over the land. A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James's
Palace. Quarrels broke out between Protestant and Romanist soldiers.
Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had issued a
tract entitled "A humble and hearty Appeal to all English Protestants in
the Army," was flung into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from
the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were
Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady
and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick,
Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were
issued by these divines.
Scotland also rose in anger against the designs of the king, and if he
had not been proof against all warning the excitement in that country
would have sufficed to admonish him. On March 18, 1687, he took a
momentous step. He informed the Privy Council that he had determined to
prorogue Parliament till the end of November, and to grant, by his own
authority, entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On April
4th appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence. In this document
the king avowed that it was his earnest wish to see his people members
of that Church to which he himself belonged. But since that could not
be, he announced his intention to protect them in the free exercise of
their religion. He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant
Dissenters to perform their worship publicly.
That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a
monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an
absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all
attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in
amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of
its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed
relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was
notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for
only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had
been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his
confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the
Anglican Church.
_Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial_
A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth
Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to
be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn
prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the
Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still
was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration
was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not
constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters
ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the
petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the
Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany
them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal
presence, and they found him in very good humour, for he had heard from
his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the mandate, but
wished to secure some little modifications in form.
After reading the petition the king's countenance grew dark and he
exclaimed, "This is the standard of rebellion." In vain did the prelates
emphasise their protests of loyalty. The king persisted in
characterising their action as being rebellious. The bishops
respectfully retired, and that evening the petition appeared in print,
was laid out in the coffeehouses and was cried about the streets.
Everywhere people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the
hawkers, and the sale was so enormous that it was said the printer
cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broadside.
The London clergy disobeyed the royal order, for the Declaration was
read in only four churches in the city, where there were about a
hundred. For a short time the king stood aghast at the violence of the
tempest he had raised, but Jeffreys maintained that the government would
be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven bishops were suffered to
escape with a mere reprimand. They were notified that they must appear
before the king in Council. On June 8 they were examined by the Privy
Council, the result being their committal to the Tower. From all parts
of the country came the report that other prelates had signed similar
petitions and that very few of the clergy throughout the land had obeyed
the king. The public excitement in London was intense. While the bishops
were before the Council a great multitude filled the region all round
Whitehall, and when the Seven came forth under a guard, thousands fell
on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had confronted a tyrant
inflamed with the bigotry of Mary.
The king learned with indignation that the soldiers were drinking the
health of the prelates, and his officers told him that this could not be
prevented. Before the day of trial the agitation spread to the furthest
corners of the island. Scotland sent letters assuring the bishops of the
sympathy of the Presbyterians, hostile though they were to prelacy. The
people of Cornwall were greatly moved by the danger of Bishop Trelawney,
and the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still
remembered:
"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."
The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:
"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."
The bishops were charged with having published a false, malicious, and
seditious libel. But the case for the prosecution speedily broke down in
the hands of the crown lawyers. They were vehemently hissed by the
audience. The jury gave the verdict of "Not Guilty." As the news spread
all London broke out into acclamation. The bishops were greeted with
cries of "God bless you; you have saved us all to-day." The king was
greatly disturbed at the news of the acquittal, and exclaimed in French,
"So much the worse for them." He was at that moment in the camp at
Hounslow, where he had been reviewing the troops. Hearing a great shout
behind him, he asked what the uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer;
"the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call
that nothing?" exclaimed the king. And then he repeated, "So much the
worse for them." He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been
complete and most humiliating.
_The Prince of Orange_
In May, 1688, while it was still uncertain whether the Declaration would
or would not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the
Hague, where he strongly represented to the Prince of Orange, husband of
Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., the state of the public mind, and
had advised His Highness to appear in England with a strong body of
troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen at a glance the
whole importance of the crisis. "Now or never," he exclaimed in Latin.
He quickly received numerous assurances of support from England.
