At the time when English gaols were filled with Nonconformists, and
English citizens were driven into exile, the English Sovereign offered
an asylum to Protestant refugees from France; thus, at the same moment,
persecuting his own conscientious subjects, and befriending those
like-minded, who suffered from the tyranny of Louis XIV.
[Sidenote: FRENCH PROTESTANTS.]
After the Edict of Nantes, in 1591, had formally guaranteed to the
Huguenots liberty of worship, vexatious interferences with their
religious rights goaded them to resistance, and revived those political
and military combinations which had proved so mischievous to the French
Reformation. But, before the middle of the seventeenth century, the
French Protestants became a purely religious community. The Count
d’Harcourt bore witness to their loyalty in the well-known words, “the
Crown tottered on the King’s head, but you have fixed it there:” and
Cardinal Mazarin testified to their good conduct, when he said, “I
have no cause to complain of the little flock,--if they browse on bad
herbage, at least they do not stray away.”[118] The latter illustrious
statesman, although a religious enemy, was a political protector of his
Protestant countrymen; and, soon after his death in 1661, they became
fully aware of the loss which they had sustained. His Royal master
determined to govern alone, at the very moment when he became more than
ever the slave of the Church; and, gathering up the reins entirely
within his own hands, he sought to atone for his immoralities by the
extirpation of heretical opinions. The conversion of the French King
was a change from courtly gallantries to religious persecution,--from
sensuality to intolerance,--from vice to crime. It is impossible to
say, in how many districts he interdicted the exercise of the Reformed
religion; how many places of worship he razed; how many schools he
suppressed; how many Protestant endowments he confiscated for Roman
Catholic purposes. Ordinances, declarations, decrees, and other acts of
Council swiftly followed one after another, striking the heretics with
blow upon blow.[119]
In 1681, Louis began his atrocious system of dragonnading, which
consisted in billeting ten or twelve military brigands in a Protestant
family, with authority to do anything short of murder, for the
conversion of its members to Popery. Curés shouted to these new
apostles, “Courage, gentlemen, it is the will of the King.”[120]
Horsemen fastened crosses to the ends of their musquetoons, and
compelled people to kiss them. They whipped their victims, they smote
them on the face, they dragged them about by the hair of their heads,
and drove them to church as they might drive so many cattle.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
In the middle of the seventeenth century, French exiles had established
themselves in different parts of England. A French Church had been
founded at Winchelsea in 1560, at Canterbury in 1561, at Norwich in
1564, with others at Southampton, Glastonbury, and Rye. A Church at
Sandtoft, Lincolnshire, dated from 1634; in the Savoy, from 1641; in
Dover, from 1646; in Marylebone, 1656; not to mention others.[121] The
Dragonnades, in 1681, sent at once a new and unprecedented wave of
emigration across the Channel.
[Sidenote: FRENCH PROTESTANTS.]
Charles II., who did not blush to receive a pension from Louis XIV.
for betraying the interests of his country, now came forward in
favour of the fugitives--from good nature, or through advice, or
in order to please the English Protestants, perhaps from all three
motives combined. By an edict, signed at Hampton Court, on the 28th
of July, 1681, he declared that he felt obliged by his honour and
his conscience, to succour the people who were fleeing into exile.
