REIGN OF JAMES II.
[Sidenote: Accession of James II.]
Charles II. died on the 6th of February, 1685, and his brother, the
Duke of York, ascended his throne, without opposition, under the title
of _James II._ As is usual with princes, on their accession, he made
many promises of ruling by the laws, and of defending the liberties of
the nation. And he commenced his administration under good auspices.
The country was at peace, he was not unpopular, and all classes and
parties readily acquiesced in his government.
He retained all the great officers who had served under his brother
that he could trust; and Rochester became prime minister, Sunderland
kept possession of the Seals, and Godolphin was made lord chamberlain.
He did not dismiss Halifax, Ormond, or Guildford, although he disliked
and distrusted them, but abridged their powers, and mortified them by
neglect.
The Commons voted him one million two hundred thousand pounds, and the
Scottish parliament added twenty-five thousand pounds more, and the
Customs for life. But this sum he did not deem sufficient for his
wants, and therefore, like his brother, applied for aid to Louis XIV.,
and consented to become his pensioner and vassal, and for the paltry
sum of two hundred thousand pounds. James received the money with
tears of gratitude, hoping by this infamous pension to rule the nation
without a parliament. It was not, of course, known to the nation, or
even to his ministers, generally.
He was scarcely crowned before England was invaded by the Duke of
Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., and Scotland by the Duke of
Argyle, with a view of ejecting James from the throne.
Both these noblemen were exiles in Holland, and both were justly
obnoxious to the government for their treasonable intentions and acts.
Argyle was loath to engage in an enterprise so desperate as the
conquest of England; but he was an enthusiast, was at the head of the
most powerful of the Scottish clans, the Campbells, and he hoped for a
general rising throughout Scotland, to put down what was regarded as
idolatry, and to strike a blow for liberty and the Kirk.
Having concerted his measures with Monmouth, he set sail from Holland,
the 2d of May, 1685, in spite of all the efforts of the English
minister, and landed at Kirkwall, one of the Orkney Islands. But his
objects were well known, and the whole militia of the land were put
under arms to resist him. He, however, collected a force of two
thousand five hundred Highlanders, and marched towards Glasgow; but he
was miserably betrayed and deserted. His forces were dispersed, and he
himself was seized while attempting to escape in disguise, brought to
Edinburgh, and beheaded. His followers were treated with great
harshness, but the rebellion was completely suppressed.
[Sidenote: Monmouth Lands in England.]
Monmouth had agreed to sail in six days from the departure of Argyle;
but he lingered at Brussels, loath to part from a beautiful mistress,
the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. It was a month before he set sail from
the Texel, with about eighty officers and one hundred and fifty
followers--a small force to overturn the throne. But he relied on his
popularity with the people, and on a false and exaggerated account of
the unpopularity of James. He landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, about
the middle of June, and forthwith issued a flaming proclamation,
inviting all to join his standard, as a deliverer from the cruel
despotism of a Catholic prince, whom he accused of every crime--of the
burning of London, of the Popish Plot, of the condemnation of Russell
and Sydney, of poisoning the late king, and of infringements on the
constitution. In this declaration, falsehood was mingled with truth,
but well adapted to inflame the passions of the people. He was
supported by many who firmly believed that his mother, Lucy Walters,
was the lawful wife of Charles II. He, of course, claimed the English
throne, but professed to waive his rights until they should be settled
by a parliament. The adventurer grossly misunderstood the temper of
the people, and the extent to which his claims were recognized. He was
unprovided with money, with generals, and with troops. He collected a
few regiments from the common people, and advanced to Somersetshire.
At Taunton his reception was flattering. All classes welcomed him as a
deliverer from Heaven, and the poor rent the air with acclamations and
shouts. His path was strewed with flowers, and the windows were
crowded with ladies, who waved their handkerchiefs, and even waited
upon him with a large deputation. Twenty-six lovely maidens presented
the handsome son of Charles II. with standards and a Bible, which he
kissed, and promised to defend.
[Sidenote: Battle of Sedgemoor.]
[Sidenote: Death of Monmouth.]
But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of Albemarle--the
son of General Monk, who restored Charles II.--advanced against him
with the militia of the country, and Monmouth was supported only by
the vulgar, the weak, and the credulous. Not a single nobleman joined
his standard, and but few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders.
