The prorogation of Parliament was followed by the trial of three Whig

leaders of eminence. These were Gerard, Lord Brandon, the eldest son

of the Earl of Macclesfield, Hampden, the grandson of the patriot, and

Henry Booth, Lord Delamere. Hampden and Gerard were accused afresh of

having been concerned in the Rye House Plot, Delamere of having been

in league with Monmouth. Grey, Earl of Stamford, had been on the eve

of being tried by the Peers on a similar charge of concern in the Rye

House Plot, but the prorogation defeated that, and he was soon after

liberated. These were the men against whom Grey had been induced to

give information, and who, with Wade and Goodenough, were witnesses.

Hampden and Gerard were tried at the Old Bailey and condemned. But

Grey had stipulated that their lives should be safe, and they were

redeemed by their relatives at a heavy price. Delamere, as a peer of

the realm, was tried by a High Court of Peers, and as he was accused of

having been engaged with Monmouth, his life was in danger. Jeffreys was

appointed Lord High Steward, and he selected thirty peers as triers,

all of whom in politics were opposed to Delamere, and half of them

ministers and members of the royal household. He did not stop there,

but as he had a personal spite against Delamere for having complained

of him to Parliament when Chief Justice of Chester, and called him a

"drunken jackpudding," he did his best personally to condemn him. But

in spite of the murderous bias with which the villainous judge had

contrived the prisoner's death, the Lords Triers unanimously acquitted

him. This was a fact that equally electrified James and the country.

Both saw that there was a spirit abroad that was no longer to be

trifled with. The people openly rejoiced; the infatuated tyrant raged,

but took no warning. The very Tories who had carried the Crown hitherto

through every attempt, the Established Church which had preached

Non-resistance, saw the gulf, to the edge of which their principles had

brought them. Their loyalty paused at the threshold of Romanism, and

the destruction of the safeguards of the liberty of the subject. The

deadly artifices which an abandoned judge and a lawless monarch had

employed against the life of Delamere, might soon be practised against

every one of them. The spell of despotism, therefore, was broken. The

spirit of an unconquerable suspicion had reached the very cabinet and

the household of the Romish king, and his power was at an end.

But the greater the danger the more recklessly the bigotry-blinded

monarch rushed upon it. His father had been bent on destroying the

Constitution, but stood firm to the Anglican Church; James was resolved

to root out both Church and Constitution together; but to his narrow

intellect it never occurred that if his father lost his head in

attempting half of this impossible enterprise, his danger was double

in aiming at the whole. At the very beginning of the year 1686 he took

a sudden stride in the direction of avowed Romanism, and during the

whole year he marched forward with an insane hardihood that struck the

boldest and most adventurous of his friends with consternation. The

fact as to whether Charles II. had died a Catholic or a Protestant was

still a matter of dispute. A few knew the truth, more surmised, but

the bulk of the people still believed him to have been a Protestant.

James determined to sweep away the remaining delusion. He therefore

brought forth the two papers from Charles's strong box, and challenged

the whole bench of bishops to refute them. He especially called on

Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to do it; but as the Primate

from policy declined it, James took it for granted that they were

secretly admitted to be unanswerable. He therefore had them printed in

magnificent style, and appended to them his own signature, asserting

that they were his late brother's own composition, and left in his

own handwriting. He had this proof of Charles's Romanism distributed

liberally to his courtiers, to the prelates and dignitaries of the

Church, and amongst the people, even delivering them out of his coach

window to the crowds as he drove about. He thus at once made known that

his late brother had been secretly a Romanist, and that he was himself

an open and uncompromising one.

His next step was to throw all the power of the Government into

the hands of the most unscrupulous Catholics. His brother-in-law,

Rochester, the Lord Treasurer, was nominally his Prime Minister, but

Sunderland and a knot of Catholics were the really ruling junto.

Sunderland, one of the basest men that ever crawled in the dust of a

Court's corruption, was the head of this secret cabal. Sunderland, in

the last reign, had been a violent Exclusionist. He had intrigued with

the Duchess of Portsmouth, through her, if possible, to bring Charles

to consent to this measure; but so soon as James was on the throne, he

became his most servile tool, declaring that as he had nothing to hope

but from the king's clemency and his own efforts to make compensation

for the past, James could have no more efficient servant. James, who

was a mean soul himself, did not spurn this meanness, but made use of

it, and truly Sunderland earned his dirty bread. Avarice was his master

vice, and he would have sold two souls for money if he had them. He

retained the post of President of the Council, and held with it his

old one of Secretary of State; whilst observing the course which James

was taking, he did not despair to wrest from the staunch Protestant

Rochester his still more lucrative office of Lord Treasurer. He had not

the foresight to perceive that the project which James entertained to

restore Romanism must bring speedy destruction on them all. This sordid

minister was, at the same time, in the pay of Louis, at the rate of six

thousand pounds a year, to betray all his master's most secret counsels

to him.

With Sunderland were associated in the secret Romish junto--Sunderland

himself not being an avowed Catholic, but a private professor--some

of those Catholic lords who had been imprisoned on account of the

Popish plots--Arundel, Bellasis, and William Herbert, Earl of Powis. To

these were added Castlemaine, the man who for a title and revenue had

sold his wife to Charles II. He had been imprisoned, too, on account

of the Popish plot, and was ready to take vengeance by assisting to

destroy his Protestant enemies and their Church together. With him were

associated two of the most profligate and characterless men of that

profligate age--Jermyn, celebrated for his duels and his licentious

intrigues, and lately created by James Lord Dover, and a man familiarly

named Dick Talbot--whom James had also for these crimes, which were

merits in James's eyes, made Earl of Tyrconnel. These merits were, that

Talbot was ready for any service of unmanly villainy that his master

could desire. Like another prime favourite and associate of James,

Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, Tyrconnel was notorious for his drinking,

gambling, lying, swearing, bullying, and debauchery. He was equally

ready to lie away a woman's character or to assassinate a better man

than himself. In the last reign, when it was desired by the Court to

ruin the character of James's wife, Anne Hyde, that she might be got

rid of, he joined with Colonel Berkeley in the infamous assertion that

they had had the most familiar intrigues with her. When they did not

succeed with James, they as readily confessed that the whole was a lie.

A man with the least spark of honour in him would have remembered this

unpardonable villainy to his now deceased wife, and have banished the

wretch from Court. James promoted him, and made him one of his most

intimate companions. Tyrconnel offered to murder the Duke of Ormond,

and was rewarded for his readiness by being made commander of the

forces in Ireland; but his services were chiefly at present demanded at

Court.

[Illustration: FOURPENNY PIECE OF JAMES II.]

To this precious cabal was added Father Petre, the Jesuit Provincial,

brother of Lord Petre, and the organ of the Jesuits at Court. The Pope,

too, had his agents at Court, Adda, his nuncio, and a vicar-apostolic;

but these advocated cautious measures, for Innocent XI. had a difficult

card to play in the Popedom. Louis, the greatest of the Catholic kings,

was the most dangerous enemy of the temporal power of the Pope, as of

every other temporal power, and the Jesuits were all at variance with

him, because he leaned toward the Jansenist party, which at this time

was in the ascendency, through the triumphant attacks on the Jesuits by

Pascal in his "_Lettres Provinciales_." The Jesuits, on the contrary,

advocated all James's views. These generally subtle men seemed driven,

by their falling estimation all over Europe, to clutch at a hope of

power in England, and they had at all times been famed for their sly

policy of insinuation rather than for their caution and moderation when

successful. For their high-handed proceedings they had then, as they

have since, been driven again and again from almost every Christian

country. They did not display more than their ordinary foresight in the

affairs of James.

But we should not possess a complete view of the position and character

of James's Court if we did not take in a few other actors--the French

king's agents, and the king's mistresses. To Barillon, who had so long

been ambassador at the English Court, and the agent of Louis's bribes,

the French king had sent over Bonrepaux; and whilst Barillon attached

himself to Sunderland and the secret Catholic cabal, Bonrepaux devoted

his attentions to Rochester and his section of the ministry, so that

Louis learned the minutest movements and opinions of both parties.

These parties, in their turn, made use of the king's mistresses; for

James, although in disposition the very opposite of Charles, was,

with all his morose profession of zealous piety, just as loose in his

adulteries.

[Illustration: FIVE-GUINEA PIECE OF JAMES II.]

With the aid of the Council of his Catholic cabal, James now began

in earnest to put down Protestantism in this kingdom, and restore

Romanism. As there was no hope of money from Parliament, he made his

peace with the King of France, stooped his shoulder to the burden, and

became once more a servant unto tribute. He abandoned all the best

interests of England, apologised to Louis for having received the

Huguenots, and took measures to defeat the very subscription in their

favour which he had commenced and recommended. He arrested John Claude,

one of the refugees who had published an account of the persecutions of

the Huguenots by Louis, and caused his book to be publicly burnt. In

spite of this and his open discouragement, the subscription amounted

to forty thousand pounds, but he took good care that the unfortunate

Huguenots should never get the money, by ordering every one who applied

for it to first take the Sacrament according to the Anglican ritual,

which he knew differed so much from their own mode, as to form an

effectual bar, which it did. And this was the man who complained of the

Test Act as a violation of conscience. He had himself dispensed with

this Act in defiance of the law, but he now sought to obtain a sanction

from the judges for the breach of the Act. To Parliament he durst not

appeal; he therefore called on the twelve judges to declare that he

possessed this dispensing power as part of his prerogative. The judges

to a man refused; he dismissed them and appointed more pliant ones.

