While thoughts like these were working in the minds of many Dissenters,

the Anglican party was in amazement and terror. This new turn in affairs

was indeed alarming. The House of Stuart leagued with republican and

regicide sects against the old Cavaliers of England; Popery leagued with

Puritanism against an ecclesiastical system with which the Puritans had

no quarrel, except that it had retained too much that was Popish, these

were portents which confounded all the calculations of statesmen. The

Church was then to be attacked at once on every side and the attack was

to be under the direction of him who, by her constitution, was her head.

She might well be struck with surprise and dismay. And mingled with

surprise and dismay came other bitter feelings; resentment against

the perjured Prince whom she had served too well, and remorse for the

cruelties in which he had been her accomplice, and for which he was now,

as it seemed, about to be her punisher. Her chastisement was just. She

reaped that which she had sown. After the Restoration, when her power

was at the height, she had breathed nothing hut vengeance. She had

encouraged, urged, almost compelled the Stuarts to requite with

perfidious ingratitude the recent services of the Presbyterians. Had

she, in that season of her prosperity, pleaded, as became her, for her

enemies, she might now, in her distress, have found them her friends.

Perhaps it was not yet too late. Perhaps she might still be able to turn

the tactics of her faithless oppressor against himself. There was

among the Anglican clergy a moderate party which had always felt kindly

towards the Protestant Dissenters. That party was not large; but the

abilities, acquirements, and virtues of those who belonged to it made

it respectable. It had been regarded with little favour by the highest

ecclesiastical dignitaries, and had been mercilessly reviled by bigots

of the school of Laud but, from the day on which the Declaration of

Indulgence appeared to the day on which the power of James ceased to

inspire terror, the whole Church seemed to be animated by the spirit,

and guided by the counsels, of the calumniated Latitudinarians.

Then followed an auction, the strangest that history has recorded. On

one side the King, on the other the Church, began to bid eagerly against

each other for the favour of those whom tip to that time King and Church

had combined to oppress. The Protestant Dissenters, who, a few months

before, had been a despised and proscribed class, now held the balance

of power. The harshness with which they had been treated was universally

condemned. The court tried to throw all the blame on the hierarchy.

The hierarchy flung it back on the court. The King declared that he had

unwillingly persecuted the separatists only because his affairs had been

in such a state that he could not venture to disoblige the established

clergy. The established clergy protested that they had borne a part

in severity uncongenial to their feelings only from deference to the

authority of the King. The King got together a collection of stories

about rectors and vicars who had by threats of prosecution wrung

money out of Protestant Dissenters. He talked on this subject much and

publicly, threatened to institute an inquiry which would exhibit the

parsons in their true character to the whole world, and actually issued

several commissions empowering agents on whom he thought that he could

depend to ascertain the amount of the sums extorted in different parts

of the country by professors of the dominant religion from sectaries.

The advocates of the Church, on the other hand, cited instances of

honest parish priests who had been reprimanded and menaced by the court

for recommending toleration in the pulpit, and for refusing to spy out

and hunt down little congregations of Nonconformists. The King asserted

that some of the Churchmen whom he had closeted had offered to make

large concessions to the Catholics, on condition that the persecution

of the Puritans might go on. The accused Churchmen vehemently denied the

truth of this charge; and alleged that, if they would have complied

with what he demanded for his own religion, he would most gladly

have suffered them to indemnify themselves by harassing and pillaging

Protestant Dissenters. [240]

The court had changed its face. The scarf and cassock could hardly

appear there without calling forth sneers and malicious whispers. Maids

of honour forbore to giggle, and Lords of the Bedchamber bowed low, when

the Puritanical visage and the Puritanical garb, so long the favourite

subjects of mockery in fashionable circles, were seen in the galleries.

Taunton, which had been during two generations the stronghold of the

Roundhead party in the West, which had twice resolutely repelled the

armies of Charles the First, which had risen as one man to support

Monmouth, and which had been turned into a shambles by Kirke and

Jeffreys, seemed to have suddenly succeeded to the place which Oxford

had once occupied in the royal favour. [241] The King constrained

himself to show even fawning courtesy to eminent Dissenters. To some

he offered money, to some municipal honours, to some pardons for their

relations and friends who, having been implicated in the Rye House Plot,

or having joined the standard of Monmouth, were now wandering on the

Continent, or toiling among the sugar canes of Barbadoes. He affected

even to sympathize with the kindness which the English Puritans felt for

their foreign brethren. A second and a third proclamation were published

at Edinburgh, which greatly extended the nugatory toleration granted

to the Presbyterians by the edict of February. [242] The banished

Huguenots, on whom the King had frowned during many months, and whom he

had defrauded of the alms contributed by the nation, were now relieved

and caressed. An Order in Council was issued, appealing again in their

behalf to the public liberality. The rule which required them to qualify

themselves for the receipt of charity, by conforming to the Anglican

worship, seems to have been at this time silently abrogated; and the

defenders of the King's policy had the effrontery to affirm that this

rule, which, as we know from the best evidence, was really devised by

himself in concert with Barillon, had been adopted at the instance of

the prelates of the Established Church. [243]

While the King was thus courting his old adversaries, the friends of

the Church were not less active. Of the acrimony and scorn with which

prelates and priests had, since the Restoration, been in the habit of

treating the sectaries scarcely a trace was discernible. Those who had

lately been designated as schismatics and fanatics were now dear fellow

Protestants, weak brethren it might be, but still brethren, whose

scruples were entitled to tender regard. If they would but be true at

this crisis to the cause of the English constitution and of the reformed

religion, their generosity should be speedily and largely rewarded. They

should have, instead of an indulgence which was of no legal validity, a

real indulgence, secured by Act of Parliament. Nay, many Churchmen, who

had hitherto been distinguished by their inflexible attachment to every

gesture and every word prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, now

declared themselves favourable, not only to toleration, but even to

comprehension. The dispute, they said, about surplices and attitudes,

had too long divided those who were agreed as to the essentials of

religion. When the struggle for life and death against the common enemy

was over, it would be found that the Anglican clergy would be ready to

make every fair concession. If the Dissenters would demand only what was

reasonable, not only civil but ecclesiastical dignities would be open

to them; and Baxter and Howe would be able, without any stain on their

honour or their conscience, to sit on the episcopal bench.

Of the numerous pamphlets in which the cause of the Court and the cause

of the Church were at this time eagerly and anxiously pleaded before the

Puritan, now, by a strange turn of fortune, the arbiter of the fate

of his persecutors, one only is still remembered, the Letter to a

Dissenter. In this masterly little tract, all the arguments which could

convince a Nonconformist that it was his duty and his interest to prefer

an alliance with the Church to an alliance with the Court were condensed

into the smallest compass, arranged in the most perspicuous order,

illustrated with lively wit, and enforced by an eloquence earnest

indeed, yet never in its utmost vehemence transgressing the limits

of exact good sense and good breeding. The effect of this paper was

immense; for, as it was only a single sheet, more than twenty thousand

copies were circulated by the post; and there was no corner of the

kingdom in which the effect was not felt. Twenty-four answers were

published, but the town pronounced that they were all bad, and that

Lestrange's was the worst of the twenty-four. [244] The government was

greatly irritated, and spared no pains to discover the author of the

Letter: but it was found impossible to procure legal evidence against

him. Some imagined that they recognised the sentiments and diction of

Temple. [245] But in truth that amplitude and acuteness of intellect,

that vivacity of fancy, that terse and energetic style, that placid

dignity, half courtly half philosophical, which the utmost excitement

of conflict could not for a moment derange, belonged to Halifax, and to

Halifax alone.

The Dissenters wavered; nor is it any reproach to them that they did so.

They were suffering, and the King had given them relief. Some eminent

pastors had emerged from confinement; others had ventured to return

from exile. Congregations, which had hitherto met only by stealth and in

darkness, now assembled at noonday, and sang psalms aloud in the hearing

of magistrates, churchwardens, and constables. Modest buildings for the

worship of God after the Puritan fashion began to rise all over England.

An observant traveller will still remark the date of 1687 on some of the

oldest meeting houses. Nevertheless the offers of the Church were, to

a prudent Dissenter, far more attractive than those of the King. The

Declaration was, in the eye of the law, a nullity. It suspended the

penal statutes against nonconformity only for so long a time as the

fundamental principles of the constitution and the rightful authority

of the legislature should remain suspended. What was the value of

privileges which must be held by a tenure at once so ignominious and

so insecure? There might soon be a demise of the crown. A sovereign

attached to the established religion might sit on the throne. A

Parliament composed of Churchmen might be assembled. How deplorable

would then be the situation of Dissenters who had been in league with

Jesuits against the constitution. The Church offered an indulgence very

different from that granted by James, an indulgence as valid and as

sacred as the Great Charter. Both the contending parties promised

religious liberty to the separatist: but one party required him to

purchase it by sacrificing civil liberty; the other party invited him to

enjoy civil and religious liberty together.

For these reasons, even if it could be believed that the Court was

sincere, a Dissenter might reasonably have determined to cast in his lot

with the Church. But what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the

Court? All men knew what the conduct of James had been tip to that

very time. It was not impossible, indeed, that a persecutor might be

convinced by argument and by experience of the advantages of toleration.

But James did not pretend to have been recently convinced. On the

contrary, he omitted no opportunity of protesting that he had, during

many years, been, on principle, adverse to all intolerance. Yet, within

a few months, he had persecuted men, women, young girls, to the death

for their religion. Had he been acting against light and against the

convictions of his conscience then? Or was he uttering a deliberate

falsehood now? From this dilemma there was no escape; and either of the

two suppositions was fatal to the King's character for honesty. It was

notorious also that he had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits.

