NATIONAL AFFAIRS—1685–1688.
A quarter of a century was the time that Charles II. occupied the throne
of Great Britain. His reign was a continued scene of royal perfidy and
sensual dissipation. He was a deceiver, a despot, and a defiler. He was
the slave of women, and his court was the school of vice. For
five-and-twenty years he played the hypocrite, by professing himself an
orthodox Protestant, when, all the while, he was, in fact, an infidel.
In all the relations of life, public and private, he was unprincipled,
profligate, false, vicious, and corrupt; whilst, from the example of his
debauched and licentious court, public morals contracted a taint which
it required little less than a century to obliterate, and which for a
time wholly paralysed the character of the nation.[28] He had good
talents, and in society was kind, familiar, communicative; but he was
indolent, negligent of the interests of the nation, careless of its
glory, averse to its religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its
treasure, and sparing only of its blood. It has been remarked of him,
and with some amount of reason, that he never said a foolish thing, nor
ever did a wise one. He had enormous vices, without the tincture of any
virtue to correct them. He died in 1685, begging forgiveness of his
neglected queen, blessing his bastard children, asking for kindness to
be shown to his mistresses, and receiving from a popish priest the
Romish communion, extreme unction, and a popish pardon.[29]
-----
Footnote 28:
_Ency. Brit._, “Great Britain.”
Footnote 29:
John Wesley says of him:—“He was in every respect a consummate
hypocrite, equally void of piety, mercy, honesty, and gratitude. Under
a cover of gentleness he was cruel and revengeful to a high degree. He
was abandoned to all vices. A worse man never sat on the English
throne.”—WESLEY’S _History of England_, vol. iii., p. 316.
-----
The Duke of York succeeded his brother Charles II. to the throne, under
the title of James II., in the spring of 1685. On the very first Sunday
after his accession he went to mass with all the ensigns of royalty.
While he was a subject, James was in the habit of hearing mass, with
closed doors, in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his popish
wife; but now that he was king, he ordered the doors to be thrown wide
open, so that all who came to pay him homage might see the superstitious
ceremonial. Soon, also, a new pulpit was erected in the palace, and,
during Lent, sermons were preached there by popish divines, to the great
disgust of zealous Protestants.
One of the first acts of James was to throw open the prisons of England,
and to set at liberty thousands of Dissenters and Papists, who had been
enduring a horrible captivity for conscience’ sake.
Two months after James’s coronation, the Earl of Argyle and the Duke of
Monmouth, by previous concert, invaded Scotland and England with a small
force from Holland; the former to re-establish the Covenant, and the
latter to secure the Protestant religion, and to deliver the country
from the tyranny of its enthroned monarch. Argyle sent the fiery cross
from hill to hill in Scotland, and from clan to clan, until he got 2500
Highlanders to join him. In a few days he was betrayed by his guides,
and was made a prisoner. His hands were tied behind him, and, with his
head bare, and the headsman marching before him, he was carried to his
old cell in Edinburgh Castle, and, on June 30, was beheaded. Monmouth,
in England, met with a much more general welcome than Argyle found in
Scotland. All classes of the people welcomed him as a deliverer sent
from heaven. The poor rent the air with their joyful acclamations, and
the rich opened their houses and supplied his army with meat and drink.
His path was strewn with flowers; and windows, as he passed through
towns, were crowded with ladies waving their handkerchiefs. On the 20th
of June, at Taunton, he took the title of king; but, after marching
through several parts of the West of England, his army was scattered,
and he was ignominiously captured in a ditch, disguised as a peasant,
with a few peas in his pocket, and himself half buried among ferns and
nettles. With almost abject meanness, he implored pardon at the hands of
James his uncle, but without effect, for, fifteen days after Argyle was
beheaded in Edinburgh, Monmouth was decapitated on Tower Hill.