But the law officers of the Crown were equally stubborn. Sawyer, the

Attorney-General, told the king that he dared not do it, for it was not

to abolish a statute, but the whole statute law from the accession of

Elizabeth. Sawyer was too useful to be dismissed, but Heneage Finch,

the Solicitor-General, was turned out, and Powis, a barrister of no

mark, was put in his place. A case was immediately tried in the Court

of King's Bench, to obtain the judges' sanction. Sir Edward Hales

was formally prosecuted for holding a commission in the army, being

a Catholic; but the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edward Herbert, took the

opinion of the new judges upon it, which was, that the king possessed

the power to dispense with the Act, and judgment was given accordingly.

No sooner was James in possession of this decision of the King's Bench,

than he appointed the four Catholic lords of his secret cabal members

of the Privy Council--namely, Arundel, Bellasis, Powis, and Dover.

Having perpetrated this daring act in the Council, James hastened to

exercise the same power in the Church. Encouraged by the known opinions

and intentions of the king, several clergymen who had outwardly

conformed to the Church of England and held livings, now threw off the

mask and proclaimed themselves of the Catholic Church, and applied

to James to authorise them still to hold their livings. These were

Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, Oxford; Boyce, Dean, and

Bernard, fellows of different colleges; and Edward Sclater, curate of

Putney and Esher. The king granted them dispensations to hold their

livings, despite their avowed conversion to the doctrines of another

Church, on the plea that he would not oppress their consciences. But

to support men in holding livings in a Church which they had abandoned

was so outrageous a violation of that Church's conscience, that it

was impossible long to be submitted to. James, in his very contracted

mind, imagined that, because the bishops and ministers had so zealously

advocated absolute submission to his will, they would practise it.

How little could he have read human nature. Of these sudden converts,

Sclater and Walker as suddenly reconverted themselves at the Revolution.

James having now his hand in, went on boldly. He had permitted

professed converts to Catholicism to retain their Protestant livings,

he next appointed a Catholic to a Church dignity. John Massey, a Fellow

of Merton, who had gone over to Rome, was, in violation of every

local and national statute, appointed Dean of Christ Church. Massey at

once erected an altar and celebrated Mass in the cathedral of Christ

Church, and James told the Pope's nuncio that this should soon be

the case in Cambridge. It remained now only to fill the sees of the

Church with Catholic bishops as they fell vacant; and to enable him

to do that, it was necessary, in the first place, to possess himself

of a power in the Church like that which he had assumed in the State.

He must have a tribunal before which he could summon any refractory

clergy, as he could now by his pliant judges control any appeal to the

bench. He therefore determined to revive the Court of High Commission,

that terrible engine of the Tudors and the Stuarts, which the Long

Parliament had put down. This court had power not only to cite any

clergyman before it who dared to preach or publish anything reflecting

on the views or measures of the king, but "to correct, amend, and alter

the statutes of the universities, churches, and schools," or where the

statutes were bad to make new ones, and the powers of the Commission

were declared to be effectual for these purposes, "notwithstanding any

law or statute to the contrary." In fact, all the powers of the High

Commission were revived, and the old device and motto were adopted on

the seal.

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THE BROCAS.]

This was a direct and daring declaration of war on the Church. The

Act of Supremacy was thus turned against it, and every clergyman,

professor, and schoolmaster, from the Primate to the simple curate and

tutor, was laid at the mercy of this insane tyrant. The alarm of the

whole Court and country when this outstanding fact was made known,

was indescribable. The staunchest courtiers trembled at the temerity

of the monarch: the French ministers and the Jesuits alone applauded.

The new and terrible power of the tribunal was quickly brought into

play. The Commission was made known about the middle of July, and seven

commissioners were named. At their head stood Jeffreys, who was now to

display his truculent spirit in the character of a Grand Inquisitor.

The six other commissioners were Archbishop Sancroft, Bishops Crewe of

Durham and Sprat of Rochester, Lords Rochester, Sunderland, and the

Chief Justice Herbert. Sancroft excused himself from acting on the

plea of ill-health, and James in anger immediately ordered him to be

omitted in the summons to the Privy Council, saying, if his health were

too bad to attend the Commission, it was equally so to attend the

Council, and Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, was put on the Commission

in his stead. These pliant Churchmen and courtiers were quickly shown

what work they had to do. Amongst the clergymen who had ventured to

preach against the Roman Church, and to reply to the attacks which the

Romish preachers were now emboldened to make on the Anglican Church,

beginning at Whitehall itself, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, and one of

the royal chaplains, had been honest enough to defend his own faith,

and expose the errors of Rome, in a sermon at his own Church of St.

Giles's-in-the-Fields. Compton, the Bishop of London, was immediately

called upon by Sunderland to suspend him. But Compton, though he had

lately fallen under the royal displeasure for opposing James's designs

in the House of Lords, and had been dismissed from the Privy Council,

and from his post of Dean of the Royal Chapel, replied that he could

not suspend Sharp without hearing him in his defence. Thereupon Compton

was at once summoned before the new Commissioners. He demurred,

declared the Court illegal, that he was a prelate, and amenable only

to his peers in the Church, or, as lord of Parliament, to his peers in

Parliament. Consenting, however, at length to appear, he was abruptly

asked by Jeffreys why he had not suspended Sharp. Compton demanded a

copy of the Commission, to see by what right they summoned him. This

roused the base blood of Jeffreys, who began to insult the prelate,

as he had done many a good man before, declaring that he would take

another course with him; but the rest of the Commissioners recalled the

brutal bully to a sense of the respect due to the bishop. After the

hearing of the case, Rochester, Herbert, and Sprat declared for his

acquittal; but James, enraged at his Treasurer, vowed if he did not

give his vote against Compton, he would dismiss him from his office.

The place-loving minister gave way. Compton was suspended from his

spiritual functions, but dared the Court to touch his revenues; and the

Chief Justice warned James that did he attempt to seize them, he would

be defeated at common law. For awhile, therefore, James was obliged to

restrain his proceedings till, as he resolved, he had put the laws more

completely under his feet.

But enough had already been done to produce a change such as never had

been seen in England since the days of Queen Mary. Encouraged by the

king's countenance and proceedings, the Catholics now openly set at

nought all the severe laws against them, their chapels, and priests.

Though it was still death by the law for any Romish clergyman to appear

in England, and all meetings of Catholics for worship were forbidden

under the severest penalties, the streets now swarmed with the clergy

in full canonicals, and Popish chapels were opened in every part of

the kingdom. The Protestant public gazed in astonishment at sights

which neither they nor their fathers had beheld in England. The frieze

cowls, and girdles of rope, crosses, and rosaries, passed before them

as apparitions of an almost fabulous time. James threw open the old

chapel at St. James's, where a throng of Benedictine monks located

themselves. He built for himself a public chapel at Whitehall, and

induced Sandford, an Englishman, but the envoy of the Prince Palatine,

to open a third in the City. A brotherhood of Franciscans established

themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields; another of Carmelites appeared in

the City; a convent was founded in Clerkenwell, on the site of the

ancient cloister of St. John, and a Jesuit church and school were

opened in the Savoy, under a rector named Palmer.

The same ominous change appeared all over the country, especially in

those districts where Catholics were numerous. But neither in town

nor country were the common people disposed to see the whole empire

of Popery thus restored. They assembled and attacked the Catholics

going into their chapels, insulted them, knocked down their crosses

and images, and turned them into the streets. Hence riots ran high and

fiercely in London, Worcester, Coventry, and other places. The Lord

Mayor ordered the chapel of the Prince Palatine in Lime Street to be

closed, but he was severely threatened by the king and Jeffreys. The

mob then took the matter into their hands; they attacked the chapel at

high Mass, drove out the people and priests, and set the cross on the

parish pump. It was in vain that the train bands were ordered out to

quell the riot; they refused to fight for Popery.

But this spirit, which would have caused a wiser monarch to pause,

only incensed James, and he assembled an army of thirteen thousand

men on Hounslow Heath to overawe the City, and conveyed thither

twenty-six pieces of artillery, and ample supplies of ammunition from

the Tower. But it boded little prospect of support from his army that

the people of London immediately fraternised with it, and the camp

became the great holiday resort of all classes, resembling, in the

strange concourse of strange characters who appeared there, Schiller's

description of the camp of Wallenstein. James, however, was proud of

his army, and flattered himself that from his having formerly been a

general in the French service, he could command it to some purpose. But

there were as clever tacticians as himself at work. He allowed Mass

to be publicly celebrated in the tent of Lord Dumbarton, the second

in command, and this, with the known fact that many officers were

Catholics, and the sight of priests and friars strolling about amongst

the tents, roused the zeal of Protestant patriots. Foremost amongst

these was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had been chaplain to Lord William

Russell, and was a man of liberal ideas of government, and a sturdy

champion of Protestantism. In the last reign he had written a severe

satire on James, under the title of "Julian the Apostate," in which he

drew a vigorous parallel between the Roman apostate and the English

one. Julian, according to him, an idolater even when he pretended not

to be, was a persecutor when he pretended freedom of conscience, and

robbed cities of their municipal charters, which were zealous for the

true faith. For this daring philippic he was prosecuted and imprisoned

in the King's Bench, but this did not prevent him from still making

war on the Popish prince. "Julian" Johnson, as he was called, had

found, while imprisoned in the King's Bench, congenial society in

the companionship of a fellow-prisoner, whose name was Hugh Speke.