Preparations were rapidly made, and on November I, 1688, he set sail
with his fleet, and landed at Torbay on November 4. Resistance was
impossible. The troops of James's army quietly deserted wholesale, many
joining the Dutch camp at Honiton. First the West of England, and then
the North, revolted against James. Evil news poured in upon him. When he
heard that Churchill and Grafton had forsaken him, he exclaimed, "Est-il
possible?" On December 8 the king fled from London secretly. His home in
exile was at Saint Germains.
William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of the United Kingdom,
and thus was consummated the English Revolution. It was of all
revolutions the least violent and yet the most beneficent.
_After the Great Revolution_
The Revolution had been accomplished. The rejoicings throughout the land
were enthusiastic. Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch
when they learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been
raised to a throne. James had, during the last year of his reign, been
even more hated in England by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not
without cause; for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories
he had been a faithless and thankless friend.
One misfortune of the new king, which some reactionaries imputed to him
as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well.
Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never
once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his
praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his
comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She
was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English
by birth and also in her tastes and feelings. The stainless purity of
her private life and the attention she paid to her religious duties
discourages scandal as well as vice.
The year 1689 is not less important in the ecclesiastical than in the
civil history of England, for in that year was granted the first legal
indulgence to Dissenters. And then also the two chief sections within
the Anglican communion began to be called the High Church and Low Church
parties. The Low Churchmen stood between the nonconformists and the
rigid conformists. The famous Toleration Bill passed both Houses with
little debate. It approaches very near the ideal of a great English law,
the sound principle of which undoubtedly is that mere theological error
ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate.
_The War in Ireland_
The discontent of the Roman Catholic Irishry with the Revolution was
intense. It grew so manifestly, that James, assured that his cause was
prospering in Ireland, landed on March 12, 1689, at Kinsale. On March 24
he entered Dublin. This event created sorrow and alarm in England. An
Irish army, raised by the Catholics, entered Ulster and laid siege to
Londonderry, into which city two English regiments had been thrown by
sea. The heroic defence of Londonderry is one of the most thrilling
episodes in the history of Ireland. The siege was turned into a blockade
by the construction of a boom across the harbour by the besiegers. The
citizens endured frightful hunger, for famine was extreme within the
walls, but they never quailed. The garrison was reduced from 7,000 to
3,000. The siege, which lasted 105 days, and was the most memorable in
the annals of the British Isles, was ended by the breaking of the boom
by a squadron of three ships from England which brought reinforcements
and provisions.
The Irish army retreated and the next event, a very decisive one, was
the defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, where William and James commanded
their respective forces. The war ended with the capitulation of
Limerick, and the French soldiers, who had formed a great part of
James's army, left for France.
_The Battle of La Hogue_
The year 1692 was marked by momentous events issuing from a scheme, in
some respects well concerted, for the invasion of England by a French
force, with the object of the restoration of James. A noble fleet of
about 80 ships of the line was to convey this force to the shores of
England, and in the French dockyards immense preparations were made.
James had persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet should fall
in with him, it would not oppose him. Indeed, he was too ready to
believe anything written to him by his English correspondents.
No mightier armament had ever appeared in the English Channel than the
fleet of allied British and Dutch ships, under the command of Admiral
Russell. On May 19 it encountered the French fleet under the Count of
Tourville, and a running fight took place which lasted during five
fearful days, ending in the complete destruction of the French force off
La Hogue. The news of this great victory was received in England with
boundless joy. One of its happiest effects was the effectual calming of
the public mind.
_Creation of the Bank of England_
In this reign, in 1694, was established the Bank of England. It was the
result of a great change that had developed in a few years, for old men
in William's reign could remember the days when there was not a single
banking house in London. Goldsmiths had strong vaults in which masses of
bullion could lie secure from fire and robbers, and at their shops in
Lombard Street all payments in coin were made. William Paterson, an
ingenious speculator, submitted to the government a plan for a national
bank, which after long debate passed both Houses of Parliament.
