The Flight of James known; great Agitation--The Lords meet
at Guildhall--Riots in London--The Spanish Ambassador's House
sacked--Arrest of Jeffreys--The Irish Night--The King detained
near Sheerness--The Lords order him to be set at Liberty--William's
Embarrassment--Arrest of Feversham--Arrival of James in
London--Consultation at Windsor--The Dutch Troops occupy
Whitehall--Message from the Prince delivered to James--James sets out
for Rochester; Arrival of William at Saint James's--He is advised to
assume the Crown by Right of Conquest--He calls together the Lords and
the Members of the Parliaments of Charles II.--Flight of James from
Rochester--Debates and Resolutions of the Lords--Debates and Resolutions
of the Commoners summoned by the Prince--Convention called; Exertions of
the Prince to restore Order--His tolerant Policy--Satisfaction of Roman
Catholic Powers; State of Feeling in France--Reception of the Queen of
England in France--Arrival of James at Saint Germains--State of
Feeling in the United Provinces--Election of Members to serve in the
Convention--Affairs of Scotland--State of Parties in England--Sherlock's
Plan--Sancroft's Plan--Danby's Plan--The Whig Plan--Meeting of the
Convention; leading Members of the House of Commons--Choice of a
Speaker--Debate on the State of the Nation--Resolution declaring the
Throne vacant--It is sent up to the Lords; Debate in the Lords on
the Plan of Regency--Schism between the Whigs and the Followers of
Danby--Meeting at the Earl of Devonshire's--Debate in the Lords on
the Question whether the Throne was vacant--Majority for the Negative;
Agitation in London--Letter of James to the Convention--Debates;
Negotiations; Letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby--The Princess
Anne acquiesces in the Whig Plan--William explains his views--The
Conference between the houses--The Lords yield--New Laws proposed for
the Security of Liberty--Disputes and Compromise--The Declaration of
Right--Arrival of Mary--Tender and Acceptance of the Crown--William and
Mary proclaimed; peculiar Character of the English Revolution
NORTHUMBERLAND strictly obeyed the injunction which had been laid on
him, and did not open the door of the royal apartment till it was broad
day. The antechamber was filled with courtiers who came to make their
morning bow and with Lords who had been summoned to Council. The news of
James's flight passed in an instant from the galleries to the streets;
and the whole capital was in commotion.
It was a terrible moment. The King was gone. The Prince had not
arrived. No Regency had been appointed. The Great Seal, essential to the
administration of ordinary justice, had disappeared. It was soon
known that Feversham had, on the receipt of the royal order, instantly
disbanded his forces. What respect for law or property was likely to
be found among soldiers, armed and congregated, emancipated from the
restraints of discipline, and destitute of the necessaries of life? On
the other hand, the populace of London had, during some weeks, shown a
strong disposition to turbulence and rapine. The urgency of the crisis
united for a short time all who had any interest in the peace of
society. Rochester had till that day adhered firmly to the royal cause.
He now saw that there was only one way of averting general confusion.
"Call your troop of Guards together," he said to Northumberland, "and
declare for the Prince of Orange." The advice was promptly followed. The
principal officers of the army who were then in London held a meeting at
Whitehall, and resolved that they would submit to William's authority,
and would, till his pleasure should be known, keep their men together
and assist the civil power to preserve order. [575] The Peers repaired
to Guildhall, and were received there with all honour by the magistracy
of the city. In strictness of law they were no better entitled than any
other set of persons to assume the executive administration. But it
was necessary to the public safety that there should be a provisional
government; and the eyes of men naturally turned to the hereditary
magnates of the realm. The extremity of the danger drew Sancroft forth
from his palace. He took the chair; and, under his presidency, the
new Archbishop of York, five Bishops, and twenty-two temporal Lords,
determined to draw up, subscribe, and publish a Declaration.
By this instrument they declared that they were firmly attached to the
religion and constitution of their country, and that they had cherished
the hope of seeing grievances redressed and tranquillity restored by the
Parliament which the King had lately summoned, but that this hope had
been extinguished by his flight. They had therefore determined to join
with the Prince of Orange, in order that the freedom of the nation might
be vindicated, that the rights of the Church might be secured, that a
just liberty of conscience might be given to Dissenters, and that the
Protestant interest throughout the world might be strengthened. Till
His Highness should arrive, they were prepared to take on themselves the
responsibility of giving such directions as might be necessary for
the preservation of order. A deputation was instantly sent to lay this
Declaration before the Prince, and to inform him that he was impatiently
expected in London. [576]
The Lords then proceeded to deliberate on the course which it was
necessary to take for the prevention of tumult. They sent for the two
Secretaries of State. Middleton refused to submit to what he regarded as
an usurped authority: but Preston, astounded by his master's flight, and
not knowing what to expect, or whither to turn, obeyed the summons. A
message was sent to Skelton, who was Lieutenant of the Tower, requesting
his attendance at Guildhall. He came, and was told that his services
were no longer wanted, and that he must instantly deliver up his keys.
He was succeeded by Lord Lucas. At the same time the Peers ordered a
letter to be written to Dartmouth, enjoining him to refrain from all
hostile operations against the Dutch fleet, and to displace all the
Popish officers who held commands under him. [577]
The part taken in these proceedings by Sancroft, and by some other
persons who had, up to that day, been strictly faithful to the principle
of passive obedience, deserves especial notice. To usurp the command of
the military and naval forces of the state, to remove the officers whom
the King had set over his castles and his ships, and to prohibit his
Admiral from giving battle to his enemies, was surely nothing less than
rebellion. Yet several honest and able Tories of the school of Filmer
persuaded themselves that they could do all these things without
incurring the guilt of resisting their Sovereign. The distinction
which they took was, at least, ingenious. Government, they said, is the
ordinance of God. Hereditary monarchical government is eminently the
ordinance of God. While the King commands what is lawful we must
obey him actively. When he commands what is unlawful we must obey him
passively. In no extremity are we justified in withstanding him by
force. But, if he chooses to resign his office, his rights over us are
at an end. While he governs us, though he may govern us ill, we are
bound to submit: but, if he refuses to govern us at all, we are not
bound to remain for ever without a government. Anarchy is not the
ordinance of God; nor will he impute it to us as a sin that, when a
prince, whom, in spite of extreme provocations, we have never ceased
to honour and obey, has departed we know not whither, leaving no
vicegerent, we take the only course which can prevent the entire
dissolution of society. Had our Sovereign remained among us, we were
ready, little as he deserved our love, to die at his feet. Had he, when
he quitted us, appointed a regency to govern us with vicarious authority
during his absence, to that regency alone should we have looked for
direction. But he has disappeared, having made no provision for the
preservation of order or the administration of justice. With him,
and with his Great Seal, has vanished the whole machinery by which
a murderer can be punished, by which the right to an estate can be
decided, by which the effects of a bankrupt can be distributed. His
last act has been to free thousands of armed men from the restraints
of military discipline, and to place them in such a situation that they
must plunder or starve. Yet a few hours, and every man's hand will be
against his neighbour. Life, property, female honour, will be at the
mercy of every lawless spirit. We are at this moment actually in that
state of nature about which theorists have written so much; and in
that state we have been placed, not by our fault, but by the voluntary
defection of him who ought to have been our protector. His defection may
be justly called voluntary: for neither his life nor his liberty was
in danger. His enemies had just consented to treat with him on a basis
proposed by himself, and had offered immediately to suspend all hostile
operations, on conditions which he could not deny to be liberal. In such
circumstances it is that he has abandoned his trust. We retract nothing.
We are in nothing inconsistent. We still assert our old doctrines
without qualification. We still hold that it is in all cases sinful to
resist the magistrate: but we say that there is no longer any magistrate
to resist. He who was the magistrate, after long abusing his powers, has
at last abdicated them. The abuse did not give us a right to depose him:
but the abdication gives us a right to consider how we may best supply
his place.
It was on these grounds that the Prince's party was now swollen by many
adherents who had previously stood aloof from it. Never, within the
memory of man, had there been so near an approach to entire concord
among all intelligent Englishmen as at this conjuncture: and never had
concord been more needed. Legitimate authority there was none. All those
evil passions which it is the office of government to restrain, and
which the best governments restrain but imperfectly, were on a sudden
emancipated from control; avarice, licentiousness, revenge, the hatred
of sect to sect, the hatred of nation to nation. On such occasions it
will ever be found that the human vermin which, neglected by ministers
of state and ministers of religion, barbarous in the midst of
civilisation, heathen in the midst of Christianity, burrows among all
physical and all moral pollution, in the cellars and garrets of great
cities, will at once rise into a terrible importance. So it was now in
London. When the night, the longest night, as it chanced, of the year,
approached, forth came from every den of vice, from the bear garden at
Hockley, and from the labyrinth of tippling houses and brothels in
the Friars, thousands of housebreakers and highwaymen, cutpurses and
ringdroppers. With these were mingled thousands of idle apprentices, who
wished merely for the excitement of a riot. Even men of peaceable and
honest habits were impelled by religious animosity to join the lawless
part of the population. For the cry of No Popery, a cry which has more
than once endangered the existence of London, was the signal for outrage
and rapine. First the rabble fell on the Roman Catholic places of
worship. The buildings were demolished. Benches, pulpits, confessionals,
breviaries were heaped up and set on fire. A great mountain of books and
furniture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell. Another pile
was kindled before the ruins of the Franciscan house in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. The chapel in Lime Street, the chapel in Bucklersbury, were
pulled down. The pictures, images and crucifixes were carried along
the streets in triumph, amidst lighted tapers torn from the altars. The
procession bristled thick with swords and staves, and on the point of
every sword and of every staff was an orange. The King's printing house,
whence had issued, during the preceding three years, innumerable tracts
in defence of Papal supremacy, image worship, and monastic vows, was,
to use a coarse metaphor which then, for the first time, came into use,
completely gutted. The vast stock of paper, much of which was still
unpolluted by types, furnished an immense bonfire. From monasteries,
temples, and public offices, the fury of the multitude turned to private
dwellings. Several houses were pillaged and destroyed: but the smallness
of the booty disappointed the plunderers; and soon a rumour was spread
that the most valuable effects of the Papists had been placed under the
care of the foreign Ambassadors. To the savage and ignorant populace
the law of nations and the risk of bringing on their country the just
vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the Ambassadors
were besieged. A great crowd assembled before Barillon's door in St.
James's Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected.
For, though the government which he represented was held in abhorrence,
his liberal housekeeping and exact payments had made him personally
popular. Moreover he had taken the precaution of asking for a guard of
soldiers; and, as several men of rank, who hued near him, had done the
same, a considerable force was collected in the Square. The rioters,
therefore, when they were assured that no arms or priests were concealed
under his roof, left him unmolested. The Venetian Envoy was protected
by a detachment of troops: but the mansions occupied by the ministers
of the Elector Palatine and of the Grand Duke of Tuscany were destroyed.
One precious box the Tuscan minister was able to save from the
marauders. It contained nine volumes of memoirs, written in the hand of
James himself. These volumes reached France in safety, and, after
the lapse of more than a century, perished there in the havoc of a
revolution far more terrible than that from which they had escaped.
But some fragments still remain, and, though grievously mutilated,
and imbedded in great masses of childish fiction, well deserve to be
attentively studied.
The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at Wild House,
near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish ambassador
Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court had not deserved
ill of the English nation, had thought it unnecessary to ask for
soldiers: but the mob was not in a mood to make nice distinctions.