This man, Speke, being of a gloomy, seditious temperament, furnished

"Julian" Johnson with money to print, and encouraged him by every kind

of argument in endeavouring to excite in the Hounslow camp an active

spirit of hostility to the Romish schemers. Thereupon Johnson wrote and

published a stirring address to the soldiers, which was distributed

in thousands amongst the army. There could be no mistake concerning

the style of this document, even if the writer and his friend had kept

their counsel, as they did not. The publication was speedily traced to

Johnson, who was thereupon brought up to the bar of the King's Bench,

and, after a long examination, condemned to stand three times in the

pillory, to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn, and to pay a fine of

five hundred marks.

Johnson was one of those sturdy, uncompromising reformers--always

found, like the petrel, just before the occurrence of a storm--who

are regarded with almost more terror and aversion by men of more

moderate views or weaker nerves, than by the national offenders whom

they attack. When assured by the judge that he might be thankful to

the Attorney-General that he had not arraigned him of high treason, he

indignantly replied that he thanked him not; that he did not consider

himself favoured by being degraded and whipped like a hound, when

Popish writers disseminated with impunity what they pleased. This

was denied by the Attorney-General and the bench; but Johnson was

prepared for them, and pulling a whole mass of such publications from

his pocket, which were issued by permission of the royal censor, he

read their titles aloud, saying, "There, let Mr. Attorney-General now

show whether he will do his duty by them." To spare the priesthood

degradation in the person of Johnson, he was cited, at the command of

the High Commission, before Crewe and Sprat, the royal Commissioners,

accompanied by the Bishops of Rochester and Peterborough, to the

chapter-house of St. Paul's, and personally degraded from his order.

In having the Bible taken from him in the ceremony, Johnson shed some

tears, but said, "You cannot deprive me of its blessed promises." He

received two hundred and seventeen lashes in enforcing his punishment,

but bore it stoutly, and declared that he could have sung a psalm had

he not deemed that it might appear like bravado.

Though the clergy blamed Johnson, and stood aloof from him as a

firebrand, because he preached resistance to Popery, which they were

soon to do themselves, they were now loud in their pulpits in replying

to its attacks, and exposing its lying legends, and its mummery of

relics, its tricks of priestcraft, its denial of the Scriptures and

the Cup to the laity, the celibacy of the clergy, the abuse of the

confessional, and the idolatry of image worship, and prayers to saints.

Distinguished amongst these declaimers were Tillotson, Tenison,

Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Prideaux, Wake, Atterbury, and many lesser

lights in the pulpit. But this zeal was not confined to preachers,

for the printing presses of the Universities were kept constantly

going. The Catholics, under royal patronage, replied as actively, and

the war of pamphlets and pulpits foreshadowed a war of actual arms.

James, as blind to all signs of the times as his father had been,

went insanely on his way, now eagerly endeavouring to convert his

daughter Anne, and now as resolutely scheming to deprive his daughter

Mary of the succession. In Scotland and Ireland his crusade against

the constitution of the realm and the Protestant religion was equally

fierce and reckless.

To Scotland James sent down orders to the Government to dispense with

the test and admit Catholics to all offices, and nothing was to be

published without the Chancellor's licence, so that no reflections

might be made on the Catholic religion or the king's order. The Duke of

Queensberry--who was Lord Treasurer, and therefore regarded as Prime

Minister--though a Tory, declared that he would not undertake to do

anything against the Protestant religion, but there were not wanting

sycophants who were ready to attempt just what the king pleased, in the

hope of supplanting Queensberry. These were Lord Perth, the Chancellor,

and his brother Lord Melfort, Secretary of State. They went over to

Romanism as a means of preferment, and were imitated by the Earl of

Murray, a descendant of the Regent, and a member of the Privy Council.

Perth opened a Catholic chapel in his house, and soon received a cargo

of priests' dresses, images, crosses, and rosaries. The incensed

mob attacked the house during Mass, tore down the iron bars from

the windows, chased the worshippers from their shrine, and pelted

Lady Perth with mud. The soldiers were called out, and considerable

bloodshed followed. James, irritated instead of being warned, sent

down orders to punish the rioters severely, to screen the Catholics

from penalties, and to renew the persecution of the Covenanters with

all rigour. Alarmed at these insensate commands, three members of the

Privy Council--the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George Lockhart, and General

Drummond--hastened up to London to explain to James the impossibility

of enforcing them, but made no impression.

On the 29th of April the time arrived for the meeting of the Scottish

Parliament, when a letter from James was read calling on the Estates to

pass a Bill freeing the Catholics from all penalties; but so far from

the Parliament accepting such a proposition, the Lords of the Articles,

whose business it was to introduce the propositions for new measures,

and who had been chosen by James himself, declined to comply with the

proposal. In vain they were urged by Perth, Melfort, and Murray; they

remained refractory for three weeks, and then only dared to recommend

that the Catholics should be permitted to worship in their own houses.

But even this the Parliament would not consent to, and, after a week's

debate, threw out even this very much modified scheme. James, who had

during this discussion seen the intense anxiety in England to learn

the news of the progress of the debate, perpetrated one of the most

audacious acts of arbitrary power that modern times have witnessed.

He sent for the mail bags from the North regularly, and detained all

correspondence thence till the matter was ended. No single Scottish

letter was issued in London for a whole week.

When at last the news, in spite of him, burst forth amid loud

rejoicings, he was enraged, but, like his father, he declared that

he would do by his own royal authority what he wanted; that he had

been only foolish in asking for what the Act of Supremacy gave him in

Scotland as perfectly as in England. He therefore launched the bolts

of his vengeance at those who had disputed his will. Queensberry was

dismissed from all his offices, the Bishop of Dunkeld ejected from his

see, and crowds of Papists were appointed to the posts of those who

had refused to obey the royal mandate. Without the ceremony of an Act

of Parliament, James proceeded to usurp the rights of boroughs, and

to appoint provosts and town councillors at his will; he ordered the

judges to declare all the laws against Catholics void, and announced

his intention of fitting up a Roman Catholic chapel in Holyrood. These

measures struck a momentary terror and deep silence into the Scottish

people, but it was only the silence preceding the storm.

In Ireland James had a preponderating body of Catholics eager to

receive justice and the restoration of their estates at his hands.

But only a wise and cautious monarch could succeed in making decent

recompense to the native Irish for their many sufferings and

spoliations. Their lands, by the Act of Settlement, were for the most

part in the hands of a sturdy race of Englishmen, both Episcopalians

and Presbyterians, who had been placed there at successive periods,

and extensively by the Commonwealth. To announce that he would repeal

this Act, and reinvest the natives with their ancient demesnes, was at

once to rouse to arms a body of such pluck and nerve as the Celtic race

had no chance with, notwithstanding their numbers. At the news that

the Act was to be revoked, and the Church and Government of Ireland

to be put into the hands of Catholics, the timid English gentry fled,

the trade of the island received a paralysing blow, and the sturdy

Saxon population prepared not only to defend their possessions, but to

exterminate, if necessary, the aboriginal tribes.

Clarendon, the Lord-Lieutenant, the brother of Rochester, the Prime

Minister of England, in great alarm wrote to James, detailing the

immediate effects of this announcement; but James persisted in his

obstinate course. He declared that the Protestants were his enemies,

and that it was necessary to fortify himself with his friends; that

his father had lost his head by conceding--he should have said by

conceding too late,--and that he would concede nothing. He went on

putting Catholics into the Privy Council, into the corporations and

the army, dismissing Protestants to make room for them. He then sent

out Tyrconnel, as his unscrupulous instrument, to occupy the post

already his, of head of the army; he was at the same time furnished

with instructions to take virtually all the functions of government

into his hands, and reduce Clarendon to a cipher. Clarendon, like

all the Hydes, was meanly attached to office and its emoluments, or

he would at once have resigned rather than suffer the indignity of

beholding his office usurped by a bullying ruffian like Tyrconnel.

This desperate gambler, duellist, and debauchee, soon began to talk

of the Act of Settlement as a damned and villainous thing; set about

remodelling the army so as to exclude all Protestants, and replace them

by Catholics; officers and men of the Protestant faith were dismissed

by wholesale; he was in league with the priests to drill the entire

Papist population, so as to confer the whole power of the island on

them, and place every Protestant throat at their mercy. In a very few

weeks he had introduced two thousand Popish soldiers into the army,

and gave out that by Christmas the whole of the troops would be native

Catholic. In the Church and the State he pushed on rudely the same

measures, and with a violence of conduct and of language which appeared

more like drunken madness than anything else. Taking the cue from him,

and instructed by the priests, everybody treated Clarendon with marked

insult and contempt. Still clinging meanly to office, he appealed to

his brother in London to obtain for him more honourable treatment, but

was thunderstruck by the news that Rochester himself had been dismissed.