In 1694 the king and the nation mourned the death from small-pox, a
disease always working havoc, of Queen Mary. During her illness William
remained day and night at her bedside. The Dutch Envoy wrote that the
sight of his misery was enough to melt the hardest heart. When all hope
was over, he said to Bishop Burnet, "There is no hope. I was the
happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no faults;
none; you knew her well; but you could not know, none but myself could
know, her goodness." The funeral was remembered as the saddest and most
august that Westminister had ever seen. While the queen's remains lay in
state at Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from
sunrise to sunset, by crowds that made all traffic impossible. The two
Houses with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet
and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding sovereign
had ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament: for till then the
Parliament had always expired with the sovereign. The gentle queen
sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the southern aisle of the Chapel
of Henry the Seventh.
The affection of her husband was soon attested by a monument the most
superb that was ever erected to any sovereign. No scheme had been so
much her own, and none so dear to her heart, as that of converting the
palace at Greenwich into a retreat for seamen. As soon as he had lost
her, her husband began to reproach himself for neglecting her wishes. No
time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice,
surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Louis had provided for his
soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. The inscription on the
frieze ascribes praise to Mary alone. Few who now gaze on the noble
double edifice, crowned by twin domes, are aware that it is a memorial
of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of
William, and of the greater victory of La Hogue.
On the Continent the death of Mary excited various emotions. The
Huguenots, in every part of Europe to which they had wandered, bewailed
the Elect Lady, who had retrenched her own royal state in order to
furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. But the hopes
of James and his companions in exile were now higher than they had been
since the day of La Hogue. Indeed, the general opinion of politicians,
both here and on the Continent, was that William would find it
impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would not,
it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his
wife, whose affability had conciliated many that were disgusted by his
Dutch accent and habits. But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived:
and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more prosperous after the
decease of Mary than during her life.
During the month which followed her death the king was incapable of
exertion. His first letter was that of a brokenhearted man. Even his
martial ardour had been tamed by misery. "I tell you in confidence," he
wrote to Heincius, "that I feel myself to be no longer fit for military
command. Yet I will try to do my duty: and I hope that God will
strengthen me." So despondingly did he look forward to the most
brilliant and successful of his many campaigns.
All Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries. A great
French army, commanded by Villeroy, was collected in Flanders. William
crossed to the Continent to take command of the Dutch and British
troops, who mustered at Ghent. The Elector of Bavaria, at the head of a
great force, lay near Brussels. William had set his heart on capturing
Namur. After a siege hard pressed, that fortress, esteemed the strongest
in Europe, splendidly fortified by Vauban, surrendered to the allies on
August 26, 1695.
_The Treaty of Ryswick_
The war was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ryswick by the
ambassadors of France, England, Spain, and the United Provinces on
September 10, 1697. King William was received in London with great
popular rejoicing. The second of December was appointed a day of
thanksgiving for peace, and the Chapter of St. Paul's resolved that on
that day their new Cathedral, which had long been slowly rising on the
ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened
for public worship. There was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness.
England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in
health and vigour.
Ten years before it had seemed that both her liberty and her
independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and
necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less
just and necessary war. All dangers were over. There was peace abroad
and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had
resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many
signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last
Revolution. Public credit had been re-established; trade had revived;
the Exchequer was overflowing; and there was a sense of relief
everywhere, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among
the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire.
Early in 1702 alarming reports were rife concerning William's state of
health. Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily, and
it soon became evident that the great king's days were numbered. On
February 20 William was ambling on a favourite horse, named Sorrel,
through the park of Hampton Court. The horse stumbling on a mole-hill
went down on his knees. The king fell off and broke his collar-bone. The
bone was set, and to a young and vigorous man such an accident would
have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to
bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and
grieved, with such a grief as only noble spirits feel, to think that he
must leave his work but half finished. On March 4 he was attacked by
fever, and he was soon sinking fast. He was under no delusion as to his
danger. "I am fast drawing to my end," said he. His end was worthy of
his life. His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was
the more admirable because he was not willing to die. From the words
which escaped him he seemed to be frequently engaged in mental prayer.