Only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had

been honoured, in spite of the well known wishes of the Holy See, with

a new mark of his confidence and approbation. His confessor, Father

Mansuete, a Franciscan, whose mild temper and irreproachable life

commanded general respect, but who had long been hated by Tyrconnel

and Petre, had been discarded. The vacant place had been filled by an

Englishman named Warner, who had apostatized from the religion of his

country and had turned Jesuit. To the moderate Roman Catholics and to

the Nuncio this change was far from agreeable. By every Protestant it

was regarded as a proof that the dominion of the Jesuits over the royal

mind was absolute. [246] Whatever praises those fathers might justly

claim, flattery itself could not ascribe to them either wide liberality

or strict veracity. That they had never scrupled, when the interest of

their Order was at stake, to call in the aid of the civil sword, or to

violate the laws of truth and of good faith, had been proclaimed to

the world, not only by Protestant accusers, but by men whose virtue and

genius were the glory of the Church of Rome. It was incredible that

a devoted disciple of the Jesuits should be on principle zealous for

freedom of conscience: but it was neither incredible nor improbable that

he might think himself justified in disguising his real sentiments, in

order to render a service to his religion. It was certain that the King

at heart preferred the Churchmen to the Puritans. It was certain that,

while he had any hope of gaining the Churchmen, he had never shown the

smallest kindness to the Puritans. Could it then be doubted that, if

the Churchmen would even now comply with his wishes, he would willingly

sacrifice the Puritans? His word, repeatedly pledged, had not restrained

him from invading the legal rights of that clergy which had given such

signal proofs of affection and fidelity to his house. What security then

could his word afford to sects divided from him by the recollection of a

thousand inexpiable wounds inflicted and endured?

When the first agitation produced by the publication of the Indulgence

had subsided, it appeared that a breach had taken place in the Puritan

party. The minority, headed by a few busy men whose judgment was

defective or was biassed by interest, supported the King. Henry Care,

who had long been the bitterest and most active pamphleteer among the

Nonconformists, and who had, in the days of the Popish plot, assailed

James with the utmost fury in a weekly journal entitled the Packet of

Advice from Rome, was now as loud in adulation, as he had formerly been

in calumny and insult. [247] The chief agent who was employed by the

government to manage the Presbyterians was Vincent Alsop, a divine of

some note both as a preacher and as a writer. His son, who had incurred

the penalties of treason, received a pardon; and the whole influence of

the father was thus engaged on the side of the Court. [248] With Alsop

was joined Thomas Rosewell. Rosewell had, during that persecution of

the Dissenters which followed the detection of the Rye House Plot, been

falsely accused of preaching against the government, had been tried for

his life by Jeffreys, and had, in defiance of the clearest evidence,

been convicted by a packed jury. The injustice of the verdict was so

gross that the very courtiers cried shame. One Tory gentleman who had

heard the trial went instantly to Charles, and declared that the neck

of the most loyal subject in England would not be safe if Rosewell

suffered. The jurymen themselves were stung by remorse when they thought

over what they had done, and exerted themselves to save the life of the

prisoner. At length a pardon was granted; but Rosewell remained

bound under heavy recognisances to good behaviour during life, and to

periodical appearance in the Court of King's Bench. His recognisances

were now discharged by the royal command; and in this way his services

were secured. [249]

The business of gaining the Independents was principally intrusted to

one of their ministers named Stephen Lobb. Lobb was a weak, violent, and

ambitious man. He had gone such lengths in opposition to the government,

that he had been by name proscribed in several proclamations. He now

made his peace, and went as far in servility as he had ever done

in faction. He joined the Jesuitical cabal, and eagerly recommended

measures from which the wisest and most honest Roman Catholics recoiled.

It was remarked that he was constantly at the palace and frequently in

the closet, that he lived with a splendour to which the Puritan divines

were little accustomed, and that he was perpetually surrounded by

suitors imploring his interest to procure them offices or pardons. [250]

With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never been a

strongheaded man: the life which he had been leading during two years

had not a little impaired his moral sensibility; and, if his conscience

ever reproached him, he comforted himself by repeating that he had a

good and noble end in view, and that he was not paid for his services in

money.

By the influence of these men, and of others less conspicuous, addresses

of thanks to the King were procured from several bodies of Dissenters.

Tory writers have with justice remarked that the language of these

compositions was as fulsomely servile as anything that could be found in

the most florid eulogies pronounced by Bishops on the Stuarts. But, on

close inquiry, it will appear that the disgrace belongs to but a small

part of the Puritan party. There was scarcely a market town in England

without at least a knot of separatists. No exertion was spared to induce

them to express their gratitude for the Indulgence. Circular letters,

imploring them to sign, were sent to every corner of the kingdom in such

numbers that the mail bags, it was sportively said, were too heavy for

the posthorses. Yet all the addresses which could be obtained from all

the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists scattered over England did

not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to believe

that these addresses were numerously signed. [251]

The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly attached to civil

liberty, and distrusting the promises of the King and of the Jesuits,

steadily refused to return thanks for a favour which, it might well

be suspected, concealed a snare. This was the temper of all the most

illustrious chiefs of the party. One of these was Baxter. He had, as we

have seen, been brought to trial soon after the accession of James, had

been brutally insulted by Jeffreys, and had been convicted by a jury,

such as the courtly Sheriffs of those times were in the habit of

selecting. Baxter had been about a year and a half in prison when the

court began to think seriously of gaining the Nonconformists. He was

not only set at liberty, but was informed that, if he chose to reside in

London, he might do so without fearing that the Five Mile Act would

be enforced against him. The government probably hoped that the

recollection of past sufferings and the sense of present ease would

produce the same effect on him as on Rosewell and Lobb. The hope was

disappointed. Baxter was neither to be corrupted nor to be deceived. He

refused to join in an address of thanks for the Indulgence, and exerted

all his influence to promote good feeling between the Church and the

Presbyterians. [252]

If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation of the Protestant

Dissenters, that man was John Howe. Howe had, like Baxter, been

personally a gainer by the recent change of policy. The same tyranny

which had flung Baxter into gaol had driven Howe into banishment; and,

soon after Baxter had been let out of the King's Bench prison, Howe

returned from Utrecht to England. It was expected at Whitehall that Howe

would exert in favour of the court all the authority which he possessed

over his brethren. The King himself condescended to ask the help of the

subject whom he had oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the

influence of the Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy,

kept him steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of

Presbyterian ministers was held at his house, to consider the state of

affairs, and to determine on the course to be adopted. There was great

anxiety at the palace to know the result. Two royal messengers were in

attendance during the discussion. They carried back the unwelcome news

that Howe had declared himself decidedly adverse to the dispensing

power, and that he had, after long debate, carried with him the majority

of the assembly. [253]

To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man far

below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in virtue their

equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bunyan had been bred

a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army.

Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his

youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however, to have been such

as the world thinks venial. His keen sensibility and his powerful

imagination made his internal conflicts singularly terrible. He fancied

that he was under sentence of reprobation, that he had committed

blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that he was

actually possessed by a demon. Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried

out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his

ear. He saw visions of distant mountain tops, on which the sun shone

brightly, but from which he was separated by a waste of snow. He felt

the Devil behind him pulling his clothes. He thought that the brand of

Cain had been set upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder

like Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook

like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his

breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so

intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the

depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An

irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of

which he was himself possessed. [254] He joined the Baptists, and became

a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He

knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common people.

He had studied no great model of composition, with the exception, an

important exception undoubtedly, of our noble translation of the Bible.

His spelling was bad. He frequently transgressed the rules of grammar.

Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental knowledge of all

the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him

the want of learning. His rude oratory roused and melted hearers who

listened without interest to the laboured discourses of great logicians

and Hebraists. His works were widely circulated among the humbler

classes. One of them, the Pilgrim's Progress, was, in his own lifetime,

translated into several foreign languages. It was, however, scarcely

known to the learned and polite, and had been, during near a century,

the delight of pious cottagers and artisans before it was publicly

commended by any man of high literary eminence. At length critics

condescended to inquire where the secret of so wide and so durable a

popularity lay. They were compelled to own that the ignorant multitude

had judged more correctly than the learned, and that the despised little

book was really a masterpiece. Bunyan is indeed as decidedly the first

of allegorists, as Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakspeare

the first of dramatists. Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity

but no other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to

make abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love. [255]

It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered more

severely under the penal laws than John Bunyan. Of the twenty-seven

years which had elapsed since the Restoration, he had passed twelve in

confinement. He still persisted in preaching; but, that he might preach,

he was under the necessity of disguising himself like a carter. He was

often introduced into meetings through back doors, with a smock frock on

his back, and a whip in his hand. If he had thought only of his own ease

and safety, he would have hailed the Indulgence with delight. He was

now, at length, free to pray and exhort in open day. His congregation

rapidly increased, thousands hung upon his words; and at Bedford, where

he ordinarily resided, money was plentifully contributed to build a

meeting house for him. His influence among the common people was such

that the government would willingly have bestowed on him some municipal

office: but his vigorous understanding and his stout English heart were

proof against all delusion and all temptation. He felt assured that

the proffered toleration was merely a bait intended to lure the Puritan

party to destruction; nor would he, by accepting a place for which he

was not legally qualified, recognise the validity of the dispensing

power. One of the last acts of his virtuous life was to decline an

interview to which he was invited by an agent of the government. [256]

Great as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, that of William

Kiffin was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among them in wealth

and station. He was in the habit of exercising his spiritual gifts at

their meetings: but he did not live by preaching. He traded largely; his

credit on the Exchange of London stood high; and he had accumulated an

ample fortune. Perhaps no man could, at that conjuncture, have rendered

more valuable services to the Court. But between him and the Court was

interposed the remembrance of one terrible event. He was the grandfather

of the two Hewlings, those gallant youths who, of all the victims of the

Bloody Assizes, had been the most generally lamented. For the sad fate

of one of them James was in a peculiar manner responsible. Jeffreys had

respited the younger brother. The poor lad's sister had been ushered

by Churchill into the royal presence, and had begged for mercy; but the

King's heart had been obdurate. The misery of the whole family had been

great: but Kiffin was most to be pitied. He was seventy years old when

he was left desolate, the survivor of those who should have survived

him. The heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by

themselves, thought that the old man would be easily propitiated by

an Alderman's gown, and by some compensation in money for the property

which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn was employed in the work of

seduction, but to no purpose. The King determined to try what effect

his own civilities would produce. Kiffin was ordered to attend at the

palace. He found a brilliant circle of noblemen and gentlemen assembled.

