This unusual vigour induced Louis to set in motion the forces of the

Opposition both in England and Holland. To Barillon, his ambassador

at London, he sent over the younger Ruvigny, who was related to

Lady Vaughan, and intimate with the Russell family. The ambassadors

first tried to bring Charles over again by the most liberal offers

of money; they warned him to beware of the pernicious counsels of

Danby, who was seeking popularity; and to Danby himself they paid the

highest compliments, and begged him to use his influence with the

king. Charles, who never long resisted the temptations of money, was

not, however, yet to be moved, and the ambassadors then tried their

influence with the Opposition. They found Holles and Lord William

Russell extremely hostile to the Court, but suspicious of a secret

engagement between Charles and Louis. This suspicion the ambassadors

did their best to root out, and Holles and Russell engaged to attach

to the supply conditions which should cause the king to reject it.

The ambassadors promised that Louis, on his part, should use all his

influence to cause a dissolution of Parliament, and to ruin Danby,

measures which the Opposition desired. They even offered money to the

Opposition, and asked Lord William Russell to give them the names of

such persons as they should reward for their services in this matter.

Russell repelled the offer with indignation, and replied that he

should be sorry to have anything to do with men who could be bought

with money. They did not, however, find others of the patriots quite

so scrupulous. Louis, at the same time, was at work at the Hague,

insinuating through his agents that William, now connected with

England, was joined with Charles, whom the Dutch most cordially hated,

in a common scheme for ruling Holland and England by a military force,

and that their only safety lay in peace and disbandment of troops.

Their arts were so successful, that the Dutch began to cry for peace on

any terms.

When Parliament met on the 28th of January, Charles announced that

he had made a league, offensive and defensive, with Holland, for the

protection of Flanders, and that if France would not consent to a

peace on fair terms, they would endeavour to force it; but that he

should require to put ninety ships into commission, and raise thirty

or forty thousand troops, and a liberal supply would be necessary

to defray the cost. This was the very thing that the Country party

had been clamouring for, but they had now been drawn into a false

position by the acts of Louis; and though they could not condemn the

proposals, they declared that no peace ought to be made with France,

except such as should restrain that country to the limits set by the

treaty of the Pyrenees. This, under the present circumstances, it

would be folly to ask of Louis, and Charles reproached the Opposition

with the inconsistency of their conduct, in throwing obstacles in the

way of the very measure they had clamoured for, especially after he

had followed their own advice in making the treaty with Holland. The

Ministry, however, carried a vote for the maintenance of the necessary

fleet and army, and a supply was granted on general taxes to cover the

expenditure.

Meanwhile Louis had pushed his military operations forward in the

Netherlands with a vigour which confounded his enemies. Towards the

end of January he proceeded from Paris to Metz; Namur and Mons were

invested, and before the end of March he had made himself master of

Ypres and Ghent. By this means he had opened a road into the very

heart of Holland, and exposed Brussels to his attacks; and both on the

Continent and in England the cry was now for more vigorous measures.

Three thousand soldiers were sent by Charles to Ostend, and the levy

of forces was proceeded with briskly. But the more Charles exerted

himself to raise troops and prepare actively for war, the more the

Opposition expressed their suspicions of the use intended for these

troops. Russell talked of Popery, and Sir Gilbert Gerrard declared that

the forces would never be used against any foreign enemy; that their

object was nearer home. They demanded, therefore, that the king should

at once declare war against France, recall his Commissioners from

Nimeguen, and dismiss the French ambassador. This language on the part

of men many of whom had been receiving their money to compel a peace

advantageous to France, surprised not a little Barillon and Ruvigny,

who remonstrated with Holles and Russell, Shaftesbury and Buckingham.

But they were told that the real object was to embarrass the king

in raising these troops; for that, once raised, he would secure the

leaders of the Opposition, and then would obtain from the slavish

Parliament any supplies that he might demand, thus at once making

himself independent of Parliament and of Louis.

That the Opposition had grounds for their fears there was little

question, and the French envoys were obliged to be satisfied with this

odd-looking sort of friendship. Charles undoubtedly had rather have the

army and the supplies than go to war with Louis; and the consternation

of the confederates now opened up to him a new chance of obtaining

Louis's money, and keeping the peace. Both the Prince of Orange and

Spain, by its ambassadors, informed him that they would now no longer

object to the cession of Tournai and Valenciennes, if France would

restore the other five towns, with Ypres and Ghent. Charles, who now

thought all difficulty removed, hastened to write these conditions

to Louis, and so confident was he that they would be accepted, that

he caused Danby to add, in a private letter, that if the peace were

effected on these terms, he should expect a pension of six millions of

livres for the next three years for his services. In a postscript the

king himself wrote, "This is writ by my order.--C. R." This letter,

afterwards produced against Danby, occasioned his ruin.

But Louis was not so easily satisfied after his recent victories. He

demanded Ypres and Condé as well as Tournai and Valenciennes. Charles

professed to be disgusted with this grasping disposition, but both

Holland and Spain expressed their willingness to yield. The conquest

of Ghent and French gold produced their effect, and an armistice was

entered into to allow time for preparing the articles of peace. To

satisfy Charles, Louis assented to his demand of a pension of six

million livres, on condition that he bound himself to break with

Holland if it refused to sign the treaty on the conditions now offered,

to recall his troops from Flanders, to reduce his army to six thousand

men, and to prorogue and then dissolve Parliament.

When Parliament met on the 23rd of May, they demanded that Charles

should immediately declare war or disband the whole of the troops

recently raised. They voted two hundred thousand pounds on condition

that the troops should be at once paid off with it, and two hundred

thousand pounds more for the navy. The king asked for three hundred

thousand pounds a year in addition to his present income, to enable

him to punish the pirates of Algiers, and take that position in the

Continental politics which the rank of England required; but to this

the Commons turned a deaf ear.

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. (_After the Portrait by Sir Peter

Lely._)]

By the middle of June the plenipotentiaries at Nimeguen had settled

all the preliminaries of peace, and were on the point of signing,

when Louis started another difficulty--that he would continue to hold

the six towns stipulated to be restored to Spain, till the Emperor

of Germany had restored the conquests made from his ally, the King

of Sweden. The confederates refused to admit any such condition, and

preparations were again made for war. Charles sent over four thousand

men under the Earl of Ossory to join the English forces in Flanders,

and Temple hastened to the Hague, to complete a fresh treaty with the

States, binding each other to prosecute the war against Louis unless

he abandoned the claim for Sweden. This might have had effect with

Louis, had he not convincing evidence that Charles was not in earnest.

At the very moment of this apparent spirit, Charles was bargaining for

more money with Barillon, in the chamber of his French mistress, the

Duchess of Portsmouth. At Barillon's instigation, one Ducros, a French

monk, was sent to Temple, at Nimeguen, desiring him to persuade the

Swedish ambassadors to concede their claims and make peace; and Louis,

by giving a hint of this fact to the States General, so alarmed them

at the perfidy of their pretended ally, that they hastened to sign

the treaty with France, without any stipulation in favour of Spain.

The Spanish Netherlands were at the mercy of Louis, and the coalition

against him was completely broken up.

William of Orange, who was extremely mortified at having to treat for

peace on such terms, and rightly attributing the necessity to the

conduct of Charles, took the opportunity to give a parting chastisement

to the French, though he had not, as has been asserted, knowledge of

the conclusion of the treaty. On the 4th of August, four days after

the signing of the peace by Beverning, the Dutch plenipotentiary at

Nimeguen, he attacked the Duke of Luxembourg before Mons. Luxembourg

had reduced the city to great distress, and had not relaxed his siege

during the armistice; William, therefore, knowing nothing, or affecting

to know nothing of the signing of the peace--though at that time it was

known in London--fell on the duke with all the forces he could muster,

Dutch, English, and Spanish, and a desperate battle took place. William

took the abbey of St. Denis in front of the French camp; Villahermosa,

the Spanish general, took the ruined fortress of Casteau, but was

driven out of it again before night. The English troops under Lord

Ossory did wonders. About five thousand men fell on one side or the

other. At night the two armies resumed their places. It was expected

that William the next day would utterly rout Luxembourg; and had the

continuance of the war permitted, might have made his long-contemplated

march into France. But the next day Luxembourg desired a conference,

and informed William that the peace was concluded, and William retired

towards Nivelles, and the French towards Ath. He had managed to prevent

the important fortress of Mons falling into the hands of France.

Scarcely had these events taken place, when William was surprised by

an overture from Charles, to unite with him, according to the treaty

between them, to compel Louis to grant the Spaniards the terms formerly

offered at Nimeguen. The motive for this does not appear clear. If

he knew of its conclusion, as he must have done, he could not expect

William immediately to violate the peace just made. Probably he wished

to appear to the Spaniards to be anxious to keep his engagement to

them, for he made the same professions to them, and on the faith of

that the Spaniards demanded better terms; but equally probable is the

idea that he wanted an excuse for not disbanding the army. William is

said, however, to have exclaimed to Hyde, who brought the message,

"Was ever anything so hot and so cold as this Court of yours? Will

the king never learn a word that I shall never forget since my last

passage to England, when, in a great storm, the captain all night

was crying to the man at the helm, 'Steady! steady! steady!' If this

despatch had come twenty days ago, it had changed the face of affairs

in Christendom, and the war might have been carried on till France had

yielded to the treaty of the Pyrenees, and left the world in quiet

for the rest of our lives; as it comes now, it will have no effect at

all." Louis resented the interference of Charles at this moment, and

suspended the payment of his pension. He, however, receded from some

of his terms, and referred the settlement of the differences with the

Spaniards and the Emperor of Germany to the Dutch. Before the end of

October peace was concluded with all parties. Holland had recovered

all she had lost, and obtained an advantageous treaty of commerce

with France. Spain had lost Franche-Comté, and twelve fortresses in

Flanders; Germany had regained Philippsburg in exchange for Freiburg;

Sweden recovered what it had lost to Denmark and the Elector of

Brandenburg; and Louis was left with a power and reputation that made

him the arbitrator of Europe.

We now come to one of the most extraordinary displays of a succession

of plots, or pretended plots, which ever occurred in the history of

any nation. From a small and most improbable beginning they spread and

ramified themselves in all directions, involving the most distinguished

persons of the State, ascending to the royal house, threatening

the lives of the Duke of York, of the queen, and even of the king.

