the old enemies of the House of Stuart. The Commissions of Peace and
Lieutenancy had long been carefully purged of all republican names. The
persons from whom the court had in vain attempted to extract any promise
of support were, with scarcely an exception, Tories. The elder among
them could still show scars given by the swords of Roundheads, and
receipts for plate sent to Charles the First in his distress. The
younger had adhered firmly to James against Shaftesury and Monmouth.
Such were the men who were now turned out of office in a mass by the
very prince to whom they had given such signal proofs of fidelity.
Dismission however only made them more resolute. It had become a sacred
point of honour among them to stand stoutly by one another in this
crisis. There could be no doubt that, if the suffrage of the freeholders
were fairly taken, not a single knight of the shire favourable to the
policy of the government would be returned. Men therefore asked one
another, with no small anxiety, whether the suffrages were likely to be
fairly taken. The list of the Sheriffs for the new year was impatiently
expected. It appeared while the Lords Lieutenants were still engaged
in their canvass, and was received with a general cry of alarm and
indignation. Most of the functionaries who were to preside at the county
elections were either Roman Catholics or Protestant Dissenters who had
expressed their approbation of the Indulgence. [336] For a time the most
gloomy apprehensions prevailed: but soon they began to subside. There
was good reason to believe that there was a point beyond which the King
could not reckon on the support even of those Sheriffs who were members
of his own Church. Between the Roman Catholic courtier and the Roman
Catholic country gentleman there was very little sympathy. That cabal
which domineered at Whitehall consisted partly of fanatics, who were
ready to break through all rules of morality and to throw the world into
confusion for the purpose of propagating their religion, and partly of
hypocrites, who, for lucre, had apostatized from the faith in which they
had been brought up, and who now over acted the zeal characteristic
of neophytes. Both the fanatical and the hypocritical courtiers were
generally destitute of all English feeling. In some of them devotion
to their Church had extinguished every national sentiment. Some were
Irishmen, whose patriotism consisted in mortal hatred of the Saxon
conquerors of Ireland. Some, again, were traitors, who received regular
hire from a foreign power. Some had passed a great part of their lives
abroad, and either were mere cosmopolites, or felt a positive distaste
for the manners and institutions of the country which was now
subjected to their rule. Between such men and the lord of a Cheshire
or Staffordshire manor who adhered to the old Church there was scarcely
anything in common. He was neither a fanatic nor a hypocrite. He was a
Roman Catholic because his father and grandfather had been so; and he
held his hereditary faith, as men generally hold a hereditary faith,
sincerely, but with little enthusiasm. In all other points he was a
mere English squire, and, if he differed from the neighbouring squires,
differed from them by being somewhat more simple and clownish than
they. The disabilities under which he lay had prevented his mind from
expanding to the standard, moderate as that standard was, which
the minds of Protestant country gentlemen then ordinarily attained.
Excluded, when a boy, from Eton and Westminster, when a youth, from
Oxford and Cambridge, when a man, from Parliament and from the bench
of justice, he generally vegetated as quietly as the elms of the avenue
which led to his ancestral grange. His cornfields, his dairy and his
cider press, his greyhounds, his fishing rod and his gun, his ale and
his tobacco, occupied almost all his thoughts. With his neighbours, in
spite of his religion, he was generally on good terms. They knew him
to be unambitious and inoffensive. He was almost always of a good
old family. He was always a Cavalier. His peculiar notions were not
obtruded, and caused no annoyance. He did not, like a Puritan, torment
himself and others with scruples about everything that was pleasant. On
the contrary, he was as keen a sportsman, and as jolly a boon companion,
as any man who had taken the oath of supremacy and the declaration
against transubstantiation. He met his brother squires at the cover, was
in with them at the death, and, when the sport was over, took them home
with him to a venison pasty and to October four years in bottle. The
oppressions which he had undergone had not been such as to impel him
to any desperate resolution. Even when his Church was barbarously
persecuted, his life and property were in little danger. The most
impudent false witnesses could hardly venture to shock the common sense
of mankind by accusing him of being a conspirator. The Papists whom
Oates selected for attack were peers, prelates, Jesuits, Benedictines, a
busy political agent, a lawyer in high practice, a court physician. The
Roman Catholic country gentleman, protected by his obscurity, by his
peaceable demeanour, and by the good will of those among whom he lived,
carted his hay or filled his bag with game unmolested, while Coleman
and Langhorne, Whitbread and Pickering, Archbishop Plunkett and Lord
Stafford, died by the halter or the axe. An attempt was indeed made by
a knot of villains to bring home a charge of treason to Sir Thomas
Gascoigne, an aged Roman Catholic baronet of Yorkshire: but twelve of
the best gentlemen of the West Riding, who knew his way of life, could
not be convinced that their honest old acquaintance had hired cutthroats
to murder the King, and, in spite of charges which did very little
honour to the bench, found a verdict of Not Guilty. Sometimes, indeed,
the head of an old and respectable provincial family might reflect with
bitterness that he was excluded, on account of his religion, from places
of honour and authority which men of humbler descent and less ample
estate were thought competent to fill: but he was little disposed to
risk land and life in a struggle against overwhelming odds; and his
honest English spirit would have shrunk with horror from means such as
were contemplated by the Petres and Tyrconnels. Indeed he would have
been as ready as any of his Protestant neighbours to gird on his sword,
and to put pistols in his holsters, for the defence of his native land
against an invasion of French or Irish Papists. Such was the general
character of the men to whom James now looked as to his most trustworthy
instruments for the conduct of county elections. He soon found that they
were not inclined to throw away the esteem of their neighbours, and to
endanger their beads and their estates, by rendering him an infamous and
criminal service. Several of them refused to be Sheriffs. Of those who
accepted the shrievalty many declared that they would discharge their
duty as fairly as if they were members of the Established Church, and
would return no candidate who had not a real majority. [337]
If the King could place little confidence even in his Roman Catholic
Sheriffs, still less could he rely on the Puritans. Since the
publication of the Declaration several months had elapsed, months
crowded with important events, months of unintermitted controversy.
Discussion had opened the eyes of many Dissenters: but the acts of the
government, and especially the severity with which Magdalene College had
been treated, had done more than even the pen of Halifax to alarm and to
unite all classes of Protestants. Most of those sectaries who had been
induced to express gratitude for the Indulgence were now ashamed of
their error, and were desirous of making atonement by casting in their
lot with the great body of their countrymen.
The consequence of this change in the feeling of the Nonconformists, was
that the government found almost as great difficulty in the towns as in
the counties. When the regulators began their work, they had taken
it for granted that every Dissenter who had been induced to express
gratitude for the Indulgence would be favourable to the king's policy.
They were therefore confident that they should be able to fill all
the municipal offices in the kingdom with staunch friends. In the
new charters a power had been reserved to the crown of dismissing
magistrates at pleasure. This power was now exercised without limit. It
was by no means equally clear that James had the power of appointing new
magistrates: but, whether it belonged to him or not, he determined
to assume it. Everywhere, from the Tweed to the Land's End, Tory
functionaries were ejected, and the vacant places were filled with
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. In the new charter of the
City of London the crown had reserved the power of displacing the
masters, wardens, and assistants of all the companies. Accordingly more
than eight hundred citizens of the first consideration, all of them
members of that party which had opposed the Exclusion Bill, were turned
out of office by a single edict. In a short time appeared a supplement
to this long list. [338] But scarcely had the new officebearers been
sworn in when it was discovered that they were as unmanageable as their
predecessors. At Newcastle on Tyne the regulators appointed a Roman
Catholic Mayor and Puritan Alderman. No doubt was entertained that the
municipal body, thus remodelled, would vote an address promising to
support the king's measures. The address, however, was negatived. The
mayor went up to London in a fury, and told the king that the Dissenters
were all knaves and rebels, and that in the whole corporation the
government could not reckon on more than four votes. [339] At Reading
twenty-four Tory aldermen were dismissed. Twenty-four new aldermen
were appointed. Twenty-three of these immediately declared against the
Indulgence, and were dismissed in their turn. [340] In the course of a
few days the borough of Yarmouth was governed by three different sets
of magistrates, all equally hostile to the court. [341] These are mere
examples of what was passing all over the kingdom. The Dutch Ambassador
informed the States that at many towns the public functionaries had,
within one month, been changed twice, and even thrice, and yet changed
in vain. [342] From the records of the Privy Council it appears that the
number of regulations, as they were called, exceeded two hundred. [343]
The regulators indeed found that, in not a few places, the change
had been for the worse. The discontented Tories, even while murmuring
against the king's policy, had constantly expressed respect for his
person and his office, and had disclaimed all thoughts of resistance.
Very different was the language of some of the new members of
corporations. It was said that old soldiers of the Commonwealth, who, to
their own astonishment and that of the public, had been made aldermen,
gave the agents of the court very distinctly to understand that blood
should flow before Popery and arbitrary power were established in
England. [344]
The regulators found that little or nothing had been gained by what had
as yet been done. There was one way, and one way only, in which they
could hope to effect their object. The charters of the boroughs must
be resumed; and other charters must be granted confining the elective
franchise to very small constituent bodies appointed by the sovereign.
[345]
But how was this plan to be carried into effect? In a few of the new
charters, indeed, a right of revocation had been reserved to the crown:
but the rest James could get into his hands only by voluntary surrender
on the part of corporations, or by judgment of the King's Bench. Few
corporations were now disposed to surrender their charters voluntarily;
and such judgments as would suit the purposes of the government were
hardly to be expected even from such a slave as Wright. The writs of Quo
Warranto which had been brought a few years before for the purpose of
crushing the Whig party had been condemned by every impartial man. Yet
those writs had at least the semblance of justice; for they were brought
against ancient municipal bodies; and there were few ancient municipal
bodies in which some abuse, sufficient to afford a pretext for a penal
proceeding, had not grown up in the course of ages. But the corporations
now to be attacked were still in the innocence of infancy. The oldest
among them had not completed its fifth year. It was impossible that many
of them should have committed offences meriting disfranchisement. The
Judges themselves were uneasy. They represented that what they were
required to do was in direct opposition to the plainest principles
of law and justice: but all remonstrance was vain. The boroughs were
commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the course
which the King took with those few did not encourage others to trust
him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away from the
commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, who were
required to bind themselves by oath to support the candidates
recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for example, the franchise
was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this number was too large.