Immediately after Monmouth’s death, Judge Jeffreys was sent to hold his
“bloody assizes” in the west. His first victim was Mrs Lisle, widow of
one of the Commonwealth judges. The charge against her was that of
giving shelter to two of Monmouth’s fugitives. For this, Jeffreys
sentenced her to be burnt alive, and further ordered that the sentence
should be executed on the very day that his foul mouth uttered it. The
clergy of Winchester promptly interfered; three days’ respite were wrung
from the hard-hearted judge; and the venerable matron was beheaded
instead of being burnt. From Winchester this brutal being went to
Dorchester, on the same murderous business. Here the court, by order of
Jeffreys, was hung with scarlet; more than three hundred persons were
waiting to be tried; two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of
death, but only about eighty were hanged, the rest being imprisoned,
severely whipped, or transported. Those that were transported were sold
as slaves; and the bodies of those that were hanged were cut into
quarters, and stuck up on gibbets. For this bloody work, and while he
was yet at Dorchester, Jeffreys was rewarded and encouraged by his
applauding and grateful sovereign, who raised him from the seat of Lord
Chief-Justice to that of Lord Chancellor. Jeffreys, blushing with his
new honours, now went from Dorchester to Exeter, where another red list
of two hundred and forty-three prisoners was laid before him, most of
whom in a few days were hanged, drawn, and quartered. At Taunton, nearly
eleven hundred prisoners were arraigned for high treason. Ten hundred
and forty confessed themselves guilty; only six ventured to put
themselves on trial; and two hundred and thirty-nine, at the very least,
were executed with astounding rapidity. To spread the terror more
widely, these executions took place in not fewer than thirty-six
different towns and villages. The dripping heads and gory limbs of the
deceased were fixed in the most conspicuous places,—in the streets, by
the highways, over town halls, and over the very churches. At every spot
where two roads met, in every market-place, and on the green of every
village that had furnished Monmouth with men, ironed corpses clattered
in the wind, or heads and quarters of human beings, stuck on poles,
poisoned the air, and made the passing traveller sick with horror. The
country, for a stretch of sixty miles, from Bristol to Exeter, was
studded with a new and terrible sort of sign-posts, adorned with the
mangled bodies of its slaughtered inhabitants. The wretched Jeffreys
boasted, when he returned to London, that in his “bloody campaign” he
had hanged more men than all the judges of England had hanged since the
time of William the Conqueror.
All these murderous proceedings of Judge Jeffreys had the approbation of
King James, and he continued to be one of the king’s principal advisers
in all the oppressions and arbitrary measures of his despotic reign.
Four years after his legalised massacres in the West of England,
Jeffreys wished to steal away to a foreign country, there to hide
himself and his ill-gotten wealth from the detestation of mankind; but
before he could fulfil his purpose, he was arrested and imprisoned in
the Tower. The rabble gathered before his deserted mansion, and read on
the door, with shouts of laughter, the bills which announced the sale of
his property. Even delicate women, who had tears for highwaymen and
housebreakers, breathed nothing but vengeance against him. The street
poets portioned out all his joints with cannibal ferocity, and computed
how many pounds of steaks might be cut from his well-fattened carcase.
He was exhorted to hang himself with his garters, and to cut his throat
with his razor. His spirit, as mean in adversity as it had been insolent
and inhuman in prosperity, sunk under the load of public abhorrence. His
constitution, originally bad and much impaired by drunkenness, was
completely broken by distress and by anxiety. He was tortured by a cruel
internal disease, which baffled the doctors’ skill. One—only one solace
was left to him—brandy. Disease, assisted by strong drink and by misery,
did its work with great rapidity. The poor wretch dwindled, in a few
weeks, from a portly and even corpulent man to a skeleton; and on the
10th of April 1689, he died at the early age of forty-one.[30]
-----
Footnote 30:
Macaulay.
-----
But to return. It is a striking coincidence, that about the time when
Judge Jeffreys was holding his “bloody assizes” in the West of England,
King Louis of France was revoking the tolerant edict of Nantes, and
driving thousands of his Huguenot subjects to England and other lands of
exile. Other curious and important events happened in James’s short
reign, which our space permits to be only mentioned. For instance,
Dryden, the greatest writer of the day, turned Catholic, perhaps to
please the royal Papist sitting on the throne; but Jeffreys refused to
do so, on the ground that, when he was in Africa, he promised the
Emperor of Morocco that, if he ever changed his religion, he would
become a Turk. Another pro-papistical act was this,—King James,
asserting a repealing power over all laws and Acts of Parliament, took
upon himself not only to dismiss Protestants from the highest civil and
military offices, but to put Papists into their places. He likewise gave
the revenues of the Church in Ireland, to a great extent, to popish
bishops and priests, and not merely permitted, but commanded them to
wear their canonicals in public. He cashiered four thousand Protestant
soldiers, stripped them of their uniforms, and left them to wander
hungry and half-naked through the land; their officers, for the most
part, retiring into Holland, and rallying round the Prince of Orange
there.
All this excited anxiety, and, at length, the pulpits, even of High
Churchmen, and despite the dogma of passive obedience, began to resound
with warnings and denunciations. James now suspended Compton, Bishop of
London; attempted to convert his daughter, the Princess Anne, to the
popish religion; and tried to deprive his daughter Mary, the Princess of
Orange, of her right to the succession. He endeavoured to obtain the
control of the public seminaries, schools, and colleges; and to appoint
Papists to be their officers. Four popish bishops were publicly
consecrated in the Chapel Royal,—were sent to their dioceses with the
titles of vicars apostolical; their pastoral letters being also
licensed, printed, and dispersed throughout the kingdom. James likewise
issued letters mandatory to the bishops of England, prohibiting the
clergy to preach upon points of controversy, and establishing an
ecclesiastical commission with more power than had been possessed by the
abominable court over which Laud presided.