He lost time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who
followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of England,
where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. But all men of
station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged and dismayed, he
reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture Bristol, then the second
city in the kingdom. He was again disappointed. He was forced, from
unexpected calamities, to abandon the enterprise. He then turned his
eye to Wilts; but when he arrived at the borders of the county, he
found that none of the bodies on which he had calculated had made
their appearance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which
ended favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton,
natural son of Charles II., distinguished himself against his half
brother; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridgewater.
Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at Sedgemoor. Here
was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal to the rebels, "the last
deserving the name of _battle_, that has been fought on English
ground." Monmouth, when all was lost, fled from the field, and
hastened to the British Channel, hoping to gain the Continent. He was
found near the New Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and
fatigue. He was sent, under a strong guard, to Ringwood; and all that
was left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he
clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He
abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant who
never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a friend, when
even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from a man he
both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, lodged in the
Tower, and executed in a bungling manner by "Jack Ketch"--the name
given for several centuries to the public executioner. He was buried
under St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower, where reposed the headless
bodies of so many noted saints and political martyrs--the great
Somerset, and the still greater Northumberland, the two Earls of
Essex, and the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and other great men who figured
in the reigns of the Plantagenets and the Tudors.
Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most signal
vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. No mercy was
shown, on the part of government, to any party or person.
Of the agents of James in punishing all concerned in the rebellion,
there were two, preëminently, whose names are consigned to an infamous
immortality. The records of English history contain no two names so
loathsome and hateful as Colonel Kirke and Judge Jeffreys.
The former was left, by Feversham, in command of the royal forces at
Bridgewater, after the battle of Sedgemoor. He had already gained an
unenviable notoriety, as governor of Tangier, where he displayed the
worst vices of a tyrant and a sensualist; and his regiment had
imitated him in his disgraceful brutality. But this leader and these
troops were now let loose on the people of Somersetshire. One hundred
captives were put to death during the week which succeeded the battle.
His irregular butcheries, however, were not according to the taste of
the king. A more systematic slaughter, under the sanctions of the law,
was devised, and Jeffreys was sent into the Western Circuit, to try
the numerous persons who were immured in the jails of the western
counties.
Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench,
was not deficient in talent, but was constitutionally the victim of
violent passions. He first attracted notice as an insolent barrister
at the Old Bailey Court, who had a rare tact in cross-examining
criminals and browbeating witnesses. According to Macaulay, "impudence
and ferocity sat upon his brow, while all tenderness for the feelings
of others, all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were
obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the
rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The
profusion of his maledictions could hardly be rivalled in the Fish
Market or Bear Garden. His yell of fury sounded, as one who often
heard it said, like the thunder of the judgment day. He early became
common serjeant, and then recorder of London. As soon as he obtained
all the city could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass
and his tongue of venom to the court." He was just the man whom
Charles II. wanted as a tool. He was made chief justice of the highest
court of criminal law in the realm, and discharged its duties entirely
to the satisfaction of a king resolved on the subjection of the
English nation. His violence, at all times, was frightful; but when he
was drunk, it was terrific: and he was generally intoxicated. His
first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sydney. On the death
of Charles, he obtained from James a peerage, and a seat in the
Cabinet, a signal mark of royal approbation. In prospect of yet
greater honors, he was ready to do whatever James required. James
wished the most summary vengeance inflicted on the rebels, and
Jeffreys, with his tiger ferocity, was ready to execute his will.
[Sidenote: Brutality of Jeffreys.]
Nothing is more memorable than those "bloody assizes" which he held in
those counties through which Monmouth had passed. Nothing is
remembered with more execration. Nothing ever equalled the brutal
cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar
violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and
I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of
villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting
Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the
rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were accused, to be hanged or
burned; and the excess of his barbarities called forth pity and
indignation even from devoted loyalists. He boasted that he had hanged
more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest.
On a single circuit, he hanged three hundred and fifty; some of these
were people of great worth, and many of them were innocent; while many
whom he spared from an ignominious death, were sentenced to the most
cruel punishments--to the lash of the pillory, to imprisonment in the
foulest jails, to mutilation, to banishment, and to heavy fines.
King James watched the conduct of the inhuman Jeffreys with delight,
and rewarded him with the Great Seal. The Old Bailey lawyer had now
climbed to the greatest height to which a subject could aspire. He was
Lord Chancellor of England--the confidential friend and agent of the
king, and his unscrupulous instrument in imposing the yoke of bondage
on an insulted nation.
[Sidenote: Persecution of the Dissenters.]
