Had there been a general election while the nation was smarting under so

many disgraces and misfortunes, it is probable that the Roundheads would

have regained ascendency in the state. But the Parliament was still

the Cavalier Parliament, chosen in the transport of loyalty which had

followed the Restoration. Nevertheless it soon became evident that no

English legislature, however loyal, would now consent to be merely what

the legislature had been under the Tudors. From the death of Elizabeth

to the eve of the civil war, the Puritans, who predominated in the

representative body, had been constantly, by a dexterous use of the

power of the purse, encroaching on the province of the executive

government. The gentlemen who, after the Restoration, filled the Lower

House, though they abhorred the Puritan name, were well pleased to

inherit the fruit of the Puritan policy. They were indeed most willing

to employ the power which they possessed in the state for the purpose of

making their King mighty and honoured, both at home and abroad: but

with the power itself they were resolved not to part. The great English

revolution of the seventeenth century, that is to say, the transfer of

the supreme control of the executive administration from the crown to

the House of Commons, was, through the whole long existence of this

Parliament, proceeding noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles,

kept poor by his follies and vices, wanted money. The Commons alone

could legally grant him money. They could not be prevented from putting

their own price on their grants. The price which they put on their

grants was this, that they should be allowed to interfere with every one

of the King's prerogatives, to wring from him his consent to laws which

he disliked, to break up cabinets, to dictate the course of foreign

policy, and even to direct the administration of war. To the royal

office, and the royal person, they loudly and sincerely professed the

strongest attachment. But to Clarendon they owed no allegiance; and they

fell on him as furiously as their predecessors had fallen on Strafford.

The minister's virtues and vices alike contributed to his ruin. He

was the ostensible head of the administration, and was therefore held

responsible even for those acts which he had strongly, but vainly,

opposed in Council. He was regarded by the Puritans, and by all who

pitied them, as an implacable bigot, a second Laud, with much more than

Laud's understanding. He had on all occasions maintained that the Act of

indemnity ought to be strictly observed; and this part of his conduct,

though highly honourable to him, made him hateful to all those Royalists

who wished to repair their ruined fortunes by suing the Roundheads for

damages and mesne profits. The Presbyterians of Scotland attributed to

him the downfall of their Church. The Papists of Ireland attributed to

him the loss of their lands. As father of the Duchess of York, he had

an obvious motive for wishing that there might be a barren Queen; and he

was therefore suspected of having purposely recommended one. The sale

of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him. For the war with Holland, he

was, with less justice, held accountable. His hot temper, his arrogant

deportment, the indelicate eagerness with which he grasped at riches,

the ostentation with which he squandered them, his picture gallery,

filled with masterpieces of Vandyke which had once been the property of

ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which reared its long and stately front

right opposite to the humbler residence of our Kings, drew on him much

deserved, and some undeserved, censure. When the Dutch fleet was in the

Thames, it was against the Chancellor that the rage of the populace was

chiefly directed. His windows were broken; the trees of his garden were

cut down; and a gibbet was set up before his door. But nowhere was he

more detested than in the House of Commons. He was unable to perceive

that the time was fast approaching when that House, if it continued to

exist at all, must be supreme in the state, when the management of that

House would be the most important department of politics, and when,

without the help of men possessing the ear of that House, it would

be impossible to carry on the government. He obstinately persisted in

considering the Parliament as a body in no respect differing from the

Parliament which had been sitting when, forty years before, he first

began to study law at the Temple. He did not wish to deprive the

legislature of those powers which were inherent in it by the old

constitution of the realm: but the new development of those powers,

though a development natural, inevitable, and to be prevented only by

utterly destroying the powers themselves, disgusted and alarmed him.

Nothing would have induced him to put the great seal to a writ for

raising shipmoney, or to give his voice in Council for committing a

member of Parliament to the Tower, on account of words spoken in debate:

but, when the Commons began to inquire in what manner the money voted

for the war had been wasted, and to examine into the maladministration

of the navy, he flamed with indignation. Such inquiry, according to him,

was out of their province. He admitted that the House was a most loyal

assembly, that it had done good service to the crown, and that its

intentions were excellent. But, both in public and in the closet, he,

on every occasion, expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely

attached to monarchy should unadvisedly encroach on the prerogative of

the monarch. Widely as they differed in spirit from the members of the

Long Parliament, they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament in meddling

with matters which lay beyond the sphere of the Estates of the realm,

and which were subject to the authority of the crown alone. The country,

he maintained, would never be well governed till the knights of shires

and the burgesses were content to be what their predecessors had been

in the days of Elizabeth. All the plans which men more observant

than himself of the signs of that time proposed, for the purpose of

maintaining a good understanding between the Court and the Commons,

he disdainfully rejected as crude projects, inconsistent with the

old polity of England. Towards the young orators, who were rising

to distinction and authority in the Lower House, his deportment was

ungracious: and he succeeded in making them, with scarcely an exception,

his deadly enemies. Indeed one of his most serious faults was

an inordinate contempt for youth: and this contempt was the more

unjustifiable, because his own experience in English politics was by no

means proportioned to his age. For so great a part of his life had been

passed abroad that he knew less of that world in which he found himself

on his return than many who might have been his sons.

For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. For very different

reasons he was equally disliked by the Court. His morals as well as his

polities were those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a young

law student, living much with men of wit and pleasure, his natural

gravity and his religious principles had to a great extent preserved

him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery; and he was by no means

likely, in advanced years and in declining health, to turn libertine.

On the vices of the young and gay he looked with an aversion almost as

bitter and contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors

of the sectaries. He missed no opportunity of showing his scorn of

the mimics, revellers, and courtesans who crowded the palace; and the

admonitions which he addressed to the King himself were very sharp,

and, what Charles disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any voice was

raised in favour of a minister loaded with the double odium of faults

which roused the fury of the people, and of virtues which annoyed and

importuned the sovereign. Southampton was no more. Ormond performed

the duties of friendship manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The

Chancellor fell with a great ruin. The seal was taken from him: the

Commons impeached him: his head was not safe: he fled from the country:

an act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile; and those who had

assailed and undermined him began to struggle for the fragments of his

power.