He therefore accorded them letters of naturalization, with all the
privileges necessary for the exercise of such trades as would not
injure the interests of his kingdom. He engaged that he would ask
the next Parliament to naturalize all who should seek refuge in
this island, and in the meantime he exempted them from all imposts
to which his other subjects were not liable. He authorized them
to send their children to the public schools and Universities. He
ordered all his officers, both civil and military, to receive them
wherever they landed, to give them passports gratuitously, and to
furnish such relief as might be necessary for them to travel to their
destination. He also instructed the Commissioners of the Treasury, and
of the Customs, to let the strangers pass free, with their furniture,
their merchandize, and their instruments of trade; and, further, he
encouraged charitable persons to assist those who were in want. He
also commissioned the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
London to receive their requests and present them to him. To this
edict there succeeded, before long, an order in Council which granted
naturalization to eleven hundred and fifty-four fugitives;[122] and
boat after boat arrived freighted with these sufferers. Such sympathy
with the persecuted, however just, appears very inconsistent. About
a hundred years earlier, the Jesuits had turned the tables on the
intolerant Lutherans and Calvinists of the empire, by saying that
Catholic sovereigns had as much right to deny religious liberty as
Protestant ones;[123] and Louis could have taken sufficient ground for
retorting upon Charles after the same fashion. Reports were circulated
to the discredit of the refugees--and were met, on the other hand, by
friendly certificates from Incumbents and Churchwardens, testifying
of them as “sober, harmless, innocent people, such as served God
constantly and uniformly, according to the usage and custom of the
Church of England.”[124] In 1682, Charles issued briefs to the clergy
to make collections for the new comers; and, in this beneficent work,
Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, took part. Beveridge, then a Prebendary
in Canterbury Cathedral, from some mistaken scruple--or from coolness
towards a foreign Church--objected to reading the brief, as contrary to
the rubric. This circumstance brought out Tillotson’s well-known reply,
“Doctor, Doctor, charity is above rubrics.”[125]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The persecutions of these French Protestants, their arrival on our
shores, and the kindness with which they were received, are not
mentioned here simply because they are incidents of a religious
character locally connected with our own country, but for another
and more forcible reason. These persecutions had become a staple of
conversation in many an English home; and many an English heart had
palpitated with deep sympathy, as stories of violence and suffering
had fallen on the ear. Each fresh gust of intolerance, as it broke on
France, had stirred the feelings of English Puritans, scarcely less
than the feelings of French Protestants living on this side Dover
Straits. And the revival of oppression, after the death of Mazarin,
could not fail to inspire indignation in the breasts of multitudes
within our shores when the anti-Popery agitation burst out afresh.
The sight of the fugitives, their tales of horrid barbarity, of
patient endurance, and of romantic adventure, would reinvigorate
the Protestantism of our fathers, and largely contribute to that
fixed resolve, which defied the contrivances of Charles and James,
and ended in what has been ever since esteemed the _Glorious_
Revolution.[126]
[Sidenote: THE CABINET.]
It was natural for foreign Protestants to look to England for help in
more ways than one. The Archbishop of Canterbury received a letter
from Dr. Covel, chaplain at the Hague to the Princess of Orange, urging
the formation of a public League in defence of European Protestantism.
Sancroft did not possess the courage and heroism to promote such a
measure, had it been wise; but he did possess the sagacity and prudence
to see that the object desired was not wise; and, in addition to those
qualities, he displayed, in the answer to his correspondent, a large
measure of Protestant sympathy and devout feeling.[127]
The prospects of Protestantism became darker and darker. The Act for
excluding Papists from office was for a while cunningly evaded by
Charles, who placed the whole business of the Admiralty in the hands of
his brother, the Duke of York, he himself signing all official papers
in that department:--at last, this shadowy pretence he cast aside, and
boldly invited James to a seat at the Council-table--a step which even
one of his Tory supporters acknowledged “became the subject of much
talk, and was deemed to be a breach of one of the most solemn and most
explicit Acts of Parliament.”[128] Two other persons, at the same time
Members of the Council, ought to be noticed. One was Lord Chief Justice
Jeffreys, too infamous a character to require anything more than the
mention of his name; and Lord Keeper Guilford, who, whilst hating
Jeffreys with a bitter hatred, in some respects resembled him. The part
which these men took at this time in relation to Papists and Protestant
Nonconformists, and the manner of their conducting ecclesiastical
business, are illustrated by the following incident.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
It was the fashion to hold Cabinet meetings on Sunday nights. One
Sunday morning, the Duke of York asked Guilford to assist him in a
business which would that evening be brought before His Majesty.
Guilford thought that certain Courtiers just then looked at him with
remarkable gravity, as if something important was about to come on the
carpet; but he did not discover its nature until after the meeting
had commenced. Jeffreys had returned fresh from a Northern tour, and
had brought with him reports of large numbers of Papists convicted of
being recusants, and, after placing on the table rolls containing their
names, he rose from his chair, and proceeded to say:--
[Sidenote: CABINET MEETING.]