At the beginning of 1687, a declaration of indulgence was issued by
proclamation at Edinburgh, “We, by our _sovereign authority, prerogative
royal, and absolute power_, do hereby give and grant our royal
toleration. We allow and tolerate the moderate Presbyterians to meet in
their private houses, and to hear such ministers as have been, or are
willing to accept of our indulgence, but they are not to build
meeting-houses, but to exercise in houses. We tolerate Quakers to meet
in their form in any place, or places, appointed for their worship: and
we, by our sovereign authority, suspend, stop, and disable, all laws or
Acts of Parliament made or executed against any of our Roman Catholic
subjects, so that they shall be free to exercise their religion and to
enjoy all; but they are to exercise in houses or chapels: and we cass,
annul, and discharge all oaths by which our subjects are disabled from
holding offices.”[31]
-----
Footnote 31:
Knight’s _Pictorial History_
-----
On the 4th of April, 1687, “a declaration for liberty of conscience,”
came out in the _Gazette_, by which all the penal laws against
Protestant Nonconformists, as well as Catholics, were to be suspended.
The declaration gave leave to all men to meet and serve God after their
own manner, publicly as well as privately; it denounced the royal
displeasure, and the vengeance of the laws against all who should
disturb any religious worship; and it granted a free pardon to all the
king’s loving subjects from penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities
incurred on account of religion and the penal laws.
About the same time, King James went to Oxford, and, in the exercise of
his popish inclinations and despotic principles, made the disgraceful
exhibition of himself, in Magdalen College, which was witnessed by
Samuel Wesley, and which is related in Chapter IV.
Twelve months after, on April 27, 1688, he published another declaration
of indulgence, in substance the same as the two above mentioned; but
which went a step farther, for not only was the declaration published,
but all the clergy were commanded to read it in their churches. This was
the spark that set fire to the train, which had been accumulating for
many months.
National patience was exhausted. These indulgences were right enough in
principle; but there were two great objections to their being published.
First, it was a most unconstitutional and outrageous stretch of royal
authority to pretend, “by virtue of our _sovereign authority,
prerogative royal, and absolute power_,” to “_suspend, stop_, and
_disable_ laws and Acts of Parliament,” without parliamentary consent.
And, secondly, it was well known that, in publishing these
unconstitutional declarations, James was not actuated with the least
wish to do justice to Protestant Nonconformists; but chiefly, if not
exclusively, desired the toleration of his own sect, the Papists; and
hoped that this might be a preparatory step to the triumphant
establishment of the Popish Church. James’s conduct in Scotland, where
he had hacked to pieces so many Protestants, could not be forgotten, but
spoke far more loudly than the hollow-hearted language of his indulgent
declarations; besides, the loud denunciations of James’s Lord
Chancellor, the bloodthirsty Jeffreys, against all Protestant Dissenters
as king-haters, rebels, and republicans, were still ringing in the
nation’s ears. The people remembered that, within the last three years,
the great and good Richard Baxter, had been committed to the King’s
Bench Prison on the charge of printing his paraphrase of the New
Testament; and had been brought to trial, before Jeffreys, at
Westminster, at the very time that Titus Oates was standing in the
pillory in the New Palace Yard; Jeffreys gleefully exclaiming at the
moment, “If Baxter stood on the other side of Oates’s pillory, I would
say two of the greatest rogues and rascals in the kingdom stood there.”
The people remembered that the insulted Baxter, for his alleged offence,
had been fined five hundred marks, and had been ordered to lie in prison
until the fine was paid; besides being bound to good behaviour for seven
years. They were not able to forget, that, in the very year before the
first declaration was issued, the Protestant Dissenters had again and
again had their private religious meetings, which they had dared to
hold, disturbed and broken up, both in town and country, by the
myrmidons of King James’s government; and that Sir John Hartop, and some
others, at Stoke Newington, had had distresses levied for the payment of
a fine of about £700.[32] For James to pretend friendship to Protestant
Dissenters, in the face of such facts, was a piece of hypocrisy, which
none but a royal simpleton, afflicted with a little mind, and blinded by
prejudice, would have attempted to impose upon the credulity of
intelligent and religious men.
-----
Footnote 32:
Baxter’s _Life and Times_.