At this period, the condition of the Puritans was deplorable. At no
previous time was persecution more inveterate, not even under the
administration of Laud and Strafford. The persecution commenced soon
after the restoration of Charles II., and increased in malignity until
the elevation of Jeffreys to the chancellorship. The sufferings of no
class of sectaries bore any proportion to theirs. They found it
difficult to meet together for prayer or exhortation even in the
smallest assemblies. Their ministers were introduced in disguise.
Their houses were searched. They were fined, imprisoned, and banished.
Among the ministers who were deprived of their livings, were Gilpin,
Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who
still, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, enjoy a
wide-spread reputation as standard writers on theological subjects.
These great lights of the seventeenth century were doomed to privation
and poverty, with thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been
educated at the Universities, and were among the best men in the
kingdom. All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated
them more than Charles II. and James II. Under their sanction,
complying parliaments passed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty.
The laws which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were
reënacted and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two
thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to
conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Conventicle Act
ordained that if any person, above sixteen years of age, should be
present at any religious meeting, in any other manner than allowed by
the Church of England, he should suffer three months' imprisonment, or
pay a fine of five pounds, that six months imprisonment and ten pounds
fine should be inflicted as a penalty for the second offence, and
banishment for the third. Married women taken at "conventicles," were
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is calculated that
twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy prisons, and
that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during their
imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the jails,
added to cruel treatment.
Among the illustrious men who suffered most unjustly, was Richard
Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He was minister at
Kidderminster, where he was content to labor in an humble sphere,
having refused a bishopric. He had written one hundred and forty-five
distinct treatises, in two hundred volumes, which were characterized
for learning and talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor
commanding virtues could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys;
and, in fifteen years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings
drew tears from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friendship he had been
honored. "But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of judges,
was cruelly insulted by the worst." When he wished to plead his cause,
the drunken chief justice replied, "O Richard, Richard, thou art an
old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a
cart, every one of which is as full of sedition as an egg is full of
meat. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of
the brotherhood in corners, and a doctor of divinity at your elbow;
but, by the grace of God, I will crush you all."
Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential or
learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the Baptists,
and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius--the most
successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. The Pilgrim's
Progress is the most popular religious work ever published, full of
genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of the Calvinistic
theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. This book shows
the triumph of genius over learning, and the people's appreciation of
exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate tinker, a travelling
preacher, who spent the best part of his life between the houses of
the poor and the county jails, the object of reproach and ignominy,
now, however, takes a proud place, in the world's estimation, with the
master minds of all nations--with Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. He
has arisen above the prejudices of the great and fashionable; and the
learned and aristocratic Southey has sought to be the biographer of
his sorrows and the expounder of his visions. The proud bishops who
disdained him, the haughty judges who condemned him, are now chiefly
known as his persecutors, while he continues to be more honored and
extolled with every succeeding generation.
[Sidenote: George Fox.]
[Sidenote: Persecution of the Quakers.]
Another illustrious victim of religious persecution in that age,
illustrious in our eyes, but ignoble in the eyes of his
contemporaries, was George Fox, the founder of the sect of the
Quakers. He, like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education.
Like him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own
soul--from inward experiences--from religious contemplations. He was a
man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual action.
His first studies were the mysteries of theology--the great questions
respecting duty and destiny; and these agitated his earnest mind
almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought consolation from the
clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his soul. Like an old
Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfrequented solitudes, where he
gave loose to his imagination, and where celestial beings came to
comfort him. He despised alike the reasonings of philosophers, the
dogmas of divines, and the disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose
above all their prejudices, and sought light and truth from original
sources. His peace was based on the conviction that God's Holy Spirit
spoke directly to his soul; and this was above reason, above
authority, a surer guide than any outward or written revelation. While
this divine voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with
them, for they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the
Scriptures were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and
literally to be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his
life, nor to save a world, because he was directly commanded to
abstain from swearing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of
expediency, and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him
assured him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all
tribulations. He believed in the power of justice to protect itself,
and reposed on the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an
omnipotent weapon. He disdained force to accomplish important ends,
and sought no control over government, except by intelligence. He
believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis of all great and
permanent revolutions; these he was ever ready to declare; these were
sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms; these would be
revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all forms and pompous
ceremonials in the worship of God, for they seemed useless and
idolatrous. God was a Spirit, and to be worshipped in spirit and in
truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of
prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected
to splendid places for the worship of God, and dispensed with
steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless,
being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but
to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the
Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all
titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the
Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too,
would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he
fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the
church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity
and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar
star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar
genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty
and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of
conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in
all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the
notion of special divine illumination?
