The papers written by Monmouth were delivered by Lady Mary to her

husband. If the advice which they contained had been followed, there can

be little doubt that the object of the adviser would have been attained.

The King would have been bitterly mortified; there would have been a

general panic among public men of every party; even Marlborough's serene

fortitude would have been severely tried; and Shrewsbury would probably

have shot himself. But that Fenwick would have put himself in a better

situation is by no means clear. Such was his own opinion. He saw that

the step which he was urged to take was hazardous. He knew that he was

urged to take that step, not because it was likely to save himself, but

because it was certain to annoy others; and he was resolved not to be

Monmouth's tool.

On the first of December the bill went through the earliest stage

without a division. Then Fenwick's confession, which had, by the royal

command, been laid on the table, was read; and then Marlborough stood

up. "Nobody can wonder," he said, "that a man whose head is in danger

should try to save himself by accusing others. I assure Your Lordships

that, since the accession of his present Majesty, I have had no

intercourse with Sir John on any subject whatever; and this I declare

on my word of honour." [763] Marlborough's assertion may have been true;

but it was perfectly compatible with the truth of all that Fenwick had

said. Godolphin went further. "I certainly did," he said, "continue to

the last in the service of King James and of his Queen. I was esteemed

by them both. But I cannot think that a crime. It is possible that they

and those who are about them may imagine that I am still attached to

their interest. That I cannot help. But it is utterly false that I have

had any such dealings with the Court of Saint Germains as are described

in the paper which Your Lordships have heard read." [764]

Fenwick was then brought in, and asked whether he had any further

confession to make. Several peers interrogated him, but to no purpose.

Monmouth, who could not believe that the papers which he had sent to

Newgate had produced no effect, put, in a friendly and encouraging

manner, several questions intended to bring out answers which would have

been by no means agreeable to the accused Lords. No such answer however

was to be extracted from Fenwick. Monmouth saw that his ingenious

machinations had failed. Enraged and disappointed, he suddenly turned

round, and became more zealous for the bill than any other peer in the

House. Every body noticed the rapid change in his temper and manner; but

that change was at first imputed merely to his well known levity.

On the eighth of December the bill was again taken into consideration;

and on that day Fenwick, accompanied by his counsel, was in attendance.

But, before he was called in, a previous question was raised. Several

distinguished Tories, particularly Nottingham, Rochester, Normanby and

Leeds, said that, in their opinion, it was idle to inquire whether the

prisoner was guilty or not guilty, unless the House was of opinion that

he was a person so formidable that, if guilty, he ought to be attainted

by Act of Parliament. They did not wish, they said, to hear any

evidence. For, even on the supposition that the evidence left no doubt

of his criminality, they should still think it better to leave him

unpunished than to make a law for punishing him. The general sense,

however, was decidedly for proceeding. [765] The prisoner and his

counsel were allowed another week to prepare themselves; and, at length,

on the fifteenth of December, the struggle commenced in earnest.

The debates were the longest and the hottest, the divisions were the

largest, the protests were the most numerously signed that had ever been

known in the whole history of the House of Peers. Repeatedly the benches

continued to be filled from ten in the morning till past midnight. [766]

The health of many lords suffered severely; for the winter was bitterly

cold; but the majority was not disposed to be indulgent. One evening

Devonshire was unwell; he stole away and went to bed; but Black Rod was

soon sent to bring him back. Leeds, whose constitution was extremely

infirm, complained loudly. "It is very well," he said, "for young

gentlemen to sit down to their suppers and their wine at two o'clock in

the morning; but some of us old men are likely to be of as much use here

as they; and we shall soon be in our graves if we are forced to keep

such hours at such a season." [767] So strongly was party spirit

excited that this appeal was disregarded, and the House continued to sit

fourteen or fifteen hours a day. The chief opponents of the bill were

Rochester, Nottingham, Normanby and Leeds. The chief orators on the

other side were Tankerville, who, in spite of the deep stains which

a life singularly unfortunate had left on his public and private

character, always spoke with an eloquence which riveted the attention

of his hearers; Burnet, who made a great display of historical learning;

Wharton, whose lively and familiar style of speaking, acquired in the

House of Commons, sometimes shocked the formality of the Lords; and

Monmouth, who had always carried the liberty of debate to the verge of

licentiousness, and who now never opened his lips without inflicting

a wound on the feelings of some adversary. A very few nobles of great

weight, Devonshire, Dorset, Pembroke and Ormond, formed a third party.

They were willing to use the Bill of Attainder as an instrument of

torture for the purpose of wringing a full confession out of the

prisoner. But they were determined not to give a final vote for sending

him to the scaffold.

The first division was on the question whether secondary evidence of

what Goodman could have proved should be admitted. On this occasion

Burnet closed the debate by a powerful speech which none of the Tory

orators could undertake to answer without premeditation. A hundred and

twenty-six lords were present, a number unprecedented in our history.

There were seventy-three Contents, and fifty-three Not Contents.

Thirty-six of the minority protested against the decision of the House.

[768]

The next great trial of strength was on the question whether the bill

should be read a second time. The debate was diversified by a curious

episode. Monmouth, in a vehement declamation, threw some severe and well

merited reflections on the memory of the late Lord Jeffreys. The title

and part of the ill gotten wealth of Jeffreys had descended to his son,

a dissolute lad, who had lately come of age, and who was then sitting in

the House. The young man fired at hearing his father reviled. The House

was forced to interfere, and to make both the disputants promise that

the matter should go no further. On this day a hundred and twenty-eight

peers were present. The second reading was carried by seventy-three to

fifty-five; and forty-nine of the fifty-five protested. [769]

It was now thought by many that Fenwick's courage would give way. It

was known that he was very unwilling to die. Hitherto he might have

flattered himself with hopes that the bill would miscarry. But now that

it had passed one House, and seemed certain to pass the other, it was

probable that he would save himself by disclosing all that he knew. He

was again put to the bar and interrogated. He refused to answer, on the

ground that his answers might be used against him by the Crown at the

Old Bailey. He was assured that the House would protect him; but he

pretended that this assurance was not sufficient; the House was not

always sitting; he might be brought to trial during a recess, and hanged

before their Lordships met again. The royal word alone, he said, would

be a complete guarantee. The Peers ordered him to be removed, and

immediately resolved that Wharton should go to Kensington, and should

entreat His Majesty to give the pledge which the prisoner required.

Wharton hastened to Kensington, and hastened back with a gracious

answer. Fenwick was again placed at the bar. The royal word, he was

told, had been passed that nothing which he might say there should be

used against him in any other place. Still he made difficulties. He

might confess all that he knew, and yet might be told that he was still

keeping something back. In short, he would say nothing till he had a

pardon. He was then, for the last time, solemnly cautioned from the

Woolsack. He was assured that, if he would deal ingenuously with the

Lords, they would be intercessors for him at the foot of the throne,

and that their intercession would not be unsuccessful. If he continued

obstinate, they would proceed with the bill. A short interval was

allowed him for consideration; and he was then required to give his

final answer. "I have given it," he said; "I have no security. If I had,

I should be glad to satisfy the House." He was then carried back to his

cell; and the Peers separated, having sate far into the night. [770]

At noon they met again. The third reading was moved. Tenison spoke for

the bill with more ability than was expected from him, and Monmouth with

as much sharpness as in the previous debates. But Devonshire declared

that he could go no further. He had hoped that fear would induce Fenwick

to make a frank confession; that hope was at an end; the question

now was simply whether this man should be put to death by an Act of

Parliament; and to that question Devonshire said that he must answer,

"Not Content." It is not easy to understand on what principle he can

have thought himself justified in threatening to do what he did not

think himself justified in doing. He was, however, followed by Dorset,

Ormond, Pembroke, and two or three others. Devonshire, in the name of

his little party, and Rochester, in the name of the Tories, offered

to waive all objections to the mode of proceeding, if the penalty were

reduced from death to perpetual imprisonment. But the majority,

though weakened by the defection of some considerable men, was still a

majority, and would hear of no terms of compromise. The third reading

was carried by only sixty-eight votes to sixty-one. Fifty-three Lords

recorded their dissent; and forty-one subscribed a protest, in which

the arguments against the bill were ably summed up. [771] The peers whom

Fenwick had accused took different sides. Marlborough steadily voted

with the majority, and induced Prince George to do the same. Godolphin

as steadily voted with the minority, but, with characteristic wariness,

abstained from giving any reasons for his votes. No part of his life

warrants us in ascribing his conduct to any exalted motive. It is

probable that, having been driven from office by the Whigs and forced

to take refuge among the Tories, he thought it advisable to go with his

party. [772]

As soon as the bill had been read a third time, the attention of the

Peers was called to a matter which deeply concerned the honour of their

order. Lady Mary Fenwick had been, not unnaturally, moved to the highest

resentment by the conduct of Monmouth. He had, after professing a great

desire to save her husband, suddenly turned round, and become the most

merciless of her husband's persecutors; and all this solely because

the unfortunate prisoner would not suffer himself to be used as an

instrument for the accomplishing of a wild scheme of mischief. She might

be excused for thinking that revenge would be sweet. In her rage she

showed to her kinsman the Earl of Carlisle the papers which she had

received from the Duchess of Norfolk. Carlisle brought the subject

before the Lords. The papers were produced. Lady Mary declared that she

had received them from the Duchess. The Duchess declared that she had

received them from Monmouth. Elizabeth Lawson confirmed the evidence of

her two friends. All the bitter things which the petulant Earl had said

about William were repeated. The rage of both the great factions

broke forth with ungovernable violence. The Whigs were exasperated by

discovering that Monmouth had been secretly labouring to bring to shame

and ruin two eminent men with whose reputation the reputation of

the whole party was bound up. The Tories accused him of dealing

treacherously and cruelly by the prisoner and the prisoner's wife. Both

among the Whigs and among the Tories Monmouth had, by his sneers and

invectives, made numerous personal enemies, whom fear of his wit and

of his sword had hitherto kept in awe. [773] All these enemies were now

openmouthed against him. There was great curiosity to know what he would

be able to say in his defence. His eloquence, the correspondent of the

States General wrote, had often annoyed others. He would now want it

all to protect himself. [774] That eloquence indeed was of a kind much

better suited to attack than to defence. Monmouth spoke near three hours

in a confused and rambling manner, boasted extravagantly of his services

and sacrifices, told the House that he had borne a great part in the

Revolution, that he had made four voyages to Holland in the evil times,

that he had since refused great places, that he had always held lucre

in contempt. "I," he said, turning significantly to Nottingham, "have

bought no great estate; I have built no palace; I am twenty thousand

pounds poorer than when I entered public life. My old hereditary mansion

is ready to fall about my ears. Who that remembers what I have done and

suffered for His Majesty will believe that I would speak disrespectfully

of him?" He solemnly declared,--and this was the most serious of the

many serious faults of his long and unquiet life,--that he had nothing

to do with the papers which had caused so much scandal. The Papists,

he said, hated him; they had laid a scheme to ruin him; his ungrateful

kinswoman had consented to be their implement, and had requited the

strenuous efforts which he had made in defence of her honour by trying

to blast his. When he concluded there was a long silence. He asked

whether their Lordships wished him to withdraw. Then Leeds, to whom he

had once professed a strong attachment, but whom he had deserted with

characteristic inconstancy and assailed with characteristic petulance,

seized the opportunity of revenging himself. "It is quite unnecessary,"

