whom had very recently sustained so conspicuously the brunt of the
battle against King James, was very painful; and motives of policy, as
well as generosity, were not wanting in favour of some indulgence
towards them. On the other hand, it was dangerous to admit such a
reflection on the new settlement, as would be cast by its enemies, if
the clergy, especially the bishops, should be excused from the oath of
allegiance. The House of Lords made an amendment in the act requiring
this oath, dispensing with it in the case of ecclesiastical persons,
unless they should be called upon by the privy-council. This, it was
thought, would furnish a security for their peaceable demeanour,
without shocking the people and occasioning a dangerous schism. But
the Commons resolutely opposed this amendment, as an unfair
distinction, and derogatory to the king's title. _Parl. Hist._ 218;
Lords' Journals, 17 April 1689. The clergy, however, had six months
more time allowed them, in order to take the oath, than the possessors
of lay offices.
Upon the whole, I think the reasons for deprivation greatly
preponderated. Public prayers for the king by name form part of our
liturgy; and it was surely impossible to dispense with the clergy's
reading them, which was as obnoxious as the oath of allegiance. Thus
the beneficed priests must have been excluded; and it was hardly
required to make an exception for the sake of a few bishops, even if
difficulties of the same kind would not have occurred in the exercise
of their jurisdiction, which hangs upon, and has a perpetual reference
to, the supremacy of the Crown.
The king was empowered to reserve a third part of the value of their
benefices to any twelve of the recusant clergy. 1 W. & M. c. 8, s. 16.
But this could only be done at the expense of their successors; and
the behaviour of the nonjurors, who strained every nerve in favour of
the dethroned king, did not recommend them to the government. The
deprived bishops, though many of them through their late behaviour
were deservedly esteemed, cannot be reckoned among the eminent
characters of our church for learning or capacity. Sancroft, the most
distinguished of them, had not made any remarkable figure; and none of
the rest had any pretensions to literary credit. Those who filled
their places were incomparably superior. Among the non-juring clergy a
certain number were considerable men; but, upon the whole, the
well-affected part of the church, not only at the revolution, but for
fifty years afterwards, contained by far its most useful and able
members. Yet the effect of this expulsion was highly unfavourable to
the new government; and it required all the influence of a
latitudinarian school of divinity, led by Locke, which was very strong
among the laity under William, to counteract it.
[162] Burnet; Ralph, 174, 179.
[163] The parliamentary debates are full of complaints as to the
mismanagement of all things in Ireland. These might be thought hasty
or factious; but Marshal Schomberg's letters to the king yield them
strong confirmation. Dalrymple, Appendix, 26, etc. William's
resolution to take the Irish war on himself saved not only that
country but England. Our own constitution was won on the Boyne. The
star of the house of Stuart grew pale for ever on that illustrious
day, when James displayed again the pusillanimity which had cost him
his English crown. Yet the best friends of William dissuaded him from
going into Ireland, so imminent did the peril appear at home.
Dalrymple, _Id._ 97. "Things," says Burnet, "were in a very ill
disposition towards a fatal turn."
[164] See the debates on this subject in the _Parliamentary History_,
which is a transcript from Anchitel Grey. The whigs, or at least some
hot-headed men among them, were certainly too much actuated by a
vindictive spirit, and consumed too much time on this necessary bill.
[165] The prominent instance of Sawyer's delinquency, which caused his
expulsion, was his refusal of a writ of error to Sir Thomas Armstrong.
_Parl. Hist._ 516. It was notorious that Armstrong suffered by a legal
murder; and an attorney-general in such a case could not be reckoned
as free from personal responsibility as an ordinary advocate who
maintains a cause for his fee. The first resolution had been to give
reparation out of the estates of the judges and prosecutors to
Armstrong's family; which was, perhaps rightly, abandoned.
The House of Lords, who, having a power to examine upon oath, are
supposed to sift the truth in such enquiries better than the Commons,
were not remiss in endeavouring to bring the instruments of Stuart
tyranny to justice. Besides the committee appointed on the very second
day of the convention, 23 Jan. 1689, to investigate the supposed
circumstances of suspicion as to the death of Lord Essex (a committee
renewed afterwards, and formed of persons by no means likely to have
abandoned any path that might lead to the detection of guilt in the
late king), another was appointed in the second session of the same
parliament (Lords' Journals, 2nd Nov. 1689) "to consider who were the
advisers and prosecutors of the _murders_ of Lord Russell, Col.
Sidney, Armstrong, Cornish, etc., and who were the advisers of issuing
out writs of _quo warrantos_ against corporations, and who were their
regulators, and also who were the public assertors of the dispensing
power." The examinations taken before this committee are printed in
the Lords' Journals, 20th Dec. 1699; and there certainly does not
appear any want of zeal to convict the guilty. But neither the law nor
the proofs would serve them. They could establish nothing against
Dudley North, the tory sheriff of 1683, except that he had named Lord
Russell's panel himself; which, though irregular and doubtless
ill-designed, had unluckily a precedent in the conduct of the famous
whig sheriff, Slingsby Bethell; a man who, like North, though on the
opposite side, cared more for his party than for decency and justice.
Lord Halifax was a good deal hurt in character by this report; and
never made a considerable figure afterwards. Burnet, 34. His
mortification led him to engage in an intrigue with the late king,
which was discovered; yet, I suspect that, with his usual versatility,
he again abandoned that cause before his death. Ralph, 467. The act of
grace (2 W. & M. c. 10) contained a small number of exceptions, too
many indeed for its name; but probably there would have been
difficulty in prevailing on the houses to pass it generally; and no
one was ever molested afterwards on account of his conduct before the
revolution.
[166] _Parl. Hist._ 508 _et post_; Journals, 2nd and 10th Jan. 1689,
1690. Burnet's account is confused and inaccurate, as is very commonly
the case: he trusted, I believe, almost entirely to his memory. Ralph
and Somerville are scarce ever candid towards the whigs in this reign.
[167] _Parl. Hist._ 150.
[168] Burnet, 13; Ralph, 138, 194. Some of the lawyers endeavoured to
persuade the house that the revenue having been granted to James for
his life, devolved to William during the natural life of the former; a
technical subtlety against the spirit of the grant. Somers seems not
to have come into this; but it is hard to collect the sense of
speeches from Grey's memoranda. _Parl. Hist._ 139. It is not to be
understood that the tories universally were in favour of a grant for
life, and the whigs against it. But as the latter were the majority,
it was in their power, speaking of them as a party, to have carried
the measure.
[169] _Parl. Hist._ 187.
[170] _Parl. Hist._ 193.
[171] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1359.
[172] Hatsell's _Precedents_, iii. 80 _et alibi_; Hargrave's
_Juridical Arguments_, i. 394.
[173] 1 W. & M. sess. 2, c. 2. This was intended as a provisional act
"for the preventing all disputes and questions, concerning the
collecting, levying, and assuring the public revenue due and payable
in the reigns of the late kings Charles II. and James II., whilst the
better settling the same is under the consideration of the present
parliament."
[174] 2 W. & M. c. 3. As a mark of respect, no doubt, to the king and
queen, it was provided that, if both should die, the successor should
only enjoy this revenue of excise till December 1683. In the debate on
this subject in the new parliament, the tories, except Seymour, were
for settling the revenue during the king's life; but many whigs spoke
on the other side. _Parl. Hist._ 552. The latter justly urged that the
amount of the revenue ought to be well known before they proceed to
settle it for an indefinite time. The tories, at that time, had great
hopes of the king's favour, and took this method of securing it.
[175] Burnet, 35.
[176] See the _Somers Tracts_, but still more the collection of _State
Tracts_ in the time of William III., in three volumes folio. These are
almost entirely on the whig side; and many of them, as I have
intimated in the text, lean so far toward republicanism as to assert
the original sovereignty of the people in very strong terms, and to
propose various changes in the constitution, such as a greater
equality in the representation. But I have not observed any one which
recommends, even covertly, the abolition of hereditary monarchy.
[177] The sudden dissolution of this parliament cost him the hearts of
those who had made him king. Besides several temporary writings,
especially the "Impartial Inquiry" of the Earl of Warrington, an
honest and intrepid whig (Ralph, ii. 188), we have a letter from Mr.
