parliament the lords rejected it [after the commons had passed
the bill, without a division, October, 1680]. ... The bill of
exclusion ... provided that the imperial crown of England
should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons
successively during the life of the duke of York as would have
inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead.
... But a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other
objects in view." Under the contaminating influence of the
earl of Shaftesbury, "they broke away more and more from the
line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved
themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to
its most imminent peril. The countenance and support of
Shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most
impolitic scheme of the duke of Monmouth's succession. [James,
duke of Monmouth, was the acknowledged natural son of king
Charles, by Lucy Walters, his mistress while in exile at the
Hague.] There could hardly be a greater insult to a nation
used to respect its hereditary line of kings, than to set up
the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of
personal excellence or public services, against a princess of
known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. And
the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels
eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a
belief of Monmouth's legitimacy."
_H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12._
ALSO IN:
_A. Carrel,
History of the Counter-Revolution in England,
part 2, chapter 1._
_G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapter 4-8 (volume 1)._
_G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 3, 1679-81._
_Sir W. Temple,
Memoirs,
part 3 (Works, volume 2)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1680.
Whigs and Tories acquire their respective names.
"Factions indeed were at this time [A. D. 1680] extremely
animated against each other. The very names by which each
party denominated its antagonist discover the virulence and
rancour which prevailed. For besides petitioner and abhorrer,
appellations which were soon forgotten, this year is
remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of
Whig and Tory, by which, and sometimes without any material
difference, this island has been so long divided. The court
party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the
fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the
name of Whigs: the country party found a resemblance between
the courtiers and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the
appellation of Tory was affixed: and after this manner these
foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use."
_D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 68 (volume 6)._
"The definition of the nickname Tory, as it originally arose,
is given in 'A New Ballad' (Narcissus Luttrell's
Collection):--
The word Tory's of Irish Extraction,
'Tis a Legacy that they have left here
They came here in their brogues,
And have acted like Rogues,
In endeavouring to learn us to swear."
_J. Grego,
History of Parliamentary Elections,
page 36._
ALSO IN:
_G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 2._
For the origin of the name of the 'Whig party,
See WHIGS (WIGGAMORS); also, RAPPAREES.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.
The Tory reaction and the downfall of the Whigs.
The Rye-house Plot.
"Shaftesbury's course rested wholly on the belief that the
penury of the Treasury left Charles at his mercy, and that a
refusal of supplies must wring from the King his assent to the
exclusion. But the gold of France had freed the King from his
thraldom. He had used the Parliament [of 1681] simply to
exhibit himself as a sovereign whose patience and conciliatory
temper was rewarded with insult and violence; and now that he
saw his end accomplished, he suddenly dissolved the Houses in
April, and appealed in a Royal declaration to the justice of
the nation at large. The appeal was met by an almost universal
burst of loyalty. The Church rallied to the King; his
declaration was read from every pulpit; and the Universities
solemnly decided that 'no religion, no law, no fault, no
forfeiture' could avail to bar the sacred right of hereditary
succession. ... The Duke of York returned in triumph to St.
James's. ... Monmouth, who had resumed his progresses through
the country as a means of checking the tide of reaction, was
at once arrested. ... Shaftesbury, alive to the new danger,
plunged desperately into conspiracies with a handful of
adventurers as desperate as himself, hid himself in the City,
where he boasted that ten thousand 'brisk boys' were ready to
appear at his call, and urged his friends to rise in arms. But
their delays drove him to flight. ... The flight of
Shaftesbury proclaimed the triumph of the King. His wonderful
sagacity had told him when the struggle was over and further
resistance useless. But the Whig leaders, who had delayed to
answer the Earl's call, still nursed projects of rising in
arms, and the more desperate spirits who had clustered around
him as he lay hidden in the City took refuge in plots of
assassination, and in a plan for murdering Charles and his
brother as they passed the Rye-house [a Hertfordshire farm
house, so-called] on their road from London to Newmarket. Both
the conspiracies were betrayed, and, though they were wholly
distinct from one another, the cruel ingenuity of the Crown
lawyers blended them into one. Lord Essex, the last of an
ill-fated race, saved himself from a traitor's death by
suicide in the Tower. Lord Russell, convicted on a charge of
sharing in the Rye-house Plot, was beheaded in Lincoln Inn
Fields. The same fate awaited Algernon Sidney. Monmouth fled
in terror over sea, and his flight was followed by a series of
prosecutions for sedition directed against his followers. In 1683
the Constitutional opposition which had held Charles so long
in check lay crushed at his feet. ... On the very day when the
crowd around Russell's scaffold were dipping their
handkerchiefs in his blood, as in the blood of a martyr, the
University of Oxford solemnly declared that the doctrine of
passive obedience, even to the worst of rulers, was a part of
religion." During the brief remainder of his reign Charles was
a prudently absolute monarch, governing without a Parliament,
coolly ignoring the Triennial Act, and treating on occasions
the Test Act, as well as other laws obnoxious to him, with
contempt. He died unexpectedly, early in February, 1685, and
his brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne, as
James II., with no resistance, but with much feeling opposed
to him.