[Illustration: PARLIAMENT HALL, EDINBURGH.]

Rochester, the champion to whom the Protestants of the Anglican Church

looked up for aid, had, as miserably as his brother, disgraced himself

by suffering his honour to be compromised by the love of office and

income. He saw the career which James was running, and which no

remonstrance or popular menace could arrest, and instead of resigning

with dignity when his counsels became useless, he had even flattered

James with the hope of his conversion. But he did not deceive the

Jesuit Cabal which surrounded and governed James. They assured the

king that nothing would ever make Rochester a genuine supporter of

Catholic views, and the sooner he cut himself loose from the connection

the better. Accordingly, on the 19th of December, the king, with many

professions of regard, took from his brother-in-law Rochester the

Treasurer's staff, but softened his fall by granting him out of Lord

Grey's estate lands to the yearly value of seventeen hundred pounds,

and an annuity of four thousand pounds for his own life and that of

his son. He was spared also the mortification of seeing his rival

Sunderland invested with his office; the Treasurership was put in

commission; Lord Arundel received the Privy Seal, and Bellasis was

made First Lord of the Treasury, whilst Dover, a ruined gambler, and

Godolphin received places at the board.

The fall of Clarendon followed rapidly on that of Rochester. On the

8th of January, 1687, he received the order to resign his post to

Tyrconnel. Such was the panic at this news, that no less than fifteen

hundred families of gentlemen, merchants, and tradesmen, are said to

have fled from Dublin to England in a week, and a reign of terror

commenced all over Ireland. The known intentions of the king, and the

character of his Lord-Lieutenant, were the signals for proscription

to all Protestants, and they were turned out of the army, the offices

of State, from the bench, and the magistracy, with an indecency which

astonished the moderate Catholics themselves. Law and justice appeared

to be at an end. The worst passions of a population long loaded with

every species of injustice were let loose, and the once dominant race

now saw themselves the objects of unconcealed hatred and recrimination.

The wild population drove off their cattle, set fire to their houses,

and the newly-raised soldiery devoted themselves with the gusto of

vengeance to pillaging, murdering, and outraging the Protestant

settlers with a frightful exultation.

Such were the ominous circumstances under which the year 1687 opened.

By driving from him his relatives, the Hydes, James had severed the

last ties between him and Protestantism; had demolished the last

guarantees of Protestant security. The whole Protestant public, and

many of the more clear-sighted Catholics, looked forward with an awful

sense of impending mischief, and they were only too correct in their

apprehensions.

James was determined to push forward his schemes for the restoration of

Romanism in defiance of every long-cherished prejudice of the people,

and of every constitutional principle. Besides the conversions which

interest had made amongst the courtiers, there were a few other persons

of more or less distinction who for royal favour had apostatised,

but the number was most insignificant. The Earl of Peterborough,

and the Earl of Salisbury--the descendant of Cecil, Elizabeth's

minister,--had embraced Catholicism, and amongst literary men some

half dozen. There were Wycherley, the obscene dramatist, Haines, a low

comedian, and Tindal, who afterwards became a professed deist; but the

most remarkable and deplorable instance was that of the poet Dryden.

Dryden had sufficiently degraded his fine talents by plays and other

compositions which could not be read now without a blush; but his

compliance with the impure taste of the age had not enriched him. He

enjoyed a pension of one hundred pounds a year from Charles, but that

expired with Charles, and James, on renewing it, withdrew the usual

butt of sack which accompanied it. After that no further notice was

taken of the poet who had rendered such services to the royal cause,

and, pressed by his needs, Dryden declared himself a Papist, and was

speedily rewarded by royal notice and emolument. Henceforward his pen

was employed to defend the royal religion, and the most remarkable

result of his labours remains in his celebrated poem of "The Hind and

Panther."

Slight as were these triumphs over the steadfast minds of Englishmen,

James began now to be aware that he must win over bodies which he

really hated, and had hitherto persecuted with all his might, if he

meant to succeed. We have had occasion to relate the horrible cruelties

and sanguinary ferocity with which he had pursued the Covenanters in

Scotland and the Puritans in England, but he now deemed it necessary

to pretend himself their friend. The Church had so uniformly and

vehemently proclaimed the doctrine of Non-resistance, that he

imagined he was pretty sure of it; but in Scotland and England the

Nonconformists were a numerous and sturdy race, and danger from them

might be apprehended in case Romanism was too exclusively reinstated.

He therefore concluded to make his approaches to this object by

feigning a love of religious liberty. He commenced first in Scotland

by issuing a Declaration of Indulgence, on the 12th of February,

1687, but with an avowal of absolutism and a niggardly concession of

religious liberty, which were not likely to be very gratefully received

by the Scots. "We, by our sovereign authority, prerogative royal and

absolute power, do hereby give and grant our royal toleration. We allow

and tolerate the modern Presbyterians to meet in their private houses,

and to hear such ministers as have been or are willing to accept of our

indulgence; but they are not to build meeting-houses, but to exercise

in houses. We tolerate Quakers to meet in their form in any place or

places appointed for their worship; and we, by our sovereign authority,

suspend, stop, and disable all laws and Acts of Parliament made and

executed against any of our Roman Catholic subjects, so that they shall

be free to exercise their religion and to enjoy all; but they are to

exercise in houses or chapels; and we cass, disannul, and discharge all

oaths by which our subjects are disabled from holding offices."

Thus James had declared himself absolute, above all laws, and at

liberty to discharge any Act of Parliament. The same breath which gave

a decree of religious liberty, annihilated every other liberty, and

made the whole nation dependent on the will of one man. But whilst thus

sweeping away all the labours of all past Parliaments at his pleasure,

he with an inconsistency which betrayed a secret feeling that the power

of Parliament was not so easily set aside, even then contemplated

calling Parliament together if he could have but a prospect that it

would confirm what he had done in Scotland, and proposed immediately

to do in England. He therefore commenced a system of what has been

called "closetings." He sent for the Tory members of Parliament, who

were in town, one by one, and taking them into his closet at Whitehall,

tried by personal persuasions and by bribes--for though dreadfully

penurious, he now all at once became liberal of promises, and tolerably

liberal of money--and entreated the members to oblige him by voting for

the abolition of the laws against Catholics, which he told them had

been, in truth, directed against himself; and whilst he promised, he

threatened, too, in case his wishes were not complied with. Whilst he

made this experiment in town, the judges now on circuit were ordered to

send for the members in the country to the different county towns, and

use the same persuasions. The result was by no means satisfactory. If

there was one feeling stronger than another which had taken possession

of the public mind, it was, then and long after, that the Catholics

were not to be trusted with power, and that to grant them opportunity

would be to restore the horrors of Queen Mary's days. James himself

met with some signal rebuffs, and in every instance he dismissed the

refusers from any office that they held; amongst them Herbert, Master

of the Robes, and Rear-Admiral of England.

As no good was to be obtained from Parliament, he at once prorogued it

again till November, asserting that he would grant toleration on his

own authority; and on the 8th of April he issued his "Declaration of

Indulgence for England." This Declaration, though in not quite positive

and reiterated terms, set forth the same principle of absolutism, and

independence of Parliament. "We have thought fit, by virtue of our

royal prerogative, to issue forth this our declaration of indulgence,

making no doubt of the concurrence of our two Houses of Parliament

when we shall think it convenient for them to meet." He made no secret

in it of wishing to see Catholicism the religion of the land; but,

as the people did not seem willing to accept it, he had resolved to

give to all professions of religion the same freedom. He talked like

a philosopher about the virtues and justice of entire toleration,

and the impolicy as well as injustice of persecution--conveniently

ignoring that his practice, whenever he had had the power, had been in

direct opposition to these smooth maxims. He not only then proceeded

to abolish all the penal acts which had ever been passed, giving

free right of worship, public or private, to all denominations, but

denounced the utmost vengeance of the laws against any one who should

disturb any congregation or person in the exercise of their religion.