James immediately came to him, spoke to him very graciously, and

concluded by saying, "I have put you down, Mr. Kiffin, for an Alderman

of London." The old man looked fixedly at the King, burst into tears,

and made answer, "Sir, I am worn out: I am unfit to serve your Majesty

or the City. And, sir, the death of my poor boys broke my heart. That

wound is as fresh as ever. I shall carry it to my grave." The King stood

silent for a minute in some confusion, and then said, "Mr. Kiffin, I

will find a balsam for that sore." Assuredly James did not mean to say

anything cruel or insolent: on the contrary, he seems to have been in

an unusually gentle mood. Yet no speech that is recorded of him gives so

unfavourable a notion of his character as these few words. They are

the words of a hardhearted and lowminded man, unable to conceive any

laceration of the affections for which a place or a pension would not be

a full compensation. [257]

That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the King's

new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon began to

diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long time that their

spiritual privileges had been abridged rather than extended by the

Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the Puritan was abhorrence of

the peculiarities of the Church of Rome. He had quitted the Church of

England only because he conceived that she too much resembled her

superb and voluptuous sister, the sorceress of the golden cup and of the

scarlet robe. He now found that one of the implied conditions of that

alliance which some of his pastors had formed with the Court was that

the religion of the Court should be respectfully and tenderly treated.

He soon began to regret the days of persecution. While the penal laws

were enforced, he had heard the words of life in secret and at his

peril: but still he had heard them. When the brethren were assembled in

the inner chamber, when the sentinels had been posted, when the doors

had been locked, when the preacher, in the garb of a butcher or a

drayman, had come in over the tiles, then at least God was truly

worshipped. No portion of divine truth was suppressed or softened down

for any worldly object. All the distinctive doctrines of the Puritan

theology were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the Church of Rome

no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, the

mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were the phrases ordinarily

employed to describe that august and fascinating superstition. Such

had been once the style of Alsop, of Lobb, of Rosewell, and of other

ministers who had of late been well received at the palace: but such was

now their style no longer. Divines who aspired to a high place in the

King's favour and confidence could not venture to speak with asperity

of the King's religion. Congregations therefore complained loudly that,

since the appearance of the Declaration which purported to give them

entire freedom of conscience, they had never once heard the Gospel

boldly and faithfully preached. Formerly they had been forced to snatch

their spiritual nutriment by stealth; but, when they had snatched it,

they had found it seasoned exactly to their taste. They were now at

liberty to feed: but their food had lost all its savour. They met by

daylight, and in commodious edifices: but they heard discourses far less

to their taste than they would have heard from the rector. At the parish

church the will worship and idolatry of Rome were every Sunday attacked

with energy: but, at the meeting house, the pastor, who had a few months

before reviled the established clergy as little better than Papists, now

carefully abstained from censuring Popery, or conveyed his censures in

language too delicate to shock even the ears of Father Petre. Nor was

it possible to assign any creditable reason for this change. The Roman

Catholic doctrines had undergone no alteration. Within living memory

never had Roman Catholic priests been so active in the work of making

proselytes: never had so many Roman Catholic publications issued from

the press; never had the attention of all who cared about religion been

so closely fixed on the dispute between the Roman Catholics and the

Protestants. What could be thought of the sincerity of theologians who

had never been weary of railing at Popery when Popery was comparatively

harmless and helpless, and who now, when a time of real danger to the

reformed faith had arrived, studiously avoided tittering one word

which could give offence to a Jesuit? Their conduct was indeed easily

explained. It was known that some of them had obtained pardons. It was

suspected that others had obtained money. Their prototype might be found

in that weak apostle who from fear denied the Master to whom he had

boastfully professed the firmest attachment, or in that baser apostle

who sold his Lord for a handful of silver. [258]

Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court were

rapidly losing the influence which they had once possessed over their

brethren. On the other hand, the sectaries found themselves attracted

by a strong religious sympathy towards those prelates and priests of

the Church of England who, spite of royal mandates, of threats, and of

promises, were waging vigorous war with the Church of Rome. The Anglican

body and the Puritan body, so long separated by a mortal enmity, were

daily drawing nearer to each other, and every step which they made

towards union increased the influence of him who was their common head.

William was in all things fitted to be a mediator between these two

great sections of the English nation. He could not be said to be a

member of either. Yet neither, when in a reasonable mood, could refuse

to regard him as a friend. His system of theology agreed with that of

the Puritans. At the same time, he regarded episcopacy not indeed as a

divine institution, but as a perfectly lawful and an eminently useful

form of church government. Questions respecting postures, robes,

festivals and liturgies, he considered as of no vital importance. A

simple worship, such as that to which he had been early accustomed,

would have been most to his personal taste. But he was prepared to

conform to any ritual which might be acceptable to the nation, and

insisted only that he should not be required to persecute his brother

Protestants whose consciences did not permit them to follow his example.

Two years earlier he would have been pronounced by numerous bigots on

both sides a mere Laodicean, neither cold nor hot, and fit only to be

spewed out. But the zeal which had inflamed Churchmen against Dissenters

and Dissenters against Churchmen had been so tempered by common

adversity and danger that the lukewarmness which had once been imputed

to him as a crime was now reckoned among his chief virtues.

All men were anxious to know what he thought of the Declaration of

Indulgence. For a time hopes were entertained at Whitehall that his

known respect for the rights of conscience would at least prevent him

from publicly expressing disapprobation of a policy which had a specious

show of liberality. Penn sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and

even went thither, in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a

high opinion, would prove irresistible. But, though he harangued on

his favourite theme with a copiousness which tired his hearers out, and

though he assured them that the approach of a golden age of religious

liberty had been revealed to him by a man who was permitted to converse

with angels, no impression was made on the Prince. [259] "You ask me,"

said William to one of the King's agents, "to countenance an attack on

my own religion. I cannot with a safe conscience do it, and I will not,

no, not for the crown of England, nor for the empire of the world."

These words were reported to the King and disturbed him greatly. [260]

He wrote urgent letters with his own hand. Sometimes he took the tone

of an injured man. He was the head of the royal family, he was as such

entitled to expect the obedience of the younger branches and it was very

hard that he was to be crossed in a matter on which his heart was set.

At other times a bait which was thought irresistible was offered. If

William would but give way on this one point, the English government

would, in return, cooperate with him strenuously against France. He

was not to be so deluded. He knew that James, without the support of a

Parliament, would, even if not unwilling, be unable to render effectual

service to the common cause of Europe; and there could be no doubt that,

if a Parliament were assembled, the first demand of both Houses would be

that the Declaration should he cancelled.

The Princess assented to all that was suggested by her husband. Their

joint opinion was conveyed to the King in firm but temperate terms. They

declared that they deeply regretted the course which His Majesty had

adopted. They were convinced that he had usurped a prerogative which did

not by law belong to him. Against that usurpation they protested, not

only as friends to civil liberty, but as members of the royal house, who

had a deep interest in maintaining the rights of that crown which they

might one day wear. For experience had shown that in England arbitrary

government could not fail to produce a reaction even more pernicious

than itself; and it might reasonably be feared that the nation, alarmed

and incensed by the prospect of despotism, might conceive a disgust even

for constitutional monarchy. The advice, therefore, which they tendered

to the King was that he would in all things govern according to law.

They readily admitted that the law might with advantage be altered by

competent authority, and that some part of his Declaration well deserved

to be embodied in an Act of Parliament. They were not persecutors.

They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well as Protestant

Dissenters relieved in a proper manner from all penal statutes. They

should with pleasure see Protestant Dissenters admitted in a proper

manner to civil office. At that point their Highnesses must stop. They

could not but entertain grave apprehensions that, if Roman Catholics

were made capable of public trust, great evil would ensue; and it was

intimated not obscurely that these apprehensions arose chiefly from the

conduct of James. [261]

The opinion expressed by the Prince and Princess respecting the

disabilities to which the Roman Catholics were subject was that of

almost all the statesmen and philosophers who were then zealous

for political and religious freedom. In our age, on the contrary,

enlightened men have often pronounced, with regret, that, on this one

point, William appears to disadvantage when compared with his father in

law. The truth is that some considerations which are necessary to the

forming of a correct judgment seem to have escaped the notice of many

writers of the nineteenth century.