Wharton (afterwards Marquis of Wharton) to the king, in Dalrymple,
Appendix, p. 80, on the change in his councils at this time, written
in a strain of bold and bitter expostulation, especially on the score
of his employing those who had been the servants of the late family,
alluding probably to Godolphin, who was indeed open to much exception.
"I wish," says Lord Shrewsbury in the same year, "you could have
established your party upon the moderate and honest-principled men of
both factions; but, as there be a necessity of declaring, I shall make
no difficulty to own my sense that your majesty and the government are
much more safe depending upon the whigs, whose designs, if any
against, are improbable, and remoter, than with the tories, who many
of them, questionless, would bring in King James; and the very best of
them, I doubt, have a regency still in their heads; for, though I
agree them to be the properest instruments to carry the prerogative
high, yet I fear they have so unreasonable a veneration for monarchy,
as not altogether to approve the foundation yours is built upon."
Shrewsbury _Correspond._ 15.
[178] _Parl. Hist_. 575; Ralph, 194; Burnet, 41. Two remarkable
protests were entered on the journals of the Lords on occasion of this
bill; one by the whigs, who were outnumbered on a particular division,
and another by the tories on the passing of the bill. They are both
vehemently expressed, and are among the not very numerous instances
wherein the original whig and tory principles have been opposed to
each other. The tory protest was expunged by order of the house. It is
signed by eleven peers and six bishops, among whom were Stillingfleet
and Lloyd. The whig protest has but ten signatures. The convention had
already passed an act for preventing doubts concerning their own
authority (1 W. & M. stat. 1, c. 1), which could of course have no
more validity than they were able to give it. This bill had been much
opposed by the tories. _Parl. Hist._ v. 122.
In order to make this clearer, it should be observed that the
convention which restored Charles II. not having been summoned by his
writ, was not reckoned by some royalist lawyers capable of passing
valid acts; and consequently all the statutes enacted by it were
confirmed by the authority of the next. Clarendon lays it down as
undeniable that such confirmation was necessary. Nevertheless, this
objection having been made in the court of King's Bench to one of
their acts, the judges would not admit it to be disputed; and said,
that the act being made by King, Lords, and Commons, they ought not
now to pry into any defects of the circumstances of calling them
together, neither would they suffer a point to be stirred, wherein the
estates of so many were concerned. Heath _v._ Pryn, 1 Ventris, 15.
[179] Great indulgence was shown to the assertors of indefeasible
right. The Lords resolved, that there should be no penalty in the bill
to disable any person from sitting and voting in either house of
parliament. Journals, May 5, 1690. The bill was rejected in the
Commons by 192 to 178. Journals, April 26; _Parl. Hist._ 594; Burnet,
41, _ibid._
[180] Some English subjects took James's commission, and fitted out
privateers which attacked our ships. They were taken, and it was
resolved to try them as pirates; when Dr. Oldys, the king's advocate,
had the assurance to object that this could not be done, as if James
had still the prerogatives of a sovereign prince by the law of
nations. He was of course turned out, and the men hanged; but this is
one instance among many of the difficulty under which the government
laboured through the unfortunate distinction of _facto_ and _jure_.
Ralph, 423. The boards of customs and excise were filled by Godolphin
with Jacobites. _Shrewsb. Corresp._ 51.
[181] The name of Carmarthen is perpetually mentioned among those whom
the late king reckoned his friends. Macpherson's _Papers_, i. 457,
etc. Yet this conduct was so evidently against his interest that we
may perhaps believe him insincere. William was certainly well aware
that an extensive conspiracy had been formed against his throne. It
was of great importance to learn the persons involved in it and their
schemes. May we not presume that Lord Carmarthen's return to his
ancient allegiance was feigned, in order to get an insight into the
secrets of that party? This has already been conjectured by Somerville
(p. 395) of Lord Sunderland, who is also implicated by Macpherson's
publication, and doubtless with higher probability; for Sunderland,
always a favourite of William, could not without insanity have plotted
the restoration of a prince he was supposed to have betrayed. It is
evident that William was perfectly master of the cabals of St.
Germain's. That little court knew it was betrayed; and the suspicion
fell on Lord Godolphin. Dalrymple, 189. But I think Sunderland and
Carmarthen more likely.
I should be inclined to suspect that by some of this double treachery
the secret of Princess Anne's repentant letter to her father reached
William's ears. She had come readily, or at least without opposition,
into that part of the settlement which postponed her succession after
the death of Mary, for the remainder of the king's life. It would
indeed have been absurd to expect that William was to descend from his
throne in her favour; and her opposition could not have been of much
avail. But, when the civil list and revenue came to be settled, the
tories made a violent effort to secure an income of £70,000 a year to
her and her husband. _Parl. Hist._ 492. As this on one hand seemed
beyond all fair proportion to the income of the Crown, so the whigs
were hardly less unreasonable in contending that she should depend
altogether on the king's generosity; especially as by letters patent
in the late reign, which they affected to call in question, she had a
revenue of about £30,000. In the end, the house resolved to address
the king, that he would make the princess's income £50,000 in the
whole. This, however, left an irreconcilable enmity, which the
artifices of Marlborough and his wife were employed to aggravate. They
were accustomed, in the younger sister's little court, to speak of the
queen with severity, and of the king with rude and odious epithets.
Marlborough, however, went much farther. He brought that narrow and
foolish woman into his own dark intrigues with St. Germain's. She
wrote to her father, whom she had grossly, and almost openly, charged
with imposing a spurious child as Prince of Wales, supplicating his
forgiveness, and professing repentance for the part she had taken.
_Life of James_, 476; Macpherson's _Papers_, i. 241.
If this letter, as cannot seem improbable, became known to William, we
shall have a more satisfactory explanation of the queen's invincible
resentment toward her sister than can be found in any other part of
their history. Mary refused to see the princess on her death-bed;
which shows more bitterness than suited her mild and religious temper,
if we look only to the public squabbles about the Churchills as its
motive. Burnet, 90; _Conduct of Duchess of Marlborough_, 41. But the
queen must have deeply felt the unhappy, though necessary, state of
enmity in which she was placed towards her father. She had borne a
part in a great and glorious enterprise, obedient to a woman's highest
duty; and had admirably performed those of the station to which she
was called; but still with some violation of natural sentiments, and
some liability to the reproach of those who do not fairly estimate the
circumstances of her situation:
Infelix! utcunque ferant ea facta minores.
Her sister, who had voluntarily trod the same path, who had misled her
into belief of her brother's illegitimacy, had now, from no real sense
of duty, but out of pique and weak compliance with cunning favourites,
solicited in a clandestine manner the late king's pardon, while his
malediction resounded in the ears of the queen. This feebleness and
duplicity made a sisterly friendship impossible.
As for Lord Marlborough, he was among the first, if we except some
Scots renegades, who abandoned the cause of the revolution. He had so
signally broken the ties of personal gratitude in his desertion of the
king on that occasion, that, according to the severe remark of Hume,
his conduct required for ever afterwards the most upright, the most
disinterested, and most public-spirited behaviour to render it
justifiable. What then must we think of it, if we find in the whole of
this great man's political life nothing but ambition and rapacity in
his motives, nothing but treachery and intrigue in his means! He
betrayed and abandoned James, because he could not rise in his favour
without a sacrifice that he did not care to make; he abandoned William
and betrayed England, because some obstacles stood yet in the way of
his ambition. I do not mean only, when I say that he betrayed England,
that he was ready to lay her independence and liberty at the feet of
James II. and Louis XIV.; but that in one memorable instance he
communicated to the court of St. Germain's, and through that to the
court of Versailles, the secret of an expedition against Brest, which
failed in consequence with the loss of the commander and eight hundred
men. Dalrymple, iii. 13; _Life of James_, 522; Macpherson, i. 487. In
short, his whole life was such a picture of meanness and treachery
that one must rate military services very high indeed to preserve any
esteem for his memory.
The private memoirs of James II. as well as the papers published by
Macpherson show us how little treason, and especially a double
treason, is thanked or trusted by those whom it pretends to serve. We
see that neither Churchill nor Russell obtained any confidence from
the banished king. Their motives were always suspected; and something
more solid than professions of loyalty was demanded, though at the
expense of their own credit. James could not forgive Russell for
saying that, if the French fleet came out, he must fight. Macpherson,
i. 242. If Providence in its wrath had visited this island once more
with a Stuart restoration, we may be sure that these perfidious
apostates would have been no gainers by the change.