The name of Spain had long been associated in the public mind with the
Inquisition and the Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots
against Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among
the common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the
necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked without
mercy; and a noble library, which he had collected, perished in the
flames. His only comfort was that the host in his chapel was rescued
from the same fate. [578]
The morning of the twelfth of December rose on a ghastly sight. The
capital in many places presented the aspect of a city taken by
storm. The Lords met at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to restore
tranquillity. The trainbands were ordered under arms. A body of cavalry
was kept in readiness to disperse tumultuous assemblages. Such atonement
as was at that moment possible was made for the gross insults which
had been offered to foreign governments. A reward was promised for the
discovery of the property taken from Wild House; and Ronquillo, who
had not a bed or an ounce of plate left, was splendidly lodged in the
deserted palace of the Kings of England. A sumptuous table was kept for
him; and the yeomen of the guard were ordered to wait in his antechamber
with the same observance which they were in the habit of paying to the
Sovereign. These marks of respect soothed even the punctilious pride of
the Spanish court, and averted all danger of a rupture. [579]
In spite, however, of the well meant efforts of the provisional
government, the agitation grew hourly more formidable. It was heightened
by an event which, even at this distance of time, can hardly be related
without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. A scrivener who lived at
Wapping, and whose trade was to furnish the seafaring men there with
money at high interest, had some time before lent a sum on bottomry. The
debtor applied to equity for relief against his own bond; and the case
came before Jeffreys. The counsel for the borrower, having little else
to say, said that the lender was a Trimmer. The Chancellor instantly
fired. "A Trimmer! where is he? Let me see him. I have heard of that
kind of monster. What is it made like?" The unfortunate creditor was
forced to stand forth. The Chancellor glared fiercely on him, stormed at
him, and sent him away half dead with fright. "While I live," the poor
man said, as he tottered out of the court, "I shall never forget that
terrible countenance." And now the day of retribution had arrived.
The Trimmer was walking through Wapping, when he saw a well known face
looking out of the window of an alehouse. He could not be deceived. The
eyebrows, indeed, had been shaved away. The dress was that of a common
sailor from Newcastle, and was black with coal dust: but there was no
mistaking the savage eye and mouth of Jeffreys. The alarm was given.
In a moment the house was surrounded by hundreds of people shaking
bludgeons and bellowing curses. The fugitive's life was saved by a
company of the trainbands; and he was carried before the Lord Mayor. The
Mayor was a simple man who had passed his whole life in obscurity,
and was bewildered by finding himself an important actor in a mighty
revolution. The events of the last twenty-four hours, and the perilous
state of the city which was under his charge, had disordered his mind
and his body. When the great man, at whose frown, a few days before, the
whole kingdom had trembled, was, dragged into the justice room begrimed
with ashes, half dead with fright, and followed by a raging multitude,
the agitation of the unfortunate Mayor rose to the height. He fell into
fits, and was carried to his bed, whence he never rose. Meanwhile the
throng without was constantly becoming more numerous and more savage.
Jeffreys begged to be sent to prison. An order to that effect was
procured from the Lords who were sitting at Whitehall; and he was
conveyed in a carriage to the Tower. Two regiments of militia were drawn
out to escort him, and found the duty a difficult one. It was repeatedly
necessary for them to form, as if for the purpose of repelling a charge
of cavalry, and to present a forest of pikes to the mob. The thousands
who were disappointed of their revenge pursued the coach, with howls
of rage, to the gate of the Tower, brandishing cudgels, and holding up
halters full in the prisoner's view. The wretched man meantime was
in convulsions of terror. He wrung his hands; he looked wildly out,
sometimes at one window, sometimes at the other, and was heard even
above the tumult, crying "Keep them off, gentlemen! For God's sake keep
them off!" At length, having suffered far more than the bitterness
of death, he was safely lodged in the fortress where some of his most
illustrious victims had passed their last days, and where his own life
was destined to close in unspeakable ignominy and horror. [580]
All this time an active search was making after Roman Catholic priests.
Many were arrested. Two Bishops, Ellis and Leyburn, were sent to
Newgate. The Nuncio, who had little reason to expect that either
his spiritual or his political character would be respected by the
multitude, made his escape disguised as a lacquey in the train of the
minister of the Duke of Savoy. [581]
Another day of agitation and terror closed, and was followed by a night
the strangest and most terrible that England had ever seen. Early in the
evening an attack was made by the rabble on a stately house which had
been built a few months before for Lord Powis, which in the reign of
George the Second was the residence of the Duke of Newcastle, and which
is still conspicuous at the northwestern angle of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Some troops were sent thither: the mob was dispersed, tranquillity
seemed to be restored, and the citizens were retiring quietly to their
beds. Just at this time arose a whisper which swelled fast into a
fearful clamour, passed in an hour from Piccadilly to Whitechapel, and
spread into every street and alley of the capital. It was' said that
the Irish whom Feversham had let loose were marching on London and
massacring every man, woman, and child on the road. At one in the
morning the drums of the militia beat to arms. Everywhere terrified
women were weeping and wringing their hands, while their fathers and
husbands were equipping themselves for fight. Before two the capital
wore a face of stern preparedness which might well have daunted a real
enemy, if such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were blazing at
all the windows. The public places were as bright as at noonday. All
the great avenues were barricaded. More than twenty thousand pikes and
muskets lined the streets. The late daybreak of the winter solstice
found the whole City still in arms. During many years the Londoners
retained a vivid recollection of what they called the Irish Night. When
it was known that there had been no cause of alarm, attempts were
made to discover the origin of the rumour which had produced so much
agitation. It appeared that some persons who had the look and dress of
clowns just arrived from the country had first spread the report in the
suburbs a little before midnight: but whence these men came, and by whom
they were employed, remained a mystery. And soon news arrived from many
quarters which bewildered the public mind still more. The panic had
not been confined to London. The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers were
coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant ingenuity, been
raised at once in many places widely distant from each other. Great
numbers of letters, skilfully framed for the purpose of frightening
ignorant people, had been sent by stage coaches, by waggons, and by the
post, to various parts of England. All these letters came to hand almost
at the same time. In a hundred towns at once the populace was possessed
with the belief that armed barbarians were at hand, bent on perpetrating
crimes as foul as those which had disgraced the rebellion of Ulster. No
Protestant would find mercy. Children would be compelled by torture to
murder their parents. Babes would be stuck on pikes, or flung into the
blazing ruins of what had lately been happy dwellings. Great multitudes
assembled with weapons: the people in some places began to pull down
bridges, and to throw up barricades: but soon the excitement went down.
In many districts those who had been so foully imposed upon learned with
delight, alloyed by shame, that there was not a single Popish soldier
within a week's march. There were places, indeed, where some straggling
bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can
scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to
die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton
outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly
supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on
a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty
population which felt towards them as men feel towards a drove of
wolves. Of all the subjects of James none had more reason to execrate
him than these unfortunate members of his church and defenders of his
throne. [582]
It is honourable to the English character that, notwithstanding the
aversion with which the Roman Catholic religion and the Irish race were
then regarded, notwithstanding the anarchy which was the effect of the
flight of James, notwithstanding the artful machinations which were
employed to scare the multitude into cruelty, no atrocious crime was
perpetrated at this conjuncture. Much property, indeed, was destroyed
and carried away. The houses of many Roman Catholic gentlemen were
attacked. Parks were ravaged. Deer were slain and stolen. Some venerable
specimens of the domestic architecture of the middle ages bear to this
day the marks of popular violence. The roads were in many places made
impassable by a selfappointed police, which stopped every traveller till
he proved that he was not a Papist. The Thames was infested by a set
of pirates who, under pretence of searching for arms or delinquents,
rummaged every boat that passed. Obnoxious persons were insulted and
hustled. Many persons who were not obnoxious were glad to ransom their
persons and effects by bestowing some guineas on the zealous Protestants
who had, without any legal authority, assumed the office of inquisitors.
But in all this confusion, which lasted several days and extended over
many counties, not a single Roman Catholic lost his life. The mob showed
no inclination to blood, except in the case of Jeffreys; and the hatred
which that bad man inspired had more affinity with humanity than with
cruelty. [583]
Many years later Hugh Speke affirmed that the Irish Night was his work,
that he had prompted the rustics who raised London, and that he was the
author of the letters which had spread dismay through the country. His
assertion is not intrinsically improbable: but it rests on no evidence
except his own word. He was a man quite capable of committing such
a villany, and quite capable also of falsely boasting that he had
committed it. [584]
At London William was impatiently expected: for it was not doubted that
his vigour and ability would speedily restore order and security. There
was however some delay for which the Prince cannot justly be blamed. His
original intention had been to proceed from Hungerford to Oxford, where
he was assured of an honourable and affectionate reception: but the
arrival of the deputation from Guildhall induced him to change his
intention and to hasten directly towards the capital. On the way he
learned that Feversham, in pursuance of the King's orders, had dismissed
the royal army, and that thousands of soldiers, freed from restraint and
destitute of necessaries, were scattered over the counties through
which the road to London lay. It was therefore impossible for William
to proceed slenderly attended without great danger, not only to his own
person, about which he was not much in the habit of being solicitous,
but also to the great interests which were under his care. It was
necessary that he should regulate his own movements by the movements of
his troops; and troops could then move but slowly over the highways of
England in midwinter. He was, on this occasion, a little moved from his
ordinary composure. "I am not to be thus dealt with," he exclaimed
with bitterness; "and that my Lord Feversham shall find." Prompt and
judicious measures were taken to remedy the evils which James
had caused. Churchill and Grafton were entrusted with the task of
reassembling the dispersed army and bringing it into order. The English
soldiers were invited to resume their military character. The Irish were
commanded to deliver up their arms on pain of being treated as banditti,
but were assured that, if they would submit quietly, they should be
supplied with necessaries. [585]
The Prince's orders were carried into effect with scarcely any
opposition, except from the Irish soldiers who had been in garrison at
Tilbury. One of these men snapped a pistol at Grafton. It missed fire,
and the assassin was instantly shot dead by an Englishman. About two
hundred of the unfortunate strangers made a gallant attempt to return
to their own country. They seized a richly laden East Indiaman which
had just arrived in the Thames, and tried to procure pilots by force at
Gravesend. No pilot, however was to be found; and they were under the
necessity of trusting to their own skill in navigation. They soon ran
their ship aground, and, after some bloodshed, were compelled to lay
down their arms. [586]
William had now been five weeks on English ground; and during the whole
of that time his good fortune had been uninterrupted. His own prudence
and firmness had been conspicuously displayed, and yet had done less for
him than the folly and pusillanimity of others. And now, at the moment
when it seemed that his plans were about to be crowned with entire
success, they were disconcerted by one of those strange incidents which
so often confound the most exquisite devices of human policy.
On the morning of the thirteenth of December the people of London,
not yet fully recovered from the agitation of the Irish Night, were
surprised by a rumour that the King had been detained, and was still in
the island. The report gathered strength during the day, and was fully
confirmed before the evening.
James had travelled with relays of coach horses along the southern shore
of the Thames, and on the morning of the twelfth had reached Emley Ferry
near the island of Sheppey. There lay the hoy in which he was to sail.
He went on board: but the wind blew fresh; and the master would not
venture to put to sea without more ballast. A tide was thus lost.
Midnight was approaching before the vessel began to float. By that time
the news that the King had disappeared, that the country was without a
government, and that London was in confusion, had travelled fast down
the Thames, and wherever it spread had produced outrage and misrule. The
rude fishermen of the Kentish coast eyed the hoy with suspicion and with
cupidity. It was whispered that some persons in the garb of gentlemen
had gone on board of her in great haste. Perhaps they were Jesuits:
perhaps they were rich. Fifty or sixty boatmen, animated at once by
hatred of Popery and by love of plunder, boarded the hoy just as she was
about to make sail. The passengers were told that they must go on
shore and be examined by a magistrate. The King's appearance excited
suspicion. "It is Father Petre," cried one ruffian; "I know him by his
lean jaws." "Search the hatchet faced old Jesuit," became the general
cry. He was rudely pulled and pushed about. His money and watch were
taken from him. He had about him his coronation ring, and some other
trinkets of great value: but these escaped the search of the robbers,
who indeed were so ignorant of jewellery that they took his diamond
buckles for bits of glass.