The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the

public appetite for revenge. Yet was the anger excited by the profusion

and negligence of the government, and by the miscarriages of the late

war, by no means extinguished. The counsellors of Charles, with the fate

of the Chancellor before their eyes, were anxious for their own safety.

They accordingly advised their master to soothe the irritation which

prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout the country, and for

that end, to take a step which has no parallel in the history of the

House of Stuart, and which was worthy of the prudence and magnanimity of

Oliver.

We have now reached a point at which the history of the great English

revolution begins to be complicated with the history of foreign

politics. The power of Spain had, during many years, been declining.

She still, it is true held in Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies,

Belgium, and Franche Comte. In America her dominions still spread, on

both sides of the equator, far beyond the limits of the torrid zone. But

this great body had been smitten with palsy, and was not only

incapable of giving molestation to other states, but could not, without

assistance, repel aggression. France was now, beyond all doubt,

the greatest power in Europe. Her resources have, since those days,

absolutely increased, but have not increased so fast as the resources

of England. It must also be remembered that, a hundred and eighty years

ago, the empire of Russia, now a monarchy of the first class, was as

entirely out of the system of European politics as Abyssinia or Siam,

that the House of Brandenburg was then hardly more powerful than the

House of Saxony, and that the republic of the United States had not

then begun to exist. The weight of France, therefore, though still very

considerable, has relatively diminished. Her territory was not in the

days of Lewis the Fourteenth quite so extensive as at present: but

it was large, compact, fertile, well placed both for attack and for

defence, situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, active,

and ingenious people. The state implicitly obeyed the direction of a

single mind. The great fiefs which, three hundred years before, had

been, in all but name, independent principalities, had been annexed to

the crown. Only a few old men could remember the last meeting of the

States General. The resistance which the Huguenots, the nobles, and the

parliaments had offered to the kingly power, had been put down by the

two great Cardinals who had ruled the nation during forty years. The

government was now a despotism, but, at least in its dealings with the

upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by courteous

manners and chivalrous sentiments. The means at the disposal of the

sovereign were, for that age, truly formidable. His revenue, raised, it

is true, by a severe and unequal taxation which pressed heavily on the

cultivators of the soil, far exceeded that of any other potentate. His

army, excellently disciplined, and commanded by the greatest generals

then living, already consisted of more than a hundred and twenty

thousand men. Such an array of regular troops had not been seen in

Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. Of maritime powers France

was not the first. But, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not

yet a superior. Such was her strength during the last forty years of the

seventeenth century, that no enemy could singly withstand her, and that

two great coalitions, in which half Christendom was united against her,

failed of success.

The personal qualities of the French King added to the respect inspired

by the power and importance of his kingdom. No sovereign has ever

represented the majesty of a great state with more dignity and grace. He

was his own prime minister, and performed the duties of a prime minister

with an ability and industry which could not be reasonably expected from

one who had in infancy succeeded to a crown, and who had been surrounded

by flatterers before he could speak. He had shown, in an eminent degree,

two talents invaluable to a prince, the talent of choosing his servants

well, and the talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the

credit of their acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some

generosity, but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves

at his feet, and had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his

protection with a romantic disinterestedness, which seemed better suited

to a knight errant than to a statesman. But he broke through the most

sacred ties of public faith without scruple or shame, whenever they

interfered with his interest, or with what he called his glory. His

perfidy and violence, however, excited less enmity than the insolence

with which he constantly reminded his neighbours of his own greatness

and of their littleness. He did not at this time profess the austere

devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a

monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as

frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere

Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to

use his power for the defence and propagation of the true faith, after

the example of his renowned predecessors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and Saint

Lewis.

Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on the growing power

of France. This feeling, in itself perfectly reasonable, was mingled

with other feelings less praiseworthy. France was our old enemy. It was

against France that the most glorious battles recorded in our annals

had been fought. The conquest of France had been twice effected by the

Plantagenets. The loss of France had been long remembered as a great

national disaster. The title of King of France was still borne by our

sovereigns. The lilies of France still appeared, mingled with our own

lions, on the shield of the House of Stuart. In the sixteenth century

the dread inspired by Spain had suspended the animosity of which France

had anciently been the object. But the dread inspired by Spain had given

place to contemptuous compassion; and France was again regarded as our

national foe. The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most generally

unpopular act of the restored King. Attachment to France had been

prominent among the crimes imputed by the Commons to CIarendon. Even in

trifles the public feeling showed itself. When a brawl took place in the

streets of Westminster between the retinues of the French and Spanish

embassies, the populace, though forcibly prevented from interfering,

had given unequivocal proofs that the old antipathy to France was not

extinct.

France and Spain were now engaged in a more serious contest. One of the

chief objects of the policy of Lewis throughout his life was to extend

his dominions towards the Rhine. For this end he had engaged in war

with Spain, and he was now in the full career of conquest. The United

Provinces saw with anxiety the progress of his arms. That renowned

federation had reached the height of power, prosperity, and glory. The

Batavian territory, conquered from the waves and defended against them

by human art, was in extent little superior to the principality of

Wales. But all that narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which

new wealth was every day created, and in which vast masses of old

wealth were hoarded. The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the

innumerable canals, the ever whirling mills, the endless fleets of

barges, the quick succession of great towns, the ports bristling with

thousands of masts, the large and stately mansions, the trim villas, the

richly furnished apartments, the picture galleries, the summer rouses,

the tulip beds, produced on English travellers in that age an effect

similar to the effect which the first sight of England now produces on a

Norwegian or a Canadian. The States General had been compelled to humble

themselves before Cromwell. But after the Restoration they had taken

their revenge, had waged war with success against Charles, and had

concluded peace on honourable terms. Rich, however, as the Republic

was, and highly considered in Europe, she was no match for the power of

Lewis. She apprehended, not without good cause, that his kingdom

might soon be extended to her frontiers; and she might well dread

the immediate vicinity of a monarch so great, so ambitious, and so

unscrupulous. Yet it was not easy to devise any expedient which might

avert the danger. The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against

France. On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expected. Several

German princes had been gained by Lewis; and the Emperor himself was

embarrassed by the discontents of Hungary. England was separated from

the United Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries recently

inflicted and endured; and her policy had, since the restoration, been

so devoid of wisdom and spirit, that it was scarcely possible to expect

from her any valuable assistance

But the fate of Clarendon and the growing ill humour of the Parliament

determined the advisers of Charles to adopt on a sudden a policy which

amazed and delighted the nation.