Though defeated in their highest aims, they yet brought to execution

a considerable number of persons of various ranks, including several

noblemen and commoners of distinction. When they appeared to be

extinguished for a short period, they broke out again with fresh force,

and struck down fresh victims; and whilst much of the machinery of the

agitators remained in the deepest obscurity, the mind of the nation

was wrought up to a condition of the most terrible suspicion, wonder,

and alarm. In the half-absurdity of the charges, the half-development

of ominous truths, the public was thrown into a long fever of terror

and curiosity, and seemed to lose its judgment and discretion, and to

be ready to destroy its noblest citizens on the evidence of the most

despicable of mankind.

From the moment that some obscure indications of a secret league

between the king and Louis of France had emerged to the light, the

people were haunted by fears and rumours of plots, and designs against

the national liberty. Especially since the Duke of York had avowed

himself a Catholic, and the king had a French Catholic mistress,

and spent much time with the French ambassador, Barillon, in her

apartments, there were continual apprehensions of an attempt to

introduce Popery, and to suppress the public freedom by a standing

army. The country was nearer the mark than it was aware of, and had

it come by any chance to the knowledge of the full truth that their

monarch was the bond-slave of France, to favour its ambitious designs

of averting the balance of power on the Continent, and extending the

French empire, at the expense of its neighbours, to the widest boundary

of the Empire of Charlemagne, the immediate consequence would have been

revolution, and the expulsion of the Stuarts a few years earlier. But

as the real facts were kept in profound secrecy, all manner of vague

rumours rose from the facts themselves, like smoke from a hidden fire.

There was a party, moreover, in Parliament, called the Country party,

or, in our modern phrase, the Opposition, which now included several

of the displaced statesmen of the Cabal, especially Buckingham

and Shaftesbury. These men had no scruples to restrain them from

embarrassing the Government, and in particular from denouncing their

successful rival, the Lord Treasurer Danby. They knew well the secret

which the public only suspected; but they had been too much mixed up

with it to render it safe to reveal too much of it. But enough might be

employed to destroy the Prime Minister, and to gain another end--the

exclusion of the Duke of York and the prevention of a Papist succession.

To destroy Danby, who was thoroughly anti-Gallican in his policy; to

exclude James from the throne and secure a Protestant succession;

to compel the king to rule by a Protestant Government, and to have

recourse to Parliament for support; there certainly appeared nothing

more likely than to raise a terror of a Papist conspiracy, and to link

it sufficiently with suspicious connection with France. This was done

with marvellous success amid a wonderful exhibition of strange events,

except that of excluding James from the throne, and even this was all

but accomplished. Probably the conception of the scheme was due to the

fertile mind of Shaftesbury, and its execution to the same master of

chicane, assisted by the unscrupulous Buckingham.

On the 12th of August, as the king was walking in the park, one Kirby,

a chemist, who had been occasionally employed in the royal laboratory,

and was therefore known to Charles, approached and said, "Sir, keep

within the company. Your enemies have a design upon your life, and you

may be shot in this very walk." Charles stepped aside with him, and

asked him the meaning of his words. He replied that two men, Grove

and Pickering, had engaged to shoot him, and that Sir George Wakeman,

the queen's physician, had agreed to poison him. Charles showed very

little change of manner or countenance, but told Kirby to meet him

that evening at the house of Chiffinch, his well-known procurer, and

pursued his walk. In the evening Kirby repeated what he had said, and

added that he received the information from Dr. Tongue, rector of

St. Michael's, in Wood Street, who was well known to several persons

about the Court. This Dr. Tongue was a singular mixture of cunning and

credulity, who had long been an alarmist, and who had printed yearly

and quarterly pamphlets against the Jesuits, "to alarm and awaken his

Majesty and the two Houses." Tongue was sent for, and brought a mass of

papers, divided into forty-three articles, giving a narrative of the

conspiracy, which he pretended had been thrust under his door. Charles

referred him to Danby, and to him Tongue repeated the story of Grove,

otherwise called Honest William, and Pickering, and said he would find

out their abode, or point them out when walking, according to their

daily custom, in the park. Orders were given to arrest these assassins,

but they did not appear, and Tongue gave various frivolous reasons for

their non-appearance. It was said that they were gone to Windsor, but

they could not be found there. Charles came at once to the conclusion

that the whole was a hoax, and when Danby requested permission to lay

the narrative before the Privy Council, he replied, "No, not even

before my brother! It would only create alarm, and might put the design

of murdering me into somebody's head."

The contempt which the king showed and expressed for the whole affair

might have caused it to drop, but there was unquestionably a party at

work behind, which would not suffer it to stop. Tongue informed Danby

that he had met with the person whom he suspected of having drawn up

the papers; that he had given him a more particular account of the

conspiracy, but he begged that his name might be concealed, lest the

Papists should murder him. He moreover assured Danby that on a certain

day a packet of treasonable letters would pass through the post-office

at Windsor, addressed to Bedingfield, the confessor of the Duke of

York. Danby hastened to Windsor to intercept the packet, but found it

already in the hands of the king. Bedingfield had delivered them to the

duke, saying that the papers appeared to contain treasonable matter,

and that they certainly were not in the hands of the persons whose

names they bore. The duke carried them at once to the king.

These papers now underwent a close examination, and the result was that

all were convinced that they were gross forgeries. One was clearly

in the same hand as the papers presented before by Tongue; the rest,

though in a feigned hand, bore sufficient evidence of being the work

of the same person. The king was more than ever convinced that the

whole was a hoax, and desired that no further notice might be taken of

it. Kirby frequently made his appearance at Court, but Charles always

passed him without notice. As there appeared no prospect of proceeding

with the matter at Court, the person who had conveyed the papers to

Dr. Tongue now went to Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, an active justice of

the peace at Westminster, and made affidavit, not only of the truth

of the former papers, but also of thirty-eight more articles, making

altogether eighty-one articles. This mysterious person now appeared as

one Titus Oates, a clergyman, and it was ascertained that he had been

lodging at Kirby's, at Vauxhall, and that Dr. Tongue had also retired

thither, on the plea of concealment from the Papists. Godfrey, on

perceiving that Coleman, secretary to the late Duchess of York, and a

friend of his own, was named in the affidavit as a chief conspirator,

immediately communicated the fact to Coleman, and Coleman communicated

it to the Duke of York.

James was now more than ever convinced that, whatever were the plot,

its object was to bring the Catholics into odium, and lead to his

exclusion from the throne, and demanded of Charles that it should be

inquired into. Danby now seemed to favour the king's view of keeping

it quiet, but this only led James to suspect that the minister wished

to hold it back till Parliament met, when its disclosure might be

useful in an impeachment with which he was menaced. Charles, at

the duke's renewed entreaty, reluctantly ordered Tongue and Oates

to appear before the Privy Council. Accordingly Titus Oates, soon

to become so notorious, appeared before the Council on the 28th of

September, 1678, in a clerical gown and a new suit of clothes, and with

an astonishing assurance delivered in writing the following strange

story. The Pope, he said, claimed Great Britain and Ireland, on the

ground of the heresy of the prince and people, and had commanded the

Jesuits to take possession of it for him. De Oliva, general of the

Order, had arranged everything for this purpose, and had named under

the seal of the Society, all the persons to fill the offices of the

State. Lord Arundel was created Lord Chancellor; Lord Powis, Treasurer;

Sir William Godolphin, Privy Seal; Coleman, Secretary of State; Lord

Bellasis, General of the Army; Lord Peters, Lieutenant-General; Lord

Stafford, Paymaster. All inferior offices, and all the dignities of

the Church were filled up, many of them with Spaniards and other

foreigners. Moreover, the Jesuits were dispersed throughout Ireland,

organising insurrections and massacres; in Scotland they were acting

under the guise of Covenanters; in Holland they were raising a French

party against the Prince of Orange, and in England preparing for the

murder of the king, and of the duke, too, if he did not consent to the

scheme. They had no lack of money. They had one hundred thousand pounds

in the bank, had sixty thousand pounds in yearly rents, had received

from La Chaise, the confessor of the French king, a donation of ten

thousand pounds, and a promise from De Corduba, the Provincial of New

Castile, of as much more. In March last a man named Honest William, and

Pickering, a lay brother, had been commissioned to shoot the king at

Windsor, and had been severely punished for the failure of the attempt.

On the 24th of April a consultation had been held by Jesuits from all

parts, at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, to decide on the mode

of killing the king; when three sets of assassins were engaged--the

two already mentioned, two Benedictine monks, Coniers and Anderton,

and four Irishmen. Ten thousand pounds had been offered to Wakeman,

the queen's physician, to poison the king, but he had refused to do it

for less than fifteen thousand pounds, which was agreed to, and five

thousand pounds had been paid down. He had often seen Wakeman since

amongst the Jesuits. The Irish assassins were to receive twenty guineas

each for stabbing the king. Honest William was to receive fifteen

hundred pounds, and Pickering thirty thousand masses, valued at the

same sum. They were to shoot the king with silver bullets. A wager, he

said, was laid that the king should eat no more Christmas pies, and

that if he would not become R.C. (Roman Catholic, or _Rex Catholicus_),

he should no longer be C.R. Oates averred that he had gone to the

Jesuits at Valladolid, thence with letters from them to Burgos, thence

to Madrid, back to England, thence had gone to St. Omer, and back to

England with fresh instructions. They made him cognisant of their plans

for the murder, and he saw on their papers all the names signed. Since

his return he had discovered that they set fire to London in 1666, and

had used seven hundred fire-balls, familiarly called Tewkesbury mustard

pills, as containing a notable biting sauce. Their success encouraged

them to set fire to Southwark in 1676, by which they had gained two

thousand pounds above their expenses, as they had by carrying off

diamonds in the London fire made fourteen thousand pounds. They had now

a plan to set fire to Wapping, Westminster, and the ships in the river.

There were twenty thousand Catholics in London, who had engaged to

rise in twenty-four hours or less, and could easily cut the throats of

one hundred thousand Protestants. In Scotland eight thousand Catholics

had agreed to take arms; a general massacre of Protestants was planned

in Ireland; Ormond was to be murdered; forty thousand black bills

were provided for the Irish massacre, and Coleman had sent thither

two hundred thousand pounds. Poole, the author of the "Synopsis," Dr.