Hatred and fear had spread so widely through the community that it
was scarcely possible to bring together in any town, by any process of
packing, thirteen men on whom the court could absolutely depend. It was
rumoured that the majority of the new constituent body of Tewkesbury was
animated by the same sentiment which was general throughout the nation,
and would, when the decisive day should arrive, send true Protestants
to Parliament. The regulators in great wrath threatened to reduce the
number of electors to three. [346] Meanwhile the great majority of
the boroughs firmly refused to give up their privileges. Barnstaple,
Winchester, and Buckingham, distinguished themselves by the boldness of
their opposition. At Oxford the motion that the city should resign its
franchises to the King was negatived by eighty votes to two. [347] The
Temple and Westminster Hall were in a ferment with the sudden rush of
business from all corners of the kingdom. Every lawyer in high practice
was overwhelmed with the briefs from corporations. Ordinary litigants
complained that their business was neglected. [348] It was evident that
a considerable time must elapse before judgment could be given in so
great a number of important cases. Tyranny could ill brook this delay.
Nothing was omitted which could terrify the refractory boroughs into
submission. At Buckingham some of the municipal officers had spoken of
Jeffreys in language which was not laudatory. They were prosecuted, and
were given to understand that no mercy should be shown to them unless
they would ransom themselves by surrendering their charter. [349] At
Winchester still more violent measures were adopted. A large body of
troops was marched into the town for the sole purpose of burdening and
harassing the inhabitants. [350] The town continued resolute; and the
public voice loudly accused the King of imitating the worst crimes of
his brother of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was
indeed reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not more
effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quartering
soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this practice had
sixty years before excited formidable discontents, and had been solemnly
pronounced illegal by the Petition of Right, a statute scarcely less
venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. But he hoped to obtain
from the courts of law a declaration that even the Petition of Right
could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted the Chief
justice of the King's Bench on this subject: [351] but the result of the
consultation remained secret; and in a very few weeks the aspect of
affairs became such that a fear stronger than even the fear of the royal
displeasure began to impose some restraint even on a man so servile as
Wright.
While the Lords Lieutenants were questioning the justices of the Peace,
while the regulators were remodelling the boroughs, all the public
departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace was first
purified. Every battered old Cavalier, who, in return for blood and
lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place under the
Keeper of the Wardrobe or the Master of the Harriers, was called upon to
choose between the King and the Church. The Commissioners of Customs
and Excise were ordered to attend His Majesty at the Treasury. There he
demanded from them a promise to support his policy, and directed them
to require a similar promise from all their subordinates. [352] One
Customhouse officer notified his submission to the royal will in a
way which excited both merriment and compassion. "I have," he said,
"fourteen reasons for obeying His Majesty's commands, a wife and
thirteen young children." [353] Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there
were not a few instances in which, even against such reasons, religious
and patriotic feelings prevailed.
There is reason to believe that the government at this time seriously
meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of families to
beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system of every
part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could be sold without a
license. It was rumoured that every person holding such a license would
shortly be required to enter into the same engagements which had been
imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his trade. [354]
It seems certain that, if such a step had been taken, the houses of
entertainment and of public resort all over the kingdom would have been
at once shut up by hundreds. What effect such an interference with the
comfort of all ranks would have produced must be left to conjecture. The
resentment produced by grievances is not always proportioned to their
dignity; and it is by no means improbable that the resumption of
licenses might have done what the resumption of charters had failed
to do. Men of fashion would have missed the chocolate house in Saint
James's Street, and men of business the coffee pot, round which they
were accustomed to smoke and talk politics, in Change Alley. Half the
clubs would have been wandering in search of shelter. The traveller
at nightfall would have found the inn where he had expected to sup and
lodge deserted. The clown would have regretted the hedge alehouse, where
he had been accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in
summer, and at the chimney corner in winter. The nation might, perhaps
under such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting
for the help of foreign allies.
It was not to be expected that a prince who required all the humblest
servants of the government to support his policy on pain of dismission
would continue to employ an Attorney General whose aversion to that
policy was no secret. Sawyer had been suffered to retain his situation
more than a year and a half after he had declared against the dispensing
power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the extreme difficulty
which the government found in supplying his place. It was necessary, for
the protection of the pecuniary interests of the crown, that at least
one of the two chief law officers should be a man of ability and
knowledge; and it was by no means easy to induce any barrister of
ability and knowledge to put himself in peril by committing every day
acts which the next Parliament would probably treat as high crimes and
misdemeanours. It had been impossible to procure a better Solicitor
General than Powis, a man who indeed stuck at nothing, but who was
incompetent to perform the ordinary duties of his post. In these
circumstances it was thought desirable that there should be a division
of labour. An Attorney, the value of whose professional talents was much
diminished by his conscientious scruples, was coupled with a Solicitor
whose want of scruples made some amends for his want of talents. When
the government wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer.
When the government wished to break the law, recourse was had to Powis.
This arrangement lasted till the king obtained the services of an
advocate who was at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer.
No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than
William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as a
Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been
chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the
Oxford Parliament he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy
demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess
considerable quickness and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed
to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had
faults compared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for
virtues. The government sought occasion against him, and easily found
it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a narrative
which Dangerfield had written. This narrative, if published by a
private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal
information was filed in the King's Bench against Williams: he pleaded
the privileges of Parliament in vain: he was convicted and sentenced
to a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually
paid: for the rest he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had
been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield's narrative, was encouraged,
by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action,
and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this
juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way which, to
a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful
than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell himself to that
government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer
to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on those liberties and on
that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He might
expiate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigoted Tories,
stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney, shrank in horror. The
bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted.
Peterborough was induced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action.
Sawyer was dismissed. Powis became Attorney General. Williams was made
Solicitor, received the honour of knighthood, and was soon a favourite.
Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his
abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his
superior into the shade. [355]
Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear a
chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British
annals.
On the twenty-seventh of April 1688, the King put forth a second
Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the
Declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to
have convinced his people that he was not a person who could easily
be induced to depart from any resolution which he had formed. But,
as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might be
prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to
proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved to
employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and that he
had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many of his disobedient
servants from civil and military employments. He announced that he meant
to hold a Parliament in November at the latest; and he exhorted his
subjects to choose representatives who would assist him in the great
work which he had undertaken. [356]
This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It contained
nothing new; and men wondered that the King should think it worth while
to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of telling them
that he had not changed his mind. [357] Perhaps James was nettled by
the indifference with which the announcement of his fixed resolution was
received by the public, and thought that his dignity and authority would
suffer unless he without delay did something novel and striking. On
the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an Order in Council that his
Declaration of the preceding week should be read, on two successive
Sundays at the time of divine service, by the officiating ministers
of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. In London and in
the suburbs the reading was to take place on the twentieth and
twenty-seventh of May, in other parts of England on the third and
tenth of June. The Bishops were directed to distribute copies of the
Declaration through their respective dioceses. [358]
When it is considered that the clergy of the Established Church, with
scarcely an exception, regarded the Indulgence as a violation of the
laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the King, and
as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own
profession, it will scarcely admit of doubt that the Order in Council
was intended to be felt by them as a cruel affront. It was popularly
believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metaphor
borrowed from the rhetoric of the East. He would, he said, make them
eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt. But, tyrannical and
malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priesthood refuse to
obey? The King's temper was arbitrary and severe. The proceedings of the
Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary as those of a court martial.
Whoever ventured to resist might in a week be ejected from his
parsonage, deprived of his whole income, pronounced incapable of holding
any other spiritual preferment, and left to beg from door to door. If,
indeed, the whole body offered an united opposition to the royal will,
it was probable that even James would scarcely venture to punish
ten thousand delinquents at once. But there was not time to form an
extensive combination. The Order in Council was gazetted on the seventh
of May. On the twentieth the Declaration was to be read in all the
pulpits of London and the neighbourhood. By no exertion was it possible
in that age to ascertain within a fortnight the intentions of one tenth
part of the parochial ministers who were scattered over the kingdom.
It was not easy to collect in so short a time the sense even of the
episcopal order. It might also well be apprehended that, if the clergy
refused to read the Declaration, the Protestant Dissenters would
misinterpret the refusal, would despair of obtaining any toleration from
the members of the Church of England, and would throw their whole weight
into the scale of the court.
The clergy therefore hesitated; and this hesitation may well be excused:
for some eminent laymen, who possessed a large share of the public
confidence, were disposed to recommend submission. They thought that
a general opposition could hardly be expected, and that a partial
opposition would be ruinous to individuals, and of little advantage to
the Church and to the nation. Such was the opinion given at this time
by Halifax and Nottingham. The day drew near; and still there was no
concert and no formed resolution. [359]
At this conjuncture the Protestant Dissenters of London won for
themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country. They had
hitherto been reckoned by the government as part of its strength. A few
of their most active and noisy preachers, corrupted by the favours of
the court, had got up addresses in favour of the King's policy. Others,
estranged by the recollection of many cruel wrongs both from the
Church of England and from the House of Stuart, had seen with resentful
pleasure the tyrannical prince and the tyrannical hierarchy separated
by a bitter enmity, and bidding against each other for the help of sects
lately persecuted and despised. But this feeling, however natural, had
been indulged long enough. The time had come when it was necessary to
make a choice: and the Nonconformists of the City, with a noble spirit,
arrayed themselves side by side with the members of the Church in
defence of the fundamental laws of the realm. Baxter, Bates, and Howe
distinguished themselves by their efforts to bring about this coalition:
but the generous enthusiasm which pervaded the whole Puritan body made
the task easy. The zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors. Those
Presbyterian and Independent teachers who showed an inclination to take
part with the King against the ecclesiastical establishment received
distinct notice that, unless they changed their conduct, their
congregations would neither hear them nor pay them. Alsop, who had
flattered himself that he should be able to bring over a great body of
his disciples to the royal side, found himself on a sudden an object
of contempt and abhorrence to those who had lately revered him as their
spiritual guide, sank into a deep melancholy, and hid himself from the
public eye. Deputations waited on several of the London clergy imploring
them not to judge of the dissenting body from the servile adulation
which had lately filled the London Gazette, and exhorting them, placed
as they were in the van of this great fight, to play the men for the
liberties of England and for the faith delivered to the Saints. These
assurances were received with joy and gratitude. Yet there was still
much anxiety and much difference of opinion among those who had to
decide whether, on Sunday the twentieth, they would or would not obey
the King's command. The London clergy, then universally acknowledged to
be the flower of their profession, held a meeting. Fifteen Doctors
of Divinity were present. Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, the most
celebrated preacher of the age, came thither from a sick bed. Sherlock,
Master of the Temple, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough and Rector of
the important parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and Stillingfleet,
Archdeacon of London and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, attended. The
general feeling of the assembly seemed to be that it was, on the whole,
advisable to obey the Order in Council. The dispute began to wax warm,
and might have produced fatal consequences, if it had not been brought
to a close by the firmness and wisdom of Doctor Edward Fowler, Vicar of
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, one of a small but remarkable class of divines
who united that love of civil liberty which belonged to the school of
Calvin with the theology of the school of Arminius. [360] Standing up,
Fowler spoke thus: "I must be plain. The question is so simple that
argument can throw no new light on it, and can only beget heat. Let
every man say Yes or No. But I cannot consent to be bound by the vote
of the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach of unity. But this
Declaration I cannot in conscience read." Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock,
and Stillingfleet declared that they were of the same mind. The majority
yielded to the authority of a minority so respectable. A resolution
by which all present pledged themselves to one another not to read the
Declaration was then drawn up. Patrick was the first who set his hand
to it; Fowler was the second. The paper was sent round the city, and was
speedily subscribed by eighty-five incumbents. [361]
Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as to the
course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a grave and
learned company was assembled round the table of the Primate at Lambeth.
Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop of Ely, White, Bishop of
Peterborough, and Tenison, Rector of St. Martin's parish, were among the
guests. The Earl of Clarendon, a zealous and uncompromising friend of
the Church, had been invited. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, intruded
himself on the meeting, probably as a spy. While he remained, no
confidential communication could take place; but, after his departure,
the great question of which all minds were full was propounded and
discussed. The general opinion was that the Declaration ought not to be
read. Letters were forthwith written to several of the most respectable
prelates of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come
up without delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their
metropolitan at this conjuncture. [362] As there was little doubt that
these letters would be opened if they passed through the office in
Lombard Street, they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post
towns on the different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty
had been so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from
indisposition, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but
found himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed
to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precautions,
detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of his
brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his order, did
not reach London in time. [363] His namesake, William Lloyd, Bishop of
St. Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment,
and half crazed by his persevering endeavours to extract from Daniel and
the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France,
hastened to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth. [364] On the
following day came the excellent Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lake,
Bishop of Chichester, and Sir John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a
baronet of an old and honourable Cornish family.
On the eighteenth a meeting of prelates and of other eminent divines
was held at Lambeth. Tillotson, Tenison, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
and Sherlock, were present. Prayers were solemnly read before the
consultation began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying the
general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. It was
not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cumbrous and
inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft some raillery,
which he bore with less patience than he showed under much heavier
trials. But in substance nothing could be more skilfully framed than
this memorable document. All disloyalty, all intolerance, was earnestly
disclaimed. The King was assured that the Church still was, as she had
ever been, faithful to the throne. He was assured also that the Bishops
would, in proper place and time, as Lords of Parliament and members
of the Upper House of Convocation, show that they by no means wanted
tenderness for the conscientious scruples of Dissenters. But Parliament
had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the
sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes
in matters ecclesiastical. The Declaration was therefore illegal;
and the petitioners could not, in prudence, honour, or conscience, be
parties to the solemn publication of an illegal Declaration in the house
of God, and during the time of divine service.
This paper was signed by the Archbishop and by six of his suffragans,
Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and
Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. The Bishop of
London, being under suspension, did not sign.
It was now late on Friday evening: and on Sunday morning the Declaration
was to be read in the churches of London. It was necessary to put the
paper into the King's hands without delay. The six Bishops set off for
Whitehall. The Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the court, did
not accompany them. Lloyd, leaving his five brethren at the house of
Lord Dartmouth in the vicinity of the palace, went to Sunderland, and
begged that minister to read the petition, and to ascertain when the
King would be willing to receive it. Sunderland, afraid of compromising
himself, refused to look at the paper, but went immediately to the royal
closet. James directed that the Bishops should be admitted. He had
heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal
mandate, but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and
that they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty
was therefore in very good humour. When they knelt before him, he
graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, "This
is my Lord of Canterbury's hand." "Yes, sir, his own hand," was the
answer. James read the petition; he folded it up; and his countenance
grew dark. "This," he said, "is a great surprise to me. I did not expect
this from your Church, especially from some of you. This is a standard
of rebellion." The Bishops broke out into passionate professions of
loyalty: but the King, as usual, repeated the same words over and
over. "I tell you, this is a standard of rebellion." "Rebellion!" cried
Trelawney, falling on his knees. "For God's sake, sir, do not say so
hard a thing of us. No Trelawney can be a rebel. Remember that my
family has fought for the crown. Remember how I served your Majesty when
Monmouth was in the West." "We put down the last rebellion," said Lake,
"we shall not raise another." "We rebel!" exclaimed Turner; "we are
ready to die at your Majesty's feet." "Sir," said Ken, in a more manly
tone, "I hope that you will grant to us that liberty of conscience which
you grant to all mankind." Still James went on. "This is rebellion.
This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good Churchman question
the dispensing power before? Have not some of you preached for it
and written for it? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my
Declaration published." "We have two duties to perform," answered Ken,
"our duty to God, and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you, but we
fear God." "Have I deserved this?" said the King, more and more, angry,
"I who have been such a friend to your Church! I did not expect this
from some of you. I will be obeyed. My Declaration shall be published.
You are trumpeters of sedition. What do you do here? Go to your dioceses
and see that I am obeyed. I will keep this paper. I will not part with
it. I will remember you that have signed it." "God's will be done," said
Ken. "God has given me the dispensing power," said the King, "and I
will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thousand of your
Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal." The Bishops respectfully
retired. [365] That very evening the document which they had put into
the hands of the King appeared word for word in print, was laid on
the tables of all the coffeehouses, and was cried about the streets.
Everywhere the people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the
hawkers. It was said that the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few
hours by this penny broadside. This is probably an exaggeration; but
it is an exaggeration which proves that the sale was enormous. How the
petition got abroad is still a mystery. Sancroft declared that he had
taken every precaution against publication, and that he knew of no copy
except that which he had himself written, and which James had taken out
of Lloyd's hand. The veracity of the Archbishop is beyond all suspicion.
It is, however, by no means improbable that some of the divines
who assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short
a composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The
prevailing opinion, however, was that some person about the King had
been indiscreet or treacherous. [366] Scarcely less sensation was
produced by a short letter which was written with great power of
argument and language, printed secretly, and largely circulated on the
same day by the post and by the common carriers. A copy was sent to
every clergyman in the kingdom. The writer did not attempt to disguise
the danger which those who disobeyed the royal mandate would incur: but
he set forth in a lively manner the still greater danger of submission.
"If we read the Declaration," said he, "we fall to rise no more. We fall
unpitied and despised. We fall amidst the curses of a nation whom our
compliance will have ruined." Some thought that this paper came from
Holland. Others attributed it to Sherlock. But Prideaux, Dean of
Norwich, who was a principal agent in distributing it, believed it to be
the work of Halifax.
The conduct of the prelates was rapturously extolled by the general
voice: but some murmurs were heard. It was said that such grave men,
if they thought themselves bound in conscience to remonstrate with the
King, ought to have remonstrated earlier. Was it fair to him to leave
him in the dark till within thirty-six hours of the time fixed for the
reading of the Declaration? Even if he wished to revoke the Order in
Council, it was too late to do so. The inference seemed to be that the
petition was intended, not to move the royal mind, but merely to inflame
the discontents of the people. [367] These complaints were utterly
groundless. The King had laid on the Bishops a command new, surprising,
and embarrassing. It was their duty to communicate with each other, and
to ascertain as far as possible the sense of the profession of which
they were the heads before they took any step. They were dispersed over
the whole kingdom. Some of them were distant from others a full week's
journey. James allowed them only a fortnight to inform themselves, to
meet, to deliberate, and to decide; and he surely had no right to think
himself aggrieved because that fortnight was drawing to a close before
he learned their decision. Nor is it true that they did not leave him
time to revoke his order if he had been wise enough to do so. He might
have called together his Council on Saturday morning, and before night
it might have been known throughout London and the suburbs that he had
yielded to the intreaties of the fathers of the Church. The Saturday,
however, passed over without any sign of relenting on the part of the
government, and the Sunday arrived, a day long remembered.
In the City and Liberties of London were about a hundred parish
churches. In only four of these was the Order in Council obeyed. At
Saint Gregory's the Declaration was read by a divine of the name of
Martin. As soon as he uttered the first words, the whole congregation
rose and withdrew. At Saint Matthew's, in Friday Street, a wretch named
Timothy Hall, who had disgraced his gown by acting as broker for the
Duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons, and who now had hopes of
obtaining the vacant bishopric of Oxford, was in like manner left alone
in his church. At Serjeant's Inn, in Chancery Lane, the clerk pretended
that he had forgotten to bring a copy; and the Chief justice of the
King's Bench, who had attended in order to see that the royal mandate
was obeyed, was forced to content himself with this excuse. Samuel
Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, a curate in London, took
for his text that day the noble answer of the three Jews to the Chaldean
tyrant. "Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods,
nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." Even in the chapel
of Saint James's Palace the officiating minister had the courage to
disobey the order. The Westminster boys long remembered what took place
that day in the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiated there as
Dean. As soon as he began to read the Declaration, murmurs and the noise
of people crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. He trembled so
violently that men saw the paper shake in his hand. Long before he had
finished, the place was deserted by all but those whose situation made
it necessary for them to remain. [368]
Never had the Church been so dear to the nation as on the afternoon of
that day. The spirit of dissent seemed to be extinct. Baxter from his
pulpit pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops and parochial clergy. The
Dutch minister, a few hours later, wrote to inform the States General
that the Anglican priesthood had risen in the estimation of the public
to an incredible degree. The universal cry of the Nonconformists,
he said, was that they would rather continue to lie under the penal
statutes than separate their cause from that of the prelates. [369]
Another week of anxiety and agitation passed away. Sunday came
again. Again the churches of the capital were thronged by hundreds
of thousands. The Declaration was read nowhere except at the very few
places where it had been read the week before. The minister who had
officiated at the chapel in Saint James's Palace had been turned out of
his situation, and a more obsequious divine appeared with the paper in
his hand: but his agitation was so great that he could not articulate.