No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at
nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They
shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men
attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical
theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties
attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor
their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism
could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But
they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their
faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they belonged to the
humbler classes, although some men illustrious for birth and wealth
joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was
William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the
glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flourishing and
virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the
wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their
enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk
of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and
vengeance.
James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with
fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges
and the bishops were ready to coöperate with his ministers in imposing
a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment
they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even
judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools.
[Sidenote: Despotic Power of James.]
His power, to all appearance, was consolidated; and he now began,
without disguise, to advance the two great objects which were dearest
to his heart--the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the
imposition of a despotic yoke. He wished to be, like Louis XIV., a
despotic and absolute prince; and, to secure this end, he was ready to
violate the constitution of his country. The three inglorious years of
his reign were a succession of encroachments and usurpations.
Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue without
an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary power, the
court procured addresses from public bodies, in which the king was
thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs and excise.
In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under the
last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted bodies.
So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all who were
imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired universal
toleration, this act would merit our highest praises; but it was soon
evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the expense of all
the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee to the Church of
Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he could but advance the
interests of a party, to which nearly the whole nation was bitterly
opposed. Roman Catholics were proscribed by the laws. The Test Act
excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the
Established Church. The laws were unjust, but still they were the laws
which James had sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed them, and
kept his faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in good time
have been modified.
[Sidenote: Favor Extended to Catholics.]
But James would not wait for constitutional measures. He resolved to
elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state and the
church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes of a great
majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commissions to Catholics
to serve as officers in the army; he made Catholics his confidential
advisers; he introduced Jesuits into London; he received a Papal
nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church of England to needy
Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats and artifices, to secure
the repeal of the Test Act, by which Catholics were excluded from
office. Halifax, the ablest of his ministers, remonstrated, and he was
turned out of his employments. But he formed the soul and the centre
of an opposition, which finally drove the king from his throne. He
united with Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was
sufficient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When
opposition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or
dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to.
[Sidenote: High Commission Court.]
Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scandal, even
in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dispensing power--a
prerogative he had inherited, but which had never been strictly
defined. By means of this, he intended to admit Catholics to all
offices in the realm. He began by granting to the whole Roman Catholic
body a dispensation from all the statutes which imposed penalties and
tests. A general indulgence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were
compelled to acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been
infringed. Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly
illegal. They were dismissed; for, at that time, even judges held
office during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times,
for life. They had not the independence which has ever been so
requisite for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers
accede to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out.
As soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the
constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy
counsellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were permitted
to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deanery of Christ
Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of Oxford, on a
notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge what had been
done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was bestowed upon Parker, who
was more Catholic than Protestant, and that of Chester was given to a
sycophant of no character. James made no secret of his intentions to
restore the Catholic religion, and systematically labored to destroy
the Established Church. In order to effect this, he created a
tribunal, which not materially differed from the celebrated High
Commission Court of Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great
object of the revolutionists who brought Charles I. to the block--the
most odious court ever established by royal despotism in England. The
members of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try
all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions,
notoriously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents--Jeffreys,
the Chancellor; Crewe, Bishop of Durham; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester;
the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer; Sunderland, the Lord President;
and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This court summoned
Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tribunal, because he had not
suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy of London, when requested to do
so by the king--a man who had committed no crime, but simply
discharged his duty with fidelity. The bishop was suspended from his
spiritual functions, and the charge of his diocese was committed to
two of his judges. But this court, not content with depriving numerous
clergymen of their spiritual functions, because they would not betray
their own church, went so far as to sit in judgment on the two
greatest corporations in the land,--the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge,--institutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in
their crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel
with these great bodies, because they would not approve of his
measures to overturn the church with which they were connected, and
which it was their duty and interest to uphold. The king had commanded
Cambridge to bestow the degree of master of arts on a Benedictine
monk, which was against the laws of the University and of parliament.