[182] During William's absence in Ireland in 1690, some of the whigs
conducted themselves in a manner to raise suspicions of their
fidelity; as appears by those most interesting letters of Mary
published by Dalrymple, which display her entire and devoted affection
to a husband of cold and sometimes harsh manners, but capable of deep
and powerful attachment, of which she was the chief object. I have
heard that the late proprietor of these royal letters was offended,
but not judiciously, with their publication; and that the black box of
King William that contained them has disappeared from Kensington. The
names of the Duke of Bolton, his son the Marquis of Winchester, the
Earl of Monmouth, Lord Montagu, and Major Wildman, occur as objects of
the queen's or her minister's suspicion. Dalrymple, Appendix, 107,
etc. But Carmarthen was desirous to throw odium on the whigs; and none
of these, except on one occasion Lord Winchester, appear to be
mentioned in the Stuart Papers. Even Monmouth, whose want both of
principle and sound sense might cause reasonable distrust, and who lay
at different times of his life under this suspicion of a Jacobite
intrigue, is never mentioned in Macpherson, or any other book of
authority, within my recollection. Yet it is evident generally that
there was a disaffected party among the whigs, or, as in the Stuart
Papers they were called, republicans, who entertained the baseless
project of restoring James upon terms. These were chiefly what were
called compounders, to distinguish them from the thorough-paced
royalists, or old tories. One person whom we should least suspect is
occasionally spoken of as inclined to a king whom he had been ever
conspicuous in opposing--the Earl of Devonshire; but the Stuart agents
often wrote according to their wishes rather than their knowledge; and
it seems hard to believe what is not rendered probable by any part of
his public conduct.
[183] This fact apparently rests on good authority; it is repeatedly
mentioned in the Stuart Papers, and in the _Life of James_. Yet
Shrewsbury's letter to William, after Fenwick's accusation of him,
seems hardly consistent with the king's knowledge of the truth of that
charge in its full extent. I think that he served his master
faithfully as secretary, at least after some time, though his warm
recommendation of Marlborough "who has been with me since this news
[the failure of the attack on Brest] to offer his services with all
the expressions of duty and fidelity imaginable" (_Shrewsbury
Correspondence_, 47), is somewhat suspicious, aware as he was of that
traitor's connections.
[184] Commons' Journals, Nov. 28 _et post_; Dalrymple, iii. 11; Ralph,
346.
[185] _Id._ Jan. 11, 1692-3.
[186] Burnet says, "the elections of parliament (1690) went generally
for men who would probably have declared for King James, if they could
have known how to manage matters for him."--P. 41. This is quite an
exaggeration; though the tories, some of whom were at this time in
place, did certainly succeed in several divisions. But parties had now
begun to be split; the Jacobite tories voting with the malcontent
whigs. Upon the whole, this House of Commons, like the next which
followed it, was well affected to the revolution settlement and to
public liberty. Whig and tory were becoming little more than
nicknames.
[187] Macpherson's _State Papers_, i. 459. These were all tories,
except three or four. The great end James and his adherents had in
view, was to persuade Louis into an invasion of England; their
representations therefore are to be taken with much allowance, and in
some cases we know them to be false; as when James assures his brother
of Versailles that three parts at least in four of the English clergy
had not taken the oaths to William. _Id._ 409.
[188] Macpherson, 433. _Somers Tracts_, xi. 94. This is a pamphlet of
the time, exposing the St. Germain faction, and James's unwillingness
to make concessions. It is confirmed by the most authentic documents.
[189] Ralph, 350; _Somers Tracts_, x. 211.
[190] Many of these Jacobite tracts are printed in the Somers
Collection, vol. x. The more we read of them, the more cause appears
for thankfulness that the nation escaped from such a furious party.
They confess, in general, very little error or misgovernment in James,
but abound with malignant calumnies on his successor. The name of
Tullia is repeatedly given to the mild and pious Mary. The best of
these libels is styled "Great Britain's just complaint" (p. 429), by
Sir James Montgomery, the false and fickle proto-apostate of whiggism.
It is written with singular vigour, and even elegance; and rather
extenuates than denies the faults of the late reign.
[191] Ralph, 418. See the _Life of James_, 501. It contains chiefly an
absolute promise of pardon, a declaration that he would protect and
defend the church of England as established by law, and secure to its
members all the churches, universities, schools, and colleges,
together with its immunities, rights, and privileges, a promise not to
dispense with the test, and to leave the dispensing power in other
matters to be explained and limited by parliament, to give the royal
assent to bills for frequent parliaments, free elections, and
impartial trials, and to confirm such laws made under the present
usurpation as should be tendered to him by parliament. "The king," he
says himself, "was sensible he should be blamed by several of his
friends for submitting to such hard terms; nor was it to be wondered
at, if those who knew not the true condition of his affairs were
scandalised at it; but after all he had nothing else to do."--P. 505.
He was so little satisfied with the articles in this declaration
respecting the church of England, that he consulted several French and
English divines, all of whom, including Bossuet, after some
difference, came to an opinion that he could not in conscience
undertake to protect and defend an erroneous church. Their objection,
however, seems to have been rather to the expression than the plain
sense; for they agreed that he might promise to leave the protestant
church in possession of its endowments and privileges. Many too of the
English Jacobites, especially the non-juring bishops, were displeased
with the declaration, as limiting the prerogative; though it contained
nothing which they were not clamorous to obtain from William. P. 514.
A decisive proof how little that party cared for civil liberty, and
how little would have satisfied them at the revolution, if James had
put the church out of danger! The next paragraph is remarkable enough
to be extracted for the better confirmation of what I have just said.
"By this the king saw he had out-shot himself more ways than one in
this declaration; and therefore what expedient he would have found in
case he had been restored, not to put a force either upon his
conscience or honour, does not appear, because it never came to a
trial; but this is certain, his church of England friends absolved him
beforehand, and sent him word, that if he considered the preamble, and
the very terms of the declaration, he was not bound to stand by it, or
to put it out verbatim as it was worded; that the changing some
expressions and ambiguous terms, so long as what was principally aimed
at had been kept to, could not be called a receding from his
declaration, no more than a new edition of a book can be counted a
different work, though corrected and amended. And indeed the preamble
showed his promise was conditional, which they not performing, the
king could not be tied; for my Lord Middleton had writ, that, if the
king signed the declaration, those who took it engaged to restore him
in three or four months after; the king did his part, but their
failure must needs take off the king's future obligation."
In a Latin letter, the original of which is written in James's own
hand, to Innocent XII., dated from Dublin, Nov. 26, 1689, he declares
himself "Catholicam fidem reducere in tria regna statuisse." _Somers
Tracts_, x. 552. Though this may have been drawn up by a priest, I
suppose the king understood what he said. It appears also by Lord
Balcarras's _Memoir_, that Lord Melfort had drawn up the declaration
as to indemnity and indulgence in such a manner, that the king might
break it whenever he pleased. _Somers Tracts_, xi. 517.
[192] The protestants were treated with neglect and jealousy, whatever
might have been their loyalty, at the court of James, as they were
afterwards as that of his son. The incorrigibility of this Stuart
family is very remarkable. Kennet, pp. 638 and 738, enumerates many
instances. Sir James Montgomery, the Earl of Middleton, and others,
were shunned at the court of St. Germain as guilty of this sole crime
of heresy, unless we add that of wishing for legal securities.
[193] James himself explicitly denies, in the extracts from his
_Life_, published by Macpherson, all participation in the scheme of
killing William, and says that he had twice rejected proposals for
bringing him off alive; though it is not true that he speaks of the
design with indignation, as some have pretended. It was very natural,
and very conformable to the principles of kings, and others besides
kings, in former times, that he should have lent an ear to this
project; and as to James's moral and religious character it was not
better than that of Clarendon, whom we know to have countenanced
similar designs for the assassination of Cromwell. In fact, the
received code of ethics has been improved in this respect. We may be
sure at least, that those who ran such a risk for James's sake
expected to be thanked and rewarded in the event of success. I cannot
therefore agree with Dalrymple, who says that nothing but the fury of
party could have exposed James to this suspicion. Though the proof
seems very short of conviction, there are some facts worthy of notice.