Stillingfleet, and De Brunt were also to be put to death.

[Illustration: TITUS OATES BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCIL. (_See p._ 250.)]

The recital of this astounding story was listened to with amazement

and incredulity. The listeners looked at one another in wonder at the

audacity of the man who could relate such horrible and improbable

designs, and expect to be believed, after the account which he gave of

the mode by which he professed to obtain his information. This was that

he had feigned a conversion to discover the designs of the Jesuits;

had been duly admitted to the priesthood and to their monasteries, and

finally entrusted with the conveyance of their diabolical messages.

The Duke of York declared the whole to be a most impudent imposture,

but others thought no man in his senses would come forward with such

a startling tale, and implicate so many persons of consideration

without some grounds. Where, they asked, were his proofs? Where were

the papers that had been confided to him, which would be evidence

against the traitors? Oates confessed that he had no such papers, but

that he would undertake to procure abundance if he were furnished with

warrants and officers to arrest the persons whom he had accused, and

seize their papers. This was granted, and the next day the inquiry went

on. It was objected to the letters seized at Windsor, that they were

written in feigned hands, and were full of orthographical errors. Oates

replied that that was the art of the Jesuits, who gave such documents a

suspicious look, that if discovered they might pretend that they were

forged. But Charles, who became even more persuaded that the thing was

got up, asked Oates what sort of a man Don John was, as he professed to

have been introduced to him at Madrid. Oates replied at once that he

was tall, dark, and thin. The king turned to the duke and smiled, for

they both were well acquainted with Don John's person, which had more

of the Austrian than the Spaniard, and was fair, stout, and short. "And

where did you see La Chaise," added Charles, "pay down the ten thousand

pounds from the French king?" "At the house of the Jesuits," replied

Oates, unhesitatingly, "close to the Louvre." "Man!" exclaimed Charles,

who knew Paris better than Oates, "the Jesuits have no house within a

mile of the Louvre."

These palpable blunders confirmed Charles in his opinion, and seemed

to annihilate the veracity of Oates. The king, certain of the whole

affair proving a sheer invention, went away to Newmarket, and left the

duke and Danby to finish the inquiry. But they who had set Oates to

work knew more than he did, and presently such confirmation was given

to Oates's assertions as astonished every one. At first, the clue

appeared broken. On examining the papers of Harcourt, the Provincial of

the Jesuits, nothing bearing the slightest indications of a plot could

be discovered; but not so with the papers of Coleman. This man was the

son of a clergyman in Suffolk, who had turned Catholic, and was not

only appointed secretary to the Duchess of York, but after her death

was much in the confidence of James. Coleman was undoubtedly a great

dabbler in conspiracy. He had maintained a correspondence with Father

La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV., with the Pope's nuncio at

Brussels, and other Catholics, for the re-establishment of the Catholic

religion in England, and he made himself a centre of intelligence

to the Catholics at home and abroad. He lived in great style, and

his table was frequented by the Whig members during the sitting of

Parliament. He sent weekly news-letters to the Catholics in various

quarters, and made in them the severest remarks on the ambition of the

French king and the conduct of the English Government. Yet all this

time he was importuning Louis to furnish money for the establishment

of the Catholic Church in England again. He obtained three thousand

five hundred pounds from the bankers whom Charles had broken faith

with on the shutting of the Exchequer, on pretence of influence with

Parliament, and two thousand five hundred pounds from Barillon, to

distribute amongst members of Parliament.

In 1675 a foreigner of the name of Buchateau, but who was called

Louis Luzancy, had come to England, pretending to be a Catholic who

was desirous of joining the English Church, and who gave information

to some of the Opposition leaders that Father St. Germain, confessor

to the Duchess of York, had threatened to murder him if he did not

recant Protestantism. This made a great sensation, and he then said

he had made the discovery of a Popish plot, in which the king was to

be killed, and the streets of London were to run with the blood of

massacred Protestants. Though it was soon shown by Du Maresque, a

French Protestant clergyman, that Luzancy had fled from France for

forgery, and a swindling transaction at Oxford soon proved that he

was a great scoundrel, yet his story won him much patronage: he was

ordained and presented to the living of Dovercourt, in Essex, during

this present year. His pretended plot was very like this of Oates's,

and might possibly be its model. He had accused Coleman of similar

practices, but Coleman had boldly faced him and put him to silence.

But now Coleman had fled, itself a sign of guilt; amongst his papers

were found abundant evidence of his correspondence with the French

Court in 1674, 1675, and 1676. In one letter he said to La Chaise, "We

have here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of

three kingdoms, and by that, perhaps, the utter subduing of a pestilent

heresy, which has for a long time domineered over a great part of this

northern world. There never were such hopes of success since the days

of Queen Mary." He declared the duke devoted to the cause and also

to the French king. He said, "I can scarcely believe myself awake, or

the thing real, when I think of a prince in such an age as we live in

converted to such a degree of zeal and piety as not to regard anything

in the world in comparison of God Almighty's glory, the salvation of

his own soul, and the conversion of our poor kingdom." He declared that

Charles was inclined to favour the Catholics, and that money would

do anything with him. "Money cannot fail of persuading the king to

anything. There is nothing it cannot make him do, were it ever so much

to his prejudice. It has such absolute power over him he cannot resist

it. Logic built upon money has in our Court more powerful charms than

any other sort of argument." Therefore he recommended three hundred

thousand pounds to be sent over on condition that Parliament should be

dissolved.

These discoveries perfectly electrified the public. That there was

a plot they now had no doubt whatever, and the information touching

so close on the real secret of Charles's pension, must have startled

even him. Coleman, in these letters, stated that Parliament had

been postponed in 1675 till April, to serve the French designs, by

preventing Holland from obtaining assistance from England. Yet when

Oates had been confronted with Coleman before his flight, though Oates

pretended great intimacy with him, he actually did not recognise

him. Another proof, if any were wanted, that Oates was acting on the

knowledge of others, not on his own. Whoever they were, they had become

acquainted with Coleman's French correspondence, and who so likely as

Shaftesbury and the Whigs who used to frequent this man's house, and

who were themselves deep in a similar intrigue with the French Court?

Still more astounding events, however, followed close on this

discovery. No sooner was this discovery in the letters of Coleman made,

than Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Oates had made

his affidavit of the plot, who was a particular friend of Coleman's,

and had warned him of his danger, was missing, and was found murdered

amongst some bushes in a dry ditch between Primrose Hill and Old St.

Pancras Church. Godfrey was of a sensitive disposition, which sometimes

approached to insanity. On the apprehension of Coleman, Godfrey had

been seized with great alarm, and expressed his conviction that he

should be the first martyr of this plot. On the 12th of October he

burnt a large quantity of papers, and that day he was seen hurrying

about the town in a state of serious absent-mindedness. From that day

he was missing, and it was not till the sixth day that his body was

found. He lay forward, resting on his knees, his breast, and the left

side of his face. His sword was thrust through his heart with such

violence, that it appeared at his back. His cane was stuck upright in

the bank, his gloves lay near it on the grass, his rings were on his

fingers, and his money was in his purse. All these circumstances seemed

to indicate suicide; and to confirm it, it was reported that when the

sword was withdrawn, it was followed by a rush of blood. This, however,

the doctors denied, and on being stripped, the purple mark round his

neck showed that he had been strangled, and then thrust through, and

his body, cane, and gloves so disposed as to persuade the parties that

he had killed himself.

But who, then, were the murderers? This was never discovered, but

the public, putting together all the circumstances, declared that

the Papists had done it, and that Oates's story was all true. That

Catholics, or at least such as were in the scheme of Coleman, had done

it, appears very probable, although it has been argued that they had

no motive. But it must be remembered that Godfrey was a friend and

associate of Coleman's. He had always been a partisan of the Catholics;

he gave Coleman warning to fly; he showed great alarm himself, and

commenced burning papers. All these circumstances indicate complicity.

That he was deep in the secrets of the party, and had dangerous papers

in his possession, is clear. Coleman was in custody, and something

might be drawn out of him. Godfrey might be arrested, and a man of

his nervous temperament might reveal what concerned the lives of many

others. There were the strongest motives, therefore, for those who had

any concern in the dangerous conspiracy of Coleman, to have Godfrey at

least out of the way.

The public mind was in the wildest state of alarm and fermentation.

Every hour teemed with fresh rumours. Murders, assassinations, and

invasions were the constant talk of the panic-struck public. The City

put itself into a posture of defence; chains and posts were put up, and

no man deemed himself safe.

In this state of the public mind Parliament met on the 21st of October.

Charles informed Parliament that he had obtained more favourable terms

for Spain by his army in Flanders, but that the expense had been

enormous; the supplies were not only exhausted, but the revenue of the

next year was anticipated, and it would require a liberal grant even to

disband the army. He alluded but passingly to the plot, for it touched

too nearly on the tender ground of his French secret, but said he left

the examination of the plot entirely to the law. But both Danby and the

Opposition rushed into the question, contrary to the wish of Charles.

Danby was anxious to divert the House from the threatened impeachment

of himself, and the Opposition to establish a Popish plot, to damage

the Duke of York's prospects in the succession.

Oates was called before both Houses, as well as Dr. Tongue, and such

was the effect of their statements, that guards were placed in the

cellars under the Parliament House, to prevent another gunpowder plot;

and Charles was implored to order every Catholic, not a householder,

to quit London, to dismiss all Papists from his service, and have his

food prepared only by orthodox cooks. Committees were appointed to

search the conspiracy to the bottom. Shaftesbury took the lead in that

of the Lords, and there was busy work issuing warrants for searches and

arrests, sending out informers and officers, examining and committing

prisoners. In consequence of the charges made by Oates against Lords

Arundel, Powis, Bellasis, Petre, and Stafford, as having received

appointments from the Pope of the chief offices of State, they were

arrested and committed to the Tower.