In truth the feeling of the whole nation had now become such as none
but the very best and noblest, or the very worst and basest, of mankind
could without much discomposure encounter. [370]
Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence of the tempest
which he had raised. What step was he next to take? He must either
advance or recede: and it was impossible to advance without peril, or to
recede without humiliation. At one moment he determined to put forth a
second order enjoining the clergy in high and angry terms to publish
his Declaration, and menacing every one who should be refractory with
instant suspension. This order was drawn up and sent to the press, then
recalled, then a second time sent to the press, then recalled a second
time. [371] A different plan was suggested by some of those who were
for rigorous measures. The prelates who had signed the petition might be
cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission and deprived of their sees.
But to this course strong objections were urged in Council. It had been
announced that the Houses would be convoked before the end of the
year. The Lords would assuredly treat the sentence of deprivation as a
nullity, would insist that Sancroft and his fellow petitioners should be
summoned to Parliament, and would refuse to acknowledge a new Archbishop
of Canterbury or a new Bishop of Bath and Wells. Thus the session, which
at best was likely to be sufficiently stormy, would commence with a
deadly quarrel between the crown and the peers. If therefore it were
thought necessary to punish the Bishops, the punishment ought to be
inflicted according to the known course of English law. Sunderland
had from the beginning objected, as far as he dared, to the Order
in Council. He now suggested a course which, though not free from
inconveniences, was the most prudent and the most dignified that a
series of errors had left open to the government. The King might with
grace and majesty announce to the world that he was deeply hurt by the
undutiful conduct of the Church of England; but that he could not
forget all the services rendered by that Church, in trying times, to his
father, to his brother, and to himself; that, as a friend to the liberty
of conscience, he was unwilling to deal severely by men whom conscience,
ill informed indeed, and unreasonably scrupulous, might have prevented
from obeying his commands; and that he would therefore leave the
offenders to that punishment which their own reflections would inflict
whenever they should calmly compare their recent acts with the loyal
doctrines of which they had so loudly boasted. Not only Powis and
Bellasyse, who had always been for moderate counsels, but even Dover and
Arundell, leaned towards this proposition. Jeffreys, on the other hand,
maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors
as the seven Bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand.
He did not, however, wish them to be cited before the Ecclesiastical
Commission, in which he sate as chief or rather as sole judge. For the
load of public hatred under which he already lay was too much even
for his shameless forehead and obdurate heart; and he shrank from the
responsibility which he would have incurred by pronouncing an illegal
sentence on the rulers of the Church and the favourites of the nation.
He therefore recommended a criminal information. It was accordingly
resolved that the Archbishop and the six other petititioners should be
brought before the Court of King's Bench on a charge of seditious libel.
That they would be convicted it was scarcely possible to doubt. The
judges and their officers were tools of the court. Since the old charter
of the City of London had been forfeited, scarcely one prisoner whom
the government was bent on bringing to punishment had been absolved by
a jury. The refractory prelates would probably be condemned to ruinous
fines and to long imprisonment, and would be glad to ransom themselves
by serving, both in and out of Parliament, the designs of the Sovereign.
[372]
On the twenty-seventh of May it was notified to the Bishops that on the
eighth of June they must appear before the King in Council. Why so long
an interval was allowed we are not informed. Perhaps James hoped that
some of the offenders, terrified by his displeasure, might submit before
the day fixed for the reading of the Declaration in their dioceses, and
might, in order to make their peace with him, persuade their clergy to
obey his order. If such was his hope it was signally disappointed.
Sunday the third of June came; and all parts of England followed the
example of the capital. Already the Bishops of Norwich, Gloucester,
Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter, had signed copies of the petition
in token of their approbation. The Bishop of Worcester had refused to
distribute the Declaration among his clergy. The Bishop of Hereford had
distributed it: but it was generally understood that he was overwhelmed
by remorse and shame for having done so. Not one parish priest in fifty
complied with the Order in Council.--In the great diocese of Chester,
including the county of Lancaster, only three clergymen could be
prevailed on by Cartwright to obey the King. In the diocese of Norwich
are many hundreds of parishes. In only four of these was the Declaration
read. The courtly Bishop of Rochester could not overcome the scruples of
the minister of the ordinary of Chatham, who depended on the government
for bread. There is still extant a pathetic letter which this honest
priest sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty. "I cannot," he wrote,
"reasonably expect your Honour's protection. God's will be done. I must
choose suffering rather than sin." [373]
On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates, furnished by
the ablest lawyers in England with full advice, repaired to the palace,
and were called into the Council chamber. Their petition was lying
on the table. The Chancellor took the paper up, showed it to the
Archbishop, and said, "Is this the paper which your Grace wrote, and
which the six Bishops present delivered to his Majesty?" Sancroft looked
at the paper, turned to the King, and spoke thus: "Sir, I stand here a
culprit. I never was so before. Once I little thought that I ever should
be so. Least of all could I think that I should be charged with any
offence against my King: but, since I am so unhappy as to be in this
situation, your Majesty will not be offended if I avail myself of my
lawful right to decline saying anything which may criminate me." "This
is mere chicanery," said the King. "I hope that your Grace will not do
so ill a thing as to deny your own hand? Sir," said Lloyd, whose studies
had been much among the casuists, "all divines agree that a person
situated as we are may refuse to answer such a question." The King, as
slow of understanding as quick of temper, could not comprehend what the
prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently becoming very
angry. "Sir," said the Archbishop, "I am not bound to accuse myself.
Nevertheless, if your Majesty positively commands me to answer, I will
do so in the confidence that a just and generous prince will not suffer
what I say in obedience to his orders to be brought in evidence against
me." "You must not capitulate with your Sovereign," said the Chancellor.
"No," said the King; "I will not give any such command. If you choose to
deny your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you."
The Bishops were repeatedly sent out into the antechamber, and
repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James positively
commanded them to answer the question. He did not expressly engage
that their confession should not be used against them. But they, not
unnaturally, supposed that, after what had passed, such an engagement
was implied in his command. Sancroft acknowledged his handwriting; and
his brethren followed his example. They were then interrogated about the
meaning of some words in the petition, and about the letter which had
been circulated with so much effect all over the kingdom: but their
language was so guarded that nothing was gained by the examination. The
Chancellor then told them that a criminal information would be exhibited
against them in the Court of King's Bench, and called upon them to enter
into recognisances. They refused. They were peers of the realm, they
said. They were advised by the best lawyers in Westminster Hall that no
peer could be required to enter into a recognisance in a case of libel;
and they should not think themselves justified in relinquishing the
privilege of their order. The King was so absurd as to think himself
personally affronted because they chose, on a legal question, to be
guided by legal advice. "You believe everybody," he said, "rather than
me." He was indeed mortified and alarmed. For he had gone so far that,
if they persisted, he had no choice left but to send them to prison;
and, though he by no means foresaw all the consequences of such a step,
he foresaw probably enough to disturb him. They were resolute. A warrant
was therefore made out directing the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep
them in safe custody, and a barge was manned to convey them down the
river. [374]
It was known all over London that the Bishops were before the Council.
The public anxiety was intense. A great multitude filled the courts
of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets. Many people were in the
habit of refreshing themselves at the close of a summer day with the
cool air of the Thames. But on this evening the whole river was alive
with wherries. When the Seven came forth under a guard, the emotions of
the people broke through all restraint. Thousands fell on their knees
and prayed aloud for the men who had, with the Christian, courage of
Ridley and Latimer, confronted a tyrant inflamed by all the bigotry of
Mary. Many dashed into the stream, and, up to their waists in ooze and
water, cried to the holy fathers to bless them. All down the river,
from Whitehall to London Bridge, the royal barge passed between lines of
boats, from which arose a shout of "God bless your Lordships." The King,
in great alarm, gave orders that the garrison of the Tower should be
doubled, that the Guards should be held ready for action, and that two
companies should be detached from every regiment in the kingdom, and
sent up instantly to London. But the force on which he relied as the
means of coercing the people shared all the feelings of the people.
The very sentinels who were under arms at the Traitors' Gate reverently
asked for a blessing from the martyrs whom they were to guard. Sir
Edward Hales was Lieutenant of the Tower. He was little inclined to
treat his prisoners with kindness. For he was an apostate from that
Church for which they suffered; and he held several lucrative posts by
virtue of that dispensing power against which they had protested. He
learned with indignation that his soldiers were drinking the health of
the Bishops. He ordered his officers to see that it was done no more.
But the officers came back with a report that the thing could not be
prevented, and that no other health was drunk in the garrison. Nor was
it only by carousing that the troops showed their reverence for the
fathers of the Church. There was such a show of devotion throughout the
Tower that pious divines thanked God for bringing good out of evil, and
for making the persecution of His faithful servants the means of saving
many souls. All day the coaches and liveries of the first nobles
of England were seen round the prison gates. Thousands of humbler
spectators constantly covered Tower Hill. [375] But among the marks of
public respect and sympathy which the prelates received there was one
which more than all the rest enraged and alarmed the King. He learned
that a deputation of ten Nonconformist ministers had visited the Tower.
He sent for four of these persons, and himself upbraided them. They
courageously answered that they thought it their duty to forget past
quarrels, and to stand by the men who stood by the Protestant religion.
[376]
Scarcely had the gates of the Tower been closed on the prisoners when
an event took place which increased the public excitement. It had been
announced that the Queen did not expect to be delivered till July. But,
on the day after the Bishops had appeared before the Council, it was
observed that the King seemed to be anxious about her state. In
the evening, however, she sate playing cards at Whitehall till near
midnight. Then she was carried in a sedan to Saint James's Palace,
where apartments had been very hastily fitted up for her reception. Soon
messengers were running about in all directions to summon physicians and
priests, Lords of the Council, and Ladies of the Bedchamber. In a few
hours many public functionaries and women of rank were assembled in the
Queen's room. There, on the morning of Sunday, the tenth of June, a day
long kept sacred by the too faithful adherents of a bad cause, was born
the most unfortunate of princes, destined to seventy-seven years of
exile and wandering, of vain projects, of honours more galling than
insults, and of hopes such as make the heart sick.