1. Burnet positively charges the late king with privity to the
conspiracy of Grandval, executed in Flanders for a design on William's
life, 1692 (p. 95); and this he does with so much particularity, and
so little hesitation, that he seems to have drawn his information from
high authority. The sentence of the court-martial on Grandval also
alludes to James's knowledge of the crime (_Somers Tracts_, x. 580),
and mentions expressions of his, which, though not conclusive, would
raise a strong presumption in any ordinary case. 2. William himself,
in a memorial intended to have been delivered to the ministers of all
the allied powers at Ryswick, in answer to that of James (_Id._ xi.
103; Ralph, 730), positively imputes to the latter repeated
conspiracies against his life; and he was incapable of saying what he
did not believe. In the same memorial he shows too much magnanimity to
assert that the birth of the Prince of Wales was an imposture. 3. A
paper by Charnock, undeniably one of the conspirators, addressed to
James, contains a marked allusion to William's possible death in a
short time; which even Macpherson calls a delicate mode of hinting the
assassination-plot to him. Macpherson, _State Papers_, i. 519. Compare
also _State Trials_, xii. 1323, 1327, 1329. 4. Somerville, though a
disbeliever in James's participation, has a very curious quotation
from Lamberti, tending to implicate Louis XIV. (p. 428); and we can
hardly suppose that he kept the other out of the secret. Indeed, the
crime is greater and less credible in Louis than in James. But devout
kings have odd notions of morality; and their confessors, I suppose,
much the same. I admit, as before, that the evidence falls short of
conviction; and that the verdict, in the language of Scots law, should
be Not Proven; but it is too much for our Stuart apologists to treat
the question as one absolutely determined. Documents may yet appear
that will change its aspect.
I leave the above paragraph as it was written before the publication
of M. Mazure's valuable _History of the Revolution_. He has therein
brought to light a commission of James to Crosby, in 1693, authorising
and requiring him "to seize and secure the person of the Prince of
Orange, and to bring him before us, taking to your assistance such
other of our faithful subjects in whom you may place confidence."
_Hist. de la Révol._ iii. 443. It is justly observed by M. Mazure,
that Crosby might think no renewal of his authority necessary in 1696
to do that which he had been required to do in 1693. If we look
attentively at James's own language, in Macpherson's extracts, without
much regarding the glosses of Innes, it will appear that he does not
deny in express terms that he had consented to the attempt in 1696 to
seize the Prince of Orange's person. In the commission to Crosby he is
required not only to do this, but _to bring him before the king_. But
is it possible to consider this language as anything else than an
euphemism for assassination?
Upon the whole evidence, therefore, I now think that James was privy
to the conspiracy, of which the natural and inevitable consequence
must have been foreseen by himself; but I leave the text as it stood,
in order to show that I have not been guided by any prejudice against
his character.
[194] _Parl. Hist._ 991. Fifteen peers and ninety-two commoners
refused. The names of the latter were circulated in a printed paper,
which the house voted to be a breach of their privilege, and
destruction of the freedom and liberties of parliament. Oct. 30, 1696.
This, however, shows the unpopularity of their opposition.
[195] Burnet; see the notes on the Oxford edition. Ralph, 692. The
motion for bringing in the bill, Nov. 6, 1696, was carried by 169 to
61; but this majority lessened at every stage: and the final division
was only 189 to 156. In the Lords it passed by 68 to 61; several
whigs, and even the Duke of Devonshire, then lord steward, voting in
the minority. _Parl. Hist._ 996-1154. Marlborough probably made Prince
George of Denmark support the measure. _Shrewsbury Correspondence_,
449. Many remarkable letters on the subject are to be found in this
collection; but I warn the reader against trusting any part of the
volume except the letters themselves. The editor has, in defiance of
notorious facts, represented Sir John Fenwick's disclosures as false;
and twice charges him with prevarication (p. 404), using the word
without any knowledge of its sense, in declining to answer questions
put to him by members of the House of Commons, which he could not have
answered without inflaming the animosity that sought his life.
It is said in a note of Lord Hardwicke on Burnet, that "the king,
before the session, had Sir John Fenwick brought to the cabinet
council, where he was present himself. But Sir John would not explain
his paper." See also _Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 419 _et post_. The
truth was, that Fenwick, having had his information at second-hand,
could not prove his assertions, and feared to make his case worse by
repeating them.
[196] Godolphin, who was then first commissioner of the treasury, not
much to the liking of the whigs, seems to have been tricked by
Sunderland into retiring from office on this occasion. _Id._ 415.
Shrewsbury, secretary of state, could hardly be restrained by the king
and his own friends from resigning the seals as soon as he knew of
Fenwick's accusation. His behaviour shows either a consciousness of
guilt, or an inconceivable cowardice. Yet at first he wrote to the
king, pretending to mention candidly all that had passed between him
and the Earl of Middleton, which in fact amounted to nothing. P. 147.
This letter, however, seems to show that a story which has been
several times told, and is confirmed by the biographer of James II.
and by Macpherson's _Papers_, that William compelled Shrewsbury to
accept office in 1693, by letting him know that he was aware of his
connection with St. Germains, is not founded in truth. He could hardly
have written in such a style to the king with that fact in his way.
Monmouth, however, had some suspicion of it; as appears by the hints
he furnished to Sir J. Fenwick towards establishing the charges. P. 450.
Lord Dartmouth, full of inveterate prejudices against the king, charges
him with personal pique against Sir John Fenwick, and with instigating
members to vote for the bill. Yet it rather seems that he was, at
least for some time, by no means anxious for it. _Shrewsbury
Correspondence_; and compare Coxe's _Life of Marlborough_, i. 63.
[197] _Life of James_, ii. 558.
[198] The debt at the king's death amounted to £16,394,702, of which
above three millions were to expire in 1710. Sinclair's _Hist. of
Revenue_, i. 425 (third edition).
Of this sum £664,263 was incurred before the revolution, being a part
of the money of which Charles II. had robbed the public creditor by
shutting up the exchequer. Interest was paid upon this down to 1683,
when the king stopped it. The legislature ought undoubtedly to have
done justice more effectually and speedily than by passing an act in
1699, which was not to take effect till December 25, 1705; from which
time the excise was charged with three per cent. interest on the
principal sum of £1,328,526, subject to be redeemed by payment of a
moiety. No compensation was given for the loss of so many years'
interest. 12 & 13 W. 3, c. 12, § 15; Sinclair, i. 397; _State Trials_,
xiv. 1 _et post_. According to a particular statement in _Somers
Tracts_, xii. 383, the receipts of the exchequer, including loans,
during the whole reign of William, amounted to rather more than
£72,000,000. The author of the "Letter to the Rev. T. Carte," in
answer to the latter's "Letter to a Bystander," estimates the sums
raised under Charles II., from Christmas 1660 to Christmas 1684, at
£46,233,923. Carte had made them only £32,474,265. But his estimate is
evidently false and deceptive. Both reckon the gross produce, not the
exchequer payments. This controversy was about the year 1742.
According to Sinclair, _Hist. of Revenue_, i. 309, Carte had the last
word; but I cannot conceive how he answered the above-mentioned letter
to him. Whatever might be the relative expenditure of the two reigns,
it is evident that the war of 1689 was brought on, in a great measure,
by the corrupt policy of Charles II.
[199] Davenant, "Essay on Ways and Means." In another of his tracts
(vol. ii. 266, edit. 1771) this writer computes the payments of the
state in 1688 at one shilling in the pound of the national income; but
after the war at two shillings and sixpence.
[200] Godfrey's "Short Account of Bank of England," in _Somers
Tracts_, xi. 5; Kennet's _Complete Hist._ iii. 723; Ralph, 681;
_Shrewsbury Papers_; Macpherson's _Annals of Commerce_, A.D. 1697;
Sinclair's _Hist. of Revenue_.
[201] "Nor is it true that the sea was neglected; for I think during
much the greater part of the war which began in 1689 we were entirely
masters of the sea, by our victory in 1692, which was only three years
after it broke out; so that for seven years we carried the _broom_.