The Commons introduced a new Test Act to exclude every Catholic from

Parliament. This had indeed been effected in the Commons in the

preceding session by the Oath of Supremacy, and the declaration against

Transubstantiation; but the present test went to exclude the Catholic

peers from their House also. It prescribed the taking of the Oaths of

Supremacy and Allegiance, and a declaration that the Church of Rome

was an idolatrous church. Such a test had been frequently introduced

before and thrown out, but in this public _furore_ it rapidly passed

the Commons, and reached a third reading in the Lords, when James,

with tears in his eyes, entreated them to exempt him from so severe

an exclusion, protesting that his religion should always remain a

thing between God and his own soul. A proviso, exempting him from its

operation, was added to the Bill; but in the Commons this passed by

only two votes. Thus the Catholic peers were excluded by Titus Oates

from their seats, and their successors did not regain them till 1829.

Under the stimulating effect of the repeated summonses of Oates before

Parliament, and his continually augmenting disclosures, both Houses

voted that "There had been and still was a damnable and hellish plot

contrived and carried on by the Popish recusants for assassinating and

murdering the king, and for subverting the Government, and rooting out

and destroying the Protestant religion." Titus Oates was declared "the

saviour of his country," and a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year

was, at the instigation of Parliament, settled on him. To increase

the effect of his disclosures, the funeral of the murdered Godfrey

was conducted with every circumstance of public parade. He had been

carried from Primrose Hill to his own house, and thousands had crowded

thither to see the martyr of Protestantism. Seventy-two divines, in

full canonicals, walked in procession to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields,

where he was buried, and they were followed by a thousand gentlemen in

mourning, including many members of Parliament. Dr. Lloyd, his friend

and Rector of the parish, preached a sermon from the text, "As a man

falleth before the wicked, so fellest thou." And he had two stout

fellows in the pulpit with him, dressed as clergymen, to defend him

from the Papists.

The fury against the Catholics now amounted to a frenzy. Two thousand

suspected traitors were thrust into the prisons of the metropolis, and

thirty thousand Catholics, who refused to take the obnoxious oaths,

were compelled to quit their homes in London, and remove to twenty

miles' distance from Whitehall. The train-bands and volunteers, to

the number of twenty thousand, were occasionally kept all night under

arms; batteries were planted, and every military precaution was taken

to prevent a surprise. The terror spread over the whole country; orders

were issued to disarm the Catholics everywhere, and every one was

compelled to take the oaths, or give security for keeping the peace.

[Illustration: THOMAS OSBORNE, FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS. (_From the Portrait

by Van der Vaart._)]

And who was this Titus Oates, who had been able to conjure up such a

storm? One of the most loathsome of mankind. His real name was Ambrose.

He was the son of a ribbon weaver, who turned Anabaptist preacher

during the Commonwealth, and managed to secure an orthodox pulpit at

the Restoration. Titus was sent to Cambridge, where he took orders,

and became a curate in different parishes, and afterwards chaplain

on board a man-of-war. But wherever he went, the worst of characters

pursued him, as addicted to a mischievous and litigious temper, and

to the most debased and disgraceful vices. Out of every situation he

was expelled with infamy, and was convicted twice of perjury by a

jury. Reduced by his crimes to beggary, he fell into the hands of Dr.

Tongue, and by him was engaged to simulate the character of a convert

to Catholicism, so as to be able to discover all that he could of the

secret views and designs of the Papists. He was reconciled, as the

Catholics term it, to the church by a priest of the name of Berry

or Hutchinson, who was first of one religion and then of another,

and nothing long, and sent to the Jesuits' College at Valladolid, in

Spain. But he was successively ejected both from that college and from

St. Omer, with accumulated infamy. Returning to England he became

the ready tool of Tongue, who no doubt was also the tool of deeper

and more distinguished agitators behind. The Jesuits had held one of

their triennial meetings at the Duke of York's. This Tongue and Oates

converted into a special meeting, for the prosecution of their great

national plot, but fixed it at the White Horse in the Strand. They then

forged their mass of letters and papers, purporting to be the documents

and correspondence of these Jesuits, planning the assassination of the

king. These were written in Greek characters by Oates, copied into

English ones by Tongue, and communicated as a great discovery to Kirby.

Such were the apparent unravellers of the alleged plot; but these

puppets had their strings pulled by far more masterly men, who were

constantly extending their ground and linking up fresh machinery in the

scheme. The weak part of the affair was, that on the testimony of Oates

alone the whole rested. Those whom he incriminated, to a man, steadily

denied any knowledge or participation in any such plot as he pretended.

It was necessary to have two witnesses for convicting traitors, and

other tools were not long wanting. Government had offered a large

reward and full pardon to any one who could discover the assassins of

Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, and in a few days a letter was received from

one William Bedloe, desiring that he might be arrested in Bristol and

brought to London to give evidence. The warrant for his apprehension

was, singularly enough, sent to Bedloe himself, who caused his own

arrest by delivering it to the Mayor of Bristol. This Bedloe turned out

to be as thorough a scoundrel as Oates himself. He had been employed as

a groom by Lord Bellasis, and afterwards in his house; had travelled as

a courier on the Continent, and occasionally passed himself off as a

nobleman. He had been seized and convicted of swindling transactions in

various countries, and was just released from Newgate, when his eye was

attracted by the reward of five hundred pounds for the discovery of the

murderers of Godfrey.

In his first examination by the king and the two Secretaries of State,

he disavowed all knowledge of the plot, but said he had seen the dead

body at Somerset House, where the queen lived, and that Le Fevre, the

Jesuit, told him that he and Walsh, another Jesuit, a servant of Lord

Bellasis's and attendant in the queen's chapel, had smothered him

between two pillows, and that they offered him two thousand pounds

to assist in conveying the body away. The next day, before the House

of Lords, he contradicted himself dreadfully, for the story of the

two pillows did not accord with the state of the body when found. Now

he said that he was not smothered, but strangled with a cravat. And

so far from knowing nothing of the plot, he confessed to knowing all

about the commissions offered to the Lords Arundel, Powis, Bellasis,

and others, and he added wonders and horrors of his own. Ten thousand

men, he said, were to land from Holland in Bridlington Bay, and seize

Hull; Jersey and Guernsey were to be invaded by a fleet and army from

Brest; an army from Spain of twenty or thirty thousand men was to

land at Milford Haven, and there be joined by Powis and Petre with

another army. There were forty thousand men ready in London, to kill

all the soldiers as they came out of their lodgings. He was to have

four thousand pounds for a great murder, meaning no doubt that of the

king, and the Government was to be offered to _one_, if he would

hold it of the Church. The king, Monmouth, Ormond, Buckingham, and

Shaftesbury were to be killed. Lords Carrington and Brudenel were named

as engaged in the plot, and were immediately arrested. When Charles

heard this astounding story, so diametrically opposed to his former

tales, he exclaimed, "Surely the man has received a new lesson during

the last four-and-twenty hours!" and no doubt he had. These additions

and improvements were constantly going on, without regard to the most

glaring self-contradictions; but the temper of Parliament made them

disregard obvious falsehoods of the most flagrant kind. So long as

there was a chance of excluding the Duke of York from Parliament, these

horrible stories were kept before the public imagination; but the

moment the proviso passed in his favour, the attack was diverted into

another and a higher channel. Buckingham had formerly endeavoured to

induce Charles to divorce the queen: now a deadly attack was made upon

her.

On the 23rd of November, a Mr. Lloyd sought an interview with the king,

and informed him that Titus Oates was in possession of information

that would incriminate the queen. Charles, who had shown more sense

than any one through the whole business, and might have crushed it

in a short time if he had had half the active exertion that he had

shrewdness, expressed his decided disbelief, yet admitted Oates to

make his statement. It was this, that he saw a letter in July, in

which Wakeman, the queen's physician, asserted that her majesty had

given her consent to the murder of the king; that he himself was at

Somerset House one day in August, with several Jesuits, and was left in

the antechamber whilst they went in to the queen; that the door being

ajar, he heard a female voice exclaim, "I will no longer suffer such

indignities to my bed! I will join in his death and the propagation

of the Catholic faith;" that when the Jesuits retired he looked into

the room and saw there only the queen. Now Oates had repeatedly and

distinctly declared that he knew of no other persons implicated except

those he had informed of; and when he made the charge against Wakeman,

had said not a word of this grave accusation. Charles was certain

that it was altogether false, but to prove the man, sent the Earls of

Ossory and Bridgewater to make him point out the room and antechamber;

but he could not do it. Charles again declared that the fellow had

been instigated by some interested person, and ordered strict guard

to be kept over him, and no one to be allowed to speak with him.

Bedloe, however, was brought forward to confirm Oates's statement, and

declared that he had overheard a conversation between Catherine and

Lord Bellasis, Coleman, and some French gentlemen, in the gallery of

the queen's chapel, in which she, after shedding tears, consented to

the king's murder. Bedloe had been careful not to point out any private

rooms for this scene, because he had made a fatal blunder in laying

the scene of Godfrey's murder in a room always occupied by the queen's

footmen, and at the very time that the king was there; and not only

was there a throng of persons all over the palace, but a sentinel was

posted at every door, and a detachment of the Guards was drawn out in

the court.

Bedloe, however, delivered his charge in writing to the House of

Commons, and then Oates appeared at the Bar, and, with a front of brass

and in a loud voice, exclaimed, "I, Titus Oates, accuse Catherine,

Queen of England, of high treason." The astounded Commons immediately

sent an address to Charles, requesting that the queen might be removed

from Whitehall, and desired a conference with the Lords. The Lords,

however, were not so precipitate; they desired first to see the

depositions made before the Council, then summoned Oates and Bedloe,

and strictly examined them. They particularly pressed them to explain

why this monstrous charge had not been produced before, and as they

could give no sufficient reason, they declined any conference on the

subject. Shaftesbury exerted himself to overrule this conclusion, but

in vain; and the charge was dropped, the king observing, "They think I

have a mind for a new wife; but for all that I won't see an innocent

woman abused." Impeachments, however, were received by the Lords

against the peers whom these miscreants had accused.

And now began the bloody work which these villains had remorselessly

elaborated for a number of innocent persons, to serve the great end of

their employers. The first victim, however, was one whom a third base

wretch, thirsting for blood-money, a broken-down Scotsman, of the name

of Carstairs, had accused. This was Stayley, a Catholic banker, whom

the man said he had heard telling a Frenchman of the name of Firmin,

of Marseilles, in a tavern in Covent Garden, that the king was the

greatest rogue in the world, and that he would kill him with his own

hand. Carstairs had gone to Stayley and told him what he professed to

have heard, but offered to suppress the fact for two hundred pounds.