The calamities of the poor child had begun before his birth. The nation
over which, according to the ordinary course of succession, he would
have reigned, was fully persuaded that his mother was not really
pregnant. By whatever evidence the fact of his birth had been proved,
a considerable number of people would probably have persisted in
maintaining that the Jesuits had practised some skilful sleight of hand:
and the evidence, partly from accident, partly from gross mismanagement,
was open to some objections. Many persons of both sexes were in the
royal bedchamber when the child first saw the light but none of them
enjoyed any large measure of public confidence. Of the Privy Councillors
present half were Roman Catholics; and those who called themselves
Protestants were generally regarded as traitors to their country and
their God. Many of the women in attendance were French, Italian, and
Portuguese. Of the English ladies some were Papists, and some were
the wives of Papists. Some persons who were peculiarly entitled to be
present, and whose testimony would have satisfied all minds accessible
to reason, were absent, and for their absence the King was held
responsible. The Princess Anne was, of all the inhabitants of the
island, the most deeply interested in the event. Her sex and her
experience qualified her to act as the guardian of her sister's
birthright and her own. She had conceived strong suspicions which were
daily confirmed by circumstances trifling or imaginary. She fancied
that the Queen carefully shunned her scrutiny, and ascribed to guilt a
reserve which was perhaps the effect of delicacy. [377] In this temper
Anne had determined to be present and vigilant when the critical day
should arrive. But she had not thought it necessary to be at her post
a month before that day, and had, in compliance, it was said, with her
father's advice, gone to drink the Bath waters. Sancroft, whose great
place made it his duty to attend, and on whose probity the nation placed
entire reliance, had a few hours before been sent to the Tower by
James. The Hydes were the proper protectors of the rights of the two
Princesses. The Dutch Ambassador might be regarded as the representative
of William, who, as first prince of the blood and consort of the King's
eldest daughter, had a deep interest in what was passing. James never
thought of summoning any member, male or female, of the family of Hyde;
nor was the Dutch Ambassador invited to be present.
Posterity has fully acquitted the King of the fraud which his people
imputed to him. But it is impossible to acquit him of folly and
perverseness such as explain and excuse the error of his contemporaries.
He was perfectly aware of the suspicions which were abroad. [378] He
ought to have known that those suspicions would not be dispelled by the
evidence of members of the Church of Rome, or of persons who, though
they might call themselves members of the Church of England, had shown
themselves ready to sacrifice the interests of the Church of England in
order to obtain his favour. That he was taken by surprise is true. But
he had twelve hours to make his arrangements. He found no difficulty in
crowding St. James's Palace with bigots and sycophants on whose word the
nation placed no reliance. It would have been quite as easy to
procure the attendance of some eminent persons whose attachment to the
Princesses and to the established religion was unquestionable.
At a later period, when he had paid dearly for his foolhardy contempt
of public opinion, it was the fashion at Saint Germains to excuse him
by throwing the blame on others. Some Jacobites charged Anne with having
purposely kept out of the way. Nay, they were not ashamed to say that
Sancroft had provoked the King to send him to the Tower, in order that
the evidence which was to confound the calumnies of the malecontents
might be defective. [379] The absurdity of these imputations is
palpable. Could Anne or Sancroft possibly have foreseen that the Queen's
calculations would turn out to be erroneous by a whole month? Had those
calculations been correct, Anne would have been back from Bath, and
Sancroft would have been out of the Tower, in ample time for the birth.
At all events the maternal uncles of the King's daughters were neither
at a distance nor in a prison. The same messenger who summoned the
whole bevy of renegades, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland, and
Mulgrave, could just as easily have summoned Clarendon. If they were
Privy Councillors, so was he. His house was in Jermyn Street, not two
hundred yards from the chamber of the Queen. Yet he was left to learn at
St. James's Church, from the agitation and whispers of the congregation,
that his niece had ceased to be heiress presumptive of the crown. [380]
Was it a disqualification that he was the near kinsman of the Princesses
of Orange and Denmark? Or was it a disqualification that he was
unalterably attached to the Church of England?
The cry of the whole nation was that an imposture bad been practised.
Papists had, during some months, been predicting, from, the pulpit and
through the press, in prose and verse, in English and Latin, that a
Prince of Wales would be given to the prayers of the Church; and they
had now accomplished their own prophecy. Every witness who could not
be corrupted or deceived had been studiously excluded. Anne had been
tricked into visiting Bath. The Primate had, on the very day preceding
that which had been fixed for the villainy, been sent to prison in
defiance of the rules of law and of the privileges of peerage. Not a
single man or woman who had the smallest interest in detecting the fraud
had been suffered to be present. The Queen had been removed suddenly and
at the dead of night to St. James's Palace, because that building,
less commodious for honest purposes than Whitehall, had some rooms and
passages well suited for the purpose of the Jesuits. There, amidst a
circle of zealots who thought nothing a crime that tended to promote the
interests of their Church, and of courtiers who thought nothing a crime
that tended to enrich and aggrandise themselves, a new born child had
been introduced into the royal bed, and then handed round in triumph,
as heir of the three kingdoms. Heated by such suspicions, suspicions
unjust, it is true, but not altogether unnatural, men thronged more
eagerly than ever to pay their homage to the saintly victims of the
tyrant who, having long foully injured his people, had now filled up the
measure of his iniquities by more foully injuring his children. [381]
The Prince of Orange, not himself suspecting any trick, and not aware of
the state of public feeling in England, ordered prayers to be said under
his own roof for his little brother in law, and sent Zulestein to London
with a formal message of congratulation. Zulestein, to his amazement,
found all the people whom he met open mouthed about the infamous fraud
just committed by the Jesuits, and saw every hour some fresh pasquinade
on the pregnancy and the delivery. He soon wrote to the Hague that not
one person in ten believed the child to have been born of the Queen.
[382]
The demeanour of the seven prelates meanwhile strengthened the interest
which their situation excited. On the evening of the Black Friday, as it
was called, on which they were committed, they reached their prison just
at the hour of divine service. They instantly hastened to the chapel.
It chanced that in the second lesson were these words: "In all things
approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in
afflictions, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments." All zealous
Churchmen were delighted by this coincidence, and remembered how much
comfort a similar coincidence had given, near forty years before, to
Charles the First at the time of his death.
On the evening of the next day, Saturday the ninth, a letter came from
Sunderland enjoining the chaplain of the Tower to read the Declaration
during divine service on the following morning. As the time fixed by
the Order in Council for the reading in London had long expired, this
proceeding of the government could be considered only as a personal
insult of the meanest and most childish kind to the venerable prisoners.
The chaplain refused to comply: he was dismissed from his situation; and
the chapel was shut up. [383]
The Bishops edified all who approached them by the firmness and
cheerfulness with which they endured confinement, by the modesty and
meekness with which they received the applauses and blessings of the
whole nation, and by the loyal attachment which they professed for the
persecutor who sought their destruction. They remained only a week in
custody. On Friday the fifteenth of June, the first day of term, they
were brought before the King's Bench. An immense throng awaited their
coming. From the landingplace to the Court of Requests they passed
through a lane of spectators who blessed and applauded them. "Friends,"
said the prisoners as they passed, "honour the King; and remember us
in your prayers." These humble and pious expressions moved the hearers,
even to tears. When at length the procession had made its way through
the crowd into the presence of the judges, the Attorney General
exhibited the information which he had been commanded to prepare, and
moved that the defendants might be ordered to plead. The counsel on the
other side objected that the Bishops had been unlawfully committed, and
were therefore not regularly before the Court. The question whether a
peer could be required to enter into recognisances on a charge of libel
was argued at great length, and decided by a majority of judges in
favour of the crown. The prisoners then pleaded Not Guilty. That day
fortnight, the twenty-ninth of June, was fixed for their trial. In the
meantime they were allowed to be at large on their own recognisances.
The crown lawyers acted prudently in not requiring sureties. For Halifax
had arranged that twenty-one temporal peers of the highest consideration
should be ready to put in bail, three for each defendant; and such a
manifestation of the feeling of the nobility would have been no slight
blow to the government. It was also known that one of the most opulent
Dissenters of the City had begged that he might have the honour of
giving security for Ken.
The Bishops were now permitted to depart to their own homes. The common
people, who did not understand the nature of the legal proceedings which
had taken place in the King's Bench, and who saw that their favourites
had been brought to Westminster Hall in custody and were suffered to
go away in freedom, imagined that the good cause was prospering. Loud
acclamations were raised. The steeples of the churches sent forth joyous
peals. Sprat was amazed to hear the bells of his own Abbey ringing
merrily. He promptly silenced them: but his interference caused much
angry muttering. The Bishops found it difficult to escape from the
importunate crowd of their wellwishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace
Yard by admirers who struggled to touch his hands and to kiss the skirt
of his robe, till Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and
conveyed him home by a bye path. Cartwright, it is said, was so unwise
as to mingle with the crowd. Some person who saw his episcopal habit
asked and received his blessing. A bystander cried out, "Do you know
who blessed you?" "Surely," said he who had just been honoured by the
benediction, "it was one of the Seven." "No," said the other "it is the
Popish Bishop of Chester." "Popish dog," cried the enraged Protestant;
"take your blessing back again."
Such was the concourse, and such the agitation, that the Dutch
Ambassador was surprised to see the day close without an insurrection.
The King had been by no means at ease. In order that he might be ready
to suppress any disturbance, he had passed the morning in reviewing
several battalions of infantry in Hyde Park. It is, however, by no means
certain that his troops would have stood by him if he had needed their
services. When Sancroft reached Lambeth, in the afternoon, he found the
grenadier guards, who were quartered in that suburb, assembled before
the gate of his palace. They formed in two lines on his right and left,
and asked his benediction as he went through them. He with difficulty
prevented them from lighting a bonfire in honour of his return to his
dwelling. There were, however, many bonfires that evening in the City.
Two Roman Catholics who were so indiscreet as to beat some boys for
joining in these rejoicings were seized by the mob, stripped naked, and
ignominiously branded. [384]
Sir Edward Hales now came to demand fees from those who had lately been
his prisoners. They refused to pay anything for the detention which
they regarded as illegal to an officer whose commission was, on their
principles, a nullity. The Lieutenant hinted very intelligibly that, if
they came into his hands again, they should be put into heavy irons and
should lie on bare stones. "We are under our King's displeasure," was
the answer; "and most deeply do we feel it: but a fellow subject who
threatens us does but lose his breath." It is easy to imagine with what
indignation the people, excited as they were, must have learned that a
renegade from the Protestant faith, who held a command in defiance
of the fundamental laws of England, had dared to menace divines of
venerable age and dignity with all the barbarities of Lollard's Tower.