The English resident at Brussels, Sir William Temple, one of the most

expert diplomatists and most pleasing writers of that age, had already

represented to this court that it was both desirable and practicable

to enter into engagements with the States General for the purpose of

checking the progress of France. For a time his suggestions had been

slighted; but it was now thought expedient to act on them. He was

commissioned to negotiate with the States General. He proceeded to the

Hague, and soon came to an understanding with John De Witt, then the

chief minister of Holland. Sweden, small as her resources were, had,

forty years before, been raised by the genius of Gustavus Adolphus to

a high rank among European powers, and had not yet descended to her

natural position. She was induced to join on this occasion with England

and the States. Thus was formed that coalition known as the Triple

Alliance. Lewis showed signs of vexation and resentment, but did not

think it politic to draw on himself the hostility of such a confederacy

in addition to that of Spain. He consented, therefore, to relinquish

a large part of the territory which his armies had occupied. Peace was

restored to Europe; and the English government, lately an object of

general contempt, was, during a few months, regarded by foreign powers

with respect scarcely less than that which the Protector had inspired.

At home the Triple Alliance was popular in the highest degree. It

gratified alike national animosity and national pride. It put a limit

to the encroachments of a powerful and ambitious neighbour. It bound

the leading Protestant states together in close union. Cavaliers and

Roundheads rejoiced in common: but the joy of the Roundhead was even

greater than that of the Cavalier. For England had now allied herself

strictly with a country republican in government and Presbyterian in

religion, against a country ruled by an arbitrary prince and attached

to the Roman Catholic Church. The House of Commons loudly applauded the

treaty; and some uncourtly grumblers described it as the only good thing

that had been done since the King came in.

The King, however, cared little for the approbation of his Parliament

or of his people. The Triple Alliance he regarded merely as a temporary

expedient for quieting discontents which had seemed likely to become

serious. The independence, the safety, the dignity of the nation

over which he presided were nothing to him. He had begun to find

constitutional restraints galling. Already had been formed in the

Parliament a strong connection known by the name of the Country Party.

That party included all the public men who leaned towards Puritanism

and Republicanism, and many who, though attached to the Church and to

hereditary monarchy, had been driven into opposition by dread of Popery,

by dread of France, and by disgust at the extravagance, dissoluteness,

and faithlessness of the court. The power of this band of politicians

was constantly growing. Every year some of those members who had been

returned to Parliament during the loyal excitement of 1661 had dropped

off; and the vacant seats had generally been filled by persons less

tractable. Charles did not think himself a King while an assembly of

subjects could call for his accounts before paying his debts, and

could insist on knowing which of his mistresses or boon companions had

intercepted the money destined for the equipping and manning of the

fleet. Though not very studious of fame, he was galled by the taunts

which were sometimes uttered in the discussions of the Commons, and on

one occasion attempted to restrain the freedom of speech by disgraceful

means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had, in debate, sneered

at the profligacy of the court. In any former reign he would probably

have been called before the Privy Council and committed to the Tower. A

different course was now taken. A gang of bullies was secretly sent to

slit the nose of the offender. This ignoble revenge, instead of quelling

the spirit of opposition, raised such a tempest that the King was

compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing an act which

attainted the instruments of his revenge, and which took from him the

power of pardoning them.

But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, how was he to

emancipate himself from them? He could make himself despotic only by the

help of a great standing army; and such an army was not in existence.

His revenues did indeed enable him to keep up some regular troops:

but those troops, though numerous enough to excite great jealousy and

apprehension in the House of Commons and in the country, were scarcely

numerous enough to protect Whitehall and the Tower against a rising of

the mob of London. Such risings were, indeed to be dreaded; for it

was calculated that in the capital and its suburbs dwelt not less than

twenty thousand of Oliver's old soldiers.

Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control of

Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could not hope for

effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look for aid abroad.

The power and wealth of the King of France might be equal to the arduous

task of establishing absolute monarchy in England. Such an ally would

undoubtedly expect substantial proofs of gratitude for such a service.

Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace

and war according to the directions of the government which protected

him. His relation to Lewis would closely resemble that in which

the Rajah of Nagpore and the King of Oude now stand to the British

Government. Those princes are bound to aid the East India Company in

all hostilities, defensive and offensive, and to have no diplomatic

relations but such as the East India Company shall sanction. The

Company in return guarantees them against insurrection. As long as they

faithfully discharge their obligations to the paramount power, they

are permitted to dispose of large revenues, to fill their palaces with

beautiful women, to besot themselves in the company of their favourite

revellers, and to oppress with impunity any subject who may incur their

displeasure. [18] Such a life would be insupportable to a man of high

spirit and of powerful understanding. But to Charles, sensual, indolent,

unequal to any strong intellectual exertion, and destitute alike of

all patriotism and of all sense of personal dignity, the prospect had

nothing unpleasing.