Stayley treated him with deserved contempt, but he was arrested within

five days and tried for his life. Burnet, on hearing the name of the

accuser, hastened to Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, and told

him that this Carstairs was a man of the vilest character, and not to

be believed on his oath; but Jones asked him who had authorised him to

defame the king's witness, and Burnet timidly withdrew. Firmin could

have decided what Stayley had really said, but he was kept in custody

and not allowed to appear on the trial, and Stayley was condemned and

hanged.

Coleman perished next, on the evidence of Oates and Bedloe, that he

had been plotting with the French Court; but he contended it was only

to obtain money for restoring Catholicism, and not to injure any

person. It was clear that he had received money from the French king,

and therefore was guilty of a serious crime, but it was equally clear

that both Oates and Bedloe fabricated much falsehood against him. His

own letters, however, were insurmountable evidence of his guilt. Next

came Ireland, Fenwick, Grove, Whitbread, and Pickering. Ireland, a

Jesuit priest, was accused of having signed, with fifty other Jesuits,

a resolution to kill the king, and the others of having engaged to

assist in the design. Oates swore to the guilt of the whole, Bedloe

only to that of Ireland, Grove, and Pickering, who were condemned, and

died protesting that they, before their apprehension, had never heard

of such a thing as a plot, much less had any concern in one. Bedloe

claimed to be the chief witness respecting the death of Godfrey; but

though he had unscrupulously seconded the evidence of Oates, Oates

would not support him in this case. He was obliged, therefore, to look

out for a second witness, and it was two months before he could find

one. At length, on the 21st of December, one Prance, a silversmith,

who had worked in the queen's chapel, was apprehended on suspicion, he

having absented himself from his house for several days about the time

of Godfrey's murder. The moment Bedloe saw him, he exclaimed, "That man

is one of the murderers." It was in vain that he denied it, equally

vain that he brought witnesses to prove that he did not leave home at

the time of Godfrey's death, but a week before. He was thrown into

Newgate, and loaded with irons; some say he was tortured, others that

he was worked upon by threats and promises. He confessed, and accused

three others--Hill, Green, and Berry, three servants in Somerset

House. But scarcely had he done so, when he entreated to be brought

before the king and Council again, and there on his knees, and with

every sign of agony and remorse, protested that all that he had said

was false, that he knew nothing whatever of either the murder or the

murderers. Afterwards, in prison, where he was chained to the floor,

the horror of his feelings was such, that Dr. Lloyd, who preached

Godfrey's funeral sermon, and now was become Dean of Bangor, said that

he was occasionally bereft of his reason. When urged to confess, he

again, however, repeated his former statement, but with various strange

additions; then Dr. Lloyd declined to have anything more to do with

it, but left him to Boyce, the gaoler. Prance afterwards said that

Boyce wrote many things that he copied after him, and he could see that

Boyce had been with Bedloe and Lord Shaftesbury, and that he was told

he must make his evidence agree with Bedloe's, or he would be sure to

be hanged. The first story of Prance was that they had killed Godfrey

because he was an enemy to the queen's servants; that Green strangled

him with a handkerchief, and punched him on the breast with his knee:

but finding him not dead, wrung his neck; that on the following

Wednesday night, about twelve o'clock, the body was put into a sedan

chair and taken to the Soho, and there conveyed on horseback before

Hill to the place in the fields where he was found, and where they

thrust his sword through him.

Hill, Green, and Berry stoutly denied the whole affair, and pointed out

the gross contradictions between the evidence of Bedloe and Prance; but

Chief Justice Scroggs, who presided at all these trials, and showed

himself a most brutal and unprincipled judge, overruled all that.

Mrs. Hill, who brought witnesses into court in favour of her husband,

complained vehemently that they were browbeaten and laughed at. "My

witnesses," she exclaimed, "are not rightfully examined; they are

modest, and are laughed at." The unhappy victims were all condemned,

and died still protesting their innocence. Berry, who was a Protestant,

was respited a week, with a promise of pardon if he would confess; but

he would not--a sufficient proof of the man's innocence, who would not

purchase life by a lie.

These victims having suffered, the drama of plots now produced a new

act. It was one of the great objects, as we have said, not only to

damage the succession of the Duke of York and to alarm the king, but

to ruin the Prime Minister, Danby, who had superseded the Cabal.

Intrigues were entered into with Montagu, the ambassador at Paris,

for this purpose. Montagu was, of course, in the secret of the money

transactions between the English and French Courts, and could, if it

were his interest, produce enough to destroy Danby, without letting

too much light in upon the whole foul business; for not only the king

on one side, but the patriots and the Opposition on the other, were

equally implicated. A fortunate incident facilitated their plans.

Montagu and Danby were at feud, and Danby only wanted a fair pretext

to remove Montagu from his post at Paris. In this position of things

Montagu furnished ample ground for his recall. He had made love to

Charles's famous mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland, now superseded

by the Duchess of Portsmouth. Cleveland was living in Paris a life as

little creditable as her life had been in England. But Montagu deserted

her for her daughter, and, on her resenting this, threatened if she

continued to annoy him, to expose her intrigues in the French Court,

for she was become a great political tool of Louis in his practices

on England. But Cleveland was not a woman to submit to be snubbed

and menaced even by a king, much less by a minister: she wrote at

once to Charles a furious letter against Montagu, for she had still

great influence with the king. She alleged that Montagu, who had

been employed by Charles to find out an astrologer, who had foretold

accurately Charles's restoration and entry into London on the 29th

of May, 1660, had bribed this man to give such answers to the king

as suited his own purposes. He had often told her that both the king

and the duke were fools--one a dull, governable fool, and the other

a wilful fool; that he wished the Parliament would send them both on

their travels again; that the king always chose a greater beast than

himself to govern him, and much of the like kind.

Montagu did not wait for the blow which was sure to follow this

missive, but suddenly, without notice or permission, left Paris and

appeared in England. He put himself in communication with Shaftesbury

and his party, and also with Barillon, who would be only too glad to

get Danby dismissed from office. Danby watched the movements of Montagu

with anxiety, knowing that he had the power to make fatal disclosures.

To secure himself from the attack of the Government, and at the same

time to enable him to effect his own purpose, Montagu offered himself

as a candidate for Parliament at Grinstead, but was defeated by the

influence of Danby. At Northampton he was returned by the mayor, Sir

William Temple, while the Government nominee was returned by the

sheriff; but the popular party defended his election, and Montagu

gained his seat. It was agreed with the Opposition that he should lay

a charge against Danby of treasonable correspondence with France, and

other offences, and that they should move for his impeachment on these

grounds. Besides this, Montagu had made a bargain with Barillon that

one hundred thousand livres should be paid to the most powerful of

the Opposition, for their endeavours to crush Danby, and one hundred

thousand livres to himself, or forty thousand livres of _rentes_ on the

Hôtel de Ville, or a pension of fifty thousand livres--according to the

decision of the king--if Danby were excluded from office.

[Illustration: HÔTEL DE VILLE, PARIS, IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (_From

an Engraving by Rigaud._)]

Danby was not ignorant of the storm brewing, and it was thought best

not to wait for its bursting; but the king sent and seized Montagu's

papers, on pretence that he had been intriguing with the Pope's nuncio

in Paris; and Erneley, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced this

fact to the House. It was a very adroit proceeding, but Montagu soon

discovered that the precious casket containing the most important

papers had been overlooked in the search. Montagu stated to the House

that Danby had missed his aim, that the papers were safe, and a

deputation was despatched to fetch them. They returned with a small

despatch box, and from this Montagu produced two letters of Danby, one

of them the letter in which Danby solicited a pension of six million

livres, on condition that he procured a peace from the allies, and to

which Charles had added the words, "This is writ by my order.--C. R."

On the reading of this letter the House was thrown into a violent

agitation. The secret dealings of the king were partly brought to

light. It was now seen that Charles's zeal for the war was only a

pretence to extract money from the nation, and, this obtained, that he

was ready to sell the honour of the country to France; and that the

minister had consented to the infamous transaction. They immediately

voted Danby's impeachment by a majority of sixty-three, and appointed

a committee--of which Montagu was one--to draw up the articles. There

was a danger that Danby would retort on Montagu by producing letters

of his own, proving that he was mixed up with these transactions from

the beginning, and had indeed been made the medium of their proposal;

but Montagu trusted to the impossibility of detaching their evidence

from such as would have angered the country against the king. He was

right; yet two of his letters were sent by Danby to the House, one

giving information that Ruvigny was sent to London to treat through

Lord William Russell with the Opposition, and the other containing a

proposal from Montagu of a grant of money to Charles on the conclusion

of peace. These, at another time, would have produced a wonderful

sensation, but they were now cast aside to pursue the higher game, and

the next day--December 21st--the impeachment of Danby was sent up to

the Lords.

On the 23rd Danby replied to the charges by pleading that he had

written the letter from the dictation of the king, who had certified

the fact by his own hand in the postscript; that it was well known

that he was neither a Papist nor a friend to the French alliance, but

that he had reason to believe that his accuser, a man who, from his

perfidy and breach of the most sacred trust, all men must abhor, had

been assisted by French counsel in getting up this impeachment. He

denied any guilty practices, and demanded only a fair trial. There was

a motion made to commit him to the Tower, but this was overruled, and

a day was fixed on which the Lord Treasurer should make his defence.

But to defeat this, Danby now advised the king to do that which he had

repeatedly dissuaded him from--namely, to dissolve the Parliament.

Accordingly, on the 30th of December, it was prorogued for four weeks,

and before it could meet again, namely, on the 24th of January, 1679,

he dissolved it by proclamation, summoning another to meet in forty

days.

This Pension Parliament had now lasted nearly eighteen years. A

wonderful change had come over the spirit of this Parliament since its

first meeting. Soon after Charles's return no Parliament could be more

slavishly submissive. It had restored to him almost everything that the

Long Parliament had taken from his father--the power of the army, the

customs, and excise; it had passed the most severe and arbitrary Acts

for the supremacy of the Church, and the plunder and persecution of

Catholics and Dissenters. The Act of Uniformity, the Corporation Act,

the Test Act, the Conventicle Act, the Five-Mile Act, the Act which

excluded Catholic peers from their House, by which the Church and Crown

had been exalted, and the liberties of the people abridged, were all

the work of this Parliament. But in time, a different temper displayed

itself in this very pliant House. It stiffened and became uncompliant.