the shrewd old statesman said, "that the noble Earl should withdraw

at present. The question which we have now to decide is merely whether

these papers do or do not deserve our censure. Who wrote them is a

question which may be considered hereafter." It was then moved and

unanimously resolved that the papers were scandalous, and that the

author had been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. Monmouth

himself was, by these dexterous tactics, forced to join in condemning

his own compositions. [775] Then the House proceeded to consider the

charge against him. The character of his cousin the Duchess did not

stand high; but her testimony was confirmed both by direct and by

circumstantial evidence. Her husband said, with sour pleasantry, that he

gave entire faith to what she had deposed. "My Lord Monmouth thought her

good enough to be wife to me; and, if she is good enough to be wife to

me, I am sure that she is good enough to be a witness against him." In a

House of near eighty peers only eight or ten seemed inclined to show any

favour to Monmouth. He was pronounced guilty of the act of which he had,

in the most solemn manner, protested that he was innocent; he was sent

to the Tower; he was turned out of all his places; and his name was

struck out of the Council Book. [776] It might well have been thought

that the ruin of his fame and of his fortunes was irreparable. But there

was about his nature an elasticity which nothing could subdue. In his

prison, indeed, he was as violent as a falcon just caged, and would, if

he had been long detained, have died of mere impatience. His only solace

was to contrive wild and romantic schemes for extricating himself from

his difficulties and avenging himself on his enemies. When he regained

his liberty, he stood alone in the world, a dishonoured man, more hated

by the Whigs than any Tory, and by the Tories than any Whig, and reduced

to such poverty that he talked of retiring to the country, living like

a farmer, and putting his Countess into the dairy to churn and to make

cheeses. Yet even after this fall, that mounting spirit rose again, and

rose higher than ever. When he next appeared before the world, he had

inherited the earldom of the head of his family; he had ceased to be

called by the tarnished name of Monmouth; and he soon added new lustre

to the name of Peterborough. He was still all air and fire. His

ready wit and his dauntless courage made him formidable; some amiable

qualities which contrasted strangely with his vices, and some great

exploits of which the effect was heightened by the careless levity with

which they were performed, made him popular; and his countrymen were

willing to forget that a hero of whose achievements they were proud, and

who was not more distinguished by parts and valour than by courtesy and

generosity, had stooped to tricks worthy of the pillory.

It is interesting and instructive to compare the fate of Shrewsbury with

the fate of Peterborough. The honour of Shrewsbury was safe. He had been

triumphantly acquitted of the charges contained in Fenwick's confession.

He was soon afterwards still more triumphantly acquitted of a still more

odious charge. A wretched spy named Matthew Smith, who thought that

he had not been sufficiently rewarded, and was bent on being revenged,

affirmed that Shrewsbury had received early information of the

Assassination Plot, but had suppressed that information, and had taken

no measures to prevent the conspirators from accomplishing their design.

That this was a foul calumny no person who has examined the evidence

can doubt. The King declared that he could himself prove his minister's

innocence; and the Peers, after examining Smith, pronounced the

accusation unfounded. Shrewsbury was cleared as far as it was in the

power of the Crown and of the Parliament to clear him. He had power and

wealth, the favour of the King and the favour of the people. No man had

a greater number of devoted friends. He was the idol of the Whigs; yet

he was not personally disliked by the Tories. It should seem that

his situation was one which Peterborough might well have envied. But

happiness and misery are from within. Peterborough had one of those

minds of which the deepest wounds heal and leave no scar. Shrewsbury

had one of those minds in which the slightest scratch may fester to

the death. He had been publicly accused of corresponding with Saint

Germains; and, though King, Lords and Commons had pronounced him

innocent, his conscience told him that he was guilty. The praises which

he knew that he had not deserved sounded to him like reproaches. He

never regained his lost peace of mind. He left office; but one cruel

recollection accompanied him into retirement. He left England; but one

cruel recollection pursued him over the Alps and the Apennines. On a

memorable day, indeed, big with the fate of his country, he again, after

many inactive and inglorious years, stood forth the Shrewsbury of 1688.

Scarcely any thing in history is more melancholy than that late and

solitary gleam, lighting up the close of a life which had dawned so

splendidly, and which had so early become hopelessly troubled and

gloomy.

On the day on which the Lords passed the Bill of Attainder, they

adjourned over the Christmas holidays. The fate of Fenwick consequently

remained during more than a fortnight in suspense. In the interval plans

of escape were formed; and it was thought necessary to place a strong

military guard round Newgate. [777] Some Jacobites knew William so

little as to send him anonymous letters, threatening that he should

be shot or stabbed if he dared to touch a hair of the prisoner's head.

[778] On the morning of the eleventh of January he passed the bill. He

at the same time passed a bill which authorised the government to detain

Bernardi and some other conspirators in custody during twelve months.

On the evening of that day a deeply mournful event was the talk of all

London. The Countess of Aylesbury had watched with intense anxiety the

proceedings against Sir John. Her lord had been as deep as Sir John in

treason, was, like Sir John, in confinement, and had, like Sir John,

been a party to Goodman's flight. She had learned with dismay that

there was a method by which a criminal who was beyond the reach of the

ordinary law might be punished. Her terror had increased at every stage

in the progress of the Bill of Attainder. On the day on which the royal

assent was to be given, her agitation became greater than her frame

could support. When she heard the sound of the guns which announced that

the King was on his way to Westminster, she fell into fits, and died in

a few hours. [779]

Even after the bill had become law, strenuous efforts were made to save

Fenwick. His wife threw herself at William's feet, and offered him a

petition. He took the petition, and said, very gently, that it should be

considered, but that the matter was one of public concern, and that he

must deliberate with his ministers before he decided. [780] She then

addressed herself to the Lords. She told them that her husband had

not expected his doom, that he had not had time to prepare himself for

death, that he had not, during his long imprisonment, seen a divine.

They were easily induced to request that he might be respited for a

week. A respite was granted; but, forty-eight hours before it expired,

Lady Mary presented to the Lords another petition, imploring them to

intercede with the King that her husband's punishment might be commuted

to banishment. The House was taken by surprise; and a motion to adjourn

was with difficulty carried by two votes. [781] On the morrow, the last

day of Fenwick's life, a similar petition was presented to the Commons.

But the Whig leaders were on their guard; the attendance was full; and

a motion for reading the Orders of the Day was carried by a hundred and

fifty-two to a hundred and seven. [782] In truth, neither branch of the

legislature could, without condemning itself, request William to spare

Fenwick's life. Jurymen, who have, in the discharge of a painful duty,

pronounced a culprit guilty, may, with perfect consistency, recommend

him to the favourable consideration of the Crown. But the Houses ought

not to have passed the Bill of Attainder unless they were convinced, not

merely that Sir John had committed high treason, but also that he could

not, without serious danger to the Commonwealth, be suffered to live. He

could not be at once a proper object of such a bill and a proper object

of the royal mercy.

On the twenty-eighth of January the execution took place. In compliment

to the noble families with which Fenwick was connected, orders were

given that the ceremonial should be in all respects the same as when a

peer of the realm suffers death. A scaffold was erected on Tower Hill

and hung with black. The prisoner was brought from Newgate in the coach

of his kinsman the Earl of Carlisle, which was surrounded by a troop

of the Life Guards. Though the day was cold and stormy, the crowd of

spectators was immense; but there was no disturbance, and no sign that

the multitude sympathized with the criminal. He behaved with a firmness

which had not been expected from him. He ascended the scaffold with

steady steps, and bowed courteously to the persons who were assembled

on it, but spoke to none, except White, the deprived Bishop of

Peterborough. White prayed with him during about half an hour. In the

prayer the King was commended to the Divine protection; but no name

which could give offence was pronounced. Fenwick then delivered a sealed

paper to the Sheriffs, took leave of the Bishop, knelt down, laid his

neck on the block, and exclaimed, "Lord Jesus, receive my soul." His

head was severed from his body at a single blow. His remains were

placed in a rich coffin, and buried that night, by torchlight, under

the pavement of Saint Martin's Church. No person has, since that day,

suffered death in England by Act of Attainder. [783]

Meanwhile an important question, about which public feeling was much

excited, had been under discussion. As soon as the Parliament met, a

Bill for Regulating Elections, differing little in substance from the

bill which the King had refused to pass in the preceding session, was

brought into the House of Commons, was eagerly welcomed by the country

gentlemen, and was pushed through every stage. On the report it

was moved that five thousand pounds in personal estate should be a

sufficient qualification for the representative of a city or borough.

But this amendment was rejected. On the third reading a rider was

added, which permitted a merchant possessed of five thousand pounds

to represent the town in which he resided; but it was provided that no

person should be considered as a merchant because he was a proprietor of

Bank Stock or East India Stock. The fight was hard. Cowper distinguished

himself among the opponents of the bill. His sarcastic remarks on the

hunting, hawking boors, who wished to keep in their own hands the whole

business of legislation, called forth some sharp rustic retorts. A plain

squire, he was told, was as likely to serve the country well as the most

fluent gownsman, who was ready, for a guinea, to prove that black was

white. On the question whether the bill should pass, the Ayes were two

hundred, the Noes a hundred and sixty. [784]

The Lords had, twelve months before, readily agreed to a similar bill;

but they had since reconsidered the subject and changed their opinion.

The truth is that, if a law requiring every member of the House of

Commons to possess an estate of some hundreds of pounds a year in land

could have been strictly enforced, such a law would have been very

advantageous to country gentlemen of moderate property, but would have

been by no means advantageous to the grandees of the realm. A lord of a

small manor would have stood for the town in the neighbourhood of which

his family had resided during centuries, without any apprehension that

he should be opposed by some alderman of London, whom the electors had

never seen before the day of nomination, and whose chief title to their

favour was a pocketbook full of bank notes. But a great nobleman, who

had an estate of fifteen or twenty thousand pounds a year, and who

commanded two or three boroughs, would no longer be able to put his

younger son, his younger brother, his man of business, into Parliament,

or to earn a garter or a step in the peerage by finding a seat for a

Lord of the Treasury or an Attorney General. On this occasion therefore

the interest of the chiefs of the aristocracy, Norfolk and Somerset,

Newcastle and Bedford, Pembroke and Dorset, coincided with that of the

wealthy traders of the City and of the clever young aspirants of the

Temple, and was diametrically opposed to the interest of a squire of

a thousand or twelve hundred a year. On the day fixed for the second

reading the attendance of lords was great. Several petitions from

constituent bodies, which thought it hard that a new restriction should

be imposed on the exercise of the elective franchise, were presented and

read. After a debate of some hours the bill was rejected by sixty-two

votes to thirty-seven. [785] Only three days later, a strong party in

the Commons, burning with resentment, proposed to tack the bill which

the Peers had just rejected to the Land Tax Bill. This motion would

probably have been carried, had not Foley gone somewhat beyond the

duties of his place, and, under pretence of speaking to order, shown

that such a tack would be without a precedent in parliamentary history.