At length the prisoners were put on shore and carried to an inn. A crowd
had assembled there to see them; and James, though disguised by a wig of
different shape and colour from that which he usually wore, was at
once recognised. For a moment the rabble seemed to be overawed: but the
exhortations of their chiefs revived their courage; and the sight of
Hales, whom they well knew and bitterly hated, inflamed their fury. His
park was in the neighbourhood; and at that very moment a band of rioters
was employed in pillaging his house and shooting his deer. The multitude
assured the King that they would not hurt him: but they refused to let
him depart. It chanced that the Earl of Winchelsea, a Protestant, but
a zealous royalist, head of the Finch family, and a near kinsman of
Nottingham, was then at Canterbury. As soon as he learned what
had happened he hastened to the coast, accompanied by some Kentish
gentlemen. By their intervention the King was removed to a more
convenient lodging: but he was still a prisoner. The mob kept constant
watch round the house to which he had been carried; and some of the
ringleaders lay at the door of his bedroom. His demeanour meantime was
that of a man, all the nerves of whose mind had been broken by the load
of misfortunes. Sometimes he spoke so haughtily that the rustics who had
charge of him were provoked into making insolent replies. Then he betook
himself to supplication. "Let me go," he cried; "get me a boat. The
Prince of Orange is hunting for my life. If you do not let me fly now,
it will be too late. My blood will be on your heads. He that is not with
me is against me." On this last text he preached a sermon half an hour
long. He harangued on a strange variety of subjects, on the disobedience
of the fellows of Magdalene College, on the miracles wrought by Saint
Winifred's well, on the disloyalty of the black coats, and on the
virtues of a piece of the true cross which he had unfortunately lost.
"What have I done?" he demanded of the Kentish squires who attended him.
"Tell me the truth. What error have I committed?" Those to whom he put
these questions were too humane to return the answer which must have
risen to their lips, and listened to his wild talk in pitying silence.
[587]
When the news that he had been stopped, insulted, roughly handled, and
plundered, and that he was still a prisoner in the hands of rude churls,
reached the capital, many passions were roused. Rigid Churchmen, who
had, a few hours before, begun to think that they were freed from their
allegiance to him, now felt misgivings. He had not quitted his kingdom.
He had not consummated his abdication. If he should resume his regal
office, could they, on their principles, refuse to pay him obedience?
Enlightened statesmen foresaw with concern that all the disputes which
his flight had for a moment set at rest would be revived and exasperated
by his return. Some of the common people, though still smarting from
recent wrongs, were touched with compassion for a great prince outraged
by ruffians, and were willing to entertain a hope, more honourable to
their good nature than to their discernment, that he might even now
repent of the errors which had brought on him so terrible a punishment.
From the moment when it was known that the King was still in England,
Sancroft, who had hitherto acted as chief of the provisional government,
absented himself from the sittings of the Peers. Halifax, who had just
returned from the Dutch head quarters, was placed in the chair. His
sentiments had undergone a great change in a few hours. Both public and
private feelings now impelled him to join the Whigs. Those who candidly
examine the evidence which has come down to us will be of opinion that
he accepted the office of royal Commissioner in the sincere hope of
effecting an accommodation between the King and the Prince on fair
terms. The negotiation had commenced prosperously: the Prince had
offered terms which the King could not but acknowledge to be fair: the
eloquent and ingenious Trimmer might flatter himself that he should be
able to mediate between infuriated factions, to dictate a compromise
between extreme opinions, to secure the liberties and religion of his
country, without exposing her to the risks inseparable from a change of
dynasty and a disputed succession. While he was pleasing himself
with thoughts so agreeable to his temper, he learned that he had been
deceived, and had been used as an instrument for deceiving the nation.
His mission to Hungerford had been a fool's errand. The King had never
meant to abide by the terms which he had instructed his Commissioners
to propose. He had charged them to declare that he was willing to submit
all the questions in dispute to the Parliament which he had summoned;
and, while they were delivering his message, he had burned the
writs, made away with the seal, let loose the army, suspended the
administration of justice, dissolved the government, and fled from
the capital. Halifax saw that an amicable arrangement was no longer
possible. He also felt, it may be suspected, the vexation natural to a
man widely renowned for wisdom, who finds that he has been duped by an
understanding immeasurably inferior to his own, and the vexation natural
to a great master of ridicule, who finds himself placed in a ridiculous
situation. His judgment and his resentment alike induced him to
relinquish the schemes of reconciliation on which he had hitherto been
intent, and to place himself at the head of those who were bent on
raising William to the throne. [588]
A journal of what passed in the Council of Lords while Halifax presided
is still extant in his own handwriting. [589] No precaution, which
seemed necessary for the prevention of outrage and robbery, was omitted.
The Peers took on themselves the responsibility of giving orders
that, if the rabble rose again, the soldiers should fire with bullets.
Jeffreys was brought to Whitehall and interrogated as to what had become
of the Great Seal and the writs. At his own earnest request he was
remanded to the Tower, as the only place where his life could be
safe; and he retired thanking and blessing those who had given him the
protection of a prison. A Whig nobleman moved that Oates should be set
at liberty: but this motion was overruled. [590]
The business of the day was nearly over, and Halifax was about to rise,
when he was informed that a messenger from Sheerness was in attendance.
No occurrence could be more perplexing or annoying. To do anything,
to do nothing, was to incur a grave responsibility. Halifax, wishing
probably to obtain time for communication with the Prince, would have
adjourned the meeting; but Mulgrave begged the Lords to keep their
seats, and introduced the messenger. The man told his story with many
tears, and produced a letter written in the King's hand, and addressed
to no particular person, but imploring the aid of all good Englishmen.
[591]
Such an appeal it was hardly possible to disregard. The Lords ordered
Feversham to hasten with a troop of the Life Guards to the place where
the King was detained, and to set his Majesty at liberty.
Already Middleton and a few other adherents of the royal cause had set
out to assist and comfort their unhappy master. They found him strictly
confined, and were not suffered to enter his presence till they had
delivered up their swords. The concourse of people about him was by this
time immense. Some Whig gentlemen of the neighbourhood had brought a
large body of militia to guard him. They had imagined most erroneously
that by detaining him they were ingratiating themselves with his
enemies, and were greatly disturbed when they learned that the treatment
which the King had undergone was disapproved by the Provisional
Government in London, and that a body of cavalry was on the road
to release him. Feversham soon arrived. He had left his troop at
Sittingbourne; but there was no occasion to use force. The King was
suffered to depart without opposition, and was removed by his friends to
Rochester, where he took some rest, which he greatly needed. He was in
a pitiable state. Not only was his understanding, which had never been
very clear, altogether bewildered: but the personal courage which, when
a young man, he had shown in several battles, both by sea and by land,
had forsaken him. The rough corporal usage which he had now, for the
first time, undergone, seems to have discomposed him more than any
other event of his chequered life. The desertion of his army, of his
favourites, of his family, affected him less than the indignities
which he suffered when his hoy was boarded. The remembrance of those
indignities continued long to rankle in his heart, and on one occasion
showed itself in a way which moved all Europe to contemptuous mirth. In
the fourth year of his exile he attempted to lure back his subjects by
offering them an amnesty. The amnesty was accompanied by a long list
of exceptions; and in this list the poor fishermen who had searched his
pockets rudely appeared side by side with Churchill and Danby. From this
circumstance we may judge how keenly he must have felt the outrage while
it was still recent. [592]
Yet, had he possessed an ordinary measure of good sense, he would have
seen that those who had detained him had unintentionally done him a
great service. The events which had taken place during his absence from
his capital ought to have convinced him that, if he had succeeded in
escaping, he never would have returned. In his own despite he had been
saved from ruin. He had another chance, a last chance. Great as his
offences had been, to dethrone him, while he remained in his kingdom and
offered to assent to such conditions as a free Parliament might impose,
would have been almost impossible.
During a short time he seemed disposed to remain. He sent Feversham from
Rochester with a letter to William. The substance of the letter was that
His Majesty was on his way back to Whitehall, that he wished to have
a personal conference with the Prince, and that Saint James's Palace
should be fitted up for his Highness. [593]
William was now at Windsor. He had learned with deep mortification the
events which had taken place on the coast of Kent. Just before the
news arrived, those who approached him observed that his spirits were
unusually high. He had, indeed, reason to rejoice. A vacant throne was
before him. All parties, it seemed, would, with one voice, invite him
to mount it. On a sudden his prospects were overcast. The abdication,
it appeared, had not been completed. A large proportion of his own
followers would have scruples about deposing a King who remained among
them, who invited them to represent their grievances in a parliamentary
way, and who promised full redress. It was necessary that the Prince
should examine his new position, and determine on a new line of action.
No course was open to him which was altogether free from objections,
no course which would place him in a situation so advantageous as that
which he had occupied a few hours before. Yet something might be done.
The King's first attempt to escape had failed. What was now most to be
desired was that he should make a second attempt with better success. He
must be at once frightened and enticed. The liberality with which he had
been treated in the negotiation at Hungerford, and which he had
requited by a breach of faith, would now be out of season. No terms of
accommodation must be proposed to him. If he should propose terms he
must be coldly answered. No violence must be used towards him, or even
threatened. Yet it might not be impossible, without either using or
threatening violence, to make so weak a man uneasy about his personal
safety. He would soon be eager to fly. All facilities for flight must
then be placed within his reach; and care must be taken that he should
not again be stopped by any officious blunderer.
Such was William's plan: and the ability and determination with which
he carried it into effect present a strange contrast to the folly
and cowardice with which he had to deal. He soon had an excellent
opportunity of commencing his system of intimidation. Feversham
arrived at Windsor with James's letter. The messenger had not been very
judiciously selected. It was he who had disbanded the royal army. To
him primarily were to be imputed the confusion and terror of the Irish
Night. His conduct was loudly blamed by the public. William had been
provoked into muttering a few words of menace: and a few words of menace
from William's lips generally meant something. Feversham was asked for
his safe conduct. He had none. By coming without one into the midst of a
hostile camp, he had, according to the laws of war, made himself liable
to be treated with the utmost severity. William refused to see him,
and ordered him to be put under arrest. [594] Zulestein was instantly
despatched to inform James that the Prince declined the proposed
conference, and desired that His Majesty would remain at Rochester.
But it was too late. James was already in London. He had hesitated about
the journey, and had, at one time, determined to make another attempt to
reach the Continent. But at length he yielded to the urgency of friends
who were wiser than himself, and set out for Whitehall. He arrived
there on the afternoon of Sunday, the sixteenth of December. He had been
apprehensive that the common people, who, during his absence, had
given so many proofs of their aversion to Popery, would offer him some
affront. But the very violence of the recent outbreak had produced
a remission. The storm had spent itself. Good humour and pity had
succeeded to fury. In no quarter was any disposition shown to insult the
King. Some cheers were raised as his coach passed through the City. The
bells of some churches were rung; and a few bonfires were lighted in
honour of his return. [595] His feeble mind, which had just before been
sunk in despondency, was extravagantly elated by these unexpected signs
of popular goodwill and compassion. He entered his dwelling in high
spirits. It speedily resumed its old aspect. Roman Catholic priests, who
had, during the preceding week, been glad to hide themselves from the
rage of the multitude in vaults and cocklofts, now came forth from their
lurking places, and demanded possession of their old apartments in the
palace. Grace was said at the royal table by a Jesuit. The Irish
brogue, then the most hateful of all sounds to English ears, was heard
everywhere in the courts and galleries. The King himself had resumed all
his old haughtiness. He held a Council, his last Council, and, even in
that extremity, summoned to the board persons not legally qualified to
sit there. He expressed high displeasure at the conduct of those
Lords who, during his absence, had dared to take the administration
on themselves. It was their duty, he conceived, to let society be
dissolved, to let the houses of Ambassadors be pulled down, to let
London be set on fire, rather than assume the functions which he had
thought fit to abandon. Among those whom he thus censured were some
nobles and prelates who, in spite of all his errors, had been constantly
true to him, and who, even after this provocation, never could be
induced by hope or fear to transfer their allegiance from him to any
other sovereign. [596]
But his courage was soon cast down. Scarcely had he entered his palace
when Zulestein was announced. William's cold and stern message was
delivered. The King still pressed for a personal conference with his
nephew. "I would not have left Rochester," he said, "if I had known that
he wished me not to do so: but, since I am here, I hope that he will
come to Saint James's." "I must plainly tell your Majesty," said
Zulestein, "that His Highness will not come to London while there are
any troops here which are not under his orders." The King, confounded
by this answer, remained silent. Zulestein retired; and soon a gentleman
entered the bedchamber with the news that Feversham had been put under
arrest. [597] James was greatly disturbed. Yet the recollection of the
applause with which he had been greeted still buoyed up his spirits.