And for any neglect of our sea affairs otherwise, I believe, I may in
a few words prove that all the princes since the Conquest never made
so remarkable an improvement to our naval strength as King William. He
(Swift) should have been told, if he did not know, what havoc the
Dutch had made of our shipping in King Charles the Second's reign; and
that his successor, King James the Second, had not in his whole navy,
fitted out to defeat the designed invasion of the Prince of Orange, an
individual ship of the first or second rank, which all lay neglected,
and mere skeletons of former services, at their moorings. These this
abused prince repaired at an immense charge, and brought them to their
pristine magnificence." "Answer to Swift's Conduct of the Allies," in
_Somers Tracts_, xiii. 247.
[202] Dalrymple has remarked the important consequences of this bold
measure; but we have learned only by the publication of Lord
Shrewsbury's _Correspondence_, that it originated with the king, and
was carried through by him against the mutinous remonstrances of
Russell. See pp. 68, 104, 202, 210, 234. This was a most odious man;
as ill-tempered and violent as he was perfidious. But the rudeness
with which the king was treated by some of his servants is very
remarkable. Lord Sunderland wrote to him at least with great
bluntness. _Hardwicke Papers_, 444.
[203] The peace of Ryswick was absolutely necessary, not only on
account of the defection of the Duke of Savoy, and the manifest
disadvantage with which the allies carried on the war, but because
public credit in England was almost annihilated, and it was hardly
possible to pay the army. The extreme distress for money is forcibly
displayed in some of the king's letters to Lord Shrewsbury. P. 114,
etc. These were in 1696, the very _nadir_ of English prosperity; from
which, by the favour of Providence and the buoyant energies of the
nation, we have, though not quite with an uniform motion, culminated
to our present height (1824).
If the treaty could have been concluded on the basis originally laid
down, it would even have been honourable. But the French rose in their
terms during the negotiation; and through the selfishness of Austria
obtained Strasburgh, which they had at first offered to relinquish,
and were very near getting Luxemburg. _Shrewsbury Correspondence_,
316, etc. Still the terms were better than those offered in 1693,
which William has been censured for refusing.
[204] Moyle now published his "Argument, showing that a standing army
is inconsistent with a free government, and absolutely destructive to
the constitution of the English monarchy" (_State Tracts_, ii. 564);
and Trenchard his "History of Standing Armies in England." _Id._ 653.
Other pamphlets of a similar description may be found in the same
volume.
[205] Journals, 11th Dec. 1697; _Parl. Hist._ 1167.
[206] Journals, 21st Dec. 1697; _Parl. Hist._ v. 1168. It was carried
by 225 to 86.
[207] "The elections fell generally," says Burnet, "on men who were in
the interest of government; many of them had indeed some popular
notions, which they had drank in under a bad government, and thought
this ought to keep them under a good one; so that those who wished
well to the public did apprehend great difficulties in managing them."
Upon which Speaker Onslow has a very proper note: "They might happen
to think," he says, "a good one might become a bad one, or a bad one
might succeed to a good one. They were the best men of the age, and
were for maintaining the revolution government by its own principles,
and not by those of a government it had superseded." "The elections,"
we read in a letter of Mr. Montague, Aug. 1698, "have made a humour
appear in the counties that is not very comfortable to us who are in
business. But yet after all, the present members are such as will
neither hurt England nor this government, but I believe they must be
handled very nicely." _Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 551. This
parliament, however, fell into a great mistake about the reduction of
the army; as Bolingbroke in his _Letters on History_ very candidly
admits, though connected with those who had voted for it.
[208] Journals, 17th Dec. 1698; _Parl. Hist._ 1191.
[209] Journals, 10th Jan., 18th, 20th, and 25th March; Lords'
Journals, 8th Feb.; _Parl. Hist._ 1167, 1191; Ralph, 808; Burnet, 219.
It is now beyond doubt that William had serious thoughts of quitting
the government, and retiring to Holland, sick of the faction and
ingratitude of this nation. _Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 571;
_Hardwicke Papers_, 362. This was in his character, and not like the
vulgar story which that retailer of all gossip, Dalrymple, calls a
well-authenticated tradition, that the king walked furiously round his
room, exclaiming, "If I had a son, by G-- the guards should not leave
me." It would be vain to ask how this son would have enabled him to
keep them against the bent of the parliament and people.
[210] The prodigality of William in grants to his favourites was an
undeniable reproach to his reign. Charles II. had, however, with much
greater profuseness, though much less blamed for it, given away almost
all the Crown lands in a few years after the restoration; and the
Commons could not now be prevailed upon to shake those grants, which
was urged by the court, in order to defeat the resumption of those in
the present reign. The length of time undoubtedly made a considerable
difference. An enormous grant of the Crown's domanial rights in North
Wales to the Earl of Portland excited much clamour in 1697, and
produced a speech from Mr. Price, afterwards a baron of the exchequer,
which was much extolled for its boldness, not rather to say, virulence
and disaffection. This is printed in _Parl. Hist._ 978, and many other
books. The king, on an address from the House of Commons, revoked the
grant, which indeed was not justifiable. His answer on this occasion,
it may here be remarked, was by its mildness and courtesy a striking
contrast to the insolent rudeness with which the Stuarts, one and all,
had invariably treated the house. Yet to this vomit were many wretches
eager to return.
[211] _Parl. Hist._ 1171, 1202, etc.; Ralph; Burnet; _Shrewsbury
Correspondence_. See also Davenant's "Essay on Grants and
Resumptions," and sundry pamphlets in _Somers Tracts_, vol. ii., and
_State Tracts_, temp. W. 3, vol. ii.
[212] In Feb. 1692.
[213] See the same authorities, especially the _Shrewsbury Letters_,
p. 602.
[214] Commons' Journals, June 1, Aug. 12.
[215] _Id._ Nov. 1.
[216] _Parl. Hist._ 657; Dalrymple; Commons' and Lords' Journals.
[217] _Parl. Hist._ 793. Delaval and Killigrew were Jacobites, whom
William generously but imprudently put into the command of the fleet.
[218] Commons' Journals, Feb. 27, 1694-5.
[219] _Parl. Hist._ 941; Burnet, 105.
[220] Burnet, 163; Commons' Journals, Jan. 31, 1695-6. An abjuration
of King James's title in very strong terms was proposed as a
qualification for members of this council; but this was lost by 195 to
188.
[221] See Speaker Onslow's Note on Burnet (Oxf. edit. iv. 468), and
Lord Hardwicke's hint of his father's opinion. _Id._ 475. But see also
Lord Somers's plea as to this. _State Trials_, xiii. 267.
[222] _Parl. Hist._; _State Trials_, xiv. 233. The letters of William,
published in the _Hardwicke State Papers_, are both the most authentic
and the most satisfactory explanation of his policy during the three
momentous years that closed the seventeenth century. It is said, in a
note of Lord Hardwicke on Burnet (Oxford edit. iv. 417), (from Lord
Somers's papers), that when some of the ministers objected to parts of
the treaty, Lord Portland's constant answer was, that nothing could be
altered; upon which one of them said, if that was the case, he saw no
reason why they should be called together. And it appears by the
_Shrewsbury Papers_, p. 371, that the duke, though secretary of state,
and in a manner prime minister, was entirely kept by the king out of
the secret of the negotiations which ended in the peace of Ryswick:
whether, after all, there remained some lurking distrust of his
fidelity, or from whatever other cause this took place, it was very
anomalous and unconstitutional. And it must be owned, that by this
sort of proceeding, which could have no sufficient apology but a deep
sense of the unworthiness of mankind, William brought on himself much
of that dislike which appears so ungrateful and unaccountable.
As to the impeachments, few have pretended to justify them; even Ralph
is half ashamed of the party he espouses with so little candour
towards their adversaries. The scandalous conduct of the tories in
screening the Earl of Jersey, while they impeached the whig lords,
some of whom had really borne no part in a measure he had promoted,
sufficiently displays the factiousness of their motives. See Lord
Haversham's speech on this. _Parl. Hist._ 1298.
[223] Bishop Fleetwood, in a sermon, preached in 1703, says of
William, "whom all the world of friends and enemies know how to value,
except a _few English wretches_." Kennet, 840. Boyer, in his _History
of the Reign of Queen Anne_, p. 12, says that the king spent most of
his private fortune, computed at no less than two millions, in the
service of the English nation. I should be glad to have found this
vouched by better authority.
[224] Lords' Journals.
[225] _Parl. Hist._ 754.
[226] 6 W. & M. c. 2.