There are two opposite errors into which those who study the annals of

our country are in constant danger of falling, the error of judging the

present by the past, and the error of judging the past by the present.

The former is the error of minds prone to reverence whatever is old, the

latter of minds readily attracted by whatever is new. The former

error may perpetually be observed in the reasonings of conservative

politicians on the questions of their own day. The latter error

perpetually infects the speculations of writers of the liberal school

when they discuss the transactions of an earlier age. The former error

is the more pernicious in a statesman, and the latter in a historian.

It is not easy for any person who, in our time, undertakes to treat of

the revolution which overthrew the Stuarts, to preserve with steadiness

the happy mean between these two extremes. The question whether members

of the Roman Catholic Church could be safely admitted to Parliament and

to office convulsed our country during the reign of James the Second,

was set at rest by his downfall, and, having slept during more than

a century, was revived by that great stirring of the human mind which

followed, the meeting of the National Assembly of France. During

thirty years the contest went on in both Houses of Parliament, in every

constituent body, in every social circle. It destroyed administrations,

broke up parties, made all government in one part of the empire

impossible, and at length brought us to the verge of civil war. Even

when the struggle had terminated, the passions to which it had given

birth still continued to rage. It was scarcely possible for any man

whose mind was under the influence of those passions to see the events

of the years 1687 and 1688 in a perfectly correct light.

One class of politicians, starting from the true proposition that the

Revolution had been a great blessing to our country, arrived at the

false conclusion that no test which the statesmen of the Revolution had

thought necessary for the protection of our religion and our freedom

could be safely abolished. Another class, starting from the true

proposition that the disabilities imposed on the Roman Catholics had

long been productive of nothing but mischief, arrived at the false

conclusion that there never could have been a time when those

disabilities could have been useful and necessary. The former fallacy

pervaded the speeches of the acute and learned Eldon. The latter was

not altogether without influence even on an intellect so calm and

philosophical as that of Mackintosh.

Perhaps, however, it will be found on examination that we may vindicate

the course which was unanimously approved by all the great English

statesmen of the seventeenth century, without questioning the wisdom of

the course which was as unanimously approved by all the great English

statesmen of our own time.

Undoubtedly it is an evil that any citizen should be excluded from civil

employment on account of his religious opinions: but a choice between

evils is sometimes all that is left to human wisdom. A nation may

be placed in such a situation that the majority must either impose

disabilities or submit to them, and that what would, under ordinary

circumstances, be justly condemned as persecution, may fall within the

bounds of legitimate selfdefence: and such was in the year 1687 the

situation of England.

According to the constitution of the realm, James possessed the right

of naming almost all public functionaries, political, judicial,

ecclesiastical, military, and naval. In the exercise of this right he

was not, as our sovereigns now are, under the necessity of acting

in conformity with the advice of ministers approved by the House of

Commons. It was evident therefore that, unless he were strictly bound by

law to bestow office on none but Protestants, it would be in his power

to bestow office on none but Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics were

few in number; and among them was not a single man whose services could

be seriously missed by the commonwealth. The proportion which they bore

to the population of England was very much smaller than at present.

For at present a constant stream of emigration runs from Ireland to our

great towns: but in the seventeenth century there was not even in London

an Irish colony. Forty-nine fiftieths of the inhabitants of the kingdom,

forty-nine fiftieths of the property of the kingdom, almost all the

political, legal, and military ability and knowledge to be found in

the kingdom, were Protestant. Nevertheless the King, under a strong

infatuation, had determined to use his vast patronage as a means of

making proselytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first

of all qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was a

positive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in language which

has been applauded by some credulous friends of religious liberty, the

monstrous injustice of that test which excluded a small minority of the

nation from public trust: but he was at the same time instituting a test

which excluded the majority. He thought it hard that a man who was a

good financier and a loyal subject should be excluded from the post of

Lord Treasurer merely for being a Papist. But he had himself turned out

a Lord Treasurer whom he admitted to be a good financier and a loyal

subject merely for being a Protestant. He had repeatedly and distinctly

declared his resolution never to put the white staff in the hands of any

heretic. With many other great offices of state he had dealt in the

same way. Already the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord

Chamberlain, the Groom of the Stole, the First Lord of the Treasury,

a Secretary of State, the Lord High Commissioner of Scotland, the

Chancellor of Scotland, the Secretary of Scotland, were, or pretended

to be, Roman Catholics. Most of these functionaries had been bred

Churchmen, and had been guilty of apostasy, open or secret, in order to

obtain or to keep their high places. Every Protestant who still held

an important post in the government held it in constant uncertainty

and fear. It would be endless to recount the situations of a lower rank

which were filled by the favoured class. Roman Catholics already swarmed

in every department of the public service. They were Lords Lieutenants,

Deputy Lieutenants, judges, justices of the Peace, Commissioners of the

Customs, Envoys to foreign courts, Colonels of regiments, Governors of

fortresses. The share which in a few months they had obtained of the

temporal patronage of the crown was much more than ten times as great

as they would have had under an impartial system. Yet this was not

the worst. They were made rulers of the Church of England. Men who had

assured the King that they held his faith sate in the High Commission,

and exercised supreme jurisdiction in spiritual things over all the

prelates and priests of the established religion. Ecclesiastical

benefices of great dignity had been bestowed, some on avowed Papists,

and some on half concealed Papists. And all this had been done while the

laws against Popery were still unrepealed, and while James had still a

strong interest in affecting respect for the rights of conscience. What

then was his conduct likely to be, if his subjects consented to free

him, by a legislative act, from even the shadow of restraint? Is it

possible to doubt that Protestants would have been as effectually

excluded from employment, by a strictly legal use of the royal

prerogative, as ever Roman Catholics had been by Act of Parliament?

How obstinately James was determined to bestow on the members of his

own Church a share of patronage altogether out of proportion to their

numbers and importance is proved by the instructions which, in exile

and old age, he drew up for the guidance of his son. It is impossible

to read without mingled pity and derision those effusions of a mind on

which all the discipline of experience and adversity had been exhausted

in vain. The Pretender is advised if ever he should reign in England, to

make a partition of offices, and carefully to reserve for the members of

the Church of Rome a portion which might have sufficed for them if

they had been one half instead of one fiftieth part of the nation. One

Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the Treasury, the Secretary

at War, the majority of the great dignitaries of the household, the

majority of the officers of the army, are always to be Catholics. Such

were the designs of James after his perverse bigotry had drawn on him

a punishment which had appalled the whole world. Is it then possible

to doubt what his conduct would have been if his people, deluded by the

empty name of religious liberty, had suffered him to proceed without any

check?

Even Penn, intemperate and undiscerning as was his zeal for the

Declaration, seems to have felt that the partiality with which honours

and emoluments were heaped on Roman Catholics, might not unnaturally

excite the jealousy of the nation. He owned that, if the Test Act were

repealed, the Protestants were entitled to an equivalent, and went

so far as to suggest several equivalents. During some weeks the word

equivalent, then lately imported from France, was in the mouths of all

the coffee-house orators, but at length a few pages of keen logic and

polished sarcasm written by Halifax put an end to these idle projects.

One of Penn's schemes was that a law should be passed dividing the

patronage of the crown into three equal parts; and that to one only of

those parts members of the Church of Rome should be admitted. Even

under such an arrangement the members of the Church of Rome would have

obtained near twenty times their fair portion of official appointments;

and yet there is no reason to believe that even to such an arrangement

the King would have consented. But, had he consented, what guarantee

could he give that he would adhere to his bargain? The dilemma

propounded by Halifax was unanswerable. If laws are binding on you,

observe the law which now exists. If laws are not binding on you, it is

idle to offer us a law as a security. [262]

It is clear, therefore, that the point at issue was not whether secular

offices should be thrown open to all sects indifferently. While James

was King it was inevitable that there should be exclusion; and the only

question was who should be excluded, Papists or Protestants, the few or

the many, a hundred thousand Englishmen or five millions.

Such are the weighty arguments by which the conduct of the Prince of

Orange towards the English Roman Catholics may be reconciled with the

principles of religious liberty. These arguments, it will be observed,

have no reference to any part of the Roman Catholic theology. It will

also be observed that they ceased to have any force when the crown had

been settled on a race of Protestant sovereigns, and when the power of

the House of Commons in the state had become so decidedly preponderant

that no sovereign, whatever might have been his opinions or his

inclinations, could have imitated the example of James. The nation,

however, after its terrors, its struggles, its narrow escape, was in

a suspicious and vindictive mood. Means of defence therefore which

necessity had once justified, and which necessity alone could justify,

were obstinately used long after the necessity had ceased to exist, and

were not abandoned till vulgar prejudice had maintained a contest of

many years against reason. But in the time of James reason and vulgar

prejudice were on the same side. The fanatical and ignorant wished to

exclude the Roman Catholic from office because he worshipped stocks and

stones, because he had the mark of the Beast, because he had burned down

London, because he had strangled Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey; and the most

judicious and tolerant statesman, while smiling at the delusions which

imposed on the populace, was led, by a very different road, to the same

conclusion.

The great object of William now was to unite in one body the numerous

sections of the community which regarded him as their common head. In

this work he had several able and trusty coadjutors, among whom two were

preeminently useful, Burnet and Dykvelt.