The University refused to act against the law, and, in consequence,
the vice-chancellor and the senate, which consisted of doctors and
masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission. The
vice-chancellor, Pechell, was deprived of his office and emoluments,
which were of the nature of freehold property. But this was not the
worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on imposing a Roman
Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen College, one of the
richest and most venerable of the University of Oxford, against even
the friendly remonstrances of his best friends, even of his Catholic
counsellors, and not only against the advice of his friends, but
against all the laws of the land and of the rights of the University;
for the proposed president, Farmer, was a Catholic, and was not a
fellow of the college, and therefore especially disqualified. He was
also a man of depraved morals. The fellows refused to elect Farmer,
and chose John Hough instead. They were accordingly cited to the
infamous court of which Jeffreys was the presiding and controlling
genius. Their election was set aside, but Farmer was not confirmed,
being too vile even for Jeffreys to sustain.
[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Universities.]
The king was exceedingly enraged at the opposition he received from
the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he summoned
the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them to obey him in the
matter of a president. They still held out in opposition, and the
king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to resort to bolder
measures. A special commission was instituted. Hough was forcibly
ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, against the voice of all
the fellows but two. But the blinded king was not yet content. The
fellows were expelled from the University by a royal edict, and the
high commissioner pronounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever
holding any church preferment.
But these severities were blunders, and produced a different effect
from what was anticipated. The nation was indignant; the Universities
lost all reverence; the clergy, in a body, were alienated; and the
whole aristocracy were filled with defiance.
[Sidenote: Magdalen College.]
But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all
opposition; and, now that the fellows of Magdalen College were
expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one day
twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman Catholic
bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to the
extremities of the kingdom; and bitter resentment took the place of
former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old friends even, as a
tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. And, indeed, he seemed
like one completely infatuated, bent on the ruin of that church which
even James I. and the other Stuart kings regarded as the surest and
firmest pillar of the throne.
The bishops of the English Church had in times past, as well as the
Universities, inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience; and
oppression must be very grievous indeed which would induce them to
oppose the royal will. But James had completely alienated them, and
they, reluctantly, at last, threw themselves into the ranks of
opposition. Had they remained true to him, he might still have held
his sceptre; but it was impossible that any body of men could longer
bear his injustice and tyranny.
[Sidenote: Prosecution of the Seven Bishops.]
From motives as impossible to fathom, as it is difficult to account
for the actions of a madman, he ordered that the Declaration of
Indulgence, an unconstitutional act, should be read publicly from all
the pulpits in the kingdom. The London clergy, the most respectable
and influential in the realm, made up their minds to disregard the
order, and the bishops sustained them in their refusal. The archbishop
and six bishops accordingly signed a petition to the king, which
embodied the views of the London clergy. It was presented to the
tyrant, by the prelates in a body, at his palace. He chose to consider
it as a treasonable and libellous act--as nothing short of rebellion.
The conduct of the prelates was generally and enthusiastically
approved by the nation, and especially by the Dissenters, who now
united with the members of the Established Church. James had recently
courted the Dissenters, not wishing to oppose too many enemies at a
time. He had conferred on them many indulgences, and had elevated some
of them to high positions, with the hope that they would unite with
him in breaking down the Establishment. But while some of the more
fanatical were gained over, the great body were not so easily
deceived. They knew well enough that, after crushing the Church of
England, he would crush them. And they hated Catholicism and tyranny
more than they did Episcopacy, in spite of their many persecutions.
Some of the more eminent of the Dissenters took a noble stand, and
their conduct was fully appreciated by the Established clergy. For the
first time, since the accession of Elizabeth, the Dissenters and the
Episcopalians treated each other with that courtesy and forbearance
which enlightened charity demands. The fear of a common enemy united
them. But time, also, had, at length, removed many of their mutual
asperities.
Nothing could exceed the vexation of James when he found that not only
the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the Seven Bishops were
sustained by the nation. When this was discovered, he should have
yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. But he was a Stuart. He was a
bigoted, and self-willed, and infatuated monarch, marked out most
clearly by Providence for destruction. He resolved to prosecute the
bishops for a libel, and their trial and acquittal are among the most
interesting events of an inglorious reign. They were tried at the
Court of the King's Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were
employed as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted
to by the servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a
verdict of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts
and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, whom the
king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe London, partook of the
enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All classes were united in
expressions of joy that the tyrant for once was baffled. The king was
indeed signally defeated; but his defeat did not teach him wisdom. It
only made him the more resolved to crush the liberties of the Church,
and the liberties of the nation. But it also arrayed against him all
classes and all parties of Protestants, who now began to form
alliances, and devise measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the
very courts which James had instituted to crush liberty proved
refractory. Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his
resignation as one of the Lord Commissioners. The very meanness of his
spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection peculiarly
alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble. The Court
of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the Established Church,
especially when its odious character was loudly denounced by all
classes in the kingdom--even by some of the agents of tyranny itself.