The substance of the Declaration was admirable; it was so because it

was the Christian truth; but the deed had two defects, and they were

fatal ones. It was granted at the expense of the whole Constitution;

and to admit that it was valid was to abandon Magna Charta and the

Petition of Right, and accept instead the arbitrary will of the

monarch. The second and equally fatal objection was that every one

knew, from James's practice, and his proved deceitfulness, and his

obstinate persistency, that the whole was but a snare to introduce

Romanism, and then tread down every other form of religion. James

boasted to the Pope's nuncio that the Declaration would be a great

blow, and that in a general liberty of conscience the Anglican Church

would go down, for persecution of the Dissenters would then be revenged

upon her, and, unsupported by the Crown, she would meet with deserved

contempt. And, had the toleration been legitimately obtained and

guaranteed, after the servile conduct of the Church at that time,

this might have been the case. The Dissenters had every reason to be

thankful for toleration. They had been trodden down by the Anglican

hierarchy; they had been dragged before the arbitrary High Commission,

and plundered and imprisoned at pleasure. The bishops had supported

every unrighteous act against them--the Conventicle Acts, the Test Act,

the Five-Mile Act, the Act of Uniformity; and now they could enjoy

their property, the peace of their firesides, their liberty, and their

worship in the open sight of God and man. These were great boons, and,

therefore, a great number of Nonconformists expressed their gratitude

for them. The Quakers in particular sent up a grateful address, which

was presented by Penn with an equally warm speech; but both they and

the other Dissenters restricted themselves to thanking James for the

ease they enjoyed, without going into the question of his right to

grant it. Some few individuals, in their enthusiasm, or worked upon by

the Court, went beyond this; but the general body of the Nonconformists

were on their guard, and some of the most eminent leaders refused even

to address the king in acknowledgment of the boon. Amongst these were

Baxter, who had been so ignominiously treated by Jeffreys; Howe, who

had had to flee abroad; and Bunyan, who had suffered twelve years'

imprisonment for his faith; they boldly reminded their followers of the

unconstitutional and, therefore, insecure basis on which the relief

rested; that a Protestant successor might come--even if before that

Popery, grown strong, had not crushed them--and again subject them to

the harsh dominance of the Anglican hierarchy.

No exertions were omitted to induce the Dissenters to send up

addresses; and they were actively canvassed by members of their

different bodies, as Carr, Alsop, Lobb, and Rosewell, the last of whom

was liberated from prison for the purpose. James took care to throw

all the blame of the past persecutions on the Church, which, he said,

had been at the bottom of all those councils. The Church, on the other

hand, deserted by the Crown, retorted the accusation, and attributed

every act of persecution to the Government, to which it professed

unwillingly to have submitted. Thus was seen the edifying sight of the

two arch-oppressors quarrelling, and in their bitter recriminations

letting out the confession that they both knew very well how base and

un-Christian their conduct had been.

But there was a third party to which all alike looked with anxiety in

this crisis, and this consisted of William of Orange and his wife. As

Protestants, and the probable successors of James, if they approved

of the Indulgence, they would greatly strengthen the king; if they

disapproved of it altogether, it would give a shock to the Protestant

interest in England. But William was too politic not to see all the

bearings of the question, and he and the princess jointly avowed their

entire approval of complete toleration of all phases of the Christian

religion, but their disapproval of the illegal means by which James

aimed to effect it, and of Catholics being admitted to place and power.

These were precisely the views of the great majority of Englishmen;

and accordingly James sank still deeper in public odium on this

publication, and William and Mary rose in popularity. They seized the

opportunity to organise a most powerful party in their favour, and

thus pave the way to an accession to the throne, which their sagacity

assured them would much sooner arrive than the natural demise of the

king. Mary has been censured for so readily uniting in a plan to drive

her father from the throne. So long as the policy of James promised

a continuance of his power, no steps were taken by Mary to supersede

him; so soon as it became evident that no earthly power, to say nothing

of justice or right, could keep him on the throne, it became a mere

act of prudence to take care that no alien interest usurped her own.

That Mary contemplated or committed any act of personal cruelty or

harshness towards her father beyond securing her succession against an

intruder, remains to be shown. Her husband, with all his virtues, was

not proof against allowing, if not perpetrating, questionable acts;

and he had been so jealous of his dignity and power, that for years

he brooded in gloomy discontent on the prospect of Mary's succession

to the crown of England without his having any claim to share it, not

even communicating his splenetic feeling to her. But this secret was

penetrated by Burnet, explained to Mary and, through her generosity,

at once the difficulty was dissipated by her engaging to admit him to

a full share of her hereditary authority. From that moment William

redoubled his zeal to secure the succession; but there is no question

that Mary exerted her filial regard to secure her father against any

personal injustice.

[Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN. (_After the Portrait by Sir Godfrey

Kneller._)]

William now despatched to England orders to his ambassador, Dykvelt,

to use his endeavours to knit up the different sections of the

discontented into one paramount interest in his favour. The scattered

elements of an overwhelming power lay around the throne, which James,

by his blind folly and tyranny, had made hostile to himself, and

prepared ready to the hand of a master to combine for his destruction.

Danby, who had fallen in the late reign for his opposition to the

French influence, and who had been the means of uniting Mary to

William, had regained extensive influence amongst both Tories and

Whigs, and was driven by James into determined opposition. Halifax,

who had been the chief champion of James's accession by opposing the

Exclusion Bill, and whose dangerous eloquence made him especially

formidable, had been dismissed and neglected by him. Finch, Earl of

Nottingham, a zealous Tory and Churchman, and one of the most powerful

orators of the House of Lords, he made his enemy by his dismissal

of his younger brother from the post of Solicitor-General for not

acquiescing in the king's dispensing powers, and by his attacks on the

Church and the Constitution. The Earl of Devonshire he had managed, by

imprisonment and a monstrous fine, equally to disgust; and the Earl

of Bedford he had completely alienated by the execution of his son,

Lord William Russell. Compton, the Bishop of London; Herbert, lately

Rear-Admiral of England; Clarendon, Rochester, Lumley, Shrewsbury,

had all, by a most insensate folly, been offended by dismission and

private injuries. There was not a man of any talent or influence whom

this fatuous tyrant had not driven from him in his obstinate resolve to

set Romanism and despotism along with him on the throne, except Lord

Churchill, upon whom he continued to heap favours, but who was too

worldly-wise not to see that his benefactor was running headlong to

ruin, and who was by no means the man to share ruin out of gratitude.

Dykvelt executed his mission so well, that in four months he returned

to the Hague with a packet of letters in his possession from all those

noblemen, bishops, and others, including Admiral Russell, the cousin

of the decapitated Lord William Russell, promising William their most

enthusiastic support. From the Princess Anne, who was bound up heart

and soul with Churchill and his clever wife--afterwards the celebrated

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough--her sister Mary also received the most

cordial assurances that nothing should induce her to abandon her

religion, or her attachment to her sister's rights.

Dykvelt returned from England on the 9th of June; and, to continue

the effect produced in that country, on the 8th of August another

agent in the person of General Zulestein was despatched thither. His

ostensible mission was to offer an address of condolence on the death

of the queen's mother, the Duchess of Modena; but his real one was to

strengthen the connection with the malcontents, which he could the more

unsuspectedly do from his military character, and from his having taken

no particular part in diplomacy. Zulestein was completely successful;

but these proceedings could not entirely escape James or his envoy at

the Hague, the Catholic Marquis of Abbeville, who succeeded in getting

Burnet, the active adviser of William, removed from open intercourse

with the Court. But Burnet was still not far off, and through his chief

counsellors, Bentinck and Halweyn, William still consulted with him

on every step of the plans regarding England. James also sought to

reach William through Stewart, a Scottish lawyer, who had fled from

his persecutions of the Covenanters to the Hague, but who, on the

appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence, most suddenly went to the

king's side, in hopes of promotion. Stewart wrote a letter to Fagel,

the Grand Pensionary, who had great influence with William, which he

confessed was at the suggestion of the king, strongly urging him to

use his power with William to persuade him to support James's act; but

Fagel, with a dexterous policy, replied in another letter, stating that

the prince and princess were advocates for the most ample toleration,

but not for the abolition of the Test, or of any other Act having

the inviolability of the Anglican Church for its object. This was

calculated to satisfy the Catholics of every privilege which they could

reasonably expect from the laws and the public opinion of England,

whilst it fully assured the Church of its safety under William and Mary.

Every fresh movement thus contributed to strengthen the position of

William, and to show to James, had he had sufficient mind to comprehend

it, how completely his conduct had deprived him of the confidence of

his subjects. Even the Pope took no pains to conceal how suicidal he

deemed his policy. He would have sufficiently rejoiced in any rational

prospect of the return of England to the Church of Rome, but he was not

dull enough to imagine the sentiment of the king the sentiment of the

nation; on the contrary, he was persuaded that the rash cabals of the

Jesuits were inevitably hastening a crisis which must the more deeply

root the Anglican antipathy to Popery. James had despatched Castlemaine

as ambassador to Rome with a splendid retinue. It was not enough

that this open affront was done to his country by sending a Catholic

ambassador to the Pope, and in the person, too, of a man who had no

distinction except the disgraceful one of having purchased his title by

the prostitution of his wife; but Castlemaine was deputed to solicit a

dispensation from Innocent for Father Petre to receive the Episcopal

dignity, which was forbidden to a Jesuit. James contemplated nothing

less than making Petre Archbishop of York, which see he kept vacant

for the purpose; but the Pope was too much at enmity with the Jesuits,

as well as with James for his impolitic conduct, and his alliance with

the great French aggressor, to concede any such favour. Castlemaine,

who was living in pomp at Rome, threatened to take his departure if

this request was not granted, and Innocent only sarcastically replied

by bidding him start in the cool of the morning, and take care of his

health on the journey.