_J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 9, sections 5-6._
{904}
ALSO IN:
_G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth;
chapters 8-10 (volume 1)._
_D. Hume,
History of England,
chapters 68-69 (volume 6)._
_G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 1, chapters 6-11._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685.
Accession of James II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (February).
The new King proclaims his religion.
"The King [James II.] early put the loyalty of his Protestant
friends to the proof. While he was a subject, he had been in
the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory
which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the
doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay
their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the host was
elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. The
Roman Catholics fell on their knees: the Protestants hurried
out of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace;
and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached there by
Popish divines."
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 4 (volume 2)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (May-July).
Monmouth's Rebellion.
"The Parliament which assembled on the 22nd of May ... was
almost entirely Tory. The failure of the Rye-House Plot had
produced a reaction, which for a time entirely annihilated the
Whig influence. ... The apparent triumph of the King and the
Tory party was completed by the disastrous failure of the
insurrection planned by their adversaries. A knot of exiled
malcontents, some Scotch, some English, had collected in
Holland. Among them was Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle, son
of that Marquis of Argyle who had taken so prominent a part on
the Presbyterian side in the Scotch troubles of Charles I.'s
reign. Monmouth had kept aloof from politics till, on the
accession of James, he was induced to join the exiles at
Amsterdam, whither Argyle, a strong Presbyterian, but a man of
lofty and moderate views, also repaired. National jealousy
prevented any union between the exiles, and two expeditions
were determined on,--the one under Argyle, who hoped to find
an army ready to his hand among his clansmen in the West of
Scotland, the other under Monmouth in the West of England.
Argyle's expedition set sail on the 2nd of May [1685]. ...
Argyle's invasion was ruined by the limited authority
intrusted to him, and by the jealousy and insubordination of
his fellow leaders. ... His army disbanded. He was himself
taken in Renfrewshire, and, after an exhibition of admirable
constancy, was beheaded. ... A week before the final
dispersion of Argyle's troops, Monmouth had landed in England
[at Lyme, June 11]. He was well received in the West. He had
not been twenty-four hours in England before he found himself
at the head of 1,500 men; but though popular among the common
people, he received no support from the upper classes. Even
the strongest Whigs disbelieved the story of his legitimacy,
and thought his attempt ill-timed and fraught with danger. ...