The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness.
[Sidenote: Tyranny and Infatuation of James.]
But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parliament was
necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free parliament it was
impossible to obtain. He resolved to bring together, by corruption and
intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent
distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a parliament,
and might be willing to register any edict he proposed. And,
accordingly, every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, was made
to understand that he must support the throne or lose his office. He
set himself vigorously to pack a parliament. A committee of seven
privy counsellors sat at Whitehall for the purpose of regulating the
municipal corporations. Father Petre was made a privy councillor.
Committees, after the model of the one at Whitehall, were established
in all parts of the realm. The lord lieutenants received written
orders to go down to their respective counties, and superintend the
work of corruption and fraud. But half of them refused to perform the
ignominious work, and were immediately dismissed from their posts,
which were posts of great honor and consideration. Among these were
the great Earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Pembroke, Rutland,
Bridgewater, Thanet, Northampton, Abingdon, and Gainsborough, whose
families were of high antiquity, wealth, and political influence. Nor
could those nobles, who consented to conform to the wishes and orders
of the king, make any progress in their counties, on account of the
general opposition of the gentry. The county squires, as a body, stood
out in fierce resistance. They refused to send up any men to
parliament who would vote away the liberties and interests of the
nation. The justices and deputy lieutenants declared that they would
sustain, at all hazard, the Protestant religion. And these persons
were not odious republicans, but zealous royalists, now firmly united
and resolved to oppose unlawful acts, though commanded by the king.
James and his ministers next resolved to take away the power of the
municipal corporations. The boroughs were required to surrender their
charters. But a great majority firmly refused to part with their
privileges. They were prosecuted and intimidated, but still they held
out. Oxford, by a vote of eighty to two, voted to defend its
franchises. Other towns did the same. Meanwhile, all the public
departments were subjected to a strict inquisition, and all, who would
not support the policy of the king, were turned out of office, and
among them were some who had been heretofore the zealous servants of
the crown.
[Sidenote: Organized Opposition.]
It was now full time for the organization of a powerful confederacy
against the king. It was obvious, to men of all parties, and all
ranks, that he meditated the complete subversion of English liberties.
The fundamental laws of the kingdom had been systematically violated.
The power of dispensing with acts of parliament had been strained, so
that the king had usurped nearly all legislative authority. The courts
of justice had been filled with unscrupulous judges, who were ready to
obey all the king's injunctions, whether legal or illegal. Roman
Catholics had been elevated to places of dignity in the Established
Church. An infamous and tyrannical Court of High Commission had been
created; persons, who could not legally set foot in England, had been
placed at the head of colleges, and had taken their seat at the royal
council-board. Lord lieutenants of counties, and other servants of the
crown, had been dismissed for refusing to obey illegal commands; the
franchises of almost every borough had been invaded; the courts of
justice were venal and corrupt; an army of Irish Catholics, whom the
nation abhorred, had been brought over to England; even the sacred
right of petition was disregarded, and respectful petitioners were
treated as criminals; and a free parliament was prevented from
assembling.
Under such circumstances, and in view of these unquestioned facts, a
great conspiracy was set on foot to dethrone the king and overturn the
hateful dynasty.
Among the conspirators were some of the English nobles, the chief of
whom was the Earl of Devonshire, and one of the leaders of the Whig
party. Shrewsbury and Danby also joined them, the latter nobleman
having been one of the most zealous advocates of the doctrine of
passive obedience which many of the High Churchmen and Tories had
defended in the reign of Charles II. It was under his administration,
as prime minister, that a law had been proposed to parliament to
exclude all persons from office who refused to take an oath, declaring
that they thought resistance in all cases unlawful. Compton, the
Bishop of London, who had been insolently treated by the court, joined
the conspirators, whose designs were communicated to the Prince of
Orange by Edward Russell and Henry Sydney, brothers of those two great
political martyrs who had been executed in the last reign. The Prince
of Orange, who had married a daughter of James II., agreed to invade
England with a well-appointed army.
[Sidenote: William, Prince of Orange.]
William of Orange was doubtless the greatest statesman and warrior of
his age, and one of the ablest men who ever wore a crown. He was at
the head of the great Protestant party in Europe, and was the
inveterate foe of Louis XIV. When a youth, his country had been
invaded by Louis, and desolated and abandoned to pillage and cruelty.