“I have a business to lay before your Majesty, which I took notice
of in the North, and which will deserve your Majesty’s royal
commiseration. It is the case of numberless numbers of your good
subjects, that are imprisoned for recusancy. I have the list of them
here, to justify what I say. They are so many that the great gaols
cannot hold them without their lying one upon another.” Then, to use
the language of Roger North, “he let fly his tropes and figures about
rotting and stinking in prisons;” and concluded his speech with a
motion that His Majesty be requested to discharge “these poor men,”
and restore them to “liberty and air.”[129] Such a motion from such
a man will be at once understood. It could have been made only to
please his Royal master, and that master’s brother. If selfishness
influenced Jeffreys in making the proposal, selfishness influenced
Guilford in opposing it; for, on the one hand, any such pardon as that
now proposed, must pass the Great Seal of which he was keeper; and by
affixing this to such an unpopular instrument, he might bring himself
into trouble with his friends. On the other hand, by refusal he might
incur a forfeiture of office, and have to give place to his most odious
enemy. After the Lord Keeper had sat silent awhile, expecting some
of the Lords in the Protestant interest, as Halifax and Rochester,
to speak,--he rose and addressed the King, entreating that the Chief
Justice might declare, whether all the persons named in these rolls
were actually in prison or not. His Lordship replied that he did not
imagine any one could suspect that to be his meaning, but that they
were under sentence of commitment, and were liable to be taken up by
any peevish Sheriff or Magistrate. North then proceeded to attack all
Sectaries. They were a turbulent people, he said, and always stirring
up sedition; and, if they did so when they were obnoxious to the
laws, what would they not do, if His Majesty gave them a discharge
at once? Was it not better that his enemies should live under some
disadvantages, and be obnoxious to His Majesty’s pleasure, who might,
if they were turbulent and troublesome, inflict the penalties of the
law upon them? As to the Roman Catholics, if there were any persons to
whom the King would extend the favour of a pardon, let it be particular
and express. After all, the disadvantage they were under, was but the
payment of some fees to officers, which was compensated for by their
enjoying exemption from serving in chargeable offices.[130]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
Guilford thought that in this way he outwitted his adversary, and
accounted his manœuvre the most memorable act which he had ever
performed. The report shows, that from personal inclination, or from a
wish to gratify the King, and the Duke of York, he evinced especial
hatred to Protestant Nonconformists in general, when he recommended
mercy to some Popish recusants in particular; and, whatever might be
his motive on the occasion, the speech which he delivered, and his
entire relation of this Cabinet secret, discloses to us very plainly
the characters of the men who then guided public affairs, and the
contemptible feelings which influenced their conduct.
One Nonconformist sufferer at that time demands a passing notice.
William Jenkyn, of St. John’s, Cambridge, ejected from the Vicarage
of Christ’s Church, London, where he had been exceedingly popular,
was, on September the 2nd, 1684, seized by a soldier,--he being at the
very time engaged in prayer with his friends. Refusing to take the
Oxford Oath, he was committed to prison; and to a petition for release
founded on a medical certificate that his health would be endangered
by confinement, no answer could be obtained but this,--“Jenkyn shall
be a prisoner as long as he lives.” As his end drew near, he said to
those around him, “Why weep ye for me? Christ lives; He is my friend,
a friend born for adversity, a friend that never dies.” “May it please
your Majesty,” remarked a nobleman, when he heard of his death, “Jenkyn
has got his liberty.” “Aye,” rejoined Charles, “who gave it him?”
“A greater than your Majesty, the King of Kings.” The Confessor was
followed to Bunhill Fields, by a procession of a hundred and fifty
coaches. Even gay Courtiers looked sad, and the reckless King seemed
concerned. “L’Estrange,” in his _Observator_, “alone set up a howl
of savage exultation, laughed at the weak compassion of the Trimmers,
proclaimed that the blasphemous old impostor had met with a most
righteous punishment, and vowed to wage war not only to the death, but
after death, with all the mock saints and martyrs.”[131]
[Sidenote: CHARLES’ COURT.]
Nor should it be forgotten, that whilst Nonconformists were suffering
all kinds of hardships, the King and his Court were indulging in
unbridled licentiousness, so that the contrast drawn by the poet of the
mysteries of Providence then appeared in our own country as vividly as
it ever did in any part of the world:--
“The good man’s share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul;
. . . . . . . While luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants, and heaven-born truths
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition’s scourge.”