That the Duke of York should have concurred in the design of degrading

that crown which it was probable that he would himself one day wear may

seem more extraordinary. For his nature was haughty and imperious; and,

indeed, he continued to the very last to show, by occasional starts and

struggles, his impatience of the French yoke. But he was almost as much

debased by superstition as his brother by indolence and vice. James

was now a Roman Catholic. Religious bigotry had become the dominant

sentiment of his narrow and stubborn mind, and had so mingled

itself with his love of rule, that the two passions could hardly be

distinguished from each other. It seemed highly improbable that, without

foreign aid, he would be able to obtain ascendency, or even toleration,

for his own faith: and he was in a temper to see nothing humiliating in

any step which might promote the interests of the true Church.

A negotiation was opened which lasted during several months. The chief

agent between the English and French courts was the beautiful, graceful,

and intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles, sister

in law of Lewis, and a favourite with both. The King of England offered

to declare himself a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alliance,

and to join with France against Holland, if France would engage to lend

him such military and pecuniary aid as might make him independent of

his parliament. Lewis at first affected to receive these propositions

coolly, and at length agreed to them with the air of a man who is

conferring a great favour: but in truth, the course which he had

resolved to take was one by which he might gain and could not lose.

It seems certain that he never seriously thought of establishing

despotism and Popery in England by force of arms. He must have been

aware that such an enterprise would be in the highest degree arduous and

hazardous, that it would task to the utmost all the energies of France

during many years, and that it would be altogether incompatible with

more promising schemes of aggrandisement, which were dear to his heart.

He would indeed willingly have acquired the merit and the glory of doing

a great service on reasonable terms to the Church of which he was a

member. But he was little disposed to imitate his ancestors who, in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had led the flower of French chivalry

to die in Syria and Egypt: and he well knew that a crusade against

Protestantism in Great Britain would not be less perilous than the

expeditions in which the armies of Lewis the Seventh and of Lewis the

Ninth had perished. He had no motive for wishing the Stuarts to be

absolute. He did not regard the English constitution with feelings at

all resembling those which have in later times induced princes to make

war on the free institutions of neighbouring nations. At present a

great party zealous for popular government has ramifications in every

civilised country. And important advantage gained anywhere by that party

is almost certain to be the signal for general commotion. It is not

wonderful that governments threatened by a common danger should combine

for the purpose of mutual insurance. But in the seventeenth century no

such danger existed. Between the public mind of England and the public

mind of France, there was a great gulph. Our institutions and our

factions were as little understood at Paris as at Constantinople. It may

be doubted whether any one of the forty members of the French Academy

had an English volume in his library, or knew Shakespeare, Jonson, or

Spenser, even by name. A few Huguenots, who had inherited the mutinous

spirit of their ancestors, might perhaps have a fellow feeling with

their brethren in the faith, the English Roundheads: but the Huguenots

had ceased to be formidable. The French, as a people, attached to the

Church of Rome, and proud of the greatness of their King and of their

own loyalty, looked on our struggles against Popery and arbitrary power,

not only without admiration or sympathy, but with strong disapprobation

and disgust. It would therefore be a great error to ascribe the conduct

of Lewis to apprehensions at all resembling those which, in our age,

induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal troubles of

Naples and Spain.

Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of Whitehall were

most welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs, which were

destined to keep Europe in constant fermentation during more than forty

years. He wished to humble the United Provinces, and to annex Belgium,

Franche Comte, and Loraine to his dominions. Nor was this all. The King

of Spain was a sickly child. It was likely that he would die without

issue. His eldest sister was Queen of France. A day would almost

certainly come, and might come very soon, when the House of Bourbon

might lay claim to that vast empire on which the sun never set. The

union of two great monarchies under one head would doubtless be opposed

by a continental coalition. But for any continental coalition France

singlehanded was a match. England could turn the scale. On the course

which, in such a crisis, England might pursue, the destinies of the

world would depend; and it was notorious that the English Parliament

and nation were strongly attached to the policy which had dictated the

Triple Alliance. Nothing, therefore, could be more gratifying to Lewis

than to learn that the princes of the House of Stuart needed his help,

and were willing to purchase that help by unbounded subserviency. He

determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid down for himself a

plan to which, without deviation, he adhered, till the Revolution of

1688 disconcerted all his politics. He professed himself desirous to

promote the designs of the English court. He promised large aid. He from

time to time doled out such aid as might serve to keep hope alive, and

as he could without risk or inconvenience spare. In this way, at an

expense very much less than that which he incurred in building and

decorating Versailles or Marli, he succeeded in making England, during

nearly twenty years, almost as insignificant a member of the political

system of Europe as the republic of San Marino.

His object was not to destroy our constitution, but to keep the various

elements of which it was composed in a perpetual state of conflict,

and to set irreconcilable enmity between those who had the power of the

purse and those who had the power of the sword. With this view he bribed

and stimulated both parties in turn, pensioned at once the ministers

of the crown and the chiefs of the opposition, encouraged the court to

withstand the seditious encroachments of the Parliament, and conveyed to

the Parliament intimations of the arbitrary designs of the court.

One of the devices to which he resorted for the purpose of obtaining an

ascendency in the English counsels deserves especial notice. Charles,

though incapable of love in the highest sense of the word, was the

slave of any woman whose person excited his desires, and whose airs and

prattle amused his leisure. Indeed a husband would be justly derided

who should bear from a wife of exalted rank and spotless virtue half the

insolence which the King of England bore from concubines who, while they

owed everything to his bounty, caressed his courtiers almost before his

face. He had patiently endured the termagant passions of Barbara Palmer

and the pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis thought that the

most useful envoy who could be sent to London, would be a handsome,

licentious, and crafty Frenchwoman. Such a woman was Louisa, a lady of

the House of Querouaille, whom our rude ancestors called Madam Carwell.

She was soon triumphant over all her rivals, was created Duchess of

Portsmouth, was loaded with wealth, and obtained a dominion which ended

only with the life of Charles.

The most important conditions of the alliance between the crowns were

digested into a secret treaty which was signed at Dover in May, 1670,

just ten years after the day on which Charles had landed at that very

port amidst the acclamations and joyful tears of a too confiding people.