-----
Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of the
Dissenters been so deplorable as it was under James. Never had spies
been so actively employed in detecting congregations; and never had
magistrates, grand-jurors, rectors, and churchwardens been so much on
the alert. It was impossible for the sectaries to pray together without
precautions such as are employed by coiners and receivers of stolen
goods. Places of worship had to be frequently changed. Worship had to be
performed, sometimes just before the break of day, and sometimes at dead
of night. Round the building where the little flock was gathered
together, sentinels were placed to give the alarm if a stranger drew
near. The minister, in disguise, was introduced through the garden and
the back yard. In some houses, there were trap doors, through which, in
case of danger, he might descend. No psalm was sung; and many
contrivances were used to prevent the voice of the preacher, in his
moments of fervour, from being heard outside. And yet, with all this
care, several opulent gentlemen in the suburbs of London were accused of
holding conventicles, and distresses were levied to the amount of many
thousand pounds. Dissenting ministers, however blameless in life,
however eminent for learning and abilities, could not venture to walk
the streets for fear of outrages, encouraged by those whose duty it was
to preserve the peace. Some divines of great fame were in prison;
others, crushed with oppression, had quitted the kingdom; and great
numbers, who had been accustomed to frequent conventicles, repaired to
the parish church.[33]
-----
Footnote 33:
Macaulay.
-----
What was the result? James commanded that the declaration, published on
the 27th of April 1688, should be read by all the clergy in their
churches, in and about London, on the 20th and 27th of May; and in all
the rest of England and Wales on the 3d and 10th of June following. The
bishops[34] were commanded to be vigilant in enforcing the royal order,
and those who refused to read were to be prosecuted by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The 20th of May arrived; but only seven,
out of a hundred clergymen in London read the declaration, and even they
read with fear and trembling, being groaned at by their congregations.
On the 27th of May the signs of obedience were not more numerous; and a
newly-appointed reader at the Chapel Royal was so much agitated that he
was not able to read the declaration so as to be heard. On the 3d and
10th of June, the mass of the clergy in the provinces and in Wales, were
quite as disobedient as those in the capital. It is said that, at the
time, there were more than ten thousand clergy in the kingdom, and yet
not more than two hundred complied with the royal will.
-----
Footnote 34:
_Ibid._
-----
And here we must pause, for the purpose of spoiling a very interesting
story respecting Samuel Wesley. The Rev. Henry Moore relates that Samuel
Wesley was strongly solicited by the friends of King James II. to
support the measures of the court in favour of Popery, with a promise of
preferment, if he would comply with the king’s desire. But when the time
came for reading the king’s declaration, he most firmly refused; and
though surrounded by courtiers, soldiers, and informers, he preached a
bold and pointed discourse against it from Daniel iii. 17, 18: “If it be
so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not,
be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Unfortunately this
heroic story is untrue. As we shall see shortly, Samuel Wesley was not
ordained a deacon until two months after the declaration was commanded
to be read, and therefore, at the time, was not authorised to preach,
either from such a text, or from any text at all; nor was he in a
position either to read or to refuse to read the king’s declaration.
The story has been repeated by Southey, by Macaulay, by Dr Smith, by Dr
Stevens, and by many other of the leading historians of the age; but, as
just shown, it is utterly without foundation. Henry Moore’s mistake was
a simple and easy one. He attributes to Samuel Wesley a fact which
belongs to the Rev. John Berry, A.M., vicar of Watton, in Norfolk, the
father-in-law of Samuel Wesley, jun. The latter, in a “poem upon a
clergyman lately deceased,” published in 1731, delineates the character
of Mr Berry; and the poem, in substance, contains the story, which has
so long and so often been improperly applied to Samuel Wesley, sen.:—
“When zealous James, unhappy sought the way,
T’ establish Rome by arbitrary sway,
’Twas then the Christian priest was nobly tried,
When hireling slaves embraced the stronger side,
And saintly sects and sycophants complied.
In vain were bribes shower’d by the guilty crown,
He sought no favour as he fear’d no frown.
Nor loudest storms his steady purpose broke,
Firm as the beaten anvil to the stroke.
Secure in faith, exempt from worldly views,
He dared the declaration to refuse;
Then from the sacred pulpit boldly show’d,
The dauntless Hebrews true to Israel’s God,
Who spake regardless of their king’s commands:
‘The God we serve can save us from thy hands;
If not, O monarch, know we choose to die,
Thy gods alike and threat’nings we defy.
No power on earth our faith has e’er controll’d,
We scorn to worship idols, though of gold.’
Resistless truth damp’d all the audience round,
The base informer sicken’d at the sound;
Attentive courtiers conscious stood amazed,
And soldiers silent trembled as they gazed.