When the question was put, the Ayes raised so loud a cry that it was

believed that they were the majority; but on a division they proved

to be only a hundred and thirty-five. The Noes were a hundred and

sixty-three. [786]

Other parliamentary proceedings of this session deserve mention. While

the Commons were busily engaged in the great work of restoring the

finances, an incident took place which seemed, during a short time,

likely to be fatal to the infant liberty of the press, but which

eventually proved the means of confirming that liberty. Among the

many newspapers which had been established since the expiration of the

censorship, was one called the Flying Post. The editor, John Salisbury,

was the tool of a band of stockjobbers in the City, whose interest it

happened to be to cry down the public securities. He one day published a

false and malicious paragraph, evidently intended to throw suspicion on

the Exchequer Bills. On the credit of the Exchequer Bills depended, at

that moment, the political greatness and the commercial prosperity of

the realm. The House of Commons was in a flame. The Speaker issued his

warrant against Salisbury. It was resolved without a division that a

bill should be brought in to prohibit the publishing of news without a

license. Forty-eight hours later the bill was presented and read. But

the members had now had time to cool. There was scarcely one of them

whose residence in the country had not, during the preceding summer,

been made more agreeable by the London journals. Meagre as those

journals may seem to a person who has the Times daily on his breakfast

table, they were to that generation a new and abundant source of

pleasure. No Devonshire or Yorkshire gentleman, Whig or Tory, could bear

the thought of being again dependent, during seven months of every year,

for all information about what was doing in the world, on newsletters.

If the bill passed, the sheets, which were now so impatiently expected

twice a week at every country seat in the kingdom, would contain nothing

but what it suited the Secretary of State to make public; they would be,

in fact, so many London Gazettes; and the most assiduous reader of the

London Gazette might be utterly ignorant of the most important events of

his time. A few voices, however, were raised in favour of a censorship.

"These papers," it was said, "frequently contain mischievous

matter." "Then why are they not prosecuted?" was the answer. "Has the

Attorney-General filed an information against any one of them? And is

it not absurd to ask us to give a new remedy by statute, when the old

remedy afforded by the common law has never been tried?" On the question

whether the bill should be read a second time, the Ayes were only

sixteen, the Noes two hundred. [787]

Another bill, which fared better, ought to be noticed as an instance of

the slow, but steady progress of civilisation. The ancient immunities

enjoyed by some districts of the capital, of which the largest and the

most infamous was Whitefriars, had produced abuses which could no longer

be endured. The Templars on one side of Alsatia, and the citizens on the

other, had long been calling on the government and the legislature to

put down so monstrous a nuisance. Yet still, bounded on the west by the

great school of English jurisprudence, and on the east by the great mart

of English trade, stood this labyrinth of squalid, tottering houses,

close packed, every one, from cellar to cockloft, with outcasts whose

life was one long war with society. The best part of the population

consisted of debtors who were in fear of bailiffs. The rest were

attorneys struck off the roll, witnesses who carried straw in their

shoes as a sign to inform the public where a false oath might be

procured for half a crown, sharpers, receivers of stolen goods, clippers

of coin, forgers of bank notes, and tawdry women, blooming with paint

and brandy, who, in their anger, made free use of their nails and their

scissors, yet whose anger was less to be dreaded than their kindness.

With these wretches the narrow alleys of the sanctuary swarmed. The

rattling of dice, the call for more punch and more wine, and the noise

of blasphemy and ribald song never ceased during the whole night. The

benchers of the Inner Temple could bear the scandal and the annoyance no

longer. They ordered the gate leading into Whitefriars to be bricked up.

The Alsatians mustered in great force, attacked the workmen, killed one

of them, pulled down the wall, knocked down the Sheriff who came to keep

the peace, and carried off his gold chain, which, no doubt, was soon in

the melting pot. The riot was not suppressed till a company of the Foot

Guards arrived. This outrage excited general indignation. The City,

indignant at the outrage offered to the Sheriff, cried loudly for

justice. Yet, so difficult was it to execute any process in the dens of

Whitefriars, that near two years elapsed before a single ringleader was

apprehended. [788]

The Savoy was another place of the same kind, smaller indeed, and less

renowned, but inhabited by a not less lawless population. An unfortunate

tailor, who ventured to go thither for the purpose of demanding payment

of a debt, was set upon by the whole mob of cheats, ruffians and

courtesans. He offered to give a full discharge to his debtor and a

treat to the rabble, but in vain. He had violated their franchises;

and this crime was not to be pardoned. He was knocked down, stripped,

tarred, feathered. A rope was tied round his waist. He was dragged naked

up and down the streets amidst yells of "A bailiff! A bailiff!" Finally

he was compelled to kneel down and to curse his father and mother.

Having performed this ceremony he was permitted,--and the permission was

blamed by many of the Savoyards,--to limp home without a rag upon him.

[789] The Bog of Allen, the passes of the Grampians, were not more

unsafe than this small knot of lanes, surrounded by the mansions of the

greatest nobles of a flourishing and enlightened kingdom.

At length, in 1697, a bill for abolishing the franchises of these places

passed both Houses, and received the royal assent. The Alsatians

and Savoyards were furious. Anonymous letters, containing menaces of

assassination, were received by members of Parliament who had made

themselves conspicuous by the zeal with which they had supported the

bill; but such threats only strengthened the general conviction that

it was high time to destroy these nests of knaves and ruffians. A

fortnight's grace was allowed; and it was made known that, when that

time had expired, the vermin who had been the curse of London would be

unearthed and hunted without mercy. There was a tumultuous flight to

Ireland, to France, to the Colonies, to vaults and garrets in less

notorious parts of the capital; and when, on the prescribed day, the

Sheriff's officers ventured to cross the boundary, they found those

streets where, a few weeks before, the cry of "A writ!" would have drawn

together a thousand raging bullies and vixens, as quiet as the cloister

of a cathedral. [790]

On the sixteenth of April, the King closed the session with a speech,

in which he returned warm and well merited thanks to the Houses for the

firmness and wisdom which had rescued the nation from commercial and

financial difficulties unprecedented in our history. Before he set out

for the Continent, he conferred some new honours, and made some

new ministerial arrangements. Every member of the Whig junto was

distinguished by some conspicuous mark of royal favour. Somers delivered

up the seal, of which he was Keeper; he received it back again with the

higher title of Chancellor, and was immediately commanded to affix it to

a patent, by which he was created Baron Somers of Evesham. [791] Russell

became Earl of Orford and Viscount Barfleur. No English title had

ever before been taken from a place of battle lying within a foreign

territory. But the precedent then set has been repeatedly followed; and

the names of Saint Vincent, Trafalgar, Camperdown, and Douro are now

borne by the successors of great commanders. Russell seems to have

accepted his earldom, after his fashion, not only without gratitude, but

grumblingly, and as if some great wrong had been done him. What was

a coronet to him? He had no child to inherit it. The only distinction

which he should have prized was the garter; and the garter had been

given to Portland. Of course, such things were for the Dutch; and it was

strange presumption in an Englishman, though he might have won a victory

which had saved the State, to expect that his pretensions would be

considered till all the Mynheers about the palace had been served. [792]

Wharton, still retaining his place of Comptroller of the Household,

obtained the lucrative office of Chief Justice in Eyre, South of Trent;

and his brother, Godwin Wharton, was made a Lord of the Admiralty. [793]

Though the resignation of Godolphin had been accepted in October, no new

commission of Treasury was issued till after the prorogation. Who should

be First Commissioner was a question long and fiercely disputed. For

Montague's faults had made him many enemies, and his merits many more,

Dull formalists sneered at him as a wit and poet, who, no doubt, showed

quick parts in debate, but who had already been raised far higher than

his services merited or than his brain would bear. It would be absurd

to place such a young coxcomb, merely because he could talk fluently and

cleverly, in an office on which the wellbeing of the kingdom depended.

Surely Sir Stephen Fox was, of all the Lords of the Treasury, the

fittest to be at the head of the Board. He was an elderly man, grave,

experienced, exact, laborious; and he had never made a verse in his

life. The King hesitated during a considerable time between the two

candidates; but time was all in Montague's favour; for, from the first

to the last day of the session, his fame was constantly rising. The

voice of the House of Commons and of the City loudly designated him as

preeminently qualified to be the chief minister of finance. At length

Sir Stephen Fox withdrew from the competition, though not with a very

good grace. He wished it to be notified in the London Gazette that the

place of First Lord had been offered to him, and declined by him. Such

a notification would have been an affront to Montague; and Montague,

flushed with prosperity and glory, was not in a mood to put up with

affronts. The dispute was compromised. Montague became First Lord of

the Treasury; and the vacant seat at the Board was filled by Sir Thomas

Littleton, one of the ablest and most consistent Whigs in the House

of Commons. But, from tenderness to Fox, these promotions were not

announced in the Gazette. [794]

Dorset resigned the office of Chamberlain, but not in ill humour,

and retired loaded with marks of royal favour. He was succeeded by

Sunderland, who was also appointed one of the Lords Justices, not

without much murmuring from various quarters. [795] To the Tories

Sunderland was an object of unmixed detestation. Some of the Whig

leaders had been unable to resist his insinuating address; and others

were grateful for the services which he had lately rendered to the

party. But the leaders could not restrain their followers. Plain men,

who were zealous for civil liberty and for the Protestant religion, who

were beyond the range of Sunderland's irresistible fascination, and

who knew that he had sate in the High Commission, concurred in the

Declaration of Indulgence, borne witness against the Seven Bishops, and

received the host from a Popish priest, could not, without indignation

and shame, see him standing, with the staff in his hand, close to the

throne. Still more monstrous was it that such a man should be entrusted

with the administration of the government during the absence of the

Sovereign. William did not understand these feelings. Sunderland was

able; he was useful; he was unprincipled indeed; but so were all the

English politicians of the generation which had learned, under the

sullen tyranny of the Saints, to disbelieve in virtue, and which had,

during the wild jubilee of the Restoration, been utterly dissolved in

vice. He was a fair specimen of his class, a little worse, perhaps, than

Leeds or Godolphin, and about as bad as Russell or Marlborough. Why he

was to be hunted from the herd the King could not imagine.

