested. Caermarthen proposed

that Russell should be sent to assist Torrington. Monmouth passionately

implored permission to join the fleet in any capacity, as a captain, or

as a volunteer. "Only let me be once on board; and I pledge my life that

there shall be a battle." After much discussion and hesitation, it was

resolved that both Russell and Monmouth should go down to the coast,

[668] They set out, but too late. The despatch which ordered Torrington

to fight had preceded them. It reached him when he was off Beachy Head.

He read it, and was in a great strait. Not to give battle was to be

guilty of direct disobedience. To give battle was, in his judgment, to

incur serious risk of defeat. He probably suspected,--for he was of a

captious and jealous temper,--that the instructions which placed him in

so painful a dilemma had been framed by enemies and rivals with a

design unfriendly to his fortune and his fame. He was exasperated by the

thought that he was ordered about and overruled by Russell, who, though

his inferior in professional rank, exercised, as one of the Council of

Nine, a supreme control over all the departments of the public service.

There seems to be no ground for charging Torrington with disaffection.

Still less can it be suspected that an officer, whose whole life had

been passed in confronting danger, and who had always borne himself

bravely, wanted the personal courage which hundreds of sailors on board

of every ship under his command possessed. But there is a higher

courage of which Torrington was wholly destitute. He shrank from all

responsibility, from the responsibility of fighting, and from the

responsibility of not fighting; and he succeeded in finding out a middle

way which united all the inconveniences which he wished to avoid. He

would conform to the letter of his instructions; yet he would not put

every thing to hazard. Some of his ships should skirmish with the enemy;

but the great body of his fleet should not be risked. It was evident

that the vessels which engaged the French would be placed in a most

dangerous situation, and would suffer much loss; and there is but too

good reason to believe that Torrington was base enough to lay his plans

in such a manner that the danger and loss might fall almost exclusively

to the share of the Dutch. He bore them no love; and in England they

were so unpopular that the destruction of their whole squadron was

likely to cause fewer murmurs than the capture of one of our own

frigates.

It was on the twenty-ninth of June that the Admiral received the order

to fight. The next day, at four in the morning, he bore down on the

French fleet, and formed his vessels in order of battle. He had not

sixty sail of the line, and the French had at least eighty; but his

ships were more strongly manned than those of the enemy. He placed the

Dutch in the van and gave them the signal to engage. That signal was

promptly obeyed. Evertsen and his countrymen fought with a courage to

which both their English allies and their French enemies, in spite of

national prejudices, did full justice. In none of Van Tromp's or De

Ruyter's battles had the honour of the Batavian flag been more gallantly

upheld. During many hours the van maintained the unequal contest with

very little assistance from any other part of the fleet. At length the

Dutch Admiral drew off, leaving one shattered and dismasted hull to

the enemy. His second in command and several officers of high rank had

fallen. To keep the sea against the French after this disastrous and

ignominious action was impossible. The Dutch ships which had come out of

the fight were in lamentable condition. Torrington ordered some of them

to be destroyed: the rest he took in tow: he then fled along the coast

of Kent, and sought a refuge in the Thames. As soon as he was in the

river, he ordered all the buoys to be pulled up, and thus made the

navigation so dangerous, that the pursuers could not venture to follow

him, [669]

It was, however, thought by many, and especially by the French

ministers, that, if Tourville had been more enterprising, the allied

fleet might have been destroyed. He seems to have borne, in one respect,

too much resemblance to his vanquished opponent. Though a brave man, he

was a timid commander. His life he exposed with careless gaiety; but it

was said that he was nervously anxious and pusillanimously cautious when

his professional reputation was in danger. He was so much annoyed by

these censures that he soon became, unfortunately for his country, bold

even to temerity, [670]

There has scarcely ever been so sad a day in London as that on which the

news of the Battle of Beachy Head arrived. The shame was insupportable;

the peril was imminent. What if the victorious enemy should do what

De Ruyter had done? What if the dockyards of Chatham should again be

destroyed? What if the Tower itself should be bombarded? What if the

vast wood of masts and yardarms below London Bridge should be in ablaze?

Nor was this all. Evil tidings had just arrived from the Low Countries.

The allied forces under Waldeck had, in the neighbourhood of Fleurus,

encountered the French commanded by the Duke of Luxemburg. The day

had been long and fiercely disputed. At length the skill of the French

general and the impetuous valour of the French cavalry had prevailed,

[671] Thus at the same moment the army of Lewis was victorious in

Flanders, and his navy was in undisputed possession of the Channel.

Marshal Humieres with a considerable force lay not far from the Straits

of Dover. It had been given out that he was about to join Luxemburg. But

the information which the English government received from able military

men in the Netherlands and from spies who mixed with the Jacobites, and

which to so great a master of the art of war as Marlborough seemed

to deserve serious attention, was, that the army of Humieres would

instantly march to Dunkirk and would there be taken on board of the

fleet of Tourville, [672] Between the coast of Artois and the Nore not a

single ship bearing the red cross of Saint George could venture to show

herself. The embarkation would be the business of a few hours. A few

hours more might suffice for the voyage. At any moment London might be

appalled by the news that thirty thousand French veterans were in Kent,

and that the Jacobites of half the counties of the kingdom were in arms.

All the regular troops who could be assembled for the defence of the

island did not amount to more than ten thousand men. It may be doubted

whether our country has ever passed through a more alarming crisis than

that of the first week of July 1690.

But the evil brought with it its own remedy. Those little knew England

who imagined that she could be in danger at once of rebellion and

invasion; for in truth the danger of invasion was the best security

against the danger of rebellion. The cause of James was the cause of

France; and, though to superficial observers the French alliance seemed

to be his chief support, it really was the obstacle which made his

restoration impossible. In the patriotism, the too often unamiable

and unsocial patriotism of our forefathers, lay the secret at once of

William's weakness and of his strength. They were jealous of his love

for Holland; but they cordially sympathized with his hatred of Lewis.