No smallest murmur of distaste arose,
Abash’d and vanquish’d seem’d the Church’s foes.
So when like zeal their bosoms did inspire,
The Jewish martyrs walk’d unhurt in fire!”[35]
-----
Footnote 35:
Poems by S. Wesley, jun., London, 1736.
-----
We are not sure that even this was intended to be considered as the
description of a fact actually occurring in the history of the poet’s
father-in-law. It might be nothing more than a poetical and general
description of the position taken by the ten thousand clergy, who
refused to read King James’s declaration. Anyhow, for the reason already
mentioned, it could not be true of Samuel Wesley, sen. No doubt Samuel
Wesley was as brave a man as ever lived; and had he been placed in the
circumstances, stated by Henry Moore, he would have had sufficient
courage to act as it is alleged he did. He regarded King James as a
tyrant; and his views of the king’s declaration may be fairly gathered
from the following question and answer in the _Athenian Oracle_:—[36]
“_Ques._ What think you of the liberty of conscience granted in the late
reign? Was it procured by the Catholics out of any design, or purely for
the good and peace of the subjects?
“_Ans._ It is contrary to reason to believe that any true and zealous
Papist can be for liberty of conscience, it being a fundamental of their
religion, that all who differ from them in matters of faith are
heretics, and ought to be destroyed. And, as it is natural for every
persuasion to plead for liberty when they are denied it, and cannot have
the freedom to serve God in their own method, so likewise, experience
teaches us, that if the wheel turns, these very men which abhorred
persecution, are no sooner in power but immediately endeavour by force
to bring others to a compliance with what they profess. And if we find
this error amongst the mildest and most charitable persuasions, we dare
confidently affirm it would not have been otherwise with Roman
Catholics, since they look upon the converting of heretics to be no
small meritorious work.”
-----
Footnote 36:
Vol. ii., p. 60.
-----
But leaving the ten thousand clergymen who refused to read King James’s
declaration, and also abstaining from any further notice of the
apochryphal story concerning Samuel Wesley’s bravery, we must now return
to the declaration itself.
James commanded this royal manifesto to be read in churches, and charged
the bishops to take care that his mandate was obeyed. Two days before
the time when the declaration was to be first read, six of the bishops
met the primate, Sancroft, at his palace at Lambeth; and there, with the
assent of the ex-minister Lord Clarendon, and of Tillotson,
Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tennison, Grove, and Sherlock, esteemed the best
preachers and writers in the Church, it was privately resolved that a
petition, prepared by Sancroft, should be forthwith presented to his
Majesty. The petition, which was delivered on the evening of the same
day, humbly showed that the objection of the clergy to read the
declaration did not arise from their want of obedience to the king, nor
yet from any want of tenderness to Dissenters; but because the
declaration was founded upon a dispensing power in the king, which had
often been declared illegal in parliament. James read the petition, and
coolly folded it up, and then, with disdain and anger, said, “This is a
great surprise to me. This is a standard of rebellion.” The bishops
protested against such an interpretation. James kept muttering, “Is this
what I have deserved from the Church of England? I will remember you who
have signed this paper. I will be obeyed.” On the morrow, as he was on
his way to mass, he met the Bishop of St David’s. “My lord,” cried he,
“your brethren have presented the most seditious paper that was ever
penned. It is a trumpet of rebellion.”
Three weeks after, the seven bishops were summoned before the Privy
Council, to answer a charge of high misdemeanour, and were committed to
the Tower. They were conveyed from Whitehall by water, and were followed
by the tears and prayers of thousands. Both banks of the Thames were
lined with multitudes, who fell on their knees, beseeching God to
protect the sufferers for religion and liberty. The very soldiers in the
Tower acted as mourners; and even the Nonconformists, who had felt all
the bitterness of Episcopal persecution, sent a deputation of ten of
their ministers to wait upon, and condole with the prisoners.
Twenty-eight peers were ready to bail them; and messages were brought
over from Holland, assuring them of the sympathy of the Prince and
Princess of Orange.
A week later, on the 15th of June, they were brought before the King’s
Bench, by a writ of habeas corpus. An immense concourse of people
received them on the bank of the river, and followed them to Westminster
Hall, the greater part falling upon their knees, wishing them happiness,
and asking their blessing. Within the court, the bishops found the peers
who offered to be their sureties, and a crowd of gentlemen attached to
their interests. They were charged with a seditious libel. They pleaded
“Not Guilty.” The trial was then postponed for a fortnight.