But this was not at all by a growth of virtue in it. Various

circumstances had produced this change. Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and

others of the Cabal ministry and their adherents, had lost place and

favour, and had organised a stout Opposition. Their chief objects were

to mortify and thwart the king, to destroy the prospect of the Popish

Duke of York's succession, and to overthrow their rival, Danby. In the

prosecution of these selfish ends, they had, as usual, assumed the

easy mask of patriotism, and had been joined by the Republican and

Patriot party. They had got up the cry of Popery, and driven the nation

frantic by alarm of Popish plots, and into much bloodshed, of which

the end was not yet. Their present attack on Danby was to thrust down

a much better man than themselves, though by no means a perfect one.

But Danby had always detested the French alliance, and the use made

of it to ruin the Protestant nations on the Continent and destroy the

balance of power, in favour of France. He had consented, it is true,

but most reluctantly, to write some of the king's begging letters to

Louis, and now the Opposition, whose hands were filthy with handling

Louis's bribe, had contrived to make him appear not the enemy, but

actually the ally and tool of France. Montagu, the great broker of

these corruptions, who had taken good care of himself, was become the

chastiser of a man who was not a tenth part so guilty as himself. But

the darkest part of this story is the share which the Patriotic party

had in this receipt of French money, and amongst them Algernon Sidney

and Hampden, the grandson of the great patriot. But in excuse for them

it may be urged that they did not vote against their consciences.

When the new Parliament met it was found to be more violently

anti-Roman than the old one. The duke's known, the king's suspected,

Popery created a feeling in the nation that nothing could remove,

and which the recent excitements about a Popish plot had roused into

a universal flame. This flame the popular party took every means to

fan; and though the Government exerted all its power, its candidates

were everywhere received with execrations, and assertions of the

bloody machinations of the Papists. The new Parliament, therefore,

came up with vehement zeal against the plotters, and with unabated

determination to punish Danby. But the warning which the progress of

the election gave was not lost on Danby. He considered that it would

be one of the most powerful means of abating the public jealousy

of Popery, if the king could be induced to send the duke out of

the kingdom. Charles recoiled at so harsh a measure, and tried the

vain expedient of inducing James to pretend at least conversion, by

sending the Primate and other bishops to persuade him to return to the

Established Church. It was of course useless, and then Charles was

obliged to advise James to withdraw for awhile, and reside at Brussels.

James complied on two conditions--that the king should give him a

formal order to leave the kingdom, so that he might not seem to steal

away out of fear; and that he should pledge himself publicly that he

would never acknowledge the legitimacy of Monmouth, who had given out

that he had four witnesses, in case of Charles's death, to prove his

marriage with his mother. This was done in presence of the Council, the

members adding their signatures, and Charles ordered the instrument to

be enrolled in Chancery. James quitted London with the duchess on the

4th of March, leaving his daughter Anne with her uncle, that the people

might not suppose that he sought to convert her to Popery at Brussels.

On the 6th of March Parliament met, and the Commons were immediately

engaged in a dispute with the Crown regarding the election of a

Speaker. They elected their old one, Mr. Seymour; the Lord Treasurer

appointed Sir Thomas Mears, one of his most active opponents in the

last Parliament. But during the interval since the dissolution, Danby

had been hard at work to convert, by some means or other, some of his

most formidable enemies. After some altercation the Commons gave way,

and Mears was appointed.

But this exercise of royal prerogative only embittered the House

to punish Danby and screen Montagu. The Lords passed a resolution

that the dissolution of Parliament did not affect an impeachment--a

doctrine which has become constitutional. Montagu had absconded,

but reappeared when his election to Parliament gave him personal

protection. Everything, therefore, portending the conviction of Danby,

Charles ordered him to resign his staff, and then announced this fact

to Parliament, at the same time informing them that as he had ordered

him to write the letters in question, he had granted him a pardon,

and that he would renew the pardon a dozen times if there were a

continued attempt to prosecute him for an act simply of obedience to

his sovereign.

But this attempt to take their victim out of their hands was resented

by the Commons as a direct breach of their privileges, and having

looked for a copy of this pardon in Chancery, and not finding it, they

learned from the Lord Chancellor that the pardon had been brought

ready drawn by Danby to the king, who signed it; and that the Seal

had not been affixed by himself, but by the person who carried the

bag, at Charles's own order. This irregularity the more inflamed

the Parliament. Powle, one of the French pensioners, with that air

of injured virtue which politicians so easily assume, inveighed

indignantly against Danby, who, he said, had brought the country to the

brink of ruin by pandering to the mercenary policy of Louis--the very

thing he had opposed,--and had raised a standing army and paid it with

French money. Moreover, he had concealed the Popish plot, and spoken of

Oates with contempt. The Commons forthwith passed a Bill of Attainder,

and the Lords sent to take Danby into custody; but he had absconded. On

the 10th of April, however, he surrendered himself to the Lords, and

was sent to the Tower. Lord Essex was appointed Lord Treasurer in his

stead, and Lord Sunderland, Secretary of State, took the station of

Prime Minister. Essex was popular, solid, and grave in his temperament,

but not of brilliant talent. Sunderland was a very different man. He

was clever, intriguing, insinuating in his manners, but as thoroughly

corrupt and unprincipled as the worst part of the generation in which

he lived. He had long been ambassador at the Court of France, and the

very fact of his holding that post between two such monarchs as Louis

and Charles, was proof enough that he was supple, and not restrained

by any nice sense of morals or honesty. He was perfidious to all

parties--a Cavalier by profession, but at the same time that he was

serving arbitrary monarchs most slavishly, he was Republican in heart.

He was especially attentive to the mother of Monmouth and the Duchess

of Portland, because he knew that they had great influence with his

master.

[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. (_See p._ 263.)]

At this crisis Sir William Temple proposed to Charles a measure which

he thought most likely to abate the virulence of Parliament, and at the

same time prevent ministers from pursuing any clandestine purposes to

excite the suspicion of the Parliament and nation. Temple had always

shown himself above and apart from the mere interested ambitious and

selfish objects of the king's ministers. Whenever he was wanted, he

was called from his philosophic retreat of Moor Park, in Surrey, to

do some work of essential benefit to the nation, which it required

a man of character and ability to accomplish. He had effected the

Triple Alliance and the marriage of the Princess Mary with William of

Orange; he had refused to have any concern with the intrigues of the

Cabal; and now, when Parliament was fast hastening to press on the

prerogative, he proposed that the Privy Council should be increased

to thirty members, half consisting of officers of State, and half of

leading and independent members of the Lords and Commons. All these

were to be entrusted with every secret movement and proposition of

government; and the king was to pledge himself to be guided by their

advice. Temple augured that nothing pernicious could be broached by

unscrupulous ministers in a body where half were independent members

of Parliament, holding no office from the Crown; and that, on the

other hand, Parliament could not so vehemently suspect the tendency of

measures which had first the approbation of their own popular leaders.

The House of Commons had now driven three successive ministries from

office--Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby--and was still bent on a

career violently opposed to the Crown. If Temple had calculated that

the effect would be to neutralise or convert the democratic members,

he would have been right; but that such a Council could ever work any

other way was impossible. The king would never long submit measures,

intended to maintain his prerogative, to a Council which was not

likely to carry his views at once to both Houses; but he might,

and undoubtedly would, in many cases, succeed in bringing over the

Opposition orators to his interest. This was the immediate effect on

most of them. Shaftesbury, Lord Russell, Saville, Viscount Halifax,

Powle, and Seymour, the late Speaker, were included in the Council.

But Temple soon found that men of such contrary views would not pull

well together, and was compelled to break his chief condition, and

compose a sort of inner council, of himself, Capel, Halifax, Essex,

and Sunderland, who prepared and really managed everything. Halifax

was a man of the most brilliant talents, ambitious, yet not thinking

himself so, but so little swayed by mere party, that he was called a

trimmer, and gloried in the title. For the rest--Capel, Cavendish, and

Powle lost the confidence of the Commons, which looked on the new

institution with distrust; Russell and Shaftesbury alone spoke out as

boldly as ever, and retained more influence in the two Houses than

they gained in the Council. In fact, the Opposition members soon found

that they might propose, but the king would not be outvoted in his own

Council. The very first measure suggested, was that all persons of

Popish tendencies should be weeded out of office, out of the posts of

lord-lieutenants, the magistracy, and the courts of law; but Charles,

perceiving that the object was to remove the staunchest supporters

of the Crown, quickly put an end to it. He called for the rolls, and

wherever he saw a name marked for removal, gave such ludicrous and

absurd reason for its retention, that there was no gravely answering

him. One objected to, he said, was a "good cocker," another an "expert

huntsman," "kept good foxhounds," or a "good house," "had always

excellent chines of beef," and the like. Arguments were thrown away on

the king, and the matter came to nothing.