By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public profession of the

Roman Catholic religion, to join his arms to those of Lewis for the

purpose of destroying the power of the United Provinces, and to employ

the whole strength of England, by land and sea, in support of the rights

of the House of Bourbon to the vast monarchy of Spain. Lewis, on the

other hand, engaged to pay a large subsidy, and promised that, if any

insurrection should break out in England, he would send an army at his

own charge to support his ally.

This compact was made with gloomy auspices. Six weeks after it had

been signed and sealed, the charming princess, whose influence over her

brother and brother in law had been so pernicious to her country, was

no more. Her death gave rise to horrible suspicions which, for a moment,

seemed likely to interrupt the newly formed friendship between the

Houses of Stuart and Bourbon: but in a short time fresh assurances of

undiminished good will were exchanged between the confederates.

The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical to care

about it, was impatient to see the article touching the Roman Catholic

religion carried into immediate execution: but Lewis had the wisdom

to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would be such an

explosion in England as would probably frustrate those parts of the plan

which he had most at heart. It was therefore determined that Charles

should still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high

festivals, receive the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church

of England. His more scrupulous brother ceased to appear in the royal

chapel.

About this time died the Duchess of York, daughter of the banished

Earl of Clarendon. She had been, during some years, a concealed Roman

Catholic. She left two daughters, Mary and Anne, afterwards successively

Queens of Great Britain. They were bred Protestants by the positive

command of the King, who knew that it would be vain for him to profess

himself a member of the Church of England, if children who seemed likely

to inherit his throne were, by his permission, brought up as members of

the Church of Rome.

The principal servants of the crown at this time were men whose names

have justly acquired an unenviable notoriety. We must take heed,

however, that we do not load their memory with infamy which of right

belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover the King himself is

chiefly answerable. He held conferences on it with the French agents:

he wrote many letters concerning it with his own hand: he was the person

who first suggested the most disgraceful articles which it contained;

and he carefully concealed some of those articles from the majority of

his Cabinet.

Few things in our history are more curious than the origin and growth of

the power now possessed by the Cabinet. From an early period the

Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Council to which the law

assigned many important functions and duties. During several centuries

this body deliberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But

by degrees its character changed. It became too large for despatch and

secrecy. The rank of Privy Councillor was often bestowed as an honorary

distinction on persons to whom nothing was confided, and whose opinion

was never asked. The sovereign, on the most important occasions,

resorted for advice to a small knot of leading ministers. The advantages

and disadvantages of this course were early pointed out by Bacon,

with his usual judgment and sagacity: but it was not till after the

Restoration that the interior council began to attract general notice.

During many years old fashioned politicians continued to regard the

Cabinet as an unconstitutional and dangerous board. Nevertheless, it

constantly became more and more important. It at length drew to itself

the chief executive power, and has now been regarded, during several

generations as an essential part of our polity. Yet, strange to say, it

still continues to be altogether unknown to the law: the names of the

noblemen and gentlemen who compose it are never officially announced to

the public: no record is kept of its meetings and resolutions; nor has

its existence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliament.

During some years the word Cabal was popularly used as synonymous with

Cabinet. But it happened by a whimsical coincidence that, in 1671, the

Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial letters of whose names

made up the word Cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and

Lauderdale. These ministers were therefore emphatically called the

Cabal; and they soon made that appellation so infamous that it has never

since their time been used except as a term of reproach.

Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treasury, and had greatly

distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the

Cabal he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery and imperious

temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and

honour.

Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had since he came

to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had learned that

cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions which is often

observable in persons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy.

If there was any form of government which he liked it was that of

France. If there was any Church for which he felt a preference, it was

that of Rome. He had some talent for conversation, and some talent also

for transacting the ordinary business of office. He had learned, during

a life passed in travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating

his language and deportment to the society in which he found himself.

His vivacity in the closet amused the King: his gravity in debates and

conferences imposed on the public; and he had succeeded in attaching to

himself, partly by services and partly by hopes, a considerable number

of personal retainers.

Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in whom the immorality which

was epidemic among the politicians of that age appeared in its most

malignant type, but variously modified by greet diversities of temper

and understanding. Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had

turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself

with architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for

the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret

negotiation and a Dutch war. He had already, rather from fickleness

and love of novelty than from any deep design, been faithless to every

party. At one time he had ranked among the Cavaliers. At another

time warrants had been out against him for maintaining a treasonable

correspondence with the remains of the Republican party in the city. He

was now again a courtier, and was eager to win the favour of the King

by services from which the most illustrious of those who had fought and

suffered for the royal house would have recoiled with horror.

Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far fiercer and more

earnest ambition, had been equally versatile. But Ashley's versatility

was the effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had

served and betrayed a succession of governments. But he had timed all

his treacheries so well that through all revolutions, his fortunes

had constantly been rising. The multitude, struck with admiration by

a prosperity which, while everything else was constantly changing,

remained unchangeable, attributed to him a prescience almost miraculous,

and likened him to the Hebrew statesman of whom it is written that his

counsel was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God.

Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, was, perhaps, under

the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the

whole Cabal. He had made himself conspicuous among the Scotch insurgents

of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was accused of having been

deeply concerned in the sale of Charles the First to the English

Parliament, and was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a

traitor, if possible, of a worse description than those who had sate in

the High Court of Justice. He often talked with a noisy jocularity

of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief

instrument employed by the court in the work of forcing episcopacy

on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that cause shrink from the

unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew

him knew that thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments,

that he still hated the memory of Charles the First, and that he still

preferred the Presbyterian form of church government to every other.

Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were, it was not

thought safe to intrust to them the King's intention of declaring

himself a Roman Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article

concerning religion was omitted, was shown to them. The names and seals

of Clifford and Arlington are affixed to the genuine treaty. Both these

statesmen had a partiality for the old Church, a partiality which the

brave and vehement Clifford in no long time manfully avowed, but which

the colder and meaner Arlington concealed, till the near approach of

death scared him into sincerity. The three other cabinet ministers,

however, were not men to be kept easily in the dark, and probably

suspected more than was distinctly avowed to them. They were certainly

privy to all the political engagements contracted with France, and were

not ashamed to receive large gratifications from Lewis.

The first object of Charles was to obtain from the Commons supplies

which might be employed in executing the secret treaty. The Cabal,

holding power at a time when our government was in a state of

transition, united in itself two different kinds of vices belonging

to two different ages and to two different systems. As those five evil

counsellors were among the last English statesmen who seriously thought

of destroying the Parliament, so they were the first English statesmen

who attempted extensively to corrupt it. We find in their policy at once

the latest trace of the Thorough of Strafford, and the earliest trace of

that methodical bribery which was afterwards practiced by Walpole. They

soon perceived, however, that, though the House of Commons was chiefly

composed of Cavaliers, and though places and French gold had been

lavished on the members, there was no chance that even the least odious

parts of the scheme arranged at Dover would be supported by a majority.

It was necessary to have recourse to fraud. The King professed great

zeal for the principles of the Triple Alliance, and pretended that, in

order to hold the ambition of France in check, it would be necessary to

augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the snare, and voted a grant of

eight hundred thousand pounds. The Parliament was instantly prorogued;

and the court, thus emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution

of the great design.

The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with Holland

could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary revenue was not

more than sufficient to support the government in time of peace. The

eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the Commons had just been

tricked would not defray the naval and military charge of a single year

of hostilities. After the terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament,

even the Cabal did not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney.

In this perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of

public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers in the

precious metals, but also bankers, and were in the habit of advancing

large sums of money to the government. In return for these advances they

received assignments on the revenue, and were repaid with interest as

the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred thousand pounds had been

in this way intrusted to the honour of the state. On a sudden it was

announced that it was not convenient to pay the principal, and that the

lenders must content themselves with interest. They were consequently

unable to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar:

several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay and distress

spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides were made towards

despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of Parliament, or

enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully enjoin, appeared in rapid

succession. Of these edicts the most important was the Declaration of

Indulgence. By this instrument the penal laws against Roman Catholics

were set aside; and, that the real object of the measure might not

be perceived, the laws against Protestant Nonconformists were also

suspended.

A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence, war

was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch maintained

the struggle with honour; but on land they were at first borne down by

irresistible force. A great French army passed the Rhine. Fortress

after fortress opened its gates. Three of the seven provinces of the

federation were occupied by the invaders. The fires of the hostile camp

were seen from the top of the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic,

thus fiercely assailed from without, was torn at the same time by

internal dissensions. The government was in the hands of a close

oligarchy of powerful burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town

Councils, each of which exercised within its own sphere, many of the

rights of sovereignty. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial

States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the States

General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential part of this

polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile of great men, had

gradually obtained a large and somewhat indefinite authority. William,

first of the name, Prince of Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland,

had headed the memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had

been Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent

abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel

actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had bequeathed

a great part of that power to his family. The influence of the

Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy to the municipal

oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of citizens which was

excluded from all share in the government, looked on the Burgomasters

and Deputies with a dislike resembling the dislike with which the

legions and the common people of Rome regarded the Senate, and were as

zealous for the House of Orange as the legions and the common people of

Rome for the House of Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of

the commonwealth, disposed of all military commands, had a large share

of the civil patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal.

Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the oligarchical

party. His life had terminated in the year 1650, amidst great civil

troubles. He died childless: the adherents of his house were left for

a short time without a head; and the powers which he had exercised were

divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial States, and the States

General.

But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter of

Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son, destined

to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau to the highest

point, to save the United Provinces from slavery, to curb the power

of France, and to establish the English constitution on a lasting

foundation.

This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object of

serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of loyal

attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high consideration

as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the chief of one of the most

illustrious houses in Europe, as a Magnate of the German empire, as a

prince of the blood royal of England, and, above all, as the descendant

of the founders of Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once

been considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance; and

the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should never

be another Stadtholder. The want of a first magistrate was, to a great

extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the Province of Holland,

John De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and integrity had raised him to

unrivalled authority in the councils of the municipal oligarchy.

The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and

terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their madness

they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest statesmen of the

distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by the rabble. De Witt

was torn in pieces before the gate of the palace of the States General

at the Hague. The Prince of Orange, who had no share in the guilt of

the murder, but who, on this occasion, as on another lamentable occasion

twenty years later, extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an

indulgence which has left a stain on his glory, became chief of

the government without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and

unconquerable spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon

roused the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both

his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to seduce him

from the cause of the Republic. To the States General he spoke a high

and inspiriting language. He even ventured to suggest a scheme which has

an aspect of antique heroism, and which, if it had been accomplished,

would have been the noblest subject for epic song that is to be found in

the whole compass of modern history. He told the deputies that, even if

their natal soil and the marvels with which human industry had covered

it were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders might

survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by tyrants and

bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest isles of Asia. The

shipping in the ports of the republic would suffice to carry two

hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian Archipelago. There the Dutch

commonwealth might commence a new and more glorious existence, and might

rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees,

the Exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned

Leyden. The national spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered

by the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole

country was turned into one great lake from which the cities, with their

ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders were forced to

save themselves from destruction by a precipitate retreat. Lewis, who,

though he sometimes thought it necessary to appear at the head of his

troops, greatly preferred a palace to a camp, had already returned

to enjoy the adulation of poets and the smiles of ladies in the newly

planted alleys of Versailles.

And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had been

doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a respite; and a

respite, though short, was of infinite importance. Alarmed by the vast

designs of Lewis, both the branches of the great House of Austria sprang

to arms. Spain and Holland, divided by the memory of ancient wrongs and

humiliations, were reconciled by the nearness of the common danger.