This discourtesy shown him by the head of that religion for which he

was putting everything to the hazard, had, however, only the effect of

further raising the pugnacity of James. He determined only the more to

honour and exalt Popery in England. The nuncio, Adda, had been made

Archbishop of Amasia--a mere title of honour, in consequence of James's

desire that he should be publicly acknowledged at his Court. Hitherto

both he and the Vicar-Apostolic, Leyburn, had been instructed by the

Papal Court to keep a careful incognito; but James would no longer

consent to this; and, accordingly, on the 1st of May, 1686, Adda had

been publicly consecrated at Whitehall, by the titular Archbishop of

Ireland, assisted by Leyburn, the Vicar-Apostolic. In the evening of

that day the nuncio was received into the royal circle, in the queen's

apartments; and James shocked and disgusted his courtiers by falling

on his knees before him and imploring his blessing. It was the first

time that an English Court had seen their monarch, for a very long

period, doing homage at the feet of a Papal nuncio, and the effect was

humiliating. On the 3rd of July the nuncio was favoured with a public

reception at Windsor. He went thither attended by a numerous procession

of the ministers and of officials of the Court, and was conveyed in

a royal coach, wearing a purple robe, and a brilliant cross upon his

breast. In his train were seen with surprise and contempt the equipages

of Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and Cartwright, Bishop of Chester. The Duke

of Somerset, as First Lord of the Bedchamber, was expected to introduce

him; but he declined, representing the penalties to which the act would

expose him. This refusal was the less expected, because he had not

objected to carry the sword of State before his Majesty when the king

had gone to the royal Papal chapel. James was indignant. "I thought,"

he said, "that I was doing you a great honour by appointing you to

escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads." Somerset, moved

to a firmness of demeanour and language unusual even in him, declared

that he dared not break the law. James replied, "I will make you fear

me as well as the law. Do you not know that I am above the law?" "Your

Majesty," replied Somerset, with commingled dignity and affected

humility, "may be above the law, but I am not; and I am only safe while

I obey the law." The king, not used to being thwarted, much less to

language of so plain a sort, turned from him in a rage, and the next

day issued a decree depriving him of his posts in the Household and of

his command in the Guards.

This most impolitic conduct James followed, on the 1st of February,

1687, by a still more absurd and ludicrous, but equally mischievous,

reception. It was that of Cocker, an English Benedictine monk, who,

being more deeply implicated in treason than his friends cared to

confess, had narrowly escaped with his life in the trials of the Popish

plot. This man the Elector of Cologne had appointed his Resident at the

English Court--probably at the suggestion of James, and in defiance of

public opinion; and James now insisted that he should receive a public

introduction to Court, in the habit of his order, and attended by six

other monks in a like costume. Thus James took a pleasure in violating

the laws and insulting public opinion at every turn, to show that he

was independent of both; and he now prepared to commence in earnest the

destruction of the Church.

Before advancing to this dangerous experiment, however, he deemed it

necessary to tighten the discipline of the army, which had shown no

little disgust at his proceedings.

Many of James's soldiers had deserted, and it was found that they

were under no oath or obligation which rendered such desertion liable

to serious punishment. But James determined to punish them, even

condignly, in order to strike a sufficient terror into the whole army.

He consulted the judges as to whether he did not possess this power;

they said that he did not. Instead of accepting this answer, James

dismissed Herbert, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John

Holt, another judge of the same bench and Recorder of London, and put

in their places Sir Robert Wright, a creature of Jeffreys', a man

of ruined and base character, Richard Allibone, and Sir Bartholomew

Shower as Recorder. With these infamous instruments he went to work;

and, instead of trying the offenders by court-martial, he brought them

before these men in the King's Bench and in the Old Bailey, and hanged

them in sight of their regiments. By these outrages on every law and

principle of constitutional safety James thought he had terrified the

army into obedience; and he now attacked the very existence of the

Universities, in order to give the education of the country into the

hands of Popery.

James commenced his encroachments on the Universities by ordering one

Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to be admitted a Master of Arts of

Cambridge. That many persons not strictly admissible by the rules of

the University had received honorary degrees, including foreigners of

different forms of faith, and even a Turk, was indisputable; but the

object of these favours was so clear that no mischief could arise from

the practice. But now the Universities were but too well aware that

James aimed at a thorough usurpation of these schools by the Catholics

to lightly pass the matter by. The heads of colleges sent hastily to

Albemarle, their Chancellor, begging him to explain to the king that

the person named could not be admitted according to the statutes; at

the same time they conceded so far as to offer to admit Francis on his

taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Obedience.

He refused. James menaced the authorities, but in vain, and he

summoned them before the High Commission Court. John Pechell, the

Vice-Chancellor of the University, attended by eight fellows, including

the illustrious Isaac Newton--afterwards Sir Isaac--appeared, and were

received by Jeffreys with all his devilish bluster. Pechell was soon

terrified at this most brutal monster, whose employment alone would

have sufficiently stamped the character of James; and, when any of

the other fellows attempted to speak, Jeffreys roared out, "You are

not Vice-Chancellor; when you are, you may talk; till then, hold your

tongue." Finding, however, that, though he could embarrass, he could

not bend the Vice-Chancellor, Jeffreys, by order of James, declared

Pechell dismissed from the office of Vice-Chancellor, and all his

emoluments suspended. This was a gross violation of the rights of the

University, and Jeffreys added to the outrage a piece of his usually

blasphemous advice to the fellows--"Go your way and sin no more, lest a

worse thing befall you."

[Illustration: JAMES DOING HOMAGE TO THE PAPAL NUNCIO. (_See p._ 323.)]

The decease of the President of Magdalen College, Oxford, enabled James

to follow up his plans without loss of time. Magdalen was one of the

very richest of the English foundations, and consisted of a president,

forty fellows, and thirty scholars, called Demies. It was the law of

the foundation that the President could only be elected from those

who were or had been members of that college, or of New College. The

President died in March, 1687, and the 13th of April was fixed for

the election of the new one. A Dr. Smith, a learned Orientalist, and

an enthusiastically loyal man, applied for the royal consent, but was

informed that the king was determined to give it only to one of his

own religion; and, to the astonishment and disgust of the college,

one Anthony Farmer was named as the royal nominee. The choice seemed

made to insult the University in the highest degree possible, for

not only was Farmer a Popish convert, but a man of the most drunken,

debauched, and infamous character that could have been picked from the

vilest haunts of unnamable wickedness. The astounded fellows humbly but

earnestly remonstrated, but in vain. On the appointed day, despite the

king's positive injunctions, and the presence of his agent, the choice

fell on a distinguished and highly virtuous member of the college, John

Hough.

The irate king summoned the fellows before the beastly Jeffreys and

the High Commission, as he had summoned the heads of the University of

Cambridge. There Jeffreys exhibited his wonted display of insufferable

Billingsgate; and when Dr. Fairfax, one of the fellows, had the

boldness to call in question the legality of the High Commission, he

lost all patience. "Who is this man? What commission has he to be

impudent here? Seize him; put him into a dark room. What does he do

without a keeper? He is under my care as a lunatic. I wonder nobody has

applied to me for the custody of him." But, after all, the character of

Farmer was shown to be so vilely reprobate, that he was dropped, and

the college ordered to receive Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford.

Parker was not an openly acknowledged Papist, but was understood to be

really one; but he was neither a fellow of Magdalen nor of New College,

and the fellows were firm enough to stand by their own election of Dr.

Hough. James determined to go in person to Oxford and overawe these

obstinate men; and he was the more bent upon it, having in the meantime

suffered a similar defeat in endeavouring to force a Catholic into the

hospital connected with the Charterhouse School. The trustees refused,

and were called before Jeffreys. There he began browbeating the master,

Thomas Burnet, but was unexpectedly opposed by the venerable Duke of

Ormond. At this the bully swagger of this most hideous and contemptible

judge that ever sat on a bench at once gave way, for he had no real

courage. He stole from the court, and the scheme failed for the day.

But the High Commission having sentenced Hough to be deposed from the

presidentship of Magdalen, and Fairfax from his fellowship, again

met, and summoned the trustees of the Charterhouse. Here again they

were awed by a letter addressed to the king, signed by the trustees,

including the names of Ormond, Halifax, Danby, and Nottingham, the

chiefs of all the great parties who secured to James his crown, and

still by their forbearance kept it on his head, so that they were

compelled to pause before proceeding farther.

On the 16th of August James set out on a progress, with every display

of royal state which could impress on the minds of his subjects an

idea of his kingly position. He proceeded to Portsmouth, Southampton,

Bath; thence by Gloucester and Worcester to Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and

Chester; whence he again turned south, and reached Oxford on the 3rd

of September. Everywhere he had been attended by the High Sheriffs

of the counties with splendid retinues; and the clergy in the towns

had flocked around him in great numbers, though he continued on his

progress to neglect their preaching for Mass. If outward circumstances

could be relied on, it might have been supposed that the king had

never been more popular; and, with all the _prestige_ of this tour, he

summoned the refractory fellows of Magdalen before him, and rated them

soundly on their disobedience. They knelt and offered him a petition,

but he haughtily refused to look at it, bidding them go that instant

and elect the Bishop of Oxford, or expect his high displeasure. But the

fellows could not be thus brought to submission, and James quitted the

town in high dudgeon.