A wild hope rose in his mind. He fancied that London, so long the
stronghold of Protestantism and Whiggism, was ready to take arms in his
defence. He sent to ask the Common Council whether, if he took up his
residence in the City, they would engage to defend him against the
Prince. But the Common Council had not forgotten the seizure of the
charter and the judicial murder of Cornish, and refused to give the
pledge which was demanded. Then the King's heart again sank within him.
Where, he asked, was he to look for protection? He might as well have
Dutch troops about him as his own Life Guards. As to the citizens,
he now understood what their huzzas and bonfires were worth. Nothing
remained but flight: and yet, he said, he knew that there was nothing
which his enemies so much desired as that he would fly. [598]
While he was in this state of trepidation, his fate was the subject of
a grave deliberation at Windsor. The court of William was now crowded to
overflowing with eminent men of all parties. Most of the chiefs of the
Northern insurrection had joined him. Several of the Lords, who had,
during the anarchy of the preceding week, taken upon themselves to act
as a provisional government, had, as soon as the King returned, quitted
London for the Dutch head quarters. One of these was Halifax. William
had welcomed him with great satisfaction, but had not been able to
suppress a sarcastic smile at seeing the ingenious and accomplished
politician, who had aspired to be the umpire in that great contention,
forced to abandon the middle course and to take a side. Among those who,
at this conjuncture, repaired to Windsor were some men who had purchased
the favour of James by ignominious services, and who were now impatient
to atone, by betraying their master, for the crime of having betrayed
their country. Such a man was Titus, who had sate at the Council board
in defiance of law, and who had laboured to unite the Puritans with the
Jesuits in a league against the constitution. Such a man was Williams,
who had been converted by interest from a demagogue into a champion of
prerogative, and who was now ready for a second apostasy. These men
the Prince, with just contempt, suffered to wait at the door of his
apartment in vain expectation of an audience. [599]
On Monday, the seventeenth of December, all the Peers who were at
Windsor were summoned to a solemn consultation at the Castle. The
subject proposed for deliberation was what should be done with the King.
William did not think it advisable to be present during the discussion.
He retired; and Halifax was called to the chair. On one point the Lords
were agreed. The King could not be suffered to remain where he was. That
one prince should fortify himself in Whitehall and the other in Saint
James's, that there should be two hostile garrisons within an area of
a hundred acres, was universally felt to be inexpedient. Such an
arrangement could scarcely fail to produce suspicions, insults, and
bickerings which might end in blood. The assembled Lords, therefore,
thought it advisable that James should be sent out of London. Ham, which
had been built and decorated by Lauderdale, on the banks of the Thames,
out of the plunder of Scotland and the bribes of France, and which was
regarded as the most luxurious of villas, was proposed as a convenient
retreat. When the Lords had come to this conclusion, they requested
the Prince to join them. Their opinion was then communicated to him, by
Halifax. William listened and approved. A short message to the King was
drawn up. "Whom," said William, "shall we send with it?" "Ought it not,"
said Halifax, "to be conveyed by one of your Highness's officers?" "Nay,
my Lord," answered the Prince; "by your favour, it is sent by the advice
of your Lordships, and some of you ought to carry it." Then, without
pausing to give time for remonstrance, he appointed Halifax, Shrewsbury,
and Delamere to be the messengers. [600]
The resolution of the Lords appeared to be unanimous. But there were
in the assembly those who by no means approved of the decision in which
they affected to concur, and who wished to see the King treated with
a severity which they did not venture openly to recommend. It is a
remarkable fact that the chief of this party was a peer who had been
a vehement Tory, and who afterwards died a Nonjuror, Clarendon. The
rapidity, with which, at this crisis, he went backward and forward from
extreme to extreme, might seem incredible to people living in quiet
times, but will not surprise those who have had an opportunity of
watching the course of revolutions. He knew that the asperity, with
which he had, in the royal presence, censured the whole system of
government, had given mortal offence to his old master. On the other
hand he might, as the uncle of the Princesses, hope to be great and
rich in the new world which was about to commence. The English colony
in Ireland regarded him as a friend and patron; and he felt that on the
confidence and attachment of that great interest much of his importance
depended. To such considerations as these the principles, which he
had, during his whole life, ostentatiously professed, now gave way. He
repaired to the Prince's closet, and represented the danger of leaving
the King at liberty. The Protestants of Ireland were in extreme peril.
There was only one way to secure their estates and their lives; and that
was to keep His Majesty close prisoner. It might not be prudent to shut
him up in an English castle. But he might be sent across the sea and
confined in the fortress of Breda till the affairs of the British
Islands were settled. If the Prince were in possession of such a
hostage, Tyrconnel would probably lay down the sword of state; and the
English ascendency would be restored to Ireland without a blow. If, on
the other hand, James should escape to France and make his appearance
at Dublin, accompanied by a foreign army, the consequences must be
disastrous. William owned that there was great weight in these reasons,
but it could not be. He knew his wife's temper; and he knew that she
never would consent to such a step. Indeed it would not be for his own
honour to treat his vanquished kinsman so ungraciously. Nor was it quite
clear that generosity might not be the best policy. Who could say what
effect such severity as Clarendon recommended might produce on the
public mind of England? Was it impossible that the loyal enthusiasm,
which the King's misconduct had extinguished, might revive as soon as it
was known that he was within the walls of a foreign fortress? On these
grounds William determined not to subject his father in law to personal
restraint; and there can be little doubt that the determination was
wise. [601]
James, while his fate was under discussion, remained at Whitehall,
fascinated, as it seemed, by the greatness and nearness of the danger,
and unequal to the exertion of either struggling or flying. In the
evening news came that the Dutch had occupied Chelsea and Kensington.
The King, however, prepared to go to rest as usual. The Coldstream
Guards were on duty at the palace. They were commanded by William Earl
of Craven, an aged man who, more than fifty years before, had been
distinguished in war and love, who had led the forlorn hope at
Creutznach with such courage that he had been patted on the shoulder
by the great Gustavus, and who was believed to have won from a thousand
rivals the heart of the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia. Craven was now in
his eightieth year; but time had not tamed his spirit. [602]
It was past ten o'clock when he was informed that three battalions of
the Prince's foot, mingled with some troops of horse, were pouring down
the long avenue of St. James's Park, with matches lighted, and in full
readiness for action. Count Solmes, who commanded the foreigners, said
that his orders were to take military possession of the posts round
Whitehall, and exhorted Craven to retire peaceably. Craven swore that
he would rather be cut in pieces: but, when the King, who was undressing
himself, learned what was passing, he forbade the stout old soldier to
attempt a resistance which must have been ineffectual. By eleven the
Coldstream Guards had withdrawn; and Dutch sentinels were pacing the
rounds on every side of the palace. Some of the King's attendants asked
whether he would venture to lie down surrounded by enemies. He answered
that they could hardly use him worse than his own subjects had done,
and, with the apathy of a man stupified by disasters, went to bed and to
sleep. [603]
Scarcely was the palace again quiet when it was again roused. A little
after midnight the three Lords arrived from Windsor. Middleton was
called up to receive them. They informed him that they were charged with
an errand which did not admit of delay. The King was awakened from his
first slumber; and they were ushered into his bedchamber. They delivered
into his hand the letter with which they had been entrusted, and
informed him that the Prince would be at Westminster in a few hours,
and that His Majesty would do well to set out for Ham before ten in the
morning. James made some difficulties. He did not like Ham. It was a
pleasant place in the summer, but cold and comfortless at Christmas,
and was moreover unfurnished. Halifax answered that furniture should
be instantly sent in. The three messengers retired, but were speedily
followed by Middleton, who told them that the King would greatly prefer
Rochester to Ham. They answered that they had not authority to accede to
His Majesty's wish, but that they would instantly send off an express to
the Prince, who was to lodge that night at Sion House. A courier started
immediately, and returned before daybreak with William's consent.
That consent, indeed, was most gladly given: for there could be no doubt
that Rochester had been named because it afforded facilities for flight;
and that James might fly was the first wish of his nephew. [604]
On the morning of the eighteenth of December, a rainy and stormy
morning, the royal barge was early at Whitehall stairs; and round it
were eight or ten boats filled with Dutch soldiers. Several noblemen and
gentlemen attended the King to the waterside. It is said, and may well
be believed, that many tears were shed. For even the most zealous friend
of liberty could scarcely have seen, unmoved, the sad and ignominious
close of a dynasty which might have been so great. Shrewsbury did all in
his power to soothe the fallen Sovereign. Even the bitter and vehement
Delamere was softened. But it was observed that Halifax, who was
generally distinguished by his tenderness to the vanquished, was, on
this occasion, less compassionate than his two colleagues. The mock
embassy to Hungerford was doubtless still rankling in his mind. [605]
While the King's barge was slowly working its way on rough billows down
the river, brigade after brigade of the Prince's troops came pouring
into London from the west. It had been wisely determined that the duty
of the capital should be chiefly done by the British soldiers in
the service of the States General. The three English regiments were
quartered in and round the Tower, the three Scotch regiments in
Southwark. [606]
In defiance of the weather a great multitude assembled between Albemarle
House and Saint James's Palace to greet the Prince. Every hat, every
cane, was adorned with an orange riband. The bells were ringing all
over London. Candles for an illumination were disposed in the windows.
Faggots for bonfires were heaped up in the streets. William, however,
who had no taste for crowds and shouting, took the road through the
Park. Before nightfall he arrived at Saint James's in a light carriage,
accompanied by Schomberg. In a short time all the rooms and staircases
in the palace were thronged by those who came to pay their court. Such
was the press, that men of the highest rank were unable to elbow their
way into the presence chamber. [607] While Westminster was in this state
of excitement, the Common Council was preparing at Guildhall an address
of thanks and congratulation. The Lord Major was unable to preside. He
had never held up his head since the Chancellor had been dragged into
the justice room in the garb of a collier. But the Aldermen and the
other officers of the corporation were in their places. On the following
day the magistrates of the City went in state to pay their duty to their
deliverer. Their gratitude was eloquently expressed by their Recorder,
Sir George Treby. Some princes of the House of Nassau, he said, had been
the chief officers of a great republic. Others had worn the imperial
crown. But the peculiar title of that illustrious line to the public
veneration was this, that God had set it apart and consecrated it to
the high office of defending truth and freedom against tyrants from
generation to generation. On the same day all the prelates who were in
town, Sancroft excepted, waited on the Prince in a body. Then came the
clergy of London, the foremost men of their profession in knowledge,
eloquence, and influence, with their bishop at their head. With them
were mingled some eminent dissenting ministers, whom Compton, much to
his honour, treated with marked courtesy. A few months earlier, or a few
months later, such courtesy would have been considered by many Churchmen
as treason to the Church. Even then it was but too plain to a discerning
eye that the armistice to which the Protestant sects had been forced
would not long outlast the danger from which it had sprung. About a
hundred Nonconformist divines, resident in the capital, presented a
separate address. They were introduced by Devonshire, and were received
with every mark of respect and kindness. The lawyers paid their homage,
headed by Maynard, who, at ninety years of age, was as alert and
clearheaded as when he stood up in Westminster Hall to accuse Strafford.
"Mr. Serjeant," said the Prince, "you must have survived all the lawyers
of your standing." "Yes, sir," said the old man, "and, but for your
Highness, I should have survived the laws too." [608]
But, though the addresses were numerous and full of eulogy, though the
acclamations were loud, though the illuminations were splendid, though
Saint James's Palace was too small for the crowd of courtiers, though
the theatres were every night, from the pit to the ceiling, one blaze
of orange ribands, William felt that the difficulties of his enterprise
were but beginning. He had pulled a government down. The far harder
task of reconstruction was now to be performed. From the moment of his
landing till he reached London he had exercised the authority which, by
the laws of war, acknowledged throughout the civilised world, belongs
to the commander of an army in the field. It was now necessary that he
should exchange the character of a general for that of a magistrate; and
this was no easy task. A single false step might be fatal; and it was
impossible to take any step without offending prejudices and rousing
angry passions.