It was amid unexampled calamities, when the population were every
where flying before triumphant armies, and the dikes of Holland had
been opened for the ravages of the sea in order to avoid the more
cruel ravages of war, that William was called to be at the head of
affairs. He had scarcely emerged from boyhood; but his boyhood was
passed in scenes of danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents
were most precociously developed. His tastes were warlike; but he was
a warrior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military
glory, but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure
the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambitious
monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating principle of his
existence; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly the policy and
enterprises of the French king, even to the disadvantage of his native
country and the country which adopted him.
William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which the
discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the
Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of
the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had long been
fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny of James. He was a
sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising genius, and a consummate
statesman. But he delayed taking any decisive measures until affairs
were ripe for his projects--until the misgovernment and encroachments
of James drove the nation to the borders of frenzy. He then obtained
the consent of the States General for the meditated invasion of
England, and made immense preparations, which, however, were carefully
concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape,
however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who
remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and
offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not
believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a
spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence.
Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of
William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, and
supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend of the
Prince of Orange. Then he made haste to fit out a fleet; and thirty
ships of the line were put under the command of Lord Dartmouth. An
army of forty thousand men--the largest that any king of England had
ever commanded--was also sent to the seaboard; a force more than
sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion.
[Sidenote: Critical Condition of James.]
At the same time, the king made great concessions. He abolished the
Court of High Commission. He restored the charter of the city of
London. He permitted the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalen
College, to make any reforms he pleased. He would not, however, part
with an iota of his dispensing power, and still hoped to rout William,
and change the religion of his country. But all his concessions were
too late. Whigs and Tories, Dissenters and Churchmen, were ready to
welcome their Dutch deliverer. Nor had James any friends on whom he
could rely. His prime minister, Sunderland, was in treaty with the
conspirators, and waiting to betray him. Churchill, who held one of
the highest commissions in the army, and who was under great
obligations to the king, was ready to join the standard of William.
Jeffreys, the lord chancellor, was indeed true in his allegiance, but
his crimes were past all forgiveness by the nation; and even had he
rebelled,--and he was base enough to do so,--his services would have
been spurned by William and all his adherents.
[Sidenote: Invasion of England by William.]
On the 29th of October, 1688, the armament of William put to sea; but
the ships had scarcely gained half the distance to England when they
were dispersed and driven back to Holland by a violent tempest. The
hopes of James revived; but they were soon dissipated. The fleet of
William, on the 1st of November, again put to sea. It was composed of
more than six hundred vessels, five hundred of which were men of war,
and they were favored by auspicious gales. The same winds which
favored the Dutch ships retarded the fleet of Dartmouth. On the 5th of
November, the troops of William disembarked at Brixham, near Torbay in
Devonshire, without opposition. On the 6th, he advanced to Newton
Abbot, and, on the 9th, reached Exeter. He was cordially received, and
magnificently entertained. He and his lieutenant-general, Marshal
Schomberg, one of the greatest commanders in Europe, entered Exeter
together in the grand military procession, which was like a Roman
triumph. Near him also was Bentinck, his intimate friend and
counsellor, the founder of a great ducal family. The procession
marched to the splendid Cathedral, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and Burnet
preached a sermon.
Thus far all things had been favorable, and William was fairly
established on English ground. Still his affairs were precarious, and
James's condition not utterly hopeless or desperate. In spite of the
unpopularity of the king, his numerous encroachments, and his
disaffected army, the enterprise of William was hazardous. He was an
invader, and the slightest repulse would have been dangerous to his
interests. James was yet a king, and had the control of the army, the
navy, and the treasury. He was a legitimate king, whose claims were
undisputed. And he was the father of a son, and that son,
notwithstanding the efforts of the Protestants to represent him as a
false heir, was indeed the Prince of Wales. William had no claim to
the throne so long as that prince was living. Nor had the nobles and
gentry flocked to his standard as he had anticipated. It was nearly a
week before a single person of rank or consequence joined him.
Devonshire was in Derbyshire, and Churchill had still the confidence
of his sovereign. The forces of the king were greatly superior to his
own. And James had it in his power to make concessions which would
have satisfied a great part of the nation.
But William had not miscalculated. He had profoundly studied the
character of James, and the temper of the English. He knew that a
fatal blindness and obstinacy had been sent upon him, and that he
never would relinquish his darling scheme of changing the religion of
the nation; and he knew that the nation would never acquiesce in that
change; that Popery was hateful in their sight. He also trusted to his
own good sword, and to fortunate circumstances.