The end came between seven and eight in the morning. When his remains
were laid out, it was found that he wore next to his skin a small piece
of black silk riband. The lords in waiting ordered it to be taken off.
It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair of Mary.
* * * * *
HENRY BUCKLE
History of Civilisation in England
Henry Thomas Buckle was born at Lee, in Kent, England, Nov.
24, 1821. Delicate health prevented him from following the
ordinary school course. His father's death in 1840 left him
independent, and the boy who was brought up in Toryism and
Calvinism, became a philosophic radical and free-thinker. He
travelled, he read, he acquired facility in nineteen languages
and fluency in seven. Gradually he conceived the idea of a
great work which should place history on an entirely new
footing; it should concern itself not with the unimportant and
the personal, but with the advance of civilisation, the
intellectual progress of man. As the idea developed, he
perceived that the task was greater than could be accomplished
in the lifetime of one man. What he actually accomplished--the
volumes which bear the title "The History of Civilisation in
England"--was intended to be no more than an introduction to
the subject; and even that introduction, which was meant to
cover, on a corresponding scale, the civilisation of several
other countries, was never finished. The first volume was
published in 1857, the second in 1861; only the studies of
England, France, Spain, and Scotland were completed. Buckle
died at Damascus, on May 29, 1862.
_I.---General Principles_
The believer in the possibility of a science of history is not called
upon to hold either the doctrine of predestination or that of freedom of
the will. The only positions which at the outset need to be conceded are
that when we perform an action we perform it in consequence of some
motive or motives; that those motives are the result of some
antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole
of the precedents and with all the laws of their movements we could with
unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.
History is the modification of man by nature and of nature by man. We
shall find a regularity in the variations of virtuous and vicious
actions that proves them to be the result of large and general causes
which, working upon the aggregate of society, must produce certain
consequences without regard to the decision of particular individuals.
Man is affected by purely physical agents--climate, food, soil,
geographical conditions, and active physical phenomena. In the earliest
civilisations nature is more prominent than man, and the imagination is
more stimulated than the understanding. In the European civilisations
man is the more prominent, and the understanding is more stimulated than
the imagination. Hence the advance of European civilisation is
characterised by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an
increasing influence of mental laws. Clearly, then, of the two classes
of laws which regulate the progress of mankind the mental class is more
important than the physical. The laws of the human mind will prove to be
the ultimate basis of the history of Europe. These are not to be
ascertained by the metaphysical method of studying the inquirer's own
mind alone, but by the historical method of studying many minds. And
this whether the metaphysician belongs to the school which starts by
examining the sensations, or to that which starts with the examination
of ideas.
Dismissing the metaphysical method, therefore, we must turn to the
historical, and study mental phenomena as they appear in the actions of
mankind at large. Mental progress is twofold, moral and intellectual,
the first having relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. It
is a progress not of capacity, but in the circumstances under which
capacity comes into play; not of internal power, but of external
advantage. Now, whereas moral truths do not change, intellectual truths
are constantly changing, from which we may infer that the progress of
society is due, not to the moral knowledge, which is stationary, but to
the intellectual knowledge, which is constantly advancing.
The history of any people will become more valuable for ascertaining the
laws by which past events were governed in proportion as their movements
have been least disturbed by external agencies. During the last three
centuries these conditions have applied to England more than to any
other country; since the action of the people has there been the least
restricted by government, and has been allowed the greatest freedom of
play. Government intervention is habitually restrictive, and the best
legislation has been that which abrogated former restrictive
legislation.
Government, religion, and literature are not the causes of civilisation,
but its effects. The higher religion enters only where the mind is
intellectually prepared for its acceptance; elsewhere the forms may be
adopted, but not the essence, as mediæval Christianity was merely an
adapted paganism. Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted
in its form, but not necessarily in its essence.