Meanwhile Monmouth had advanced to Taunton, had been there
received with enthusiasm, and, vainly thinking to attract the
nobility, had assumed the title of King. Nor was his reception
at Bridgewater less flattering. But difficulties already began
to gather round him; he was in such want of arms, that,
although rustic implements were converted into pikes, he was
still obliged to send away many volunteers; the militia were
closing in upon him in all directions; Bristol had been seized
by the Duke of Beaufort, and the regular army under Feversham
and Churchill were approaching." After feebly attempting
several movements, against Bristol and into Wiltshire,
Monmouth lost heart and fell back to Bridgewater. "The
Royalist army was close behind him, and on the fifth of July
encamped about three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of
Sedgemoor." Monmouth was advised to undertake a night
surprise, and did so in the early morning of the 6th. "The
night was not unfitting for such an enterprise, for the mist
was so thick that at a few paces nothing could be seen. Three
great ditches by which the moor was drained lay between the
armies; of the third of these, strangely enough, Monmouth knew
nothing." The unexpected discovery of this third ditch, known
as "the Bussex Rhine," which his cavalry could not cross, and
behind which the enemy rallied, was the ruin of the
enterprise. "Monmouth saw that the day was lost, and with the
love of life which was one of the characteristics of his soft
nature, he turned and fled. Even after his flight the battle
was kept up bravely. At length the arrival of the King's
artillery put an end to any further struggle. The defeat was
followed by all the terrible scenes which mark a suppressed
insurrection. ... Monmouth and Grey pursued their flight into
the New Forest, and were there apprehended in the
neighbourhood of Ringwood." Monmouth petitioned abjectly for
his life, but in vain. He was executed on the 15th of July.
"The failure of this insurrection was followed by the most
terrible cruelties. Feversham returned to London, to be
flattered by the King and laughed at by the Court for his
military exploits. He left Colonel Kirke in command at
Bridgewater. This man had learned, as commander at Tangier,
all the worst arts of cruel despotism. His soldiery in bitter
pleasantry were called Kirke's 'Lambs,' from the emblem of
their regiment. It is impossible to say how many suffered at
the hands of this man and his brutal troops; 100 captives are
said by some to have been put to death the week after the
battle. But this military revenge did not satisfy the Court."
_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2, pages 764-768._
The number of Monmouth's men killed is computed by some at
2,000, by others at 300; a disparity, however, which may be
easily reconciled by supposing that the one account takes in
those who were killed in battle, while the other comprehends
the wretched fugitives who were massacred in ditches,
cornfields, and other hiding places, the following day."
_C. J. Fox,
History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II.,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapters 13-28 (volumes 1-2)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (September).
The Bloody Assizes.
"Early in September, Jeffreys [Sir George Jeffreys, Chief
Justice of the Court of King's Bench], accompanied by four
other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will
last as long as our race and language. ... At Winchester the
Chief Justice first opened his commission. Hampshire had not
been the theatre of war; but many of the vanquished rebels
had, like their leader, fled thither." Two among these had
been found concealed in the house of Lady Alice Lisle, a widow
of eminent nobility of character, and Jeffreys' first proceeding
was to arraign Lady Alice for the technical reason of the
concealment.
{905}
She was tried with extraordinary brutality of manner on the
part of the judge; the jury was bullied into a verdict of
guilty, and the innocent woman was condemned by the fiend on
the bench to be burned alive. By great exertion of many
people, the sentence was commuted from burning to beheading.
No mercy beyond this could be obtained from Jeffreys or his
fit master, the king. "In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only
victim: but, on the day following her execution, Jeffreys
reached Dorchester, the principal town of the county in which
Monmouth had landed, and the judicial massacre began. The
court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, with scarlet;
and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate a
bloody purpose. ... More than 300 prisoners were to be tried.
The work seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for
making it light. He let it be understood that the only chance
of obtaining pardon or respite was to plead guilty.
Twenty-nine persons, who put themselves on their country and
were convicted, were ordered to be tied up without delay. The
remaining prisoners pleaded guilty by scores. Two hundred and
ninety-two received sentence of death. The whole number hanged
in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. From Dorchester
Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had barely grazed
the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore, comparatively few
persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire, the chief seat
of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last and most
fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty-three
prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn and quartered. At
every spot where two roads met, on every market place, on the
green of every large village which had furnished Monmouth with
soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and
quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the
traveller sick with horror. ... The Chief Justice was all
himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went
on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way that
many thought him drunk from morning to night. ... Jeffreys
boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his
predecessors together since the Conquest. ... Yet those rebels
who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than some of
the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable
to bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of
misdemeanours and were sentenced to scourging not less
terrible than that which Oates had undergone. ... The number
of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and
forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who
suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on
persons who enjoyed favour at court. The conditions of the
gift were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as
slaves, that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and
that the place of their banishment should be some West Indian
island. ... It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average,
each of them, after all charges were paid, would be worth from
ten to fifteen pounds. There was therefore much angry
competition for grants. ... And now Jeffreys had done his
work, and returned to claim his reward. He arrived at Windsor
from the West, leaving carnage, mourning and terror behind
him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of
Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. ... But at the
court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after
his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with
interest and delight. ... At a later period, when all men of
all parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the
wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to vindicate
themselves by throwing the blame on each other."