Notwithstanding the discontent which was caused by Sunderland's

elevation, England was, during this summer, perfectly quiet and in

excellent temper. All but the fanatical Jacobites were elated by the

rapid revival of trade and by the near prospect of peace. Nor were

Ireland and Scotland less tranquil.

In Ireland nothing deserving to be minutely related had taken place

since Sidney had ceased to be Lord Lieutenant. The government had

suffered the colonists to domineer unchecked over the native population;

and the colonists had in return been profoundly obsequious to the

government. The proceedings of the local legislature which sate at

Dublin had been in no respect more important or more interesting than

the proceedings of the Assembly of Barbadoes. Perhaps the most momentous

event in the parliamentary history of Ireland at this time was a dispute

between the two Houses which was caused by a collision between the coach

of the Speaker and the coach of the Chancellor. There were, indeed,

factions, but factions which sprang merely from personal pretensions and

animosities. The names of Whig and Tory had been carried across Saint

George's Channel, but had in the passage lost all their meaning. A man

who was called a Tory at Dublin would have passed at Westminster for as

stanch a Whig as Wharton. The highest Churchmen in Ireland abhorred

and dreaded Popery so much that they were disposed to consider every

Protestant as a brother. They remembered the tyranny of James, the

robberies, the burnings, the confiscations, the brass money, the Act

of Attainder, with bitter resentment. They honoured William as their

deliverer and preserver. Nay, they could not help feeling a certain

respect even for the memory of Cromwell; for, whatever else he might

have been, he had been the champion and the avenger of their race.

Between the divisions of England, therefore, and the divisions of

Ireland, there was scarcely any thing in common. In England there were

two parties, of the same race and religion, contending with each other.

In Ireland there were two castes, of different races and religions, one

trampling on the other.

Scotland too was quiet. The harvest of the last year had indeed been

scanty; and there was consequently much suffering. But the spirit of

the nation was buoyed up by wild hopes, destined to end in cruel

disappointment. A magnificent daydream of wealth and empire so

completely occupied the minds of men that they hardly felt the present

distress. How that dream originated, and by how terrible an awakening it

was broken, will be related hereafter.

In the autumn of 1696 the Estates of Scotland met at Edinburgh. The

attendance was thin; and the session lasted only five weeks. A supply

amounting to little more than a hundred thousand pounds sterling was

voted. Two Acts for the securing of the government were passed. One of

those Acts required all persons in public trust to sign an Association

similar to the Association which had been so generally subscribed in

the south of the island. The other Act provided that the Parliament of

Scotland should not be dissolved by the death of the King. But by far

the most important event of this short session was the passing of the

Act for the settling of Schools. By this memorable law it was, in the

Scotch phrase, statuted and ordained that every parish in the realm

should provide a commodious schoolhouse and should pay a moderate

stipend to a schoolmaster. The effect could not be immediately felt.

But, before one generation had passed away, it began to be evident

that the common people of Scotland were superior in intelligence to

the common people of any other country in Europe. To whatever land the

Scotchman might wander, to whatever calling he might betake himself, in

America or in India, in trade or in war, the advantage which he derived

from his early training raised him above his competitors. If he was

taken into a warehouse as a porter, he soon became foreman. If he

enlisted in the army, he soon became a serjeant. Scotland, meanwhile,

in spite of the barrenness of her soil and the severity of her climate,

made such progress in agriculture, in manufactures, in commerce, in

letters, in science, in all that constitutes civilisation, as the Old

World had never seen equalled, and as even the New World has scarcely

seen surpassed.

This wonderful change is to be attributed, not indeed solely, but

principally, to the national system of education. But to the men by whom

that system was established posterity owes no gratitude. They knew

not what they were doing. They were the unconscious instruments of

enlightening the understandings and humanising the hearts of millions.

But their own understandings were as dark and their own hearts as

obdurate as those of the Familiars of the Inquisition at Lisbon. In the

very month in which the Act for the settling of Schools was touched with

the sceptre, the rulers of the Church and State in Scotland began to

carry on with vigour two persecutions worthy of the tenth century,

a persecution of witches and a persecution of infidels. A crowd of

wretches, guilty only of being old and miserable, were accused of

trafficking with the devil. The Privy Council was not ashamed to issue

a Commission for the trial of twenty-two of these poor creatures. [796]

The shops of the booksellers of Edinburgh were strictly searched for

heretical works. Impious books, among which the sages of the Presbytery

ranked Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, were strictly

suppressed. [797] But the destruction of mere paper and sheepskin would

not satisfy the bigots. Their hatred required victims who could feel,

and was not appeased till they had perpetrated a crime such as has never

since polluted the island.

A student of eighteen, named Thomas Aikenhead, whose habits were

studious and whose morals were irreproachable, had, in the course of his

reading, met with some of the ordinary arguments against the Bible. He

fancied that he had lighted on a mine of wisdom which had been hidden

from the rest of mankind, and, with the conceit from which half educated

lads of quick parts are seldom free, proclaimed his discoveries to four

or five of his companions. Trinity in unity, he said, was as much a

contradiction as a square circle. Ezra was the author of the Pentateuch.

The Apocalypse was an allegorical book about the philosopher's stone.

Moses had learned magic in Egypt. Christianity was a delusion which

would not last till the year 1800. For this wild talk, of which, in all

probability, he would himself have been ashamed long before he was five

and twenty, he was prosecuted by the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate

was that James Stewart who had been so often a Whig and so often a

Jacobite that it is difficult to keep an account of his apostasies. He

was now a Whig for the third if not for the fourth time. Aikenhead

might undoubtedly have been, by the law of Scotland, punished with

imprisonment till he should retract his errors and do penance before the

congregation of his parish; and every man of sense and humanity would

have thought this a sufficient punishment for the prate of a forward

boy. But Stewart, as cruel as he was base, called for blood. There was

among the Scottish statutes one which made it a capital crime to revile

or curse the Supreme Being or any person of the Trinity. Nothing that

Aikenhead had said could, without the most violent straining, be brought

within the scope of this statute. But the Lord Advocate exerted all his

subtlety. The poor youth at the bar had no counsel. He was altogether

unable to do justice to his own cause. He was convicted, and sentenced

to be hanged and buried at the foot of the gallows. It was in vain that

he with tears abjured his errors and begged piteously for mercy. Some

of those who saw him in his dungeon believed that his recantation was

sincere; and indeed it is by no means improbable that in him, as in many

other pretenders to philosophy who imagine that they have completely

emancipated themselves from the religion of their childhood, the near

prospect of death may have produced an entire change of sentiment. He

petitioned the Privy Council that, if his life could not be spared, he

might be allowed a short respite to make his peace with the God whom

he had offended. Some of the Councillors were for granting this small

indulgence. Others thought that it ought not to be granted unless the

ministers of Edinburgh would intercede. The two parties were evenly

balanced; and the question was decided against the prisoner by the

casting vote of the Chancellor. The Chancellor was a man who has been

often mentioned in the course of this history, and never mentioned with

honour. He was that Sir Patrick Hume whose disputatious and factious

temper had brought ruin on the expedition of Argyle, and had caused not

a little annoyance to the government of William. In the Club which had

braved the King and domineered over the Parliament there had been no

more noisy republican. But a title and a place had produced a wonderful

conversion. Sir Patrick was now Lord Polwarth; he had the custody of the

Great Seal of Scotland; he presided in the Privy Council; and thus he

had it in his power to do the worst action of his bad life.

It remained to be seen how the clergy of Edinburgh would act. That

divines should be deaf to the entreaties of a penitent who asks, not for

pardon, but for a little more time to receive their instructions and to

pray to Heaven for the mercy which cannot be extended to him on earth,

seems almost incredible. Yet so it was. The ministers demanded, not

only the poor boy's death, but his speedy death, though it should be his

eternal death. Even from their pulpits they cried out for cutting him

off. It is probable that their real reason for refusing him a respite

of a few days was their apprehension that the circumstances of his case

might be reported at Kensington, and that the King, who, while reciting

the Coronation Oath, had declared from the throne that he would not be a

persecutor, might send down positive orders that the sentence should

not be executed. Aikenhead was hanged between Edinburgh and Leith. He

professed deep repentance, and suffered with the Bible in his hand. The

people of Edinburgh, though assuredly not disposed to think lightly of

his offence, were moved to compassion by his youth, by his penitence,

and by the cruel haste with which he was hurried out of the world. It

seems that there was some apprehension of a rescue; for a strong body of

fusileers was under arms to support the civil power. The preachers who

were the boy's murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and, while

he was struggling in the last agony, insulted Heaven with prayers more

blasphemous than any thing that he had ever uttered. Wodrow has told no

blacker story of Dundee. [798]

On the whole, the British islands had not, during ten years, been so

free from internal troubles as when William, at the close of April 1697,

set out for the Continent. The war in the Netherlands was a little,

and but a little, less languid than in the preceding year. The French

generals opened the campaign by taking the small town of Aeth. They then

meditated a far more important conquest. They made a sudden push for

Brussels, and would probably have succeeded in their design but for the

activity of William. He was encamped on ground which lies within

sight of the Lion of Waterloo, when he received, late in the evening,

intelligence that the capital of the Netherlands was in danger. He

instantly put his forces in motion, marched all night, and, having

traversed the field destined to acquire, a hundred and eighteen years

later, a terrible renown, and threaded the long defiles of the Forest of

Soignies, he was at ten in the morning on the spot from which Brussels

had been bombarded two years before, and would, if he had been only

three hours later, have been bombarded again. Here he surrounded himself

with entrenchments which the enemy did not venture to attack. This was

the most important military event which, during that summer, took place

in the Low Countries. In both camps there was an unwillingness to run

any great risk on the eve of a general pacification.

Lewis had, early in the spring, for the first time during his long

reign, spontaneously offered equitable and honourable conditions to his

foes. He had declared himself willing to relinquish the conquests which

he had made in the course of the war, to cede Lorraine to its own Duke,

to give back Luxemburg to Spain, to give back Strasburg to the Empire

and to acknowledge the existing government of England. [799]

Those who remembered the great woes which his faithless and merciless

ambition had brought on Europe might well suspect that this unwonted

moderation was not to be ascribed to sentiments of justice or humanity.

But, whatever might be his motive for proposing such terms, it was

plainly the interest and the duty of the Confederacy to accept them.

For there was little hope indeed of wringing from him by war concessions

larger than those which he now tendered as the price of peace. The most

sanguine of his enemies could hardly expect a long series of campaigns

as successful as the campaign of 1695. Yet in a long series of

campaigns, as successful as that of 1695, the allies would hardly be

able to retake all that he now professed himself ready to restore.