At the expiration of that time, the bishops again entered Westminster
Hall, surrounded by lords and gentlemen, and followed by prayers and
blessings. The trial began at nine o’clock in the morning. At seven in
the evening, the jury retired to consider their verdict, and were locked
up all night. At nine next morning, they returned the verdict “Not
Guilty.” The noblemen, gentlemen, and people within the court raised a
loud huzza. This was echoed back by a louder huzza from those without.
As the bishops passed to the river side, there was a lane of people, all
on their knees, to beg their benediction. Sixty earls and lords were
present, joining in the jubilations of the people. At night London was
lighted from end to end with blazing bonfires, all the church bells were
ringing, and the Pope was burned in effigy before the windows of the
royal palace. The excitement was amazing. James’s popish and despotic
reign was doomed. The royally-applauded atrocities of Judge Jeffreys,
which made the land a shambles, and turned the law itself into the
bloodiest of tyrannies, awoke only groans and muttered curses; but the
imprisonment of seven bishops at once brought about a revolution.
Meanwhile, in the same month that the trial of the bishops took place,
the queen was delivered of a fine healthy boy. The Lord Mayor of London
was commanded to provide bonfires and other public rejoicings; but there
were no bonfires now except for persecuted bishops, and the alleged
birth of a prince, instead of being honoured, was pronounced to be a
gross imposture.
The Protestants, Tories as well as Whigs, turned to the Prince of Orange
as their only hope, and an invitation was sent to him to come from
Holland, with an armed force, to call in question the legitimacy of the
pretended new born prince, and to redress the grievances of the nation.
Before the month expired, Prince William had collected 15,000 land
troops, a fleet of seventy ships, and a large train of artillery.
James began to apprehend danger, and attempted to disarm the animosity
of the people by concessions. He even condescended to consult with the
seven bishops whom he had so recently harassed. He replaced the
Protestant deputy-lieutenants and magistrates. He gave back to the city
of London its old charter, and restored Compton to his Episcopal office.
On the 3d of October, the primate and eight bishops waited upon the
king, and endeavoured to bring him back “to the religion in which he had
been baptized and educated;” but, just at that time, the infant, whose
birth had helped to increase the storm, was baptized, with great pomp,
according to the rites of the Church of Rome. The Pope, represented by
his nuncio, was godfather to the child, and the baptism of James Francis
Edward, with full particulars of the ceremony, was published in the
_Gazette_. This added fresh elements to the storm which was already
raging, and the bastardy of the unlucky child was sung in scurrilous
songs in the streets of London.
On October 16th, William of Orange set sail, his ship bearing the
British flag, which was emblazoned with the motto, “I will maintain the
Protestant religion, and the liberties of England.” James soon found
that his game was ended, and that there was nothing left for him but an
ignominious flight. William came safe to anchor at Torbay, and landed on
the 5th of November, the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder
Plot. Exactly five weeks after, the queen, disguised as an Italian lady,
fled with the infant prince across the Thames to Lambeth, being lighted
on her dolorous way by the flames of burning popish chapels. From
Lambeth, she and her child were conveyed in a coach to Gravesend, where
they entered a yacht, which landed them at Calais. In less than
twenty-four hours the stupified king fled after them, throwing the great
seal of England into the river as he crossed to the Surrey side. At
Faversham he embarked in a custom-house hoy. The boat encountered a
storm, and was obliged to put in at the Isle of Sheppy. There the people
seized the disguised monarch, under the idea that he was a fugitive
Jesuit, treated him with rudeness, and dragged him back a prisoner to
Faversham. At Faversham he was subjected to further indignities, the mob
calling him a “hatchet-faced Jesuit.” At length he was rescued by Lord
Winchelsea out of the rude hands of sailors, smugglers, and fishermen,
and actually came back to London, and invited his son-in-law, the Prince
of Orange, to meet him, for the purpose of amicably settling the
distractions of the nation. The invitation was declined; and, on
December 23d, James again set sail for France, where he landed two days
after; and thus was England happily delivered from the popish,
perfidious, dissolute, and despotic dynasty of the Stuarts.[37] Seven
weeks afterwards both Houses of Parliament agreed to the resolution,
“That William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be
declared, King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the
dominions thereto belonging.”
-----
Footnote 37:
The following is John Wesley’s character of King James: “He appears to
have been proud, haughty, vindictive, cruel, and unrelenting; and
though he approved himself an obedient subject, he certainly became
one of the most intolerable sovereigns that ever reigned over a free
people. He could have no true religion, at least while in England, as
he made no conscience at all of adultery. He is said afterwards to
have been a new man. Probably the loss of his crown was the saving of
his soul.”—WESLEY’S _History of England_, vol. iii., p. 348.
-----
It was in the midst of this national revolution that Samuel Wesley left
the University of Oxford, and became an ordained clergyman of the Church
of England.