The services of Burnet indeed it was necessary to employ with some

caution. The kindness with which he had been welcomed at the Hague had

excited the rage of James. Mary received from her father two letters

filled with invectives against the insolent and seditious divine whom

she protected. But these accusations had so little effect on her that

she sent back answers dictated by Burnet himself. At length, in January

1687, the King had recourse to stronger measures. Skelton, who had

represented the English government in the United Provinces, was removed

to Paris, and was succeeded by Albeville, the weakest and basest of all

the members of the Jesuitical cabal. Money was Albeville's one object;

and he took it from all who offered it. He was paid at once by France

and by Holland. Nay, he stooped below even the miserable dignity of

corruption, and accepted bribes so small that they seemed better suited

to a porter or a lacquey than to an Envoy who had been honoured with an

English baronetcy and a foreign marquisate. On one occasion he pocketed

very complacently a gratuity of fifty pistoles as the price of a service

which he had rendered to the States General. This man had it in charge

to demand that Burnet should no longer be countenanced at the Hague.

William, who was not inclined to part with a valuable friend, answered

at first with his usual coldness; "I am not aware, sir, that, since the

Doctor has been here, he has done or said anything of which His Majesty

can justly complain." But James was peremptory; the time for an open

rupture had not arrived; and it was necessary to give way. During more

than eighteen months Burnet never came into the presence of either the

Prince or the Princess: but he resided near them; he was fully informed

of all that was passing; his advice was constantly asked; his pen was

employed on all important occasions; and many of the sharpest and most

effective tracts which about that time appeared in London were justly

attributed to him.

The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than sufficiently

prone to the angry passions. But none of his enemies, not even those

who had conspired against his life, not even those who had attempted

by perjury to load him with the guilt of treason and assassination, had

ever been regarded by him with such animosity as he now felt for

Burnet. His Majesty railed daily at the Doctor in unkingly language,

and meditated plans of unlawful revenge. Even blood would not slake

that frantic hatred. The insolent divine must be tortured before he was

permitted to die. Fortunately he was by birth a Scot; and in Scotland,

before he was gibbeted in the Grassmarket, his legs might be dislocated

in the boot. Proceedings were accordingly instituted against him at

Edinburgh: but he had been naturalised in Holland: he had married a

woman of fortune who was a native of that province: and it was certain

that his adopted country would not deliver him up. It was therefore

determined to kidnap him. Ruffians were hired with great sums of money

for this perilous and infamous service. An order for three thousand

pounds on this account was actually drawn up for signature in the office

of the Secretary of State. Lewis was apprised of the design, and took

a warm interest in it. He would lend, he said, his best assistance to

convey the villain to England, and would undertake that the ministers of

the vengeance of James should find a secure asylum in France. Burnet

was well aware of his danger: but timidity was not among his faults.

He published a courageous answer to the charges which had been brought

against him at Edinburgh. He knew, he said, that it was intended to

execute him without a trial: but his trust was in the King of Kings, to

whom innocent blood would not cry in vain, even against the mightiest

princes of the earth. He gave a farewell dinner to some friends, and,

after the meal, took solemn leave of them, as a man who was doomed to

death, and with whom they could no longer safely converse. Nevertheless

he continued to show himself in all the public places of the Hague so

boldly that his friends reproached him bitterly with his foolhardiness.

[263]

While Burnet was William's secretary for English affairs in Holland,

Dykvelt had been not less usefully employed in London. Dykvelt was one

of a remarkable class of public men who, having been bred to politics

in the noble school of John De Witt, had, after the fall of that great

minister, thought that they should best discharge their duty to the

commonwealth by rallying round the Prince of Orange. Of the diplomatists

in the service of the United Provinces none was, in dexterity, temper,

and manners, superior to Dykvelt. In knowledge of English affairs none

seems to have been his equal. A pretence was found for despatching him,

early in the year 1687, to England on a special mission with credentials

from the States General. But in truth his embassy was not to the

government, but to the opposition; and his conduct was guided by private

instructions which had been drawn by Burnet, and approved by William.

[264]

Dykvelt reported that James was bitterly mortified by the conduct of

the Prince and Princess. "My nephew's duty," said the King, "is to

strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in crossing me."

Dykvelt answered that in matters of private concern His Highness had

shown, and was ready to show, the greatest deference to the King's

wishes; but that it was scarcely reasonable to expect the aid of a

Protestant prince against the Protestant religion. [265] The King was

silenced, but not appeased. He saw, with ill humour which he could

not disguise, that Dykvelt was mustering and drilling all the various

divisions of the opposition with a skill which would have been

creditable to the ablest English statesman, and which was marvellous

in a foreigner. The clergy were told that they would find the Prince

a friend to episcopacy and to the Book of Common Prayer. The

Nonconformists were encouraged to expect from him, not only toleration,

but also comprehension. Even the Roman Catholics were conciliated; and

some of the most respectable among them declared, to the King's face,

that they were satisfied with what Dykvelt proposed, and that they

would rather have a toleration, secured by statute, than an illegal and

precarious ascendency. [266] The chiefs of all the important sections

of the nation had frequent conferences in the presence of the dexterous

Envoy. At these meetings the sense of the Tory party was chiefly spoken

by the Earls of Danby and Nottingham. Though more than eight years had

elapsed since Danby had fallen from power, his name was still great

among the old Cavaliers of England; and many even of those Whigs who had

formerly persecuted him were now disposed to admit that he had suffered

for faults not his own, and that his zeal for the prerogative, though

it had often misled him, had been tempered by two feelings which did him

honour, zeal for the established religion, and zeal for the dignity and

independence of his country. He was also highly esteemed at the Hague,

where it was never forgotten that he was the person who, in spite of the

influence of France and of the Papists, had induced Charles to bestow

the hand of the Lady Mary on her cousin.

Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, a nobleman whose name will frequently

recur in the history of three eventful reigns, sprang from a family of

unrivalled forensic eminence. One of his kinsmen had borne the seal of

Charles the First, had prostituted eminent parts and learning to evil

purposes, and had been pursued by the vengeance of the Commons of

England with Falkland at their head. A more honourable renown had in the

succeeding generation been obtained by Heneage Finch. He had immediately

after the Restoration been appointed Solicitor General. He had

subsequently risen to be Attorney General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor,

Baron Finch, and Earl of Nottingham. Through this prosperous career

he had always held the prerogative as high as he honestly or decently

could; but he had never been concerned in any machinations against the

fundamental laws of the realm. In the midst of a corrupt court he had

kept his personal integrity unsullied. He had enjoyed high fame as an

orator, though his diction, formed on models anterior to the civil wars,

was, towards the close of his life, pronounced stiff and pedantic by the

wits of the rising generation. In Westminster Hall he is still mentioned

with respect as the man who first educed out of the chaos anciently

called by the name of equity a new system of jurisprudence, as regular

and complete as that which is administered by the judges of the Common

Law. [267] A considerable part of the moral and intellectual character

of this great magistrate had descended with the title of Nottingham to

his eldest son. This son, Earl Daniel, was an honourable and virtuous

man. Though enslaved by some absurd prejudices, and though liable to

strange fits of caprice, he cannot be accused of having deviated from

the path of right in search either of unlawful gain or of unlawful

pleasure. Like his father he was a distinguished speaker, impressive,

but prolix, and too monotonously solemn. The person of the orator was

in perfect harmony with his oratory. His attitude was rigidly erect--his

complexion so dark that he might have passed for a native of a warmer

climate than ours; and his harsh features were composed to an expression

resembling that of a chief mourner at a funeral. It was commonly said

that he looked rather like a Spanish grandee than like an English

gentleman. The nicknames of Dismal, Don Dismallo, and Don Diego, were

fastened on him by jesters, and are not yet forgotten. He had paid

much attention to the science by which his family had been raised to

greatness, and was, for a man born to rank and wealth, wonderfully well

read in the laws of his country. He was a devoted son of the Church, and

showed his respect for her in two ways not usual among those Lords who

in his time boasted that they were her especial friends, by writing

tracts in defence of her dogmas, and by shaping his private life

according to her precepts. Like other zealous churchmen, he had, till

recently, been a strenuous supporter of monarchical authority. But to

the policy which had been pursued since the suppression of the Western

insurrection he was bitterly hostile, and not the less so because his

younger brother Heneage had been turned out of the office of Solicitor

General for refusing to defend the King's dispensing power. [268]

With these two great Tory Earls was now united Halifax, the accomplished

chief of the Trimmers. Over the mind of Nottingham indeed Halifax

appears to have had at this time a great ascendency. Between Halifax

and Danby there was an enmity which began in the court of Charles, and

which, at a later period, disturbed the court of William, but which,

like many other enmities, remained suspended during the tyranny of

James. The foes frequently met in the councils held by Dykvelt, and

agreed in expressing dislike of the policy of the government and

reverence for the Prince of Orange. The different characters of the

two statesmen appeared strongly in their dealings with the Dutch envoy.

Halifax showed an admirable talent for disquisition, but shrank from

coming to any bold and irrevocable decision. Danby far less subtle and

eloquent, displayed more energy, resolution, and practical sagacity.

