Time brings its revenges. The instinct for beauty, and for joy and
gladness, had been for twenty-one years repressed by harshly
administered Puritanism. There was a thrill of delight in greeting a
gracious, smiling king, who would lift the spell of gloom from the
nation. Charles did this, more fully than was expected. Never was the
law of reaction more fully demonstrated! The Court was profligate, and
the age licentious. The reign of Charles was an orgy. When he needed
more money for his pleasures, he bargained with Louis XIV. to join that
king in a war upon Protestantism in Holland, for the consideration of
L200,000!
We wonder how he dared thus to goad and prod the British Lion, which
had devoured his Father. But that animal had {123} grown patient since
the Protectorate. England treated Charles like a spoiled child whose
follies entertained her, and whose misdemeanors she had not the heart
to punish.
The "Roundheads," who had trampled upon the "Cavaliers," were now
trampled upon in return. But even at such a time as this the liberties
of the people were expanding. The Act of "Habeas Corpus" forever
prevented imprisonment, without showing in Court just cause for the
detention of the prisoner.
The House of Stuart, those children of the Guises, was always Catholic
at heart, and Charles was at no pains to conceal his preferences. A
wave of Catholicism alarmed the people, who tried to divert the
succession from James, the brother of the King, who was extreme and
fanatical in his devotion to the Church of Rome. But in 1685, the
Masks and routs and revels were interrupted. The pleasure-loving
Charles, who "had never said a foolish thing, and never done a wise
one," lay dead in his palace at Whitehall, and James II. was King of
England.
{124}
Three names have illumined this reign, in other respects so inglorious.
In 1666 Newton discovered the law of gravitation and created a new
theory of the Universe. In 1667 Milton published "Paradise Lost," and
in 1672 Bunyan gave to the world his allegory, "Pilgrim's Progress."
There was no inspiration to genius in the cause of King and Cavaliers.
But the stern problems of Puritanism touched two souls with the divine
afflatus. The sacred Epic of Milton, sublime in treatment as in
conception, must ever stand unique and solitary in literature; while
"Pilgrim's Progress," in plain homely dish served the same heavenly
food. The theme of both was the problem of sin and redemption with
which the Puritan soul was gloomily struggling.
The reign of James II. was the last effort of royal despotism to
recover its own. He tried to recall the right of Habeas Corpus;--to
efface Parliament--and to overawe the Clergy, while insidiously
striving to establish Papacy as the religion of the Kingdom. Chief
Justice Jeffries, that most brutal of men, was his efficient aid, and
boasted that {125} he had in the service of James hanged more traitors
than all his predecessors since the Conquest!
The names Whig and Tory had come into existence in this struggle. Whig
standing for the opponents to Catholic domination, and Tory for the
upholders of the King. But so flagrantly was the Catholic policy of
James conducted, that his upholders were few. In three years from his
accession, Whig and Tory alike were so alarmed, that they secretly sent
an invitation to the King's son-in-law, William, Prince of Orange, to
come and accept the Crown.
William responded at once, and when he landed with 14,000 men, James,
paralyzed, powerless, unable to raise a force to meet him, abandoned
his throne without a struggle and took refuge in France.
The throne was formally declared vacant and William and Mary his wife
were invited to rule jointly the Kingdom of England, Ireland and
Scotland (1689).
The House of Stuart, which seems to have brought not one single virtue
to the throne, {126} was always secretly conspiring with Catholicism in
Europe. Louis XIV., as the head of Catholic Europe at this time, was
the natural protector of the dethroned King. His aim had long been, to
bring England into the Catholic European alliance, and, of course, if
possible, to make it a dependency of France. A conspiracy with Louis
to accomplish this end occupied England's exiled King during the rest
of his life.
But European Protestantism had for its leader the man who now sat upon
the throne of England. In fact he had probably accepted that throne in
order to further his larger plans for defeating the expanding power of
Louis XIV. in Europe. Broad and comprehensive in his statesmanship,
noble and just in character, an able military leader, England was safe
in his strong hand. Conspiracies were put down, one French army after
another, with the despicable James at its head, was driven back; the
purpose at one time being to establish James at the head of an
independent Kingdom in Catholic Ireland. But that would-be King of
Ireland was humiliated and sent {127} back to France by the battle of
Boyne (1690).
As important as was all this, things of even greater moment were going
on in the life of England at this time. As a wise householder employs
the hours of sunshine to repair the leaks revealed by the storm, just
so Parliament now set about strengthening and riveting the weak spots
revealed by the storms which had swept over England.
What the "_Magna Charta_" and "_Petition of Right_" had asserted in a
general way, was now by the "_Bill of Rights_," established by specific
enactments, which one after another declared what the King should and
what he should not do. One of these Acts touched the very central
nerve of English freedom.
If _religion_ and _money_ are the two important factors in the life of
a nation, it is _money_ upon which its life from day to day depends! A
Government can exist without money about as long as a man without air!
So the act which gave to the House of Commons exclusive power to grant
supplies, {128} and also to determine to what use they shall be
applied, transferred the real authority to the people, whose will the
Commons express.
The struggle between the Crown and Parliament ends with this, and the
theory of Pym is vindicated. The Sovereign and the House of Lords from
that time could no more take money from the Treasury of England, than
from that of France. Henceforth there can be no differences between
King and people. _They must be friends_. A Ministry which forfeits
the friendship of the Commons, cannot stand an hour, and supplies will
stop until they are again in accord. In other words, the Government of
England had become a Government _of the people_.
William regarded these enactments as evidence of a lack of confidence
in him. Conscious of his own magnanimous aims, of his power and his
purpose to serve England as she had not been served before, he felt
hurt and wounded at fetters which had not been placed upon such Kings
as Charles I. and his sons. We wonder that a man so exalted and so
superior, did not {129} see that it was for future England that these
laws were framed, for a time when perhaps a Prince not generous, and
noble, and pure should be upon the throne.
William was silent, grave, cold, reserved almost to sternness. He had
none of the qualities which awaken personal enthusiasm. He was one of
those great leaders who are worshipped from afar. Besides, it is not
an easy task to rule another's household. Benefits however great,
reforms however wise, are sure to be considered an impertinence by
some. Then--there might be another "Restoration," and wary ambitious
nobles were cautiously making a record which would not unfit them for
its benefits when it came. He lived in an atmosphere of conspiracy,
suspicion, and loyalty grudgingly bestowed. But these were only the
surface currents. Anglo-Saxon England recognized in this foreign King,
a man with the same race instincts, the same ideals of integrity,
honor, justice and personal liberty, as her own; qualities possessed by
few of her native sovereigns since the good King Alfred.
{130}
The expensive wars carried on against James and his confederate, Louis
XIV., compelled loans which were the beginning of the National Debt.
That and the establishing of the Bank of England, form part of the
history of this reign.
In 1702 William died, and Mary having also died a few years earlier,
the succession passed to her sister Anne, who was to be the last
Sovereign of the House of Stuart.
{131}