Some of the Prince's advisers pressed him to assume the crown at once as
his own by right of conquest, and then, as King, to send out, under
his Great Seal, writs calling a Parliament. This course was strongly
recommended by some eminent lawyers. It was, they said, the shortest
way to what could otherwise be attained only through innumerable
difficulties and disputes. It was in strict conformity with the
auspicious precedent set after the battle of Bosworth by Henry the
Seventh. It would also quiet the scruples which many respectable people
felt as to the lawfulness of transferring allegiance from one ruler to
another. Neither the law of England nor the Church of England recognised
any right in subjects to depose a sovereign. But no jurist, no divine,
had ever denied that a nation, overcome in war, might, without sin,
submit to the decision of the God of battles. Thus, after the Chaldean
conquest, the most pious and patriotic Jews did not think that they
violated their duty to their native King by serving with loyalty the new
master whom Providence had set over them. The three confessors, who
had been marvellously preserved in the furnace, held high office in the
province of Babylon. Daniel was minister successively of the Assyrian
who subjugated Judah, and of the Persian who subjugated Assyria. Nay,
Jesus himself, who was, according to the flesh, a prince of the house
of David, had, by commanding his countrymen to pay tribute to Caesar,
pronounced that foreign conquest annuls hereditary right and is a
legitimate title to dominion. It was therefore probable that great
numbers of Tories, though they could not, with a clear conscience,
choose a King for themselves, would accept, without hesitation, a King
given to them by the event of war. [609]
On the other side, however, there were reasons which greatly
preponderated. The Prince could not claim the crown as won by his sword
without a gross violation of faith. In his Declaration he had protested
that he had no design of conquering England; that those who imputed
to him such a design foully calumniated, not only himself, but the
patriotic noblemen and gentlemen who had invited him over; that
the force which he brought with him was evidently inadequate to an
enterprise so arduous; and that it was his full resolution to refer
all the public grievances, and all his own pretensions, to a free
Parliament. For no earthly object could it be right or wise that he
should forfeit his word so solemnly pledged in the face of all Europe.
Nor was it certain that, by calling himself a conqueror, he would have
removed the scruples which made rigid Churchmen unwilling to acknowledge
him as King. For, call himself what he might, all the world knew that
he was not really a conqueror. It was notoriously a mere fiction to say
that this great kingdom, with a mighty fleet on the sea, with a regular
army of forty thousand men, and with a militia of a hundred and thirty
thousand men, had been, without one siege or battle, reduced to the
state of a province by fifteen thousand invaders. Such a fiction was not
likely to quiet consciences really sensitive, but it could scarcely
fail to gall the national pride, already sore and irritable. The English
soldiers were in a temper which required the most delicate management.
They were conscious that, in the late campaign, their part had not been
brilliant. Captains and privates were alike impatient to prove that they
had not given way before an inferior force from want of courage. Some
Dutch officers had been indiscreet enough to boast, at a tavern over
their wine, that they had driven the King's army before them. This
insult had raised among the English troops a ferment which, but for the
Prince's prompt interference, would probably have ended in a terrible
slaughter. [610] What, in such circumstances, was likely to be the
effect of a proclamation announcing that the commander of the foreigners
considered the whole island as lawful prize of war?
It was also to be remembered that, by putting forth such a proclamation,
the Prince would at once abrogate all the rights of which he had
declared himself the champion. For the authority of a foreign conqueror
is not circumscribed by the customs and statutes of the conquered
nation, but is, by its own nature, despotic. Either, therefore, it was
not competent to William to declare himself King, or it was competent to
him to declare the Great Charter and the Petition of Right nullities,
to abolish trial by jury, and to raise taxes without the consent of
Parliament. He might, indeed, reestablish the ancient constitution of
the realm. But, if he did so, he did so in the exercise of an arbitrary
discretion. English liberty would thenceforth be held by a base tenure.
It would be, not, as heretofore, an immemorial inheritance, but a recent
gift which the generous master who had bestowed it might, if such had
been his pleasure, have withheld.
William therefore righteously and prudently determined to observe the
promises contained in his Declaration, and to leave to the legislature
the office of settling the government. So carefully did he avoid
whatever looked like usurpation that he would not, without some
semblance of parliamentary authority, take upon himself even to convoke
the Estates of the Realm, or to direct the executive administration
during the elections. Authority strictly parliamentary there was none
in the state: but it was possible to bring together, in a few hours, an
assembly which would be regarded by the nation with a large portion
of the respect due to a Parliament. One Chamber might be formed of
the numerous Lords Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London, and
another of old members of the House of Commons and of the magistrates of
the City. The scheme was ingenious, and was promptly executed. The Peers
were summoned to St. James's on the twenty-first of December. About
seventy attended. The Prince requested them to consider the state of
the country, and to lay before him the result of their deliberations.
Shortly after appeared a notice inviting all gentlemen who had sate in
the House of Commons during the reign of Charles the Second to attend
His Highness on the morning of the twenty-sixth. The Aldermen of London
were also summoned; and the Common Council was requested to send a
deputation. [611]
It has often been asked, in a reproachful tone, why the invitation was
not extended to the members of the Parliament which had been dissolved
in the preceding year. The answer is obvious. One of the chief
grievances of which the nation complained was the manner in which that
Parliament had been elected. The majority of the burgesses had been
returned by constituent bodies remodelled in a manner which was
generally regarded as illegal, and which the Prince had, in his
Declaration, condemned. James himself had, just before his downfall,
consented to restore the old municipal franchises. It would surely have
been the height of inconsistency in William, after taking up arms for
the purpose of vindicating the invaded charters of corporations, to
recognise persons chosen in defiance of those charters as the legitimate
representatives of the towns of England.
On Saturday the twenty-second the Lords met in their own house. That day
was employed in settling the order of proceeding. A clerk was appointed:
and, as no confidence could be placed in any of the twelve judges, some
serjeants and barristers of great note were requested to attend, for the
purpose of giving advice on legal points. It was resolved that on the
Monday the state of the kingdom should be taken into consideration.
[612]
The interval between the sitting of Saturday and the sitting of Monday
was anxious and eventful. A strong party among the Peers still cherished
the hope that the constitution and religion of England might be secured
without the deposition of the King. This party resolved to move a solemn
address to him, imploring him to consent to such terms as might remove
the discontents and apprehensions which his past conduct had excited.
Sancroft, who, since the return of James from Kent to Whitehall, had
taken no part in public affairs, determined to come forth from his
retreat on this occasion, and to put himself at the head of the
Royalists. Several messengers were sent to Rochester with letters
for the King. He was assured that his interests would be strenuously
defended, if only he could, at this last moment, make up his mind
to renounce designs abhorred by his people. Some respectable Roman
Catholics followed him, in order to implore him, for the sake of their
common faith, not to carry the vain contest further. [613]
The advice was good; but James was in no condition to take it. His
understanding had always been dull and feeble; and, such as it was,
womanish tremors and childish fancies now disabled him from using it. He
was aware that his flight was the thing which his adherents most dreaded
and which his enemies most desired. Even if there had been serious
personal risk in remaining, the occasion was one on which he ought to
have thought it infamous to flinch: for the question was whether he and
his posterity should reign on an ancestral throne or should be vagabonds
and beggars. But in his mind all other feelings had given place to a
craven fear for his life. To the earnest entreaties and unanswerable
arguments of the agents whom his friends had sent to Rochester, he had
only one answer. His head was in danger. In vain he was assured that
there was no ground for such an apprehension, that common sense, if not
principle, would restrain the Prince of Orange from incurring the guilt
and shame of regicide and parricide, and that many, who never would
consent to depose their Sovereign while he remained on English ground,
would think themselves absolved from their allegiance by his desertion.
Fright overpowered every other feeling. James determined to depart; and
it was easy for him to do so. He was negligently guarded: all persons
were suffered to repair to him: vessels ready to put to sea lay at no
great distance; and their boats might come close to the garden of the
house in which he was lodged. Had he been wise, the pains which his
keepers took to facilitate his escape would have sufficed to convince
him that he ought to stay where he was. In truth the snare was so
ostentatiously exhibited that it could impose on nothing but folly
bewildered by terror.
The arrangements were expeditiously made. On the evening of Saturday the
twenty-second the King assured some of the gentlemen, who had been sent
to him from London with intelligence and advice, that he would see
them again in the morning. He went to bed, rose at dead of night, and,
attended by Berwick, stole out at a back door, and went through the
garden to the shore of the Medway. A small skiff was in waiting. Soon
after the dawn of Sunday the fugitives were on board of a smack which
was running down the Thames. [614]
That afternoon the tidings of the flight reached London. The King's
adherents were confounded. The Whigs could not conceal their joy. The
good news encouraged the Prince to take a bold and important step. He
was informed that communications were passing between the French embassy
and the party hostile to him. It was well known that at that embassy all
the arts of corruption were well understood; and there could be little
doubt that, at such a conjuncture, neither intrigues nor pistoles would
be spared. Barillon was most desirous to remain a few days longer in
London, and for that end omitted no art which could conciliate the
victorious party. In the streets he quieted the populace, who looked
angrily at his coach, by throwing money among them. At his table he
publicly drank the health of the Prince of Orange. But William was not
to be so cajoled. He had not, indeed, taken on himself to exercise
regal authority: but he was a general and, as such, he was not bound
to tolerate, within the territory of which he had taken military
occupation, the presence of one whom he regarded as a spy. Before that
day closed Barillon was informed that he must leave England within
twenty-four hours. He begged hard for a short delay: but minutes were
precious; the order was repeated in more peremptory terms; and he
unwillingly set off for Dover. That no mark of contempt and defiance
might be omitted, he was escorted to the coast by one of his Protestant
countrymen whom persecution had driven into exile. So bitter was the
resentment excited by the French ambition and arrogance that even those
Englishmen who were not generally disposed to take a favourable view of
William's conduct loudly applauded him for retorting with so much spirit
the insolence with which Lewis had, during many years, treated every
court in Europe. [615]
On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen to preside. The
Primate was absent, the Royalists sad and gloomy, the Whigs eager and in
high spirits. It was known that James had left a letter behind him. Some
of his friends moved that it might be produced, in the faint hope that
it might contain propositions which might furnish a basis for a happy
settlement. On this motion the previous question was put and carried.
Godolphin, who was known not to be unfriendly to his old master, uttered
a few words which were decisive. "I have seen the paper," he said;
"and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your
Lordships any satisfaction." In truth it contained no expression of
regret for pass errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for
the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened
on the malice of William and on the blindness of a nation deluded by the
specious names of religion and property. None ventured to propose that
a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid
discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in
wrong. Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince
of Wales: but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain. "I did
not expect, my Lords," exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead,
who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edgehill, "I
did not expect to hear anybody at this time of day mention the child who
was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last
of him." After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should
be presented to William. One address requested him to take on
himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other
recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his
own hand, invite all the constituent bodies of the kingdom to send up
representatives to Westminster. At the same time the Peers took upon
themselves to issue an order banishing all Papists, except a few
privileged persons, from London and the vicinity. [616]
The Lords presented their addresses to the Prince on the following day,
without waiting for the issue of the deliberations of the commoners whom
he had called together. It seems, indeed, that the hereditary nobles
were disposed at this moment to be punctilious in asserting their
dignity, and were unwilling to recognise a coordinate authority in an
assembly unknown to the law. They conceived that they were a real
House of Lords. The other Chamber they despised as only a mock House
of Commons. William, however, wisely excused himself from coming to
any decision till he had ascertained the sense of the gentlemen who had
formerly been honoured with the confidence of the counties and towns of
England. [617]
The commoners who had been summoned met in Saint Stephen's Chapel, and
formed a numerous assembly. They placed in the chair Henry Powle, who
had represented Cirencester in several Parliaments, and had been eminent
among the supporters of the Exclusion Bill.
Addresses were proposed and adopted similar to those which the Lords
had already presented. No difference of opinion appeared on any serious
question; and some feeble attempts which were made to raise a debate on
points of form were put down by the general contempt. Sir Robert Sawyer
declared that he could not conceive how it was possible for the Prince
to administer the government without some distinguishing title, such as
Regent or Protector. Old Maynard, who, as a lawyer, had no equal, and
who was also a politician versed in the tactics of revolutions, was at
no pains to conceal his disdain for so puerile an objection, taken at
a moment when union and promptitude were of the highest importance.