Several eminent Whigs were in constant communication with Dykvelt: but

the heads of the great houses of Cavendish and Russell could not take

quite so active and prominent a part as might have been expected from

their station and their opinions, The fame and fortunes of Devonshire

were at that moment under a cloud. He had an unfortunate quarrel with

the court, arising, not from a public and honourable cause, but from a

private brawl in which even his warmest friends could not pronounce him

altogether blameless. He had gone to Whitehall to pay his duty, and had

there been insulted by a man named Colepepper, one of a set of bravoes

who invested the perlieus of the court, and who attempted to curry

favour with the government by affronting members of the opposition. The

King himself expressed great indignation at the manner in which one of

his most distinguished peers had been treated under the royal roof; and

Devonshire was pacified by an intimation that the offender should never

again be admitted into the palace. The interdict, however, was soon

taken off. The Earl's resentment revived. His servants took up his

cause. Hostilities such as seemed to belong to a ruder age disturbed the

streets of Westminster. The time of the Privy Council was occupied by

the criminations and recriminations of the adverse parties. Colepepper's

wife declared that she and her husband went in danger of their lives,

and that their house had been assaulted by ruffians in the Cavendish

livery. Devonshire replied that he had been fired at from Colepepper's

windows. This was vehemently denied. A pistol, it was owned, loaded with

gunpowder, had been discharged. But this had been done in a moment of

terror merely for the purpose of alarming the Guards. While this

feud was at the height the Earl met Colepepper in the drawingroom at

Whitehall, and fancied that he saw triumph and defiance in the bully's

countenance. Nothing unseemly passed in the royal sight; but, as soon as

the enemies had left the presence chamber, Devonshire proposed that they

should instantly decide their dispute with their swords. The challenge

was refused. Then the high spirited peer forgot the respect which he

owed to the place where he stood and to his own character, and struck

Colepepper in the face with a cane. All classes agreed in condemning

this act as most indiscreet and indecent; nor could Devonshire himself,

when he had cooled, think of it without vexation and shame. The

government, however, with its usual folly, treated him so severely that

in a short time the public sympathy was all on his side. A criminal

information was filed in the King's Bench. The defendant took his

stand on the privileges of the peerage but on this point a decision was

promptly given against him nor is it possible to deny that the decision,

whether it were or were not according to the technical rules of English

law, was in strict conformity with the great principles on which all

laws ought to be framed. Nothing was then left to him but to plead

guilty. The tribunal had, by successive dismissions, been reduced to

such complete subjection, that the government which had instituted the

prosecution was allowed to prescribe the punishment. The judges waited

in a body on Jeffreys, who insisted that they should impose a fine

of not less than thirty thousand pounds. Thirty thousand pounds, when

compared with the revenues of the English grandees of that age, may be

considered as equivalent to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the

nineteenth century. In the presence of the Chancellor not a word of

disapprobation was tittered: but, when the judges had retired, Sir John

Powell, in whom all the little honesty of the bench was concentrated,

muttered that the proposed penalty was enormous, and that one tenth part

would be amply sufficient. His brethren did not agree with him; nor did

he, on this occasion, show the courage by which, on a memorable day some

months later, he signally retrieved his fame. The Earl was accordingly

condemned to a fine of thirty thousand pounds, and to imprisonment till

payment should be made. Such a sum could not then be raised at a

day's notice even by the greatest of the nobility. The sentence of

imprisonment, however, was more easily pronounced than executed.

Devonshire had retired to Chatsworth, where he was employed in turning

the old Gothic mansion of his family into an edifice worthy of Palladio.

The Peak was in those days almost as rude a district as Connemara now

is, and the Sheriff found, or pretended, that it was difficult to arrest

the lord of so wild a region in the midst of a devoted household and

tenantry. Some days were thus gained: but at last both the Earl and the

Sheriff were lodged in prison. Meanwhile a crowd of intercessors exerted

their influence. The story ran that the Countess Dowager of Devonshire

had obtained admittance to the royal closet, that she had reminded James

how her brother in law, the gallant Charles Cavendish, had fallen at

Gainsborough fighting for the crown, and that she had produced notes,

written by Charles the First and Charles the Second, in acknowledgment

of great sums lent by her Lord during the civil troubles. Those loans

had never been repaid, and, with the interest, amounted, it was said,

to more even than the immense fine which the Court of King's Bench had

imposed. There was another consideration which seems to have had more

weight with the King than the memory of former services. It might be

necessary to call a Parliament. Whenever that event took place it was

believed that Devonshire would bring a writ of error. The point on which

he meant to appeal from the judgment of the King's Bench related to the

privileges of peerage. The tribunal before which the appeal must come

was the House of Peers. On such an occasion the court could not be

certain of the support even of the most courtly nobles. There was little

doubt that the sentence would be annulled, and that, by grasping at too

much, the government would lose all. James was therefore disposed to a

compromise. Devonshire was informed that, if he would give a bond for

the whole fine, and thus preclude himself from the advantage which he

might derive from a writ of error, he should be set at liberty. Whether

the bond should be enforced or not would depend on his subsequent

conduct. If he would support the dispensing power nothing would be

exacted from him. If he was bent on popularity he must pay thirty

thousand pounds for it. He refused, during some time, to consent to

these terms; but confinement was insupportable to him. He signed the

bond, and was let out of prison: but, though he consented to lay this

heavy burden on his estate, nothing could induce him to promise that he

would abandon his principles and his party. He was still entrusted with

all the secrets of the opposition: but during some months his political

friends thought it best for himself and for the cause that he should

remain in the background. [269]

The Earl of Bedford had never recovered from the effects of the great

calamity which, four years before, had almost broken his heart. From

private as well as from public feelings he was adverse to the court: but

he was not active in concerting measures against it. His place in the

meetings of the malecontents was supplied by his nephew. This was the

celebrated Edward Russell, a man of undoubted courage and capacity,

but of loose principles and turbulent temper. He was a sailor, had

distinguished himself in his profession, and had in the late reign held

an office in the palace. But all the ties which bound him to the royal

family had been sundered by the death of his cousin William. The daring,

unquiet, and vindictive seaman now sate in the councils called by the

Dutch envoy as the representative of the boldest and most eager section

of the opposition, of those men who, under the names of Roundheads,

Exclusionists, and Whigs, had maintained with various fortune a contest

of five and forty years against three successive Kings. This party,

lately prostrate and almost extinct, but now again full of life and

rapidly rising to ascendency, was troubled by none of the scruples which

still impeded the movements of Tories and Trimmers, and was prepared to

draw the sword against the tyrant on the first day on which the sword

could be drawn with reasonable hope of success.

Three men are yet to be mentioned with whom Dykvelt was in confidential

communication, and by whose help he hoped to secure the good will of

three great professions. Bishop Compton was the agent employed to manage

the clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook to exert all his influence

over the navy; and an interest was established in the army by the

instrumentality of Churchill.

The conduct of Compton and Herbert requires no explanation. Having, in

all things secular, served the crown with zeal and fidelity, they had

incurred the royal displeasure by refusing to be employed as tools

for the destruction of their own religion. Both of them had learned

by experience how soon James forgot obligations, and how bitterly he

remembered what it pleased him to consider as wrongs. The Bishop had

by an illegal sentence been suspended from his episcopal functions.

The Admiral had in one hour been reduced from opulence to penury. The

situation of Churchill was widely different. He had been raised by the

royal bounty from obscurity to eminence, and from poverty to wealth.

Having started in life a needy ensign, he was now, in his thirty-seventh

year, a Major General, a peer of Scotland, a peer of England: he

commanded a troop of Life Guards: he had been appointed to several

honourable and lucrative offices; and as yet there was no sign that he

had lost any part of the favour to which he owed so much. He was bound

to James, not only by the common obligations of allegiance, but by

military honour, by personal gratitude, and, as appeared to superficial

observers, by the strongest ties of interest. But Churchill himself was

no superficial observer. He knew exactly what his interest really was.

If his master were once at full liberty to employ Papists, not a single

Protestant would be employed. For a time a few highly favoured servants

of the crown might possibly be exempted from the general proscription in

the hope that they would be induced to change their religion. But even

these would, after a short respite, fall one by one, as Rochester had

already fallen. Churchill might indeed secure himself from this danger,

and might raise himself still higher in the royal favour, by conforming

to the Church of Rome; and it might seem that one who was not less

distinguished by avarice and baseness than by capacity and valour

was not likely to be shocked at the thought of hearing amass. But so

inconsistent is human nature that there are tender spots even in seared

consciences. And thus this man, who had owed his rise to his sister's

dishonour, who had been kept by the most profuse, imperious, and

shameless of harlots, and whose public life, to those who can look

steadily through the dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear a

prodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion which he had

learned as a boy, and shuddered at the thought of formally abjuring it.

A terrible alternative was before him. The earthly evil which he most

dreaded was poverty. The one crime from which his heart recoiled was

apostasy. And, if the designs of the court succeeded, he could not

doubt that between poverty and apostasy he must soon make his choice. He

therefore determined to cross those designs; and it soon appeared that

there was no guilt and no disgrace which he was not ready to incur, in

order to escape from the necessity of parting either with his places or

with his religion. [270]

It was not only as a military commander, high in rank, and distinguished

by skill and courage, that Churchill was able to render services to the

opposition. It was, if not absolutely essential, yet most important, to

the success of William's plans that his sister in law, who, in the order

of succession to the English throne, stood between his wife and himself,

should act in cordial union with him. All his difficulties would have

been greatly augmented if Anne had declared herself favourable to the

Indulgence. Which side she might take depended on the will of others.

For her understanding was sluggish; and, though there was latent in her

character a hereditary wilfulness and stubbornness which, many years

later, great power and great provocations developed, she was as yet a

willing slave to a nature far more vivacious and imperious than her

own. The person by whom she was absolutely governed was the wife of

Churchill, a woman who afterwards exercised a great influence on the

fate of England and of Europe.