On the other hand, Shaftesbury, who had been made President of the

Council by Charles himself, undiverted by this from his great object,

pursued his Popery alarms out of doors, where the king could not

checkmate him. A fire broke out in a printing-house in Fetter Lane,

and the servant was induced to confess that one Stubbs had promised

her five pounds to do it, who in turn said Gifford, his confessor, had

set him on, urging it was no sin; and he added that London was to be

set on fire again by French Papists. The absurd story soon grew into

a rumour that the Duke of York was coming with a French army to claim

the throne and re-establish Popery with all its horrors. Shaftesbury

declared in the Lords that Popery must be rooted out if there was to

be any liberty left; that Popery and slavery, like two sisters, went

ever hand-in-hand; that one might now go first, now the other; but

wherever one was seen, the other was certainly not far off. The Commons

eagerly seizing on the temper of the nation, voted unanimously a Bill

of Exclusion against the Duke of York, and that a Protestant successor

should be appointed, as though the duke were actually dead. Sir William

Temple attempted to weaken this movement by attributing it to Monmouth

and Shaftesbury, between whom, it was asserted, there was a secret

understanding that if Monmouth's scheme of proving his legitimacy

succeeded, Shaftesbury should be his Prime Minister. Probably by the

advice of Temple, Charles proposed a plan for a compromise--that in

case a Popish prince succeeded, every power of altering the law should

be taken out of his hands; that no judges, justices, lord-lieutenants,

privy councillors, or officers of the navy should be appointed without

consent of Parliament; and that no livings or dignities in the Church

should be at the option of the king, but of a board of the most pious

and Protestant divines. Shaftesbury, however, ridiculed all these

precautions, as attempting to bind Samson with green withes, which he

could snap with the greatest ease. The Commons were of that mind, and

on the 21st of May, 1679, passed their Exclusion Bill by a majority

of two hundred and seven against one hundred and twenty-eight. The

Commons followed this up by proceeding in a body to the House of

Lords, and demanding judgment against Danby. They also required that

the Prelates should not vote on Danby's case, fearing that their

numbers might give the Crown a majority; but to this the Lords were

opposed, and though the bishops offered to concede the point, the king

forbade them, as the matter involved his prerogative. The Commons

persisting in their demand, now instituted a strict inquiry into the

cases of bribery of members of Parliament by the late minister, and

ordered one of his agents, Fox, the Treasurer of the Navy, to proceed

to Whitehall in company of three members, and bring his books and

papers for examination. The king resented the searching of his house

as a gross insult, and the books and papers were refused; but Fox was

compelled to state how many members he had paid money to, and he named

twenty-seven individuals. This was on the 24th of May, and Charles, to

cut the inquiry short, suddenly sent for the Commons, and prorogued

Parliament for ten weeks. Shaftesbury was so enraged at this unexpected

obstruction to his plans, that he vowed in the House of Lords that it

should cost the king's advisers of this measure their heads.

This prorogation was, on other accounts, one of the most remarkable

eras in our Parliamentary annals, for before pronouncing the Parliament

prorogued, the king gave his consent to the Habeas Corpus Act, and

allowed the Act establishing the censorship of the press to expire. The

carrying of the Habeas Corpus Act was owing mainly to the influence of

Shaftesbury, and was a benefit of such magnitude, that it might cover

a multitude of the sins of that extraordinary man, who, with all his

faults, had a genuine substratum of patriotism in him. The press had

hitherto never been free. Elizabeth cut off the hands of Puritans who

offended her, and her successors dragged them into their Star Chamber.

Even the Long Parliament, when they abolished the Star Chamber,

declined to liberate the press, notwithstanding Milton's eloquent

appeal for the liberty of unlicensed printing. The press was at length

free, but only for a time, being too dangerous an engine to the corrupt

government which so long succeeded.

Whilst the blood of unfortunate victims of imaginary plots was flowing

in England, in Scotland the same ruthless persecution had continued

against the Covenanters. Lauderdale had married the Countess of

Dysart, a most extravagant and rapacious woman, who acquired complete

influence over him; and to find resources for her expense, he levied

fines on the Nonconformists with such rigour and avidity, that it was

believed that he really sought to drive the people to rebellion, in

order to have a plea for plundering them. Such was the woful condition

of Scotland, delivered over by the lewd and reckless king to a man who

combined the demon characters of cruelty, insult, and avarice, in no

ordinary degree. Complaints from the most distinguished and most loyal

inhabitants were only answered by requiring them to enter into bonds

that neither they, nor their families, nor tenants should withdraw from

the Established Church, under the same penalties as real delinquents.

The gentry refused to enter into such bonds. Lauderdale, therefore,

determined to treat the whole West of Scotland as in an actual state

of revolt, and not only sent troops with artillery to march into the

devoted districts, but let loose upon them bands of wild Highlanders,

and commanded even the nobility, as well as others, to give up their

arms. The outraged population--left exposed to the spoliation of the

Highlanders, who, though they spared the lives, freely robbed the

inhabitants--sent a deputation of some of their most eminent men to lay

their sufferings before the king himself. They were, however, dismissed

with a reprimand, Charles replying, "I perceive that Lauderdale has

been guilty of many bad things against the people of Scotland, but I

cannot find that he has acted in anything contrary to my interest."

At length Lauderdale's confederate, Archbishop Sharp, was murdered by

a band of Covenanting enthusiasts in Fife. There the cruelties of the

archbishop were pre-eminently intolerable. There David Hackston of

Rathillet, his brother-in-law, John Balfour of Kinloch, or Balfour of

Burley, as he is immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in "Old Mortality,"

James Russell of Kettle, and six others determined to take vengeance

on a notorious creature of Sharp's, one Carmichael, who had pursued

his levy of fines with such brutality, as to have beaten and burnt

with lighted matches women and children, to compel them to betray

their masters, husbands, brothers, or fathers. On the 3rd of May,

1679, Carmichael had been out hunting, but hearing of Rathillet and

his band being on the watch for him, he left the field and got home.

The conspirators were returning disappointed, when a greater prey fell

into their hands. The wife of a farmer at Baldinny sent a lad to tell

them that the archbishop's coach was on the road, going from Ceres

towards St. Andrews. The delighted men gave chase, and, compelling the

old man to leave his coach, barbarously murdered him. The assassins

only crossed to the other side of Magus Muir, where the bloody deed

had been perpetrated, and in a cottage they spent the remainder of the

day in prayer and praising God for the accomplishment of what they

deemed this noble work. They then rode into the West, where they joined

Donald Cargill, one of the most noted of the Cameronian preachers, with

Spreul, and Robert Hamilton, a young man of good family, and a former

pupil of Bishop Burnet's, who had been excited by the persecutions of

the people to come out and attempt their relief.

The murder of the archbishop only roused the Government to more

determined rigour, and the persecuted people, grown desperate, threw

off in great numbers all remaining show of obedience and resolved to

resist to the death. The more moderate Presbyterians lamented and

condemned the murder of the Primate, but the more enthusiastic looked

upon it as a judgment of God. They resolved to face the soldiery, and

they had soon an opportunity, for Graham of Claverhouse, a man who

acquired a terrible fame in these persecutions, being stationed at

Glasgow, drew out a troop of dragoons and other cavalry, and went in

pursuit of them. He encountered them at a place near Loudon Hill, in a

boggy ground called Drumclog, where the Covenanters, under Hamilton,

Balfour, and Cleland, defeated his forces, and put them to flight,

killing about thirty of them, including a relative of Claverhouse's

(June 11, 1679). The insurgents under Hamilton, elated with their

victory, marched after Claverhouse into Glasgow itself, but were

repulsed. They went on, however, increasing so fast, that Claverhouse

evacuated Glasgow, and marched eastward, leaving all the west of

Scotland in their hands.

On the news reaching London, Charles despatched the Duke of Monmouth,

with a large body of the royal guards, to quell the rebellion. On the

21st of June, as the Covenanters lay near the town of Hamilton, they

received the intelligence that Monmouth, with his forces joined to

those of Claverhouse, was approaching. The insurgents had soon taken

to quarrelling amongst themselves, and the more moderate section

were now for submitting on favourable terms. Rathillet and the more

determined would not hear of any surrender, but marched off and left

the waverers, who sent a memorial to Monmouth, declaring that they were

ready to leave all their complaints to a free Parliament, and free

Assembly of the Church. The duke, who showed much mildness throughout

this campaign, replied that he felt greatly for their sufferings,

but that they must lay down their arms, and then he would intercede

for them with the king. On the receipt of this answer the greatest

confusion prevailed; the moderate durst not risk a surrender on such

terms, remembering the little mercy they had hitherto received from

the Government; the more violent, with a fatal want of prudence, now

insisted on cashiering their officers, who had shown what they called

a leaning towards Erastianism, or, in other words, a disposition to

submit to the civil power.

Whilst they were in this divided state, Monmouth's army appeared in

sight on the 22nd of June. The Covenanters, therefore, compelled to

fight or fly, seized on the bridge of Bothwell, which crossed the

Clyde between the village of Bothwell and the town of Hamilton. It

was narrow, and in the centre there stood a gateway. Here Rathillet,

Balfour, and others posted themselves with about three hundred men to

defend this pass. But the army of Monmouth, on the slope of the hill

descending from Bothwell to the Clyde, commanded the opposite hill,

on which the Covenanters were posted, with his artillery, and under

its fire a strong body of troops advanced to force the bridge. Balfour

and Rathillet defended their post bravely, but the gate was at length

carried, and they were pushed back at the point of the bayonet. They

found themselves unsupported by the main body, which, on the artillery

playing murderously upon them, had retreated to Hamilton Heath, about a

quarter of a mile distant. There they rallied, and repulsed one or two

charges, and broke a body of Highlanders; but undisciplined, disunited,

and without artillery to cope with that of Monmouth, they were only

exposed to slaughter. They turned and fled.

Monmouth commanded a halt, to spare the fugitives. But Claverhouse

pursued and cut them down to the number of four hundred men, besides

taking twelve hundred prisoners. Some of the ministers and leaders were

executed, the more obstinate were sent as slaves to the Plantations,

many of them being lost at sea, and the rest were liberated on giving

bonds for conformity. The efforts of Monmouth procured an indemnity and

indulgence, which might, after this severe chastisement, have produced

the most salutary effect; but this was speedily superseded by the old,

faithless, and cruel _régime_ of Lauderdale, and the still more brutal

rule of the Duke of York.

During this time the Popish plot, with fresh actors and ramifications,

was agitated by the anti-Papal party with unabated zeal. On the 24th

of April, 1679, a Protestant barrister, Nathaniel Reading, was tried

for tampering with the evidence against Catholic noblemen in prison,

in order to reduce the charge from treason to felony. It appeared that

Bedloe had engaged him to do it, and then informed against him. There

appeared on the trial many damning circumstances against the character

and veracity of Bedloe, yet Reading was condemned to pay a fine of one

thousand pounds, and to suffer a year's imprisonment.

Bedloe, Oates, and Prance were again, however, brought forward in

June against Whitbread and Fenwick, who had been illegally remanded

to prison on their former trial, and three other Jesuits--Harcourt,

Gavan, and Turner--were now also examined, and a new witness, one

Dugdale, a discarded steward of Lord Aston's, was introduced. Oates

had little to add to his former story, but Bedloe and Prance were

prolific in new charges. It was in vain that the prisoners pointed

out their gross prevarications and palpable falsehoods. They were all

condemned, as well as Langhorne, a celebrated Catholic barrister.