"We shall sit here very long," he said, "if we sit till Sir Robert can
conceive how such a thing is possible;" and the assembly thought the
answer as good as the cavil deserved. [618]
The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to the Prince. He
forthwith announced his determination to comply with the joint request
of the two Chambers which he had called together, to issue letters
summoning a Convention of the Estates of the Realm, and, till the
Convention should meet, to take on himself the executive administration.
[619]
He had undertaken no light task. The whole machine of government was
disordered. The Justices of the Peace had abandoned their functions. The
officers of the revenue had ceased to collect the taxes. The army which
Feversham had disbanded was still in confusion, and ready to break out
into mutiny. The fleet was in a scarcely less alarming state. Large
arrears of pay were due to the civil and military servants of the crown;
and only forty thousand pounds remained in the Exchequer. The Prince
addressed himself with vigour to the work of restoring order. He
published a proclamation by which all magistrates were continued in
office, and another containing orders for the collection of the revenue.
[620] The new modelling of the army went rapidly on. Many of the
noblemen and gentlemen whom James had removed from the command of the
English regiments were reappointed. A way was found of employing the
thousands of Irish soldiers whom James had brought into England. They
could not safely be suffered to remain in a country where they were
objects of religious and national animosity. They could not safely
be sent home to reinforce the army of Tryconnel. It was therefore
determined that they should be sent to the Continent, where they might,
under the banners of the House of Austria, render indirect but effectual
service to the cause of the English constitution and of the Protestant
religion. Dartmouth was removed from his command; and the navy was
conciliated by assurances that every sailor should speedily receive
his due. The City of London undertook to extricate the Prince from
his financial difficulties. The Common Council, by an unanimous vote,
engaged to find him two hundred thousand pounds. It was thought a great
proof, both of the wealth and of the public spirit of the merchants of
the capital, that, in forty-eight hours, the whole sum was raised on
no security but the Prince's word. A few weeks before, James had been
unable to procure a much smaller sum, though he had offered to pay
higher interest, and to pledge valuable property. [621]
In a very few days the confusion which the invasion, the insurrection,
the flight of James, and the suspension of all regular government
had produced was at an end, and the kingdom wore again its accustomed
aspect. There was a general sense of security. Even the classes which
were most obnoxious to public hatred, and which had most reason to
apprehend a persecution, were protected by the politic clemency of the
conqueror. Persons deeply implicated in the illegal transactions of the
late reign not only walked the streets in safety, but offered themselves
as candidates for seats in the Convention. Mulgrave was received not
ungraciously at St. James's. Feversham was released from arrest, and was
permitted to resume the only office for which he was qualified, that of
keeping the bank at the Queen Dowager's basset table. But no body of men
had so much reason to feel grateful to William as the Roman Catholics.
It would not have been safe to rescind formally the severe resolutions
which the Peers had passed against the professors of a religion
generally abhorred by the nation: but, by the prudence and humanity of
the Prince, those resolutions were practically annulled. On his line of
march from Torbay to London, he had given orders that no outrage should
be committed on the persons or dwellings of Papists. He now renewed
those orders, and directed Burnet to see that they were strictly obeyed.
A better choice could not have been made; for Burnet was a man of such
generosity and good nature, that his heart always warmed towards
the unhappy; and at the same time his known hatred of Popery was a
sufficient guarantee to the most zealous Protestants that the interests
of their religion would be safe in his hands. He listened kindly to
the complaints of the Roman Catholics, procured passports for those
who wished to go beyond sea, and went himself to Newgate to visit the
prelates who were imprisoned there. He ordered them to be removed to
a more commodious apartment and supplied with every indulgence. He
solemnly assured them that not a hair of their heads should be touched,
and that, as soon as the Prince could venture to act as he wished,
they should be set at liberty. The Spanish minister reported to his
government, and, through his government, to the Pope, that no Catholic
need feel any scruple of conscience on account of the late revolution
in England, that for the danger to which the members of the true Church
were exposed James alone was responsible, and that William alone had
saved them from a sanguinary persecution. [622]
There was, therefore, little alloy to the satisfaction with which the
princes of the House of Austria and the Sovereign Pontiff learned that
the long vassalage of England was at an end. When it was known at Madrid
that William was in the full career of success, a single voice in the
Spanish Council of State faintly expressed regret that an event which,
in a political point of view, was most auspicious, should be prejudicial
to the interests of the true Church. [623] But the tolerant policy of
the Prince soon quieted all scruples, and his elevation was seen with
scarcely less satisfaction by the bigoted Grandees of Castile than by
the English Whigs.
With very different feelings had the news of this great revolution been
received in France. The politics of a long, eventful, and glorious reign
had been confounded in a day. England was again the England of Elizabeth
and of Cromwell; and all the relations of all the states of Christendom
were completely changed by the sudden introduction of this new power
into the system. The Parisians could talk of nothing but what was
passing in London. National and religious feeling impelled them to take
the part of James. They knew nothing of the English constitution. They
abominated the English Church. Our revolution appeared to them, not
as the triumph of public liberty over despotism, but as a frightful
domestic tragedy in which a venerable and pious Servius was hurled
from his throne by a Tarquin, and crushed under the chariot wheels of
a Tullia. They cried shame on the traitorous captains, execrated the
unnatural daughters, and regarded William with a mortal loathing,
tempered, however, by the respect which valour, capacity, and success
seldom fail to inspire. [624] The Queen, exposed to the night wind and
rain, with the infant heir of three crowns clasped to her breast, the
King stopped, robbed, and outraged by ruffians, were objects of pity and
of romantic interest to all France. But Lewis saw with peculiar emotion
the calamities of the House of Stuart. All the selfish and all the
generous parts of his nature were moved alike. After many years of
prosperity he had at length met with a great check. He had reckoned on
the support or neutrality of England. He had now nothing to expect from
her but energetic and pertinacious hostility. A few weeks earlier he
might not unreasonably have hoped to subjugate Flanders and to give law
to Germany. At present he might think himself fortunate if he should be
able to defend his own frontiers against a confederacy such as
Europe had not seen during many ages. From this position, so new, so
embarrassing, so alarming, nothing but a counterrevolution or a civil
war in the British Islands could extricate him. He was therefore
impelled by ambition and by fear to espouse the cause of the fallen
dynasty. And it is but just to say that motives nobler than ambition
or fear had a large share in determining his course. His heart was
naturally compassionate; and this was an occasion which could not fail
to call forth all his compassion. His situation had prevented his good
feelings from fully developing themselves. Sympathy is rarely strong
where there is a great inequality of condition; and he was raised
so high above the mass of his fellow creatures that their distresses
excited in him only a languid pity, such as that with which we regard
the sufferings of the inferior animals, of a famished redbreast or of
an overdriven posthorse. The devastation of the Palatinate and the
persecution of the Huguenots had therefore given him no uneasiness which
pride and bigotry could not effectually soothe. But all the tenderness
of which he was capable was called forth by the misery of a great King
who had a few weeks ago been served on the knee by Lords, and who was
now a destitute exile. With that tenderness was mingled, in the soul of
Lewis, a not ignoble vanity. He would exhibit to the world a pattern
of munificence and courtesy. He would show mankind what ought to be
the bearing of a perfect gentleman in the highest station and on the
greatest occasion; and, in truth, his conduct was marked by a chivalrous
generosity and urbanity, such as had not embellished the annals of
Europe since the Black Prince had stood behind the chair of King John at
the supper on the field Poitiers.
As soon as the news that the Queen of England was on the French coast
had been brought to Versailles, a palace was prepared for her reception.
Carriages and troops of guards were despatched to await her orders,
workmen were employed to mend the Calais road that her journey might be
easy. Lauzun was not only assured that his past offences were forgiven
for her sake, but was honoured with a friendly letter in the handwriting
of Lewis. Mary was on the road towards the French court when news came
that her husband had, after a rough voyage, landed safe at the little
village of Ambleteuse. Persons of high rank were instantly despatched
from Versailles to greet and escort him. Meanwhile Lewis, attended by
his family and his nobility, went forth in state to receive the exiled
Queen. Before his gorgeous coach went the Swiss halberdiers. On each
side of it and behind it rode the body guards with cymbals clashing and
trumpets pealing. After the King, in a hundred carriages each drawn by
six horses, came the most splendid aristocracy of Europe, all feathers,
ribands, jewels, and embroidery. Before the procession had gone far it
was announced that Mary was approaching. Lewis alighted and advanced
on foot to meet her. She broke forth into passionate expressions of
gratitude. "Madam," said her host, "it is but a melancholy service that
I am rendering you to day. I hope that I may be able hereafter to render
you services greater and more pleasing." He embraced the little Prince
of Wales, and made the Queen seat herself in the royal state coach on
the right hand. The cavalcade then turned towards Saint Germains.
At Saint Germains, on the verge of a forest swarming with beasts of
chase, and on the brow of a hill which looks down on the windings of the
Seine, Francis the First had built a castle, and Henry the Fourth had
constructed a noble terrace. Of the residences of the French kings none
stood in a more salubrious air or commanded a fairer prospect. The huge
size and venerable age of the trees, the beauty of the gardens, the
abundance of the springs, were widely famed. Lewis the Fourteenth had
been born there, had, when a young man, held his court there, had added
several stately pavilions to the mansion of Francis, and had completed
the terrace of Henry. Soon, however, the magnificent King conceived an
inexplicable disgust for his birthplace. He quitted Saint Germains for
Versailles, and expended sums almost fabulous in the vain attempt to
create a paradise on a spot singularly sterile and unwholesome, all sand
or mud, without wood, without water, and without game. Saint Germains
had now been selected to be the abode of the royal family of England.
Sumptuous furniture had been hastily sent in. The nursery of the Prince
of Wales had been carefully furnished with everything that an infant
could require. One of the attendants presented to the Queen the key of
a superb casket which stood in her apartment. She opened the casket, and
found in it six thousand pistoles.
On the following day James arrived at Saint Germains. Lewis was already
there to welcome him. The unfortunate exile bowed so low that it seemed
as if he was about to embrace the knees of his protector. Lewis raised
him, and embraced him with brotherly tenderness. The two Kings then
entered the Queen's room. "Here is a gentleman," said Lewis to Mary,
"whom you will be glad to see." Then, after entreating his guests to
visit him next day at Versailles, and to let him have the pleasure
of showing them his buildings, pictures, and plantations, he took the
unceremonious leave of an old friend.
In a few hours the royal pair were informed that, as long as they
would do the King of France the favour to accept of his hospitality,
forty-five thousand pounds sterling a year would be paid them from his
treasury. Ten thousand pounds sterling were sent for outfit.
The liberality of Lewis, however, was much less rare and admirable than
the exquisite delicacy with which he laboured to soothe the feelings
of his guests and to lighten the almost intolerable weight of the
obligations which he laid upon them. He who had hitherto, on all
questions of precedence, been sensitive, litigious, insolent, who had
been more than once ready to plunge Europe into war rather than concede
the most frivolous point of etiquette, was now punctilious indeed, but
punctilious for his unfortunate friends against himself. He gave orders
that Mary should receive all the marks of respect that had ever been
paid to his own deceased wife. A question was raised whether the Princes
of the House of Bourbon were entitled to be indulged with chairs in
the presence of the Queen. Such trifles were serious matters at the old
court of France. There were precedents on both sides: but Lewis decided
the point against his own blood. Some ladies of illustrious rank omitted
the ceremony of kissing the hem of Mary's robe. Lewis remarked the
omission, and noticed it in such a voice and with such a look that the
whole peerage was ever after ready to kiss her shoe. When Esther, just
written by Racine, was acted at Saint Cyr, Mary had the seat of honour.
James was at her right hand. Lewis modestly placed himself on the left.
Nay, he was well pleased that, in his own palace, an outcast living on
his bounty should assume the title of King of France, should, as King of
France, quarter the lilies with the English lions, and should, as King
of France, dress in violet on days of court mourning.