On the 20th of October James sent down a special commission, consisting

of Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, Wright, Chief Justice of the King's

Bench, and Jenner, a baron of the Exchequer, attended by three troops

of cavalry, with drawn swords, to Oxford, to expel Hough and instal

Parker. Parker was installed, but the fellows would not acknowledge

him. James, therefore, ejected them altogether. In a few weeks Parker

died, and then the king proceeded to put the whole college into the

hands of Papists, appointing Gifford, one of the four vicars-apostolic,

president; for now, in the regular progress of his system, James had

admitted four vicars-apostolic instead of one, which had been the case

before. It may be imagined what resentment this arbitrary proceeding

occasioned, not only in the Universities themselves, but amongst the

clergy in every quarter of the kingdom, who now saw that nothing would

deter the king from uprooting the deepest foundations of the Church.

Still more daring and atrocious schemes were agitated by James and

his Popish cabal. Soon after his accession it had been proposed

to set aside the claims of the Princess of Orange, and make Anne

heir-apparent, on condition that she embraced Popery. Anne refused.

It was then proposed to make over Ireland to Louis of France in case

Mary of Orange could not be prevented from succeeding to England; and

Louis expressed his assent to the proposal. Tyrconnel was to make

all necessary preparations for this traitorous transfer. But at this

moment a new light broke on James, which quashed these unnatural and

unnational projects: the queen was declared pregnant. The news of

this prospect was received by the public with equal incredulity and

suspicion. The queen had had several children, who had died in their

infancy; and there was nothing improbable in the expectation of another

child, although five years had elapsed since her last confinement. The

prospect of an heir, however, true or false, drove James on further and

more desperate projects. Should a son be born, and live, which none

of the queen's children had done hitherto, the Popish heir would be

exposed to the danger of a long minority. James might die before the

son had been firmly rooted in the Catholic faith, and the Protestant

bishops and nobles would surround him with Protestant instructors, and

most likely ruin all James's plans of perpetuating Popery. To obviate

this, he determined to have an Act of Parliament, settling the form of

the child's guardianship and education, and vesting all the necessary

powers in Catholic hands. Any prudent man would at least have waited

to see the birth and probable life of the child before rushing on so

desperate a scheme; for, to have an Act, he must call a Parliament;

and to call a Parliament in the present feeling of the nation was to

bring together one of the most determinedly Protestant assemblies of

men that had ever been seen. But James was of that mole-eyed, bigot

character which rushed headlong on the most perilous issues. He

determined to pack a Parliament by means which none but a madman would

have attempted. Whether from county or borough, he could expect nothing

but a most obstinate and universal demonstration in favour of the

Church and Constitution. His brother Charles, for his own purposes, had

deprived the towns of their charters, because they were Whig and often

Nonconformist, and had given them others, which put them into the hands

of the Tories and Churchmen, and these were the very men who now would

resist James's plans to the death. The country was equally Church and

Tory, but all this did not daunt James. He determined to remodel the

corporations, and to change every magistrate in the counties that was

not ready to carry out his views. He appointed a Board of Regulators at

Whitehall to examine into the state of the corporations and introduce

new rules and new men as they thought fit. These regulators were seven

in number, and all Catholics and Jesuits, except the king's incarnate

devil, Jeffreys. These men appointed deputations of chosen tools to

visit the different corporations, and report to them; and James issued

a proclamation announcing his intention to revise the commissions of

the peace, and of the lieutenancy of counties. In fact, James proceeded

like a man who was satisfied that he could do just as he pleased with

the Constitution of a country which, through all ages, had shown itself

more jealous of its Constitution than any other in the world.

He sent for the lords-lieutenants, and delivered to them a paper of

instructions, with which they were each to proceed to their several

counties. They were to summon all the magistrates, and tell them what

his Majesty expected from them on the ensuing election of Parliament,

and to send him up their individual answers, along with the list of

all the Catholic and Dissenting gentlemen who might take the place of

those who should dare to object to the king's plans on the bench or in

the militia. The proposal was so audacious, that the greater proportion

of the lords-lieutenants peremptorily refused to undertake any such

commission; these included the noblest names in the peerage, and they

were at once dismissed. The sweeping measure of turning out the Duke

of Somerset, the Viscounts Newport and Falconberg, the Earls of Derby,

Dorset, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke, Rutland, Bridgewater, Thanet,

Abingdon, Northampton, Scarsdale, Gainsborough, and many others, showed

how far James was gone in his madness. As the king could not get any

noblemen to take the places of the dismissed, he filled them up as he

could, and even made his butcher, Jeffreys, lord-lieutenant of two

counties. But all was in vain; he soon received answers from every

quarter that the whole nation, town and country, absolutely refused to

obey the king's injunctions. Even those who had gone most zealously

to work were obliged to return with most disconsolate reports, and

to assure the king that, if he turned out every magistrate and

militia officer, the next would still vote against Popery. Catholics

and Nonconformists, though glad of indulgence, would not consent to

attempt measures which could only end in defeat and confusion. The

Nonconformists would not move a finger to endanger Protestantism. It

was the same in the corporations. Some of these James could deprive

of their charters, for the new ones frequently contained a power of

revocation; but when he had done this he found himself no forwarder,

for the new ministers upon the points that he had at heart were as

sturdy as the old. Other towns from which he demanded the surrender of

their charters refused. Wherever James could eject the Church members

of corporations he did so, from London to the remotest borough, and put

in Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. It was perfectly useless;

they were as Protestant as the Church. Even where he obtained a few

truckling officials, they found it impossible to make the people vote

as they wished; and in the counties the Catholic or Dissenting sheriffs

were equally indisposed to press the Government views, or unable to

obtain them if they did. He changed the borough magistrates in some

cases two or three times, but in vain. Some of the people in the towns

did not content themselves with mere passive resistance; they loudly

declared their indignation, and the tyrant marched soldiers in upon

them; but only to hear them exclaim that James was imitating his dear

brother of France, and dragonading the Protestants.

Whilst these things were going on all over the country, James was

putting on the same insane pressure in every public department

of Government. The heads of departments were called on to pledge

themselves to support the wishes of the king, and to demand from their

subordinates the same obedience. The refractory were dismissed, even

to the highest law officers of the Crown; and James demanded from the

judges a declaration that even the Petition of Right could not bar the

exercise of his prerogative; but the bench consulted in secret, and the

result was never known. He even contemplated granting no licences to

inns, beer-houses, or coffee-houses, without an engagement to support

the king, in spite of Church or magistrate; but another of his measures

now brought things to a crisis.

James determined to make his intentions known for fully restoring

Popery by a new Declaration of Indulgence, in which he reminded his

subjects of his determined character, and of the numbers of public

servants that he had already dismissed for opposing his will. This

Declaration he published on the 27th of April, 1688, and he ordered the

clergy to read it from all pulpits in London on the 20th and 27th of

May, and in the country on the 3rd and 10th of June. This was calling

on the bishops and clergy to practise their doctrine of Non-resistance

to some purpose; it was tantamount to demanding from them to co-operate

in the overthrow of their own Church. They were, as may be supposed,

in an awful dilemma; and now was the time for the Dissenters--whom

they had so sharply persecuted and so soundly lectured on the duty of

entire submission--to enjoy their embarrassment. But the Dissenters

were too generous, and had too much in common at stake. They met and

sent deputations to the clergy, and exhorted them to stand manfully for

their faith, declaring that they would stand firmly by them. A meeting

of the metropolitan clergy was called, at which were present Tillotson,

Sherlock, Stillingfleet--great names--and others high in the Church.

They determined not to read the Declaration on the 20th, and sent

round a copy of this resolution through the City, where eighty-five

incumbents immediately signed it.

The bishops meanwhile met at Lambeth, and discussed the same question.

Cartwright of Chester, one of the king's most servile tools, and a

member of the High Commission, took care to be there, to inform the

king of what passed; but during his stay nothing but a disposition to

compliance appeared to prevail, and he hurried away to Whitehall with

the news. No sooner, however, was he gone than letters were secretly

despatched, summoning the bishops of the province of Canterbury; and

another meeting took place on the 18th, or two days prior to the

Sunday fixed for the further reading of the Declaration. The bishops

concluded not to read it, and six of them waited on the king with the

written resolution. James was confounded, having assured himself that

they meant to comply. He used the most menacing language, and declared

that they had set up the standard of rebellion; and ordered them from

his presence to go at once and see that he was obeyed. To prevent the

publication of the resolution, he detained it; but that very evening it

was printed and hawked through the streets, where it was received with

acclamations by the people. Any but a mad bigot, seeing the feelings

of the public, would have instantly revoked the declaration; but James

was not that man. Sunday arrived, and out of all the hundred churches,

the Declaration was only read in four, and with the effect of instantly

clearing them, amid murmurs of indignation. Still it was not too late

to recall the Order in Council; and even James himself, with all his

folly and infatuation, was now staggered. It was strongly recommended

in the Council to abandon the Declaration; but James listened to his

evil genius, the brutal Jeffreys, and determined to bring the seven

signing bishops to trial before the Court of King's Bench, on a charge

of seditious libel. The fatal counsel was adopted, and they were

summoned to appear before the Privy Council on the 8th of June.