[227] _Rot. Parl._ ii. 239; 3 Inst. 1.
[228] 3 Inst. 12; 1 Hale's _Pleas of the Crown_, 120; Foster, 195.
Coke lays it down positively (p. 14) that a conspiracy to levy war is
not high treason, as an overt act of compassing the king's death. "For
this were to confound the several classes or _membra dividentia_."
Hale objects that Coke himself cites the case of Lords Essex and
Southampton, which seems to contradict that opinion. But it may be
answered, in the first place, that a conspiracy to levy war was made
high treason during the life of Elizabeth; and secondly, that Coke's
words as to that case are, that they "intended to go to the court
where the queen was, and to have taken her into their power, and to
have removed divers of her council, and _for that end did assemble a
multitude of people_: this being raised to the end aforesaid, was a
sufficient overt act of compassing the death of the queen." The
earliest case is that of Storie, who was convicted of compassing the
queen's death on evidence of exciting a foreign power to invade the
kingdom. But he was very obnoxious; and the precedent is not good.
Hale, 122.
It is also held that an actual levying war may be laid as an overt act
of compassing the king's death, which indeed follows _à fortiori_ from
the former proposition; provided it be not a constructive rebellion,
but one really directed against the royal authority. Hale, 123.
[229] Hale, 121.
[230] Foster's _Discourse on High Treason_, 196; _State Trials_, xii.
646, 790, 818; xiii. 62 (Sir John Friend's case) _et alibi_. This
important question having arisen on Lord Russell's trial, gave rise to
a controversy between two eminent lawyers, Sir Bartholomew Shower and
Sir Robert Atkins; the former maintaining, the latter denying, that a
conspiracy to depose the king and to seize his guards was an overt act
of compassing his death. _State Trials_, ix. 719, 818.
See also Phillipps's _State Trials_, ii. 39, 78; a work to which I
might have referred in other places, and which shows the well known
judgment and impartiality of the author.
[231] In the whole series of authorities, however, on this subject, it
will be found that the probable danger to the king's safety from
rebellion was the ground-work upon which this constructive treason
rested; nor did either Hale or Foster, Pemberton or Holt, ever dream
that any other death was intended by the statute than that of nature.
It was reserved for a modern Crown lawyer to resolve this language
into a metaphysical personification, and to argue that the king's
person being interwoven with the state, and its sole representative,
any conspiracy against the constitution must of its own nature be a
conspiracy against his life. _State Trials_, xxiv. 1183.
[232] 13 Eliz. c. 1; 13 Car. 2, c. 1; 36 G. 3, c. 7.
[233] Hale, 123; Foster, 213.
[234] Lord George Gordon's case, _State Trials_, xxi. 649.
[235] Hardy's case. _Id._ xxiv. 208. The language of Chief Justice
Eyre is sufficiently remarkable.
[236] Foster, 198. He seems to concur in Hale's opinion, that words
which being spoken will not amount to an overt act to make good an
indictment for compassing the king's death, yet if reduced into
writing, and published, will make such an overt act, "if the matters
contained in them import such a compassing." Hale's _Pleas of Crown_,
118. But this is indefinitely expressed, the words marked as a
quotation looking like a truism, and contrary to the first part of the
sentence; and the case of Williams, under James I., which Hales cites
in corroboration of this, will hardly be approved by any
constitutional lawyer.
[237] Hale, 134. It is observable that Hale himself, as chief baron,
differed from the other judges in this case.
[238] This is the well known case of Damaree and Purchase. _State
Trials_, xv. 520; Foster, 213. A rabble had attended Sacheverell from
Westminster to his lodgings in the Temple. Some among them proposed to
pull down the meeting-houses; a cry was raised, and several of these
were destroyed. It appeared to be their intention to pull down all
within their reach. Upon this overt act of levying war the prisoners
were convicted; some of the judges differing as to one of them, but
merely on the application of the evidence to his case. Notwithstanding
this solemn decision, and the approbation with which Sir Michael
Foster has stamped it, some difficulty would arise in distinguishing
this case, as reported, from many indictments under the riot act for
mere felony; and especially from those of the Birmingham rioters in
1791, where the similarity of motives, though the mischief in the
latter instance was far more extensive, would naturally have suggested
the same species of prosecution as was adopted against Damaree and
Purchase. It may be remarked that neither of these men was executed;
which, notwithstanding the sarcastic observation of Foster, might
possibly be owing to an opinion, which every one but a lawyer must
have entertained, that their offence did not amount to treason.
[239] 7 W. 3, c. 3, § 4; Foster, 257.
[240] Foster, 234.
[241] "Would you have trials secured?" says the author of the
"Jacobite Principles Vindicated" (_Somers Tracts_, 10, 526). "It is
the interest of all parties care should be taken about them, or all
parties will suffer in their turns. Plunket, and Sidney, and Ashton
were doubtless all murdered though they were never so guilty of the
crimes wherewith they were charged; the one tried twice, the other
found guilty upon one evidence, and the last upon nothing but
presumptive proof." Even the prostitute lawyer, Sir Bartholomew
Shower, had the assurance to complain of uncertainty in the law of
treason. _Id._ 572. And Roger North, in his _Examen_, p. 411, labours
hard to show that the evidence in Ashton's case was slighter than in
Sidney's.
[242] _State Trials_, xii. 646.--See 668 and 799.
[243] _State Trials_, xii. 1245; Ralph, 420; _Somers Tracts_, x. 472.
The Jacobites took a very frivolous objection to the conviction of
Anderton, that printing could not be treason within the statute of
Edward III., because it was not invented for a century afterwards.
According to this rule, it could not be treason to shoot the king with
a pistol or poison him with an American drug.
[244] _Parl. Hist._ v. 698.
[245] _Id._ v. 675.
[246] _Parl. Hist._ 712, 737; Commons' Journals, Feb. 8, 1695.
[247] _Id._ 965; Journal, 17th Feb. 1696; Stat. 7, W. 3 c. 3. Though
the court opposed this bill, it was certainly favoured by the zealous
whigs as much as by the opposite party.
[248] When several persons of distinction were arrested on account of
a jacobite conspiracy in 1690, there was but one witness against some
of them. The judges were consulted whether they could be indicted for
a high misdemeanour on this single testimony, as Hampden had been in
1685; the attorney-general Treby maintaining this to be lawful. Four
of the judges were positively against this, two more doubtfully the
same way, one altogether doubtful, and three in favour of it. The
scheme was very properly abandoned; and at present, I suppose, nothing
can be more established than the negative. Dalrymple, Append. 186.
[249] _State Trials_, xii. 1051.
[250] The dexterity with which Lord Shaftesbury (the author of the
_Characteristics_), at that time in the House of Commons, turned a
momentary confusion which came upon him while speaking on this bill,
into an argument for extending the aid of counsel to those who might
so much more naturally be embarrassed on a trial for their lives, is
well known. All well-informed writers ascribe this to Shaftesbury. But
Johnson, in the _Lives of the Poets_, has, through inadvertence, as I
believe, given Lord Halifax (Montagu) the credit of it; and some have
since followed him. As a complete refutation of this mistake, it is
sufficient to say that Mr. Montagu _opposed_ the bill. His name
appears as a teller on two divisions, 31st Dec. 1691, and 18th Nov.
1692.
[251] It was said by Scroggs and Jefferies, that if one witness prove
that A. bought a knife, and another that he intended to kill the king
with it, these are two witnesses within the statute of Edward VI. But
this has been justly reprobated.
[252] Upon some of the topics touched in the foregoing pages, besides
Hale and Foster, see Luders' _Considerations on the Law of Treason in
Levying War_, and many remarks in Phillipps's _State Trials_; besides
much that is scattered through the notes of Mr. Howell's great
collection. Mr. Phillipps' work, however, was not published till after
my own was written.
[253] Commons' Journals, 9 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1694-5. A bill to the same
effect sent down from the Lords was thrown out, 17 April 1695. Another
bill was rejected on the second reading in 1697. _Id._ 3 April.
[254] _Somers Tracts_, passim. John Dunton the bookseller, in the
_History of his Life and Errors_, hints that unlicensed books could be
published by a douceur to Robert Stephens, the messenger of the press,
whose business it was to inform against them.