The demeanour of the French nobility on public occasions was absolutely
regulated by their sovereign: but it was beyond even his power to
prevent them from thinking freely, and from expressing what
they thought, in private circles, with the keen and delicate wit
characteristic of their nation and of their order. Their opinion of
Mary was favourable. They found her person agreeable and her deportment
dignified. They respected her courage and her maternal affection;
and they pitied her ill fortune. But James they regarded with extreme
contempt. They were disgusted by his insensibility, by the cool way in
which he talked to every body of his ruin, and by the childish pleasure
which he took in the pomp and luxury of Versailles. This strange apathy
they attributed, not to philosophy or religion, but to stupidity and
meanness of spirit, and remarked that nobody who had had the honour to
hear His Britannic Majesty tell his own story could wonder that he was
at Saint Germains and his son in law at Saint James's. [625]
In the United Provinces the excitement produced by the tidings from
England was even greater than in France. This was the moment at which
the Batavian federation reached the highest point of power and glory.
From the day on which the expedition sailed, the anxiety of the whole
Dutch nation had been intense. Never had there been such crowds in the
churches. Never had the enthusiasm of the preachers been so ardent.
The inhabitants of the Hague could not be restrained from insulting
Albeville. His house was so closely beset by the populace, day and
night, that scarcely any person ventured to visit him; and he was afraid
that his chapel would be burned to the ground. [626] As mail after
mail arrived with news of the Prince's progress, the spirits of his
countrymen rose higher and higher; and when at length it was known that
he had, on the invitation of the Lords and of an assembly of eminent
commoners, taken on himself the executive administration, a general
cry of pride and joy rose from all the Dutch factions. An extraordinary
mission was, with great speed, despatched to congratulate him. Dykvelt,
whose adroitness and intimate knowledge of English politics made his
assistance, at such a conjuncture, peculiarly valuable, was one of the
Ambassadors; and with him was joined Nicholas Witsen, a Burgomaster of
Amsterdam, who seems to have been selected for the purpose of proving to
all Europe that the long feud between the House of Orange and the chief
city of Holland was at an end. On the eighth of January Dykvelt and
Witsen made their appearance at Westminster. William talked to them
with a frankness and an effusion of heart which seldom appeared in his
conversations with Englishmen. His first words were, "Well, and what do
our friends at home say now?" In truth, the only applause by which his
stoical nature seems to have been strongly moved was the applause of his
dear native country. Of his immense popularity in England he spoke with
cold disdain, and predicted, too truly, the reaction which followed.
"Here," said he, "the cry is all Hosannah today, and will, perhaps, be
Crucify him tomorrow." [627]
On the following day the first members of the Convention were chosen.
The City of London led the way, and elected, without any contest, four
great merchants who were zealous Whigs. The King and his adherents had
hoped that many returning officers would treat the Prince's letter as
a nullity; but the hope was disappointed. The elections went on rapidly
and smoothly. There were scarcely any contests. For the nation had,
during more than a year, been kept in constant expectation of a
Parliament. Writs, indeed, had been twice issued, and twice recalled.
Some constituent bodies had, under those writs, actually proceeded to
the choice of representatives. There was scarcely a county in which the
gentry and yeomanry had not, many months before, fixed upon candidates,
good Protestants, whom no exertions must be spared to carry, in defiance
of the King and of the Lord Lieutenant; and these candidates were now
generally returned without opposition.
The Prince gave strict orders that no person in the public service
should, on this occasion, practise those arts which had brought so much
obloquy on the late government. He especially directed that no soldiers
should be suffered to appear in any town where an election was going on.
[628] His admirers were able to boast, and his enemies seem not to have
been able to deny, that the sense of the constituent bodies was fairly
taken. It is true that he risked little. The party which was attached
to him was triumphant, enthusiastic, full of life and energy. The party
from which alone he could expect serious opposition was disunited and
disheartened, out of humour with itself, and still more out of humour
with its natural chief. A great majority, therefore, of the shires and
boroughs returned Whig members.
It was not over England alone that William's guardianship now extended.
Scotland had risen on her tyrants. All the regular soldiers by whom she
had long been held down had been summoned by James to his help against
the Dutch invaders, with the exception of a very small force, which,
under the command of the Duke of Gordon, a great Roman Catholic Lord,
garrisoned the Castle of Edinburgh. Every mail which had gone northward
during the eventful month of November had carried news which stirred
the passions of the oppressed Scots. While the event of the military
operations was still doubtful, there were at Edinburgh riots and
clamours which became more menacing after James had retreated from
Salisbury. Great crowds assembled at first by night, and then by broad
daylight. Popes were publicly burned: loud shouts were raised for a free
Parliament: placards were stuck up setting prices on the heads of the
ministers of the crown. Among those ministers Perth, as filling the
great place of Chancellor, as standing high in the royal favour, as
an apostate from the reformed faith, and as the man who had first
introduced the thumbscrew into the jurisprudence of his country, was
the most detested. His nerves were weak, his spirit abject; and the only
courage which he possessed was that evil courage which braves infamy,
and which looks steadily on the torments of others. His post, at such
a time, was at the head of the Council board: but his heart failed him;
and he determined to take refuge at his country seat from the danger
which, as he judged by the looks and cries of the fierce and resolute
populace of Edinburgh, was not remote. A strong guard escorted him safe
to Castle Drummond: but scarcely had he departed when the city rose up.
A few troops tried to suppress the insurrection, but were overpowered.
The palace of Holyrood, which had been turned into a Roman Catholic
seminary and printing house, was stormed and sacked. Huge heaps of
Popish books, beads, crucifixes, and pictures were burned in the High
Street. In the midst of the agitation came down the tidings of the
King's flight. The members of the government gave up all thought of
contending with the popular fury, and changed sides with a promptitude
then common among Scottish politicians. The Privy Council by one
proclamation ordered that all Papists should be disarmed, and by another
invited Protestants to muster for the defence of pure religion. The
nation had not waited for the call. Town and country were already up in
arms for the Prince of Orange. Nithisdale and Clydesdale were the only
regions in which there was the least chance that the Roman Catholics
would make head; and both Nithisdale and Clydesdale were soon occupied
by bands of armed Presbyterians. Among the insurgents were some fierce
and moody men who had formerly disowned Argyle, and who were now
equally eager to disown William. His Highness, they said, was plainly a
malignant. There was not a word about the Covenant in his Declaration.
The Dutch were a people with whom no true servant of the Lord would
unite. They consorted with Lutherans; and a Lutheran was as much a child
of perdition as a Jesuit. The general voice of the kingdom, however,
effectually drowned the growl of this hateful faction. [629]
The commotion soon reached the neighbourhood of Castle Drummond. Perth
found that he was no longer safe among his own servants and tenants. He
gave himself up to an agony as bitter as that into which his merciless
tyranny had often thrown better men. He wildly tried to find consolation
in the rites of his new Church. He importuned his priests for comfort,
prayed, confessed, and communicated: but his faith was weak; and he
owned that, in spite of all his devotions, the strong terrors of death
were upon him. At this time he learned that he had a chance of escaping
on board of a ship which lay off Brentisland. He disguised himself
as well as he could, and, after a long and difficult journey by
unfrequented paths over the Ochill mountains, which were then deep in
snow, he succeeded in embarking: but, in spite of all his precautions,
he had been recognised, and the alarm had been given. As soon as it was
known that the cruel renegade was on the waters, and that he had gold
with him, pursuers, inflamed at once by hatred and by avarice, were on
his track, A skiff, commanded by an old buccaneer, overtook the flying
vessel and boarded her. Perth was dragged out of the hold on deck in
woman's clothes, stripped, hustled, and plundered. Bayonets were held to
his breast. Begging for life with unmanly cries, he was hurried to the
shore and flung into the common gaol of Kirkaldy. Thence, by order of
the Council over which he had lately presided, and which was filled
with men who had been partakers in his guilt, he was removed to Stirling
Castle. It was on a Sunday, during the time of public worship, that he
was conveyed under a guard to his place of confinement: but even rigid
Puritans forgot the sanctity of the day and of the work. The churches
poured forth their congregations as the torturer passed by, and the
noise of threats, execrations, and screams of hatred accompanied him to
the gate of his prison. [630]
Several eminent Scotsmen were in London when the Prince arrived there;
and many others now hastened thither to pay their court to him. On the
seventh of January he requested them to attend him at Whitehall. The
assemblage was large and respectable. The Duke of Hamilton and his
eldest son, the Earl of Arran, the chiefs of a house of almost regal
dignity, appeared at the head of the procession. They were accompanied
by thirty Lords and about eighty gentlemen of note. William desired
them to consult together, and to let him know in what way he could best
promote the welfare of their country. He then withdrew, and left them
to deliberate unrestrained by his presence. They repaired to the Council
chamber, and put Hamilton into the chair. Though there seems to have
been little difference of opinion, their debates lasted three days,
a fact which is sufficiently explained by the circumstance that Sir
Patrick Hume was one of the debaters. Arran ventured to recommend a
negotiation with the King. But this motion was ill received by the
mover's father and by the whole assembly, and did not even find a
seconder. At length resolutions were carried closely resembling the
resolutions which the English Lords and Commoners had presented to the
Prince a few days before. He was requested to call together a Convention
of the Estates of Scotland, to fix the fourteenth of March for the
day of meeting, and, till that day, to take on himself the civil and
military administration. To this request he acceded; and thenceforth the
government of the whole island was in his hands. [631]
The decisive moment approached; and the agitation of the public mind
rose to the height. Knots of politicians were everywhere whispering
and consulting. The coffeehouses were in a ferment. The presses of the
capital never rested. Of the pamphlets which appeared at that time,
enough may still be collected to form several volumes; and from those
pamphlets it is not difficult to gather a correct notion of the state of
parties.
There was a very small faction which wished to recall James without
stipulations. There was also a very small faction which wished to set up
a commonwealth, and to entrust the administration to a council of state
under the presidency of the Prince of Orange. But these extreme opinions
were generally held in abhorrence. Nineteen twentieths, of the nation
consisted of persons in whom love of hereditary monarchy and love of
constitutional freedom were combined, though in different proportions,
and who were equally opposed to the total abolition of the kingly office
and to the unconditional restoration of the King.
But, in the wide interval which separated the bigots who still clung
to the doctrines of Filmer from the enthusiasts who still dreamed the
dreams of Harrington, there was room for many shades of opinion. If we
neglect minute subdivisions, we shall find that the great majority of
the nation and of the Convention was divided into four bodies. Three of
these bodies consisted of Tories. The Whig party formed the fourth.
The amity of the Whigs and Tories had not survived the peril which had
produced it. On several occasions, during the Prince's march from the
West, dissension had appeared among his followers. While the event
of his enterprise was doubtful, that dissension had, by his skilful
management, been easily quieted. But, from the day on which he entered
Saint James's palace in triumph, such management could no longer be
practised. His victory, by relieving the nation from the strong dread of
Popish tyranny, had deprived him of half his influence. Old antipathies,
which had slept when Bishops were in the Tower, when Jesuits were at
the Council board, when loyal clergymen were deprived of their bread by
scores, when loyal gentlemen were put out of the commission of the peace
by hundreds, were again strong and active. The Royalist shuddered at the
thought that he was allied with all that from his youth up he had most
hated, with old parliamentary Captains who had stormed his country
house, with old parliamentary Commissioners who had sequestrated his
estate, with men who had plotted the Rye House butchery and headed the
Western rebellion. That beloved Church, too, for whose sake he had,
after a painful struggle, broken through his allegiance to the throne,
was she really in safety? Or had he rescued her from one enemy only that
she might be exposed to another? The Popish priests, indeed, were in
exile, in hiding, or in prison. No Jesuit or Benedictine who valued
his life now dared to show himself in the habit of his order. But the
Presbyterian and Independent teachers went in long procession to salute
the chief of the government, and were as graciously received as the true
successors of the Apostles. Some schismatics avowed the hope that every
fence which excluded them from ecclesiastical preferment would soon be
levelled; that the Articles would be softened down; that the Liturgy
would be garbled; that Christmas would cease to be a feast; that Good
Friday would cease to be a fast; that canons on whom no Bishop had
ever laid his hand would, without the sacred vestment of white linen,
distribute, in the choirs of Cathedrals, the eucharistic bread and
wine to communicants lolling on benches. The Prince, indeed, was not a
fanatical Presbyterian; but he was at best a Latitudinarian. He had no
scruple about communicating in the Anglican form; but he cared not in
what form other people communicated. His wife, it was to be feared, had
imbibed too much of his spirit. Her conscience was under the direction
of Burnet. She heard preachers of different Protestant sects. She had
recently said that she saw no essential difference between the Church
of England and the other reformed Churches. [632] It was necessary,
therefore, that the Cavaliers should, at this conjuncture, follow the
example set by their fathers in 1641, should draw off from Roundheads
and sectaries, and should, in spite of all the faults of the hereditary
monarch, uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy.