Perhaps this digression may be thought too long, and yet, at the risk of
wearying the reader’s patience still further, a few more sketches of the
state of the country, at this momentous period of its history, are
added. They are chiefly taken from Macaulay, and it is hoped that they
may help to convey some idea of the condition of affairs when Samuel
Wesley commenced his ministry. Things at that time were widely different
from what they are at present, and that must be borne in mind if the
reader wishes rightly to understand the difficulties and discouragements
of a Christian minister like the subject of this biography.
London, where Wesley first entered upon the duties of his sacred office,
was, comparatively speaking, a small, dirty, ill-built town. In the
east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial lakes,
which now spreads from the Tower to Blackwall, had even been projected.
On the west, scarcely one of those stately piles of building, which are
inhabited by the noble and the wealthy, was in existence; and Chelsea,
now peopled by tens of thousands of human beings, was then a quiet
country village. On the north cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered with
dogs and guns over the site of the borough of Marylebone, and over far
the greater space now covered by the boroughs of Finsbury and the Tower
Hamlets. Islington was almost a solitude; and poets loved to contrast
its silence and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster London.
On the south, the capital was connected with its suburbs by a single
line of irregular arches, impeding the navigation of the river, and
overhung by piles of mean and crazy houses. In Covent Garden a filthy
and noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit
women screamed, carters fought, and cabbage stalks and rotten apples
accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and
of the Bishop of Durham. The centre of Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields was an open
space, where the rabble congregated every evening to hear mountebanks
harangue, to see bears dance, and to set dogs at oxen. St James’s Square
was a receptacle for all the offal and cinders, and for all the dead
cats and dead dogs of Westminster. The pavement of London was
detestable, and the drainage so bad that, in rainy weather, the gutters
soon became torrents. The houses were not numbered. The shops were
distinguished by painted signs, gay and grotesque. The walk from Charing
Cross to Whitechapel lay through an endless succession of Saracens’
Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue Bears, and Golden Lambs. When the evening closed
in, garret windows were opened, and pails were emptied, with little
regard to those who walked on the path below. Most of the streets were
left in profound darkness, where thieves plied their trade with
impunity, and dissolute young gents broke windows, upset sedans, beat
quiet men, and offered rude caresses to pretty women.
Nothing like the London daily newspaper of our time existed, or could
exist. Both the necessary capital and the necessary skill were wanting.
No newspaper was published oftener than twice a week; and none exceeded
in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one of them
contained in a year was not more than is often found in two numbers of
the _Times_. There were no provincial newspapers whatever. Indeed,
except in the capital and at the two universities, there was scarcely a
printer in the kingdom; and the only printing press in England, north of
the river Trent, appears to have been at York.
In the country, many thousands of square miles, now enclosed and
cultivated, were marsh, forest, and heath. The peasant kept a flock of
geese on what is now an orchard rich with apple blossoms. He snared wild
fowl on the fen which has long since been drained, and divided into corn
and turnip fields. He cut turf among the furze bushes on the moor, which
is now a meadow, bright with clover, and renowned for its butter and its
cheese. The market-place, which the rustic can now reach with his cart
in an hour, was then a day’s journey from his home. On the best lines of
communication, the ruts of the roads were deep, the descents
precipitous, and the way often such as it was hardly possible to
distinguish, in the dusk, from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on
both sides. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the
road was available; for, in wet, the mud lay deep both on the right and
the left, and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire
on each hand. Almost every day coaches stuck fast, until teams of cattle
could be procured from some neighbouring farm, to tug them out of the
slough in which they were imbedded. On the best highways, heavy goods
were generally conveyed by stage waggons, in the straw of which nestled
a crowd of passengers, who were not able to ride on horseback, and could
not afford to indulge in the luxury of a coach. The expense of
transmitting heavy goods was enormous. From London to Birmingham, the
charge was £7 a ton; and from London to Exeter it was £12. The cost of
conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax on many useful articles; and
coal, in particular, was never seen except in the districts where it was
produced, or in the districts to which it was conveyed by water. On
by-roads, and generally throughout the country north of York and west of
Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of pack-horses; and a
traveller of humble condition often found it convenient to perform a
journey, mounted on a pack-saddle, and seated between two baskets. The
rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, drawn by at least four
horses, and often by six, because, with a less number, there was great
danger of sticking fast. Flying coaches ran thrice a week from London to
the chief towns; but no stage-coach, indeed no stage-waggon, appears to
have proceeded further north than York, or further west than Exeter. The
ordinary day’s journey of a _flying_ coach was about fifty miles in
summer; and in winter, when the roads were bad and the nights were long,
a little more than thirty. In Cornwall, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and
among the hills and lakes of Cumberland, letters were received only once
a-week; the letter-bags being carried on horseback, day and night, at
the rate of about five miles an hour. Travellers, unless they were
numerous and well armed, ran considerable risk of being stopped and
plundered; for the mounted highwayman was to be found on every main
road, held an aristocratic position in the community of thieves,
appeared in fashionable coffee-houses in the capital, and betted with
men of quality on the race grounds of the country.