William, who took, as usual, a clear and statesmanlike view of the whole

situation, now gave his voice as decidedly for concluding peace as he

had in former years given it for vigorously prosecuting the war; and he

was backed by the public opinion both of England and of Holland. But,

unhappily, just at the time when the two powers which alone, among

the members of the coalition, had manfully done their duty in the long

struggle, were beginning to rejoice in the near prospect of repose, some

of those governments which had never furnished their full contingents,

which had never been ready in time, which had been constantly sending

excuses in return for subsidies, began to raise difficulties such as

seemed likely to make the miseries of Europe eternal.

Spain had, as William, in the bitterness of his spirit, wrote to

Heinsius, contributed nothing to the common cause but rodomontades. She

had made no vigorous effort even to defend her own territories against

invasion. She would have lost Flanders and Brabant but for the English

and Dutch armies. She would have lost Catalonia but for the English

and Dutch fleets. The Milanese she had saved, not by arms, but by

concluding, in spite of the remonstrances of the English and Dutch

governments, an ignominious treaty of neutrality. She had not a ship of

war able to weather a gale. She had not a regiment that was not ill paid

and ill disciplined, ragged and famished. Yet repeatedly, within the

last two years, she had treated both William and the States General with

an impertinence which showed that she was altogether ignorant of her

place among states. She now became punctilious, demanded from Lewis

concessions which the events of the war gave her no right to expect, and

seemed to think it hard that allies, whom she was constantly treating

with indignity, were not willing to lavish their blood and treasure for

her during eight years more.

The conduct of Spain is to be attributed merely to arrogance and folly.

But the unwillingness of the Emperor to consent even to the fairest

terms of accommodation was the effect of selfish ambition. The Catholic

King was childless; he was sickly; his life was not worth three years'

purchase; and when he died, his dominions would be left to be struggled

for by a crowd of competitors. Both the House of Austria and the House

of Bourbon had claims to that immense heritage. It was plainly for the

interest of the House of Austria that the important day, come when it

might, should find a great European coalition in arms against the House

of Bourbon. The object of the Emperor therefore was that the war should

continue to be carried on, as it had hitherto been carried on, at a

light charge to him and a heavy charge to England and Holland, not till

just conditions of peace could be obtained, but simply till the King

of Spain should die. "The ministers of the Emperor," William wrote to

Heinsius, "ought to be ashamed of their conduct. It is intolerable

that a government which is doing every thing in its power to make the

negotiations fail, should contribute nothing to the common defence."

[800]

It is not strange that in such circumstances the work of pacification

should have made little progress. International law, like other law, has

its chicanery, its subtle pleadings, its technical forms, which may

too easily be so employed as to make its substance inefficient. Those

litigants therefore who did not wish the litigation to come to a speedy

close had no difficulty in interposing delays. There was a long dispute

about the place where the conferences should be held. The Emperor

proposed Aix la Chapelle. The French objected, and proposed the Hague.

Then the Emperor objected in his turn. At last it was arranged that the

ministers of the Allied Powers should meet at the Hague, and that the

French plenipotentiaries should take up their abode five miles off

at Delft. [801] To Delft accordingly repaired Harlay, a man of

distinguished wit and good breeding, sprung from one of the great

families of the robe; Crecy, a shrewd, patient and laborious

diplomatist; and Cailleres, who, though he was named only third in the

credentials, was much better informed than either of his colleagues

touching all the points which were likely to be debated. [802] At the

Hague were the Earl of Pembroke and Edward, Viscount Villiers, who

represented England. Prior accompanied them with the rank of Secretary.

At the head of the Imperial Legation was Count Kaunitz; at the head of

the Spanish Legation was Don Francisco Bernardo de Quiros; the ministers

of inferior rank it would be tedious to enumerate. [803]

Half way between Delft and the Hague is a village named Ryswick; and

near it then stood, in a rectangular garden, which was bounded by

straight canals, and divided into formal woods, flower beds and melon

beds, a seat of the Princes of Orange. The house seemed to have been

built expressly for the accommodation of such a set of diplomatists as

were to meet there. In the centre was a large hall painted by Honthorst.

On the right hand and on the left were wings exactly corresponding to

each other. Each wing was accessible by its own bridge, its own gate and

its own avenue. One wing was assigned to the Allies, the other to the

French, the hall in the centre to the mediator. [804] Some preliminary

questions of etiquette were, not without difficulty, adjusted; and

at length, on the ninth of May, many coaches and six, attended by

harbingers, footmen and pages, approached the mansion by different

roads. The Swedish Minister alighted at the grand entrance. The

procession from the Hague came up the side alley on the right. The

procession from Delft came up the side alley on the left. At the first

meeting, the full powers of the representatives of the belligerent

governments were delivered to the mediator. At the second meeting,

forty-eight hours later, the mediator performed the ceremony of

exchanging these full powers. Then several meetings were spent in

settling how many carriages, how many horses, how many lacqueys, how

many pages, each minister should be entitled to bring to Ryswick;

whether the serving men should carry canes; whether they should wear

swords; whether they should have pistols in their holsters; who should

take the upper hand in the public walks, and whose carriage should break

the way in the streets. It soon appeared that the mediator would have to

mediate, not only between the coalition and the French, but also between

the different members of the coalition. The Imperial Ambassadors claimed

a right to sit at the head of the table. The Spanish Ambassador would

not admit this pretension, and tried to thrust himself in between two

of them. The Imperial Ambassadors refused to call the Ambassadors of

Electors and Commonwealths by the title of Excellency. "If I am not

called Excellency," said the Minister of the Elector of Brandenburg, "my

master will withdraw his troops from Hungary." The Imperial Ambassadors

insisted on having a room to themselves in the building, and on having

a special place assigned to their carriages in the court. All the

other Ministers of the Confederacy pronounced this a most unjustifiable

demand, and a whole sitting was wasted in this childish dispute. It may

easily be supposed that allies who were so punctilious in their dealings

with each other were not likely to be very easy in their intercourse

with the common enemy. The chief business of Earlay and Kaunitz was to

watch each other's legs. Neither of them thought it consistent with the

dignity of the Crown which he served to advance towards the other faster

than the other advanced towards him. If therefore one of them perceived

that he had inadvertently stepped forward too quick, he went back to the

door, and the stately minuet began again. The ministers of Lewis drew

up a paper in their own language. The German statesmen protested against

this innovation, this insult to the dignity of the Holy Roman Empire,

this encroachment on the rights of independent nations, and would not

know any thing about the paper till it had been translated from good

French into bad Latin. In the middle of April it was known to every body

at the Hague that Charles the Eleventh, King of Sweden, was dead, and

had been succeeded by his son; but it was contrary to etiquette that any

of the assembled envoys should appear to be acquainted with this fact

till Lilienroth had made a formal announcement; it was not less contrary

to etiquette that Lilienroth should make such an announcement till his

equipages and his household had been put into mourning; and some weeks

elapsed before his coachmakers and tailors had completed their task. At

length, on the twelfth of June, he came to Ryswick in a carriage lined

with black and attended by servants in black liveries, and there, in

full congress, proclaimed that it had pleased God to take to himself

the most puissant King Charles the Eleventh. All the Ambassadors then

condoled with him on the sad and unexpected news, and went home to put

off their embroidery and to dress themselves in the garb of sorrow. In

such solemn trifling week after week passed away. No real progress was

made. Lilienroth had no wish to accelerate matters. While the congress

lasted, his position was one of great dignity. He would willingly have

gone on mediating for ever; and he could not go on mediating, unless the

parties on his right and on his left went on wrangling. [805]

In June the hope of peace began to grow faint. Men remembered that the

last war had continued to rage, year after year, while a congress was

sitting at Nimeguen. The mediators had made their entrance into that

town in February 1676. The treaty had not been signed till February

1679. Yet the negotiation of Nimeguen had not proceeded more slowly

than the negotiation of Ryswick. It seemed but too probable that the

eighteenth century would find great armies still confronting each other

on the Meuse and the Rhine, industrious populations still ground down

by taxation, fertile provinces still lying waste, the ocean still made

impassable by corsairs, and the plenipotentiaries still exchanging

notes, drawing up protocols, and wrangling about the place where this

minister should sit, and the title by which that minister should be

called.

But William was fully determined to bring this mummery to a speedy

close. He would have either peace or war. Either was, in his view,

better than this intermediate state which united the disadvantages of

both. While the negotiation was pending there could be no diminution

of the burdens which pressed on his people; and yet he could expect

no energetic action from his allies. If France was really disposed to

conclude a treaty on fair terms, that treaty should be concluded in

spite of the imbecility of the Catholic King and in spite of the selfish

cunning of the Emperor. If France was insecure, the sooner the truth was

known, the sooner the farce which was acting at Ryswick was over, the

sooner the people of England and Holland,--for on them every thing

depended,--were told that they must make up their minds to great

exertions and sacrifices, the better.

Pembroke and Villiers, though they had now the help of a veteran

diplomatist, Sir Joseph Williamson, could do little or nothing to

accelerate the proceedings of the Congress. For, though France had

promised that, whenever peace should be made, she would recognise the

Prince of Orange as King of Great Britain and Ireland, she had not yet

recognised him. His ministers had therefore had no direct intercourse

with Harlay, Crecy and Cailleres. William, with the judgment and

decision of a true statesman, determined to open a communication

with Lewis through one of the French Marshals who commanded in the

Netherlands. Of those Marshals Villeroy was the highest in rank. But

Villeroy was weak, rash, haughty, irritable. Such a negotiator was

far more likely to embroil matters than to bring them to an amicable

settlement. Boufflers was a man of sense and temper; and fortunately he

had, during the few days which he had passed at Huy after the fall of

Namur, been under the care of Portland, by whom he had been treated with

the greatest courtesy and kindness. A friendship had sprung up between

the prisoner and his keeper. They were both brave soldiers, honourable

gentlemen, trusty servants. William justly thought that they were far

more likely to come to an understanding than Harlay and Kaunitz even

with the aid of Lilienroth. Portland indeed had all the essential

qualities of an excellent diplomatist. In England, the people were

prejudiced against him as a foreigner; his earldom, his garter, his

lucrative places, his rapidly growing wealth, excited envy; his dialect

was not understood; his manners were not those of the men of fashion

who had been formed at Whitehall; his abilities were therefore greatly

underrated; and it was the fashion to call him a blockhead, fit only

to carry messages. But, on the Continent, where he was judged without

malevolence, he made a very different impression. It is a remarkable

fact that this man, who in the drawingrooms and coffeehouses of London

was described as an awkward, stupid, Hogan Mogan,--such was the phrase

at that time,--was considered at Versailles as an eminently polished

courtier and an eminently expert negotiator. [806] His chief

recommendation however was his incorruptible integrity. It was certain

that the interests which were committed to his care would be as dear to

him as his own life, and that every report which he made to his master

would be literally exact.