[Sidenote: Flight of the King.]
And he was not long doomed to suspense, which is generally so
difficult to bear. In a few days, Lord Cornbury, colonel of a
regiment, and son of the Earl of Clarendon, and therefore a relative
of James himself, deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined him
in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer that
ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, who commanded
at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at the prince's disposal,
with the fortress which he was intrusted to guard. His army swelled in
numbers and importance. Devonshire raised the standard of rebellion at
Chatsworth. London was in a ferment. James was with his army at
Salisbury, but gave the order to retreat, not daring to face the
greatest captain in Europe. Soon after, he sent away the queen and the
Prince of Wales to France, and made preparations for his own
ignominious flight--the very thing his enemies desired, for his life
was in no danger, and his affairs even then might have been
compromised, in spite of the rapid defection of his friends, and the
advance of William, with daily augmenting forces, upon London. On the
11th of December, the king fled from London, with the intention of
embarking at Sheerness, and was detained by the fishermen of the
coast; but, by an order from the Lords, was set at liberty, and
returned to the capital. William, nearly at the same time, reached
London, and took up his quarters at St. James's Palace. It is needless
to add, that the population of the city were friendly to his cause,
and that he was now virtually the king of England. It is a
satisfaction also to add, that the most infamous instrument of royal
tyranny was seized in the act of flight, at Wapping, in the mean
disguise of a sailor. He was discovered by the horrible fierceness of
his countenance. Jeffreys was committed to the Tower; and the Tower
screened him from a worse calamity, for the mob would have torn him in
pieces. Catholic priests were also arrested, and their chapels and
houses destroyed.
Meanwhile parliament assembled and deliberated on the state of
affairs. Many propositions were made and rejected. The king fled a
second time, and the throne was declared vacant. But the crown was not
immediately offered to the Prince of Orange, although addresses were
made to him as a national benefactor. Many were in favor of a regency.
Another party was for placing the Princess Mary on the throne, and
giving to William, during her life, the title of king, and such a
share of the administration as she chose to give him.
But William had risked every thing for a throne, and nothing less than
the crown of England would now content him. He gave the convention to
understand that, much as he esteemed his wife, he would never accept a
subordinate and precarious place in her government; "that he would not
submit to be tied to the apron-strings of the best of wives;" that,
unless he were offered the crown for life, he should return to
Holland.
It was accordingly settled by parliament that he should hold the regal
dignity conjointly with his wife, but that the whole power of the
government should be placed in his hands. And the Princess Mary
willingly acceded, being devoted to her husband, and unambitious for
herself.
[Sidenote: Consummation of the Revolution.]
[Sidenote: Declaration of Rights.]
Thus was consummated the English Revolution of 1688, bloodless, but
glorious. A tyrant was ejected from an absolute throne, and a noble
and magnanimous prince reigned in his stead, after having taken an
oath to observe the laws of the realm--an oath which he never
violated. Of all revolutions, this proved the most beneficent. It
closed the long struggle of one hundred and fifty years. Royal
prerogative bowed before the will of the people, and true religious
and civil liberty commenced its reign. The Prince of Orange was called
to the throne by the voice of the nation, as set forth in an
instrument known as the Declaration of Rights. This celebrated act of
settlement recapitulated the crimes and errors of James, and merely
asserted the ancient rights and liberties of England--that the
dispensing power had no legal existence; that no money could be raised
without grant of parliament; and that no army could be kept up in time
of peace without its consent; and it also asserted the right of
petition, the right of electors to choose their representatives
freely, the right of parliament to freedom of debate, and the right of
the nation to a pure and merciful administration of justice. No new
rights were put forth, but simply the old ones were reëstablished.
William accepted the crown on the conditions proposed, and swore to
rule by the laws. "Not a single flower of the crown," says Macaulay,
"was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The
Declaration of Rights, although it made nothing law which was not law
before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to
the Dissenters; of the law which secured the independence of judges;
of the law which limited the duration of parliaments; of the law which
placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries; of the
law which abolished the sacramental test; of the law which relieved
the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities; of the law which reformed
the representative system; of every good law which has been passed
during one hundred and sixty years; of every good law which may
hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the
public weal, and satisfy the demands of public opinion."
* * * * *
REFERENCES.--Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's
Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution
of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James--a beautiful
fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History
of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's
Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of
William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the
condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of
England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge
Jeffreys.