Most of Samuel Wesley’s life was spent in rural districts; and therefore
amid the marshes, fens, forests, and heaths, the impassable roads, and
the highway dangers just described. He was an author; but printing
presses in the country did not exist. He was a man of education and of
public spirit; but to obtain a newspaper was almost impossible. He was
the head of a family; but to get coals, and other imported household
comforts at Wroote and at Epworth, was a thing never contemplated. He
was a student; but the difficulty and expense of conveying books from
London to Lincolnshire were so great, that a folio was longer in
reaching its way from Paternoster Row to Epworth, than it now is in
reaching Kentucky. For a poor rector like him to buy and to get books,
was a thing almost impracticable; and to borrow, such as he wanted, was
impossible. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now
universally be found in a servant’s hall, or in the back parlour of a
small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great
scholar, if Hudibras, and Baker’s Chronicles, Tarlton’s Jests, and the
Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among his fishing
rods and guns. Many lords of manors, in point of education, differed but
very little from their menial servants; and heirs of estates often had
no better tutors than grooms and gamekeepers, and scarce attained
learning enough to sign their names to a mittimus. Their chief serious
employment was the care of their property. They examined samples of
grain, handled pigs, and, on market days, made bargains over a tankard
with corn merchants and drovers. Their chief pleasures were commonly
derived from field sports, and from an unrefined sensuality. Their
oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse were uttered with the
broadest accent of their province; while the litter of their farm-yards
gathered under the windows of their bed-chambers, and cabbages and
gooseberry bushes grew up to their very doors. These were the kind of
country neighbours which Samuel Wesley was privileged to have for a
period of more than forty years.
The state of the common people may be judged from the state of those
above them. Four-fifths of them, throughout the country, were employed
in agriculture; and four shillings a-week were fair agricultural wages.
There were few articles, important to the working man, as coffee, tea,
sugar, &c., the price of which was not double what it is at present.
Beer was much cheaper; and meat was also cheaper; but the latter was
even then so dear that hundreds of thousands of families scarcely knew
the taste of it. Bread, such as is now given to the inmates of a
workhouse, was then seldom seen, even on the trencher of a shopkeeper or
of a yeoman. The great majority of the nation lived almost entirely on
rye, oats, and barley. Such was the general condition of Samuel Wesley’s
Lincolnshire parishioners.
We refrain, at present, from any lengthy remarks respecting the religion
and morals of the nation. It may be added, however, that the manners of
the people were exceedingly coarse and vicious. The discipline of
workshops, of schools, and of private families was harsh to an extreme.
The implacability of hostile factions was such as, at the present day,
we can scarcely conceive. Sufferers by the law experienced but little
mercy. Put an offender in the pillory, and it was well if he escaped
with his life from the showers of stones and brick-bats thrown at him.
Tie him to the cart’s tail, and the crowd pressed round him, begging the
hangman to give it to the fellow well, and to make him howl. Fights,
compared with which a boxing match is a refined and humane spectacle,
were among the favourite diversions of a large part of the town.
Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each other in pieces; and
shouted with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger or an eye.
Prisons were hells on earth, and seminaries of every disease and of
every crime.
It would not be difficult to multiply such facts as these; but enough
has been said to show that when Samuel Wesley began his ministry,
England and the English people were very different from what they are at
present. The Christian minister even now has difficulties and
discouragements; but, as a rule, he is almost a stranger to the trials
encountered by young Wesley. For a penny he has his newspaper every
morning; and for a trifle more he has his monthly review and magazine.
He lives in an age when even the poorest of his parishioners will hardly
deign to ride in the stage-waggon, but all aspire to be conveyed by the
swift railway train. Books are published by millions; and circulating
libraries, in one shape or in another, may be found in almost every
hamlet of the land. Education is general; and not merely country
squires, but country peasants, study classical and scientific books.
Work is plentiful; and, except in a few bucolic districts, wages are
sufficient to make the poor man’s cottage a neat and a happy home. It
was otherwise one hundred and seventy-seven years ago, when Samuel
Wesley, a young man of twenty-six years of age, first entered upon the
office and duties of a clergyman of the Church of England.
[This chapter is chiefly taken from Macaulay, from Knight, from the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, and from Baxter’s _Life and Times_.]