Towards the close of June Portland sent to Boufflers a friendly message,

begging for an interview of half an hour. Boufflers instantly sent off

an express to Lewis, and received an answer in the shortest time in

which it was possible for a courier to ride post to Versailles and back

again. Lewis directed the Marshal to comply with Portland's request, to

say as little as possible, and to learn as much as possible. [807]

On the twenty-eighth of June, according to the Old Style, the meeting

took place in the neighbourhood of Hal, a town which lies about ten

miles from Brussels, on the road to Mons. After the first civilities

had been exchanged, Boufflers and Portland dismounted; their attendants

retired; and the two negotiators were left alone in an orchard. Here

they walked up and down during two hours, and, in that time, did

much more business than the plenipotentiaries at Ryswick were able to

despatch in as many months. [808]

Till this time the French government had entertained a suspicion,

natural indeed, but altogether erroneous, that William was bent on

protracting the war, that he had consented to treat merely because

he could not venture to oppose himself to the public opinion both

of England and of Holland, but that he wished the negotiation to be

abortive, and that the perverse conduct of the House of Austria and the

difficulties which had arisen at Ryswick were to be chiefly ascribed

to his machinations. That suspicion was now removed. Compliments, cold,

austere and full of dignity, yet respectful, were exchanged between the

two great princes whose enmity had, during a quarter of a century, kept

Europe in constant agitation. The negotiation between Boufflers and

Portland proceeded as fast as the necessity of frequent reference to

Versailles would permit. Their first five conferences were held in the

open air; but, at their sixth meeting, they retired into a small house

in which Portland had ordered tables, pens, ink and paper to be placed;

and here the result of their labours was reduced to writing.

The really important points which had been in issue were four. William

had at first demanded two concessions from Lewis; and Lewis had demanded

two concessions from William.

William's first demand was that France should bind herself to give no

help or countenance, directly or indirectly, to any attempt which might

be made by James, or by James's adherents, to disturb the existing order

of things in England.

William's second demand was that James should no longer be suffered to

reside at a place so dangerously near to England as Saint Germains.

To the first of these demands Lewis replied that he was perfectly

ready to bind himself by the most solemn engagements not to assist or

countenance, in any manner, any attempt to disturb the existing order of

things in England; but that it was inconsistent with his honour that the

name of his kinsman and guest should appear in the treaty.

To the second demand Lewis replied that he could not refuse his

hospitality to an unfortunate king who had taken refuge in his

dominions, and that he could not promise even to indicate a wish that

James would quit Saint Germains. But Boufflers, as if speaking his own

thoughts, though doubtless saying nothing but what he knew to be in

conformity to his master's wishes, hinted that the matter would probably

be managed, and named Avignon as a place where the banished family might

reside without giving any umbrage to the English government.

Lewis, on the other side, demanded, first, that a general amnesty should

be granted to the Jacobites; and secondly, that Mary of Modena should

receive her jointure of fifty thousand pounds a year.

With the first of these demands William peremptorily refused to comply.

He should always be ready, of his own free will, to pardon the offences

of men who showed a disposition to live quietly for the future under

his government; but he could not consent to make the exercise of his

prerogative of mercy a matter of stipulation with any foreign power. The

annuity claimed by Mary of Modena he would willingly pay, if he could

only be satisfied that it would not be expended in machinations against

his throne and his person, in supporting, on the coast of Kent, another

establishment like that of Hunt, or in buying horses and arms for

another enterprise like that of Turnham Green. Boufflers had mentioned

Avignon. If James and his Queen would take up their abode there, no

difficulties would be made about the jointure.

At length all the questions in dispute were settled. After much

discussion an article was framed by which Lewis pledged his word of

honour that he would not favour, in any manner, any attempt to subvert

or disturb the existing government of England. William, in return, gave

his promise not to countenance any attempt against the government of

France. This promise Lewis had not asked, and at first seemed inclined

to consider as an affront. His throne, he said, was perfectly secure,

his title undisputed. There were in his dominions no nonjurors, no

conspirators; and he did not think it consistent with his dignity to

enter into a compact which seemed to imply that he was in fear of plots

and insurrections such as a dynasty sprung from a revolution might

naturally apprehend. On this point, however, he gave way; and it was

agreed that the covenants should be strictly reciprocal. William ceased

to demand that James should be mentioned by name; and Lewis ceased to

demand that an amnesty should be granted to James's adherents. It was

determined that nothing should be said in the treaty, either about the

place where the banished King of England should reside, or about the

jointure of his Queen. But William authorised his plenipotentiaries at

the Congress to declare that Mary of Modena should have whatever, on

examination, it should appear that she was by law entitled to have.

What she was by law entitled to have was a question which it would have

puzzled all Westminster Hall to answer. But it was well understood that

she would receive, without any contest, the utmost that she could have

any pretence for asking as soon as she and her husband should retire to

Provence or to Italy. [809]

Before the end of July every thing was settled, as far as France

and England were concerned. Meanwhile it was known to the ministers

assembled at Ryswick that Boufflers and Portland had repeatedly met

in Brabant, and that they were negotiating in a most irregular and

indecorous manner, without credentials, or mediation, or notes, or

protocols, without counting each other's steps, and without calling each

other Excellency. So barbarously ignorant were they of the rudiments of

the noble science of diplomacy that they had very nearly accomplished

the work of restoring peace to Christendom while walking up and down

an alley under some apple trees. The English and Dutch loudly applauded

William's prudence and decision. He had cut the knot which the Congress

had only twisted and tangled. He had done in a month what all the

formalists and pedants assembled at the Hague would not have done in

ten years. Nor were the French plenipotentiaries ill pleased. "It

is curious," said Harlay, a man of wit and sense, "that, while the

Ambassadors are making war, the generals should be making peace." [810]

But Spain preserved the same air of arrogant listlessness; and the

ministers of the Emperor, forgetting apparently that their master had,

a few months before, concluded a treaty of neutrality for Italy without

consulting William, seemed to think it most extraordinary that William

should presume to negotiate without consulting their master. It became

daily more evident that the Court of Vienna was bent on prolonging the

war. On the tenth of July the French ministers again proposed fair

and honourable terms of peace, but added that, if those terms were not

accepted by the twenty-first of August, the Most Christian King would

not consider himself bound by his offer. [811] William in vain exhorted

his allies to be reasonable. The senseless pride of one branch of the

House of Austria and the selfish policy of the other were proof to all

argument. The twenty-first of August came and passed; the treaty had not

been signed.

France was at liberty to raise her demands; and she did so. For just at

this time news arrived of two great blows which had fallen on Spain,

one in the Old and one in the New World. A French army, commanded by

Vendome, had taken Barcelona. A French squadron had stolen out of Brest,

had eluded the allied fleets, had crossed the Atlantic, had sacked

Carthagena, and had returned to France laden with treasure. [812] The

Spanish government passed at once from haughty apathy to abject terror,

and was ready to accept any conditions which the conqueror might

dictate. The French plenipotentiaries announced to the Congress that

their master was determined to keep Strasburg, and that, unless the

terms which he had offered, thus modified, were accepted by the tenth

of September, he should hold himself at liberty to insist on further

modifications. Never had the temper of William been more severely tried.

He was provoked by the perverseness of his allies; he was provoked by

the imperious language of the enemy. It was not without a hard struggle

and a sharp pang that he made up his mind to consent to what France now

proposed. But he felt that it would be utterly impossible, even if it

were desirable, to prevail on the House of Commons and on the States

General to continue the war for the purpose of wresting from France a

single fortress, a fortress in the fate of which neither England nor

Holland had any immediate interest, a fortress, too, which had been lost

to the Empire solely in consequence of the unreasonable obstinacy of the

Imperial Court. He determined to accept the modified terms, and

directed his Ambassadors at Ryswick to sign on the prescribed day. The

Ambassadors of Spain and Holland received similar instructions. There

was no doubt that the Emperor, though he murmured and protested, would

soon follow the example of his confederates. That he might have time to

make up his mind, it was stipulated that he should be included in the

treaty if he notified his adhesion by the first of November.

Meanwhile James was moving the mirth and pity of all Europe by his

lamentations and menaces. He had in vain insisted on his right to send,

as the only true King of England, a minister to the Congress. [813]

He had in vain addressed to all the Roman Catholic princes of the

Confederacy a memorial in which he adjured them to join with France in

a crusade against England for the purpose of restoring him to his

inheritance, and of annulling that impious Bill of Rights which excluded

members of the true Church from the throne. [814] When he found that

this appeal was disregarded, he put forth a solemn protest against the

validity of all treaties to which the existing government of England

should be a party. He pronounced all the engagements into which his

kingdom had entered since the Revolution null and void. He gave notice

that he should not, if he should regain his power, think himself bound

by any of those engagements. He admitted that he might, by breaking

those engagements, bring great calamities both on his own dominions and

on all Christendom. But for those calamities he declared that he should

not think himself answerable either before God or before man. It seems

almost incredible that even a Stuart, and the worst and dullest of the

Stuarts, should have thought that the first duty, not merely of his own

subjects, but of all mankind, was to support his rights; that Frenchmen,

Germans, Italians, Spaniards, were guilty of a crime if they did not

shed their blood and lavish their wealth, year after year, in his cause;

that the interests of the sixty millions of human beings to whom peace

would be a blessing were of absolutely no account when compared with the

interests of one man. [815]

In spite of his protests the day of peace drew nigh. On the tenth of

September the Ambassadors of France, England, Spain and the United

Provinces, met at Ryswick. Three treaties were to be signed, and there

was a long dispute on the momentous question which should be signed

first. It was one in the morning before it was settled that the treaty

between France and the States General should have precedence; and the

day was breaking before all the instruments had been executed. Then the

plenipotentiaries, with many bows, congratulated each other on having

had the honour of contributing to so great a work. [816]

A sloop was in waiting for Prior. He hastened on board, and on the

third day, after weathering an equinoctial gale, landed on the coast of

Suffolk. [817]

Very seldom had there been greater excitement in London than during the

month which preceded his arrival. When the west wind kept back the

Dutch packets, the anxiety of the people became intense. Every morning

hundreds of thousands rose up hoping to hear that the treaty was signed;

and every mail which came in without bringing the good news caused

bitter disappointment. The malecontents, indeed, loudly asserted that

there would be no peace, and that the negotiation would, even at this

late hour, be broken off. One of them had seen a person just arrived

from Saint Germains; another had had the privilege of reading a letter

in the handwriting of Her Majesty; and all were confident that Lewis

would never acknowledge the usurper. Many of those who held this

language were under so strong a delusion that they backed their opinion

by large wagers. When the intelligence of the fall of Barcelona arrived,

all the treason taverns were in a ferment with nonjuring priests

laughing, talking loud, and shaking each other by the hand. [818]