The name of this celebrated favourite was Sarah Jennings. Her elder

sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and levity even among

the crowd of beautiful faces and light characters which adorned and

disgraced Whitehall during the wild carnival of the Restoration. On one

occasion Frances dressed herself like an orange girl and cried fruit

about the streets. [271] Sober people predicted that a girl of so little

discretion and delicacy would not easily find a husband. She was however

twice married, and was now the wife of Tyrconnel. Baron, less regularly

beautiful, was perhaps more attractive. Her face was expressive: her

form wanted no feminine charm; and the profusion of her fine hair, not

yet disguised by powder according to that barbarous fashion which she

lived to see introduced, was the delight of numerous admirers. Among the

gallants who sued for her favour, Colonel Churchill, young, handsome,

graceful, insinuating, eloquent and brave, obtained the preference. He

must have been enamoured indeed. For he had little property except the

annuity which he had bought with the infamous wages bestowed on him by

the Duchess of Cleveland: he was insatiable of riches: Sarah was poor;

and a plain girl with a large fortune was proposed to him. His love,

after a struggle, prevailed over his avarice: marriage only strengthened

his passion; and, to the last hour of his life, Sarah enjoyed the

pleasure and distinction of being the one human being who was able to

mislead that farsighted and surefooted judgment, who was fervently

loved by that cold heart, and who was servilely feared by that intrepid

spirit.

In a worldly sense the fidelity of Churchill's love was amply rewarded.

His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her a dowry which,

judiciously employed, made him at length a Duke of England, a Prince

of the Empire, the captain general of a great coalition, the arbiter

between mighty princes, and, what he valued more, the wealthiest subject

in Europe. She had been brought up from childhood with the Princess

Anne; and a close friendship had arisen between the girls. In character

they resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To

those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger assumed was

sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even

with bigotry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah

was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with

most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears and

tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pretence, and, indeed,

narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what

she became when one class of vices had been fully developed in her by

prosperity, and another by adversity, when her brain had been turned by

success and flattery, when her heart had been ulcerated by disasters and

mortifications. She lived to be that most odious and miserable of human

beings, an ancient crone at war with her whole kind, at war with her own

children and grandchildren, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness

and riches chiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion and

to indulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead.

In the reign of James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine

highspirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary,

but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consideration of her

charms.

It is a common observation that differences of taste, understanding,

and disposition, are no impediments to friendship, and that the closest

intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies what is

wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshipped by

Anne. The Princess could not live apart from the object of her romantic

fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife.

But Prince George, a dull man whose chief pleasures were derived from

his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable

to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with

stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding spirit

by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the royal pair:

and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a mother. But the

tenderness which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared

with her devotion to the companion of her early years. At length the

Princess became impatient of the restraint which etiquette imposed on

her. She could not bear to hear the words Madam and Royal Highness

from the lips of one who was more to her than a sister. Such words

were indeed necessary in the gallery or the drawingroom; but they were

disused in the closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley: Lady Churchill was Mrs.

Freeman; and under these childish names was carried on during twenty

years a correspondence on which at last the fate of administrations and

dynasties depended. But as yet Anne had no political power and little

patronage. Her friend attended her as first Lady of the Bedchamber, with

a salary of only four hundred pounds a year. There is reason, however,

to believe that, even at this time, Churchill was able to gratify his

ruling passion by means of his wife's influence. The Princess, though

her income was large and her tastes simple, contracted debts which her

father, not without some murmurs, discharged; and it was rumoured

that her embarrassments had been caused by her prodigal bounty to her

favourite. [272]

At length the time had arrived when this singular friendship was to

exercise a great influence on public affairs. What part Anne would take

in the contest which distracted England was matter of deep anxiety.

Filial duty was on one side. The interests of the religion to which she

was sincerely attached were on the other. A less inert nature might

well have remained long in suspense when drawn in opposite directions

by motives so strong and so respectable. But the influence of the

Churchills decided the question; and their patroness became an important

member of that extensive league of which the Prince of Orange was the

head.

In June 1687 Dykvelt returned to the Hague. He presented to the States

General a royal epistle filled with eulogies of his conduct during his

residence in London. These eulogies however were merely formal. James,

in private communications written with his own hand, bitterly complained

that the Envoy had lived in close intimacy with the most factious men in

the realm, and had encouraged them in all their evil purposes. Dykvelt

carried with him also a packet of letters from the most eminent of

those with whom he had conferred during his stay in England. The writers

generally expressed unbounded reverence and affection for William, and

referred him to the bearer for fuller information as to their views.

Halifax discussed the state and prospects of the country with his

usual subtlety and vivacity, but took care not to pledge himself to any

perilous line of conduct. Danby wrote in a bolder and more determined

tone, and could not refrain from slily sneering at the fears and

scruples of his accomplished rival. But the most remarkable letter

was from Churchill. It was written with that natural eloquence which,

illiterate as he was, he never wanted on great occasions, and with an

air of magnanimity which, perfidious as he was, he could with singular

dexterity assume. The Princess Anne, he said, had commanded him to

assure her illustrious relatives at the Hague that she was fully

resolved by God's help rather to lose her life than to be guilty of

apostasy. As for himself, his places and the royal favour were as

nothing to him in comparison with his religion. He concluded by

declaring in lofty language that, though he could not pretend to have

lived the life of a saint, he should be found ready, on occasion, to die

the death of a martyr. [273]

Dykvelt's mission had succeeded so well that a pretence was soon

found for sending another agent to continue the work which had been so

auspiciously commenced. The new Envoy, afterwards the founder of a noble

English house which became extinct in our own time, was an illegitimate

cousin german of William; and bore a title taken from the lordship of

Zulestein. Zulestein's relationship to the House of Orange gave him

importance in the public eye. His bearing was that of a gallant soldier.

He was indeed in diplomatic talents and knowledge far inferior to

Dykvelt: but even this inferiority had its advantages. A military man,

who had never appeared to trouble himself about political affairs,

could, without exciting any suspicion, hold with the English aristocracy

an intercourse which, if he had been a noted master of state craft,

would have been jealously watched. Zulestein, after a short absence,

returned to his country charged with letters and verbal messages not

less important than those which had been entrusted to his predecessor. A

regular correspondence was from this time established between the Prince

and the opposition. Agents of various ranks passed and repassed between

the Thames and the Hague. Among these a Scotchman, of some parts and

great activity, named Johnstone, was the most useful. He was cousin

of Burnet, and son of an eminent covenanter who had, soon after the

Restoration, been put to death for treason, and who was honoured by his

party as a martyr.

The estrangement between the King of England and the Prince of Orange

became daily more complete. A serious dispute had arisen concerning the

six British regiments which were in the pay of the United Provinces. The

King wished to put these regiments under the command of Roman Catholic

officers. The Prince resolutely opposed this design. The King had

recourse to his favourite commonplaces about toleration. The Prince

replied that he only followed his Majesty's example. It was notorious

that loyal and able men had been turned out of office in England merely

for being Protestants. It was then surely competent to the Stadtholder

and the States General to withhold high public trusts from Papists. This

answer provoked James to such a degree that, in his rage, he lost sight

of veracity and common sense. It was false, he vehemently said, that he

had ever turned out any body on religious grounds. And if he had, what

was that to the Prince or to the States? Were they his masters? Were

they to sit in judgment on the conduct of foreign sovereigns? From that

time he became desirous to recall his subjects who were in the Dutch

service. By bringing them over to England he should, he conceived, at

once strengthen himself, and weaken his worst enemies. But there were

financial difficulties which it was impossible for him to overlook. The

number of troops already in his service was as great as his

revenue, though large beyond all precedent and though parsimoniously

administered, would support. If the battalions now in Holland were added

to the existing establishment, the Treasury would be bankrupt. Perhaps

Lewis might be induced to take them into his service. They would in that

case be removed from a country where they were exposed to the corrupting

influence of a republican government and a Calvinistic worship, and

would be placed in a country where none ventured to dispute the mandates

of the sovereign or the doctrines of the true Church. The soldiers would

soon unlearn every political and religious heresy. Their native prince

might always, at short notice, command their help, and would, on any

emergency, be able to rely on their fidelity.

A negotiation on this subject was opened between Whitehall and

Versailles. Lewis had as many soldiers as he wanted; and, had it been

otherwise, he would not have been disposed to take Englishmen into his

service; for the pay of England, low as it must seem to our generation,

was much higher than the pay of France. At the same time, it was a great

object to deprive William of so fine a brigade. After some weeks of

correspondence, Barillon was authorised to promise that, if James would

recall the British troops from Holland, Lewis would bear the charge of

supporting two thousand of them in England. This offer was accepted

by James with warm expressions of gratitude. Having made these

arrangements, he requested the States General to send back the six

regiments. The States General, completely governed by William, answered

that such a demand, in such circumstances, was not authorised by the

existing treaties, and positively refused to comply. It is remarkable

that Amsterdam, which had voted for keeping these troops in Holland when

James needed their help against the Western insurgents, now contended

vehemently that his request ought to be granted. On both occasions, the

sole object of those who ruled that great city was to cross the Prince

of Orange. [274]

The Dutch arms, however, were scarcely so formidable to James as the

Dutch presses. English books and pamphlets against his government were

daily printed at the Hague; nor could any vigilance prevent copies from

being smuggled, by tens of thousands, into the counties bordering on

the German Ocean. Among these publications, one was distinguished by

its importance, and by the immense effect which it produced. The opinion

which the Prince and Princess of Orange held respecting the Indulgence

was well known to all who were conversant with public affairs. But, as

no official announcement of that opinion had appeared, many persons who

had not access to good private sources of information were deceived

or perplexed by the confidence with which the partisans of the Court

asserted that their Highnesses approved of the King's late acts. To

contradict those assertions publicly would have been a simple and

obvious course, if the sole object of William had been to strengthen his

interest in England. But he considered England chiefly as an instrument

necessary to the execution of his great European design. Towards that

design he hoped to obtain the cooperation of both branches of the House

of Austria, of the Italian princes, and even of the Sovereign Pontiff.