[255] _State Trials_, xiv. 1103, 1128. Mr. Justice Powell told the
Rev. Mr. Stephens, in passing sentence on him for a libel on Harley
and Marlborough, that to traduce the queen's ministers was a
reflection on the queen herself. It is said, however, that this and
other prosecutions were generally blamed; for the public feeling was
strong in favour of the liberty of the press. Boyer's _Reign of Queen
Anne_, p. 286.
[256] Pemberton, as I have elsewhere observed, permitted evidence to
be given as to the truth of an alleged libel in publishing that Sir
Edmondbury Godfrey had murdered himself. And what may be reckoned more
important, in a trial of the famous Fuller on a similar charge, Holt
repeatedly (not less than five times) offered to let him prove the
truth if he could. _State Trials_, xiv. 534. But, on the trial of
Franklin, in 1731, for publishing a libel in the _Craftsman_, Lord
Raymond positively refused to admit of any evidence to prove the
matters to be true; and said he was only abiding by what had been
formerly done in other cases of the like nature. _Id._ xvii. 659.
[257] See the pamphlets of that age, _passim_. One of these, entitled
"The Zealous and Impartial Protestant," 1681, the author of which,
though well known, I cannot recollect, after much invective, says,
"Liberty of conscience and toleration are things only to be talked of
and pretended to by those that are under; but none like or think it
reasonable that are in authority. 'Tis an instrument of mischief and
dissettlement, to be courted by those who would have change, but no
way desirable by such as would be quiet, and have the government
undisturbed. For it is not consistent with public peace and safety
without a standing army; conventicles being eternal nurseries of
sedition and rebellion."--P. 30. "To strive for toleration," he says
in another place, "is to contend against all government. It will come
to this; whether there should be a government in the church or not?
for if there be a government, there must be laws; if there be laws,
there must be penalties annexed to the violation of those laws;
otherwise the government is precarious and at every man's mercy; that
is, it is none at all.... The constitution should be made firm,
whether with any alterations or without them, and laws put in punctual
vigorous execution. Till that is done all will signify nothing. The
church hath lost all through remissness and non-execution of laws; and
by the contrary course things must be reduced, or they never will. To
what purpose are parliaments so concerned to prepare good laws, if the
officers who are intrusted with the execution neglect that duty, and
let them lie dead? This brings laws and government into contempt, and
it were much better the laws were never made; by these the dissenters
are provoked, and being not restrained by the exacting of the
penalties, they are fiercer and more bent upon their own ways than
they would be otherwise. But it may be said the execution of laws of
conformity raiseth the cry of persecution; and will not that be
scandalous? Not so scandalous as anarchy, schism, and eternal
divisions and confusions both in church and state. Better that the
unruly should clamour than that the regular should groan, and all
should be undone."--P. 33. Another tract, "Short Defence of the Church
and Clergy of England, 1679," declares for union (in his own way), but
against a comprehension, and still more a toleration. "It is
observable that whereas the best emperors have made the severest laws
against all manner of sectaries, Julian the apostate, the most subtle
and bitter enemy that Christianity ever had, was the man that set up
this way of toleration."--P. 87. Such was the temper of this odious
faction. And at the time they were instigating the government to fresh
severities, by which, I sincerely believe, they meant the pillory or
the gallows (for nothing else was wanting), scarce a gaol in England
was without nonconformist ministers. One can hardly avoid rejoicing
that some of these men, after the revolution, experienced, not indeed
the persecution, but the poverty they had been so eager to inflict on
others.
The following passage from a very judicious tract on the other side,
"Discourse of the Religion of England, 1667," may deserve to be
extracted. "Whether cogent reason speaks for this latitude, be it now
considered. How momentous in the balance of this nation those
protestants are which are dissatisfied in the present ecclesiastical
polity. They are everywhere spread through city and country; they make
no small part of all ranks and sorts of men; by relations and commerce
they are so woven into the nation's interest, that it is not easy to
sever them without unravelling the whole. They are not excluded from
the nobility, among the gentry they are not a few; but none are of
more importance than they in the trading part of the people and those
that live by industry, upon whose hands the business of the nation
lies much. It hath been noted that some who bear them no good will
have said that the very air of corporations is infested with their
contagion. And in whatsoever degree they are high or low, ordinarily
for good understanding, steadiness and sobriety, they are not inferior
to others of the same rank and quality; neither do they want the
rational courage of Englishmen."--P. 23.
[258] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1311; Ralph, 559.
[259] Baxter; Neal; Palmer's _Nonconformist's Memorial_.
[260] _Parl. Hist._ v. 263. Some of the tories wished to pass it only
for seven years. The high-church pamphlets of the age grumble at the
toleration.
[261] Burnet; _Parl. Hist._ 184.
[262] _Parl. Hist._ 196.
[263] _Id._ 212, 216.
[264] Burnet; Ralph. But a better account of what took place in the
convocation and among the commissioners will be found in Kennet's
_Compl. Hist._ 557, 588, etc.
[265] Leslie's _Case of the Regale and Pontificate_ is a long dull
attempt to set up the sacerdotal order above all civil power, at least
as to the exercise of its functions, and especially to get rid of the
appointment of bishops by the Crown, or, by parity of reasoning, of
priests by laymen. He is indignant even at laymen choosing their
chaplains, and thinks they ought to take them from the bishop;
objecting also to the phrase, my chaplain, as if they were servants:
"otherwise the expression is proper enough to say my chaplain, as I
say my parish priest, my bishop, my king, or my God; which argues my
being under their care and direction, and that I belong to them, not
they to me."--P. 182. It is full of enormous misrepresentation as to
the English law.
[266] See Burnet (Oxf. iv. 409) and Lord Dartmouth's note.
[267] No opposition seems to have been made in the House of Commons;
but we have a protest from four peers against it. Burnet, though he
offers some shameful arguments in favour of the bill, such as might
justify any tyranny, admits that it contained some unreasonable
severities, and that many were really adverse to it. A bill proposed
in 1705, to render the late act against papists effective, was lost by
119 to 43 (_Parl. Hist._ vi. 514); which shows that men were ashamed
of what they had done. A proclamation, however, was issued in 1711,
immediately after Guiscard's attempt to kill Mr. Harley, for enforcing
the penal laws against Roman catholics, which was very scandalous, as
tending to impute that crime to them. Boyer's _Reign of Anne_, p. 429.
And in the reign of Geo. I. (1722) £100,000 was levied by a particular
act on the estates of papists and non-jurors. This was only carried by
188 to 172; Sir Joseph Jekyll and Mr. Onslow, afterwards speaker,
opposing it, as well as Lord Cowper in the other house. 9 G. I. c. 18;
_Parl. Hist._ viii. 51, 353. It was quite impossible that those who
sincerely maintained the principles of toleration should long continue
to make any exception; though the exception in this instance was
wholly on political grounds, and not out of bigotry, it did not the
less contravene all that Taylor and Locke had taught men to cherish.
[268] 11 & 12 W. 3, c. 4. It is hardly necessary to add, that this act
was repealed in 1779.
[269] Butler's _Memoirs of Catholics_, ii. 64.
[270] While the bill regulating the succession was in the House of
Commons, a proviso was offered by Mr. Godolphin, that nothing in this
act is intended to be drawn into example or consequence hereafter, to
prejudice the right of any protestant prince or princess in their
hereditary succession to the imperial crown of those realms. This was
much opposed by the whigs; both because it tended to let in the son of
James II., if he should become a protestant, and for a more secret
reason, that they did not like to recognise the continuance of any
hereditary right. It was rejected by 179 to 125. _Parl. Hist._ v. 249.
The Lords' amendment in favour of the Princess Sophia was lost without
a division. _Id._ 339.
[271] The Duchess of Savoy put in a very foolish protest against
anything that should be done to prejudice _her_ right. Ralph, 924.
[272] 12 & 13 w. 3, c. 2.
[273] It was frequently contended in the reign of George II. that
subsidiary treaties for the defence of Hanover, or rather such as were
covertly designed for that and no other purpose, as those with Russia
and Hesse Cassel in 1755, were at least contrary to the spirit of the
act of settlement. On the other hand it was justly answered that,
although in case Hanover should be attacked on the ground of a German
quarrel, unconnected with English politics, we were not bound to
defend her; yet, if a power at war with England should think fit to
consider that electorate as part of the king's dominions (which
perhaps according to the law of nations might be done), our honour
must require that it should be defended against such an attack. This
is true; and yet it shows very forcibly that the separation of the two
ought to have been insisted upon; since the present connection engages
Great Britain in a very disadvantageous mode of carrying on its wars,
without any compensation of national wealth or honour; except indeed
that of employing occasionally in its service a very brave and
efficient body of troops.