From every part of Germany troops poured towards the Rhine. The English

government had already expended all the funds which had been obtained by

pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the City.

An attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have at once

produced a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain a contest

against half Europe, was in no condition to furnish the means of

coercing the people of England. It was necessary to convoke the

Parliament.

In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a recess

of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord Treasurer, and Ashley,

now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor, were the persons on whom

the King principally relied as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party

instantly began to attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made,

not in the way of storm, but by slow and scientific approaches. The

Commons at first held out hopes that they would give support to the

king's foreign policy, but insisted that he should purchase that support

by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their chief object

was to obtain the revocation of the Declaration of Indulgence. Of all

the many unpopular steps taken by the government the most unpopular was

the publishing of this Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had

been shocked by an act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All

the enemies of religious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom,

found themselves on the same side; and these two classes made up

nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman exclaimed

against the favour which had been shown both to the Papist and to the

Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice in the suspension of the

persecution by which he had been harassed, felt little gratitude for a

toleration which he was to share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who

valued liberty and law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the

prerogative had made into the province of the legislature.

It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question was then

not quite free from obscurity. Our ancient Kings had undoubtedly claimed

and exercised the right of suspending the operation of penal laws. The

tribunals had recognised that right. Parliaments had suffered it to pass

unchallenged. That some such right was inherent in the crown, few even

of the Country Party ventured, in the face of precedent and authority,

to deny. Yet it was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit,

the English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure

despotism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King and his

ministers. Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay within or without

the limit was the question; and neither party could succeed in tracing

any line which would bear examination. Some opponents of the government

complained that the Declaration suspended not less than forty statutes.

But why not forty as well as one? There was an orator who gave it as his

opinion that the King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but

not with good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless

to expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received

in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was confined to

secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted for the security

of the established religion. Yet, as the King was supreme head of the

Church, it should seem that, if he possessed the dispensing power at

all, he might well possess that power where the Church was concerned.

When the courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the bounds

of this prerogative, they were not more successful than the opposition

had been.

The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in politics.

It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of mixed

government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled themselves

little about theories. [19] It had not been very grossly abused in

practice. It had therefore been tolerated, and had gradually acquired a

kind of prescription. At length it was employed, after a long interval,

in an enlightened age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent

never before known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was

instantly subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,

venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they began

to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit of the

constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the English government

from a limited into an absolute monarchy.

Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the King's

right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but with penal

statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand

that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no supply for the

Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything

to hazard; but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity,

and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now employed in an

arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose

of suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs of

disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial

sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and that all things

were tending towards a crisis resembling that of 1640. He was determined

that such a crisis should not find him in the situation of Strafford.

He therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of

Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. The King, thus deserted by

his ally and by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and

solemnly promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.

Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content with

having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next extorted his

unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in force down

to the reign of George the Fourth. This law, known as the Test Act,

provided that all persons holding any office, civil or military, should

take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a declaration against

transubstantiation, and should publicly receive the sacrament according

to the rites of the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility

only to the Papists: but the enacting clauses were scarcely more

unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The Puritans,

however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court towards Popery,

and encouraged by some churchmen to hope that, as soon as the Roman

Catholics should have been effectually disarmed, relief would be

extended to Protestant Nonconformists, made little opposition; nor could

the King, who was in extreme want of money, venture to withhold his

sanction. The act was passed; and the Duke of York was consequently

under the necessity of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral.

Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But, when

the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out, relinquished

his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously on his foreign

policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham and Lauderdale from his

councils forever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of

impeaching Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford,

who, alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man,

refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and retired to

his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of Secretary of State for

a quiet and dignified employment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury

and Buckingham made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at

the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still

continued to be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the English

Parliament could not interfere.

And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland, and

expressly declared that no more supplies should be granted for the war,

unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately refused to consent

to reasonable terms. Charles found it necessary to postpone to a more

convenient season all thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to

cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple

Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived

in seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from his

hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was concluded with

the United Provinces; and he again became ambassador at the Hague, where

his presence was regarded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his

court.

The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne,

a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, shown eminent

talents for business and debate. Osborne became Lord Treasurer, and was

soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a man whose character, if tried

by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He

was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of

others. The Cabal had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments,

an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to

which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on

the plan of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators:

but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new

minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was

not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did

he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the

interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed,

to exalt the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt

it were widely different from those which had been contemplated by

Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary power, by

calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the kingdom to the

rank of a dependent principality, never entered into his mind. His plan

was to rally round the monarchy those classes which had been the firm

allies of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding generation,

and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the

court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the

country gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might,

he conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute

sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had

been.

Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing to the

Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political power both

executive and legislative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was

offered to the Lords which provided that no person should hold any

office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, without first

declaring on oath that he considered resistance to the kingly power as

in all cases criminal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the

government either in Church or State. During several weeks the debates,

divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a

state of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by

two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace with the

nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all precedent vehement

and pertinacious, and at length proved successful. The bill was not

indeed rejected, but was retarded, mutilated, and at length suffered to

drop.

So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domestic policy. His

opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour. They were in truth

directly opposed to those of the Cabal and differed little from those of

the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the degraded situation to which

England was reduced, and declared, with more energy than politeness,

that his dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper respect

for her. So little did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet

where the most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church

were assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the confusion

of all who were against a war with France. He would indeed most gladly

have seen his country united with the powers which were then combined

against Lewis, and was for that end bent on placing Temple, the author

of the Triple Alliance, at the head of the department which directed

foreign affairs. But the power of the prime minister was limited. In

his most confidential letters he complained that the infatuation of his

master prevented England from taking her proper place among European

nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by no

means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day, be able

to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French arms; and for

both reasons he wished to maintain a good understanding with the court

of Versailles.

Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics,

and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither the

sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue any object

with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded to the importunity

of the other; and their jarring inclinations and mutual concessions gave

to the whole administration a strangely capricious character. Charles

sometimes, from levity and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which

Lewis resented as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather

than relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances which

caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to consent to a

marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and presumptive heiress

of the Duke of York and William of Orange, the deadly enemy of France

and the hereditary champion of the Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of

Ossory, son of Ormond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some British

troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war, signally

vindicated the national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer,

on the other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous

pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and the court

of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and ungraciously, an

agent in those transactions.

Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in two

opposite directions. The popular leaders were afraid of the greatness

of Lewis, who was not only making head against the whole strength of the

continental alliance, but was even gaining ground. Yet they were afraid

to entrust their own King with the means of curbing France, lest those

means should be used to destroy the liberties of England. The conflict

between these apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate,

made the policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that

of the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the King,

pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield,

and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw that the recruiting

had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave place to a nearer dread. They

began to fear that the new levies might be employed on a service in

which Charles took much more interest than in the defence of Flanders.

They therefore refused supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly

as they had just before clamoured for arming. Those historians who

have severely reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made

sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects who have

reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign and

hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him military resources

is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give him military resources

may be only to arm him against the state. In such circumstances

vacillation cannot be considered as a proof of dishonesty or even of

weakness.

These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He had

long kept England passive by promising to support the throne against the

Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the patriotic counsels

of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, began to inflame the

Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis and the Country Party there

was one thing, and one only in common, profound distrust of Charles.

Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign meant

only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him.

Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to

make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt

to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were

such that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing in

nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally

desirous to keep him poor and without an army. Communications were

opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English

politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the

greatest dread and dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of

the Country Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did

not scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for embarrassing

his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of Russell's offence. His

principles and his fortune alike raised him above all temptations of a

sordid kind: but there is too much reason to believe that some of his

associates were less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them

the extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the

contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny that

they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them

for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this degrading

charge was one man who is popularly considered as the personification

of public spirit, and who, in spite of some great moral and intellectual

faults, has a just claim to be called a hero, a philosopher, and a

patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a name in the list of

the pensioners of France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in

our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and

of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered the

virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney.

The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasionally

took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the continental

war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated by the treaty of

Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672 had seemed to be on the

verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous terms. This

narrow escape was generally ascribed to the ability and courage of the

young Stadtholder. His fame was great throughout Europe, and especially

among the English, who regarded him as one of their own princes, and

rejoiced to see him the husband of their future Queen. France retained

many important towns in the Low Countries and the great province of

Franche Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy

of Spain.

A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent came

a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things had

been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popularity, great

as it was, with which the King had commenced his administration,

had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound

disaffection. The public mind had now measured back again the space

over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the

state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met.

The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these

was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a

few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland

and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the

Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished; and it might have

been expected that she would have been at least as highly considered

in Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing

obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost

vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet

she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers,

sunk so low that any German or Italian principality which brought

five thousand men into the field was a more important member of the

commonwealth of nations.

With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for civil

liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more alarming by

reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court a deliberate design

against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It had even

been whispered that this design was to be carried into effect by the

intervention of foreign arms. The thought of Such intervention made the

blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always

professed the doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now

heard to mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a

foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would not

answer for their own patience.

But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so

great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Catholic

religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the

community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those

who were Protestants from conviction. The cruelties of Mary's reign,

cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite

just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related

in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and

above all the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep

and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations, prayers,

bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which

were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy

and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of

Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices; the landed

gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign

of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree

given place to hatred of Puritanism; but, during the eighteen years

which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had

abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations of the

treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but some hints had

got abroad. The general impression was that a great blow was about to

be aimed at the Protestant religion. The King was suspected by many of a

leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir presumptive was known to be

a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman

Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House

of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman

Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to

fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession

of princes, hostile to the established faith, might sit on the English

throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of

protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the

policy of England had, during many years, been chiefly governed, was not

only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under

such circumstances it is not strange that the common people should have

been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called

Bloody Mary.

Thus the nation was in such a temper that the smallest spark might raise

a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the

vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole was in a

blaze.

The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, artfully

contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, by the

instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless man who

had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of

Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an application

made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles for a sum of

money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was,

in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on account of his

delinquencies, but on account of his merits; not because he had been

an accomplice in a criminal transaction, but because he had been a most

unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the circumstances, which

have, in the judgment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his

contemporaries were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had

sold England to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an

end, and doubtful whether his head could be saved.

Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when compared with

the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad that a great Popish

plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a clergyman of the Church of

England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on

himself the censure of his spiritual superiors, had been compelled to

quit his benefice, and had ever since led an infamous and vagrant life.

He had once professed himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time

on the Continent in English colleges of the order of Jesus. In those

seminaries he had heard much wild talk about the best means of

bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he

constructed a hideous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man

than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope,

he said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The

Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed

Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest

offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once.

They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning

a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping in the Thames. They were

to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neighbours. A

French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading

statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four

schemes had been formed for assassinating the King. He was to be

stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his medicine He was to be shot with

silver bullets. The public mind was so sore and excitable that these

lies readily found credit with the vulgar; and two events which speedily

took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though

evidently distorted and exaggerated, might have some foundation.

Edward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Catholic

intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was made for his

papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the greater part of

them. But a few which had escaped contained some passages such as,

to minds strongly prepossessed, might seem to confirm the evidence of

Oates. Those passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to

express little more than the hopes which the posture of affairs, the

predilections of Charles, the still stronger predilections of James,

and the relations existing between the French and English courts, might

naturally excite in the mind of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to

the interests of his Church. But the country was not then inclined to

construe the letters of Papists candidly; and it was urged, with

some show of reason, that, if papers which had been passed over as

unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery

of iniquity must have been contained in those documents which had been

carefully committed to the flames.