There was reason to fear that any declaration which was satisfactory to

British Protestants would excite alarm and disgust at Madrid, Vienna,

Turin, and Rome. For this reason the Prince long abstained from formally

expressing his sentiments. At length it was represented to him that his

continued silence had excited much uneasiness and distrust among his

wellwishers, and that it was time to speak out. He therefore determined

to explain himself.

A Scotch Whig, named James Stewart, had fled, some years before, to

Holland, in order to avoid the boot and the gallows, and had become

intimate with the Grand Pensionary Fagel, who enjoyed a large share of

the Stadtholder's confidence and favour. By Stewart had been drawn up

the violent and acrimonious manifesto of Argyle. When the Indulgence

appeared, Stewart conceived that he had an opportunity of obtaining, not

only pardon, but reward. He offered his services to the government of

which he had been the enemy: they were accepted; and he addressed to

Fagel a letter, purporting to have been written by the direction

of James. In that letter the Pensionary was exhorted to use all his

influence with the Prince and Princess, for the purpose of inducing them

to support their father's policy. After some delay Fagel transmitted a

reply, deeply meditated, and drawn up with exquisite art. No person who

studies that remarkable document can fail to perceive that, though it

is framed in a manner well calculated to reassure and delight English

Protestants, it contains not a word which could give offence, even

at the Vatican. It was announced that William and Mary would, with

pleasure, assist in abolishing every law which made any Englishman

liable to punishment for his religious opinions. But between punishments

and disabilities a distinction was taken. To admit Roman Catholics to

office would, in the judgment of their Highnesses, be neither for the

general interest of England nor even for the interest of the Roman

Catholics themselves. This manifesto was translated into several

languages, and circulated widely on the Continent. Of the English

version, carefully prepared by Burnet, near fifty thousand copies were

introduced into the eastern shires, and rapidly distributed over the

whole kingdom. No state paper was ever more completely successful.

The Protestants of our island applauded the manly firmness with which

William declared that he could not consent to entrust Papists with any

share in the government. The Roman Catholic princes, on the other hand,

were pleased by the mild and temperate style in which his resolution

was expressed, and by the hope which he held out that, under his

administration, no member of their Church would be molested on account

of religion.

It is probable that the Pope himself was among those who read this

celebrated letter with pleasure. He had some months before dismissed

Castelmaine in a manner which showed little regard for the feelings of

Castelmaine's master. Innocent thoroughly disliked the whole domestic

and foreign policy of the English government. He saw that the unjust and

impolitic measures of the Jesuitical cabal were far more likely to make

the penal laws perpetual than to bring about an abolition of the test.

His quarrel with the court of Versailles was every day becoming more and

more serious; nor could he, either in his character of temporal prince

or in his character of Sovereign Pontiff, feel cordial friendship for

a vassal of that court. Castelmaine was ill qualified to remove these

disgusts. He was indeed well acquainted with Rome, and was, for a

layman, deeply read in theological controversy. [275] But he had none of

the address which his post required; and, even had he been a diplomatist

of the greatest ability, there was a circumstance which would have

disqualified him for the particular mission on which he had been sent.

He was known all over Europe as the husband of the most shameless of

women; and he was known in no other way. It was impossible to speak to

him or of him without remembering in what manner the very title by which

he was called had been acquired. This circumstance would have mattered

little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, such as that

in which the Marchioness of Montespan had lately been dominant. But

there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on an embassy rather

of a spiritual than of a secular nature to a pontiff of primitive

austerity. The Protestants all over Europe sneered; and Innocent,

already unfavourably disposed to the English government, considered the

compliment which had been paid him, at so much risk and at so heavy a

cost, as little better than an affront. The salary of the Ambassador was

fixed at a hundred pounds a week. Castelmaine complained that this was

too little. Thrice the sum, he said, would hardly suffice. For at Rome

the ministers of all the great continental powers exerted themselves to

surpass one another in splendour, under the eyes of a people whom the

habit of seeing magnificent buildings, decorations, and ceremonies had

made fastidious. He always declared that he had been a loser by his

mission. He was accompanied by several young gentlemen of the best Roman

Catholic families in England, Ratcliffes, Arundells and Tichbornes. At

Rome he was lodged in the palace of the house of Pamfili on the south

of the stately Place of Navona. He was early admitted to a private

interview with Innocent: but the public audience was long delayed.

Indeed Castelmaine's preparations for that great occasion were so

sumptuous that, though commenced at Easter 1686, they were not complete

till the following November; and in November the Pope had, or pretended

to have, an attack of gout which caused another postponement. In January

1687, at length, the solemn introduction and homage were performed with

unusual pomp. The state coaches, which had been built at Rome for the

pageant, were so superb that they were thought worthy to be transmitted

to posterity in fine engravings and to be celebrated by poets in several

languages. [276] The front of the Ambassador's palace was decorated on

this great day with absurd allegorical paintings of gigantic size. There

was Saint George with his foot on the neck of Titus Cares, and Hercules

with his club crushing College, the Protestant joiner, who in vain

attempted to defend himself with his flail. After this public appearance

Castelmaine invited all the persons of note then assembled at Rome to a

banquet in that gay and splendid gallery which is adorned with paintings

of subjects from the Aeneid by Peter of Cortona. The whole city crowded

to the show; and it was with difficulty that a company of Swiss guards

could keep order among the spectators. The nobles of the Pontifical

state in return gave costly entertainments to the Ambassador; and poets

and wits were employed to lavish on him and on his master insipid and

hyperbolical adulation such as flourishes most when genius and taste are

in the deepest decay. Foremost among the flatterers was a crowned head.

More than thirty years had elapsed since Christina, the daughter of the

great Gustavus, had voluntarily descended from the Swedish throne. After

long wanderings, in the course of which she had committed many follies

and crimes, she had finally taken up her abode at Rome, where she busied

herself with astrological calculations and with the intrigues of the

conclave, and amused herself with pictures, gems, manuscripts, and

medals. She now composed some Italian stanzas in honour of the English

prince who, sprung, like herself, from a race of Kings heretofore

regarded as the champions of the Reformation, had, like herself, been

reconciled to the ancient Church. A splendid assembly met in her palace.

Her verses, set to music, were sung with universal applause: and one of

her literary dependents pronounced an oration on the same subject in a

style so florid that it seems to have offended the taste of the English

hearers. The Jesuits, hostile to the Pope, devoted to the interests of

France and disposed to pay every honour to James, received the English

embassy with the utmost pomp in that princely house where the remains of

Ignatius Loyola lie enshrined in lazulite and gold. Sculpture, painting,

poetry, and eloquence were employed to compliment the strangers: but all

these arts had sunk into deep degeneracy. There was a great display of

turgid and impure Latinity unworthy of so erudite an order; and some of

the inscriptions which adorned the walls had a fault more serious than

even a bad style. It was said in one place that James had sent his

brother as his messenger to heaven, and in another that James had

furnished the wings with which his brother had soared to a higher

region. There was a still more unfortunate distich, which at the time

attracted little notice, but which, a few months later, was remembered

and malignantly interpreted. "O King," said the poet, "cease to sigh for

a son. Though nature may refuse your wish, the stars will find a way to

grant it."

In the midst of these festivities Castelmaine had to suffer cruel

mortifications and humiliations. The Pope treated him with extreme

coldness and reserve. As often as the Ambassador pressed for an answer

to the request which he had been instructed to make in favour of Petre,

Innocent was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which put an end to

the conversation. The fame of these singular audiences spread over Rome.

Pasquin was not silent. All the curious and tattling population of the

idlest of cities, the Jesuits and the prelates of the French faction

only excepted, laughed at Castelmaine's discomfiture. His temper,

naturally unamiable, was soon exasperated to violence; and he circulated

a memorial reflecting on the Pope. He had now put himself in the wrong.

The sagacious Italian had got the advantage, and took care to keep

it. He positively declared that the rule which excluded Jesuits from

ecclesiastical preferment should not be relaxed in favour of Father

Petre. Castelmaine, much provoked, threatened to leave Rome. Innocent

replied, with a meek impertinence which was the more provoking because

it could scarcely be distinguished from simplicity, that his Excellency

might go if he liked. "But if we must lose him," added the venerable

Pontiff, "I hope that he will take care of his health on the road.

English people do not know how dangerous it is in this country to travel

in the heat of the day. The best way is to start before dawn, and to

take some rest at noon." With this salutary advice and with a string

of beads, the unfortunate Ambassador was dismissed. In a few months

appeared, both in the Italian and in the English tongue, a pompous

history of the mission, magnificently printed in folio, and illustrated

with plates. The frontispiece, to the great scandal of all Protestants,

represented Castelmaine in the robes of a Peer, with his coronet in his

hand, kissing the toe of Innocent. [277]