At length, in the afternoon of the thirteenth of September, some

speculators in the City received, by a private channel, certain

intelligence that the treaty had been signed before dawn on the morning

of the eleventh. They kept their own secret, and hastened to make a

profitable use of it; but their eagerness to obtain Bank stock, and

the high prices which they offered, excited suspicion; and there was

a general belief that on the next day something important would be

announced. On the next day Prior, with the treaty, presented himself

before the Lords justices at Whitehall. Instantly a flag was hoisted on

the Abbey, another on Saint Martin's Church. The Tower guns proclaimed

the glad tidings. All the spires and towers from Greenwich to Chelsea

made answer. It was not one of the days on which the newspapers

ordinarily appeared; but extraordinary numbers, with headings in large

capitals, were, for the first time, cried about the streets. The price

of Bank stock rose fast from eighty-four to ninety-seven. In a few

hours triumphal arches began to rise in some places. Huge bonfires were

blazing in others. The Dutch ambassador informed the States General that

he should try to show his joy by a bonfire worthy of the commonwealth

which he represented; and he kept his word; for no such pyre had ever

been seen in London. A hundred and forty barrels of pitch roared and

blazed before his house in Saint James's Square, and sent up a flame

which made Pall Mall and Piccadilly as bright as at noonday. [819]

Among the Jacobites the dismay was great. Some of those who had betted

deep on the constancy of Lewis took flight. One unfortunate zealot of

divine right drowned himself. But soon the party again took heart. The

treaty had been signed; but it surely would never be ratified. In a

short time the ratification came; the peace was solemnly proclaimed by

the heralds; and the most obstinate nonjurors began to despair. Some

divines, who had during eight years continued true to James, now swore

allegiance to William. They were probably men who held, with Sherlock,

that a settled government, though illegitimate in its origin, is

entitled to the obedience of Christians, but who had thought that the

government of William could not properly be said to be settled while

the greatest power in Europe not only refused to recognise him, but

strenuously supported his competitor. [820] The fiercer and more

determined adherents of the banished family were furious against Lewis.

He had deceived, he had betrayed his suppliants. It was idle to talk

about the misery of his people. It was idle to say that he had drained

every source of revenue dry, and that, in all the provinces of his

kingdom, the peasantry were clothed in rags, and were unable to eat

their fill even of the coarsest and blackest bread. His first duty was

that which he owed to the royal family of England. The Jacobites

talked against him, and wrote against him, as absurdly, and almost as

scurrilously, as they had long talked and written against William. One

of their libels was so indecent that the Lords justices ordered the

author to be arrested and held to bail. [821]

But the rage and mortification were confined to a very small minority.

Never, since the year of the Restoration, had there been such signs

of public gladness. In every part of the kingdom where the peace was

proclaimed, the general sentiment was manifested by banquets, pageants,

loyal healths, salutes, beating of drums, blowing of trumpets, breaking

up of hogsheads. At some places the whole population, of its own accord,

repaired to the churches to give thanks. At others processions of girls,

clad all in white, and crowned with laurels, carried banners inscribed

with "God bless King William." At every county town a long cavalcade of

the principal gentlemen, from a circle of many miles, escorted the mayor

to the market cross. Nor was one holiday enough for the expression of

so much joy. On the fourth of November, the anniversary of the King's

birth, and on the fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the

bellringing, the shouting, and the illuminations were renewed both in

London and all over the country. [822] On the day on which he returned

to his capital no work was done, no shop was opened, in the two thousand

streets of that immense mart. For that day the chiefs streets had, mile

after mile, been covered with gravel; all the Companies had provided new

banners; all the magistrates new robes. Twelve thousand pounds had been

expended in preparing fireworks. Great multitudes of people from all the

neighbouring shires had come up to see the show. Never had the City been

in a more loyal or more joyous mood. The evil days were past. The guinea

had fallen to twenty-one shillings and sixpence. The bank note had risen

to par. The new crowns and halfcrowns, broad, heavy and sharply

milled, were ringing on all the counters. After some days of impatient

expectation it was known, on the fourteenth of November, that His

Majesty had landed at Margate. Late on the fifteenth he reached

Greenwich, and rested in the stately building which, under his auspices,

was turning from a palace into a hospital. On the next morning, a bright

and soft morning, eighty coaches and six, filled with nobles, prelates,

privy councillors and judges, came to swell his train. In Southwark he

was met by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen in all the pomp of office.

The way through the Borough to the bridge was lined by the Surrey

militia; the way from the bridge to Walbrook by three regiments of the

militia of the City. All along Cheapside, on the right hand and on the

left, the livery were marshalled under the standards of their trades. At

the east end of Saint Paul's churchyard stood the boys of the school of

Edward the Sixth, wearing, as they still wear, the garb of the sixteenth

century. Round the Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street,

were drawn up three more regiments of Londoners. From Temple Bar to

Whitehall gate the trainbands of Middlesex and the Foot Guards were

under arms. The windows along the whole route were gay with tapestry,

ribands and flags. But the finest part of the show was the innumerable

crowd of spectators, all in their Sunday clothing, and such clothing

as only the upper classes of other countries could afford to wear. "I

never," William wrote that evening to Heinsius, "I never saw such a

multitude of welldressed people." Nor was the King less struck by the

indications of joy and affection with which he was greeted from the

beginning to the end of his triumph. His coach, from the moment when

he entered it at Greenwich till he alighted from it in the court of

Whitehall, was accompanied by one long huzza. Scarcely had he reached

his palace when addresses of congratulation, from all the great

corporations of his kingdom, were presented to him. It was remarked that

the very foremost among those corporations was the University of Oxford.

The eloquent composition in which that learned body extolled the wisdom,

the courage and the virtue of His Majesty, was read with cruel vexation

by the nonjurors, and with exultation by the Whigs. [823]

The rejoicings were not yet over. At a council which was held a

few hours after the King's public entry, the second of December was

appointed to be the day of thanksgiving for the peace. The Chapter of

Saint Paul's resolved that, on that day, their noble Cathedral, which

had been long slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan

and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. William

announced his intention of being one of the congregation. But it was

represented to him that, if he persisted in that intention, three

hundred thousand people would assemble to see him pass, and all the

parish churches of London would be left empty. He therefore attended

the service in his own chapel at Whitehall, and heard Burnet preach a

sermon, somewhat too eulogistic for the place. [824] At Saint Paul's the

magistrates of the City appeared in all their state. Compton ascended,

for the first time, a throne rich with the sculpture of Gibbons, and

thence exhorted a numerous and splendid assembly. His discourse has not

been preserved; but its purport may be easily guessed; for he preached

on that noble Psalm: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go

into the house of the Lord." He doubtless reminded his hearers that, in

addition to the debt which was common to them with all Englishmen, they

owed as Londoners a peculiar debt of gratitude to the divine goodness,

which had permitted them to efface the last trace of the ravages of the

great fire, and to assemble once more, for prayer and praise, after

so many years, on that spot consecrated by the devotions of thirty

generations. Throughout London, and in every part of the realm, even

to the remotest parishes of Cumberland and Cornwall, the churches were

filled on the morning of that day; and the evening was an evening of

festivity. [825]

These was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed

through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and

vigour. Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her

independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and

necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not

less just and necessary war. She had successfully defended the order of

things established by the Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of

France, against the aboriginal population of Ireland, against the avowed

hostility of the nonjurors, against the more dangerous hostility of

traitors who were ready to take any oath, and whom no oath could bind.

Her open enemies had been victorious on many fields of battle. Her

secret enemies had commanded her fleets and armies, had been in charge

of her arsenals, had ministered at her altars, had taught at her

Universities, had swarmed in her public offices, had sate in her

Parliament, had bowed and fawned in the bedchamber of her King.

More than once it had seemed impossible that any thing could avert

a restoration which would inevitably have been followed, first by

proscriptions and confiscations, by the violation of fundamental laws,

and the persecution of the established religion, and then by a third

rising up of the nation against that House which two depositions and two

banishments had only made more obstinate in evil. To the dangers of

war and the dangers of treason had recently been added the dangers of

a terrible financial and commercial crisis. But all those dangers were

over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years

of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first

rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the

Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. The ancient

constitution was adapting itself, by a natural, a gradual, a peaceful

development, to the wants of a modern society. Already freedom of

conscience and freedom of discussion existed to an extent unknown in any

preceding age. The currency had been restored. Public credit had been

reestablished. Trade had revived. The Exchequer was overflowing. There

was a sense of relief every where, from the Royal Exchange to the

most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens

of Lincolnshire. The ploughmen, the shepherds, the miners of the

Northumbrian coalpits, the artisans who toiled at the looms of Norwich

and the anvils of Birmingham, felt the change, without understanding

it; and the cheerful bustle in every seaport and every market town

indicated, not obscurely, the commencement of a happier age.

***** *****

[Footnote 1: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en

Hollande, enrichie de planches tres curieuses, 1692; Wagenaar; London

Gazette, Jan. 29. 1693; Burnet, ii. 71]

[Footnote 2: The names of these two great scholars are associated in a

very interesting letter of Bentley to Graevius, dated April 29. 1698.

"Sciunt omnes qui me norunt, et si vitam mihi Deus O.M. prorogaverit,

scient etiam posteri, ut te et ton panu Spanhemium, geminos hujus

aevi Dioscuros, lucida literarum sidera, semper praedicaverim, semper

veneratus sim."]

[Footnote 3: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande

1692; London Gazette, Feb. 2. 1691,; Le Triomphe Royal ou l'on voit

descrits les Arcs de Triomphe, Pyramides, Tableaux et Devises an Nombre

de 65, erigez a la Haye a l'hounneur de Guillaume Trois, 1692; Le

Carnaval de la Haye, 1691. This last work is a savage pasquinade on

William.]

[Footnote 4: London Gazette, Feb. 5. 1693; His Majesty's Speech to the

Assembly of the States General of the United Provinces at the Hague the

7th of February N.S., together with the Answer of their High and Mighty

Lordships, as both are extracted out of the Register of the Resolutions

of the States General, 1691.]

[Footnote 5: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en

Hollande; Burnet, ii. 72.; London Gazette, Feb. 12. 19. 23. 1690/1;

Memoires du Comte de Dohna; William Fuller's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 6: Wagenaar, lxii.; Le Carnaval de la Haye, Mars 1691; Le

Tabouret des Electeurs, April 1691; Ceremonial de ce qui s'est passe

a la Haye entre le Roi Guillaume et les Electeurs de Baviere et de

Brandebourg. This last tract is a MS. presented to the British Museum by

George IV,]

[Footnote 7: London Gazette, Feb. 23. 1691.]

[Footnote 8: The secret article by which the Duke of Savoy bound himself

to grant toleration to the Waldenses is in Dumont's collection. It was

signed Feb. 8, 1691.]

[Footnote 9: London Gazette from March 26. to April 13. 1691; Monthly

Mercuries of March and April; William's Letters to Heinsius of March

18. and 29., April 7. 9.; Dangeau's Memoirs; The Siege of Mons, a

tragi-comedy, 1691. In this drama the clergy, who are in the interest of

France, persuade the burghers to deliver up the town. This treason calls

forth an indignant exclamation,

"Oh priestcraft, shopcraft, how do ye effeminate

The minds of men!"]