The body which was animated by these sentiments was large and
respectable. It included about one half of the House of Lords, about one
third of the House of Commons, a majority of the country gentlemen, and
at least nine tenths of the clergy; but it was torn by dissensions, and
beset on every side by difficulties.
One section of this great party, a section which was especially strong
among divines, and of which Sherlock was the chief organ, wished that a
negotiation should be opened with James, and that he should be invited
to return to Whitehall on such conditions as might fully secure the
civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm. [633] It is
evident that this plan, though strenuously supported by the clergy, was
altogether inconsistent with the doctrines which the clergy had been
teaching during many years. It was, in truth, an attempt to make
a middle way where there was no room for a middle way, to effect
a compromise between two things which do not admit of compromise,
resistance and nonresistance. The Tories had formerly taken their stand
on the principle of nonresistance. But that ground most of them had
now abandoned, and were not disposed again to occupy. The Cavaliers
of England had, as a class, been so deeply concerned, directly or
indirectly, in the late rising against the King, that they could not,
for very shame, talk at that moment about the sacred duty of obeying
Nero; nor, indeed, were they disposed to recall the prince under whose
misgovernment they had suffered so much, without exacting from him terms
which might make it impossible for him again to abuse his power.
They were, therefore, in a false position. Their old theory, sound or
unsound, was at least complete and coherent. If that theory were sound,
the King ought to be immediately invited back, and permitted, if such
were his pleasure, to put Seymour and Danby, the Bishop of London and
the Bishop of Bristol, to death for high treason, to reestablish the
Ecclesiastical Commission, to fill the Church with Popish dignitaries,
and to place the army under the command of Popish officers. But if, as
the Tories themselves now seemed to confess, that theory was unsound,
why treat with the King? If it was admitted that he might lawfully be
excluded till he gave satisfactory guarantees for the security of the
constitution in Church and State, it was not easy to deny that he might
lawfully be excluded for ever. For what satisfactory guarantee could he
give? How was it possible to draw up an Act of Parliament in language
clearer than the language of the Acts of Parliament which required that
the Dean of Christ Church should be a Protestant? How was it possible
to put any promise into words stronger than those in which James had
repeatedly declared that he would strictly respect the legal rights of
the Anglican clergy? If law or honour could have bound him, he would
never have been forced to fly from his kingdom. If neither law nor
honour could bind him, could he safely be permitted to return?
It is probable, however, that, in spite of these arguments, a motion for
opening a negotiation with James would have been made in the Convention,
and would have been supported by the great body of Tories, had he not
been, on this, as on every other occasion, his own worst enemy. Every
post which arrived from Saint Germains brought intelligence which damped
the ardour of his adherents. He did not think it worth his while to
feign regret for his past errors, or to promise amendment. He put forth
a manifesto, telling his people that it had been his constant care to
govern them with justice and moderation, and that they had been cheated
into ruin by imaginary grievances. [634] The effect of his folly and
obstinacy was that those who were most desirous to see him restored to
his throne on fair conditions felt that, by proposing at that moment to
treat with him, they should injure the cause which they wished to serve.
They therefore determined to coalesce with another body of Tories of
whom Sancroft was the chief. Sancroft fancied that he had found out
a device by which provision might be made for the government of the
country without recalling James, and yet without despoiling him of
his crown. This device was a Regency. The most uncompromising of those
divines who had inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience had never
maintained that such obedience was due to a babe or to a madman. It
was universally acknowledged that, when the rightful sovereign was
intellectually incapable of performing his office, a deputy might be
appointed to act in his stead, and that any person who should resist
the deputy, and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a
prince who was in the cradle, or who was raving, would justly incur the
penalties of rebellion. Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition, such
was the reasoning of the Primate, had made James as unfit to rule his
dominions as any child in swaddling clothes, or as any maniac who
was grinning and chattering in the straw of Bedlam. That course must
therefore be taken which had been taken when Henry the Sixth was an
infant, and again when he became lethargic. James could not be King in
effect: but he must still continue to be King in semblance. Writs must
still run in his name. His image and superscription must still appear on
the coin and on the Great Seal. Acts of Parliament must still be called
from the years of his reign. But the administration must be taken from
him and confided to a Regent named by the Estates of the Realm. In this
way, Sancroft gravely maintained, the people would remain true to their
allegiance: the oaths of fealty which they had sworn to their King would
be strictly fulfilled; and the most orthodox Churchmen might, without
any scruple of conscience, take office under the Regent. [635]
The opinion of Sancroft had great weight with the whole Tory party,
and especially with the clergy. A week before the day for which the
Convention had been summoned, a grave party assembled at Lambeth Palace,
heard prayers in the chapel, dined with the Primate, and then consulted
on the state of public affairs. Five suffragans of the Archbishop,
who had shared his perils and his glory in the preceding summer, were
present. The Earls of Clarendon and Ailesbury represented the Tory
laity. The unanimous sense of the meeting appeared to be that those who
had taken the oath of allegiance to James might justifiably withdraw
their obedience from him, but could not with a safe conscience call any
other by the name of King. [636]
Thus two sections of the Tory party, a section which looked forward to
an accommodation with James, and a section which was opposed to any such
accommodation, agreed in supporting the plan of Regency. But a
third section, which, though not very numerous, had great weight and
influence, recommended a very different plan. The leaders of this small
band were Danby and the Bishop of London in the House of Lords, and
Sir Robert Sawyer in the House of Commons. They conceived that they had
found out a way of effecting a complete revolution under strictly legal
forms. It was contrary to all principle, they said, that the King should
be deposed by his subjects; nor was it necessary to depose him. He had
himself, by his flight, abdicated his power and dignity. A demise had
actually taken place. All constitutional lawyers held that the throne
of England could not be one moment vacant. The next heir had therefore
succeeded. Who, then, was the next heir? As to the infant who had been
carried into France, his entrance into the world had been attended by
many suspicious circumstances. It was due to the other members of the
royal family and to the nation that all doubts should be cleared up. An
investigation had been solemnly demanded, in the name of the Princess
of Orange, by her husband, and would have been instituted if the parties
who were accused of fraud had not taken a course which, in any ordinary
case, would have been considered as a decisive proof of guilt. They had
not chosen to await the issue of a solemn parliamentary proceeding: they
had stolen away into a foreign country: they had carried with them the
child: they had carried with them all those French and Italian women of
the bedchamber who, if there had been foul play, must have been privy to
it, and who ought therefore to have been subjected to a rigorous cross
examination. To admit the boy's claim without inquiry was impossible;
and those who called themselves his parents had made inquiry impossible.
Judgment must therefore go against him by default. If he was wronged,
he was wronged, not by the nation, but by those whose strange conduct
at the time of his birth had justified the nation in demanding
investigation, and who had then avoided investigation by flight. He
might therefore, with perfect equity, be considered as a pretender. And
thus the crown had legally devolved on the Princess of Orange. She was
actually Queen Regnant. The Houses had nothing to do but to proclaim
her. She might, if such were her pleasure, make her husband her first
minister, and might even, with the consent of Parliament, bestow on him
the title of King.
The persons who preferred this scheme to any other were few; and it
was certain to be opposed, both by all who still bore any good will to
James, and by all the adherents of William. Yet Danby, confident in his
own knowledge of parliamentary tactics, and well aware how much, when
great parties are nearly balanced, a small flying squadron can effect,
was not without hopes of being able to keep the event of the contest in
suspense till both Whigs and Tories, despairing of complete victory, and
afraid of the consequences of delay, should suffer him to act as umpire.
Nor is it impossible that he might have succeeded if his efforts had
been seconded, nay, if they had not been counteracted, by her whom he
wished to raise to the height of human greatness. Quicksighted as he was
and versed in affairs, he was altogether ignorant of the character of
Mary, and of the feeling with which she regarded her husband; nor was
her old preceptor, Compton, better informed. William's manners were dry
and cold, his constitution was infirm, and his temper by no means bland;
he was not a man who would commonly be thought likely to inspire a fine
young woman of twenty-six with a violent passion. It was known that he
had not always been strictly constant to his wife; and talebearers
had reported that she did not live happily with him. The most acute
politicians therefore never suspected that, with all his faults, he had
obtained such an empire over her heart as princes the most renowned
for their success in gallantry, Francis the First and Henry the Fourth,
Lewis the Fourteenth and Charles the Second, had never obtained over the
heart of any woman, and that the three kingdoms of her forefathers were
valuable in her estimation chiefly because, by bestowing them on him,
she could prove to him the intensity and disinterestedness of her
affection. Danby, in profound ignorance of her sentiments, assured her
that he would defend her rights, and that, if she would support him, he
hoped to place her alone on the throne. [637]
The course of the Whigs, meanwhile, was simple and consistent. Their
doctrine was that the foundation of our government was a contract
expressed on one side by the oath of allegiance, and on the other by
the coronation oath, and that the duties imposed by this contract were
mutual. They held that a sovereign who grossly abused his power might
lawfully be withstood and dethroned by his people. That James had
grossly abused his power was not disputed; and the whole Whig party was
ready to pronounce that he had forfeited it. Whether the Prince of Wales
was supposititious, was a point not worth discussing. There were now far
stronger reasons than any which could be drawn from the circumstances
of his birth for excluding him from the throne. A child, brought to
the royal couch in a warming pan, might possibly prove a good King
of England. But there could be no such hope for a child educated by a
father who was the most stupid and obstinate of tyrants, in a foreign
country, the seat of despotism and superstition; in a country where the
last traces of liberty had disappeared; where the States General had
ceased to meet; where parliaments had long registered without one
remonstrance the most oppressive edicts of the sovereign; where valour,
genius, learning, seemed to exist only for the purpose of aggrandising
a single man; where adulation was the main business of the press, the
pulpit, and the stage; and where one chief subject of adulation was
the barbarous persecution of the Reformed Church. Was the boy likely
to learn, under such tuition and in such a situation, respect for the
institutions of his native land? Could it be doubted that he would be
brought up to be the slave of the Jesuits and the Bourbons, and that
he would be, if possible, more bitterly prejudiced than any preceding
Stuart against the laws of England?
Nor did the Whigs think that, situated as the country then was, a
departure from the ordinary rule of succession was in itself an evil.
They were of opinion that, till that rule had been broken, the doctrines
of indefeasible hereditary right and passive obedience would be pleasing
to the court, would be inculcated by the clergy, and would retain a
strong hold on the public mind. The notion would still prevail that the
kingly office is the ordinance of God in a sense different from that
in which all government is his ordinance. It was plain that, till this
superstition was extinct, the constitution could never be secure. For
a really limited monarchy cannot long exist in a society which regards
monarchy as something divine, and the limitations as mere human
inventions. Royalty, in order that it might exist in perfect harmony
with our liberties, must be unable to show any higher or more venerable
title than that by which we hold our liberties. The King must be
henceforth regarded as a magistrate, a great magistrate indeed and
highly to be honoured, but subject, like all other magistrates, to the
law, and deriving his power from heaven in no other sense than that in
which the Lords and the Commons may be said to derive their power from
heaven. The best way of effecting this salutary change would be to
interrupt the course of descent. Under sovereigns who would consider
it as little short of high treason to preach nonresistance and the
patriarchal theory of government, under sovereigns whose authority,
springing from resolutions of the two Houses, could never rise higher
than its source, there would be little risk of oppression such as had
compelled two generations of Englishmen to rise in arms against two
generations of Stuarts. On these grounds the Whigs were prepared to
declare the throne vacant, to fill it by election, and to impose on
the prince of their choice such conditions as might secure the country
against misgovernment.