The infamous Jeffreys, now Recorder of London, sentenced them, amid

the loud acclamations of the spectators, and they were all executed,

after being offered a pardon on condition of confessing the plot,

and disclosing what they knew. Langhorne was promised his life if he

would reveal the property of the Jesuits, and on its proving only of

the value of twenty thousand or thirty thousand pounds, he was told

it was too insignificant to save his life. A second time his life was

offered him if he would reveal the plot, but he replied he knew of no

plot, and all were executed with the usual horrors. Next came up for

trial Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, and Corker, Rumby, and

Marshall, Benedictine monks; but the diabolical perjury of Oates this

time received such an exposure, that the prisoners were all acquitted.

Philip Lloyd, the clerk of the Council, deposed that when Oates had

been questioned by the Lord Chancellor whether he knew anything

personally of Sir George Wakeman, he had solemnly sworn that he did

not, yet this morning he had charged him with different acts of treason

committed in his own presence.

Notwithstanding this rebuff to the despicable informer, the three monks

were recommitted on a fresh charge, and in every quarter of the kingdom

similar persecutions were carried on, numbers were thrown into prison,

and eight other Catholics were executed in different places.

The Duke of York was every day becoming more uneasy in his residence

at Brussels. Knowing the intrigues of Shaftesbury and his party to

advance the claims of Monmouth, he repeatedly solicited the king to let

him return, and Charles falling ill in August, at Windsor, consented,

and James made his appearance at Court, much to the consternation of

Monmouth and his supporters. The king recovering, to put an end to the

intrigues and feuds between the two dukes, Charles sent Monmouth to

Brussels, instead of James, and ordered James to retire to Scotland.

Being, as usual, pressed for money, Charles again importuned Louis for

one million livres for three years; but Louis replied that he did not

see at this period what services England could render him for that

expense: and James advised him to manage without the money, by adopting

a system of rigid economy. In August he prorogued Parliament for a

year, and endeavoured to carry on without the French king's pension.

On seeing this, Louis, through Barillon, renewed his offers, but

Charles felt too proud to accept them, and then the French king once

more turned to the Patriots, so-called, to instigate fresh annoyances.

Barillon paid to Buckingham one thousand guineas, two thousand five

hundred guineas were distributed amongst Baber, Littleton, Harbord,

and Poole; and Montague received fifty thousand livres in part payment

of his reward for overthrowing Danby. The consequences were now seen.

On the 17th of November, the anniversary of the accession of Queen

Elizabeth, an anti-Popish procession was organised by Shaftesbury and

that party, though carried on under the auspices of the Green Ribbon

Club. The bellman went first, ringing his bell, and exclaiming at

intervals, "Remember Mr. Justice Godfrey!" Then came a man in the

habit of a Jesuit, supporting before him on horseback an effigy of the

murdered magistrate, followed by a long train of men and women, habited

as monks, nuns, priests, and Catholic bishops in capes and mitres, and

Protestant bishops in lawn sleeves, six cardinals with their caps, and,

lastly, the Pope on a litter, with his arch-prompter, the Devil, by his

side. This procession, commencing in Moorgate, traversed the streets

at night with flambeaux, amid a hundred thousand spectators, who were

frantic with cries of vengeance against Papists and Popery. At Temple

Bar, in front of the club-house, they burnt the whole array of Popish

effigies, amid fireworks and rending shouts.

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH.]

This exhibition of fury against the Catholics was reported all over

Europe with astonishment and awe; but, on the other hand, it roused

Charles to dismiss Shaftesbury from the presidency of the Council, and

to order James to assume his proper place at Court. Russell, Capel,

Cavendish, and Powle, seeing their party reduced to impotence in the

Council, resigned, and Essex threw up the Treasury, and was succeeded

by Hyde, the second son of Clarendon. Sir William Temple also retired

again to his rural retreat, and Sydney Godolphin became a leading man

in the Council. Both Hyde and Godolphin were men of much talent, but

decided Tories. The character of Lawrence Hyde has been vigorously

sketched by Macaulay. He was a Cavalier of the old school, a zealous

champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a hater of Republicans

and Nonconformists. He had, consequently, a great body of personal

adherents. The clergy, especially, looked on him as their own man, and

extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he

stood in some need, for he drank deep, and when he was in a rage--and

he was very often in a rage--he swore like a trooper. "Godolphin," says

the same authority, "had low and frivolous personal tastes, and was

much addicted to racing, card-playing, and cock-fighting."

Between these new ministers and the Opposition the contest grew more

vehement. Shaftesbury persuaded Monmouth to return in 1680, and much

rejoicing was got up for him in public. The king was extremely angry,

and ordered him to retire, but Monmouth paid no attention to the

paternal command; and there was great talk of a certain black box, in

which the proofs of the marriage of Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walters

or Barlow, were contained. Charles summoned all the persons alleged

to know of this box and its contents, and questioned them, when there

clearly appeared to be no such box or such evidence; and these facts

were published in the _Gazette_. Still, the duke was extremely popular

with the people, and occupied a prominent place in the public eye. He

was Duke of Monmouth in England, of Buccleuch in Scotland, Master of

the Horse, Commander of the First Troop of Life Guards, Chief Justice

in Eyre south of Trent, a Knight of the Garter, and Chancellor of the

University of Cambridge; and the Opposition did all they could to

enhance his importance. The war of Whig and Tory, now the established

terms, was fierce.

Of course the Popish plot continued to play its part, its puppets being

moved, and its victims selected by the great political Oppositionists.

There was also another plot, called from the hiding-place of the

incriminating documents, the Meal-Tub plot, in which the Presbyterians

were charged with conspiring to raise an army and establish a Republic.

The chief object of all these got-up plots was to drive James from the

succession, and two parties were at work for this purpose, who agreed

so far as excluding James, but were divided as to the successor to be

set up. Monmouth was the idol of Shaftesbury and his party; William of

Orange the selected favourite of Temple, Hyde, Godolphin, and their

party--a far more intellectual and able one. Against James this common

object of his exclusion told fearfully; for the rest, the deep and

cautious character of the Dutchman, and the light and frivolous one of

Monmouth, made William's chance far the best. Shaftesbury, Buckingham,

and their adherents contrived to win over the Duchess of Portsmouth to

part of their views by concealing the rest. They represented to her

that if the king were brought to nominate his successor, as Cromwell

had done, and as an Act of Parliament would enable him to do, her

eldest son might be chosen. The bait took, especially when it was

coupled with the terrors of an impeachment in default of compliance,

which threatened her ruin and that of her children. She flattered

herself that the illegitimacy of her son might be got over, and

went zealously into the affair. On the other hand, Shaftesbury made

himself sure that if this plan were accomplished, Monmouth would be

the successor-elect. She pledged herself to use all her influence with

Charles, and she was empowered to assure him of a large supply of money

from Parliament, and the same power of naming his successor as had been

given to Henry VIII.

Charles appeared to fall into the scheme, but demanded no less than

eight hundred thousand pounds. For this he probably would have sold

his brother's birthright. The question of James's exclusion was

discussed in the Council, and Charles ordered James to return again

to Scotland. But what probably saved James was want of faith between

the leaders of the two exclusion factions and Charles, and between

each other. Each faction knew that the other had its own successor in

view, and both doubted Charles too much to trust him with the money

before the Exclusion Act was passed. Barillon, the French ambassador,

whose object was to maintain James, also came in as a third party, with

French money, to embarrass and divide them. To cut the main difficulty,

Shaftesbury determined to damage James irrevocably before the country;

he, therefore, on the 26th of October, 1680, brought forward a wretch

called Dangerfield to accuse the duke, before the Commons, of having

been at the bottom of the late plot against the Presbyterians; of

having given him the instructions to forge and distribute the lists and

commissions; of having presented him with twenty guineas; given him a

promise of much greater reward; and ridiculed his hesitation to shed

the king's blood.

The audacity of an Opposition that could bring forward so horrible

a charge against the heir-apparent, on the evidence of a scoundrel

branded by sixteen convictions for base crimes, is something

incredible. But no sooner had Dangerfield made the statement, than

the House was thrown into a wonderful agitation, and Lord William

Russell rose and moved that effectual measures be taken to suppress

Popery and prevent a Popish succession. From that day to the 2nd of

November a succession of other witnesses and depositions were brought

before the House to strengthen the charge. The deposition of Bedloe,

on his deathbed, affirming all his statements, was read; one Francisco

de Faria, a converted Jew, asserted that an offer had been made to

him by the late Portuguese ambassador, to whom he was interpreter,

to assassinate Oates, Bedloe, and Shaftesbury; Dugdale related all

his proofs against the lords in the Tower; Prance repeated the story

of the murder of Godfrey, with fresh embellishments; and Mr. Treby

read the report of the Committee of inquiry into the plot. The House,

almost beside itself, passed a Bill to disable the Duke of York, as

a Papist, from succeeding, and stipulating that any violence offered

to the king should be revenged on the whole body of the Papists. But

on the 15th of November the Lords rejected it by sixty-three against

thirty. Shaftesbury then proposed, as the last means of safety, that

the king should divorce the queen, marry again, and have a chance

of legitimate issue; but on this the king put an effectual damper.

Disappointed in both these objects, the Opposition resorted to the

cowardly measure of shedding more innocent blood, in order to have a

fresh opportunity of exciting the alarm and rage of the people against

Popery. They selected, from the five Popish lords in the Tower, the

Lord Stafford for their victim. He was nearly seventy years of age, and

in infirm health, and they flattered themselves he would not be able

to make much defence. He was arraigned in Westminster Hall before a

Court of Managers, as in the case of Lord Strafford. The trial lasted

seven days, and Oates, Dugdale, Prance, Tuberville, and Denis, all men

of the most infamous and perjured character, charged him with having

held consultations with emissaries of the Pope, and having endeavoured

to engage Dugdale to assassinate the king, and so forth. The old earl

made an admirable defence, in which he dissected most effectually the

characters of his traducers; but he was condemned by a majority of

fifty-five to thirty-one, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 29th

of December, 1680. The sheriffs of London objected to the order for

his beheading, contending that he ought to suffer all the horrors of

the law against traitors; but the king commanded them to obey his

order. On the scaffold the earl, whose mild and pious demeanour made a

deep impression on the Popery-frightened people, declared his entire

innocence, and the people, standing with bare heads, replied, "We

believe you, my lord. God bless you, my lord!"