[Footnote 10: Trial of Preston in the Collection of State Trials. A

person who was present gives the following account of Somers's opening

speech: "In the opening the evidence, there was no affected exaggeration

of matters, nor ostentation of a putid eloquence, one after another, as

in former trials, like so many geese cackling in a row. Here was nothing

besides fair matter of fact, or natural and just reflections from thence

arising." The pamphlet from which I quote these words is entitled, An

Account of the late horrid Conspiracy by a Person who was present at the

Trials, 1691.]

[Footnote 11: State Trials.]

[Footnote 12: Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton, at his execution, to Sir

Francis Child, Sheriff of London; Answer to the Paper delivered by Mr.

Ashton. The Answer was written by Dr. Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop

of Gloucester. Burnet, ii. 70.; Letter from Bishop Lloyd to Dodwell, in

the second volume of Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa.]

[Footnote 13: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.]

[Footnote 14: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 71.]

[Footnote 15: Letter of Collier and Cook to Sancroft among the Tanner

MSS.]

[Footnote 16: Caermarthen to William, February 3. 1690/1; Life of James,

ii. 443.]

[Footnote 17: That this account of what passed is true in substance is

sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or

two slight circumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from

papers, now irrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College

at Paris.]

[Footnote 18: The success of William's "seeming clemency" is admitted by

the compiler of the Life of James. The Prince of Orange's method, it is

acknowledged, "succeeded so well that, whatever sentiments those Lords

which Mr. Penn had named night have had at that time, they proved in

effect most bitter enemies to His Majesty's cause afterwards."-ii. 443.]

[Footnote 19: See his Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Mar. 25., April 22., July

11. 1691; Burnet, ii. 71.; Letters of Rochester to Burnet, March 21. and

April 2. 1691.]

[Footnote 20: Life of James, ii. 443. 450.; Legge Papers in the

Mackintosh Collection.]

[Footnote 21: Burnet, ii. 71; Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 4. and 18. 1690,;

Letter from Turner to Sancroft, Jan. 19. 1690/1; Letter from Sancroft to

Lloyd of Norwich April 2. 1692. These two letters are among the Tanner

MSS. in the Bodleian, and are printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman.

Turner's escape to France is mentioned in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary

for February 1690. See also a Dialogue between the Bishop of Ely and

his Conscience, 16th February 1690/1. The dialogue is interrupted by the

sound of trumpets. The Bishop hears himself proclaimed a traitor, and

cries out,

"Come, brother Pen, 'tis time we both were gone."]

[Footnote 22: For a specimen of his visions, see his Journal, page 13;

for his casting out of devils, page 26. I quote the folio edition of

1765.]

[Footnote 23: Journal, page 4]

[Footnote 24: Ibid. page 7.]

[Footnote 25: "What they know, they know naturally, who turn from the

command and err from the spirit, whose fruit withers, who saith that

Hebrew, Greek, and Latine is the original: before Babell was, the earth

was of one language; and Nimrod the cunning hunter, before the Lord

which came out of cursed Ham's stock, the original and builder of

Babell, whom God confounded with many languages, and this they say is

the original who erred from the spirit and command; and Pilate had his

original Hebrew, Greek and Latine, which crucified Christ and set over

him."--A message from the Lord to the Parliament of England by G. Fox,

1654. The same argument will be found in the journals, but has been put

by the editor into a little better English. "Dost thou think to make

ministers of Christ by these natural confused languages which sprung

from Babell, are admired in Babylon, and set atop of Christ, the Life,

by a persecutor?"-Page 64.]

[Footnote 26: His journal, before it was published, was revised by men

of more sense and knowledge than himself, and therefore, absurd as it

is, gives us no notion of his genuine style. The following is a fair

specimen. It is the exordium of one of his manifestoes. "Them which the

world who are without the fear of God calls Quakers in scorn do deny all

opinions, and they do deny all conceivings, and they do deny all sects,

and they do deny all imaginations, and notions, and judgments which

riseth out of the will and the thoughts, and do deny witchcraft and all

oaths, and the world and the works of it, and their worships and their

customs with the light, and do deny false ways and false worships,

seducers and deceivers which are now seen to be in the world with the

light, and with it they are condemned, which light leadeth to peace and

life from death which now thousands do witness the new teacher Christ,

him by whom the world was made, who raigns among the children of light,

and with the spirit and power of the living God, doth let them see and

know the chaff from the wheat, and doth see that which must be shaken

with that which cannot be shaken nor moved, what gives to see that which

is shaken and moved, such as live in the notions, opinions, conceivings,

and thoughts and fancies these be all shaken and comes to be on heaps,

which they who witness those things before mentioned shaken and removed

walks in peace not seen and discerned by them who walks in those things

unremoved and not shaken."--A Warning to the World that are Groping in

the Dark, by G. Fox, 1655.]

[Footnote 27: See the piece entitled, Concerning Good morrow and Good

even, the World's Customs, but by the Light which into the World is come

by it made manifest to all who be in the Darkness, by G. Fox, 1657.]

[Footnote 28: Journal, page 166.]

[Footnote 29: Epistle from Harlingen, 11th of 6th month, 1677.]

[Footnote 30: Of Bowings, by G. Fox, 1657.]

[Footnote 31: See, for example, the Journal, pages 24. 26. and 51.]

[Footnote 32: See, for example, the Epistle to Sawkey, a justice of

the peace, in the journal, page 86.; the Epistle to William Larnpitt,

a clergyman, which begins, "The word of the Lord to thee, oh Lampitt,"

page 80.; and the Epistle to another clergyman whom he calls Priest

Tatham, page 92.]

[Footnote 33: Journal, page 55.]

[Footnote 34: Ibid. Page 300.]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. page 323.]

[Footnote 36: Ibid. page 48.]

[Footnote 37: "Especially of late," says Leslie, the keenest of all the

enemies of the sect, "some of them have made nearer advances towards

Christianity than ever before; and among them the ingenious Mr. Penn has

of late refined some of their gross notions, and brought them into some

form, and has made them speak sense and English, of both which George

Fox, their first and great apostle, was totally ignorant..... They

endeavour all they can to make it appear that their doctrine was uniform

from the beginning, and that there has been no alteration; and therefore

they take upon them to defend all the writings of George Fox, and others

of the first Quakers, and turn and wind them to make them (but it is

impossible) agree with what they teach now at this day." (The Snake in

the Grass, 3rd ed. 1698. Introduction.) Leslie was always more civil to

his brother Jacobite Penn than to any other Quaker. Penn himself says of

his master, "As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would

fall from him about divine things; it is well known they were often as

texts to many fairer declarations." That is to say, George Fox talked

nonsense and some of his friends paraphrased it into sense.]

[Footnote 38: In the Life of Penn which is prefixed to his works, we

are told that the warrants were issued on the 16th of January 1690, in

consequence of an accusation backed by the oath of William Fuller, who

is truly designated as a wretch, a cheat and. an impostor; and this

story is repeated by Mr. Clarkson. It is, however, certainly false.

Caermarthen, writing to William on the 3rd of February, says that there

was then only one witness against Penn, and that Preston was that one

witness. It is therefore evident that Fuller was not the informer on

whose oath the warrant against Penn was issued. In fact Fuller

appears from his Life of himself, to have been then at the Hague. When

Nottingham wrote to William on the 26th of June, another witness had

come forward.]

[Footnote 39: Sidney to William, Feb. 27. 1690,. The letter is in

Dalrymple's Appendix, Part II. book vi. Narcissus Luttrell in his Diary

for September 1691, mentions Penn's escape from Shoreham to France. On

the 5th of December 1693 Narcissus made the following entry: "William

Penn the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and having compromised

the matters against him, appears now in public, and, on Friday last,

held forth at the Bull and Month, in Saint Martin's." On December 18/28.

1693 was drawn up at Saint Germains, under Melfort's direction, a paper

containing a passage of which the following is a translation

"Mr. Penn says that Your Majesty has had several occasions, but never

any so favourable, as the present; and he hopes that Your Majesty

will be earnest with the most Christian King not to neglect it: that a

descent with thirty thousand men will not only reestablish Your Majesty,

but according to all appearance break the league." This paper is among

the Nairne MSS., and was translated by Macpherson.]

[Footnote 40: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 11. 1691.]

[Footnote 41: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, August 1691; Letter from

Vernon to Wharton, Oct. 17. 1691, in the Bodleian.]

[Footnote 42: The opinion of the Jacobites appears from a letter which

is among the archives of the French War Office. It was written in London

on the 25th of June 1691.]

[Footnote 43: Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, April 11. 24. 1691;

Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 1691; L'Hermitage to the States

General, June 19/29 1696; Calamy's Life. The story of Fenwick's rudeness

to Mary is told in different ways. I have followed what seems to me the

most authentic, and what is certainly the last disgraceful, version.]

[Footnote 44: Burnet, ii. 71.]

[Footnote 45: Lloyd to Sancroft, Jan. 24. 1691. The letter is among the

Tanner MSS., and is printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman.]

[Footnote 46: London Gazette, June 1. 1691; Birch's Life of Tillotson;

Congratulatory Poem to the Reverend Dr. Tillotson on his Promotion,

1691; Vernon to Wharton, May 28. and 30. 1691. These letters to

Wharton are in the Bodleian Library, and form part of a highly curious

collection, which was kindly pointed out to me by Dr. Bandinel.]

[Footnote 47: Birch's Life of Tillotson; Leslie's Charge of Socinianism

against Dr. Tillotson considered, by a True Son of the Church 1695;

Hickes's Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, 1695; Catalogue

of Books of the Newest Fashion to be Sold by Auction at the Whigs Coffee

House, evidently printed in 1693. More than sixty years later Johnson

described a sturdy Jacobite as firmly convinced that Tillotson died an

Atheist; Idler, No, 10.]

[Footnote 48: Tillotson to Lady Russell, June 23. 1691.]

[Footnote 49: Birch's Life of Tillotson; Memorials of Tillotson by his

pupil John Beardmore; Sherlock's sermon preached in the Temple Church on

the death of Queen Mary, 1694/5.]

[Footnote 50: Wharton's Collectanea quoted in Birch's Life of

Tillotson.]

[Footnote 51: Wharton's Collectanea quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft;

Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.]

[Footnote 52: The Lambeth MS. quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft;

Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Vernon to Wharton, June 9. 11. 1691.]

[Footnote 53: See a letter of R. Nelson, dated Feb. 21. 1709/10, in

the appendix to N. Marshall's Defence of our Constitution in Church and

State, 1717; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Life of Ken by a Layman.]

[Footnote 54: See a paper dictated by him on the 15th Nov. 1693, in

Wagstaffe's letter from Suffolk.]