In the interval the bishops and clergy in all parts of England, with

few exceptions, showed the same resolute spirit. The Bishops of

Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury, Winchester, Exeter, and London, signed

copies of the same petition. The Bishop of Carlisle regretted that, not

belonging to the province of Canterbury, he could not do the same. The

Bishop of Worcester refused to distribute the Declaration amongst his

clergy; and the same spirit showed itself amongst the parochial clergy,

who almost to a man refused to read it.

On the evening of the day appointed, the seven prelates--namely,

Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath

and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough,

and Trelawney of Bristol--attended the Privy Council. Jeffreys took up

the petition, and, showing it to Sancroft, asked him if that was not

the paper which he had written, and the six bishops present had signed.

Sancroft and his colleagues had been instructed by the ablest lawyers

in England as to the course they should pursue, and the dangers to be

avoided. The Primate, therefore, instead of acknowledging the paper,

turned to the king and said--"Sir, I am called hither as a criminal,

which I never was before; and, since I have that unhappiness, I trust

your Majesty will not be offended if I decline answering questions

which may tend to criminate me." "This is mere chicanery," said James.

"I hope you will not disown your own handwriting." Lloyd of St. Asaph

said that it was agreed by all divines that no man in their situation

was obliged to answer any such question; but, as James still pressed

for an answer, Sancroft observed that, though he were not bound to

accuse himself, yet, if the king commanded it, he would answer, taking

it for granted that his Majesty would not take advantage to bring

his admission there in evidence against him. James said he would not

command him; but Jeffreys told them to withdraw for awhile, and when

they were called back, James commanded the Primate, and he acknowledged

the writing. They were then again sent out, and, on coming back, were

told by Jeffreys that they would be proceeded against, not before the

High Commission, but, "with all fairness," before the King's Bench.

They were then called upon to enter into recognisances, but they

refused, on the plea that they were peers of Parliament, and that no

peer of Parliament could be required to enter into recognisances in

case of libel. This greatly disconcerted James, for it compelled him

to send them to prison, and he justly feared the effect of it on the

public. But there was no alternative; a warrant was signed for their

commitment to the Tower, and they were sent thither in a barge.

The scene which immediately took place showed that James had at length

a glimmering of the danger which he had raised. The whole river was

crowded with wherries full of people, who crowded round the bishops

to entreat their blessings, many rushing breast-high into the water

to come near enough. James, in terror, ordered the garrison and

guards of the Tower to be doubled; but the same spirit animated the

soldiers, who knelt at the approach of the prelates, and also solicited

their blessing. Presently the soldiers were found carousing to the

health of their prisoners; and when Sir Edward Hales, who had been

made Lieutenant of the Tower for his going over to Popery, desired

the officers to put a stop to it, they returned and told him that

it was impossible, for the soldiers would drink nobody's health but

the bishops'. Every day the gates of the Tower were besieged by the

equipages of the chief nobility. The very Nonconformists came in bodies

to condole with their old persecutors; and Tower Hill was one constant

throng of people manifesting their sympathy.

Two days only after the bishops were sent to the Tower--namely, the

10th of June--was announced what, under other circumstances, would

have been a most auspicious event for James--the birth of an heir.

But the nation was so full of suspicion, both of the monarch and the

Jesuits that he had around him, that it would not credit the news that

the healthy boy which was born was the actual child of James and his

queen. It was certainly of the highest moment that James should have

taken every precaution to have the birth verified beyond dispute; but

in this respect he had been as singularly maladroit as in all his

other affairs. As the Protestants were, of course, highly suspicious,

he should have had the usual number of Protestant witnesses ready.

But the queen, who sat playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight,

was suddenly taken ill a month before the calculated time, and there

was neither the Princess Anne present--she was away at Bath,--nor

the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch ambassador--whom it was

so necessary to satisfy on behalf of the Prince and Princess of

Orange,--nor any of the Hyde family, not even the Earl of Clarendon,

the uncle of Mary and Anne. On the contrary, there were plenty of

Jesuits, and the renegades Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland--who

directly afterwards avowed himself a Catholic--Mulgrave, and others.

The consequence was that the whole people declared the child spurious;

that it had been introduced into the bed in a warming-pan; and when

the public announcement was made, and a day of solemn thanksgiving was

appointed, there was no rejoicing. Fireworks were let off by order

of Government; but the night was black and tempestuous, and flashes

of lurid lightning paled the artificial fires, and made the people

only the more firm in the belief that heaven testified against the

imposture. And yet there was no imposture. There were some Protestants

present--sufficient to prevent any collusion, and particularly Dr.

Chamberlain, the eminent accoucheur; but James, by his folly and

tyranny, had deprived himself of the public confidence, and fixed on

his innocent offspring a brand of disavowment, which clung to him and

his fortunes, and has only been removed by the cooler judgment of

recent times. William of Orange sent over Zulestein to congratulate

James on the birth of an heir; but that minister brought back the

account that not one person in ten believed the child to be the queen's.

[Illustration: THE SEVEN BISHOPS ENTERING THE TOWER. (_See p._ 328.)]

On Friday, the 15th of June, the first day of term, the bishops were

brought from the Tower to the King's Bench, and, pleading not guilty,

they were admitted to bail till the 29th of June. During this fortnight

the public excitement continued to augment, and from every quarter of

the kingdom--even from the Presbyterians of Scotland, who had shown

themselves such determined opponents of prelacy, and had been such

sufferers from it--came messages of sympathy and encouragement to

the bishops. On that day immense crowds assembled to receive their

blessings, and to utter others on their way to Westminster Hall; and

this homage was the warmer because the prelates had resisted the demand

of Sir Edward Hales, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for his fees, this

renegade having shown them little courtesy, and now plainly letting

them know that, if they came again into his hands, they should lie on

the bare stones.

Every means had been taken to pack a jury. Sir Samuel Astrey, the Clerk

of the Crown, had been summoned to the palace, and been instructed

by James and his great legal adviser, Jeffreys. The judges, too,

were of the most base and complying character. They were such as had

been raised from the very lowest ranks of the bar for their servile

fitness, and because the more eminent lawyers would not stoop to such

ignominy. They were Wright; Allibone, a Papist; Holloway and Powell;

the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Powis, an inferior lawyer; the

Solicitor-General, Sir William Williams, a man of ability and vigour,

but rash, imperious, and unpopular. Ranged against these were the most

brilliant lawyers of the time--Sawyer and Finch, formerly Attorney-

and Solicitor-General; Pemberton, formerly Chief Justice; Maynard; Sir

George Treby, who had been Recorder of London, and others. Somers,

afterwards Lord Chancellor in William's reign, was the bishops' junior

counsel. The foreman of the jury was Sir Roger Langley. On the side of

the prosecution, the judges, and even the blustering Jeffreys, betrayed

a sense of terror.

The trial commenced at nine in the morning, and not till seven in the

evening did the jury retire to consider their verdict. The lawyers for

the prisoners raised great difficulties as to proving the handwriting

of the libel, and next in proving its being published in Westminster.

The Crown lawyers were obliged to bring into court Blathwayt, a clerk

of the Privy Council, for this object; and then the counsel for the

prisoners stopped him, and compelled him to state what had passed there

between the bishops and the king--much to the chagrin of the Government

party. Before the publication could be proved, even Sunderland was

obliged to be brought into court in a sedan. He was pale, trembled

violently from fright and shame of his late apostacy, and gave his

evidence with his eyes fixed on the ground. But even then, when the

judges came to consider the bishops' petition, they were divided in

opinion. Wright and Allibone declared it a libel, and contended for the

royal right of the dispensing power; but Holloway conceded that the

petition appeared to him perfectly allowable from subjects to their

sovereign; and Powell set himself right with the public and wrong with

the Court--a significant sign--by boldly declaring both the Dispensing

Power and the Declaration of Indulgence contrary to law.

With such sentiments developing themselves on the bench, there could

be little doubt what the verdict would be; yet the jury sat all night,

from seven o'clock till six the next morning, before they were fully

agreed, there being, however, only three dissentients at first. When

the court met at ten o'clock, the crowd, both within and without, was

crushing and immense; and when the foreman pronounced the words "Not

guilty," Halifax was the first to start up and wave his hat; and such

a shout was sent up as was heard as far as Temple Bar. The news flew

far and wide; the shouting and rejoicing broke out in every quarter of

the town. The whole population, nobility, clergy, people, all seemed

gone mad. There were more than sixty lords who had stood out the trial,

and now threw money amongst the throngs as they drove away. The people

formed a line down to the water's edge, and knelt as the bishops passed

through, asking their blessing. The Attorney-General, Williams, was

pursued in his coach with curses and groans; and Cartwright, the Bishop

of Chester, and James's tool of the High Commission, being descried,

was hooted at as "That wolf in sheep's clothing!" and, as he was a very

fat man, one cried, "Room for the man with the Pope in his belly!"