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_Sir James Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution
in England, chapter 1._
_Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 100 (volume 3)._
_G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapter 29-31 (volume 2)._
See, also, TAUNTON: A. D. 1685.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1686.
Faithless and tyrannical measures against
the New England colonies.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687;
and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1689.
The Despotism of James II. in Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1681-1689.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
The Court of High Commission revived.
"James conceived the design of employing his authority as head
of the Church of England as a means of subjecting that church
to his pleasure, if not of finally destroying it. It is hard
to conceive how he could reconcile to his religion the
exercise of supremacy in an heretical sect, and thus sanction
by his example the usurpations of the Tudors on the rights of
the Catholic Church. ... He, indeed, considered the
ecclesiastical supremacy as placed in his hands by Providence
to enable him to betray the Protestant establishment. 'God,'
said he to Barillon, 'has permitted that all the laws made to
establish Protestantism now serve as a foundation for my
measures to re-establish true religion, and give me a right to
exercise a more extensive power than other Catholic princes
possess in the ecclesiastical affairs of their dominions.' He
found legal advisers ready with paltry expedients for evading
the two statutes of 1641 and 1660 [abolishing, and
re-affirming the abolition of the Court of High Commission],
under the futile pretext that they forbade only a court vested
with such powers of corporal punishment as had been exercised
by the old Court of High Commission; and in conformity to
their pernicious counsel, he issued, in July, a commission to
certain ministers, prelates, and judges, to act as a Court of
Commissioners in Ecclesiastical Causes. The first purpose of
this court was to enforce directions to preachers, issued by
the King, enjoining them to abstain from preaching on
controverted questions."
_Sir James Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution in England,
chapter 2._
ALSO IN:
_D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 5, chapter 3._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
The consolidation of New England under a royal
Governor-General.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1687.
Riddance of the Test Act by royal dispensing power.
"The abolition of the tests was a thing resolved upon in the
catholic council, and for this a sanction of some kind or
other was required, as they dared not yet proceed upon the
royal will alone. Chance, or the machinations of the
catholics, created an affair which brought the question of the
tests under another form before the court of king's bench.
{906}
This court had not the power to abolish the Test Act, but it
might consider whether the king had the right of exempting
particular subjects from the formalities. ... The king ...
closeted himself with the judges one by one, dismissed some,
and got those who replaced them, 'ignorant men,' says an
historian, 'and scandalously incompetent,' to acknowledge his
dispensing power. ... The judges of the king's bench, after a
trial, ... declared, almost in the very language used by the
crown counsel:
1. That the kings of England are sovereign princes;
2. That the laws of England are the king's laws;
3. That therefore it is an inseparable prerogative in the
kings of England to dispense with penal laws in particular
cases, and upon particular necessary reasons;
4. That of those reasons, and those necessities, the king
himself is sole judge; and finally, which is consequent
upon all,
5. That this is not a trust invested in, or granted to the
king by the people, but the ancient remains of the
sovereign power and prerogative of the kings of England,
which never yet was taken from them, nor can be.
The case thus decided, the king thought he might rely upon the
respect always felt by the English people for the decisions of
the higher courts, to exempt all his catholic subjects from
the obligations of the test. And upon this, it became no
longer a question merely of preserving in their commissions
and offices those whose dismissal had been demanded by
parliament. ... To obtain or to retain certain employments, it
was necessary to be of the same religion with the king.
Papists replaced in the army and in the administration all
those who had pronounced at all energetically for the
maintenance of the tests. Abjurations, somewhat out of credit
during the last session of parliament, again resumed favour."
_A. Carrel,
History of the Counter-Revolution in England,
chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 4, chapter 4._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.
Declarations of Indulgence.
Trial of the Seven Bishops.