[385]
Before the day of trial the agitation had spread to the farthest corners
of the island. From Scotland the Bishops received letters assuring them
of the sympathy of the Presbyterians of that country, so long and so
bitterly hostile to prelacy. [386] The people of Cornwall, a fierce,
bold, and athletic race, among whom there was a stronger provincial
feeling than in any other part of the realm, were greatly moved by the
danger of Trelawney, whom they reverenced less as a ruler of the Church
than as the head of an honourable house, and the heir through twenty
descents of ancestors who had been of great note before the Normans had
set foot on English ground. All over the county the peasants chanted a
ballad of which the burden is still remembered:
"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand
Cornish boys will know the reason why."
The miners from their caverns reechoed the song with a variation:
"Then twenty thousand under ground will know the reason why." [387]
The rustics in many parts of the country loudly expressed a strange hope
which had never ceased to live in their hearts. Their Protestant Duke,
their beloved Monmouth, would suddenly appear, would lead them to
victory, and would tread down the King and the Jesuits under his feet.
[388] The ministers were appalled. Even Jeffreys would gladly have
retraced his steps. He charged Clarendon with friendly messages to the
Bishops, and threw on others the blame of the prosecution which he had
himself recommended. Sunderland again ventured to recommend concession.
The late auspicious birth, he said, had furnished the King with an
excellent opportunity of withdrawing from a position full of danger and
inconvenience without incurring the reproach of timidity or of caprice.
On such happy occasions it had been usual for sovereigns to make the
hearts of subjects glad by acts of clemency; and nothing could be more
advantageous to the Prince of Wales than that he should, while still
in his cradle, be the peacemaker between his father and the agitated
nation. But the King's resolution was fixed. "I will go on," he said.
"I have been only too indulgent. Indulgence ruined my father." [389] The
artful minister found that his advice had been formerly taken only
because it had been shaped to suit the royal temper, and that, from the
moment at which he began to counsel well, he began to counsel in vain.
He had shown some signs of slackness in the proceeding against Magdalene
College. He had recently attempted to convince the King that Tyrconnel's
scheme of confiscating the property of the English colonists in Ireland
was full of danger, and had, with the help of Powis and Bellasyse, so
far succeeded that the execution of the design had been postponed for
another year. But this timidity and scrupulosity had excited disgust and
suspicion in the royal mind. [390] The day of retribution had arrived.
Sunderland was in the same situation in which his rival Rochester had
been some months before. Each of the two statesmen in turn experienced
the misery of clutching, with an agonizing grasp, power which was
perceptibly slipping away. Each in turn saw his suggestions scornfully
rejected. Both endured the pain of reading displeasure and distrust in
the countenance and demeanour of their master; yet both were by their
country held responsible for those crimes and errors from which they had
vainly endeavoured to dissuade him. While he suspected them of trying to
win popularity at the expense of his authority and dignity, the public
voice loudly accused them of trying to win his favour at the expense
of their own honour and of the general weal. Yet, in spite of
mortifications and humiliations, they both clung to office with
the gripe of drowning men. Both attempted to propitiate the King by
affecting a willingness to be reconciled to his Church. But there was a
point at which Rochester was determined to stop. He went to the verge of
apostasy: but there he recoiled: and the world, in consideration of the
firmness with which he refused to take the final step, granted him a
liberal amnesty for all former compliances. Sunderland, less scrupulous
and less sensible of shame, resolved to atone for his late moderation,
and to recover the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind
impressed with the importance of religious truth, must have appeared to
be one of the most flagitious of crimes, and which even men of the world
regard as the last excess of baseness. About a week before the day fixed
for the great trial, it was publicly announced that he was a Papist. The
King talked with delight of this triumph of divine grace. Courtiers and
envoys kept their countenances as well as they could while the renegade
protested that he had been long convinced of the impossibility of
finding salvation out of the communion of Rome, and that his conscience
would not let him rest till he had renounced the heresies in which he
had been brought up. The news spread fast. At all the coffeehouses it
was told how the prime minister of England, his feet bare, and a taper
in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked humbly for
admittance; how a priestly voice from within had demanded who was there,
how Sunderland had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered
from the true Church implored her to receive and to absolve him; how the
doors were opened; and how the neophyte partook of the holy mysteries.
[391]
This scandalous apostasy could not but heighten the interest with which
the nation looked forward to the day when the fate of the seven brave
confessors of the English Church was to be decided. To pack a jury was
now the great object of the King. The crown lawyers were ordered to make
strict inquiry as to the sentiments of the persons who were registered
in the freeholders' book. Sir Samuel Astry, Clerk of the Crown, whose
duty it was, in cases of this description, to select the names, was
summoned to the palace, and had an interview with James in the presence
of the Chancellor. [392] Sir Samuel seems to have done his best. For,
among the forty-eight persons whom he nominated, were said to be several
servants of the King, and several Roman Catholics. [393] But as the
counsel for the Bishops had a right to strike off twelve, these persons
were removed. The crown lawyers also struck off twelve. The list was
thus reduced to twenty-four. The first twelve who answered to their
names were to try the issue.
On the twenty-ninth of June, Westminster Hall, Old and New Palace Yard,
and all the neighbouring streets to a great distance were thronged
with people. Such an auditory had never before and has never since been
assembled in the Court of King's Bench. Thirty-five temporal peers of
the realm were counted in the crowd. [394]
All the four judges of the Court were on the bench. Wright, who
presided, had been raised to his high place over the heads of many abler
and more learned men solely on account of his unscrupulous servility.
Allybone was a Papist, and owed his situation to that dispensing power,
the legality of which was now in question. Holloway had hitherto been
a serviceable tool of the government. Even Powell, whose character for
honesty stood high, had borne a part in some proceedings which it is
impossible to defend. He had, in the great case of Sir Edward Hales,
with some hesitation, it is true, and after some delay, concurred with
the majority of the bench, and had thus brought on his character a stain
which his honourable conduct on this day completely effaced.
The counsel were by no means fairly matched. The government had required
from its law officers services so odious and disgraceful that all the
ablest jurists and advocates of the Tory party had, one after another,
refused to comply, and had been dismissed from their employments. Sir
Thomas Powis, the Attorney General, was scarcely of the third rank in
his profession. Sir William Williams, the Solicitor General, had
quick parts and dauntless courage: but he wanted discretion; he loved
wrangling; he had no command over his temper; and he was hated and
despised by all political parties. The most conspicuous assistants of
the Attorney and Solicitor were Serjeant Trinder, a Roman Catholic, and
Sir Bartholomew Shower, Recorder of London, who had some legal learning,
but whose fulsome apologies and endless repetitions were the jest of
Westminster Hall. The government had wished to secure the services of
Maynard: but he had plainly declared that he could not in conscience do
what was asked of him. [395]
On the other side were arrayed almost all the eminent forensic talents
of the age. Sawyer and Finch, who, at the time of the accession of
James, had been Attorney and Solicitor General, and who, during the
persecution of the Whigs in the late reign, had served the crown with
but too much vehemence and success, were of counsel for the defendants.
With them were joined two persons who, since age had diminished the
activity of Maynard, were reputed the two best lawyers that could be
found in the Inns of Court: Pemberton, who had, in the time of Charles
the Second, been Chief justice of the King's Bench, who had been removed
from his high place on account of his humanity and moderation, and who
had resumed his practice at the bar; and Pollexfen, who had long been
at the head of the Western circuit, and who, though he had incurred much
unpopularity by holding briefs for the crown at the Bloody Assizes, and
particularly by appearing against Alice Lisle, was known to be at heart
a Whig, if not a republican. Sir Creswell Levinz was also there, a man
of great knowledge and experience, but of singularly timid nature. He
had been removed from the bench some years before, because he was afraid
to serve the purposes of the government. He was now afraid to appear as
the advocate of the Bishops, and had at first refused to receive
their retainer: but it had been intimated to him by the whole body of
attorneys who employed him that, if he declined this brief, he should
never have another. [396]
Sir George Treby, an able and zealous Whig, who had been Recorder of
London under the old charter, was on the same side. Sir John Holt, a
still more eminent Whig lawyer, was not retained for the defence, in
consequence, it should seem, of some prejudice conceived against him
by Sancroft, but was privately consulted on the case by the Bishop of
London. [397] The junior counsel for the Bishops was a young barrister
named John Somers. He had no advantages of birth or fortune; nor had he
yet had any opportunity of distinguishing himself before the eyes of
the public: but his genius, his industry, his great and various
accomplishments, were well known to a small circle of friends; and, in
spite of his Whig opinions, his pertinent and lucid mode of arguing and
the constant propriety of his demeanour had already secured to him
the ear of the Court of King's Bench. The importance of obtaining his
services had been strongly represented to the Bishops by Johnstone; and
Pollexfen, it is said, had declared that no man in Westminster Hall was
so well qualified to treat a historical and constitutional question as
Somers.
The jury was sworn; it consisted of persons of highly respectable
station. The foreman was Sir Roger Langley, a baronet of old and
honourable family. With him were joined a knight and ten esquires,
several of whom are known to have been men of large possessions. There
were some Nonconformists in the number; for the Bishops had wisely
resolved not to show any distrust of the Protestant Dissenters. One name
excited considerable alarm, that of Michael Arnold. He was brewer to the
palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice.
The story goes that he complained bitterly of the position in which he
found himself. "Whatever I do," he said, "I am sure to be half ruined.
If I say Not Guilty, I shall brew no more for the King; and if I say
Guilty, I shall brew no more for anybody else." [398]
The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolly perused after
the lapse of more than a century and a half, has all the interest of
a drama. The advocates contended on both sides with far more than
professional keenness and vehemence: the audience listened with as much
anxiety as if the fate of every one of them was to be decided by the
verdict; and the turns of fortune were so sudden and amazing that
the multitude repeatedly passed in a single minute from anxiety to
exultation and back again from exultation to still deeper anxiety.
The information charged the Bishops with having written or published,
in the county of Middlesex, a false, malicious, and seditious libel.