Imagination, as we read the history of the later Stuarts, ever and
anon places before us side by side the confessor’s dungeon and the
voluptuary’s chamber. The scenes which the Count de Grammont depicts,
the characters which he draws, and the intrigues which he unravels;
the entire want of moral principle, the absence of common shame, the
bare-aced profligacy, the devices to excite and gratify the lowest
passions, which he, who had lived at Court and shared in its pleasures,
so graphically and yet so complacently portrays, make us blush for our
race. The reaction from the simple manners and severe virtues of the
Commonwealth was tremendous. Courage, or rather an irritable sense of
honour, leading the gallant to wreak revenge upon any who offended him,
came to be the chief virtue of Cavalier Courtiers. Vices and crimes
were treated as petty foibles: beauty, liveliness, and wit alone were
counted meritorious; and “the manners of Chesterfield united with the
morals of Rochefoucault.” The Count’s book is indeed a reflection of
the age--elegant in style, but licentious in character--a veil of
embroidered gauze cast over a putrescent corpse.
[Sidenote: 1685.]
In the midst of this depravity death suddenly appeared. Art has
portrayed two scenes at Whitehall which point a moral never to be
forgotten. The one represents the Sunday night when Evelyn saw
inexpressible profaneness, gambling, and dissoluteness--the King
sitting and toying with his concubines, the French boy singing love
songs, and the Courtiers playing basset with a bank of 2,000 guineas
piled up on the table. The other exhibits what was witnessed a few
days afterwards in the anterooms of the chamber where the Royal
Sybarite awaited the summons of the Almighty; noblemen and ladies,
with heartless etiquette, performing their Court attendance; prelates
at a distance, hoping for an opportunity to administer to him the last
offices of that Church, which had called the dying man its Defender,
whilst, as he is in the act of renouncing communion with it, a delicate
hand is seen extended from behind a timorously opened door, to receive
a glass of water to assist in swallowing the wafer, laid upon the
Royal tongue by a disguised priest. These pictures[132] illustrate the
mutability of earthly grandeur, and the righteous retribution of God
upon a life spent in sin. Charles II. died on the 6th of February,
1685,--within three weeks of William Jenkyn.
[Sidenote: DEATH OF CHARLES.]
Very confused and contradictory accounts are given of the circumstances
connected with this event; but there is enough of what is perfectly
credible, to show that Charles died in a state of reconciliation with
the Church of Rome. The Duke of York, his brother, who watched him to
the last moment, states that two Protestant Bishops read by his bedside
the service of the Visitation of the Sick, and that one of them, Ken,
Bishop of Bath and Wells, after receiving from the sick man a faint
acknowledgment of sorrow for his sins, pronounced absolution, and
offered him the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which was declined. But
the Duke makes no mention of the pathetic strain in which that prelate
addressed the King, or of the faithful exhortation addressed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Duke further relates that he arranged for the clandestine
introduction to the chamber, of a Benedictine Monk, who had aided
Charles’ escape after the battle of Worcester; that when the room had
been cleared of all, except the Earl of Bath and Lord Feversham, the
priest, brought up into a private closet by a back pair of stairs, was
taken to the bedside; and that, after confession, he administered the
last rites of the Popish Communion--that the expiring man uttered pious
ejaculations, lifting up his hands and crying, “Mercy, sweet Jesus,
mercy,” till the priest gave him extreme unction--that as the host was
presented, he raised himself up, and said “Let me meet my Heavenly Lord
in a better posture than lying on my bed.” But the Duke says not a word
of Charles’ blessing his natural children, and the rest of the persons
present; nor of any one begging the Royal benediction, calling the King
the father of them all.
[Sidenote: 1685.]
Yet these circumstances are related by others, as well as the utterance
of the words, “Do not let poor Nelly starve;” and Charles’ reply to
the Queen’s message asking forgiveness. “She ask my pardon, poor
woman?--I ask hers with all my heart.” James, in his _Memoirs_, is
evidently intent upon one thing, to show that Charles died a sincere
Papist, which we can well believe from what we know of his previous
history.[133]