[274] 1 G. 1, c. 51.
[275] _Life of Clarendon_, 319.
[276] "The method is this," says a member in debate; "things are
concerted in the cabinet, and then brought to the council; such a
thing is resolved in the cabinet, and brought and put on them for
their assent, without showing any of the reasons. That has not been
the method of England. If this method be, you will never know who
gives advice." _Parl. Hist._ v. 731.
In Sir Humphrey Mackworth's [or perhaps Mr. Harley's] "Vindication of
the Rights of the Commons of England, 1701," _Somers Tracts_, xi. 276,
the constitutional doctrine is thus laid down, according to the spirit
of the recent act of settlement. "As to the setting of the great seal
of England to foreign alliances, the lord chancellor, or lord keeper
for the time being, has a plain rule to follow; that is, humbly to
inform the king that he cannot legally set the great seal of England
to a matter of that consequence unless the same be first debated and
resolved in council; which method being observed, the chancellor is
safe, and the council answerable."--P. 293.
[277] This very delicate question as to the responsibility of the
cabinet, or what is commonly called the ministry _in solidum_, if I
may use the expression, was canvassed in a remarkable discussion
within our memory, on the introduction of the late chief justice of
the King's Bench into that select body; Mr. Fox strenuously denying
the proposition, and Lord Castlereagh, with others now living,
maintaining it. _Parl. Debates_, A.D. 1806. I cannot possibly
comprehend how an article of impeachment, for sitting as a cabinet
minister could be drawn; nor do I conceive that a privy counsellor has
a right to resign his place at the board; so that it would be highly
unjust and illegal to presume a participation in culpable measures
from the mere circumstance of belonging to it. Even if notoriety be a
ground, as has been sometimes contended, for impeachment, it cannot be
sufficient for conviction.
[278] Anne, c. 8; 6 Anne, c. 7.
[279] This is the modern usage, but of its origin I cannot speak. On
one remarkable occasion, while Anne was at the point of death, the
Dukes of Somerset and Argyle went down to the council-chamber without
summons to take their seats; but it seems to have been intended as an
unexpected manœuvre of policy.
[280] It is provided by 1 G. 1, st. 2, c. 4, that no bill of
naturalisation shall be received without a clause disqualifying the
party from sitting in parliament, etc., "for the better preserving the
said clause in the said act entire and inviolate." This provision,
which is rather supererogatory, was of course intended to show the
determination of parliament not to be governed, ostensibly at least,
by foreigners under their foreign master.
[281] _Parl. Hist._ 807, 840. Burnet says (p. 42) that Sir John
Trevor, a tory, first put the king on this method of corruption.
Trevor himself was so venal that he received a present of 1000 guineas
from the city of London, being then speaker of the Commons, for his
service in carrying a bill through the house; and, upon its discovery,
was obliged to put the vote, that he had been guilty of a high crime
and misdemeanour. This resolution being carried, he absented himself
from the house, and was expelled. _Parl. Hist._ 900; Commons'
Journals, 12th March 1694-5. The Duke of Leeds, that veteran of secret
iniquity, was discovered about the same time to have taken bribes from
the East India Company, and was impeached in consequence; I say
discovered, for there seems little or no doubt of his guilt. The
impeachment, however, was not prosecuted for want of evidence. _Parl.
Hist._ 881, 911, 933. Guy, secretary of the treasury, another of
Charles II.'s court, was expelled the house on a similar imputation.
_Id._ 886. Lord Falkland was sent to the Tower for begging £2000 of
the king. _Id._ 841. A system of infamous peculation among the
officers of government came to light through the inquisitive spirit of
parliament in this reign; not that the nation was worse and more
corrupt than under the Stuarts, but that a profligacy, which had been
engendered and had flourished under their administration, was now
dragged to light and punishment. Long sessions of parliament and a
vigilant party-spirit exposed the evil, and have finally in a great
measure removed it; though Burnet's remark is still not wholly
obsolete. "The regard," says that honest bishop, "that is shown to the
members of parliament among us, makes that few abuses can be inquired
into or discovered."
[282] _Parl. Hist._ 748, 829. The house resolved, "that whoever
advised the king not to give the royal assent to the act touching free
and impartial proceedings in parliament, which was to redress a
grievance, and take off a scandal upon the proceedings of the Commons
in parliament, is an enemy to their majesties and the kingdom." They
laid a representation before the king, showing how few instances have
been in former reigns of denying the royal assent to bills for redress
of grievances, and the great grief of the Commons "for his not having
given the royal assent to several public bills, and particularly the
bill touching free and impartial proceedings in parliament, which
tended so much to the clearing the reputation of this house, after
their having so freely voted to supply the public occasions." The king
gave a courteous but evasive answer, as indeed it was natural to
expect; but so great a flame was raised in the Commons, that it was
moved to address him for a further answer, which, however, there was
still a sense of decorum sufficient to prevent.
Though the particular provisions of this bill do not appear, I think
it probable that it went too far in excluding military as well as
civil officers.
[283] 4 & 5 W. & M. c. 21.
[284] 11 & 12 W. 3, c. 2, § 50.
[285] The House of Commons introduced into the act of security, as it
was called, a long clause, carried on a division by 167 to 160, Jan.
24, 1706, enumerating various persons who should be eligible to
parliament; the principal officers of state, the commissioners of
treasury and admiralty, and a limited number of other placemen. The
Lords thought fit to repeal the whole prohibitory enactment. It was
resolved in the Commons, by a majority of 205 to 183, that they would
not agree to this amendment. A conference accordingly took place, when
the managers of the Commons objected (Feb. 7) that a total repeal of
that provision would admit such an unlimited number of officers to sit
in their house, as might destroy the free and impartial proceedings in
parliament, and endanger the liberties of the Commons of England.
Those on the Lords' side gave their reasons to the contrary at great
length, Feb. 11. The Commons determined (Feb. 18) to insert the
provision vacating the seat of a member accepting office; and resolved
not to insist on their disagreements as to the main clause. Three
protests were entered in the House of Lords against inserting the word
"repealed" in reference to the prohibitory clause, instead of
"regulated and altered," all by tory peers. It is observable that, as
the provision was not to take effect till the house of Hanover should
succeed to the throne, the sticklers for it might be full as much
influenced by their ill-will to that family as by their zeal for
liberty.
[286] 4 Anne, c. 8; 6 Anne, c. 7.
[287] Burnet, 86. It was represented to the king, he says, by some of
the judges themselves, that it was not fit they should be out of all
dependence on the court.
[288] It was originally resolved that they should be removable on the
address of either house, which was changed afterwards to both houses.
Comm. Journ. 12th March, and 10th May.
[289] It was proposed in the Lords, as a clause in the bill of rights,
that pardons upon an impeachment should be void, but lost by 50 to 17;
on which twelve peers, all whigs, entered a protest. _Parl. Hist._
482.
[290] 13 W. 3, c. 3. The Lords introduced an amendment into this bill,
to attaint also Mary of Este, the late queen of James II. But the
Commons disagreed on the ground that it might be of dangerous
consequence to attaint any one by an amendment, in which case such due
consideration cannot be had, as the nature of an attainder requires.
The Lords, after a conference, gave way; but brought in a separate
bill to attaint Mary of Este, which passed with a protest of the tory
peers. Lords' Journals, Feb. 6, 12, 20, 1701-2.
[291] 13 W. 3, c. 6.
[292] Sixteen lords, including two bishops, Compton and Sprat,
protested against the bill containing the abjuration oath. The first
reason of their votes was afterwards expunged from the Journals by
order of the house. Lords' Journals, 24th Feb., 3rd March 1701-2.
[293] Whiston mentions, that Mr. Baker, of St. John's, Cambridge, a
worthy and learned man, as well as others of the college, had thoughts
of taking the oath of allegiance on the death of King James; but the
oath of abjuration coming out the next year, had such expressions as
he still scrupled. Whiston's _Memoirs_; _Biog. Brit._ (Kippis's
edition), art. Baker.