The Attorney and Solicitor first tried to prove the writing. For
this purpose several persons were called to speak to the hands of the
Bishops. But the witnesses were so unwilling that hardly a single plain
answer could be extracted from any of them. Pemberton, Pollexfen, and
Levinz contended that there was no evidence to go to the jury. Two
of the judges, Holloway and Powell, declared themselves of the same
opinion; and the hopes of the spectators rose high. All at once the
crown lawyers announced their intention to take another line. Powis,
with shame and reluctance which he could not dissemble, put into the
witness box Blathwayt, a Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been
present when the King interrogated the Bishops. Blathwayt swore that he
had heard them own their signatures. His testimony was decisive. "Why,"
said judge Holloway to the Attorney, "when you had such evidence, did
you not produce it at first, without all this waste of time?" It soon
appeared why the counsel for the crown had been unwilling, without
absolute necessity, to resort to this mode of proof. Pemberton stopped
Blathwayt, subjected him to a searching cross examination, and insisted
upon having all that had passed between the King and the defendants
fully related. "That is a pretty thing indeed," cried Williams. "Do you
think," said Powis, "that you are at liberty to ask our witnesses any
impertinent question that comes into your heads?" The advocates of the
Bishops were not men to be so put down. "He is sworn," said Pollexfen,
"to tell the truth and the whole truth: and an answer we must and will
have." The witness shuffled, equivocated, pretended to misunderstand
the questions, implored the protection of the Court. But he was in
hands from which it was not easy to escape. At length the Attorney again
interposed. "If," he said, "you persist in asking such a question, tell
us, at least, what use you mean to make of it." Pemberton, who, through
the whole trial, did his duty manfully and ably, replied without
hesitation; "My Lords, I will answer Mr. Attorney. I will deal plainly
with the Court. If the Bishops owned this paper under a promise from His
Majesty that their confession should not be used against them, I hope
that no unfair advantage will be taken of them." "You put on His Majesty
what I dare hardly name," said Williams: "since you will be so pressing,
I demand, for the King, that the question may be recorded." "What do you
mean, Mr. Solicitor?" said Sawyer, interposing. "I know what I mean,"
said the apostate: "I desire that the question may be recorded in
Court." "Record what you will, I am not afraid of you, Mr. Solicitor,"
said Pemberton. Then came a loud and fierce altercation, which the Chief
Justice could with difficulty quiet. In other circumstances, he would
probably have ordered the question to be recorded and Pemberton to be
committed. But on this great day he was overawed. He often cast a
side glance towards the thick rows of Earls and Barons by whom he was
watched, and who in the next Parliament might be his judges. He looked,
a bystander said, as if all the peers present had halters in their
pockets. [399] At length Blathwayt was forced to give a full account of
what had passed. It appeared that the King had entered into no express
covenant with the Bishops. But it appeared also that the Bishops might
not unreasonably think that there was an implied engagement. Indeed,
from the unwillingness of the crown lawyers to put the Clerk of the
Council into the witness box, and from the vehemence with which they
objected to Pemberton's cross examination, it is plain that they were
themselves of this opinion.
However, the handwriting was now proved. But a new and serious objection
was raised. It was not sufficient to prove that the Bishops had written
the alleged libel. It was necessary to prove also that they had written
it in the county of Middlesex. And not only was it out of the power of
the Attorney and Solicitor to prove this; but it was in the power of the
defendants to prove the contrary. For it so happened that Sancroft had
never once left the palace, at Lambeth from the time when the Order in
Council appeared till after the petition was in the King's hands. The
whole case for the prosecution had therefore completely broken down; and
the audience, with great glee, expected a speedy acquittal.
The crown lawyers then changed their ground again, abandoned altogether
the charge of writing a libel, and undertook to prove that the Bishops
had published a libel in the county of Middlesex. The difficulties were
great. The delivery of the petition to the King was undoubtedly, in the
eye of the law, a publication. But how was this delivery to be proved?
No person had been present at the audience in the royal closet, except
the King and the defendants. The King could not well be sworn. It was
therefore only by the admissions of the defendants that the fact of
publication could be established. Blathwayt was again examined, but in
vain. He well remembered, he said, that the Bishops owned their hands;
but he did not remember that they owned the paper which lay on the table
of the Privy Council to be the same paper which they had delivered to
the King, or that they were even interrogated on that point. Several
other official men who had been in attendance on the Council were
called, and among them Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty; but
none of them could remember that anything was said about the delivery.
It was to no purpose that Williams put leading questions till the
counsel on the other side declared that such twisting, such wiredrawing,
was never seen in a court of justice, and till Wright himself was forced
to admit that the Solicitor's mode of examination was contrary to
all rule. As witness after witness answered in the negative, roars of
laughter and shouts of triumph, which the judges did not even attempt to
silence, shook the hall.
It seemed that at length this hard fight had been won. The case for the
crown was closed. Had the counsel for the Bishops remained silent, an
acquittal was certain; for nothing which the most corrupt and shameless
judge could venture to call legal evidence of publication had been
given. The Chief justice was beginning to charge the jury, and would
undoubtedly have directed them to acquit the defendants; but Finch, too
anxious to be perfectly discreet, interfered, and begged to be heard.
"If you will be heard," said Wright, "you shall be heard; but you do not
understand your own interests." The other counsel for the defence made
Finch sit down, and begged the Chief justice to proceed. He was about to
do so when a messenger came to the Solicitor General with news that Lord
Sunderland could prove the publication, and would come down to the court
immediately. Wright maliciously told the counsel for the defence that
they had only themselves to thank for the turn which things had taken.
The countenances of the great multitude fell. Finch was, during some
hours, the most unpopular man in the country. Why could he not sit still
as his betters, Sawyer, Pemberton, and Pollexfen had done? His love of
meddling, his ambition to make a fine speech, had ruined everything.
Meanwhile the Lord President was brought in a sedan chair through the
hall. Not a hat moved as he passed; and many voices cried out "Popish
dog." He came into Court pale and trembling, with eyes fixed on the
ground, and gave his evidence in a faltering voice. He swore that the
Bishops had informed him of their intention to present a petition to
the King, and that they had been admitted into the royal closet for that
purpose. This circumstance, coupled with the circumstance that, after
they left the closet, there was in the King's hands a petition signed by
them, was such proof as might reasonably satisfy a jury of the fact of
the publication.
Publication in Middlesex was then proved. But was the paper thus
published a false, malicious, and seditious libel? Hitherto the matter
in dispute had been whether a fact which everybody well knew to be true
could be proved according to technical rules of evidence; but now the
contest became one of deeper interest. It was necessary to inquire into
the limits of prerogative and liberty, into the right of the King to
dispense with statutes, into the right of the subject to petition
for the redress of grievances. During three hours the counsel for
the petitioners argued with great force in defence of the fundamental
principles of the constitution, and proved from the journals of the
House of Commons that the Bishops had affirmed no more than the truth
when they represented to the King that the dispensing power which he
claimed had been repeatedly declared illegal by Parliament. Somers rose
last. He spoke little more than five minutes; but every word was full of
weighty matter; and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a
constitutional lawyer was established. He went through the expressions
which were used in the information to describe the offence imputed
to the Bishops, and showed that every word, whether adjective or
substantive, was altogether inappropriate. The offence imputed was a
false, a malicious, a seditious libel. False the paper was not; for
every fact which it set forth had been proved from the journals of
Parliament to be true. Malicious the paper was not; for the defendants
had not sought an occasion of strife, but had been placed by the
government in such a situation that they must either oppose themselves
to the royal will, or violate the most sacred obligations of conscience
and honour. Seditious the paper was not; for it had not been scattered
by the writers among the rabble, but delivered privately into the hands
of the King alone: and a libel it was not, but a decent petition such
as, by the laws of England, nay, by the laws of imperial Rome, by the
laws of all civilised states, a subject who thinks himself aggrieved may
with propriety present to the sovereign.
The Attorney replied shortly and feebly. The Solicitor spoke at great
length and with great acrimony, and was often interrupted by the
clamours and hisses of the audience. He went so far as to lay it down
that no subject or body of subjects, except the Houses of Parliament,
had a right to petition the King. The galleries were furious; and the
Chief justice himself stood aghast at the effrontery of this venal
turncoat.
At length Wright proceeded to sum up the evidence. His language showed
that the awe in which he stood of the government was tempered by the
awe with which the audience, so numerous, so splendid, and so strongly
excited, had impressed him. He said that he would give no opinion on the
question of the dispensing power, that it was not necessary for him to
do so, that he could not agree with much of the Solicitor's speech, that
it was the right of the subject to petition, but that the particular
petition before the Court was improperly worded, and was, in the
contemplation of law, a libel. Allybone was of the same mind, but, in
giving his opinion, showed such gross ignorance of law and history as
brought on him the contempt of all who heard him. Holloway evaded the
question of the dispensing power, but said that the petition seemed to
him to be such as subjects who think themselves aggrieved are entitled
to present, and therefore no libel. Powell took a bolder course. He
avowed that, in his judgment, the Declaration of Indulgence was a
nullity, and that the dispensing power, as lately exercised, was utterly
inconsistent with all law. If these encroachments of prerogative
were allowed, there was an end of Parliaments. The whole legislative
authority would be in the King. "That issue, gentlemen," he said, "I
leave to God and to your consciences." [400]
It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. The
night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant which were
despatched during that period of suspense, and which have therefore an
interest of a peculiar kind. "It is very late," wrote the Papal Nuncio;
"and the decision is not yet known. The judges and the culprits have
gone to their own homes. The jury remain together. Tomorrow we shall
learn the event of this great struggle."
The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of servants
on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was, consulting. It was
absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the doors; for
those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the crown, and
might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly juryman
with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other eleven.
Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a pipe was
permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were suffered to
pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon
lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring
streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know
what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard
within the room: but nothing certain was known. [401]
At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of
the minority soon gave way; but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a
country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to the
evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue
the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to
reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and he should
not acquit the Bishops. "If you come to that," said Austin, "look at me.
I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before I find such a
petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a
tobacco pipe." It was six in the morning before Arnold yielded. It was
soon known that the jury were agreed: but what the verdict would be was
still a secret. [402]
At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. The jury
appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness.
Sir Samuel Astry spoke. "Do you find the defendants, or any of them,
guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are impeached, or not guilty?"