To their strong sentiment of nationality are to be ascribed almost all

those petty annoyances which made the throne of the Deliverer, from his

accession to his death, so uneasy a seat. But to the same sentiment it

is to be ascribed that his throne, constantly menaced and frequently

shaken, was never subverted. For, much as his people detested his

foreign favourites, they detested his foreign adversaries still more.

The Dutch were Protestants; the French were Papists. The Dutch were

regarded as selfseeking, grasping overreaching allies; the French were

mortal enemies. The worst that could be apprehended from the Dutch was

that they might obtain too large a share of the patronage of the Crown,

that they might throw on us too large a part of the burdens of the war,

that they might obtain commercial advantages at our expense. But the

French would conquer us; the French would enslave us; the French would

inflict on us calamities such as those which had turned the fair fields

and cities of the Palatinate into a desert. The hopgrounds of Kent would

be as the vineyards of the Neckar. The High Street of Oxford and the

close of Salisbury would be piled with ruins such as those which covered

the spots where the palaces and churches of Heidelberg and Mannheim had

once stood. The parsonage overshadowed by the old steeple, the farmhouse

peeping from among beehives and appleblossoms, the manorial hall

embosomed in elms, would be given up to a soldiery which knew not what

it was to pity old men or delicate women or sticking children. The

words, "The French are coming," like a spell, quelled at once all

murmur about taxes and abuses, about William's ungracious manners

and Portland's lucrative places, and raised a spirit as high and

unconquerable as had pervaded, a hundred years before, the ranks which

Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury. Had the army of Humieres landed, it would

assuredly have been withstood by almost every male capable of bearing

arms. Not only the muskets and pikes but the scythes and pitchforks

would have been too few for the hundreds of thousands who, forgetting

all distinction of sect or faction, would have risen up like one man to

defend the English soil.

The immediate effect therefore of the disasters in the Channel and in

Flanders was to unite for a moment the great body of the people. The

national antipathy to the Dutch seemed to be suspended. Their gallant

conduct in the fight off Beachy Head was loudly applauded. The inaction

of Torrington was loudly condemned. London set the example of concert

and of exertion. The irritation produced by the late election at once

subsided. All distinctions of party disappeared. The Lord Mayor was

summoned to attend the Queen. She requested him to ascertain as soon

as possible what the capital would undertake to do if the enemy should

venture to make a descent. He called together the representatives of

the wards, conferred with them, and returned to Whitehall to report that

they had unanimously bound themselves to stand by the government with

life and fortune; that a hundred thousand pounds were ready to be

paid into the Exchequer; that ten thousand Londoners, well armed and

appointed, were prepared to march at an hour's notice; and that an

additional force, consisting of six regiments of foot, a strong regiment

of horse, and a thousand dragoons, should be instantly raised without

costing the Crown a farthing. Of Her Majesty the City had nothing to

ask, but that she would be pleased to set over these troops officers in

whom she could confide. The same spirit was shown in every part of the

country. Though in the southern counties the harvest was at hand,

the rustics repaired with unusual cheerfulness to the musters of the

militia. The Jacobite country gentlemen, who had, during several months,

been making preparations for the general rising which was to take place

as soon as William was gone and as help arrived from France, now that

William was gone, now that a French invasion was hourly expected, burned

their commissions signed by James, and hid their arms behind wainscots

or in haystacks. The Jacobites in the towns were insulted wherever they

appeared, and were forced to shut themselves up in their houses from the

exasperated populace, [673]

Nothing is more interesting to those who love to study the intricacies

of the human heart than the effect which the public danger produced

on Shrewsbury. For a moment he was again the Shrewsbury of 1688. His

nature, lamentably unstable, was not ignoble; and the thought, that, by

standing foremost in the defence of his country at so perilous a crisis,

he might repair his great fault and regain his own esteem, gave new

energy to his body and his mind. He had retired to Epsom, in the hope

that quiet and pure air would produce a salutary effect on his shattered

frame and wounded spirit. But a few hours after the news of the Battle

of Beachy Head had arrived, he was at Whitehall, and had offered his

purse and sword to the Queen. It had been in contemplation to put the

fleet under the command of some great nobleman with two experienced

naval officers to advise him. Shrewsbury begged that, if such an

arrangement were made, he might be appointed. It concerned, he said, the

interest and the honour of every man in the kingdom not to let the enemy

ride victorious in the Channel; and he would gladly risk his life to

retrieve the lost fame of the English flag, [674]

His offer was not accepted. Indeed, the plan of dividing the naval

command between a man of quality who did not know the points of the

compass, and two weatherbeaten old seamen who had risen from being cabin

boys to be Admirals, was very wisely laid aside. Active exertions were

made to prepare the allied squadrons for service. Nothing was omitted

which could assuage the natural resentment of the Dutch. The Queen

sent a Privy Councillor, charged with a special mission to the States

General. He was the bearer of a letter to them in which she extolled the

valour of Evertsen's gallant squadron. She assured them that their

ships should be repaired in the English dockyards, and that the wounded

Dutchmen should be as carefully tended as wounded Englishmen. It was

announced that a strict inquiry would be instituted into the causes of

the late disaster; and Torrington, who indeed could not at that moment

have appeared in public without risk of being torn in pieces, was sent

to the Tower, [675]

During the three days which followed the arrival of the disastrous

tidings from Beachy Head the aspect of London was gloomy and agitated.

But on the fourth day all was changed. Bells were pealing: flags were

flying: candles were arranged in the windows for an illumination; men

were eagerly shaking hands with each other in the streets. A courier had

that morning arrived at Whitehall with great news from Ireland.