Sir Roger Langley answered, "Not guilty." As the words passed his
lips, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and
galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded
the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made the old
oaken roof crack; and in another moment the innumerable throng without
set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which
covered the Thames, gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was
heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few moments,
the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to London
Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread,
streets and squares, market places and coffeehouses, broke forth into
acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping.
For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point that at length
the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of emotion,
gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the
outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all
the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation.
Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitter and intrepid
spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heard above the din,
he called on the judges to commit those who had violated, by clamour,
the dignity of a court of justice. One of the rejoicing populace was
seized. But the tribunal felt that it would be absurd to punish a single
individual for an offence common to hundreds of thousands, and dismissed
him with a gentle reprimand. [403]
It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business.
Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, for half an hour,
scarcely a word could be heard in court. Williams got to his coach
amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity was
ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming to
Westminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by his
sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through the
hall. "Take care," said one, "of the wolf in sheep's clothing." "Make
room," cried another, "for the man with the Pope in his belly." [404]
The acquitted prelates took refuge from the crowd which implored their
blessing in the nearest chapel where divine service was performing.
Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and many
pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of the
City and liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely
make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with
hundreds. "God bless you," cried the people; "God prosper your families;
you have done like honest goodnatured gentlemen; you have saved us all
today." As the noblemen who had appeared to support the good cause drove
off, they flung from their carriage windows handfuls of money, and bade
the crowd drink to the health of the King, the Bishops, and the jury.
[405]
The Attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to be
conversing with the Nuncio. "Never," said Powis, "within man's memory,
have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as today." [406] The
King had that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderland
instantly sent a courier thither with the news. James was in Lord
Feversham's tent when the express arrived. He was greatly disturbed, and
exclaimed in French, "So much the worse for them." He soon set out for
London. While he was present, respect prevented the soldiers from giving
a loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp when he
heard a great shouting behind him. He was surprised, and asked what that
uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer: "the soldiers are glad that the
Bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing?" said James. And then
he repeated, "So much the worse for them." [407]
He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most
humiliating. Had the prelates escaped on account of some technical
defect in the case for the crown, had they escaped because they had
not written the petition in Middlesex, or because it was impossible to
prove, according to the strict rules of law, that they had delivered
to the King the paper for which they were called in question, the
prerogative would have suffered no shock. Happily for the country, the
fact of publication had been fully established. The counsel for the
defence had therefore been forced to attack the dispensing power.
They had attacked it with great learning, eloquence, and boldness.
The advocates of the government had been by universal acknowledgment
overmatched in the contest. Not a single judge had ventured to declare
that the Declaration of Indulgence was legal. One Judge had in the
strongest terms pronounced it illegal. The language of the whole town
was that the dispensing power had received a fatal blow. Finch, who had
the day before been universally reviled, was now universally applauded.
He had been unwilling, it was said, to let the case be decided in a way
which would have left the great constitutional question still doubtful.
He had felt that a verdict which should acquit his clients, without
condemning the Declaration of Indulgence, would be but half a victory.
It is certain that Finch deserved neither the reproaches which had
been cast on him while the event was doubtful, nor the praises which he
received when it had proved happy. It was absurd to blame him
because, during the short delay which he occasioned, the crown lawyers
unexpectedly discovered new evidence. It was equally absurd to suppose
that he deliberately exposed his clients to risk, in order to establish
a general principle: and still more absurd was it to praise him for what
would have been a gross violation of professional duty.
That joyful day was followed by a not less joyful night. The Bishops,
and some of their most respectable friends, in vain exerted themselves
to prevent tumultuous demonstrations of joy. Never within the memory
of the oldest, not even on that evening on which it was known through
London that the army of Scotland had declared for a free Parliament,
had the streets been in such a glare with bonfires. Round every bonfire
crowds were drinking good health to the Bishops and confusion to
the Papists. The windows were lighted with rows of candles. Each row
consisted of seven; and the taper in the centre, which was taller than
the rest, represented the Primate. The noise of rockets, squibs, and
firearms, was incessant. One huge pile of faggots blazed right in front
of the great gate of Whitehall. Others were lighted before the doors of
Roman Catholic Peers. Lord Arundell of Wardour wisely quieted the mob
with a little money: but at Salisbury House in the Strand an attempt at
resistance was made. Lord Salisbury's servants sallied out and fired:
but they killed only the unfortunate beadle of the parish, who had come
thither to put out the fire; and they were soon routed and driven back
into the house. None of the spectacles of that night interested the
common people so much as one with which they had, a few years before,
been familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed once
more, the burning of the Pope. This once familiar pageant is known to
our generation only by descriptions and engravings. A figure, by no
means resembling those rude representations of Guy Faux which are still
paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and
adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a
chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some
great festivals, borne through Saint Peter's Church to the high altar.
His Holiness was generally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and
Jesuits. At his ear stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns
and tail. No rich and zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an
occasion, and, if rumour could be trusted, the cost of the procession
was sometimes not less than a thousand pounds. After the Pope had
been borne some time in state over the heads of the multitude, he was
committed to the flames with loud acclamations. In the time of the
popularity of Oates and Shaftesbury this show was exhibited annually in
Fleet Street before the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of
the birth of Queen Elizabeth. Such was the celebrity of these grotesque
rites, that Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from
a hiding place. [408] But, from the day when the Rye House Plot was
discovered, till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony
had been disused. Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in
different parts of London. The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King was
more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other affronts
which he had received. The magistrates, however, could do nothing. The
Sunday had dawned, and the bells of the parish churches were ringing
for early prayers, before the fires began to languish and the crowds
to disperse. A proclamation was speedily put forth against the rioters.
Many of them, mostly young apprentices, were apprehended; but the bills
were thrown out at the Middlesex sessions. The magistrates, many of whom
were Roman Catholics, expostulated with the grand jury and sent them
three or four times back, but to no purpose. [409]
Meanwhile the glad tidings were flying to every part of the kingdom,
and were everywhere received with rapture. Gloucester, Bedford, and
Lichfield, were among the places which were distinguished by peculiar
zeal: but Bristol and Norwich, which stood nearest to London in
population and wealth, approached nearest to London in enthusiasm on
this joyful occasion.
The prosecution of the Bishops is an event which stands by itself in our
history. It was the first and the last occasion on which two feelings
of tremendous potency, two feelings which have generally been opposed to
each other, and either of which, when strongly excited, has sufficed to
convulse the state, were united in perfect harmony. Those feelings were
love of the Church and love of freedom. During many generations every
violent outbreak of High Church feeling, with one exception, has been
unfavourable to civil liberty; every violent outbreak of zeal for
liberty, with one exception, has been unfavourable to the authority and
influence of the prelacy and the priesthood. In 1688 the cause of the
hierarchy was for a moment that of the popular party. More than nine
thousand clergymen, with the Primate and his most respectable suffragans
at their head, offered themselves to endure bonds and the spoiling
of their goods for the great fundamental principle of our free
constitution. The effect was a coalition which included the most zealous
Cavaliers, the most zealous Republicans, and all the intermediate
sections of the community. The spirit which had supported Hampden in the
preceding generation, the spirit which, in the succeeding generation,
supported Sacheverell, combined to support the Archbishop who was
Hampden and Sacheverell in one. Those classes of society which are most
deeply interested in the preservation of order, which in troubled times
are generally most ready to strengthen the hands of government, and
which have a natural antipathy to agitators, followed, without scruple,
the guidance of a venerable man, the first peer of the realm, the first
minister of the Church, a Tory in politics, a saint in manners, whom
tyranny had in his own despite turned into a demagogue. Those, on the
other hand, who had always abhorred episcopacy, as a relic of Popery,
and as an instrument of arbitrary power, now asked on bended knees the
blessing of a prelate who was ready to wear fetters and to lay his aged
limbs on bare stones rather than betray the interests of the Protestant
religion and set the prerogative above the laws. With love of the Church
and with love of freedom was mingled, at this great crisis, a third
feeling which is among the most honourable peculiarities of our national
character. An individual oppressed by power, even when destitute of all
claim to public respect and gratitude, generally finds strong sympathy
among us. Thus, in the time of our grandfathers, society was thrown
into confusion by the persecution of Wilkes. We have ourselves seen the
nation roused almost to madness by the wrongs of Queen Caroline. It
is probable, therefore, that, even if no great political and religious
interests had been staked on the event of the proceeding against the
Bishops, England would not have seen, without strong emotions of pity
and anger, old men of stainless virtue pursued by the vengeance of a
harsh and inexorable prince who owed to their fidelity the crown which
he wore.
Actuated by these sentiments our ancestors arrayed themselves against
the government in one huge and compact mass. All ranks, all parties, all
Protestant sects, made up that vast phalanx. In the van were the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal. Then came the landed gentry and the clergy,
both the Universities, all the Inns of Court, merchants, shopkeepers,
farmers, the porters who plied in the streets of the great towns, the
peasants who ploughed the fields. The league against the King included
the very foremast men who manned his ships, the very sentinels who
guarded his palace. The names of Whig and Tory were for a moment
forgotten. The old Exclusionist took the old Abhorrer by the hand.
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, forgot their long
feuds, and remembered only their common Protestantism and their common
danger. Divines bred in the school of Laud talked loudly, not only
of toleration, but of comprehension. The Archbishop soon after
his acquittal put forth a pastoral letter which is one of the most
remarkable compositions of that age. He had, from his youth up, been
at war with the Nonconformists, and had repeatedly assailed them with
unjust and unchristian asperity. His principal work was a hideous
caricature of the Calvinistic theology. [410] He had drawn up for the
thirtieth of January and for the twenty-ninth of May forms of prayer
which reflected on the Puritans in language so strong that the
government had thought fit to soften it down. But now his heart was
melted and opened. He solemnly enjoined the Bishops and clergy to have a
very tender regard to their brethren the Protestant Dissenters, to
visit them often, to entertain them hospitably, to discourse with them
civilly, to persuade them, if it might be, to conform to the Church,
but, if that were found impossible, to join them heartily and
affectionately in exertions for the blessed cause of the Reformation.
[411]
Many pious persons in subsequent years remembered that time with bitter
regret. They described it as a short glimpse of a golden age between
two iron ages. Such lamentation, though natural, was not reasonable. The
coalition of 1688 was produced, and could be produced, only by tyranny
which approached to insanity, and by danger which threatened at once
all the great institutions of the country. If there has never since been
similar union, the reason is that there has never since been similar
misgovernment. It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself
better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than
is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine.
Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate.