Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library 21 L161— H41 THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, From the Accession of James il. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, IN FIVE VOLUMES. VOLUME III. New York: WM. L. ALLISON COMPANY, Publishers. BY KM K V' 3 CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAPTER XI. PAGfi. Wniiam and Mary proclaimed !ii London.. •••••«•••••• • Rejoicings throughout England ; Rejoicings in Holland* ••• • • S Discontent of the Clergy and of the Army.. ..•••••«•• 3 Reaction of Public Feeling 4 Temper of the Tories • * • % Temper of the Whigs ••• ••• 8 Ministerial Arrangements *. 10 William his own Minister for Foreign Affairs * 11 Danby..... • ta Halifax • * 13 Nottingham • • • 14 Shrewsbury ; The Board of Admiral^ « • • • 15 The Board of Treasury; The Great Seal 16 The Judges • 17 The Household • 18 Subordinate Appointments ••• ao The Convention turned into a Parliament si The Members of the two Houses required to take the Oaths 25 Questions relating to the Revenue • 26 Abolition of the Hearth Money 28 Repayment of the Expenses 01 the United Provinces ; Mutiny at Ipswich 99 The first Mutiny Bill 35 Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act < 37 Unpopularity of William • • 38 Popularity of Mary 41 The Court Removed from Whitehall to Hampton Court 43 The Court at Kensington , 45 William's foreign Favorites 46 General Maladministration 49 Dissensions among Men in Office... • •..«... 49 Department of Foreign Afiairs 54 Religious Disputes 55 The High Church Party 56 The Low Church Party , . 57 William's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity; Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury 59 Nottingham's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity. 63 The Toleration Bill 7. , 64 The Comprehension Bill « 70 The Bill for settling the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy * 78 The Bill for setthng the Coronation Oath 91 The Coronation , 93 Promotions , , 95 The Coalition against France \ The Devastation of the Palatinate 96 War declared against Francs loe CHAPTER XIL State of Ireland at the Thne of the Revolution ; The Cidl Power Ift Ibe hands erfhs Roman Catholics • • • loi The Military Power hi the hands o{ the Roman Catholics. • >• tm 00NTEI9TS. Mutual Enmity between the Engtishry and the Irishxy »•< , Panic among the Englishry « •••••«•••••••• io§ History of the town of Kemnare * • •• too Enniskillen • • • • •••• •••••••••••••••••• no Londonderry • ••••••••• m - Closing of the Gates of Londonderry • «•••• 113 Mountjoy sent to pacif^r Ulster. 113 William opens a Negotiation with Tyrconnel • 117 The Temples consulted.. • c* •••«.•••.••• ii3 Richard Hamilton sent to Ireland on his Parole 119 Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy and Rice to France | Tyrconnel calls the Iri^ People to arms • 131 D evastation of the Country • • 123 The Protestants in the South unable to resist • 126 Enniskillen and Londonderry hold out; Richard Hamilton marches into Ulster with an Army....^ 127 James determines to go to Ireland. 12S Assistance furnished by Lewis to James 129 Choice of a French Ambassador to accompany James ; The Count «f Avaux 131 James lands at Kinsale } James enters Cork 133 Journey of James from Cork to Dublin 135 Discontent m England • • 237 Factions at Dublm Castle * 138 James determines to go to Ulster { Journey of James to Ulster • * 143 The Fall of Londonderry erpected 147 Succors arrive from England; Treachery of Lundy; The Inhabitants of Lofadonderry resolve to defend themselves • 148 Their Character. •••• 150 Londonderry besieged • •• 154 The Siege turned into a Blockade 156 Naval Skirmish in Bantry Bav 157 A Parliament summoned by James nta at Dublin 15S A Toleration Act passed • 263 Acts passed for the Confiscation of the Property ol PraCettanti 163 Issue of Base Money >..... i63 The Great Act of Attainder ..»...•«•• 169 James prorogues his Parliament •.. 17a Persecution of the Protestants in Iceland. «^ «• 173 Effect produced in England by tla News imra Ireland 175 Actions of the Enniskilleners • • 178 Distress of Londonderry • »• 179 Expedition under Kirke arrives in Lough Foyle} Cruelty of Rosen 180 The Famine in Londonderry extreme 183 Attack on the Boom.... •« 185 The Siege of Londonderry raised • * 186 Operations against the Ennidtilleners 189 Battle of Newton Butler. 191 Consternation of the Ixi^.»..« ..«•• .••••••..••».».••••«.<•••.••• 199 CHAPTER XIII. The Revolu^on more violent {a Scotland than in England. i9§ Election for the Convention; Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy 194 State of Edinburgh. 198 The Question of an Union between England and Scotland raised 199 Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy in Scotland 203 Opinions of William about Church Government in Scotland 203 Comparative Strength of Religious Parties in Scotland ^.r. 205 Letter from William to the Scotch Convention ; William's Instructions to hib i^^gBnxs In Scotland 206 The Dalrympleso 207 Melville 209 James's Agents in Scotland ; Dundee; Balcarras • 210 Meeting of the Convention aia Hamilton elected President 214 Committee of Elections ; Edinburgh Castle summoned.... .... * ^ aij Dundee threatened by the Convenanters e»« ai6 Letter from Jamea to the Convention... .••••••.••«•••••••••••••••• aif CONTENTS. PAGE. fiffect of Jameses Letter* ••••••••••• • •••;f«« ••«••••••••••• •••••••• 219 Flight of Dundee ' » 220 Tumultuous Sitting of the Convention ••• 221 A Committee appomted to frame a Plan of Government ••• 222 Resolutions proposed by the Committee.^ • • • 224 William and Mary proclaimed ; The Claim of Right ; Abolition of the Episcopacy 225 Torture 227 William and Mary accept the Crown of Scotland.. •• 229 Discontent of the Convenanters , 230 Ministerial Arrangements in Scotland ; Hamilton; Crawford 231 The Dalrymples ; Lockhart; Montgomery; Melville.... • 232 Carstairs; The Club formed ; Annandale; Ross • 233 Hume; Fletcher of Saltoun 234 War breaks out in the Highlands ; State of the Highlands 236 Peculiar nature of Jacobitism in the Highlands. • ■ • 246 Jealousy of the Ascendency of the Campbells 247 The Stewarts and Macnaghtens; The Macleans • 250 The Camerons; Lochiel • 251 The Macdonalds • 253 Feud between the Macdonalds and Mackintoshes; Inverness 254 Inverness threatened by Macdonald of Keppoch. • 256 Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp • 258 Insurrection of the Clans hostile to the Campbells • 259 Tarbet's Advice to the Government.... • 261 Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands. ••• •••• • 262 Military Character of the Higmanders • •••••• •••••• 263 Quarrels in the Highland Army, * 265 Dundee applies to James for assistance ; The War in the Highlands suspended 269 Scruples of the Covenanters about taking Arms for King William 269 The Cameronian Regiment raised. • 2 70 Edinburgh Castle surrenders ••••• •• 272 Session of Parliament at Edinburgh; Ascendency of the Club • 273 Troubles in Athol ..• • 276 The war breaks out again in the Highlands 278 Death of Dundee • 285 Retreat of Mackay • 285 Effect of the battle of Killiecrankie ; The Scottish Parliament adjourned 287 The Highland Army reinforced 290 Skirmish at Saint Johnston's • •. 292 Disorders in the Highland Army • 292 Mackay's Advice disregarded by the Scotch Ministers ; The Cameronians stationed at Dunkeld • 293 The Highlanders attack the Cameronians and are repulsed • 295 Dissolution of the Highland Army 296 Intrigues of the Qub { State of the Lowlands* 297 CHAPTER XIV. Disputes in the English Parliament; The Attainder of Russell reversed, 298 Other Attainders re versed ; Case of Samuel Johnson 300 Case of Devonshire f Case of Oates • 301 Bill of Rights • 309 Disputes about a Bill of Indemnity. • 313 Last Days of Jeffreys 314 The Whigs dissatisfied Whh the King ».......«••.••• 317 Intemperance of Howe; Attack on Caermarthen 319 Attack on Halifax 320 Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland 323 Schomberg , • 324 Recess of the Parliament ; State of Ireland ; Advice of Avaux 326 Dismission of Melfort ; Schomberg lands in Ulster. 330 Carrickfergus taken ; Schomberg advances into Leinster 33 1 The English and Irish Armies encamp near each other; Schomberg declines a Battle.. 333 Frauds of the English Commissariat 334 Conspiracy among the French Troops in the English Service 335 Pestilence in the English Army , , 335 The English and Irash Armies go into Winter Quarters. ••• • •••• 337 Various Opinions about Schomberg's Conduct 33S Maritime Alfairt****.*** •* •••••••••••••«•••••••*•••••••• ••• # 33f vi OONTElim Ma!adinm!stratiqn of TonlngtOB»«** • ••••••••••••••••••••••• ^ Continental Affairs. • ••••••••••••••••••••••• 341 Skirmish at Walcourt ; Imputations thrown on Marlborough. • 343 Pope Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII. •••••• 345 The High Church Clergy divided on the Subject of the Oaths.. 346 Arguments for taking the Oaths • 347 Arguments against taking the Oaths ••.••.•••.•••.«••••.•••.....•.... 349 A great Majority of the Clergy take the Oaths v < 35A The Nonjurors : Ken **** ••••• 356 Leslie; Sherlock • 35S Hickes • • • 359 Collier 360 Dodwell • • • 361 Kettlewell ; Fitzwilliam ; General Character of the.Nonjuring Clergy. 363 The Plan of Comprehension; Tillotson.... • • 367 An Ecclesiestical Commission issued •••• • • 368 Proceedings of the Commission 369 The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury summoned; Temper of the Clergy.... 373 Th<$ Clergy ill-affected towards the King • 3 74 The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by the Proceedings of the Scotch Pres* tryterians ••* 378 Conntitution of the Convocation • 3 79 Elestion of Members of Convocation. ..«..••...• •••••••••• 379 Kcdesiastical Preferments bestowed. • 380 Campton discontented • 381 Th^ Convocation meets. .....v^. 38a Thi: High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of Convocation 383 Diiierence between the Two Houses of Convocation 384 Th« Lower House of Convocation proved unmanageable. 385 Tb« Convocation prorogued* ••••••••• •••••• 386 CHAPTER XV. The Parliament meets : Retirement o£ Halifax. 3 83 Supplies voted ; the Bill of Bights passed. ••••• 389 Inquiry into Naval Abuses...... • •••••• 391 Inquiry into the Conduct of the Irish War.. • «••••..•.••••••••••.•• 39a Reception of Walker in England « • 393 Edmund Ludlow ••••••.•.••.••.•••»• 394 Violence of the Whigs. 397 Impeachments « • 398 Committee of Murder.... ..«•...••.•••••• 39) Malevolence of John Hampden • • 40a 1690. The Corporation Bill 403 Debates on the Indemnity Bill. •••••• • 40/ Casecf Sir Robert Sawyer •• * 408 The King purposes to retire to Holland « 412 He is induced to change his intention ; the Whigs oppose his going to Ireland ; He prorogues the Parliament • • •••• •••• ^ 414 Toy of the Tories 415 Dissolution and General Election 416 Changes in the Executive Departments. • 41B Caermarthen then Chief Minister • • 419 Sir John Lowther 42c Rise and Progress of Parliamentary Corruption in England 42 1 Sir John Trevor •••• 426 Godolphin retires • •• 427 Changes at the Admiralt]^ , • • . • 427 Changes in the Commissions of Lieutenancy 428 Temper of the Whigs ; Dealings of some Whigs with Saint Germains ; Shrewsbury, Ferguson ••. 430 Hopes of the Jacobites 431 Meeting of the New Parliament; Settlement of the Revenue • • 432 Provision for the Princess of Denmark 435 Bill declaring the Acts of the Preceding Parliament valid.... • 44a Debate on the Changes in the Lieutenancy of London 443 Abjuration Bill • 44s Act of Grace *« • « 44# c oi i Tgi i m Yii Jttl^rllameiitororogtiecl; PlimtivtioDt for the First War** ••••••t** 449 ^Ikiinistration 01 James at Dubun ••**•• •*• •••*••••••••••• 450 •Auxiliary Force sent from France to Ireland... ••••••• 452 Jkn of the English Jacobites : Clarendon, Aylesbury, Dartmooth. • 454 ^enn ••• # 455 ^reston • •••.*•. •• *.•••• •••• 456 J%e Jacobites betrayed by Fuller. •.*• •••••o 4^9 'L,*rone arrested ••.••••••••*••••••••*••••••••••••••••• *.••••• 45s Difficulties of William * •••• •••*• • •• ; 459 '3onduct%f Shrewsbury. ••••••••• *•••*• *•*.••* • • 460 *^e Council of Nine. •.•.•••••••.•..•••••*. •••••• 462 Conduct of Clarendon ; Penn held to baiL.. .••...> •• 463 Interview between William and Burnet ( William sets out for Ireland 464 Trial of Crone • • ••••• 465 Danger of Invasion and Insurrection; Tourville*s Fleet in the Channel. •••••••• 467 Arrests of suspected Persons. * 468 Torrington ordered to give Battle tO Tonrville* •••• *•••• • •••••• 469 Battle of Beachy Head..*** * •**••**••**••*•**••••«• 479 Alarm m Londont Battle of Fleunis| Spirit of the Nation ...*•**•*••••• 471 CeMUiaU Sbcewsbuty* • •••*•••*••••••••••«•«•«•*««••«• ^ i HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER XI.— (1689.) The Revolution had been accomplished. The decrees of the Convention were everywhere received with sub- mission. London, true during fifty eventful years to the cause of civil freedom and of the reformed religion, was foremost in professing loyalty to the new Sovereigns. Garter King at Arms, after making proclamation under the windows of Whitehall, rode in state along the Strand to Temple Bar. He was followed by the maces of the two Houses, by the two Speakers, Halifax and Powle, and by a long train of coaches filled with noblemen and gentlemen. The magistrates of the City threw open their gates and joined the procession. Four regiments of militia lined the way up Ludgate Hill, round Saint Paul's Cathedral, and along Cheapside. The streets, the balconies, and the very housetops were crowded with gazers. All the steeples from the Abbey to the Tower sent forth a joyous din. The proclamation was repeated with sound of trumpet, in front of the Royal Exchange, amidst the shouts of the citizens. . In the evening every window from Whitechapel to Pic- cadilly was lighted up. The state rooms of the palace were thrown open, and were filled by a gorgeous com- pany of courtiers desirous to kiss the hands of the King and Queen. The Whigs assembled there, flushed with victory and prosperity. There were among them some who might be pardoned if a vindictive feeling mingled with their joy. The most deeply injured of all who had sur- vived the evil times was absent. Lady Russell, while her friends were crowding the galleries, of Whitehall, remained in her retreat, thinking of one who, if he- had been still living, would hgve held no undistinguished place in the ceremonies of that great day. But her daughter who had* a few months before become the wife of Lord Cavendish, was presented to the royal pair by his mother the Countess of Devonshire. A letter is still extant in which the young 2 HISTORY OF England: lady described with great vivacity the roar of the populace, the blaze in the streets, the throng in the presence cham- ber, the beauty of Mary, and the expression which ennobled and softened the harsh features of William. But the most interesting passage is that in which the orphan girl avow- ed the stern delight with which she had witnessed the tardy punishment of her father's murderer.* The example of London was followed by the provincial towns. During three weeks the Gazettes were filled with accounts of the solemnities by which the public joy mani- fested itself, cavalcades of gentlemen and yeomen, proces- sions of sheriffs and bailiffs in scarlet gowns, musters of zealous Protestants with orange flags and ribbons, salutes, bonfires, illuminations, music, balls, dinners, gutters run- ning with ale, and conduits spouting claret. f Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch, when they learned that the first minister of their Common- wealth had been raised to a throne. On the very day of his accession he had written to assure the States General that the change in his situation had made no chanjBfe in the affection which he bore to his native land, and that his new dignity would, he hoped, enable him to discharge his old duties more efficiently than ever. That oligarchical party, which had always been hostile to the doctrines of Calvin and to the House of Orange, muttered faintly that His Majesty ought to resign the Stadtholdership. But all such mutterings were drowned by the acclamations of a people proud of the genius and success of their great coun- tryman. A day of thanksgiving was appointed. In all the cities of the Seven Provinces the public joy manifested it- self by festivities of which the expense was chiefly defrayed by voluntary gifts. Every class assisted. The poorest laborer could help to set up an arch of triumph, or to bring sedge to a bonfire. Even the ruined Huguenots of France could contribute the aid of their ingenuity. One art which they had carried with them into banishment was the art of making fireworks; and they now, in honor of the vic- torious champion of their faith, lighted up the canals of Amsterdam with showers of splendid constellations. J ♦ Letter from Lady Cavendish to Sylvia. Lady Cavendish, like most of the clever girls of that generation, had Scudery's romances in her head. She is Dorinda: her cor- respondent, supposed to be her cousin Jane Allington, is Sylvia: William is Ormanzor, and Mary Phenixana. London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1688-9; Luttrell's Diary. t See the London Gazettes of February and March 1688-9, Luttrell's Diary. t Wagenaar, Lxi. He quotes the proceedings of the States of the and of March, .^689. Loudon Gazette, April 11, 1689; Monthly Mercury for April, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. 3 To superficial observers it might well seem that William was, at this time, one of the most enviable of human be- ings. He was in truth one of the most anxious and unhappy. He well knew that the difficulties of his task were only be- ginning. Already that dawn which had lately been so bright was overcast; and many signs portended a dark and stormy day. It was observed that two important classes took little or no part in the festivities by which, all over England, the inauguration of the new government was celebrated. Very seldom could either a priest or a soldier be seen in the assemblages which gathered round the market crosses where the King and Queen were proclaimed. The profes- sional pride both of the clergy and of the army had been deeply wounded. The doctrine of non-resistance had been dear to the Anglican divines.^ It was their distinguishing badge. It was their favorite theme. If we are to judge by that portion of their oratory which has come down to us, they had preached about the duty of passive obedience at least as often and as zealously as about the Trinity or the Atonement.* Their attachment to their political creed had indeed been severely tried, and had, during a short time, wavered. But with the tyranny of James the bitter feeling which that tyranny had excited among them had passed away. The parson of a parish was naturally un- willing to join in what was really a triumph over those principles which, during twenty-eight years, his flock had heard him proclaim on every anniversary of the Martyr- dom and on every anniversary of the Restoration. The soldiers, too, were discontented. They hated Pop- ery indeed; and they had not loved the banished King. But they keenly felt that, in the short campaign which had decided the fate of their country, theirs had been an in- glorious part. A regular army such as had never before marched to battle under the royal standard of England, had retreated precipitately before an invader, and had then, without a struggle, submitted to him. That great force had been absolutely of no acccount in the late change, had done nothing towards keeping William out, and had done nothing towards bringing him in. The clowns, who, armed with pitchforks and mounted on carthorses, had straggled * " I may be positive," says a writer who had been educated at Westminster School, where I heard one sermon of repentance, faith, and the renewing' of the Holy Ghost, I heard three of the other; and 'tis hard to say whether Jesus Christ or King Charles the First were oftener mentioned and magnified." —Biss«t'r Modern Fanatic, 1710. 4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. in the train of Lovelace or Delamere, had borne a greater part in the Revolution than those splendid household troops, whose plumed hats, embroidered coats, and curv- etting chargers the Londoners had so often seen with ad- miration in Hyde Park. The mortification of the army was increased by the taunts of the foreigners, taunts which neither orders nor punishments could entirely restrain.* At several places the anger which a brave and high spirited body of men might, in such circumstances, be expected' to feel, showed itself in an alarming manner. A battalion which lay at Cirencester put out the bonfires, huzzaed for King James, and drank confusion to his daughter and his nephew. The garrison of Plymouth disturbed the re- joicings of the County of Cornwall: blows were exchang- ed; and a man was killed in the fray.f The ill humor of the clergy and of the army could not but be noticed by the most heedless; for the clergy and the army were distinguished from other classes by obvious peculiarities of garb. Black coats and red coats," said a vehement Whig in the House of Commons, "are the curses of the nation. "J But the discontent was not confined to the black coats and the red coats. The enthusiasm with which men of all classes had welcomed William to London at Christmas had greatly abated before the close of Feb- ruary. The new King had, at the very moment at which his fame and fortune reached the highest point, pj-edict- ed the coming reaction. That reaction might, indeed, have been predicted by a less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping phi- losophers. It was a favorite theme of Horace and of Pascal, of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the fate of > great communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and counter-revolutions recorded in history. A hundred generations have passed away since the first great na- * Paris Gazette,- - "^^^ 1689; Orange '"razette, London, Jan. 10, 1688-9. + Grey's Debates, Howe's Speech, Feb. 26, 1688-9; Boscawen's Speech, March i; Lut- trell's Diary, Feb. 23-27. . — t Grey's Debates, Feb. 26, 1688-9. WILLIAM AND MARY. 5 tional emancipation, of which an account has come down to us. We read in the most ancient of books that a people bowed to the dust under a cruel yoke, scourged to toil by hard taskmasters, not supplied with straw, yet compelled to furnish the daily tale of bricks, became sick of life, and raised such a cry of misery as pierced the heavens. The slaves were wonderfully set free: at the moment of their liberation they raised a song of gratitude and tri- umph: but, in a few hours, they began to regret their slav- ery, and to reproach the leader who had decoyed them away from the savory fare of the house of bondage to the dreary waste which still separated them from the land flowing with milk and honey. Since that time the history of every great deliverer has been the history of Moses re- told. Down to the present hour rejoicings like those on the shore of the Red Sea have ever been speedily followed by murmurings like those at the Waters of Strife.* The most just and salutary revolution must produce much suf- fering. The most just and salutary revolution cannot pre- duce all the good that had been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and sanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still recent, weigh quite fairly the evils which it has caused against the evils which it has re- moved. For the evils which it has caused are felt; and the evils which it has removed are felt no longer. Thus it was now in England. The public was, as it al- ways is during the cold fits which follow its hot fits, sul- len, hard to please, dissatisfied with itself, dissatisfied with those who had lately been its favorites. The truce between the two great parties was at an end. Sepa- rated by the memory of all that had been done and suffered during a conflict of half a century, they had been, during a few months, united by a common danger. But the danger was over: the union was dissolved; and the old animosity broke forth again in all its strength. James had, during the last year of his reign, been even more hated by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not with- out cause: for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories he had been a faithless and thankless friend. But the old Eoyalist feeling, which had seemed to be extinct in the time of his lawlesss domination, had been partially revived * This illustration is repeated to satiety in sermons and pamphlets of the time of Wil- liam the Third. There is a poor imitation of Absalom and Ahitophel entitled the Mur- raurers. William is Moses; Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, nonjuring Bishops; Bala&mj I think, Dryden; and Phinehas Shrewsbury. 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. by his misfortunes. Many lords and gentlemen who had, in December, taken arms for the Prince of Orange and a Free Parliament, muttered two months later, that they had been drawn in; that they had trusted too much to His Highness s Declaration; that they had given him credit for a disin- terestedness which it now appeared was not in his nature. They had meant to put on King James, for his own good, some gentle force, to punish the Jesuits and renegades who had misled him, to obtain from him some guarantee for the safety of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm, but not to uncrown and banish him. For his mal- administration, gross as it had been, excuses were found. Was it strange that, driven from his native land, while still a boy, by rebels who were a disgrace to the Protest- ant name, and forced to pass his youth in countries where the Roman Catholic religion was established, he should have been captivated by that most attractive of all super- stitions? Was it strange that, persecuted and calumniat- ed as he had been by an implacable faction, his disposition should have become sterner and more severe than it had once been thought, and that, when th.ose who had tried to blast his honor and to rob him of his birthright were at length in his power, he should not have sufficiently tem- pered justice with mercy? As to the worst charge which had been brought against him, the charge of trying to cheat his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a supposititious child, on what grounds did it rest? Merely on slight circumstances, such as might well be imputed to accident, or to that imprudence which was but too much in harmony with his character. Did ever the most stupid country justice put a boy in the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that on which the English people had pronounced their King guilty of the basest and most odious of all frauds? Some great faults he had doubtless committed: nothing could be more just or constitutional than that for those faults his advisers and tools should be called to a severe reckoning; nor did any of those advisers and tools more richly deserve punishment than the Round- head sectaries whose adulation had encouraged him to per- sist in the fatal exercise of the dispensing power. It was a fundamental principle of law that the King could do no wrong, and that, if wrong were done by his authority, his counsellors and agents were responsible. That great rule, essential to our polity, was now inverted. The sycophants, WILLIAM AND MARY. 7 vho were legally punishable, enjoyed impunity: the King, who was not legally punishable, was punished with merci- less severity. Was it possible for the Cavaliers of Eng- land, the sons of the warriors who had fought under Ru- pert, not to feel bitter sorrow and indignation when they reflected on the fate of their rightful liege lord, the heir of a long line of princes, lately enthroned in splendor at Whitehall, now an exile, a suppliant, a mendicant? His calamities had been greater than even those of the Blessed Martyr from whom he sprang. The father had been slain by avowed and deadly foes: the ruin of the son had been the work of his own children. Surely the punishment, even if deserved, should have been inflicted by other hands. And was it altogether deserved? Had not the unhappy man been rather weak and rash than wicked? Had he not some of the qualities of an excellent prince? His abilities were certainly not of a high order: but he was diligent: he was thrifty: he had fought bravely: he had been his own minister for maritime affairs, and had, in that capacity acquitted himself respectably: he had, till spiritual guides obtained a fatal ascendency over his mind, been regarded as a man of strict justice; and, to the last, when he was not misled by them, he generally spoke truth and dealt fairly. With so many virtues he might, if he had been a Protestant, nay, if he had been a moderate Roman Catholic, have had a prosperous and glorious reign. Perhaps it might not be too late for him to retrieve his errors. It was difficult to believe that he could be so dull and perverse as not to have profited by the terrible discipline which he had recently undergone; and, if that discipline had produced the effects which might reasonably be expected from it, England might still enjoy, under her legitimate ruler, a larger measure of happiness and tranquillity than she could expect from the administration of the best and ablest usurper. We should do great injustice to those who held this lan- guage, if we suppose that they had, as a body, ceased to regard Popery and despotism with abhorrence. Some zealots might indeed be found who could not bear the thought of imposing conditions on their King, and who were ready to recall liim without the smallest assurance that the Declaration of Indulgence should not be instantly republished, that the High Commission should not be in- stantly revived, that Petre should not be again seated at the Council Board, and that the Fellows of Magdalene 8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. should not again be ejected. But the number of these metf was small. On the otlier hand, the number of those Roj- alists, who, if James would have acknowledged his mistakes and promised to observe the laws, were ready to rally routid liim, was very large. It is a remarkable fact that two able and experienced statesmen, who had borne a chief part in the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days after the Revolution had been accomplished, their apprehension that a Restoration was close at hand. " If King James were a Protestant," said Halifax to Reresby, we could not keep him out four months." "If King James," said Danby to Reresby about the same time, "would but give the country some satisfaction about religion, which he might easily do, it would be very hard to make head against him." * Hap- pily for England, James was, as usual, his own worst ene- my. No word indicating that he took blame to himself on account of the past, or that he intended to govern constitu- tionally for the future, could be extracted from him. Every letter, every rumor, that found its way from Saint Ger- mains to England made men of sense fear that, if, in his present temper, he should be restored to power, the second tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as a body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. They therefore, without altogether relin- quishing the hope that he who was King by right might at some future time be disposed to listen to reason, and without feeling anything like loyalty towards him who was King in possession, discontentedly endured the new gov- ernment. It may be doubted whether that government was not, durin-g the first months of its existence, in more danger from the affection of the Whigs than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can hardly be more annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting fondness; and such was the fondness which the Whigs felt for the Sovereign of their choice. They were loud in his praise. They w^ere ready to support him with purse and sword against foreign and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a pe- culiar kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who had fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by twenty years of malad- ♦ Reresby's Memoirs. WILLIAM AND MARY. 9 ministration, was not a sentiment to which the doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favorable; nor was it a sentiment which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion, could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of government is that kings exist for the people, and not the people for kings; that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in which the right of a member of parliament, of s judge, of a juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is di- vine; that while the chief magistrate governs according to law, he ought to be obeyed and reverenced; that, when he violates the law he ought to be withstood; and that, when he violates the law, grossly, systematicallv, and per- jtinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the truth of these principles depended the justice ot William's title to the throne. It is obvious that the rela- tion between subjects who held these principles, and a ruler whose accession had been the triumph of these prin- ciples, must have been altogether different from the rela- tion which had subsisted between the Stuarts and the* Cavaliers. The Whigs loved William indeed: but they loved him, not as a king, but as a party leader; and it wa? not difficult to foresee that their enthusiasm would cool fast if he should refuse to be the mere leader of their party, and should attempt to be king of the whole nation. What they expected from him in return for their devotion to his cause was that he should be one of themselves, a staunch and ardent Whig; that he should show favor to none but Whigs; that he should make all the old grudges of the Whigs his own; and there was but too much reason to ap- prehend that, if he disappointed this expectation, the only section of the community which was zealous in his cause would be estranged from h;m.* Such were the difficulties by which at the moment of his elevation, he found himself beset. Where there was a good path he had seldom failed to choose it. But now he had only a choice among paths every one cf which seemed likely to lead to destruction. From one faction he could hope for no cordial support. The cordial support of the other faction he could retain only by becoming the most factious man in his kingdom, a Shaftesbury on the throne. * Here, and in many other places, I abstain from citing authorities, because my au- thorities are too numerous to cite. My notions of the temper and relative position of political and religious parties in the reign of William the Third, have been derived, not from any single work, but from thousands of forgotten tracts, sermons, and satires; in fact, from a whole literature which is mouldering in old libraries. t& HISTORY OF ENGLAND. If he persecuted the Tories, their sulkiness would infalli- ble be turned into fury. If he showed favor to the Tories, it was by no means certain that he would gain their good- will; and it was but too probable that he might lose his hold on the hearts of the Whigs. Something however he must do: something he must risk: a Privy Council must be sworn in: all the great offices, political and judicial, must be filled. It was impossible to make an arrangement that would please everybody, and difficult to make an ar- rangement that would please anybody: but an arrange- ment must be made. What is now called a ministry he did not think of form- ing. Indeed what is now called a ministry was never known in England till he had been some years on the throne. Under the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, there had been ministers: but there had been no ministry. The servants of the Crown were not, as now, bound in frankpledge for each other. They were not ex- pected to be of the same opinion, even on questions of the gravest importance. Often they were politically and per- sonally hostile to each other, and made no secret of their hostility. It was.not yet felt to be inconvenient or unseem- ly that they should accuse each other of high crimes, and demand each other's heads. No man had beei) more active in the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon than Coventry, who was a Commissioner of the Treasury. No man had been more active in the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer Danby than Winnington, who was Solici- tor General. Among the members of the Government there was only one point of union, their common head the Sovereign. The nation considered him as the proper chief of the administration, and blamed him severely if he delegated his high functions to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing was so hateful to the Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister. They w^ould rather, he said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver, who was first magistrate in fact as well as in name, than to a legitimate King who referred them to a Grand Vizier. One of the chief accusations which the country party had brought against Charles the Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of pleasure to examine with care the balance sheets of public accountants and the inventories of military stores. James, when he came to the crown, had determined to appoint no Lord High Admiral or Board of WILLIAM AND MARY. Admiralty, and to keep the entire direction of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this arrangement, which would now be thought by men of all parties unconstitu- tional and pernicious in the highest degree, was then gen- erally a*pplauded even by people who were not inclined to see his conduct in a favorable light. How completely the relation in which the King stood to his Parliament and to his ministers had been altered by the Revolution was not at first understood even by the most enlightened states- men. It was universally supposed that the government would, as in time past, be conducted by functionaries inde- pendent of each other, and that William would exercise a general superintendence over them all. It was also full}'- expected that a prince of William's capacity and experi- ence would transact much important business without hav- ing recourse to any adviser. There were therefore no complaints when it was under- stood that he had reserved to himself the direction of foreign affairs. This was indeed scarcely matter of choice: for, with the single exception of Sir William Temple, whom nothing would induce to quit his retreat for public life, there was no Englishman who had proved himself capable of conducting an important negotiation with for- eign powers to a successful and honorable issue. Many years had elapsed since England had interfered with weight and dignity in the affairs of the great common- wealth of nations. The attention of the ablest English politicians had long been almost exclusively occupied by disputes concerning the civil and ecclesiastical constitu- tion of their own country. The contests about the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, the Habeas Corpus Act and the Test Act, had produced an abundance, indeed a glut, of those talents which raise men to eminence in societies torn by internal factions. All the continent could not show such skillful and wary leaders of parties, such dexterous parliamentary tacticians, such ready and eloquent debaters, as were assembled at Westminster. But a very different training was necessary to form a great minister for foreign affairs; and the Revolution had on a sudden placed Eng- land in a situation in which the services of a great minister for foreign affairs were indispensable to her.- William was admirably qualified to supply that in which the most accomplished statesmen of his kingdom were deficient, He had long been pre-eminently dis- 12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. tinguished as a negotiator He was the author and the soul of the European coalition against the French ascend- ency. The clue, without which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of Continental politics, was in his hands. His English counsellors, therefore, liowever able and active, seldom, during his reign, ventured to meddle with that part of the public business which he had taken as his peculiar province.^ The internal government of England could be carried on only by the advice and agency of English ministers. Those ministers William selected in such a manner as showed that he was determined not to proscribe any set of men who were willing to support his throne. On the day after the crown had been presented to him in the Banqueting House the Privy Council was sworn in. Most of the Councillors were Whigs: but the names of several eminent Tories appeared in the list.f The four highest offices in the state were assigned to four noblemen, the representatives of four classes of politicians. In practical ability and official experience Danby had no superior among his contemporaries. To the gratitude of the new Sovereigns he had a strong claim; for it was by his dexterity that their marriage had been brought about in spite of difficulties which had seemed insuperable. The enmity which he had always borne to France was a scarcely less powerful recommendation. He had signed the invitation of the thirtieth of June, had excited and directed the Northern Insurrection, and had, in the Con- vention, exerted all his influence and eloquence in opposi- tion to the scheme of Regency. Yet the Whigs regarded him with unconquerable distrust and aversion. They could not forget that he had, in evil days, been the first minister of the state, the head of the Cavaliers, the cham- pion of prerogative, the persecutor of dissenters. Even in becoming a rebel, he had not ceased to be a Tory. If he had drawn the sword against the crown, he had drawn it only in defence of the Church.^ If he had, in the Con- vention, done good by opposing the scheme of Regency, he had done harm by obstinately maintaining that the throne was not vacant, and that the Estates had no right * The following passage in a tract of that time expresses the general opinion. He has better knowledge of foreign affairs than we have; but in English business it is no dishonor to him to be told his relation to us, the nature of it, and what is fit for him^ ta 4o." — An Honest Commoner's Speech. t London Gazette. Feb. i8, 1688-9. WILLIAM AND MARY. 13 to determine who should fill it. The Whigs were there- fore of opinion that he ought to think himself amply re- warded for his recent merits by being suffered to escape the punishment of those offences for which he had been impeached ten years before. He, on the other hand, esti- mated his own abilities and services, which were doubtless considerable, at their full value, and thought himself en- titled to the great place of Lord High Treasurer, which he had formerly held. But he was disappointed. Wil- liam, on principle, thought it desirable to divide the power and patronage of the Treasury among several Commis- sioners. He was the first English King who never, from the beginning to the end of his reign, trusted the white staff in the hands of a single subject. Danby was offered his choice between the Presidency of the Council and a Secretaryship of State. . He sullenly accepted the Presi- dency, and while the Whigs murmured at seeing him placed so high, hardly attempted to conceal his anger at not having been placed higher.* ' Halifax, the most illustrious man of that small party which boasted that it kept the balance even between Whigs and Tories, took charge of the Privy Seal, and continued to be Speaker of the House of Lords. f He had been fore- most in strictly legal opposition to the late Government, and had spoken and written with great ability against the dispensing power: but he had refused to know anything about the design of invasion: he had labored, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a recon- ciliation; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the throne. But, from the moment of that shameful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compromise was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself pre-eminently in the Conven- tion; nor was it without a peculiar propriety that he had been appointed to the honorable office of tendering the crown, in the name of all the Estates of England, to the Prince and Princess of Orange: for our Revolution, as far as it can be said to bear the character of any single mind, assuredly bears the character of the large yet cautious mind of Halifax. The Whigs, however, were not in a temper to accept a recent service as an atonement for an old offence; and the offence of Halifax had been grave * London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs, t London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9; Lords' Journals. 14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. indeed. He had long before been conspicuous in their front rank during a hard fight for liberty. When they were at length victorious, when it seemed that Whitehall was at their mercy, when they had a near prospect of do- minion and revenge, he had changed sides; and fortune had changed sides with him. In the great debate on the Exclusion Bill, his eloquence had struck the opposition dumb, and had put new life into the inert and desponding party of the Court. It was true, that, though he had left his old friends in the day of their insolent prosperity, he had returned to them in the day of their distress. But, now that their distress was over, they forgot that he had returned to them, and remembered only that he had left them.* The vexation with which they saw Danby presiding in the Council, and Halifax bearing the Privy Seal, was not diminished by the news that Nottingham was appointed Secretary of State. Some of those zealous churchmen who had never ceased to profess the doctrine of non-re- sistance, who thought the Revolution unjustifiable, who. had voted for a Regency, and who had to the last main- tained that the English throne could never be one moment vacant, yet conceived it to be their duty to submit to the decision of the Convention. They had not, they said, rebelled against James. They had not elected Wil- liam. But, now that they saw on the throne a Sovereign whom they never would have placed there, they were of opinion that no law, divine, or human, bound them to carry the contest further. They thought that they found, both in the Bible and in the Statute Book, directions which could not be misunderstood. The Bible enjoins obedience to the powers that be. The Statute Book contains an Act providing that no subject shall be deemed a wrong-doer for adhering to the King in possession. On these grounds many, who had not concurred in setting up the new gov- ernment, believed that they might give it their support without offence to God or man. One of the most eminent politicians of this school was Nottingham. At his in- stance the Convention had, before the throne was filled, made such changes in the oath of allegiance as enabled him, and those who agreed with him, to take that oath without scruple. ^' My principles," he said, "do not permit me to b ear any part in making a king. But when a king * Burnet, ii. 4. WILLIAM AND MARY. has been made, my principles bind me to pay him an obedience more strict than he can expect from those who have made him." He now, to the surprise of some of those who most esteemed him, consented to sit in the council, and to accept the seals of Secretary. William doubtless hoped that this appointment would be con- sidered by the clergy and the Tory country gentlemen as a sufficient guarantee that no evil was meditated against the Church. Even Burnet, who at a later period felt a strong antipathy to Nottingham, owned, in some memoirs written soon after the Revolution, that the King had judged well, and that the influence of the Tory Secretary, honestly exerted in support of the new Sovereigns, had saved England from great calamities."^ The other secretary was Shrewsbury. f No man so young had within living memory occupied so high a post in the government. He had but just completed his twenty- eighth year. Nobody, however, except the solemn formal- ists at the Spanish embassy, thought his youth an objec- tion to his promotion.]; He had already secured for him- self a place in history by the conspicuous part which he had taken in the deliverance of his country. His talents, his accomplishments, his graceful manners, his bland tem- per, made him generally popular. By the Whigs especi- ally he was almost adored. None suspected that, wdth many great and many amiable qualities, he had such faults both of head and of heart as would make the rest of a life which had opened under the fairest auspices burdensome to himself and almost useless to his country. The naval administration and the financial administra- tion were confided to Boards. Herbert was First Com- missioner of the Admiralty. He had in the late reign given up wealth and dignities when he had found that he * These memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They are in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's History of His Own Times. The dates at which the different portions of this most curious and interesting book were composed are marked. Almost the v/hole was written before the death of Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of Wil- liam's Reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his opinions, both of men and of things, had undergone considerable changes. The value of the rough draught is therefore very great: for it contains some facts which he afterwards thought it ad- visable to suppress, and some judgments which he afterwards saw cause to alter. I must own that I generally like his first thoughts best. Whenever his History is reprinted, it ought to be carefully collated with this volume. When I refer to the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584, I wish the reader to understand that the MS. contains something which is not to be found in the History. As to Nottingham's appointment, see Burnet, ii. 8; the London Gazette of March 7, 1688-9; and Clarendon's Diary of Feb. 15. + London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9. $ Don Pedro de Ronquillo makes this objection. i6 HISTORY OJ- ENGLAND. could not retain them with honor and with a goad con- science. He had carried the memorable invitation to the Hague. He had commanded the Dutch fleet during the voyage from Helvoetsluys to Torbay. His character for courage and professional skill stood high. That he had had his follies and vices was well known. But his recent conduct in the time of severe trial had atoned for all, and seemed to warrant the hope that his future career would be glorious. Among the commissioners who sate with him at the Admiralty were two distinguished members of the House of Commons, William Sacheverell, a veteran Whig, who had great authority in his party, and Sir John Low- ther, an honest and very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary interest was among the first of the English gentry.* Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was placed at the head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say. His romantic courage, his flighty wit, his eccentric invention, his love of desperate risks and startling effects, were not qualities likely to be of much use to him in finan- cial calculations and negotiations. Delamere, a more vehe- ment Whig, if possible, than Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Two Whig members of the House of Commons were in the Commis- sion, Sir Henry Capel, brother of the Earl of Essex who died by his own hand in the Tower, and Richard Hamp- den, son of the great leader of the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on whom the chief weight of business lay was Godolphin. This man, taciturn, clear-minded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no government, and use ful to every government, had gradually become an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the state. Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head of a Treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities ^nd knowledge, which had in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of Bellasyse and Dover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies of Mordaunt and Delamere. f There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The King at first wished to confide it to Notting- ham, whose father had borne it during several years with high reputation. J Nottingham, however, declined the * London Gazette, March ii, 1688-9. _ + Ibid. t I hare followed what seems to me the most probable story. But it has been doubted WILLIAM AND MARY. trust; and it was offered to Halifax, but was again declin- ed. Both these lords doubtless felt that it was a trust which they could not discharge with honor to themselves or with advantage to the public. In old times, indeed, the Seal had been generally held by persons who were not lawyers. Even in the seventeenth century it had been con- fided to two eminent men who had never studied at any Inn of Court. Williams had been Lord Keeper to James the First. Shaftesbury had been Lord Chancellor to Charles the Sec- ond. But such appointments could no longer be made without serious inconvenience. Equity had been gradu- ally shaping itself into a refined science, which no human faculties could master without long and intense applica- tion. Even Shaftesbury, vigorous as was his intellect, had painfullyfelt his want of technical knowled?;-e;* and during the fifteen years which had elapsed since Shaftesbury had resigned the Seal, technical knowledge had constantly been becoming more and more necessary to his successors. Neither Nottingham, therefore, though he had a stock of legal learning such as is rarely found in any person who had not received a legal education, nor Halifax, though in the judicial sittings of the House of Lords, the quickness of his apprehension, and the subtlety of his reasoning had often astonished the bar, ventured to accept the highest office which an English layman can fill. After some delay the Seal was confided to a commission of eminent lawyers, with Maynard at their head.f The choice of judges did honor to the new government. Every privy councillor was directed to bring a list. The lists were compared; and twelve men of conspicuous merit were selected. J The professional attainments and Whig principles of Pollexfen gave him pretensions to the highest place. But it was remembered that he had held briefs for the crown, in the Western counties, at the assizes which followed the battle of Sedgemoor. It seems indeed from the reports of the trials, that he did as little as he could do if he held the briefs at all, and that he left to the judges the business of browbeating witnesses and prisoners. Nevertheless his name was inseparably associated in the whether Nottingham was invited to be Chancellor, or only to be First Commissioner of the Great Seal. Compare Burnett, ii. 3, and Boyer's History of William, 1702. Nar- cissus Luttrell repeatedly, and even as late as the close of 1692, speaks of Nottingham as likely to be Chancellor. * Roger North relates an amusing story about Shaftesbury's embarrasment. t LQjidon Gazette, Mfirch 4, X688-9. $ Burnet, ii, |, i8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. public mind with the Bloody Circuit. He, therefore, c.'.uLj not with propriety be put at the head of the first criminal court in the realm. After acting during a few weeks as Attorney General, he was made Chief Justice of the Com^ mon Pleas. Sir John Holt, a young man, but distinguished by learning, integrity, and courage, became Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Sir Robert Atkyns, an eminent law- yer, who had passed some years in rural retirement, but whose reputation was still great in Westminster Hall, was appointed Chief Baron. Powell, who had been disgraced on account of his honest declaration in favor of the bish- ops, again took his seat among the judges. Treby suc- ceeded Pollexfen as Attorney General; and Somers w^as made Solicitor.f Two of the chief places in the royal household were filled by two English noblemen eminently qualified to adorn a court. The high-spirited and accomplished Devonshire was named Lord Steward. No man had done more or risked more for England during the crisis of her fate. In retrieving her liberties he had retrieved also the fortunes of his own house. His bond for thirty thousand pounds was found among the papers which James had left at Whitehall, and was cancelled by William. J Dorset became Lord Chamberlain, and employed the influence and patronage annexed to his functions, as he had long employed his private means, in encouraging gen- ius and in alleviating misfortune. One of the first acts which he was under the necessity of performing must have been painful to a man of so generous a nature, and of so keen a relish for whatever was excellent in arts and letters. Dryden could no longer remain Poet Laureate. The pub- lic would not have borne to see any Papist among the ser- vants of Their Majesties; and Dryden was not only a Pa- pist, but an apostate. He had moreover aggravated the guilt of his apostasy by calumniating and ridiculing the church which he had deserted. He had, it was facetiously said, treated her as the Pagan persecutors of old treated her children. He had dressed her up in the skin of a wild beast, and then baited her for the public amusement.§ He was removed; but he received from the private bounty of * The Protestant Mask taken ofE from the Jesuited Englishman, 1692. t These appointments were not announced in the Gazette till the 6th of May; but some of them were made earlier. t Kennet's Funeral Sermon on the first Duke of Devonshire, and Memoirs of th» family of Cavendish, 1708. § See a poem entitled, A Votive Tablet to the King and Queco. WILLIAM AND MARY. 59 the magnificent Chamberlain a pension equal to the salary which had been withdrawn. The deposed Laureate, how- ever, as poor of spirit as rich in intellectual gifts, continued to complain piteously, year after year, of the losses which he had not suffered^ till at length his wailings drew forth expressions of well merited contempt from brave and hon- est Jacobites, who had sacrificed everything to their princi- ples without deigning to utter one word of deprecation or lamentation.* In the royal household were placed some of those Dutch nobles who stood highest in the favor of the King. Ben- tinck had the great office of Groom of the Stole, with a salary of five thousand pounds a year. Zulestein took charge of the robes. The Master ©f the Horse was Auver- querque, a gallant soldier, who united the blood of Nassau to the blood of Horn, and who wore with just pride a costly sword presented to him by the States General in acknowledgment of the courage with which he had, on the bloody day of Saint Dennis, saved the life of William. The place of Vice Chamberlain to the Queen was given to a man who had just become conspicuous in public life, and whose name will frequently recur in the history of this reign. John Howe, or, as he was more commonly called, Jack Howe, had been sent up to the Convention by the borough of Cirencester. His appearance was that of a man whose body was worn by the constant workings of a rest- less and acrid mind. He was tall, lean, pale, with a hag- gard, eager look, expressive at once of flightiness and of shrewdness. He had been known, during several years, as a small poet; and some of the most, savage lampoons which were handed about the coffee-houses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both * See Prior's Dedication of his Poems to Dorset's son and successor, and Dryden's Es- say on Satire prefixed to the translations from Juvenal. There is a bitter sneer on Dry- den's effeminate querulousness in Collier's Short View of the State. In Blackmore's Prince Arthur, a poem, which, worthless as it is, contains some curious allusions to contemporary men and events, are the following lines: " The poets' nation did obsequious wait For the kind dole divided at hi_s gate. Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared, An old, revolted, unbelieving bard, Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard. Sakil's high roof, the Muses' palace, rung With endless cries, and endless songs he sung. To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first; But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst. Sakil without distinction, threw his bread, Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed." I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a translation of the famous nickname Bayes. 26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. his parts and his ill-nature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him conspicu- jous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, — and he had many enemies, — said that he consulted his per- sonal safety even in his most petulant moods, and that he treated soldiers with a civility which he never showed to ladies or to bishops. But no man had in larger measure that evil courage which braves and even courts disgust and hatred. No decencies restrained him; his spite was implacable: his skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of strong minds w^as consummate. All his great contempo- raries felt his stingin their turns. Once it inflicted a wound which deranged even the stern composure of William, and constrained him to utter a wish that he were a private gentleman, and could invite Mr. Howe to a short interview behind Montague House. As yet, however, Howe was reckoned among the most strenuous supporters of the new government, and directed all his sarcasms and invectives against the malcontents.* The subordinate places in every public office were di vided between the two parties; but the Whigs had the larger share. Some persons, indeed, who did little honor to the Whig name, were largely recompensed for services which no good man would have performed. Wildman was made Postmaster General. A lucrative sinecure in the Excise was bestowed on Ferguson. The duties of the So- licitor of the Treasury were very important and very invid- ious. It was the business of that officer to conduct politi- cal prosecutions, to collect the evidence, to instruct the counsel for the Crown, to see that the prisoners were not liberated on insufficient bail, to see that the juries were not composed of persons hostile to the government. In the days of Charles and James, the Solicitor of the Treasury had been, with too much reason, accused of employing all the vilest artifices of chicanery against men obnoxious to the Court. The new governmenc ought to have made a * Scarcely any man of that age is more frequently mentioned in pamphlets and satires than Howe. In the famous Petition of Legion, he is designated as ''that inipudent scandal of Parliament," Mackay's account of him is curious. In a poem written ia 1690, which I have never seen except in manuscript, are the following lines: *' First for Jack Howe with his terrible talent, Happy the female that scapes his lampoon; Against the ladies excessively valiant, But very respectful to a Dragoon." WILLIAM AND MARY. 2t choice which was above all suspicion. Unfortunately Mordaunt and Delamere pitched upon Aaron Smith, an acrimonious and unprincipled politician, wlio had been the legal adviser of Titus Oates in the days of the Popish Plot, and v^ho had been deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot. Richard Hampden, a man of decided opinions, but of moderate temper, objected to this appointment. His objections however were overruled. The Jacobites, who hated Smith and had reason to hate him, affirmed that he had obtained his place by bullying the Lords of the Treas- ury, and particularly by threatening that, if his just claims were disregarded, he would be the deatii of Hampden.^' Some weeks elapsed before all the arrangements which have been mentioned were publicly announced: and mean- while many important events had taken place. As soon as the new Privy Councillors had been sworn in, it was nec- essary to submit to them a grave and pressing question. Could the Convention now assembled be turned into a Parliament? The Whigs, who had a decided majority in the Lower House, were all for the affirmative. The To- ries, who knew that, within the last month, the public feel- ing had undergone a considerable change, and who hoped that a general election would add to their strength, were for the negative. They maintained that to the existence of a Parliament royal writs were indispensably necessary. The Convention had not been summoned by such writs: the original defect could not now be supplied: the Houses were therefore mere clubs of private men, and ought instant- ly to disperse. It was answered that the royal writ was mere matter of form, and that to expose the substance of our laws and liberties to serious hazard for the sake of a form would be the most senseless superstition. Wherever the Sovereign, the Peers spiritual and temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by the constituent bodies of the realm w^ere met together, there was the essence of a Parliament. Such a Parliament was now in being; and what could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture when every hour was precious, when numerous important subjects re- quired immediate legislation, and when dangers, only to be averted by the combined efforts of King, Lords, and Commons, menaced the state? A Jacobite indeed might ♦ sprat's True Account; North's Examen; Letter to Chief Justice Holt, 1694; Letter to Secretary Trenchard, 1694. 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. consistently refuse to recognize the Convention as a Par- liament. For he held that it had from the'beginning T3een an unlawful assembly, that all its resolutions were nullities, and that the Sovereigns whom it had setup were usurpers. But with what consistency could any man, who maintained that a new Parliament ought to be immediately called by writs under the great seal of William and Mary, question the authority which had placed William and Mary on the throne? Those who held that William was rightiul King must necessarily hold that the body from which he derived his right was itself a rightful Great Council of the Realm. Those who, though not holding him to be rightful King, conceived that tliey might lawfully swear allegiance to him as King in fact, might surely, on the same principle, ac- knowledge the Convention as a Parliam.ent in fact It was plain that the Convention was the fountain-head from which the authority of all future Parliaments must be de- rived, and that on the validity of the votes of the Conven- tion must depend the validity of every future statute. And how could the stream rise higher than the source? Was it- not absurd to say that the Convention was supreme in the state, and yet a nullity; a legislature for the highest of all purposes, and yet no legislature for the humblest purposes; competent to declare the throne vacant, to change the suc- cession, to fix the landmarks of the constitution, and yet not competent to pass the most trivial Act for the repair- ing of a pier or the building of a parish church? These arguments w^ould have had considerable weight, even if every precedent had been on the other side. But in truth our history afforded only one precedent which was at all in point; and that precedent was decisive in favor of the doctrine that royal writs are not indispen- sably necessary to the existence of a Parliament. No royal writ had summoned the Convention w'hich recalled Charles the Second. Yet that Convention had, after his Restoration, continued to sit and to Legislate, had settled the revenue, had passed an Act of amnesty, had abolished the feudal tenures. These proceedings had been sanctioned by authority of w^hich no party in the state could speak with- out reverence. Hale, a juri-st held in honor by every Whig, had borne a considerable share in them, ?nd had always maintained that they were strictly legal. Clarendon, a Statesman whose memory was respected by the great body of Tories, little as he w^as inclined to favor any doctrine WILLIAM AND MARY. 23 derogatory to the rights of the Crown, or to the dignity of that seal of which he was keeper, had declared that, since God had, at a most critical conjuncture, given the nation a good Parliament, it would be the height of folly to look for technical flaws in the instrument by which that Parliament was called together. Would it be pretended that the Convention of 1660 had a more respectable origin than the Convention of 1689? Was not a letter written by the first Prince of the Blood, at the request of the whole peerage, and of hundreds of gentlemen who had repre- sented counties and towns, at least as good a warrant as a vote of the Rump? Weaker reasons than these would have satisfied the Whigs who formed the majority of the Privy Council. The King, therefore, on the fifth day after he had been proclaimed, went with royal state to the House of Lords, and took his seat on the throne. The Commons were called in; and he, with many gracious expressions, reminded his hearers of the perilous situation of the country, and exhorted them to take such steps as might prevent unnecessary delay in the transaction of public business. His speech was received by the gentlemen who crowded the bar with the deep hum by which our ances- tors were wont to indicate approbation, and which was often heard in places more sacred than the Chamber of the Peers.* As soon as he had retired, a Bill declaring the Convention a Parliament was laid on the table of the Lords, and rapidly passed by them. In the Commons the debates were warm. The house resolved itself into a Committee; and so great was the excitement that, when the authority of the Speaker was withdrawn, it was hardly possible to preserve order. Sharp personalities were ex- changed. The phrase, "Hear him," a pKrase which had originally been used only to silence irregular noises, and to remind members of the duty of attending to the discus- sion, had, during some years, been gradually becoming what it now is; that is to say, a cry indicative, according to the tone, of admiration, acquiescence, indignation, or derision. On this occasion, the Whigs vociferated "Hear, hear," so tumultuously that the Tories complained of un- fair usage. Seymour, the leader of the minority, declared that there could be no freedom of debate while such clam- 24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. or was tolerated. Some old Whig members were pro- voked into reminding him that the same clamor had cccasionally been heard when he presided, and had not then been repressed. Yet, eager and angry as both sides were, the speeches on both sides indicated that profound reverence for law and prescription w^hich has long been characteristic of Englishmen, and which, though it some- times runs into pedantry and sometimes into superstition, is not without its advantages. Even at that momentous crisis, when the nation was still in the ferment of a revo- lution, our public m.en talked long and seriously about all the circumstances of the deposition of Edward the Second, and of the deposition of Richard the Second, and anxious- ly inquired whether the assembly W'hich, with Archbishop Lanfranc at its head, set aside Robert of Normandy, and put William Rufus on the throne, did or did not after- wards continue to act as the legislature of the realm. Much was said about the history of writs; much about the etymology of the word Parliament. It is remarkable, that the orator who took the most statesmanlike view of the subject w^as old Maynard. In the civil conflicts of fifty eventful years he had learned that questions affecting the highest interests of the commonwealth were not to be decided by verbal cavils and by scraps of Law French and Law Latin; and, being by universal acknowledgment the most subtle and the most learned of English jurists, he could express what he felt without the risk of being ac- cused of ignorance and presumption. He scornfully thrust aside as frivolous and out of place all that black- letter learning, which some men, far less versed in such matters than himself, had introduced into the discussion. ^*We are," he said, " at this moment out of the beaten path. If therefore we are determined to move only in that path, we cannot move at all. A man in a revolution resolving to do nothing which is not strictly according to established form resembles a man who has lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying * Where is the king's highway? I will walk nowhere but on the king's highway.' In a wilderness a man should take the track which will carry him home. In a revolution we must have recourse to the highest law, the safety of the state." Another veteran Roundhead, Colonel Birch, took the same side, and argued with great force and keenness from the precedent of j66o. Seymjoyr and his supporters were WILLIAM AND MARY. 2^ beaten in the Committee, and did not venture to divide the House on the report. The Bill passed rapidly, and re- ceived the royal assent on the tenth day after the accession of William and Mary.* The law which turned the Convention into a Parliament contained a clause providing that no person should, after the first of March, sit or vote in either House without tak- ing the oaths to the new King and Queen. This enact- ment produced great agitation throughout society. The adherents of the exiled dynasty hoped and confidently pre- dicted that the recusants would be numerous. The mi- nority in both Houses, it was said, would be true to the cause of hereditary monarchy. There might be here and there a traitor; but the great body of those who had voted for a Regency would be firm. Only two bishops at most would recognize the usurpers. Seymour would retire from public life rather than abjure his principles. Grafton had determined to fly to France and throw himself at the feet of his uncle. With such rumors as these all the coffee-houses of London were filled during the latter part of February. So intense was the public anxiety that, if any man of rank was missed, two days running, at his usual haunts, it was immediately whispered that he had stolen away to Saint Germains.f The second of March arrived; and the event quieted the fears of one party, and confounded the hopes of the other. The Primate indeed and several of his suffragans stood obstinately aloof : but three bishops and seventy-three tem- poral peers took the oaths. At the next meeting of the Upper House several more prelates came in. Within a week about a hundred Lords had qualified themselves to sit. Others, who were prevented by illness from ap.pear- ing, sent excuses and professions of attachment to their Majesties. Grafton refuted all the stories which had been circulated about him by coming to be sworn on the first day. Two members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, Mulgrave and Sprat, hastened to make atonement for their fault by plighting their faith to William. Beaufort, who had long been considered as the type of a royalist of the old school, submitted after a very short hesitation. Ayles- ♦ Stat. I W. & M. sess, i. c. i. See the Journals of the two Houses, and Grey's De- bates. The argument in favor of the bill is well stated in the Paris Gazettes of March 5, and 12, 1689. t Both Van Citters and Ronquillo mention the anxiety which was felt in London till the result was known, Vol. III-^. 36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. bury and Dartmouth had as little scruple about taking the oath of allegiance as they afterwards had about breaking it.* The Hydes took different paths. Rochester complied with the law; but Clarendon proved refractory. Many thought it strange that the brother who had adhered to James till James absconded should be less sturdy than the brother who had been in the Dutch camp. The explana- tion perhaps is that Rochester would have sacrificed much more than Clarendon by refusing to take the oaths. Clar- endon's income did not depend on the pleasure of the Gov- ernment: but Rochester had a pension of four thousand a year, which he could not hope to retain if he refused to acknowledge the new Sovereigns. Indeed, he had so many enemies that, during some months, it seemed doubtful whether he would, on any terms, be suffered to retain the splendid reward which he had earned by persecuting the Whigs and by sitting in the High Commission. He was saved from what would have been a fatal blow to his for- tunes by the intercession of Burnet, who had been deeply injured by him, and who revenged himself as became a Christian divine. f In the Lower House four hundred members were sworn in on the second of March; and among them was Seymour. The spirit of the Jacobites was broken by his defection; and the minority, with very few exceptions, followed his example. J Before the day fixed for the taking of the oaths, the Com- mons had begun to discuss a momentous question which admitted of no delay. During the interregnum, William had, as provisional chief of the administration, collected the taxes and applied them to the public service; nor could the propriety of this course be questioned by any person who approved of the Revolution. But the Revolutiorl was now over: the vacancy of the throne had been supplied: the Houses were sitting: the law was in full force; and it became necessary immediately to decide to what revenue the Government was entitled. It was not denied that all the lands and hereditaments of the Crown had passed with the Crown to the new Sover- eigns. It was not denied that all duties which had been granted to the Crown for a fixed term of years might be * Lords' Journals, March, 1688-9. t 8ee the letters of Rochester and of Lady Ranelagh to Burnet on this occasion. i Journals of the Commons, March 2, 1688-9. l^onquillo wrote as follows: Es de §ran consideracion q ie Seimor haya tornado el juramento; porque es el arrengador y el irector principal, en la casa de los Comunes, de los Angiicanos." — March 8-18, 1688-9, WILLIAM AND MARY. 2) constitutionally exacted till that term should expire. But large revenues had been settled by Parliament on James for life; and whether what had been settled on James for life could, while he lived, be claimed by William and Mary, was a question about which opinions were divided. Holt, Treby, PoUexfen, indeed all the eminent Whig lawyers, Somers excepted, held that these revenues had been granted to the late King, in his political capacity, but for his natural life, and ought therefore, as long as he con- tinued to drag on his existence in a strange land, to be paid to William and Mary. It appears from a very concise and unconnected report of the debate that Somers dissented from this doctrine. His opinion was that, if the Act of Parliament which had imposed the duties in question was to be construed according to the spirit, the word life must be understood to mean reign, and that therefore the term for which the grant had been made had expired. This was surely the sound opinion: for it was plainly irrational to treat the interest of James in this grant as at once a thing annexed to his person and a thing annexed to his office; to say in the same breath that the merchants of London and Bristol must pay money because he was in one sense alive, and that his successors must receive that money be- cause he was in another sense defunct. The House was decidedly with Somers. The members generally were bent on effecting a great reform, without which it was felt that the Declaration of Rights would be but an imperfect guarantee for public liberty. During the conflict which fifteen successive Parliaments had maintained against four successive kings, the chief weapon of the Commons had been the power of the purse; nor had the representatives of the people ever been induced to surrender that weapon without having speedy cause to repent of their too credu- lous loyalty. In the season of tumultuous joy which fol- lowed the Restoration, a large revenue for life had been almost by acclamation granted to Charles the Second. A few months later there was scarcely a respectable Cavalier in the kingdom who did not own that the stewards of the nation would have acted more wisely if they had kept in !heir ha nds the means of checking the abuses which dis- graced every department of the government. James the Second had obtained from his submissive Parliament, with- out a dissentient voice, an income amply sufficient to de- fray the ordinary expenses of the state during his life; and^ 28 HISTORY ENGLAND. before he had e^njoyed that income hal{ a year, the great majority of those who had dealt thus liberally with him blame d themselves severely for their liberality. If exper- ience was to be trusted, a long and painful experience, there could be no effectual security against maladminis- tration, unless the Sovereign were under the necessity of recurring frequently to his Great Council for pecuniary aid. Almost all honest and enlightened men were there- fore agreed in thinking that a part at least of the supplies ought to be granted only for a short term. And what time could be fitter for the introduction of this new practice than the year 1689, the commencement of a new reign, of a new dynasty, of a new era of constitutional government? The feeling on this subject was so strong and general that the dissentient minority gave way. No formal resolution was passed: but the House proceeded to act on the suppo- sition that the grants which had been made to James for life had been annulled by his abdication.* It was impossible to make a new settlement of the reve- nue without inquiry and deliberation. The Exchequer was ordered to furnish such returns as might enable the House to form estimates of the public expenditure and in- come. In the meantime, liberal provision was made for the immediate exigencies of the state. An extraordinary aid, to be raised by direct monthly assessment, was voted to the King. An Act was passed indemnifying all who had, since his landing, collected by his authority the duties set- tled on James; and those duties which had expired were continued for some months. Along William's whole line of march, from Torbay to London, he had been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the intolerable burden of the hearth money. In truth, that tax seems to have united all the worst evils which can be imputed to any tax. It was un- equal, and unequal in the most pernicious way: for it presse 1 heavily on the poor and lightly on the rich. A peasant, all whose property was not worth twenty pounds, had to pay several shillings, while the mansion of an oppu- lent nobleman in Lincoln's Inn Fields or St. James's Square w^as seldom assessed at two guineas. The collectors were empowered to examine the interior of every house in the realm, to disturb families at meals, to force the doors of bedrooms, and, if the sum demanded was not punctually * Grey's Debates, Feb. 25, 26, and 27, 1688-9. WILLIAM AND MARY. 29 paid, to sell the trencher on which the barley loaf was di- vided among the poor children, and the pillow from under the head of the lying-in woman. Nor could the Treasury ef- fectually restrain the chimney-man from using his powers with harshness; for the tax was farmed; and the Govern- ment was consequently forced to connive at outrages and exactions such as have, in every age, made the name of publican a proverb for all that is most hateful. William had been so much moved by what he had heard of these grievances that, at one of the earliest sittings of the Privy Council, he introduced the subject. He sent a message requesting the House of Commons to consider whether better regulations would effectually prevent the abuses which had excited so much discontent. He added that he would willingly consent to the entire abolition of the tax if it should appear that the tax and the abuses were inseparable.* • This communication was received with loud applause. There were indeed some financiers of the old school who muttered that tenderness for the poor was a fine thing, but that no part of the revenue of the state came in so exactly to the day as the hearth money; that the goldsmiths of the City could not always be induced to lend on the security of the next quarter's customs or excise, but that on an assignment of hearth money there was no diffi- culty in obtaining advances. In the • House of Commons, those who thought thus did not venture to raise their voices in opposition to the general feeling. But in the Lords there was a conflict of which the event for a time seemed doubtful. At length the influence of the Court strenuously exerted, carried an Act by which the chimney tax was de- clared a badge of slavery, and was, with many expressions of gratitude to the King, abolished forever.f The Commons granted, with little dispute, and without a division, six hundred thousand pounds for the purpose of repaying to the United Provinces the charges of the ex- pedition which had delivered England. The facility with which this large sum was voted to a shrewd, diligent, and thrifty people, our allies, indeed, politically, but commer- cially our most formidable rivals, excited some murmurs out of doors, and was, during many years, a favorite sub- ject of sarcasm with Tory pamphleteers.]; The liberality * Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March i, 1688-9. + I W. & M. sess. i. c. 10; Burnet, ii. 13. t Commons' Journals, March 15, 1688-9. So late as 1713, Arbuthnot, in the fifth part HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of the House admits however of an easy explanation. On the very day on which the subject was under considera- tion, alarming news arrived at Westminster, and convinced many, who would at another time have been (?isposed to scrutinize severely any account sent in by the Dutch, that our country could not yet dispense with the services of the foreign troops. France had declared war against the States General, and the States General had consequently demanded from the King of England those succors which he was bound by the treaty of Nimeguen to furnish.* He had ordered some battalions to march to Harwich, that they might be in readiness to cross to the Continent. The old soldiers of James were generally in a very bad temper, and this order did not produce a soothing effect. The discontent was greatest in the regiment which now ranks as the first of the line. Though borne on the English establishment, that regiment, from the time when it first fought under the great Gustavus, had been almost exclusively composed of Scotchmen; and Scotchmen have never, in any region to which their adventurous and aspiring temper has led them, failed to note and to resent every slight offered to Scotland. Officers and men muttered that a vote of a foreign assem- bly was nothing to them. If they could be absolved from their allegiance to King James the Seventh, it must be by the Estates at Edinburgh, and not by the Convention at Westminster. Their ill humor increased when they heard that Schomberg had been appointed their colonel. They ought perhaps to have thought it an honor to be oalled by the name of the greatest soldier in Europe. But, brave and skillful as he was, he was not their countryman; and their regiment, during the fifty-six years which had elapsed since it gained its first honorable distinctions in Germany, had never been commanded but by a Hepburn or a Doug- las. While they were in this angry and punctilious mood, they were ordered to join the forces which were assem- bling at Harwich. There was much murmuring; but there was no outbreak till the regiment arrived at Ipswich. There the signal of revolt was given by two captains who were zealous for the exiled King. The market place was soon filled with pikemen and musketeers running to and fro. Gunshots were wildly fired in all directions. Those of John Bull, alluded tc this transaction with much pleasantry. As to your Venire Facias," says John to Nick Frog, I have paid you for one already." ♦ Wagenaar, Ixi. WILLIAM AND MARY. 31 officers who attempted to restrain the rioters were over- powered and disarmed. At length the chiefs of the insur- rection established some order, and marched out of Ips- wich at the head of their adherents. The little army con- sisted of about eight hundred men. They had seized four pieces of cannon, and had taken possession of the military chest, which contained a considerable sum of money. At the distance of half a mile from the town a halt was called: a general consultation was held; and the mutineers re- solved that they would hasten back to their native country, and would live and die with their rightful King. They in- stantly proceeded northward by forced marches.* When the news reached London the dismay was great. It was rumored that alarming symptons had appeared in other regiments, and particularly that a body of fusileers which lay at Harwich was likely to imitate the example set at Ipswich. If these Scots," said Halifax to Reresby, " are unsupported, they are lost. But if they are acting in concert with others, the danger is serious indeed. "f The truth seems to be that there was a conspiracy which had ramifications in many parts of the army, but that the con- spirators were awed by the firmness of the Government and of the Parliament. A committee of the Privy Coun- cil was sitting when the tidings of the mutiny arrived in London. William Harbord, who represented the borough of Launceston, was at the board. His colleagues entreated him to go down instantly to the House of Commons, and to relate what had happened. He went, rose in his place, and told his story. The spirit of the assembly rose to the occasion. Howe was the first to call for vigorous action. "Address the King," he said, "to send his Dutch troops after these men. I know not who else can be trusted." " This is no jesting matter," said old Birch, who had been a colonel in the service of the Parliament, and had seen the most powerful and renowned House of Commons that ever sate twice purged and twice expelled by its own sol- diers; "if you let this evil spread, you will have an army upon you in a few days. Address the King to send horse and foot instantly, his own .men, men whom he can trust, and to put these people down at once." The men of the long robe caught the flame. " It is not the learning of my profession that is needed here," said Treby. " What is now to be done is to m eet force with force, and to main- ♦ Commons' Journals, March 1^, 1688-9. f K^resb^'s M^R^oirs, 3« HISTORY OF ENGLAND, tain in the field what we have done in the senate/* " Write to the sheriffs/' said Colonel Mildmay, member for Essex. Raise the militia. There are a hundred and fifty thou- sand of them: they are good Englishmen: they will not fail you." It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions in the army should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance, in order that they might ^ repair instantly to their military posts. An address was unanimously voted requesting the King to take effectual steps for the suppression of the rebellion, and to put forth a proclamation denouncing public vengeance on the rebels. One gentleman hinted that it might be well to advise His Majesty to offer a pardon to those who should peaceably submit: but the House wisely rejected the suggestion. ^^This is no time," it was well said, for anything that looks like fear." The address was instantly sent up to the Lords. The Lords concurred in it. Two peers, two knights of shires, and two burgesses were sent with it to Court. William received them graciously, and informed them that he had already given the necessary orders. In fact, sev- eral regiments of horse and dragoons had been sent north- wards under the command of Ginkell, one of the bravest and ablest officers of the Dutch army.* Meanwhile the mutineers were hastening across the coun- try which lies between Cambridge and the Wash. Their way lay through a vast and desolate fen, saturated with the moisture of thirteen counties, and overhung during the greater part of the year by a low grey mist, high above which rose, visible many miles, the magnificent tower of Ely. In that dreary region, covered by vast flights of wild fowl, a half savage population, known by the name of the Breedlings, then led an amphibious life, sometimes wad- ing, and sometimes rowing, from one islet of firm ground to another.f The roads were among the worst in the island, and as soon as rumor announced the approach of the rebels, were studiously made worse by the country people. Bridges were broken down. Trees were laidf across the highways to obstruct the progress of the can« non. Nevertheless the Scotch veterans not only pushed forward with great speed, but succeeded in carrying their * Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 15, 1688-9; London Gazette^ March 18. t As to the state of this region in the latter part of the seventeenth and the earlier part or the eighteenth century, see Pepys's Diary, Sept. 18, 1663, and th^ Tour throuj^J^ ll^e yr\^o]e I^lap4 Pi Qrcf^t Britain, ij2^. - WILLIAM AND MARY. 33 artillery with them. They entered Lincolnshire, and were not far from Sleaford, when they learned that Ginkell with an irresistible force was close on their track. Victory and escape were equally out of the question. The bravest warriors could not contend against fourfold odds. The most active infantry could not outrun horsemen. Yet the leaders, probably despairing of pardon, urged the men to try the chance of battle. In that region, a spot almost surrounded by swamps and pools was without difficulty found. Here the insurgents were drawn up; and the can- non were planted at the only point which was thought not to be sufficiently protected by natural defences. Ginkell ordered the attack to be made at a place which was out of the range of the guns; and his dragoons dashed gallantly into the water, though it was so deep that their horses were forced to swim. Then the mutineers lost heart. They beat a parley, surrendered at discretion, and were brought up to London under a strong guard. Their lives were forfeit; for they had been guilty, not merely of mutiny, which was then not a legal crime, but of levying war against the King. William, however, with politic clemency, abstained from shedding the blood even of the most culpable. A few of the ringleaders were brought to trial at the next Bury assizes, and were convicted of high treason; but their lives were spared. The rest were merely ordered to return to their duty. The regiment, lately so refractory, went submissively to the Continent, and there, through many hard campaigns, distinguished itself by fidelity, by discipline, and by valor.* This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a change which, it is true, could not have been long de- layed, but which would not have been easily accomplished except at a moment of extreme danger. The time had at length arrived at which it was necessary to make a legal distinction between the soldier and the citizen. Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors there had been no stand- ing army. The standing army which had existed under the last kings of the House of Stuart had been regarded by every party in the state with strong and not unreason- able aversion. The common law gave the Sovereign no * London Gazette, March 25, i68q; Van Citters to the States General, — ^^^-^^ Let- ' April 1, ters of Nottingham in the State Paper Office, dated July 23, and August 9, 1689; His- torical Record of the first Regiment of Foot, printed by authority. See also a curious digression in the Compleat Hitory of the Life and Military Actions of Richard, Earl o| Tvrconnei, 1689. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. power to control his troops. The Parliament, regarding them as mere tools of tyranny, had not been disposed to give such power by statute. James, indeed, had induced his corrupt and servile judges to put on some obsolete laws a construction which enabled them to punish deser- tion capitally. But this construction was considered by all respectable jurists as unsound, and, had it been sound, would have been far from effecting all that was necessary for the purpose of maintaining military discipline. Even James did not venture to inflict death by sentence of a court martial. The deserter was treated as an ordinary felon, was tried at the assizes by a petty jury on a bill found by a grand jury, and was at liberty to avail himself of any technical flaw which might be discovered in the in- dictment. The Revolution, by altering the relative position of the Sovereign and the Parliament, had altered also the relative position of the army and the nation. The King and the Commons were now at unity; and both were alike menaced by the greatest military power which had existed in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. In a few weeks thirty thousand vet* erans, accustomed to conquer, and led by able and ex- perienced captains, might cross from the ports of Normandy and Brittany to our shores. That such a force wouia with little difficulty scatter three times that number of militia, no man well acquainted with war could doubt. There must, then^ be regular soldiers; and, if there were to be regular soldiers, it must be indispensable, both to their efficiency, and to the security of every other class, that they should be kept under a strict discipline. An ill -disciplined army has ever been a more costly and a more licentious militia, impotent against a foreign enemy, and formidable only to the country which it is paid to de- fend. A strong line of demarcation must therefore be drawn between the soldiers and the rest of the com- munity. For the sake of public freedom, they must, in the midst of freedom, be placed under a despotic rule. They must be subject to a sharper penal code, and to a more stringent code of procedure, than are administered by the ordinary tribunals. Some acts which in the citizen are innocent must in the soldier be crimes. Some acts which in the citizen are punished with fine or imprison- ment must in the soldier be punished with death. The WILLIAM AND MARY. 35 machinery by which courts of law ascertain the guilt or innocence of an accused citizen is too slow and too intri- cate to be applied to an accused soldier. For, of all the maladies incident to the body politic, military insubordina- tion is that which requires the most prompt and drastic remedies. If the evil be not stopped as soon as it appears, it is certain to spread; and it cannot spread far without danger to the very vitals of the commonwealth. For the general safety, therefore, a summary jurisdiction of terri- ble extent must, in camps, be entrusted to rude tribunals composed of men of the sword. But, though it was certain that the country could not, at that moment, be secure without professional soldiers, and equally certain that professional soldiers must be worse than useless unless they were placed under a rule more arbitrary and severe than that to which other men were subject, it was not without great misgivings that a House of Commons could venture to recognize the exis- tence and to make provision for the government of a standing army. There was scarcely a public man of note who had not often avowed his conviction that our polity and a standing army could not exist together. The Whigs had been in the constant habit of repeating that standing armies had destroyed the free institutions of the neighbor- ing nations. The Tories had repeated as constantly that, in our own island, a standing army had subverted the Church, oppressed the gentry, and murdered the King. No leader of either party could, without laying himself open to the charge of gross inconsistency, propose that such an army should henceforth be one of the permanent establishments of the realm. The mutiny at Ipswich, and the panic which that mutiny produced, made the first step in the right direction easy; and by that step the whole course of our subsequent legislation was deter- mined. A short bill was brought in which began by declaring, in explicit terms, that standing armies and courts martial were unknown to the law of England. It was then enacted that, on account of the extreme perils impending at that moment over the state, no man mus- tered on pay in the service of the Crown should, on pain of death, or of such lighter punishment as a court martial should deem sufficient, desert his colors or mutiny against liis commanding officers. This statute was to be in force oily six months; and many of those who voted for it 36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. probably believed that it would, at the close of that period, be suffered to expire. The bill passed rapidly and easily. Not a single division was taken upon it in the House of Commons. A mitigating clause, indeed, which illustrates somewhat curiously the manners of that age, was added by way of rider after the third reading. This clause provided that no court martial should pass sentence of death except between the hours of six in the morning and one in the afternoon. The dinner hour was then early; audit was but too probable that a gentleman who had dined would be in a state in which he could not safely be trusted with the lives of his fellow creatures. With this amendment, the fir^t and most concise of our many Mutiny Bills was sent up to the Lords; and was, in a few hours, hurried by them through all its stages and passed by the King."^ Thus began, without one dissentient voice in Parliament, without one murmur in the nation, a change which had become necessary to the safety of the state, yet which every party in the state then regarded with extreme dread and aversion. Six months passed; and still the public danger continued. The power necessary to the mainte- nance of military discipline was a second time entrusted to the Crown for a short term. The trust again expired, and was again renewed. By slow degrees familiarity reconciled the public mind to the names, once so odious, of standing army and court martial. It was proved by experience that, in a well constituted society, professional soldiers may be terrible to a foreign enemy, and yet sub- missive to the civil power. What had been at first toler- ated as the exception began to be considered as the rule. Not a session passed without a Mutiny Bill. During two generations, indeed, an annual clamor against the new system was raised by some factious men desirous to weak- en the hands of the government, and by some respectable men who felt an honest but injudicious reverence for every old constitutional tradition, and who were unable to un- derstand that what at one stage in the progress of society is pernicious may, at another stage, be indispensable. But this clamor, as years rolled on, became fainter and fainter. The debate which recurred every spring on the Mutiny Bill came to be regarded merely as an occasion on which hopeful young orators, fresh from Christchurch, were to deliver maiden speeches, setti ng forth how the guards of ♦ Stat. I W. & M. aefis. x. c. 5; Commons' Journals, March a8, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY, 37 Pisistratus seized the citadel of Athens, and how the Prae- torian cohorts sold the Roman empire to Didius. At length these declamations became too ridiculous to be repeated. The most old-fashioned, the most eccentric politician could hardly, in the reign of George the Third, contend that there ought to be no regular soldiers, or that the ordinary law, administered by the ordinary courts, would effectually maintain discipline among such soldiers. All parties being agreed as to the general principle, a long suc- cession of Mutiny Bills passed without any discussion, ex- cept when some particular article of the military code ap- peared to require amendment. It is perhaps because the army became thus gradually, and almost imperceptibly, one of the institutions of England, that it has acted in such per- fect harmony with all her other institutions, has never once during a hundred and sixty years, been untrue to the throne, or disobedient to the law, has never once defied the tribunals or overawed the constituent bodies. To this day, however, the Estates of the Realm continue to set up periodically, with laudable jealousy, a landmark on the frontier which was traced at the time of the Revolution. They solemnly reassert every year the doctrine laid down in the Declaration of Rights; and they then grant to the Sovereign an extraordinary power to govern a certain number of soldiers according to certain rules during twelve months more. . In the same week in which the first Mutiny Bill was laid on the table of the Commons, another temporary law, made necessary by the unsettled state of the kingdom, was passed. Since the flight of James many persons who were believed to have been deeply implicated in his unlaw- ful acts, or to be engaged in plots for his restoration, had been arrested and confined. During the vacancy of the throne, these men could derive no benefit from the Habeas Corpus Act. For the machinery by which alone that Act could be carried into execution had ceased to exist; and, through the whole of Hilary term, all the courts in West- minister Hall had remained closed. Now that the ordi- nary tribunals were about to resume their functions, it was apprehended that those prisoners whom it was not con- venient to bring instantly to trial would demand and obtain their liberty. A bill was therefore brought in which empowered the King to detain in custody during a few weeks such persons as he should suspect of evil designs 38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. against his government. This bill passed th^ two Houses with little or no opposition.* But the malcontents out of doors did not fail to remark that, in the late reign, the Habeas Corpus Act had not been one day suspended. It was the fashion to call James a tyrant, and William a deliv- erer. Yet, before the deliverer had been a month on the throne, he had deprived Englishmen of a precious right which the tyrant had respected. f This is a kind of re- proach which a government sprung from a popular revolu- tion almost inevitably incurs. From such a government men naturally think themselves entitled to demand a more gentle and liberal administration than is expected from old and de#ply rooted power. Yet such a government, havings as it always has, many active enemies, and not having the strength derived from legitimacy and prescription, can at first maintain itself only by a vigilance and a severity of which old and deeply rooted power stands in no need. Extraordinary and irregular vindications of public liberty are sometimes necessary: yet, how^ever necessary, they are almost always followed by some temporary abridgments of that very liberty; and every such abridgment is a fertile and plausible theme for sarcasm and invective. Unhappily sarcasm and invective directed against Wil- liam were but too likely to find favorable audience. Each of the two great parties had its own reasons for being dissatis- fied with him; and there were some complaints in which both parties joined. His manners gave almost universal offence. He was in truth far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered from foreign, and Eng- land from domestic foes. Obstacles apparently insur- mountable had been interposed between him and the ends on which he was intent; and those obstacles his genius had turned into stepping stones. Under his dexterous m>anage- ment the hereditary enemies of his house had helped him to mount a throne; and the persecutors of his religion had helped him to rescue his religion from persecution. Fleets ♦ Stat. X W. & M. scss. i. c. «. t Ronquillo, March 8-x8, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. 39 and armies, collected to withstand him, had, without a struggle, submitted to his orders* Factions and sects, di- vided by mortal antipathies, had recognized him as their common head. Without carnage, without devastation, he had won a victory compared with which all the victories of Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed. Foreign na- tions did ample justice to his great qualities. In every Continental country where Protestant congregations met, fervent thanks were offered to God, who, from among the progeny of His servants, Maurice, the deliverer of Ger- many, and William, the deliverer of Holland, had raised up a third deliverer, the wisest and mightiest of all. At Vienna, at Madrid, nay, at Rome, the valiant and sagacious heretic was held in honor as the chief of the great confederacy against the House of Bourbon; and even at Versailles the hatred which he inspired was largely mingled with admiration. Here he was less favorably judged. In truth, our ances- tors saw him in the worst of all lights. By the French, the Germans, and the Italians, he was contemplated at such a distance that only what was great could be discerned, and that small blemishes were invisible. To the Dutch he was brought close: but he was himself a Dutchman. In his intercourse with them he was seen to the best advantage: he was perfectly at his ease with them; and from among them he had chosen his earliest and dearest friends. But to the English he appeared in a most unfortunate point of view. He was at once too near to them and too far from them. He lived among them, so that the smallest pecu- liarity of temper or manner could not escape their notice Yet he lived apart from them, and was to the last a for- eigner in speech, tastes, and habits. One of the chief functions of our Sovereigns had long been to preside over the society of the capital. That func- tion Charles the Second had performed with immense suc- cess. His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, the sound of his cordial laugh, were familiar to all London. One day he was seen among the elms of Saint James's Park chatting with Dryden about poetry.* Another day his arm was on Tom Durfey's ♦ Sec the account given in Spence's Anecdotes of the Origin of Dryden's Medal, 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. shoulder; and His Majesty was taking a second, while his, companion sang Phillida, Phillida," or " To horse, brav/ boys, to Newmarket, to horse."*^ James, with much le^ vivacity and good nature, was accessible, and, to people who did not cross him, civil. But of this sociableness William was entirely destitute. He seldom came forth from his closet; and when he appeared in the public rooms, he stood among the crowd of courtiers and ladies, stern and abstracted, making no jest and smiling at none. His freezing look, his silence, the dry and concise answers which he uttered when he could keep silence no longer, dis- gusted noblemen and gentlemen who had been accustomed to be slapped on the back by their royal masters, called Jack or Harry, congratulated about race cups or rallied about actresses. The women missed the homage due to their sex. They observed that the King spoke in a some- what imperious tone even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely loved and esteemed. f They were amused and shocked to see him, when the Princess Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without offering a spoonful to Her Royal Highness: 'and they pro- nounced that this great soldier and politician was no bet- ter than a Low Dutch bear.J One misfortune, which was imputed to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was foreign; his diction was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of business. To the diffi- culty which he felt in expressing himself, and to his con- sciousness that his pronuciation was bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offence. Our literature he was incapable of en- joying or of understanding. He never once, during his * Guardian, No. 67. t There is abundant proof that William, though a very affectionate, was not always a polite husband. But no credit is due to the story contained m the letter which Dal- rymple was foolish enough to publish as Nottingham's in 1773, and wise enough to omit in the edition of 1790. How any person who knew anything of the hi»tory of those times could be so strangely deceived, it is not easy to understand, particularly as the handwriting bears no resemblance to Nottingham's, with which Dalrymple was famil- iar. The letter is evidently a common newsletter, written by a scribbler, who had never seen the King and Queen except at some public place, and whose anecdotes of their private life rested on no better authority than coffee-house gossip. t Ronquillo; Burnet, ii. 2; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindicatiori. In a pastoral dia- logue between Philander and Palsemon, published in 1691, the dislike with which wo- men of fashion regarded William is mentioned. Philander says:— " But man methinks his reason should recall, Nor let frail woman work his second fall," WILLIAM AND MARY. whole reign, showed himself at the theater/' The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in his praise, complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. f Those who are acquainted with the panegyrical odes of that age will perhaps be of opinion that he did not lose much by his ignorance. It is true that his wife did her best to supply what was wanting, and that she was excellently well qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English by birth, and English also in her tastes and feelings. Her face was handsome, her port majestic, her temper sweet and lively, her manners affable and graceful. Her understanding, though very imperfectly cultivated, was quick. There was no want of feminine wit and shrewdness in her con- versation; and her letters were so well expressed that they deserved to be well spelt. She took much pleasure in the lighter kinds of literature, and did something towards bringing books into fashion among ladies of quality. The stainless purity of her private life and the strict attention which she paid to her religious duties were the more res- pectable, because she was singularly free from censorious- ness, and discouraged scandal as much as vice. In dislike of backbiting indeed she and her husband cordially agreed: but they showed that dislike in different and in very char- acteristic ways. William preserved profound silence, and gave the talebearer a look, which, as was said by a person who had once encountered it, and who took good care never to encounter it again, made your story go back down your throat. J Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and play-debts, by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read her favorite sermon. Dr. Tillotson's on Evil Speaking. Her charities were munificent and judicious; * Tuchin's Observator of November i6, 1706. t Prior, who was treated by William with much kindness, and who was very grateful for it, informs us that the King did not understand poetical eulogy. The passage is in a highly curious manuscript, the property of Lord Lansdowne. t M6moires Originaux sur le Regne et la Cour de Frederic I., Roi de Prusse, ccrits par Christophe Comte de Dohna. Berlin, 1833. It is strange that this interesting vol- ume should be almost unknown in England. The only copy that I have ever seen of it was kindly given to me by Sir Robert Adair. " Le Roi," Dohna says, avoit une autre qualite tr^s estimable^ qui est celle de n'aimer point qu'on rendit de mauvais offices k personne par des railleries." The Marquis de la Foret tried to entertain His Majesty at the expense of an English nobleman. Ce prince," says Dohna, " prit son air severe, et, le regardant sans mot dire, lui fit rentrer les paroles dans le ventre. Le Marquis m'en fit ses plaintes quelques heures apres. ' J'ai mal pris ma bisque,' dit-il; ' j'ai cru faire I'agreable sur le chapitre de Milord. . . raais j'ai tr<5uve a qui parler^ et j'ai attrap6 un regard du roi qui m'a fait passer I'envie de rire.' " Dohna supposed that William might be less sensitive about the character of a Frenchman, and tried the ezperitzieAt, But, says he, J'eus k peu pr^s le m^me sort ^ue M. de la For^U** HiStORY O'F ENGLAND. and, though she made no ostentatious display of them, it was known that she retrenched from her own state order to relieve Protestants whom persecution had driven from France and Ireland, and who were starving in the garrets of London. So amiable was her conduct, that she was generally spoken of with esteem and tenderness by the most respectable of those who disapproved of the man- ner in which she had been raised to the throne, and even of those who refused to acknowledge her as Queen. In the Jacobite lampoons of that time, lampoons which, in virulence and malignity, far exceed anything that our age has produced, she was not often mentioned with severity. Indeed she sometimes expressed her surprise at finding that libellers who respected nothing else respected her name. God, she said, knew where her weakness lay. She was too sensitive to abuse and calumny: He had merci- fully spared her a trial which was beyond her strength; jtnd the best return which she could make to Him was to discountenance all malicious reflections on the characters of others. Assurred that she possessed her husband's en- tire confidence and affection, she turned the edge of hii sharp speeches sometimes by soft and sometimes by play- ful answers, and employed all the influence which she de- rived from her many pleasing qualities to gain the hearts of the people for him."* If she had long continued to assemble round her the best society of London, it is probable that her kindness and courtesy would have done much to efface the unfavorable impression made by his stern and frigid demeanor. Un- happily his physical infirmities made it impossible for him to reside at Whitehall. The air of Westminster, mingled * Compare the account of Mary by the Whig Burnet with the mention of her by the Tory Evelyn in his Diary, March 8, 1694-5, and with what is said of her by the Nonjuror who wrote the Letter to Archbishop Tenison on her death in 1695. The impression which the bluntness and reserve of William and the grace and gentleness of Mary had made on the populace may be traced in the remains of the street poetry of that time. The following conjugal dialogue may still be seen on the original broadside: Then bespoke Mary, our most royal Queen, ' My gracious King William where are you going?' He answered her quickly, ' I count him no man That telleth his secret unto a woman.' The Queen with a modest behaviour replied, * I wish that kind Providence may be thy guide, To keep thee from danger, my sovereign Lord, The which will the greatest of comfort afford.' " These lines are in an excellent collection formed by Mr. Richard Heber, and now the roperty of Mr. Broderip, by whom it was kindly lent to me. In one of the mott savage acobite pasquinades of 1689, William is described as A chuiiie to his wife which she makes but a jest." WILLIAM AND MARY. 43 With the fog of the river, which in spring tides overflowed the courts of his palace, with the smoke of seacoal from two hundred thousand chimneys, and with the fumes of all the filth which was then suffered to accumulate in the streets, was insupportable to him; for his lungs were weak, and his sense of smell exquisitely keen. His constitutional asthma made rapid progress. His physicians pronounced it impossible that he could live to the end of the year. His face was so ghastly that he could hardly be recognized. Those who had to transact business with him were shocked to hear him gasping for breath, and coughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.* His mind, strong as it was, sympa- thized with his body. His judgment was indeed as clear as ever. But there was, during some months, a percepti- ble relaxation of that energy by which he had been dis- tinguished. Even his Dutch friends whispered that he was not the man that he had been at the Hague.f It was abso- lutely necessary that he should quit London. He accord- ingly took up his residence in the purer air of Hampton Court. That mansion, begun by the magnificent Wolsey, was a fine specimen of the architecture which flourished in England under the first Tudors: but the apartments were not, according to the notions of the seventeenth century, well fitted for purposes of state. Our princes therefore had, since the Restoration, repaired thither seldom, and only when they wished to live for a time in retirement. As William proposed to make the deserted edifice his chief palace, it was necessary for him to build and to plant; nor was the necessity disagreeable to him. For he had, like most of his countrymen, a pleasure in decorating a country house; and next to hunting, though at a great interval, his favorite amusements were architecture and gardening. He had already created on a sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted multitudes of the curious from Holland and Westphalia. Mary had laid the first stone of the house. Bentinck had superintended the digging of the fishponds. There were cascades and grottoes, a spa- cious orangery, and an aviary which furnished Honde- * Burnet, ii. 2* Burnet, MS. Harl, 6584. But Ronquillo's account is much more cir- cumstantial. *^Nada se ha visto mas desfigurado; y, quantas veces he estado con el, le he visto toser tanto que se le saltaban las lagrimas, y se ponia moxado y arrancando; y con- fiesan los medicos que es una asma incurable." Mar. 8-18, 1689, Avaux wrote to the same effect from Ireland. La sant6 de I'usurpateur est fort mauvaise. L'on ne croit pas qu'il vive un an." April 8-18. t "Hasta decir los mismos Hollandeses que lo desconozcan," says Ronauillo. ** II est ; absolument mal propre pour le r61e qu'il a k jouer a I'heure qu'il est, says Ayaux* Slothful and sickly," says Evelyn, March 29, 1689. 44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. koeter with numerous specimens of many colored plumage.* The King, in his splendid banishment, pined for this favor- ite seat, and found some consolation in creating another Loo on the banks of the Thames. Soon a wide extent of ground was laid o[ut in formal walks and parterres. Much idle ingenuity was employed in forming that intricate laby- rinth of verdure which has puzzled and amused five gen- erations of holiday visitors from London. Limes thirty years old were transplanted from neighboring woods to shade the alleys. Artificial fountains spouted among the flower-beds. A new court, not designed with the purest taste, but stately, spacious, and commodious, rose under the direction of Wren. The wainscots were adorned with the rich and delicate carvings of Gibbons. The staircases were in a blaze with the glaring frescoes of Verrio. In every corner of the mansion appeared a profusion of gew- gaws, not yet familiar to English eyes. Mary had acquired at the Hague a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming at Hampton a vast collection of hid- ous images, and of vases on which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins, were depicted in outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion, a frivolous and inele- gant fashion it must be owned, which was thus set by the amiable Queen, spread fast and wide. In a few years almost every great house in the kingdom contained a mu- seum of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen and generals were not ashamed to be renowned as judges of tea- pots and dragons; and satirists long continued to repeat that a fine lady valued her mottled green pottery quite as much as she valued 'her monkey, and much more than she valued her husband, f But the new palace was embellished with works of art of a very different kind. A gallery was erected for the car- toons of Raphael. Those great pictures, then and still the finest on our side of the Alps, had been preserved by Cromwell from the fate which befell most of the other i masterpieces in the collection of Charles the First, but had been suffered to lie during many years nailed up in deal boxes. Peter, raising the cripple at the Beautiful Gate, and Paul proclaiming the Unknown God to the philoso- ♦ See Harris's description of Loo, 1699. t Every person who is well acquainted with Pope and Addison will remember their sarcasms on this taste. Lady Mary Wortley Montague took the other side. " Old China," she says, "is below nobody's taste, since it has been the Duke of Argyle's* whose u&derst&oding has never been doubted either by his friends or caemiesk'* WILLIAM AND MARY, 45 phers of Athens, were now brought forth from obscurity to be contemplated by artists with admiration and despair. The expense of the works at Hampton was the subject of bitter complaint to many Tories, who had very gently blamed the boundless profusion with which Charles the Second had built and rebuilt, furnished and refurnished, the dwelling of the Duchess of Portsmouth.* The ex- pense, however, was not the chief cause of the discontent which William's change of residence excited. There was no longer a Court at Westminster. Whitehall, once the daily resort of the noble and the powerful, the beautiful and the gay, the place to which fops came to show their new peruques, men of gallantry to exchange glances with fine ladies; politicians to push their fortunes, loungers to hear the news, country gentlemen to see the royal family, was now, in the busiest season of the year, when London was full, when Parliament was sitting, left desolate. A solitary sentinel paced the grass-grown pavement before that door which had once been too narrow for the oppo- site streams of entering and departing courtiers. The ser- vices which the metropolis had rendered to the King were great and recent; and it was thought that he might have requited those services better than by treating it as Lewis had treated Paris. Halifax ventured to hint this, but was silenced by a few words which admitted of no reply. " Do you wish," said William peevishly, " to see me dead ? " f In a short time it was found that Hampton Court was too far from the Houses of Lords and Commons, and from the public offices, to be the ordinary abode of the Sover- eign. Instead, however, of returning to Whitehall, Wil- liam determined to have another dwelling, near enough to his capital for the transaction of business, but not near enough to be within that atmosphere in which he could not pass a night without risk of suffocation. At one time he thought of Holland House,J the villa of the noble family * As to the works at Hampton Court see Evelyn's Diary, July 16, 1689; the Tour through Great Britain, 1724; the British Apelles; Horace Walpole on Modern Garden- ing- Burnet ii. 2, 3. When Evelyn was at Hampton Court, in 1662, the cartoons were not to be seen. The triumphs of Andra Mantegna were then supposed to be the finest pictures in the palace, t Burnet, ii. 2; Reresby's Memoirs. Ronquillo wrote repeatedly to the same effect. For example: " Bien quisiera que el Rey fuese mas comunicable, y se acomodase ua poco mas al humor sociable de los Ingleses, y que estubiera en Londres: pero cs cierto que sus achaques no se lo permiten." July 8-18, 1689. Avaux, about the game time, wrote tfer4s to Croissy from Ireland: " Le Prince d Orange est tou jours k Hampton Court, et jamais a la ville; et le peuple est fort mal satisfait d^ cette maniire bijarre et retirte," t Several of his letters to Heinsius are dated from Holland House. 46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of Rich; and he actually resided there some weeks. But he at length fixed his choice on Kensington House, the suburban residence of the Earl of Nottingham. The pur- chase was made for eighteen thousand guineas, and was followed by more building, more planting, more expense, and more discontent.* At present Kensington House is considered as a part of London. It was then a rural man- sion, and could not, in those days of highwaymen and scourers, of roads deep in mire and nights without lamps, be the rallying point of fashionable society. . It was well known that the King, who treated the English nobility and gentry so ungraciously, could, in a small circle of his own countrymen, be easy, friendly, even jovial, could pour out his feelings garrulously, could fill his glass, perhaps too often ; and this was, in the view of our forefathers, an aggravation of his offences. Yet our forefathers should have had the sense and the justice to acknowledge that the patriotism, which they considered as a virtue in themselves, could not be a fault in him. It was unjust to blame him for not at once transferring to our island the love which he bore to the country of his birth. If, io essentials, he did his duty towards England, he might well be suffered to feel at heart an affectionate preference for Holland. Nor is it a reproach to him that he did not, in the season of his greatness, discard companions who had played with him in his childhood, who had stood by him firmly through all the vicissitudes of his youth and manhood, who had, in defiance of the most loathsome and deadly forms of infection, kept watch by his sick bed, who had, in the thickest of the battle, thrust themselves be- tween him and the Frencli swordrs, and whose attachment was, not to the Stadtholder or to the King, but to plain William of Nassau. It may be added that his old friends could not but rise in his estimation by comparison with his new courtiers. To the end of his life all his Dutch comrades, without exception, continued to deserve his confidence. They could be out of humor with him, it is true; and, when out of humor, they could be sullen and rude; but never did they, even when most angry and un- reasonable, fail to keep his secrets and to watch over his interests with gentleman-like and soldier-like fidelity. Among his English counsellors such fidelity was rare. It is painful, but it is no more than just, to acknowledge that * LuttreU's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. as, 1689, 1690. WILLIAM AND MARY. 4) he had but too good reason for thinking meanl} of our national character.* That character was indeed, i i essen- tials, what it has always been. Veracity, uprightness, and manly boldness were then, as now, qualities eminently En- glish. But those qualities, though widely diffused among the great body of the people, were seldom to be found in the class with which William was best acquainted. The standard of honor and virtue among our public men was, during his reign, at the very lowest point. His predeces- sors had bequeathed to him a court foul with all the vices of the Restoration, a court swarming with sycophants, who were ready, on the first turn of fortune, to abandon him as they had abandoned his uncle. Here and there, lost in that ignoble crowd, was to be found a man of true integrity and public spirit. Yet even such a man could not long live in such society without much risk that the strictness of his principles would be relaxed, and the deli- cacy of his sense of right and wrong impaired. It was surely unjust to blame a prince surrounded by flatterers and traitors for wishing to keep near him four or five ser- vants whom he knew by proof to be faithful even to death. Nor was this the only instance in which our ancestors were unjust to him. They had expected that, as soon as so distinguished a soldier and statesman was placed at the head of affairs, he would give some signal proof, they scarcely knew what, of genius and vigor. Unhappily, dur- ing the first months of his reign, almost everything went wrong. His subjects, bitterly disappointed, threw the blame on him, and began to doubt whether he merited that reputation which he had won at his first entrance into public life, and which the splendid success of his last great enterprise had raised to the highest point. Had they been in a temper to judge fairly, they would have perceived that for the maladministration of which they with good reason complained he was not responsible. He could as yet work only with the machinery which he had found; * De Foe makes this excuse for William: '* We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Huguenots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate. The fact might very well be answered thus: He has too often been betrayed by us. He must have been a madman to rely On English gentlemen's fidelity. The Foreigners have faithfully obeyed him. And done but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him." The True Born Eaglishmaa, Pa«t II. 48 HISTORY OF iJNGLANt). and the machinery which he had found was all rust and rottenness. From the tim.e of the Restoration to the time of the Revolution, neglect and fraud had been almost con- stantly impairing the efficiency of every department of the government. Honors and public trusts, peerages, baron- etcies, regiments, frigates, embassies, governments, com- missionerships, leases of crown lands, contracts for cloth- ing, for provisions, for ammunition, pardons for murder, for robbery, for arson, were sold at Whitehall scarcely less openly than asparagus at Covent Garden or herrings at Billingsgate. Brokers had been incessantly plying for custom in the purHeus of the court; and of these brokers the most successful had been, in the days of Charles, the harlots, and in the days of James, the priests. From the palace, which was the chief seat of this pestilence, the taint had diffused itself through every office, and through every rank in every office, and had everywhere produced feeble- ness and disorganization. So rapid was the progress of the decay, that within. eight years after the time when Oliver had been the umpire of Europe, the roar of the guns of De Ruyter was heard in the Tower of London. The vices which had brought that great humiliation on the country had ever since been rooting themselves deeper and spreading themselves wider. James had, to do him jus- tice, corrected a few of the gross abuses which disgraced the naval administration. Yet the naval administration, in spite of his attempts to reform it, moved the corrtempt of men who were acquainted with the dockyards of France and Holland. The military administration was still worse. The courtiers took bribes from the colonels: the colonels cheated the soldiers: the commissaries sent in long bills for what had never been furnished: the keepers of the magazines sold the public stores and pocketed the price. But these evils, though they had sprung into existence and grown to maturity under the government of Charles and James, first made themselves severely felt under the gov- ernment of William. For Charles and James were con- tent to be the vassals and pensioners of a powerful and ambitious neighbor: they submitted to his ascendency: they shunned with pusillanimous caution whatever could give him offence: and thus, at the cost of the independence and dignity of that ancient and glorious crown which they unworthily wore, they avoided a conflict which would in- stantly have shown how helpless, under their misrule, their WILLIAM AND MARY. 49 once formidable kingdom had become. Their ignomin- • iou5 policy it was neither in William's power nor in his nature to follow. It was only by arms that the liberty and religion of England could be protected against the might- iest enemy that had threatened our island since the He- brides were strown with the wrecks of the Armada. The body politic, which, while it remained in repose, had pre- sented a superficial appearance of health and vigor, was now under the necessity of straining every nerve in a wrestle for life or death, and was immediately found to be unequal to the exertion. The first efforts showed an utter relaxation of fiber, an utter want of training. Those efiForts were, with scarcely an exception, failures; and every failure was popularly imputed, not to the rulers whose mismanagement had produced the infirmities of the state, but to the ruler in whose time the infirmities of the state became visible. William might indeed, if he had been as absolute as Lewis, have used such sharp remedies as would speedily have restored to the English administration that firm tone which had been wanting since the death of Oliver. But the instantaneous reform of inveterate abuses was a task far beyond the powers of a prince strictly restrained by law, and restrained still more strictly by the difficulties of his situation.* Some of the most serious difficulties of his situation were caused by the conduct of the ministers on whom, new as he was to the details of English affairs, he was forced to rely for information about men and things. There was indeed no want of ability among his chief counsellors: but one half of their ability was employed in counteract- ing the other half. Between the Lord President and the Lord Privy Seal there was an inveterate enemity.f It had begun twelve years before, when Danby was Lord High Treasurer, a persecutor of non-conformists, an uncompro- mising defender of prerogative, and when Halifax was rising to distinction as one of the most eloquent leaders of the ci intry party. In the reign of James, the two states- men iiad found themselves in opposition together; and * Rot^quillo had the good sense and justice to make allowances which the English did not make. After describing, in a despatch dated March i-ii, 1689, the lamentabL state of thejnilitary and naval establishments, he says, ''De esto no tiene culpa el Principe de Oranges; porque pensar que se han de poder vol ver en dos meses tres Reynos de abaxo arriba es una extra vagancia." Lord President Stair, in a letter written from London about a month later, says that the delays of the English administratioii ha(J JowefCcI t}i§ King's reputation, "though without his fault," t Burnet, ii. ^; Kqrt^sby, Jo HISTORY OF ENGLAND. their common hostility to France and to Rome, to the High Commission and to the dispensing power, had pro- duced an apparent reconciliation; but as soon as they were in office together the old antipathy revived. The hatred which the Whig party felt towards them both ought, it should seem, to have produced a close alliance between them: but in fact each of them saw with complacency the danger which threatened the other. Danby exerted him- self to rally round him a strong phalanx of Tories. Under the plea of ill health, he withdrew from court, seldom came to the Council over which it was his duty to preside, passed much time in the country, and took scarcely any part in public affairs except by grumbling and sneering at all the acts of the government, and by doing jobs and get- ting places tor his personal retainers.* In consequence of this defection, Halifax became Prime Minister, as far as any minister could, in that reign, be called Prime Minister. An immense load of business fell on him; and that load he was unable to sustain. In wit and eloquence, in ampli- tude of comprehension and subtlety of disquisition, he had no equal among the statesmen of his time. But that very fertility, that very acuteness, which gave a singular charm to his conversation, to his oratory, and to his writings, un- fitted him for the work of promptly deciding practical questions. He was slow from very quickness. For he saw so many arguments for and against every possible course, that he was longer in making up his mind than a dull man would have been. Instead of acquiescing in his first thoughts, he replied on himself, rejoined on himself, and sur-rejoined on himself. Those who heard him talk owned that he talked like an angel: but too often, when he had exhausted all that could be said, and came to act, the time for action was over. Meanwhile the two Secretaries of State were constantly laboring to draw their master in diametrically opposite directions. Every scheme, every person, recommended by one of them was reprobated by the other. Nottingham was n ver weary of repeating that the old Roundhead party, ,he party which had taken the life of Charles the First and had plotted against the life of Charles the Second, was in principle republican, and that the Tories were the only true friends of monarchy. Shrewsbury re- plied that the Tories might be friends of monarchy, but * Jser^sby'? Memoirs; Burnet MS. Had. 6584. WILLIAM AND MARY. that they regarded James as their monarch. Nottingham was always bringing to the closet intelligence of the wild day-dreams in which a few old eaters of calf's head, the remains of the once formidable party of Bradshaw and Ireton, still indulged at taverns in the City. Shrewsbury produced ferocious lampoons which the Jacobites dropped every day in the coffee-houses. Every Whig," said the Tory Secretary, ^4s an enemy of Your Majesty's preroga- tive." Every Tory,*' said the Whig Secretary, is an ene- my of Your Majesty's title."* At the Treasury there was a complication of jealousies and quarrels. f Both the First Commissioner, Mordaunt, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Delamere, were zeal- ous Whigs: but though they held the same political creed, their tempers differed widely. Mordaunt was volatile, dis- sipated, and generous. The wits of that time laughed at the way in which he flew about from Hampton Court to the Royal Exchange, and from the Royal Exchange back to Hampton Court. How he found time for dress, politics, love-making, and ballad-making was a wonder.J Delamere was gloomy and acrimonious, austere in his private mor- als, and punctual in his devotions, but greedy of ignoble gain. The two principal ministers of finance, therefore, became enemies, and agreed only in hating their colleague Godolphin. What business had he at Whitehall in these days of Protestant ascendency, he who had sate at the same board with Papists, he who had never scrupled to attend Mary of Modena to the idolatrous worship of the Mass ? The most provoking circumstance was that Godolphin, though his name stood only third in the commission, was really first Lord. For in financial knowledge and in habits of business Mordaunt and Delamere were mere children when compared with him; and this William soon dis- covered.§ Similar feuds raged at other great boards and through all the subordinate ranks of public functionaries. In every custom-house, in every arsenal, were a Shrewsbury and a Nottingham, a Delamere and a Godolphin. The Whigs complained that there was no department in which crea- * Burnet, ii. 3, 4, 15. t Burnet, ii. 5. t " How does he do to distribute his hours, Some to the Court and some to the City, Some to the State, and some to Love's powers, .Some to be vain and some to be witty!" The Modern Lampooners, a poem of xSgn. I Burnet, ii. 4. OF ILL UB. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. tures of the fallen t)''ranny were not to be found. It was idle to allege that these men were versed in the details oi business, that they were the depositaries of official tradi- tions, and that the friends of liberty, having been, during many years, excluded from public employment, must necessarily be incompetent to take on themselves at once the whole management of affairs. Experience doubtless had its value: but surely the first of all the qualifications of a servant was fidelity; and no Tory could be a really faithful servant of the new government. If King William were wise, he would rather trust novices zealous for his interest and honor than veterans, who might indeed possess ability and knowledge, but who would use that ability and that knowledge to effect his ruin. The Tories, on the other hand, complained that their share of power bore no proportion to their number, or to their weight in the country, and that everywhere old and useful public servants were, for the crime of being friends to monarchy and to the Church, turned out of their posts to make way for Rye House plotters and haunters of con- venticles. . These upstarts, adepts in the art of factious agitation, but ignorant of all that belonged to their new calling, would be just beginning to learn their business when they had undone the nation by their blunders. To be a rebel and a schismatic was surely not all that ought to be required of a man in high employment. What would become of the finances, what of the marine, if Whigs who could not understand the plainest balance sheet were to manage the revenue, and Whigs who had never walked over a dockyard to fit out the fleet ? * The truth is that the charges which the two parties brought against each other were, to a great extent, well founded, but that the blame which both threw on William was unjust. Official experience was to be found almost exclusively among the Tories, hearty attachment to the new settlement almost exclusively among the Whigs. It was not the fault of the King that the knowledge and the zeal, which, combined, make a valuable servant of the state, must at that time be had separately or nort at all. If he employed men of one party, there was great risk of * Ronquillo calls the Whig functionaries "Gente que no tienen pratica ni experiencia." He adds, '"Y de esto procede el ijasarse un mes y un otro, sin executarse nada." Tune a4, 1689. one of the innumerable Dialogues which appeared at that time, the Tory interlocutor puts the question: ''Do you think the government would be better served by strangers to business?" The Whig answer*, ''Better ignorant friends thaa Doderstanding enemies," WILLIAM AND MARY. mistakes. If he employed men of the other party, there was great risk of treachery. If he employed men of both parties, there was still some risk of mistakes; there was still some risk of treachery; and to these risks was added the certainty of dissension. He might join Whigs and Tories: but it was beyond his power to mix them. In the same office, at the same desk, they were still enemies, and agreed only in murmuring at the Prince who tried to me- diate between them. It was inevitable that, in such cin cumstances, the administration, fiscal, military, naval, should be feeble and unsteady; that nothing should be done in quite the right way or at quite the right time: that the distractions from which scarcely any public office was exempt should produce disasters, and that every disaster should increase the distractions from which it had sprung. There was indeed one department of which the business was well conducted; and that was the department of For- eign Affairs. There William directed everything, and, on important occasions, neither asked the advice nor em- ployed the agency of any English politician. One invalu- able assistant he had, Anthony Heinsius, who, a few weeks after the Revolution had been accomplished, became Pen- sionary of Holland. Heinsius had entered public life as a member of that party which was jealous of the power of the House of Orange, and desirous to be on friendly terms with France. But he had been sent in 1681 on a diplo- matic mission to Versailles; and a short residence there had produced a complete change in his views. On a near acquaintance, he was alarmed by the power and provoked by the insolence of that Court of which, while he contem- plated it only at a distance, he had formed a favorable opinion. He found that his country was despised. He saw his religion persecuted. His official character did not save him from some personal affronts which, to the latest day of his long career, he never forgot. He went home a devoted adherent of William and a mortal enemy of Lewis.* The office of Pensionary, always important, was peculi- arly importarnt when the Stadtholder was absent from the Hague. Had the politics of Heinsius been still what they once were, all the great designs of William might have been frustrated. But happily there was between these two eminent men a perfect friendship, which, till death ♦ N^gociations de M. Lc Cointe d'Avaux, 4 Mars 1683; Torcy's Me«noir», 54 HISTORY OF ENGLANI). dissolved it, appears never to have been interrupted for one moment by suspicion or ill-humor. On all large ques- tions of European policy they cordially agreed. They corresponded assiduously and most unreservedly. For, though William was slow to give his confidence, yet, when he gave it, he gave it entire. The correspondence is still extant, and is most honorable to both. The King's letters would alone suffice to prove that he was one of the great- est statesmen whom Europe has produced. While he lived, the Pensionary was content to be the most obedient, the most trusty, and the most discreet of servants. But, after the death of the master, the servant proved himself capable of supplying with eminent ability the master's place, and was renowned throughout Europe as one of the great Triumvirate which humbled the pride of Lewis the Fourteenth.* The foreign policy of England, directed immediately by William in close concert with Heinsius, was, at this time, eminently skillful and successful. But in every other part of the administration the evils arising from the mutual animosity of factions were but too plainly discernible. Nor was this all. To the evils arising from the mutual animosity of factions were added other evils arising from the mutual animosity of sects. The year 1689 is not a less important epoch in the ecclesi- astical than in the civil history of England. In that year was granted the first legal indulgence to Dissenters. In that year was made the last serious attempt to bring the Presbyterians within the pale of the Church of England. From that year dates a new schism made in defiance of ancient precedents, by men who had always professed to regard schism with peculiar abhorrence, and ancient pre- cedents with peculiar veneration. In that year began the long struggle between two great parties of conformists. Those parties indeed had, under various forms, existed within the Anglican communion ever since the Reforma- tion; but till after the Revolution they did not appear marshalled in regular and permanent order of battle against each other, and were therefore not known by established names. Some time after the accession of William they * The original correspondence of William and Heinsius is in Dxtch. AFrench transla- tion of all William's letters, and an English translation of a few of Heinsius's lettcrSj are among the Mackintosh MSS. The Baron Sirtema dc Grovestins, who has had access to the originals, frequently quotes passages in his ''Histoire des luttes et rivalit^a cntre les puissances maritimes et la France." There is very little difference in sub' ptancc, though much in phraseology, between his version and that which I have used. WILLIAM AND MARY. 55 began to be called the High Church party and the Low Church party; and, long before the end of his reign, these appellations were in common use.* In the summer of 1688 the breaches which had long divided the great body of English Protestants had seemed to be almost closed. Disputes about Bishops and Synods, written prayers and extemporaneous prayers, white gowns and black gowns, sprinkling and dipping, kneeling and sitting, had been for a short space intermitted. The ser- ried array which was then drawn up against Popery meas- ured the whole of the vast interval which separated San- croft from Bunyan. Prelates recently conspicuous as per- secutors, now declared themselves friends of religious lib- erty, and exhorted their clergy to live in a constant inter- change of hospitality and of kind offices with the Separa- tists. Separatists, on the other hand, who had recently considered mitres and lawn sleeves as the livery of Anti- christ, were putting candles in windows and throwing fag- ots on bonfires in honor of the prelates. These feelings continued to grow till they attained their greatest height on the memorable day on which the com- mon oppressor finally quitted Whitehall, and on which an innumerable multitude, tricked out in orange ribbons, wel- comed the common deliverer to St. James's. When the clergy of London came, headed by Compton, to express their gratitude to him by whose instrumentality God had wrought salvation for the Church and the State, the pro- cession was swollen by some eminent non-conformist di- vines. It was delightful to many good men to hear that pious and learned Presbyterian ministers had walked in the train of a bishop, had been greeted by him with fra- ternal kindness, and had been announced by liim in the presence chamber as his dear and respected friends, sepa- rated from him indeed by some differences of opinion on minor points, but united to him by Christian charity and by common zeal for the essentials of the reformed faith. There had never before been such a day in England; and there has never since been such a day. The tide of feel- ing was already on the turn; and the ebb was even more rapid than the flow had been. In a very few hours the High Churchman began to feel tenderness for the enemy whose tyranny was now no longer feared, and dislike of the * Though these very convenient names are not, as far as I know, to be found in any book printed during the earlier years of William's reign, I shall use them without sqtw pie, as others h£^vc done, in writing about the tRnsactions of those year§, 56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. allies whose services were now no longer needed, rt was easy to gratify both feelings by imputing to the Dissenters the misgovernment of the exiled King. His Majesty, — such was now the language of too many Anglican divines, — would have been an excellent sovereign had he not been too confiding, too forgiving. He had put his trust in a class of men who hated his office, his family, his person, with implacable hatred. He had ruined himself in the vain attempt to conciliate them. He had relieved them, in defiance of law and of the unanimous sense of the old royalist party, from the pressure of the penal code; had allowed them to worship God publicly after their own mean and tasteless fashion; had admitted them to the bench of justice and to the Privy Council; had gratified them with fur robes, gold chains, salaries, and pensions. In return for his liberality, these people, once so uncouth in demeanor, once so savage in opposition even to legiti- mate authority, had become the most abject of flatterers. They had continued to applaud and encourage him when the most devoted friends of his family had retired in shame and sorrow from his palace. Who had more foully sold the religion and liberty of England than Titus? Who had been more zealous for the dispensing power than Alsop. Who had urged on the persecution of the seven Bishops more fiercely than Lobb? What chaplain impatient for a deanery had ever, even when preaching in the royai pres- ence on the thirtieth of January or the twenty-ninth of May, uttered adulation more gross than might easily be found in those addresses by which dissenting congrega- tions had testified their gratitude for the illegal Declara- tion of Indulgence? Was it strange that a prince who had never studied law books should have believed that he was only exercising his rightful prerogative, when he was thus encouraged by a faction which had always ostenta- tiously professed hatred of arbitrary power? Misled by such guidance he had gone further and further in the wrong path: he had at length estranged from him hearts which would once have poured forth their best blood in his de- fence: he had left himself no supporters except his old foes; and, when the day of peril came, he had found that the feeling of his old foes towards him was still what it had been when they had attempted to rob him of his in- heritance, and when they had plotted against his life. Every mm of sense had long known that the sectaries WILLIAM AND MARY. 57 bore no love to monarchy. It had now been found that they bore as little love to freedom. To trust them with power would be an error not less fatal to the nation than to the throne. If, in order to redeem pledges somewhat rashly given it should be thought necessary to grant them relief, every concession 'ought to be accompanied by limita- tions and precautions. Above all, no man who was an enemy to the ecclesiastical constitution of the realm ought to be permitted to bear any part in the civil government. Between the non-conformists and the rigid conformists stood the Low Church party. That party contained, as it still contains, two very different elements, a Puritan element and a Latitudinarian element. On almost every ques- tion, however, relating either to ecclesiastical polity or to the ceremonial of public worship, the Puritan Low Church- man and the Latitudinarian Low Churchman were per- fectly agreed. They saw in the existing polity and in the existing ceremonial no' defect, no blemish, which could make it their duty to become Dissenters. Nevertheless they held that both the polity and the ceremonial were means and not ends, and that the essential spirit of Chris- tianity might exist without episcopal orders and without a Book of Common Prayer. They had, while James was on the throne, been mainly instrumental in forming the great Protestant coalition against Popery and tyranny; and they continued in 1689 to hold the same conciliatory language which they had held in 1688. They gently blamed the scruples of the non-conformists. It was undoubtedly a great weakness to imagine that there could be any sin in wearing a white robe, in tracing a cross, in kneelmg at the rails of an altar. But the highest authority had given the plainest directions as to the manner in which such weak- ness was to be treated. The weak brother was not to be judged: he was not to be despised: believers who had stronger minds were commanded to soothe him by large compliances, and carefully to remove out of his path every stumbling-block which could cause him to offend. An apostle had declared that, though he had himself no mis- givings about the use of animal food or of wine, he would eat herbs and drink water rather than give scandal to the feeblest of his flock. What would he have thought of eccle- siastical rulers who, for the sake of a vestment, a gesture, a posture, had not only torn the Church asunder, but had filled all the gaols of England with men of orthodox faith 58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and saintly life? The reflections thrown by the High Churchmen on the recent conduct of the dissenting body the Low Churchmen pronounced to be grossly unjust. The wonder was, not that a few non-conformists should have accepted with thanks an indulgence which, illegal as it v/as, had opened the doors of their prisons and given security to their hearths, but that the non-conformists gen- erally should have been true to the cause of a constitution from the benefits of which they had been long excluded. It was most unfair to impute to a great party the faults of a few individuals. Even among the bishops of the established Church James had found tools and sycophants. The conduct of Cartwright and Parker had been much more inexcusable than that of Alsop and Lobb. Yet those who held the Dissenters answerable for the errors of Alsop and Lobb would doubtless think it most unreasonable to hold the Church answerable for the far deeper guilt of Cartwright and Parker. The Low Church clergymen were a minority, and not a large minority, of their profession: but their weight was much more than proportioned to their numbers: for they mustered strong in the capital; they had great influence there; and the average of intellect and knowledge was higher among them than among their order generally. We should probably overrate their numerical strength, if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the priesthood. Yet it will scarcely be denied that there were among them as many men of distinguished eloquence and learning as could be found in the other nine-tenths. Among the laily who conformed to the established religion the parties were not unevenly balanced. Indeed the line which separated them deviated very little from the line which separated the Whigs and the Tories. In the House of Commons, whkli had been elected when the Whigs were triumphant, the Low Church party greatly preponderated. In the Lords there was an almost exact equipoise; and very slight circum.- stances sufficed to turn the scale. The head of the Low Church party was the King. He had been bred a Presbyterian: he was, from rational con- viction, a Latitudinarian; and personal ambition, as well as higher motives, prompted him to act as mediator among Protestant sects. He was bent on effecting three great reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters. His first object was to obtain for dissenters permission to cele- WILLIAM AND MARY. 59 brate their worship in freedom and security. His second object was to make such changes in the Anglican ritual and polity as, without offending those to whom that ritual and that polity were dear, might conciliate the moderate non-conformists. His third object was to throw open civil offices to Protestants without distinction of sect. All his three objects were good: but the first only was at that time attainable. He came too late for the second, and too early for the third. A few days after his accession, he took a step which indi- cated, in a manner not to be mistaken, his sentiments touch- ing ecclesiastical polity and public worship. He found only one see unprovided with a bishop. Seth Ward, who had, during many years, had charge of the diocese of Salis- bury, and who had been honorably distinguished as one of the founders of the Royal Society, having long survived his faculties, died while the country was agitated by the elections for the Convention, without knowing that great events, of which not the least important had passed under his own roof, had saved his Church and his country from ruin. The choice of a successor was no light matter. That choice would inevitably be con- sidered by the country as a prognostic of the highest import. The King too might well be perplexed by the number of divines whose erudition, eloquence, courage, and uprightness had been conspicuously displayed during the contentions of the last three years. The preference was given to Burnet. His claims were doubtless great. Yet William might have had a more tranquil reign if he had postponed for a time the well-earned promotion of his chaplain, and had bestowed the first great spiritual prefer- ment, which, after the Revolution, fell to the disposal of the Crown, on some eminent theologian, attached to the new settlement, yet not generally hated by the clerg}^ Unhappily the name of Burnet was odious to the great ma- jority of the Anglican priesthood. Though, as respected doctrine, he by no means belonged to the extreme section of the Latitudinarian party, he was popularly regarded as the personification of the Latitudinarian spirit. This dis- tinction he owed to the prominent place which he held in literature and politics, to the readiness of his tongue and of his pen, and above all to the frankness and boldness of his nature, frankness which could keep no secret, and bold- ness which flinched from no danger. He had formed but 6o HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a low estimate of the character of his clerical brethren con- sidered as a body; and with his usual indiscretion, he fre- quently suffered his opinion to escape him. They hated him in return with a hatred which has descended to their successors, and which, after the lapse of a century and a half, does not appear to languish. As soon as the King's decision was known, the question was everywhere asked, What will the Archbishop do ? Sancroft had absented himself from the Convention: he had refused to sit in the Privy Council: he had ceased to confirm, to ordain, and to institute; and he was seldom seen beyond the walls of his palace at Lambeth. He, on all occasions, professed to think himself still bound by his old oath of allegiance. Burnet he regarded as a scandal to the priesthood, a Presbyterian in a surplice. The pre- late who should lay hands on that unworthy head would commit more than one great sin. He would, in a sacred place, and before a great congregation of the faithful, at once acknowledge an usurper as a King, and confer on a schismatic the character of a Bishop. During some time Sancroft positively declared that he would not obey the pre- cept of William. Lloyd of Saint Asaph, who was the com- mon friend of the Archbishop and of the Bishop elect, en- treated and expostulated in vain. Nottingham, who, of all the laymen connected with the new government, stood best with the clergy, tried his influence, but to no better purpose. The Jacobites said everywhere that they were sure of the good old Primate; that he had the spirit of a martyr; that he was determined to brave, in the cause of the Monarchy and of the Church, the ut- most rigor of those laws with which the obsequious parlia- ments of the sixteenth century had fenced the Royal Supremacy. He did in truth hold out long. But at the last moment his heart failed him, and he looked round him for some mode of escape. Fortunately, as childish scruples often disturbed his conscience, childish expedi- ents often quieted it. A more childish expedient than that to which he now resorted is not to be found in all the tomes of the casuists. He would not himself bear a part in the service. He would not publicly pray for the Prince and Princess as King and Queen, He would not call for their mandate, order it to be read, and then pro- ceed to obey it. But he issued a commission empowering ^ny three of his suffragans to commit in his name, and as WILLIAM AND MARY. 6i his delegates, the sins which he did not choose to commit in person. The reproaches of all parties soon made him ashamed of himself. He then tried to suppress the evi- dence of his fault by means more discreditable than the fault itself. He abstracted from among the public records of which he was the guardian the instrument by which he had authorized his brethren to act for him, and was with difficulty induced to give it up.* Burnet however had, under the authority of this instru- ment, been consecrated. When he next waited on Mary, she reminded him of the conversations which they had held at the Hague about the high duties and grave re- sponsibility of Bishops. I hope," she said, that you will put your notions in practice." Her hope was not disap- pointed. Whatever aiay be thought of Burnet's opinions touching civil and ecclesiastical polity, or of the temper and judgment which he showed in defending those opin- ions, the utmost malevolence of faction could not venture to deny that he tended his flock with a zeal, diligence, and disinterestedness worthy of the purest ages of the Church. His jurisdiction extended over Wiltshire and Berkshire. These counties he divided into districts which he sedulously visited. About two months of every sum- mer he passed in preaching, catechising, and confirming daily from church to church. When he died there was no corner of his diocese in which the people had not had seven or eight opportunities of receiving his instructions and of asking his advice. The worst weather, the worst roads, did not prevent him from discharging these duties. On one occasion, when the floods were out, he exposed his life to imminent risk rather than disappoint a rural congre- gation which was in expectation of a discourse from the Bishop. The poverty of the inferior clergy was a constant cause of uneasiness to his kind and generous heart. He was indefatigable and at length successful in his attempts to obtain for them from the Crown that grant which is known by the name of Queen Anne's Bounty.f He was especially careful, when he traveled through his diocese, to lay no burden on them. Instead of requiring them to entertain him, he entertained them. He always fixed his * Burnet, ii. 8; Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Kettlewell, part iii. section 62. t Swift, writing under the name of Gregory Misosarum, most malignantly and dis- honestly represents Burnet as grudging this grant to the Church. Swift cannot have been ignorant that the Church was indebted for the grant chiefly to Burnet's persever- ing exertions. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. headquarters at a market town, kept a table there, and, by his decent hospitality and munificent charities, tried to conciliate those who were prejudiced against his doctrines. When he bestowed a poor benefice, — and he had many such to bestow, — his practice was to add out of his own purse twenty pounds a year to the income. Ten promis- ing young men, to each of whom he allowed thirty pounds a year, studied divinity under his own eye in the close of Salisbury. He had several children: but he did not think himself justified in hoarding for them. Their mother had brought him a good fortune. With that fortune, he always said, they must be content. He would not, for their sakes, be guilty of the crime of raising an estate out of revenues sacred to piety and charity. Such merits as these will, m the judgment of wise and candid men, appear fully to atone for every offence which can be justly imputed to him.* When he took his seat in the House of Lords, he found that assembly busied in ecclesiastical legislation. A states- man who was well known to be devoted to the Church had undertaken to plead the cause of the dissenters. No sub- ject in the realm occupied so important and commanding a position with reference to religious parties as Notting- ham. To the influence derived from rank, from wealth, and from ofifice, he added the higher influence which be- longs to knowledge, to eloquence, and to integrity. The orthodoxy of his creed, the regularity of his devotions, and the purity of his morals gave a peculiar weight to his opinions on questions in which the interests of Christi- anity were concerned. Of all the ministers of the new Sovereigns, he had the largest share of the confidence of the clergy. Shrewsbury was certainly a Whig, and prob- ably a freethinker: he had lost one religion; and it did not VQry clearly appear that he had found another. Halifax had been during many years accused of scepticism, deism, atheism. Danby's attachment to episcopacy and the liturgy was rather political than religious. But Notting- ham was such a son as the Church was proud to own. Propositions therefore, which, if made by his colleagues, ♦ See the life of Burnet, at the end of the second volume of his history, his manu- script memoirs, Harl. 6584, his memorials touching the First Fruits and Tenths', and Somers's letter to him on that subject. See also what Dr. King, Jacobite as he was, had the justice to say in his Anecdotes. A most honorable testimony to Burnet's virtues, given by another Jacobite who had attacked him fiercely, and whom he had treated gen- erously, the learned and upright Thomas Baker, will be found in the Gentleman's Maj^- suine for August and September, 1791, WILLIAM AND MARY. 63 would infallibly produce a violent panic among the clergy, might, if made by him, find a favorable reception even in universities and chapter houses. The friends of religious liberty were with good reason desirous to obtain his co- operation; and, up to a certain point, he was not unwill- ing to co-operate with them. He was decidedly for a toleration. He was even for what was then called a com- prehension: that is to say, he was desirous to make some alterations in the Anglican discipline and ritual for the purpose of removing the scruples of the moderate Presby- terians. But he was not prepared to give up the Test Act. The only fault which he found with that Act was that it was not sufficiently stringent, and that it left loop- holes through which schismatics sometimes crept into civil employments. In truth it was because he was not dis- posed to part with the Test that he was willing to consent to some changes in the Liturgy. He conceived that, if the entrance of the Church were but a very little widened, great numbers who had hitherto lingered near the thresh- old would press in. Those who still remained without would then not be sufficiently numerous or powerful to extort any further concession, and would be glad to com- pound for a bare toleration.* The opinion of the Low Churchmen concerning the Test Act differed widely from his. But many of them thought that it was of the highest importance to have his support on the great questions of Toleration and Comprehension. From the scattered fragments of information which have come down to us, it appears that a compromise was made. It is quite certain that Nottingham undertook to bring in a Toleration Bill and a Comprehension Bill, and to use his best endeavors to carry both bills through the House of Lords. It is highly probable that, in return for this great service, some of the leading Whigs consented to let the Test Act remain for the present unaltered. There was no difficulty in framing either the Toleration Bill or the Comprehension Bill. The situation of the dis- senters had been much discussed nine or ten years before, when the kingdom was distracted by the fear of a Popish plot, and when there was among Protestants a general dis- position to unite against the common enemy. The gov- ernment had then been willing to make large concessions * Oldmixon would have us believe that Nottingham was not, at this time, unwilling to.^ive up the Test Act. But Oldmixon's assertion, unsupported by evidence, is of oo ^^i^ht whatever; and all the evidence which he prodU5«s ipakM against hisMMrlio^, 64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. to the Whig party, on condition that the crown should be suffered to descend according to the regular course. A draught of a law authorizing the public worship of the non-conformists, and a draught of a law making some alter- ations in the public worship of the Established Church, had been prepared, and would probably have been passed by both Houses without difficulty, had not Shaftesbury and his coadjutors refused to listen to any terms, and, by grasping at what was beyond their reach, missed advantages which might easily have been secured. In the framing of these draughts, Nottingham, then an active member of the House of Commons, had borne a considerable part. He now brought them forth from the obscurity in which they had remained since the dissolution of the Oxford Parlia- ment, and laid them, with some slight alterations, on the table of the Lords.* The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. This celebrated statute, long considered as the Great Charter of religious liberty, has since been extensively modified, and is hardly known to the present generation except by name. The name, however, is still pronounced with respect by many who will perhaps learn with surprise and disappointment the real nature of the law which they have been accustomed to hold in honor. Several statutes which had been passed between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the Revolution required all people under severe penalties to attend the services of the Church of England, and to abstain from attending conventicles. The Toleration Act did not repeal any of these statutes, but merely provided that they should not be construed to extend to any person who should testify his loyalty by taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and his Protestantism by subscribing the Declaration against Transubstantiation. The relief thus granted was common between the dis- senting laity and the dissenting clergy. But the dissent- ing clergy had some peculiar grievances. The Act of Uni- formity had laid a mulct of a hundred pounds on every person who, not having received episcopal ordination, should presume to administer the Eucharist. The Five Mile Act had driven many pious and learned ministers from * Burnet, ii, 6; Van Citters to the States General, March i-ii, 1689; King William's Toleration, being an explanation of that liberty of conscience which may be expected from His Majesty's Declaration, with a Bill for Comprehension and Indulgence, dri^wq up in order to an Act of Pi<,rliament, licensed March 25, i6S^. William and mary. their houses and their friends, to live among rustics in ob- scure villages of v^hich the name was not to be seen on the map. The Conventicle Act had imposed heavy fines on divines who should preach in any meeting of separatists; and, in direct opposition to the humane spirit of our law, the courts were enjoined to construe this act largely and beneficially for the suppressing of dissent and for the encouraging of informers. These severe statutes were not repealed, but were, with many conditions and precautions, relaxed. It was provided that every dissenting minister should, before he exercised his function, profess under his hand his belief in the Articles of the Church of England, with a few exceptions. The propositions to which he was not required to assent were these; that the Church has power to regulate ceremonies; that the doctrines set forth in the Book of Homilies are sound; and that there is noth- ing superstitious or idolatrous in the ordination service. If he declared himself a Baptist, he was also excused from affirming that the baptism of infants is a laudable prac- tice. But, unless his conscience suffered him to subscribe thirty-four of the thirty-nine Articles, and the greater part of two other Articles, he could not preach without incur- 'ring all the punishments which the Cavaliers, in the day of their power and their vengeance, had devised for the tormenting and ruining of schismatical teachers. The situation of the Quaker differed from that of other dissenters, and differed for the worse. The Presbyterian, the Independent, and the Baptist had no scruple about the Oath of Supremacy. But the Quaker refused to take it, not because he objected to the proposition that foreign sovereigns and prelates have no jurisdiction in England, but because his conscience would not suffer him to swear to any proposition whatever. He was therefore exposed to the severity of part of that penal code which, long be- fore Quakerism existed, had been enacted against Roman Catholics by the Parliaments of Elizabeth. Soon after the Restoration, a severe law, distinct from the general law which applied to all conventicles, had been passed against meetings of Quakers. The Toleration Act permitted the members of this harmless sect to hold their assemblies in peace, on condition of signing three documents, a declara- tion against Transubstantiation, a promise of fidelity to the government, and a confession of Christian belief. The objections which the Quaker had to the Athanasian phrase- 66 ttlSTORV or ENGLAND. ology had brought on him the imputation of Socinianism: and the strong language in which he sometimes asserted that he derived his knowledge of spiritual things directly from above had raised a suspicion that he thought lightly of the authority of Scripture. He was therefore required to profess his faith in the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. Such were the terms on which the Protestant dissenters of England were, for the first time, permitted by law to worship God according to their own conscience. They were very properly forbidden to assemble with barred doors, but were protected against hostile intrusion by a clause which made it penal to enter a meeting-house for the purpose of molesting the congregation. As if the numerous limitations and precautions which have been mentioned were insufficient, it was emphatically declared that the legislature did not intend to grant the smallest indulgence to any Papist, or to any person who denied the doctrine of the Trinity as that doctrine is set forth in the formularies of the Church of England. Of all the Acts that have ever been passed by Parlia- . ment, the Toleration Act is perhaps that which most strik- ingly illustrates the peculiar vices and the peculiar excel- lences of English legislation. The science of Politics bears in one respect a close analogy to the science of Mechanics. The mathematician can easily demonstrate that a certain power, applied by means of a certain lever or of a certain system of pulleys, will suffice to raise a cer- tain weight. But his demonstration proceeds on the sup- position that the machinery is such as no load will bend or break. If the engineer, who has to lift a great mass of real granite by the instrumentality of real timber and real hemp, should absolutely rely on the propositions which he finds in treatises on Dynamics, and should make no allow- ance for the imperfection of his materials, his whole ap- paratus of beams, wheels, and ropes would soon come down in ruin, and, with all his geometrical skill, he would be found a far inferior builder to those painted barbarians who, though they never heard of the parallelogram of forces, managed to pile up Stonehenge. What the engin- eer is to the mathematician, the active statesman is to the contemplative statesman. It is indeed most important that legislators and administrators should be versed in the WILLIAM AND MARY. 67 philosophy of government, as it is most important that the architect, who has to fix an obelisk on its pedestal, or to hang a tubular bridge over an estuary, should be versed in the philosophy of equilibrium and motion. But, as he who has actually to build must bear-in mind many things never noticed by D'Alembert and Euler, so must he who has actually to govern be perpetually guided by considera- tions to which no allusion can be found in the writings of Adam Smith or Jeremy Bentham. The perfect lawgiver is a just temper between the mere man of theory, who can see nothing but general principles, and the mere man of business, who can see nothing but particular circum- stances. Of lawgivers in whom the speculative element has prevailed to the exclusion of the practical, the world has during the last eighty years been singularly fruitful. To their wisdom Europe and America have owed scores of abortive constitutions, scores of constitutions which have lived just long enough to make a miserable noise, and have then gone off in convulsions. But in English legislation the practical element has always predominated, and not seldom unduly predominated, over the speculative. To think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an anomoly merely because it is an anom- oly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get rid of the griev- ance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to pro- vide; these are the rules which have from the age of John to the age of Victoria, generally guided the deliberations of our two hundred and fifty Parliaments. Our national dis- taste for whatever is abstract in political science amounts undoubtedly to a fault. Yet it is, perhaps, a fault on the right side. That we have been far too slow to improve our laws must be admitted. But, though in other countries there may have occasionally been more rapid progress, it would not be easy to name any other country in which there has been so little retrogression. The Toleration Act approaches very near to the idea of a great English law. To a jurist, versed in the theory of legislation, but not intimately acquainted with the temper of the sects and parties into which the nation was divided at the time of the Revolution, that Act would seem to be a mere chaos of absurdities and contradictions. It will not bear to be tried by sound general principles. Nay, it will 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. not bear to be tried by any principle, sound or unsound. The sound principle undoubtedly is, that mere theological error ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate. This principle the Toleration Act not only does not recog- nize, but positively disclaims. Not a single one of the cruel laws enacted against non-conformists by the Tudors or the Stuarts is repealed. Persecution continues to be the gen- eral rule. Toleration is the exception. Nor is this all. The freedom which is given to conscience is given in the most capricious manner. A Quaker, by making a declaration of faith in general terms, obtains the full benefit of the Act without signing one of the thirty- nine Articles. An Independent minister, - who is per- fectly willing to make the declaration required from the Quaker, but who has doubts about six or seven of the Articles, remains still subject to the penal laws. Howe is liable to punishment if he preaches before he has solemnly declared his assent to the Anglican doctrine touching the Eucharist. Penn, who altogether rejects the Eucharist, is at perfect liberty to preach without making any declaration whatever on the subject. These are some of the obvious faults which must strike every person who examines the Toleration Act by that standard of just reason which is the same in all countries and in all ages. But these very faults may perhaps appear to be merits, when we take into consideration the passions and prejudices of those for whom the Toleration Act was framed. This law, abounding with contradictions which every smattererin political philosophy can detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the greatest masters of political philosophy might have failed to do. That the provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile, inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory of religious liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said in their defence is this; that they re- moved a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice; that they put an end, at once and forever, without one division in either House of Parliament, without one riot in the streets, with scarcely one audible murmur even from the classes most deeply tainted with bigotry, to a persecu- tion which raged during four generations, which had broken innumerable hearts, which had made innumerable firesides desolate, which had filled the prisons with men of whom the world was not worthy, which had driven thousands of WILLIAM AND MARY. 69 those honest,diligent, and god-fearing yeomen and artisans, who are the true strength of a nation, to seek a refuge be- yond the ocean among the wigwams of red Indians and the lairs of panthers. Such a defence, however weak it may appear to some shallow speculators, will probably be thought complete by statesmen. The English, in I689, were by no means disposed to ad- mit the doctrine that religious error ought to be left unpunished. That doctrine was just then more unpopular than it had ever been. For it had, only a few months before, been hypocritically put forward as a pretext for perse- cuting the Established Church, for trampling on the funda- mental laws of the realm, for confiscating freeholds, for treating as a crime the modest exercise of the right of pe- tition. If a bill had then been drawn up granting entire freedom of conscience to all Protestants, it may be confi- dently affirmed that Nottingham would never have intro- duced such a bill; that all the bishops, Burnet included, would have voted against it; that it would have been de- nounced Sunday after Sunday, from ten thousand pulpits, as an insult to God and to all Christian men, and as a license to the worst heretics and blasphemers; that it would have been condemned almost as vehemently by Bates and Baxter as by Ken and Sherlock; that it would have been burned by the mob in half the market places of England; that it would never have become the law of the land, and that it would have made the very name of toleration odious during many years to the great majority of the people. And yet, if such a bill had been passed, what would it have effected beyond what was effected by the Toleration Act? It is true that the Toleration Act recognized persecution as the rule, and granted liberty of conscience only as the exception. But it is equally true that the rule remained in force only against a few hundreds of Protestant dissent- ers, and that the benefit of the exceptions extended to hundreds of thousands. It is true that it was in theory absurd to make Howe sign thirty-four or thirty-five of the Anglican Articles be- fore he could preach, and to let Penn preach without sign- ing one of those Articles. But it is equally true that under this arrangement both Howe and Penn got as entire liberty to preach as they could have had under the most philo- sophical code that Beccaria or Jefferson could have framed. The progress of the bill was easy. Only one amend- 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ment of grave importance was proposed. Some zealous churchmen in the Commons suggested that it might be desirable to grant the toleration only for a term of seven years, and thus to bind over the non-conformists to good behavior. But this suggestion was so unfavorably re- ceived that those who made it did not venture to divide the House.* The King gave his consent with hearty satisfaction: the bill became law; and the Puritan divines thronged to the Quarter Sessions of every county to swear and sign. Many of them probably professed their assent to the Articles with some tacit reservations. But the tender conscience of Baxter would not suffer him to qualify, till he had put on record an explanation of the sense in which he under- stood every proposition which seemed to him to admit of misconstruction. The instrument delivered by him to the court before which he took the oaths is still extant, and contains two passages of peculiar interest. He declared that his approbation of the Athanasian Creed was confined to that part which was properly a Creed, and that he did not mean to express any assent to the damnatory clauses. He also declared that he did not, by signing the article which anathematizes all who maintain that there is any other salvation than through Christ, mean to condemn those who entertain a hope that sincere and virtuous un- believers may be admitted to partake in the benefits of Redemption. Many of the dissenting clergy of London expressed their concurrence in these charitable sentiments. f The history of the Comprehension Bill presents a re- markable contrast to the history of the Toleration Bill. The two bills had a com-mon origin, and, to a great ex- tent, a common object. They were framed at the same time, and laid aside at the same time: they sank together into oblivion, and they were, after the lapse of several years, again brought together before the world. Both were laid by the same peer on the table of the Upper House; and both were referred to the same select commit- tee. But it soon began to appear that they would have widely different fates. The Comprehension Bill was in- deed a neater specimen of legislative workmanship than the Toleration Bill, but was not, like the Toleration Bill, adapted to the wants, the feelings, and the prejudi- * Common's Journals, May 17, 1689. t Sense of the subscribed articles by the Ministers of London, 1690; Calamy's Histori- cal Additions to Baxter's Life. . WILLIAM AND MARV. Ces of the existing generation. Accordingly while the Toleration Bill found support in all quarters, the Com- prehension Bill was attacked from all quarters, and was at last coldly and languidly defended even by those who had introduced it. About the same time at which the Toleration Bill became law with the general concurrence of public men, the Comprehension Bill was, with a concur- rence not less general, suffered to drop. The Toleration Bill still ranks among those great statutes which are epochs in our constitutional history. The Comprehension Bill is forgotten. No collector of antiquities has thought it worth preserving. A single copy, the same which Notting- ham presented to the Peers, is still among our parliamen- tary records, but has been seen by only two or three per- sons now living. It is a fortunate circumstance that, in this copy, almost the whole history of the Bill can be read. In spite of cancellations and interlineations, the original words can easily be distinguished from those which were inserted in the committee or on the report.* The first clause, as it stood when the bill was introduced, dispensed all the ministers of the Established Church from the necessity of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles. For the Articles was substituted a Declaration which ran thus: " I do approve of the doctrine and worship and govern, ment of the Church of England by law established, as containing all things necessary to salvation; and T promise, in the exercise of my ministry, to preach and practice ac- cording thereunto.'* Another clause granted similar in- dulgence to the members of the two universities. Then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained after the Presbyterian fashion might, without re■^ ordination, acquire all the privileges of a priest of the Es- tablished Church. He must, however, be admitted to hia new functions by the imposition of the hands of a bishop, who was to pronounce the following form of words: " Take thou authority to preach the word of God, and ad- minister the sacraments, and to perform all other minis- terial offices in the Church of England." The person thus admitted was to be capable of holding any rectory or vicar- age in the kingdom. ♦ The bill will be found among the Archives of the House of Lords. It is strange that this vast collection of important documents should have been altogetherneglected, even by our most exact and diligent historians. It was opened to me by one of the most valued of my friends, Sir John Lefevre; and my researches were greatly assisted by the kindness of Mr. Thorns. 72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might, except in a few churches of peculiar dignity, wear the sur-^ plice or not as he thought fit, that the sign of the cross might be omitted in baptism, that children might be christened, if such were the wish of their parents, without godfathers or godmothers, and that persons who had a scruple about receiving the Eucharist kneeling might re- ceive it sitting. The concluding clause was drawn in the form of a peti- tion. It was proposed that the two Houses should request the King and Queen to issue a commission em- powering thirty divines of the Established Church to re- vise the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts, and to recommend such alterations as might on inquiry appear to be desirable. The bill went smoothly through the first stages. Comp- ton, who, since Bancroft had shut himself up at Lambeth, was virtually Primate, supported Nottingham with ardor. In the committee, however, it appeared that there was a strong body of churchmen, who were as obstinately deter- mined not to give up a single word or form as if they had thought that prayers were no prayers if read without the sur- plice, that a babe could be no Christian if not marked with the cross, that bread and wine could be no memorials of re- demption or vehicles of grace if not received on bended knee. Why, those persons asked, was the do- cile and affectionate son of the Church to be disgusted by seeing the irreverent practices of a conventicle introduced into her majestic choirs ? Why should his feelings, his prejudices, if prejudices they were, be less considered than the whims of schismatics ? If, as Burnet and men like Burnet were never weary of re- peating, indulgence was due to a weak brother, was it less due to the brother whose weakness consisted in the excess of his love for an ancient, a decent, a beautiful ritual, asso- ciated in his imagination from childhood with all that is most sublime and endearing, than to him whose morose and litigious mind was always devising frivolous objec- tions to innocent and salutary usages ? But in truth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan was not that sort of scrupu- * Among the Tanner MSB. in the Bodleian Library is a very curious letter from Compton to Bancroft, about the Toleration Bill and the Comprehension Bill. "These," says Compton, "are two great works in which the being of our Church is concerned; and I hope you will send to the House for copies. For though we are under a conquest, God has given us favor in the eyes of our rulers; and we may keep our Church if we will." Bancroft seems to have returned no answer. WILLIAM AND MARY. 73 losity which the Apostle had commanded believers to re- spect. It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of con- science, but from censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who had studied the New Testament could have failed to observe that, while we are charged carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the feeble, we are taught by divine precept and example to make no conces- sion to the supercilious and uncharitable Pharisee. Was everything which was not of the essence of religion to be given up as soon as it became unpleasing to a knot of zeal- ots whose heads had been turned by conceit and the love of novelty ? Painted glass, music, holidays, fast days, were not of the essence of religion. Were the windows of King's College chapel to be broken at the demand of one set of fanatics ? Was the organ of Exeter to be silenced to please another? Were all the village bells to be mute because Tribulation Wholesome and Deacon Ananias thought them profane ? Was Christmas no longer to be a day of rejoicing ? Was Passion week no longer to be a season of humiliation ? These changes, it is true, were not yet proposed. But if, — so the High Churchmen reasoned, — we once admit that what is harmless and edify- ing is to be given up because it offends some narrow un- derstandings and some gloomy tempers, where are we to stop? And is it not probable that, by thus attempting to heal one schism^ we may cause another? All those things which the Puritans regard as the blemishes of the Church are by a large part of the population reckoned among her attractions. May she not, in ceasing to give scandal to a few sour precisians, cease also to influence the hearts of many who now delight in her ordinances ? Is it not to be apprehended that, for every proselyte whom she allures from the meeting-house, ten of her old disciples may turn away from her maimed rites and dismantled temples, and that these new separatists may either form themselves into a sect far more formidable than the sect which we are now seeking to conciliate, or may, in the violence of their disgust at a cold and ignoble worship, be tempted to join in the solemn and gorgeous idolatry of Rome ? It is remarkable that those who held this language were by no means disposed to contend for the doctrinal Articles of the Church. The truth is that, from the time of James the First, that great party which has been peculiarly zeal- cms for the Anglican polity and the Anglican ritual has ^4 HISTORY OF £NGtANt). always leaned strongly towards Arminianism, and has there- fore never been much attached to a confession of faith framed by reformers who, on questions of metaphysical divinity, generally agreed with Calvin. One of the char- acteristic marks of that party is the disposition which it has always shown to appeal, on points of dogmatic theology, rather to the Liturgy, which was derived from Rome, than to the Articles, and Homilies, which were derived from Geneva. The Calvinistic members of the Church, on the other hand, have always maintained that her deliberate judgment on such points is much more likely to be found in an Article or a Homily than in an ejaculation of peni- tence or hymn of thanksgiving. It does not appear that, in the debates on the Comprehension Bill, a single High Churchman raised his voice against the clause which re- lieved the clergy from the necessity of subscribing the Articles, and of declaring the doctrine contained in the Homilies to be sound. Na^, the Declaration, which, in the original draught, was substituted for the Articles, was much softened down on the report. As the clause finally stood, the ministers of the Church were required, not to profess that they approved of her doctrine, but merely to acknowledge, what probably few Baptists, Quakers, or Unitarians would deny, that her doctrine contained all things necessary to salvation. Had the bill become law, the only people in the kingdom who would have been under the necessity of signing the Articles would have been the dissenting preachers.* The easy manner in which the zealous friends of the Church gave up her confession of faith presents a striking contrast to the spirit with which they struggled for her polity and her ritual. The clause which admitted Pres- byterian ministers to hold benefices without episcopal or- dination was rejected. The clause which permitted scrupu- lous persons to communicate sitting, very narrowly escaped the same fate. In the Committee it was struck out, and, on the report, was with great difficulty restored. The majority of peers in the House was against the proposed indulgence, and the scale was but just turned by the proxies. But by this time it began to appear that the bill which the High Churchmen were so keenly assailing was menaced by * The distaste of the High Churchmen for the Articles is the subject of a carious pamphlet published in 1689, and entitled a Dialogue between Timothy and Titus, WILLIAM AND MARY. 75 dangers from a very different quarter. The same consid- erations which had induced Nottingham to support a com- prehension made comprehension an object of dread and aversion to a large body of dissenters. The truth is that the time for such a scheme had gone by. If, a hundred years earlier, when the division in the Protestant body was recent, Elizabeth had been so wise as to abstain from re- quiring the observance of a few forms which a large part jf her subjects considered as Popish, she might perhaps have averted those fearful calamities which, forty years after her death, afflicted the Church. But the general tendency of schism is to widen. Had Leo the Tenth, when the exactions and impostures of the Pardoners first roused the indignation of Saxony, corrected those evil prac- tices with a vigorous hand, it is not improbable that Luther would have died in the bosom of the Church of Rome. But the opportunity was suffered to escape; and, when, a few years later, the Vatican would gladly have purchased peace by yielding the original subject of quarrel, the orig- inal subject of quarrel was almost forgotten. The inquiring spirit which had been roused by a single abuse had dis- covered or imagined a thousand: controversies engendered controversies: every attempt that was made to accommo- date one dispute ended by producing another; and at length the General Council, which, during the earlier stages of the distemper, had been supposed to be an infallible remedy, made the case utterly hopeless. In this respect, as in many others, the history of Puritanism in England bears a close analogy to the history of Protestantism in Europe. The Parliament of 1689 could no more put an end to non-conformity by tolerating a garb or a posture than the Doctors of Trent could have reconciled the Teu- tonic nations to the Papacy by regulating the sale of indul- gences. In the sixteenth century Quakerism was unknown; and there was not in the whole realm a single congrega- tion of Independents or Baptists. At the time of the Revolution, the Independents, Baptists, and Quakers were probably a majority of the dissenting body; and these sects could not be gained over on any terms which the lowest of Low Churchmen would have been willing to offer. The Independent held that a national Church, gov- erned by any central authority whatever, Pope, Patriarch, King, Bishop or Synod, was an unscriptural institution, and that every congregation of believers was, under Christy, 76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a sovereign society. The Baptist was even more irreclaim- able than the Independent, and the Quaker even more irre- claimable than the Baptist. Concessions, therefore, which would once have extinguished non-conformity, would not now satisfy even one half of the non-conformists; and it was the obvious interest of every non-conformist whom no concession would satisfy that none of his brethren should be satisfied. The more liberal the terms of comprehen- sion, the greater was the alarm of every separatist who knew that he could, in no case, be comprehended. There was but slender hope that the dissenters, unbroken and acting as one man, would be able to obtain from the legis- lature full admission to civil privileges; and all hope of obtaining such admission must be relinquished if Notting- ham should, by the help of some well-meaning but short- sighted friends of religious liberty, be enabled to accom- plish his design. If his bill passed, there would doubtless be a considerable defection from the dissenting body; and every defection must be severely felt by a class already out- numbered, depressed, and struggling against powerful enemies. Every proselyte too must be reckoned twice over, as a loss to the party which was even now too weak, and as a gain to the party which was even now too strong. The Church was but too well able to hold her own against all the sects in the kingdom; and, if those sects were to be thinned by a large desertion, and the Church strengthened by a large reinforcement, it was plain that all chance of obtaining any relaxation of the Test Act would be at an end; and it was but too probable that the Toleration Act might not long remain unrepealed. Even those Presbyterian ministers whose scruples the Comprehension Bill was especially intended to remove were by no means unanimous in wishing it to pass. The ablest and most eloquent preachers among them had, since the Declaration of Indulgence had appeared, been very ; agreeably settled in the capital and in other large towns, ■ and were now about to enjoy, under the sure guarantee of ' an Act of Parliament, that toleration which, under the Declaration of Indulgence, had been illicit and precarious. The situation of these men was such as the great majority of the divines of the Established Church might well envy. Few indeed of the parochial clergy were so abundantly supplied with comforts as the favorite orator of a great assembly of non-conformists in the City. The voluntary WILLIAM AND MARY. 77 contributions of his wealthy hearers, Aldermen and Depu- ties, West India merchants and Turkey merchants. Wardens of the Company of Fishmongers and Wardens of the Com- pany of Goldsmiths, enabled him to become a land-owner or a mortgagee. The best broadcloth from Blackwell Hall, and the best poultry from Leadenhall Market, were frequently left at his door. His influence over his flock was immense. Scarcely any member of a congregation of separatists en- tered into a partnership, married a daughter, put a son out as apprentice, or gave his vote at an election, without con- sulting his spiritual guide. On all political and literary questions the minister was the oracle of his own circle. It was popularly remarked, during many years, that an emi- nent dissenting minister had only to determine whether he would make his son an attorney or a physician; for that the attorney was sure to have clients and the physician to have patients. While a waiting- woman was generally con- sidered as a help-meet for a chaplain in holy orders of the Established Church, the widows and daughters of opulent citizens were supposed to belong in a peculiar manner to non-conformist pastors. One of the great Presbyterian Rabbles, therefore, might well doubt whether, in a worldly view, he should be a gainer by a comprehension. He might indeed hold a rectory or a vicarage, when he could get one. But in the meantime he would be destitute: his meeting- house would be closed: his congregation would be dis- persed among the parish churches: if a benefice were be- stowed on him, it would probably be a very slender com- pensation for the income which he had lost. Nor could he hope to have, as a minister of the Anglican Church, the authority and dignity which he had hitherto enjoyed. He would always, by a large portion of the members of that Church, be regarded as a deserter. He might, therefore, on the whole, very naturally wish to be left where he was.* * Tom Brown says, in his scurrilous way, of the Presbyterian divines of that time, that their preaching "brings in money, and money buys land; and land is an amuse- ment they all desire, in spite of their hypocritical cant. If it were not for the quarterly contributions, there would be no longer schism or separation." He asks how it can be imagined that, while "they are maintained like gentlemen by the breach, they will ever preach up healing doctrines?"— Brown's Amusements, Serious and Comical. Some cu- rious instances of the influence exercised by the chief dissenting ministers may be found in Hawkin's Life of Johnson. In the Journal of the retired citizen (Spectator, 317.) Addison has indulged in some exquisite pleasantry on this subject. The Mr. Nisby whose opinions about the peace, the Grand Vizier, and laced coffee, are quoted with so much respect, and who is so well regaled with marrow bones, ox cheek, and a bottle of Brooks and Hellier, wa* John Nesbit, a highly popular preacher, who, about the time of the Revolution, became pastor of a dissenting congregation in Hare Court, Alders- gate street. In Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches ana Meeting ^cHi»es ia London, Westminister, and South wark, will be foundf several instances of non* 78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. There was consequently a division in the Whig party. One section of that party was for relieving the dissenters from the Test Act, and giving up the Comprehension Bill. Another section was for pushing forward the Com- prehension Bill, and postponing to a more convenient time the consideration of the Test Act. The effect of this division among the friends of religious liberty was that the High Churchmen, though a minority in the House of Commons and not a majority in the House of Lords, were able to oppose with success both the reforms which they dreaded. The Comprehension Bill was not passed; and the Test Act was not repealed. Just at the moment when the question of the Test and the question of the Comprehension became complicated together in a manner which might well perplex an enlight- ened and honest politician, both questions became compli- cated with a third question of great importance. The ancient oaths of allegiance and supremacy contained some expressions which had always been disliked by the^ Whigs, and other expressions which Tories, honestly at- tached to the new settlement, thought inapplicable to princes who had not the hereditary right. The Convention had therefore, while the throne was still vacant, framed those oaths of allegiance and supremacy by which we still testify our loyalty to our Sovereign. By the Act which turned the Convention into a Parliament, the members of both Houses were required to take the new oaths. As to other persons in public trust, it was hard to say how the law stood. One form of words was enjoined by statutes, regularly passed, and not yet regularly abrogated. A dif- ferent form was enjoined by the Declaration of Rights, an instrument which was indeed revolutionary and irregular, but which might well be thought equal in authority to any ^ statute. The practice was in as much confusion as the law. It was therefore felt to be necessary, that the legis- lature should, without delay, pass an Act abolishing the old oaths, and determining when and by whom the new oaths should be taken. The bill which settled this important question origin- ated in the Upper House. As to most of the provisions there was little room for dispute. It was unanimously agreed that no person should, at any future time, be ad- conformist preachers who, about this time, made handaome fortunes, generally, it should 6eem, by marriage. William and mary. mitted to any office, civil, military, ecclesiastical, or aca- demical, without taking the oaths to William and Mary. It was also unanimously agreed that every person who already held any civil or military office should be ejected from it, unless he took the oaths on or before the first of August, 1689. But the strongest passions of both parties were ex- cited by the question whether persons who already pos- sessed ecclesiastical or academical offices should be re- quired to swear feality to the King and Queen on pain of deprivation. None could say what might be the effect of a law enjoining all the members of a great, a powerful, a sacred profession to make, under the most solemn sanc- tion of religion, a declaration which might be plausibly re- presented as a formal recantation of all that they had been writing and preaching during many years. The Primate and some of the most eminent bishops had already ab- sented themselves from Parliament, and would doubtless relinquish their palaces and revenues, rather than acknowl- edge the new Sovereigns. The example of these great prelates might perhaps be followed by a multitude of di- vines of humbler rank, by hundreds of canons, prebend- aries, and fellows of colleges, by thousands of parish priests. To such an event no Tory, however clear his own conviction that he might lawfully swear allegiance to the King who was in possession, could look forward without the most painful emotions of compassion for the sufferers, and of anxiety for the Church. There were some persons who went so far as to deny that the Parliament was competent to pass a law requiring a bishop to swear on pain of deprivation. No earthly power, they said, could break the tie which bound the suc- cessor of the apostles to his diocese. What God had joined no man could sunder. Kings and senates might scrawl words on parchm.ents or impress figures on wax; but those words and figures could no more change the course of the spiritual than the course of the physical world. As the Author of the universe had appointed a certain order ac- cording to which it was His pleasure to send winter and summer, seedtime and harvest, so he had appointed a cer- tain order, according to which He communicated His grace to His Catholic Church; and the latter order was, like the former, independent of the powers and principalities of the world. A legislature might alter the names of the months, might call June December, and December June; but in HISTORY OF ENGLA^Nt). spite of the legislature, the snow would fall when the sun was in Capricorn, and the flowers would blconi when he was in Cancer. And so the legislature might enact that Ferguson or Muggleton should live in the palace at Lam- beth, should sit on the throne of Augustin, should be called Your Grace, and should walk in processions before the Premier Duke: but, in spite of the legislature, Sancroft would, while Sancroft lived, be the only true Archbishop of Canterbury: and the person who should presumie to usurp the archiepiscopal functions would be a schismatic. This doctrine was proved by reasons drawn from the bud- ding of Aaron's rod, and from a certain plate which Saint James the Less, according to a legend of the fourth century, used to wear on his forehead. A Greek manuscript, relat- ing to the deprivation of bishops, was discovered, about this time, in the Bodleian Library, and became the subject of a furious controversy. One party held that God had wonderfully brought tliis precious volume to light, for the guidance of His Church at a most critical moment. The other party wondered that any importance could be at- tached to the nonsense of a nameless scribbler of the thir- teenth century. Much was written about the deprivations of Chrysostom and Photius, of Nicolaus Mysticus and Cos- mas Atticus. But the case of Abiathar, whom Solomon put out of the sacerdotal office for treason, was discussed with peculiar eagerness. No small quantity of learning and ingenuity was expended in the attempt to prove that Abiathar, though he wore the ephod and answered by Urim, was not really High Priest, that he ministered only when his superior Zadoc was incapacitated by sickness or by some ceremonial pollution^ and that therefore the act of Solomon was not a precedent which would warrant King William in deposing a real bishop.*^ But such reasoning as this, though backed by copious citations from the Misna and Maimonides, was not gener- ally satisfactory even to zealous churchmen. For it ad- mitted of one answer, short, but perfectly intelligible to a plain man who knew nothing about Greek fathers or Levitical genealogies. There might be some doubt whether King Solomon had ejected a high priest: but ♦ Sec, among many other tracts, Dodweirs Cautionary Discourses, his Vindication of the Dep>rived Bishops, his Defence of the Vindication, and his Paraenesis; and Bisby's Unity of Priesthood, printed in 1692. See also Hody's tracts on the other side, the Baroccian MS., and Solomon and Abiathar, a Dialogue between Eucheres and Dys- pheret. WILLIAM AND MARY. 8i there could be no doubt at all that Queen Elizabeth had ejected the bishops of more than half the sees in England. It was notorious that fourteen prelates had, without any proceeding in any spiritual court, been deprived by Act of Parliament for refusing to acknowledge her supremacy. Had that deprivation been null ? Had Bonner continued to be, to the end of his life, the only true Bishop of Lon- don? Had his successor been an usurper? Had Parker and Jewel been schismatics ? Had the Convocation of 1562, that Convocation which had finally'settled the doc- trine of the Church of England, been itself out of the pale of the Church of Christ ? Nothing could be more ludi- crous than the distress of those controversialists who had to invent a plea for Elizabeth which should not be also a plea for William. Some zealots, indeed, gave up the vain attempt to distinguish between two cases which every man of common sense perceived to be undistinguishable, and frankly owned that the deprivations of 1559 could not be justified. But no person, it was said, ought to be troubled in mind on that account; for, though the Church of Eng- land might once have been schismatical, she had become Catholic when the last of the bishops deprived by Eliza- beth ceased to live.* The Tories, however, were not gen- erally disposed to admit that the religious society to which they were fondly attached had originated in an unlawful breach of unity. They therefore took ground lower and more tenable. They argued the question as a question of humanity and of expediency. They spoke much of the debt of gratitude which the nation owed to the priesthood; of the courage and fidelity with which the order, from the primate down to the youngest deacon, had recently de- fended the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm; of the memorable Sunday when, in all the hundred churches of the capital, scarcely one slave could be found to read the Declaration of Indulgence; of the black Friday when, amidst the blessings and the loud weeping of a mighty population, the barge of the seven prelates passed through the Watergate of the Tower. The firmness with which the clergy had lately, in defiance of menace and of se- duction, done what they conscientiously believed to be right, had saved the liberty and religion of En gland. Was * Burnet, ii. 135. Of all attempti, to distinguish between the deprivations of 1559 and the deprivations of 1689, the most absurd was made by Dodwell. See his Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Independency of th^ Clergy on the lay Fowef; HISTORY OF ENGLAND. no indulgence to be granted to them if they now refused to do what they conscientiously apprehended to be wrong? And where, it was said, is the danger of treating them with tenderness? Nobody is so absurd as to propose that they shall be permitted to plot against the govermment, or to stir up the multitude to insurrection. They are amenable to the law, like other men. If they are guilty of treason, let them be hanged. If they are guilty of sedi- tion, let them be fined and imprisoned. If they omit, in their public mihistrations, to pray for King William, for Queen Mary, and for the Parliament assembled under those most religious sovereigns, let the penal clauses of the Act of Uniformity be put in force. If this be not enough, let His Majesty be empowered to tender the oaths to any clergyman; and, if the oaths so tendered are re- fused, let deprivation follow. In this way any nonjuring bishop or rector who may be suspected, though he cannot be legally convicted, of intriguing, of writing, of talking, against the present settlement, may be at once removed from his office. But why insist on ejecting a pious and laborious minister of religion, who never lifts a finger or utters a word against the government, and who, as often as he performs morning or evening service, prays from his heart for a blessing on the rulers set over him by Provi- dence, but who will not take an oath which seems to him to imply a right in the people to depose a sovereign? Surely we do all that is necessary if we leave men of this sort at the mercy of the very prince to whom they refuse to swear fidelity. If he is willing to bear with their scru- pulosity, if he considers them, notwithstanding their pre- judices, as innocent and useful members of society, who else can be entitled to complain? The Whigs were vehement on the other side. They scrutinized, with ingenuity sharpened by hatred, the claims of the clergy to the public gratitude, and some- times went so far as altogether to deny that the order had in the preceding year deserved well of the nation. It was true that bishops and priests had stood up against the tyranny of the late King: but it was equally true that, but for the obstinacy with which they had opposed the Exclusion Bill, he never would have been King, and that, but for their adulation and their doctrine of passive obedi- ence, he would never , have ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business^ during a quarter of a cpo- WILLIAM AND MARY. 83 tury, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, of Sidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who had been put to death for attempting to save the realm from Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed a whis- per against arbitrary power till arbitrary power began to menace their own property and dignity. Then, no doubt, forgetting all their old common-places about submitting to Nero, they had made haste to save themselves. Grant, — such was the cry of these eager disputants, — grant that, in saving themselves, they saved the constitution. Are we therefore to forget that they had previously endangered it? And are we to reward them by now permitting them to destroy it? Here is a class of men closely connected with the state. A large part of the produce of the soil has been assigned to them for their maintenance. Their chiefs have seats in the legislature, wide domains, stately palaces. By this privileged body the great mass of the population is lectured every week from the chair of authority. To this privileged body has been committed the supreme direc- tion of liberal education. Oxford and Cambridge, West- minster, Winchester, and Eton, are under priestly govern- ment. By the priesthood will to a great extent be formed th« character of the nobility and gentry of the next gene- ration. Of the higher clergy some have in their gift numerous and valuable benefices; others have the privi- lege of appointing judges who decide grave questions affecting the liberty, the property, the reputation of Their Majesties' subjects. And is an order thus favored by the state to give no guarantee to the state? On what princi- ple can it be contended that it is unnecessary to ask from an Archbishop of Canterbury or from a Bishop of Durham that promise of fidelity to the government which all allow that it is necessary to demand from every layman who serves the Crown in the humblest office? Every excise- man, every collector of the customs, who refuses to swear, is to be deprived of his bread. For these humble martyrs of passive obedience and hereditary right nobody has a word to say. Yet an ecclesiastical magnate who refuses to swear is to be suffered to retain emoluments, patron- ^S^f power, equal to those of a great minister of state. It is said that it is superfluous to impose the oaths on a clergyman, because he may be punished if he breaks the law. Why is not the same argument urged in favor of th^ «4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. layman? And why, if the clergyman really means to observe the laws, does he scruple to take the oaths? The law commands him to designate William and Mary as King and Queen, to do this in the most sacred place, to do this in the administration of the most solemn of all the rites of religion. The law commands him to pray that the illustrious pair may be defended by a special providence, that they may be victorious over every enemy, and that their Parliament may by divine guidance be led to take such a course as may promote their safety, honor and wel- fare. Can we believe that his conscience will suffer him to do all this, and yet will not suffer him to promise that he will be a faithful subject to them? To the proposition that the nonjuring clergy should be left to the mercy of the King, the Whigs, with some jus- tice, replied that no scheme could be devised more unjust to His Majesty. The matter, they said, is one of public concern, one in which every Englishman who is unwilling to be the slave of France and of Rome has a deep interest. In such a case it would be unworthy of the Estates of the Realm to shrink from the responsibility of providing for the common safety, to try to obtain for themselves the praise of tenderness and liberality, and to leave to the Sov- ereign the odious task of proscription. A law requiring all public functionaries, civil, military, ecclesiastical, with- out distinction of persons, to take the oaths is at least equal. It excludes all suspicion of partiality, of personal malignity, of secret spying and tale-bearing. But, if an arbitrary discretion is left to the government, if one non- juring priest is suffered to keep a lucrative benefice while another is turned with his wife and children into the street, every ejection will be considered as an act of cruelty, and will be imputed as a crime to the sovereign and his ministers.* Thus the Parliament had to decide, at the same mo- ment, what quantity of relief should be granted to the consciences of non-conformists and what quantity of pres- sure should be applied to the consciences of the clergy of the Established Church. The King conceived a hope that it might be in his power to effect a compromise agreeable to all parties. He flattered himself that the Tories might be induced to make some concession to the dissenters, on * As to this controversy, see Burnet, ii. 7, 8, 9; Grey's Debates, April 19 and 20, 1689; Commons' Journals of April 20 and 22; Lords' Journals, April 21, WILLIAM AND MARY. 85 condition that the Whigs would be lenient to the Jaco- bites, He determined to try what his personal interven- tion would effect. It chanced that, a few hours after the Lords had. read the Comprehension Bill a second time and the Bill touching the Oaths a first time, he had occasion to go down to Parliament for the purpose of giving his as- sent to a law. From the throne he addressed both Houses, and expressed an earnest wish that they would consent to modify the existing laws in such a manner that all Pro- testants might be admitted to public employment.* It was well understood that he was willing, if the legislature would comply with his request, to let clergymen who were already beneficed, continue to hold their benefices without swearing allegiance to him. His conduct on this occa- sion deserves undoubtedly the praise of disinterestedness. It is honorable to him that he attempted to purchase lib- erty of conscience for his subjects by giving up a safeguard of his own crown. But it must be acknowledged that he showed less wisdom than virtue. The only Englishman in his Privy Council whom he had consulted, if Burnet was correctly informed, was Richard Hampden; f and Richard Hampden, though a highly respectable man, was so far from being able to answer for the Whig party that he could not answer even for his own son John, whose temper, naturally vindictive, had been exasperated into ferocity by the stings of remorse and shame. The King soon found that there was in the hatred of the two great factions an energy which was wanting to their love. The Whigs, though they were almost unanimous in thinking that the sacramental test ought to be abolished, were by no means unanimous in thinking that moment well chosen for the abolition; and even those Whigs who were most desirous to see the non-conformists relieved without delay from civil disabilities, were fully determined not to. forego the opportunity of humbling and punishing the class to whose instrumentality chiefly was to be ascribed that tre- mendous reflux of public feeling which had followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. To put the Janes, the Souths, the Sherlocks into such a situation that they must either starve, or recant, publicly, and with the Gos- pel at their lips, all the ostentatious professions of many years was a revenge too delicious to be relinquished. * Lords' Journals, March i6, 1689. t Burnet, ii. 7, &, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The Tory, on the other hand, sincerely respected and pitied those clergymen who felt scruples about the oaths. But the Test was, in his view, essential to the safety of the established religion, and must not be surrendered for the purpose of saving any man however ertiinent from any hardship however serious. It would be a sad day doubt- less for the Church when the episcopal bench, the chapter houses of cathedrals, the halls of colleges, would miss some men renowned for piety and learning. But it would be a still sadder day for the Church when an Independent should bear the white staff, or a Baptist sit on the wool- sack. Each party tried to serve those for whom it was in- terested: but neither party would consent to grant favor- able terms to its enemies. The result was that the non- comformists remained excluded from office in the State, and the nonjurors were ejected from office in the Church. In the House of Commons, no member thought it expe- dient to propose the repeal of the Test Act. But leave was given to bring in a bill repealing the Corporation Act, which had been passed by the Cavalier Parliament soon after the Restoration, and which contained a clause re- quiring all municipal magistrates to receive the sacrament according to the forms of the Church of England. When this bill was about to be committed, it was moved by the Tories that the committee should be instructed to make no alteration in the law touching the sacrament. Those Whigs who were zealous for the Comprehension must have been placed by this motion in an embarrassing posi- tion. To vote for the instruction would have been incon- sistent with their principles. To vote against it would have been to break with Nottingham. A middle course was found. The adjournment of the debate was moved and carried by a hundred and sixteen votes to a hundred and fourteen; and the subject was not revived.* In the House of Lords a motion was made for the abolition of the sacramental test, but was rejected by a large majority. Many of those who thought the motion right in principle thought it ill-timed. A protest was entered; but it was signed only by a few peers of no great authority. It is a remarkable fact that two great chiefs of the Whig party, * Burnet says (ii. 8), that the proposition to abolish the sacramental test was rejectod by a great majority in both Houses. But his memory deceived him; for the only divi- Mon on the subject in the House of Commons was that mentioned in the text. It is «• markable that Gwyn and Rowe, who were tellers for the majority, were two of tht ytroageat Whigs in the House. WILMAM AND MARY. who were in general very attentive to their parliamentary duty, Devonshire and Shrewsbury, absented themselves on this occasion.* The debate on the Test in the Upper House was speedily followed by a debate on the last clause of the Comprehen- sion Bill. By that clause it was provided that thirty bishops and priests should be commissioned to revise the liturgy and canons, and to suggest amendments. On this subject the Whig peers were almost all of one mind. They mustered strong and spoke warmly. Why, they asked, were none but members of the sacerdotal order to be entrusted with this duty? Were the laity no part of the Church of England? When the Commission should have made its report, laymen would have to decide on the recommendations contained in that report. Not a line of the Book of Common Prayer could be altered but by the authority of King, Lords, and Commons. The King was a layman. Five-sixths of the Lords were laymen. All the members of the House of Commons were laymen. Was it not absurd to say that laymen were incompetent to ex- amine into a matter which it was acknowledged that lay- men must in the last resort determine? And could anything be more opposite to the whole spirit of Protes- tantism than the notion that a certain preternatural power of judging in spiritual cases was vouchsafed to a particu- lar caste, and to that caste alone; that such men as Selden, as Hale, as Boyle, were less competent to give an opinion on a collect or a creed than the youngest and silliest chap- lain who, in a remote manor house, passed his life in drinking ale and playing at shovelboard? What God had instituted no earthly power, lay or clerical, could alter; and of things instituted by human beings a layman was surely as competent as a clergyman to judge. That the Anglican liturgy and canons were of purely human insti- tution the Parliament acknowledged by referring them to a Commission for revision and correction. How could it then be maintained that in such a Commission the laity, so vast a majority of the population, the laity, whose edi- fication was the main end of all ecclesiastical regulations, and whose innocent tastes ought to be carefully consulted in the framing of the public services of religion, ought not to have a single representative? Precedent was directly opposed to this odious distinction. Repeatedly, since the • J,jprd's Journals, M^^rch ai, j6§§. 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. light of reformation had dawned on England, Commis- sioners had been empowered by law to revise the canons; and on every one of those occasions some of the Commis- sioners had been laymen. In the present case the pro- posed arrangement was peculiarly objectionable. For the object of issuing the commission was the conciliating of dissenters; and it was therefore most desirable that the Commissioners should be men in whose fairness and mod- eration dissenters could confide. Would thirty such men be easily found in the higher ranks of the clerical profes- sion? The duty of the legislature was to arbitrate be- _ tween two contending parties, the Non-conformist divines and the Anglican divines, and it would be the grossest in- justice to commit to one of those parties the office of umpire. On these grounds the Whigs proposed an amendment to the effect, that laymen should be joined with clergy- men in the Commission. The contest was sharp. Bur- net, who had just taken his seat among the peers and who seems to have been bent on winning at almost any price the good will of his brethren, argued with all his constitu- tional warmth for the clause as it stood. The numbers on the division proved to be exactly equal. The consequence was that, according to the rules of the House, the amend- ment was lost.* At length the Comprehension Bill was sent down to the Commons. There it would, easily have been carried by two to one, if it had been supported by all the friends of religious liberty. But on this subject the High Church- men could count on the support of a large body of Low Churchmen. Those members who wished well to Not- tingham's plan saw that they were outnumbered, and, de- spairing of a victory, began to meditate a retreat. Just at this time a suggestion was throv/n out which united all suffrages. The ancient usage was that a Convocation should be summoned together with a Parliament ; and it might well be argued that, if ever the advice of a Convo- cation could be needed, it m^ust be when changes in the ritual and discipline of the Church were under considera- tion. But, in consequence of the irregular manner in which the Estates of the Realm had been brought to- gether during the vacancy of the throne, there was no Convocation. It was proposed that the House should ad- t jL^ords' Jounialb, Apiii 5, 16S9; Burnet, ii» 10, WILLIAM AND MARY. 89 vise the King to take measures for supplying this defect, and that the fate of the Comprehension Bill should not be decided till the clergy had had an opportunity of declar- ing their opinion through the ancient and legitimate organ. This proposition was received with general acclamation. The Tories were well pleased to see such honor done to the priesthood. Those Whigs who were against the Com- prehension Bill were well pleased to see it laid aside, cer- tainly for a year, probably forever. Those Whigs who were for the Comprehension Bill were well pleased to escape without a defeat. Some of them indeed were not without hopes that mild and liberal counsels might prevail in the ecclesiastical senate. An address requesting William to summon the Convo- cation was voted without a division: the concurrence of the Lords was asked: the Lords concurred: the address was carried up to the throne by both Houses: the King prorr.ised that he would, at a convenient season, do what his Parlia- ment desired; and Nottingham's bill was not again men- tioned. Many writers, imperfectly acquainted with the history of that age, have inferred from these proceeding*! that the House of Commons was an assembly of High Churchmen: but nothing is more certain than that two-thircls of the members were either Low Churchmen or not Churchmen at all. A very few days before this time an occurrence had taken place, unimportant in itself, but highly significant as an indication of the temper of the majority. It had been suggested that the House ought, in conformity with ancient usage, to adjourn over the Easter holidays. The IPuritans and Latitudinarians objected: there was a sharp debate: the High Churchmen did not venture to divide; and to the great scandal of many grave persons, the Speaker look the chair at nine o'clock on Easter Monday; and thete was a long and busy sitting."^ This however was by no means the strongest proof which * Commons' Journals, March 28, April i, 1689; Paris Gazette, April 23. (''art of the passage in the Paris Gazette is worth quoting, '^11 y eut, ce jour la (Mart h 28), une grande contestation dans la Chambre Basse, sur la proposition qui fut faite die remettre les seances apres les f^tes de Pasques observees toujours par I'Eglise Angli( ane. Les Protestans conformistes furent de cet avis; et les Presbyteriens emporterent a la plurali- te des voix que les seances recommenceroient le Lundy, seconde feste de Pasques, "The Low Churchmen are frequently designated as Presbyterians by the French and Dutch writers of that age. There were not twenty Presbyterians, properly so called, in the House of Commons. See A. Smith and Cutler's plain Dialogue about Whig and Tory, 1690. Vol. III-4 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the Commons gave that they were far indeed from 'feeling extreme reverence or tenderness for the Anglican hierarchy. The bill for settling the oaths had just come down from the Lords framed in a manner favorable to the clergy. All lay functionaries were required to swear fealty to the King and Queen on pain of expulsion from office. But it was provided that every divine who already held a benefice might continue to hold it vyithout swearing, unless the Government should see reason to call on him specially for an assurance of his loyalty. Burnet had, partly, no doubt, from the good-nature and generosity which belonged to his character, and partly from a desire to conciliate his brethren, supported this arrangement in the Upper House with great energy. But in the Lower House the feeling against the Jacobite priests was irresistibly strong. On the very day on which that House voted, without a division, the address requesting the King to summon the Convocation, a clause was proposed and carried which required every person who held any ecclesiastical or academical preferment to take the oaths by the first of August 1689, on pain of sus- pension. Six months, to be reckoned from that day, were allowed to the nonjuror for reconsideration. If, on the first of February 1690, lie still continued obstinate, he was to be finally deprived. The bill, thus amended, was sent back to the Lords. The Lords adhered to their original resolution. Conference after conference was held. Compromise after compromise was suggested. From the imperfect reports which have come down to us it appears that every argument in favor of lenity was forcibly urged by Burnet. But the Common" were firm: time pressed: the unsettled state of the lar caused inconvenience in every department of the public service; and the Peers very reluctantly gave way. Thf at the same time added a clause, empowering the King to bestow pecuniary allowances out of the forfeited benefices on a nonjuring clergymen. The number of clergymen thus favored was not to exceed twelve. The allowance was not to exceed one-third of the income forfeited. Some zealous Whigs were unwilling to grant even this mdul- gence: but the Commons were content with the victory which they had won, and justly thought that it would be ungracious to refuse so slight a concession.* * Accounts of what passed at the Conferences will be foupd ia the Journals of the Houses, and deserve to be read. WILLIAM AND MARY. 91 These debates were interrupted, during a short time, by the solemnities and festivities of the coronation. When Xhe day fixed for that great ceremony drew near, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee for the pur- pose of settling the form of words in which our Sovereigns were thenceforward to enter into covenent with the nation. All parties were agreed as to the propriety of requiring th^ King to swear that, in temporal matters, he would govern according to law, and would execute justice in mercy. But about the terms of the oath which related to the spiritual institutions of the realm there was much debate. Should the chief magistrate promise simply to maintain the Pro- testant religion established by law, or should he promise to maintain that religion as it should be hereafter estab- lished by law? The majority preferred the former phrase. The latter phrase was preferred by those Whigs who were for a Comprehension. But it was admitted that the two phrases really meant the same thing, and that the oath, however it might be worded, would bind the Sovereign in his executive capacity only. This was indeed evident from the very nature of the transaction. Any compact may be annulled by the free consent of the party who alone is en- titled to claim the performance. It was never doubted by the most rigid casuist that a debtor, who has bound him- self under the most awful imprecations to pay a debt, may lawfully withhold payment if the creditor is willing to can- cel the obligation. . And it is equally clear that no assur- ance, exacted from a King by the Estates of his kingdom, can bind him to refuse compliance with what may at a fu- ture time be the wish of those Estates. A bill was drawn up in conformity with the resolutions of the committee, and was rapidly passed through every stage. After the third reading, a foolish man stood up to propose a rider, declaring that the oath was not meant to restrain the Sovereign from consenting to any change in the ceremonial of the Church, provided always that epis- copacy and a written form of prayer were retained. The gross absurdity of this motion was exposed by several eminent members. Such a clause, they justly remarked, would bind the King under pretence of setting him free. The coronation oath, they said, was never intended to trammel him in his legislative capacity. Leave that oath as it is now drawn, and no prince can misunderstand it. No prince can seriously imagine that the two Houses mean $2 HISTORY OF ENGLANl3i to exact from him a promise that he will piit k veto on laws which they may hereafter think necessary to the well- being of the country. Or if any prince should so strangely misapprehend the nature of the contract between him and his subjects, any divine, any lawyer, to whose advice he may have recourse, will set his mind at ease. But if this rider should pass, it will be impossible to deny that the coronation oath is meant to prevent the King from giving his assent to bills which may be presented to him by the Lords and Comrndns; and the most serious inconveniences may follow. These arguments were felt to be unanswer- able, and the proviso was rejected without a division.* Every person who has read these debates must be fully convinced that the statesmen who framed the coronation oath did not mean to bind the King in his legislative ca« pacity.f Unhappily, more than a hundred years later, a scruple, which those statesmen thought too absurd to be seriously entertained by any human being, found its way into a mind, honest, indeed, and religious, but harrow and obstinate by nature, and at once debilitated and excited by disease. Seldom, indeed, have the ambition and perfidy of tyrants produced evils greater than those which were brought on our country by that fatal conscientiousness. A conjuncture singularly auspicious, a conjuncture at which wisdom and justice might perhaps have reconciled races and sects long hostile, and might have made the Bn.tish Islands one truly United Kingdom, was suffered to pass away. The opportunity, once lost, returned no more. Two generations of public men have since labored with imperfect success to repair the error which was then com- mitted; nor is it improbable that some of the penalties of that error may continue to afflict a remote posterity. The bill by which the oath was settled passed the Up- per House without amendment. All the preparations * Journals March 28, 1689; Grey's Debates. t I will quote some expressions which have been preserved in the concise reports of tihese debates. Those expressions are quite decisive as to the sense in which the oath was understood by the legislators who framed it. Musgrave said, "There is no occasion for this proviso. It cannot be imagined that any bill from hence will ever destroy the legislative power." Finch said, "The words, ^established by law,' hinder not the king from passing any bill for the relief of Dissenters. The proviso makes the scruple and gives the occasion for it." Sawyer said, "This is the first proviso of this nature 'that ever was in any bill. It seems to strike at the legislative power." Sir Robert Cotton said, "Though the proviso looks well and healing, yet it seems to imply a defect. Not able to alter laws as occasion requires! This, instead of one scruple, raises more as if you were so bound up to the ecclesiastical government that you cannot make any new laws without such a proviso." Sir Thomas Lee said, ''It will, I fear, creep in that other laws cannot be made without such a proviso; therefore I would lay it aside." WILLIAM AND MARY. 93 were complete; and, on the nth of April, the coronation took place. In some things it differed from ordinary cor- onations. The representatives of the people attended the ceremony in a body, and were sumptuously feasted in the Exchequer Chamber. Mary, being not merely Queen Consort, but also Queen Regent, was inaugurated in all things like a King, was girt with a sword, lifted up into the throne, and presented with the Bible, the spurs, and the orb. Of the temporal grandees of the realm, and of their wives and daughters, the muster was great and splen- did. None could be surprised that the Whig aristocracy should swell the triumph of Whig principles. But the Jacobites saw, with concern, that many Lords who had voted for a Regency bore a conspicuous part in the cere- monial. The King's crown was carried by Grafton, the Queen's by Somerset. The pointed sword, emblematical of temporal justice, was borne by Pembroke. Orm.ond was Lord High Constable for the day, and rode up the hall on the right hand of the hereditary champion, who thrice flung down his glove on the pavement, and thrice defied to mortal combat the false traitor who should gain- say the title of William and Mary. Among the noble damsels who supported the gorgeous train of the Queen was her beautiful and gentle cousin, the Lady Henrietta Hyde, whose father, Rochester, had to the last contended against the resolution which declared the throne vacant.* The show of Bishops, indeed, was scanty. The Primate did not make his appearance and his place was supplied by Compton. On one side of Compton, the paten was car- ried by Lloyd, Bishop of Saint Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year. On the other side, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the chalice. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment. His grave and elo- quent discourse was polluted neither by flattery nor by ma- lignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may well be believed that the animated peroration in which he implored heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with vic- tory, with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious * Lady Henrietta, whom her uncle Clarendon calls "pretty little Lady Henrietta," and "the best child in the world" (Diary, Jan. 1687-8), was soon after married to the Earl Palkeith, eldest son of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, 94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest hums of the Commons.* On the whole the ceremony went off well, and produced something like a revival, faint, indeed, and transient, of the enthusiasm of the preceding December. The day was, in London, and in many other places, a day of general re- joicing. The churches were filled in the morning: the afternoon was spent in sport and carousing ; and at night bonfires were kindled, rockets discharged, and win- dows lighted up. The Jacobites, however^ contrived to discover or to invent abundant matter for scurrility and sarcasm. They complained bitterly that the way from the hall to the western door of the Abbey had been lined by Dutch soldiers. Was it seemly that an English king should enter into the most solemn of engagements with the Eng- lish nation behind a tripple hedge of foreign swords and bayonets? Little affrays, such as, at every great pageant, almost inevitably take place between those who are eager to see the show and those whose business it is to keep the communications clear, were exaggerated with all the artifices cf rhetoric. One of the alien mercenaries had backed his horse against an honest citizen who pressed for- ward to catch a glimpse of the royal canopy. Another had rudely pushed back a woman with the butt end of his musket. On such grounds as these the strangers were compared to those Lord Danes whose insolence, in the old time, had provoked the Anglo Saxon population to insur- rection and massacre. But there was no more fertile theme for censure than the coronation medal, which really was absurd in design and mean in execution. A chariot ap- peared conspicuous on the reverse; and plain people were at a loss to understand what this emblem had to do with William and Mary. The disaffected wits solved the diffi- culty by suggesting that the artist meant to allude to that chariot which a Roman princess, lost to all filial affection, and blindly devoted to the interests of an ambitious hus- band, drove over the still warm remains of her father. f * The sermon deserves to be read. See the London Gazette of April 14, 1689; Evelyn'a Diary; Luttrell's Diary; and the Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors to the States General. t A specimen of the prose which the Jacobites wrote on this subject will be found among the Soraers Tracts. The Jacobite verses were generally too loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the most decent lines from a very rare lampoon: The eleventh of April has come about, To Westminster went the rabble rout, WILLIAM AND MARY. 95 Honor^ Harare, as usual, liberally bestowed at this festive season. Three garters, which happened to be at the dis- posal of the Crown, were given to Devonshire, Ormond and Schomberg. Prince George was created Duke of Cum- berland. Several eminent men took new appellations by which they must henceforth be designated. Danby be- came Marquess ot Caermarthen, Churchill Earl of Marl- borough, and Benrinck Earl of Portland. Mordaunt was made Earl of Monmouth, not without some murmuring on the part of old exclasionists, who still remembered with fondness their Protestant Duke, and who had hoped that his attainder would be reversed, and that his title would be borne by his descendants. It was remarked that the name of Halifax did not appear in the list of promotions. None could doubt that he might easily have obtained either a blue ribbon or a ducal coronet; and, though he was honor- ably distinguished from most of his contemporaries by his scorn of illicit gain, it was well known that he desired hon- orary distinctions with a greediness of which he was him- self ashamed, and which was unworthy of his fine under- standing. The truth is that his ambition was at this time chilled by his fears. To those whom he trusted he hinted his apprehensions that evil times were at hand. The King's life was not worth a year's purchase: the government was disjointed, the clergy and the army disaffected, the parlia- ment torn by factions: civil war was already raging in one part of the empire: foreign war was impending. At such a moment a minister, whether Whig or Tory, might well be In order to crown a bundle of clouts, A dainty fine king indeed. " Descended he is from the Orange tree; But, if I can read his destiny, He'll once more descend from another tree, A dainty »fine king indeed. " He has gotten part of the shape of a man, But more of a monkey, deny it who can; He has the head of a goose, but the legs of a crane, A dainty fine king indeed." A. Frenchman named Le Noble, who had been banished from his own country for his crimes, but by the connivance of the police, lurked in Paris, and earned a precarious livelihood as a bookseller's hack, published on this occasion two pasquinades, now ex- tremely scarce, '^Le Couronnement de Guillemot et de Guillemette, avec le Sermon du prand Docteur Burnet," and ''Le Festin de Guillemot," In wit, taste, and good sense, Le iN'oble's writings are not inferior to the English poem which I have quoted. He tells us that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London had a boxing match in the Abbey; that the champion rode up the Hall on an ass, which turned restive and kicked over the royal table with all the plate; and that the banquet ended in a fight between the peers armed with stools and benches, and the cooks armed with spits. This sort of pleasnntry. strange to say, found readers; and the writer's portrs^it W*s pompOUily fR- ^n^ved with Uie '.notto, ''J^atrantes ride: te tya fam^ pianpt," 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. uneasy: but neither Whig nor Tory had so much to fear as the Trimmer, who might not improbably find himself the common mark at which both parties would take aim. For these reasons Halifax determined to avoid all ostenta- tion of power and influence, to disarm envy by a studied show of moderation, and to attach to himself by civilities and benefits persons whose gratitude might be useful in ^ the event of a counter-revolution. The next three months, he said, would be the time of trial. If the government got safe through the summer it would probably stand.* Meanwhile questions of external policy were every day becoming more and more important. The work at which William had toiled indefatigably during many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The great co- alition was formed. It was plain that a desperate conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to defend himself against England allied with Charles the Second King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of Austria on the Danube. Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his enemies at a disadvantage, and had struck the first blow before they were prepared to parry it. But that blow, though heavy, was not aimed at the part where it might have been mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on the Batavian frontier, William and his army would probably have been detained on the Continent, and James might have continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis, under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confi- dently ascribed to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the point on which the fate of the whole civilized world depended, and had made a great display of power, promptitude, and energy, in a quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce nothing more than an illumination and a Te Deum. A French army under the command of Marshal Duras had invaded the Palatin- ate and some of the neighboring principalities. But this expedition, though it had been completely successful, and though the skill and vigor with which it had been con- ducted had excited general admiration, could not percepti- bly affect the event of the tremendous struggle which was * l^er^sby's Memoirs, WILLIAM AND kARlf. 97 approaching. France would soon be attacked on every side. It would be impossible for Duras long to retain pos- session of the provinces which he had surprised and over- ^ run. An atrocious thought rose in the mind of Louvois, who, in military affairs, had the chief sway at Versailles. He was a man distinguished by zeal for what he thought the public interests, by capacity, and by knowledge of all that related to the administration of war, but of a savage and obdurate nature. If the cities of the Palatinate could not be retained, they might be destroyed. If the soil of the Palatinate was not to furnish supplies to the French, it might be so wasted that it would at least furnish no supplies to the Germans. The iron-hearted statesman sub- mitted his plan, probably with much management and with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour for his fame, assented. Duras received orders to turn one of the fairest regions of Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen years had elapsed since Turenne had ravaged part of that fine country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they have left a deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of this second devastation. The French commander announced to near half a million of human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their homes. Many died of cold and hunger: but enough survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The flames went up from every market -place, every hamlet, every parish church, every country seat, within the devoted provinces. The fields where the corn had been sown were ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. No prom- ise of a harvest was left on the fertile plains near what had once been Frankenthal. Not a vine, not an almond tree, was to be seen on the slopes of the sunny hills round what had once been Heidelberg. No respect was shown to palaces, to temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, to beau- ful works of art, to monuments of the illustrious dead. The far famed castle of the Elector Palatine was turned into a heap of ruins. The adjoining hospital was sacked. The provisions, the medicinesi, the pallets on which the 98 HISTORY OF ENGLANDi sick lay were destroyed. The very stones of which Man- heim had been built were flung into the Rhine. The mag- nificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it the marble sepulchres of eight Caesars. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. ^ Treves with its fair bridge, its Roman baths and amphi- theater, its venerable churches, convents, and colleges, was doomed to the same fate. But, before this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all the neighboring nations, by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the expostu- lations of his wife. He had been more than two years secretly married to Frances de Maintenon, the governess of his natural children. It would be hard to name any woman who, with so little romance in her temper, has had so much in her life. Her early years had been passed in poverty and obscurity. Her first husband had supported himself by writing burlesque farces and poems. When she attracted the notice of her sovereign, she could no longer boast of youth or beauty: but she possessed in an extra- ordinary degree those more lasting charms, which men of sense, whose passions age has tamed, and whose life is a life of business and care, prize most highly in a female companion. Her character was such as has been well compared to that soft green on which the eye, wearied by warm tints and glaring lights, reposes with pleasure. A just understanding; an inexhaustible yet never redun- dant flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly conversation; a temper of which the serenity was never for a moment ruflled; a tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact of ours; such were the qualities which made the widow of a bufl^oon first the confidential friend, and then the spouse, of the proudest and most powerful of European kings. It was said that Lewis had been with difficulty prevented by the arguments and vehement entreaties of Louvois from declaring her Queen of France. It is certain that she regarded Louvois as her enemy. Her hatred of him, co-operating perhaps with better feelings, induced her to plead the cause of the unhappy people of the Ehine. She appealed to those sen- * For the history of the devastation of the Palatinate, see the Memoirs of La Fare, Dangeau, Madame de la Fayette, Villars, and St. Simon, and the Monthly Mercuries fof March and April 1689. The pamphlets and broadsides are too numerous to quote. One broadside, entitled "A true account of the barbarous Cruelties committed by the French in the Palatinate in January and February last," is perhaps the most remarkable. WILLIAM AND MARY. 99 timents of compassion which, though weakened by many corrupting influences, were not altogether extinct in her husband's mind, and to those sentiments of religion which had too often impelled him to cruelty, but which, on the present occasion, were on the side of humanity. He re- lented; and Treves was spared.* In truth he could hardly .fail to perceive that he had committed a great error. The 'devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not in any sensi- ble degree lessened the power of his enemies, had inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them with inexhausti- ble matter for invective. The cry of vengeance rose on every side. Whatever scruple either branch of the House of Austria might have felt about coalescing with Protest- ants was completely removed. It was in vain that Lewis accused the Emperor and the Catholic King of having be- trayed the cause of the Church; of having allied themselves with an usurper who was the avowed champion of the great schism; of having been accessory to the foul wrong done to a lawful sovereign who was guilty of no crime but zeal for the true religion. It was in vain that James sent to Vienna and Madrid piteous letters, in which he re- counted his misfortunes, and implored the assistance of his brother kings, his brethren also in the faith, against the unnatural children and the rebellious subjects who had driven him into exile. There was little difficulty in fram- ing a plausible answer both to the reproaches of Lewis and to the supplications of James. Leopold and Charles declared that they had not, even for purposes of just self- defence, leagued themselves with heretics, till their enemy had, for purposes of unjust aggression, leagued himself with Mahometans. Nor was this the worst. The French King, not content with assisting the Moslem against the Christians, was himself treating Christians with a barbarity which would have shocked the very Moslem. His infidel allies, to do them justice, had not perpetrated on the Dan- ube such outrages against the edifices and the members of the Holy Catholic Church as he who called himself the eldest son of that Church was perpetrating on the Rhine. On these grounds, the princes to whom James had appealed replied by appealing, with many professions of good wil,' and compassion, to himself. He was surely too just to blame them for thinking that it was their first duty to defend their own people against such outrages as had * Memoirs of St. Simon. 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. turned the Palatinate into a desert, or for calling in the aid of Protestants against an enemy who had not scrupled to call in the aid of Turks.* During the winter and the earlier part of the spring, the powers hostile to France were gathering their strength for a great effort, and were in constant communication with one another. As the season for military operations ap- proached, the solemn appeals of injured nations to the God of battles came forth in rapid succession. The mani- festo of the Germanic body appeared in February; that of the States General in March; that of the House of Bran- denburg in April; and that of Spain in May.f Here, as soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over, the House of Commons determined to take into con- sideration the late proceedings of the French King.J In the debate, that hatred of the powerful, unscrupulous, and imperious Lewis, which had, during twenty years of vassal- age, been festering in the hearts of Englishmen, broke vio- iently forth. He was called the most Christian Turk, the most Christian ravager of Christendom, the most Christian barbarian who had perpetrated on Christians outrages of which his infidel allies would have been ashamed. § A com- mittee, consisting chiefly of ardent Whigs, was appointed to prepare an address. John Hampden, the most ardent Whig among them, was put into the chair; and he pro- duced a composition too long, too rhetorical, and too vitu- perative, to suit the lips of the Speaker or the ears of the King. Invectives against Lewis might, perhaps, in the temper in which the House then was, have passed without censure, if they had not been accompanied by severe re- flections on the character and administration of Charles the Second, whose memory, in spite of all his faults, was ♦ I will quote a few lines from Leopold's letter to James: "Nunc autem quo loco res nostrae sint, ut Serenitati vestrae auxilium praestari possit a nobis, qui non Turcico tan- tum belloimpliciti, sed insuper etiam crudelissimo et iniquissimoa Gallis, rerum suarumj ut putabarft, in Anglia securis, contra datam fidem impediti sumus, ipsimet Serenitati vestrae judicandum relinquimus. . . . Galli non tantum in nostruni et totius Chrlstianaa orbis perniciem foedifraga arma cum juratis Sanctae Crucis hostibus sociare fas sibi ducunt; sed etiam in imperio, perfidiam perfidia cumulando, urbes deditione occupatas contra datam fidem immensis tributis exhaurire, exhaustas diripere, direptas funditus cxscindere aut flammis delere, Palatia Principum ab omni antiquitate inter ssevissima bellorum incendia intacta servata exurere, templa spoliare, dedititios in servitutem more apud barbaros usitato abducere, denique passim, imprimis vero etiam^ in Catholicorum ditionibus, alia horrenda, et ipsam Turcorum tyrannidem superantia immanitatis et saevitiae exempla edere pro ludo habent." t See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25, March 11, April 22, May 2, and the Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will be found in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplo- matique. $ Commons* Journals, April 15, 16, 1689, 9 Oldmixoa. WILLIAM AND MARY. 101 affectionately cherished by the Tories. There were some very intelligible allusions to Charles's dealings with the Court at Versailles, and to the foreign woman whom that Court had sent to lie like a snake in his bosom. The House was with good reason dissatisfied. The address was recommitted, and, having been made more concise, and less declamatory and acrimonious, was approved and pre- sented.* William's attention was called to the wrongs which France had done to him and to his kingdom; and he was assured that, whenever he should resort to arms for the redress of those wrongs, he should be heartily sup- ported by his people. He thanked the Commons warmly. Ambition, he said, should never induce him to draw the sword: but he had no choice: France had already attacked England; and it was necessary to exercise the right of self-defence. A few days later war was proclaimed, f Of the grounds of quarrel alleged by the Commons in their address, and by the King in his manifesto, che 'most serious was the interference of Lewis in the affairs of Ireland. In that country great events had, during several months, followed one another in rapid succession. Of those events it is now time to relate the histoy, a history dark with crime and sorrow, yet full of interest and in- struction. • CHAPTER XII.— (1689.) William had assumed, together with the title of King of England, the title of King of Ireland. For all our jurists then regarded Ireland as a mere colony, more important indeed than Massachusetts, Virginia, or Jamaica, but, like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Jamaica, dependent on the mother country, and bound to pay allegiance to the Sover- eign whom the mother country had called to the throne. J In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emanci- pated from the dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686, James had determined to make that island a place of arms which might overawe Great Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any disaster happened in Great * Commons' Journals, April 19, 24, 26, 1689. t The declaration is dated on the 7th of May, but was not published in the London Gazette till the 13th. % The general opinion of the English on this subject is clearly expressed in a littU tract entitled "Aphorisms relating to the Kingdom of Ireland," which appeared during the vacancy of the throne. 102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Britain, the members of his Church might find refuge. With this view he had exerted all his power for the pur- pose of inverting the relation between the conquerors and the aboriginal population. The execution of his design he had entrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his English counsellors, to the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of 1688, the process was complete. The highest offices in the state, in the army, and in the Courts of Justice, were, with scarcely an exception, filled by Papists. A pettifog- ger named Alexander Fitton, who had been detected in forgery, who had been fined for misconduct by the House of Lords at Westminster, who had been many years in prison, and who was equally deficient in legal knowledge and in the natural good sense and acuteness by which the want of legal knowledge has sometimes been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His single merit was that he had apostatised from the Protestant religion; and this merit was thought sufficient to wash out even the stain of his Saxon extraction. He soon proved himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons. On the bench of justice he de- clared that-there was not one heretic in forty thousand who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the interests of his Church were concerned, post- poned bis decision, for the purpose, as he avowed, of con- sulting his spiritual director, a Spanish priest, well read doubtless in Escobar."^ Thomas Nugent, a Roman Catho- lic who had never distinguished himself at the bar except by his brogue and his blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. f Stephen Rice, a Roman Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed even by the ene- mies of his nation and religion, but whose known hostility to the Act of Settlement excited the most painful appre- hensions in the minds of all who held property under that Act, was Chief Baron of the Exchequer.J Richard Nagle, an acute and well read lawyer, who had been educated in. a Jesuit college, and whose prejudices were such as might have been expected from his education, was Attorney Gen« eral.§ Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief * King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6, and iii. 3. t King, iii. 3. Clarendon in a letter to Rochester (June i, 1686), calls Nugent "a very troublesome, impertinent creature." King, iii. 3. § King, ii. 6, iii. 3, Clarendon in a letter to Ormond (Sept. 28, 1686), speaks highly o£ Nagle's knowledge and ability, but in the Diary (Jan. 311 1686-7), calls him "a covetous, ambitious ma/>." WILLIAM AND MARY. 103 Justice o£ the Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic Judges sate with him. It ought to be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of sense, moderation, and integrity. The matters however which came before the Court of Common Pleas were not of great moment. Even the King's Bench was at this time almost deserted. The Court of Exchequer overflowed with business; for it was the only court at Dublin from which no writ of error lay to England, and consequently the only court in which the English could be oppressed and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was said, had declared that they should have from him exactly what the law, construed with the utmost strictness, gave them, and nothing more. What, in his opinion, the law, strictly construed, gave them, they could easily infer from a saying which, before he became a judge, was often in his mouth. ^T will drive," he used to say, "a coach and six through the Act of Settlement.'* He now carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all Protestants was that it mattered not what evidence they produced before him; that, when their titles were to be set aside, the rankest forgeries, the most infamous wit- nesses, were sure to have his countenance. To his court his countrymen came in multitudes with writs of eject- ment and writs of trespass. In his court the government attacked at once the charters of all the cities and boroughs in Ireland; and he easily found pretexts for pronouncing all those charters forfeited. The municipal corporations, about a hundred in number, had been instituted to be the strongholds of the reformed religion and of the English interest, and had consequently been regarded by the Irish Roman Catholics with an aversion which cannot be thought unnatural or unreasonable. Had those bodies been remodelled in a judicious and impartial manner, the irregularity of the proceedings by which so desirable a re- sult had been attained might have been pardoned. But it soon appeared that one exclusive system had been swept away only to make room for another. The boroughs were subjected to the absolute authority of the Crown. Towns in which almost every householder was an English Protes- tant were placed under the government of Irish Roman Catholics. Many of the new aldermen had never even seen the places over which they were appointed to bear rule. At the same time the sheriffs, to whom be- longed the execution of writs .-nd the nomination of juries^. 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. were selected in almost every instance from the caste which had till very recently been excluded from all public trust. It was affirmed that some.of these important func- tionaries had been burned in the hand for theft. Others had been servants to Protestants; and the Protestants ad- ded, with bitter scorn, that it was fortunate for the coun- try when this was the case; for that a menial who had cleaned the plate and rubbed down the horse of an Eng- lish gentleman might pass for a civilized being, when compared with many of the native aristocracy whose lives had been spent in coshering or marauding. To such sheriffs no colonist, even if he had been so strangely for- tunate as to obtain a judgment, dared to entrust an ex- ecution.* Thus the civil power had, in the space of a few months, been transferred from the Saxon to the Celtic population. The transfer of the military power had been not less com- plete. The army, which under the command of Ormond, had been the chief safeguard of the English ascendency, had ceased to exist. Whole regiments had been dissolved and reconstructed. Six thousand Protestant veterans, deprived of their bread, were brooding in retirement over their wrongs, or had crossed the sea and joined the stand- ard of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long suffered oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed from slaves into masters, were im- patient to pay back, with accumulated usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by some foul name. They were the ter- ror of every Protestant inn- keeper; for, from the moment when they came under his roof, they ate and drank every- thing: they paid for nothing; and by their rude swagger- ing they scared more respectable guests from his door.f Such was the state of Ireland when the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay. From that time every packet * King, ii. 5. i, iii. 3, 5; A Short View of the Methods made use of in Ireland for the Supervision and Destruction of the Protestant Religion and Interests, by a Clergyman lately escaped from thence, licensed October 17, 1689. t King, iii. 2. I cannot find that Charles Leslie, who was zealous on the other side, has, in his answer to King, contradicted any of these facts. Indeed Leslie gives up Tyrconnel's administration. ''I desire to obviate one objection which I know will be made, as if I were about wholly to vindicate all that the Lord Tyrconnel and other of King James's ministers have done in Ireland, especially before this revolution began, and which most of anything brought it on. No; I am far from it. I am sensible that their carriage in many particulars gave greater occasion to King James's enemies than alj the other maladministrations which were charged upon his government." — Leslie's An- swer to King, 1692, WILLIAM AND MARY. Vi^hich arrived at Dublin brought tidings, such as could not but increase the mutual fear and loathing of the hos- tile races. The colonist, who, after long enjoying and abusing power, had now tasted for a moment the bitter- ness of servitude, the native, who having drunk to the dregs all the bitterness of servitude, had at length for a moment enjoyed and abused power, were alike sensible that a great crisis, a crisis like that of 1641, was at hand, rhe majority impatiently expected Phelim O'Neil to re- vive in Tyrconnel. The minority saw in William a second Oliver. On which side the first blow was struck was a question i/hich Williamites and Jacobites afterwards debated with much asperity. But no question could be more idle. His- tory must do to both parties the justice which neither has ever done to the other, and must admit that both had fair pleas and cruel provocations. Both had been placed, by a fate for which neither was answerable, in such a situation that, human nature being what it is, they could not but regard each other with enmity. A king, who perhaps might have reconciled them, had, year after year, system- atically employed his whole power for the purpose of in- flaming their enmity to madness. It was now impossible to establish in Ireland a just and beneficent government, a government which should know no distinction of race or of sect, a government which, while strictly respecting the rights guaranteed by law to the new land-owners, should alleviate, by a judicious liberality, the misfortunes of the ancient gentry. The opportunity had passed away; com- promise had become impossible: the two infuriated castes were alike convinced that it was necessary to oppress or to be oppressed, and that there could be no safety but in victory, vengeance, and dominion. They agreed only in spurning out of the way every mediator who sought to reconcile them. During some weeks there were outrages, insults, evil reports, violent panics, the natural preludes of the terrible conflict which was at hand. A rumor spread over the whole island that, on the ninth of December, there would be a general massacre of the Englishry. Tyrconnel sent for the chief Protestants of Dublin to the Castle, and, with his usual energy of diction, invoked on himself all the veageance of heaven, if the report was not a cursed, a blasted, a confounded lie. It was said that, in his rage at io6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. finding his oaths ineffectual, he pulled off his hat and wig, and flung them into the fire.* But lying Dick Talbot was so well known that his imprecations and gesticulations only strengthened the apprehension which they were meant to allay. Ever since the recall of Clarendon there had been a large emigration of timid and quiet people from the Irish ports to England. That emigration now went on faster than ever. It was not easy to obtain a passage on board of a well-built or commodious vessel But many persons, made bold by exces§ of fear, and choosing rather to trust the winds and waves than the exasperated Irishry, ventured to encounter all the dangers of St. George's Channel and of the Welsh coast in open boats and in the depth of win- ter. The English who remained began, in almost every county, to draw close together. Every large country house became a fortress. Every visitor who arrived after nightfall was challenged from a loophole or from a barri- caded window; and if he attempted to enter without pass- words and explanations, a blunderbus was presented to him. On the dreaded night of the ninth of December, there was scarcely one Protestant mansion from the Giant's Causeway to Bantry Bay in which armed men were not watching and lights burning from the early sunset to the late sunrise.f A minute account of what passed in one district at this time has come down to us, and well illustrates the general state of the kingdom. The south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful tract in the Brit- ish Isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes stretching far into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets brawling down rocky passes, the lakes over- hung by groves in which the wild deer find covert, attract every summer crowds of wanderers sated with the business and the pleasures of great cities. The beauties of that country are indeed too often hidden in the mist and rain which the w^est wind brings up from a boundless ocean. But, on the rare days when the sun shines out all his glory, the landscape has a freshness and a warmth of col- oring seldom found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better than tven on the sunny shore of Calabria.^ The turf is of livelier hue than else- * A True and Impartial Account of the most material Passages in Ireland since De- cember, 1688, by a gentleman who was an I.ye-witness; licensed July 22, 1689. t A True and Impartial Account, 1689; Leslie's Answer to King, 1692. There have been in the neighborhood of Killarney specimens of the arbutus thirty (cct high and four fe&t and a half round. See the Philosophical Transactions, 227, WILLIAM AND MARY. 107 where: the hills glow with a richer purple: the varnish of the holly and ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a brighter green. But during the greater part of the seventeenth century this paradise was as little known to the civilized world as Spitzbergen or Greenland. If ever it was mentioned, it was mentioned as a horrible desert, a chaos of bogs, thickets, and preci- pices, where the she-wolf still littered, and where some half- naked savages, who could not speak a word of English, made themselves burrows in the mud, and lived on roots and sour milk.* At length, in the year 1670, the benevolent and enlight- ened Sir William Petty determined to form an English settlement in this wild district. He possessed a large do- main there, which has descended to a posterity worthy of such an ancestor. On the improvement of that domain he expended, it was said, not less than ten thousand pounds. The little town which he founded, named from the bay of Kenmare, stood at the head of that bay under a mountain ridge, on the summit of which travellers now stop to gaze upon the loveliest of the three lakes of Killarney. Scarcely any village, built by an enterprising band of New Eng- landers, far from the dwellings of their countrymen, in the midst of the hunting grounds of the Red Indians, was more completely out of the pale of civilization than Ken- mare. Between Petty's settlement and the nearest English habitation, the journey by land was of two days through a wild and dangerous country. Yet the place prospered. Forty-two houses were erected. The population amounted to a hundred and eighty. The land round the town was well cultivated. The cattle were numerous. Two small barks were employed in fishing and trading along the coast. The supply of herrings, pilchards, mackerel, and salmon was plentiful, and would have been still more plentiful, had not the beach been, in the finest part of the * In a very full account of the British isles published at Nuremberg in 1690, Keiry is described as "an vielen Orten unwegsam und voller Walder und Gebiirge." Wolves still infested Ireland. ''Kein schadlich Thier ist da, ausserhalb Wolff und Fiiches." So late as the year 1710 money was levied on presentments of the Grand Jury of Kerry for the destruction of wolves in that county. See Smith's Ancient and Modern State of the County of Kerry, 1756. I -do not know that I have ever met with a better book of the kind and of the size. In a poem published as late as 1719, and entitled Macder- mot, or the Irish Fortune Hunter, in six cantos, wolf-hunting and wolf-spearing are re- presented as common sports in Munster. In William's reign Ireland was sometimes called by the nickname of Wolfland. Thus in a poem on the battle of La Hogue, called Advice to a Painter, the terror of the Irish army is thus described: •'A chilling damp And Wolfland howl runs thro' the rising camp." to8 / HISTORY OF ENGLAND. year, covered by multitudes of seals, which preyed on the fish of the bay. Yet the seal was not an unwelcome vis- itor: his fur was valuable, and his oil supplied light through the long nights of winter. An attempt was made with great success to set up iron works. It was not yet the practice to employ coal for the purpose of smelting; and the manufacturers of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring timber at a reasonable price. The neighbor- hood of Kenmare was then richly wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send ore thither. The lovers of the picturesque still regret the woods of oak and arbutus which were cut down to feed his furnaces. An- other scheme had occurred to his active and intelligent mind. Some of the neighboring islands abounded with variegated marble, red and white, purple and green. Petty well knew at what cost the ancient Romans had deco- rated their baths and temples with many colored columns hewn from Laconian and African quarries; and he seems to have indulged the hope that the rocks of his wild do- main in Kerry miglit furnish embellishments to the man- sions of Saint James's Square, and to the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral.* From the first, the settlers had found that they must be prepared to exercise the right of self-defence to an extent which would have been unnecessary and unjustifiable in a well governed country. The law was altogether without force in the highlands which lie on the south of the vale of Tralee. No officer of justice willingly ventured into those parts. One pursuivant, who in 1680 attempted to execute a warrant there, was murdered. The people of Ken- mare seem however to have been sufficiently secured by their union, their intelligence, and their spirit, till the close of the year 1688. Then at length the effects of the policy of Tyrconnel began to be felt even in that remote corner of Ireland. In the eyes of the peasantry of Munster the colonists were aliens and heretics. The buildings, the boats, the machines, the granaries, the dairies, the fur- naces, were doubtless contemplated by the native race with that mingled envy and contempt with which the ignorant naturally regard the triumphs of knowledge. Nor is it at all improbable that the emigrants had been guilty of thoee faults from which civilized men who settle among an un- civilized peo ple are rarely, free. The power derived from * Smith's Ancient and Modern State of Kerry. WILLIAM AND MARY. 109 superior intelligence had, we may easily believe, been sometimes displayed with insolence, and sometimes ex- erted with injustice. Now, therefore, when the news spread from altar to altar, and from cabin to cabin, that the stran- gers were to be driven out, and that their houses and lands were to be given as a booty to the children of the soil, a predatory war commenced. Plunderers, thirty, forty, sev- enty in a troop, prowled round the town, some with fire- arms, some with pikes. The barns were robbed. The horses were stolen. In one foray a hundred and forty cattle were swept away and driven off through the ravines of Glengariff. In one night six dwellings were broken open and pillaged. At last the colonists, driven to ex- tremity, resolved to die like men rather than be murdered in their beds. The house built by Petty for his agent was the largest in the place. It stood on a rocky peninsula round which the waves of the bay broke. Here the whole population assembled, seventy-five fighting men, with about a hundred women and children. They had among them sixty firelocks, and as many pikes and swords. Round the agent's house they threw up with great speed a wall of turf fourteen feet in height and twelve in thick- ness. The space enclosed was about half an acre. With- in this rampart all the arms, the ammunition, and the pro- visions of the settlement were collected, and several huts of thin plank were built. When these preparations were completed, the men of Kenmare began to make vigorous reprisals on their Irish neighbors, seized robbers, recovered stolen property, and continued during some weeks to act in all things as an independent commonwealth. The gov- ernment was carried on by elective officers to whom every member of the society swore fidelity on the Holy Gospels.* While the people of the small town of Kenmare were thus bestirring themselves, similar preparations for defence were made by larger communities on a larger scale. Great numbers of gentlemen and yeomen quitted the. open coun- try, and repaired to those towns which had been founded and incorporated for the purpose of bridling the native population, and which, though recently placed under the government of Roman Catholic magistrates, were still in- habited chiefly by Protestants. A considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo, another at Charleville, * Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies and Losses sustained by the Protest* anU of Kilmare in Ireland, 1689; Smith's Ancient and Modern State of Kerry, 17 s^* no HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a third at Mallow, a foi^rth still more formidable at Ban- don.* But the principal strongholds of the Englishry dur- ing this evil time were Enniskillen and Londonderry. Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Ferman- agh, was then merely a village. It was built on an island surrounded by the river which joins the two beautiful sheets of water known by the common name of Lough Erne. The stream and both the lakes were overhung on every side by natural forests. Enniskillen consisted of about eighty dwellings clustering round an ancient castle. The inhabitants were, with scarcely an exception, Protest- ants, and boasted that their town had been true to the Protestant cause through the terrible rebellion which broke out in 1641. Early in December they received from Dub- lin an intimation that two companies of Popish infantry were to be immediately quartered on them. The alarm of the little community was great, and the greater because it was known that a preaching friar had been exerting him- self to inflame the Irish population of the neighborhood against the heretics. A daring resolution was taken. Come what might, the troops should not be admitted. Yet the means of defence were slender. Not ten pounds of powder, not twenty firelocks fit for use, could be collected within the walls. Messengers were sent with pressing letters to summon the Protestant gentry of the vicinage to the rescue: and the summons was gallantly obeyed. In a few hours two hundred foot and a hundred and fifty horse had assembled. Tyrconnel's soldiers were already at hand. They brought with them a considerable supply of arms to be distributed among the peasantry. The peas- antry greeted the royal standard with delight, and accom- panied the march in great numbers. The townsmen and their allies, instead of waiting to be attacked, came boldly forth to encounter the intruders. The officers of James had expected no resistance. They were confounded when they saw confronting them a column of foot, flanked by a large body of mounted gentlemen and yeomen. The crowd of camp followers ran away in terror. The soldiers made a retreat so precipitate that it might be called a flight, and scarcely halted till they were thirty miles off at Cavan.f * Ireland's Lamentation, licensed May 18, 1689, t A True Relation of the Actions of the Inniskilling men, by Andrew Hamilton, Rector of Kilskerrie, and one of the Prebends of the Diocese of Clogher, an Eye-witness thereof and Actor therein, licensed Jan. 15. 1689-90; A Further Impartial Account of the Actioas of the louiskillin^ men, by Captain WiiHam MacCormick, one of the firs" that •^Qok up Arms, I'o^^ WILLIAM AND MARY. Ill The Protestants, elated by this easy victory, proceeded to make arrangements for the government and defence of Enniskillen and of the surrounding country. Gustavus Hamilton, a gentleman who had served in the army, but who had recently been deprived of his commission by Tyrcon- nel, and had since been living on an estate in Fermanagh, was appointed Governor, and took up his residence in the castle. Trusty men were enlisted and armed with great expedition. As there was a scarcity of swords and pikes, smiths were employed to make weapons by fastening scythes on poles. All the country houses round Lough Erne were turned into garrisons. No Papist was suffered to be at large in the town; and the friar who was accused of exerting his eloquence against the Englishry was thrown into prison. The other great fastness of Protestantism was a place of more importance. Eighty years before, during the troubles caused by the last struggle of the houses of O'Neil and O'Donnell against the authority of James the First, the ancient city of Derry had been surprised by one of the native chiefs: the inhabitants had been slaughtered, and the houses reduced to ashes. The insurgents were speedily put down and punished: the government resolved to restore the ruined town: the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of London were invited to assist in the work; and King James the First made over to them in their corporate capacity the ground covered by the ruins of the old Derry, and about six thousand acres in the neighborhood. f This country, then uncultivated and uninhabited, is now enriched by industry, embellished by taste, and pleasing even to eyes accustomed to the well-tilled fields and stately manor houses of England. A new city soon arose which, on account of its connection with the capital of the empire, was called Londonderry, The buildings covered the summit and slope of a hill which overlooked the broad stream of the Foyle, then whitened by vast flocks of wild swan. J On the highest ground stood the cathedral, a church which, though erected when the secret of Gothic architecture was lost, and though ill-qualified to sustain a comparison with the awful temples of the middle ages, is * Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Impartial Account, t Concise View of the Irish Society, 1822; Mr. Heath's interesting Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, Appendix 17. I The Interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland, licensed July 17, 1689. MlStORV OF ENGLAND. not without grace and dignity. Near the cathedral rose the palace of the bishop, whose see was one of the most valuable in Ireland. The city was in form nearly an ellipse; and the principal streets formed a cross, the arms of which met in a square called the Diamond. The original houses have been either rebuilt or so much repaired that their ancient character can no longer be traced; but many of them were standing within living memory. They were in general two stories in height; and some of them had stone staircases on the outside. The dwellings were encompassed by a wall of which the whole circumference was little less than a mile. On the bastion were planted culverins and sakers presented by the wealthy guilds of London to the colony. On some of these ancient guns, which have done memorable service to a great cause, the devices of the Fish- mongers* Company, of the Vintners' Company, and of the Merchant Tailors' Company are still discernible.* The inhabitants were Protestants of Anglo-Saxon blood. They were indeed not all of one country or of one church; but Englishmen and Scotchmen, Episcopalians and Pres- byterians, seem to have generally lived together in friend- ship, a friendship which is sufficiently explained by their common antipathy to the Irish race- and to the Popish religion. During the rebellion of 1641, Londonderry had resolutely held out against the native chieftains and had been repeatedly besieged in vain.f Since the Restoration the city had prospered. The Foyle, when the tide was high, brought up ships of large burden to the quay. The fisheries throve greatly. The nets, it was said, were some- times so full that it was necessary to fling back multitudes of fish into the waves. The quantity of salmon caught annually was estimated at eleven hundred thousand pounds' weight.J The people of Londonderry shared in the alarm which, towards the close of the year 1688, was general among the Protestants settled in Ireland. It was known that the ab- original peasantry of the neighborhood were laying in pikes and knives. Priests had been haranguing in a style of which, it must be owned, the Puritan part of the Anglo- Saxon colony had little right to complain, about the slaugh- ter of the Amalekites, and t he judgments which Saul had * These things I ODserved or learned on the spot. t The best account that I have seen of what passed in Londonderry during the war which began in 1641 is in Dr. Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, $ The interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland; i68j^. WILLIAM AND MARY. brought on himself by sparing one of the proscribed race. Rumors from various quarters and anonymous letters in various hands agreed in naming the ninth of December as the day fixed for the extirpation of the strangers. While the minds of the citizens were agitated by these reports, news came that a regiment of twelve hundred Papists, com- manded by a Papist, Alexander Macdonnell, Earl of Antrim, had received orders from the Lord Deputy to occupy Lon- donderry, and was already on the march from Coleraine. The consternation was extreme. Some were for closing the gates and resisting; some for submitting; some for temporizing. The corporation had, like the other corpora- tions of Ireland, been remodelled. The magistrates were men of low station and character. Among them was onl}'- one person of Anglo-Saxon extraction; and he had turned Papist. In such rulers the inhabitants could place no con- fidence.* The Bishop, Ezekiel Hopkins, resolutely adhered to the political doctrines which he had preached during many years, and exhorted his flock to go patiently to the slaughter, rather than incur the guilt of disobeying the Lord*s Annointed.f Antrim was meanwhile drawing near- er and nearer. At length the citizens saw from the walls his troops arrayed on the opposite shore of the Foyle. There was then no bridge; but there was a ferry which kept up a constant communication between the two banks of the river; and by this ferry a detachment from Antrim's regiment crossed. The officers presented themselves at the gate, produced a warrant directed to the Mayor and Sheriffs, and demanded admittance and quarters for His Majesty's soldiers. Just at this moment thirteen young apprentices, most of whom appear, from their names, to have been of Scottish * My authority for this unfavorable account of the corporation is an epic poem en- titled the Londeriad. This extraordinary work must have been written very soon after the events to which it relates; for it is dedicated to Robert Rochfort, Speaker of the House of Commons; and Rochfort was Speaker from 1695 to 1699. The poet had no in- vention; he had evidently a minute knowledge of the city which he celebrated; and his doggerel is consequently not without historical value. He says: For burgesses and freeman they had chose Brogue -makers, butchers, raps, and such as those: In all the corporation not a man Of British parents, except Buchanan." This Buchanan is afterwards described: " A knave all o'er: For he had learned to tell his beads before,'* t See a sermon preached by him at Dublin on Jan. 31. 1669. The text 15, "Submit j'ourgelvcs tp every ordinance of mai^ for the Lord's sals:^,' 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. birth or descent, flew to the guard-room, armed themselves, seized the keys of the city, rushed to the Ferry Gate, closed it in the face of the King's officers, and let down the portcullis. James Morison, a citizen more advanced in years, addressed the intruders from the top of the wall and advised them to be gone. They stood in consultation before the gate till they heard him cry, "Bring a great gun this way." They then thought it time to get beyond the range of shot. They retreated, re-embarked, and rejoined their comrades on the other side of the river. The flame had already spread. The whole city was up. The other gates were secured. Sentinels paced the ramparts every- where. The magazines were opened. Muskets and gun- powder were distributed. Messengers were sent, under cover of the following night, to the Protestant gentlemen of the neighboring counties. The bishop expostulated in vain. It is indeed probable that the vehement and daring young Scotchmen who had taken the lead on this occasion had little respect for his office. One of them broke in on a discourse with which he interrupted the military prepar- ations by exclaiming, "A good sermon, my lord; a very good sermon: but we have not time to hear it just now."* The Protestants of the neighborhood promptly obeyed the summons of Londonderry. Within forty-eight hours, hundreds of horse and foot came by various roads to the city. Antrim, not thinking himself strong enough to risk an attack, or not disposed to take on himself the responsi- bility of commencing a civil war without further orders, retired with his troops to Coleraine. It might have been expected that the resistance of Ennis- killen and Londonderry would have irritated Tyrconnel into taking some desperate step. And in truth his savage and imperious temper was at first inflamed by the news almost to madness. But, after wreaking his rage, as usual, on his wig, he became somewhat calmer. Tidings of a very sobering nature had just reached him. The Prince of Orange was marching unopposed to London. Almost every county and every great town in England had de- clared for him. James, deserted by his ablest captains, and by his nearest relatives, had sent commissioners to * Walker's Account of the Siege of Derry, 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry, 1689; Ah Apology for the failures charged on the Reverend Mr. Walker's Account of the late Siege of Derry, 1689; A Light to the Blind. This last work, a manusjcript in the possession of Lord Fingal, is the work of a zealous Roman Catholic and a mortal enemy of England. Large extracts from it are among the M^Qk" iijtosh MSS. The date in the title-page is 1711, WILLIAM AND MARY. treat with the invaders, and had issued writs convoking a Parliament. While the result of the negotiations which were pending in England was uncertain, the Viceroy could not venture to take a bloody revenge on the refractory Protestants of Ireland. He therefore thought it expedient to affect a clemency and moderation which were by no means congenial to his disposition. The task of quieting the Englishry of Ulster was entrusted to William Stewart, Viscount Monntjoy. Mountjoy, a brave soldier, an accom- plished scholar, a zealous Protestant, and yet a zealous Tory, was one of the very few members of the Established Church who still held office in Ireland. He v;as Master of the Ordnance in that kingdom, and was colonel of a regi- ment in which an uncommonly large proportion of the Eng- lisry had been suffered to remain. At Dublin he was the center of a small circle of learned and ingenious men who had, under his presidency, formed themselves into a Royal society, the image, on a small scale, of the Royal Society of London. In Ulster, with which he was peculiarly con- nected, his name was held in high honor by the colonists.* He hastened with his regiment to Londonderry and was well received there. For it was known that though he was firmly attached to hereditary monarchy he was not less firmly attached to the reformed religion. The citizens readily permitted him to leave within their walls a small garrison exclusively composed of Protestants, under the command of his lieutenant-colonel, Robert Lundy, who took the title of Governor.f The news of Mountjoy's visit to Ulster was highly grat- ifying to the defenders of Enniskillen. Some gentlemen, deputed by that town, waited on him to request his good offices, but were disappointed by the reception which they found. ^*My advice to you is," he said, to submit to the King's authority.'* "What, my Lord?" said one of the deputies; "Are we to sit still and let ourselves be butch- ered ?" " The King," said Mountjoy, " will protect you." "If all that we hear be true," said the deputy, "His Majesty will find it hard enough to protect himself." The conference ended in this unsatisfactory manner. Ennis- killen still kept its attitude of defiance; and Mountjoy returned to Dublin. J * As rt) Mountjoy's character and position, see Clarendon's letters from Ireland, par- ticularly that to Lord Dartmouth of Feb. 8, and that to Evelyn of Feb. 14, 1685-6. ''Bon ofificier, et homme d'esprit," says Avaux. t Walker's Account; Light to the Blind. 1^ MacCormick's Further Impartial Account, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By this time it had indeed become evident that James could not protect himself. It was known in Ireland that he had fled; that he had been stopped; that he had fled again; that the Prince of Orange had arrived at Westmin- ster in triumph, had taken on himself the administration of the realm, and had issued letters summoning a Con- vention. Those lords and gentlemen at whose request the Prince had assumed the government, had earnestly entreated him to take the state of Ireland into his immediate considera- tion; and he had, in reply, assured them that he would do his best to maintain the Protestant religion and the Eng- lish interest in that kingdom. His enemies afterwards accused him of utterly disregarding this promise; nay, they alleged, that he purposely suffered Ireland to sink deeper and deeper in calamity. Halifax, they said, had, with cruel and perfidious ingenuity, devised this mode of placing the Convention under a species of duress; and the trick had succeeded but too well. The vote which called William to the throne would not have passed so easily but for the extreme dangers which threatened the state; and it was in consequence of his own dishonest inactivity that those dangers had become extreme.* As this accusation rests on no proof, those who repeat it are at least bound to show that some course clearly better than the course which William took was open to him; and this they will find a difficult task. If indeed he could, within a few weeks after his arrival in London, have sent a great expedition to Ire- land, that kingdom might perhaps, after a short struggle, or without a struggle, have submitted to his authority; and a long series of crimes and calamities might have been averted. But the factious orators and pamphleteers, livho, much at their ease, reproached him for not sending 0uch an expedition, would have been perplexed if they had been required to find the men, the ships, and the funds. The English army had lately been arrayed against him: part of it was still ill-disposed towards him; and the whole was utterly disorganized. Of the army which he had brought from Holland, not a regiment could be spared. He had found the treasury empty and the pay of the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate any part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on ♦ Burnet, i. 807; and the notes by Swift and Dartmouth. Tutchin, in the Obserrfttor, repeats this idle calumny. WILLIAM AND MARY. 117 no other security than his bare word. It was only by the patriotic liberality of the merchants of London that he was enabled to defray the ordinary charges of government till the meeting of the Convention. It is surely unjust to blame him for not instantly fitting out, in such circum- stances, an armament sufficient to conquer a kingdom. Perceiving that, till the government of England was settled, it would not be in his power to interfere effectu- ally by arms in the affairs of Ireland, he determined to try what effect negotiation would produce. Those who judged after the event pronounced that he had not, on this occa- sion, shown his usual sagacity. He ought, they said, to have known that it was absurd to expect submission from Tyrconnel. Such, however, was not, at the time, the opinion of men who had the best means of information, and whose interest was a sufficient pledge for their sincer- ity. A great meeting of noblemen and gentlemen who had property in Ireland was held, during the interregnum, at the house of the Duke of Ormond in St. James's Square. They advised the Prince to try whether the Lord Deputy might not be induced to capitulate on honorable and advan- tageous terms. ^ In truth there is strong reason to believe that Tyrconnel really wavered. For, fierce as were his pas- sions^ they never made him forgetful of his interest; and he might well doubt whether it were not for his interest, in declining years and health, to retire from business with full indemnity for all past offences, with high rank, and with an ample fortune, rather than to stake his life and prop- erty on the event of a war against the whole power of England. It is certain that he professed himself willing to yield. He opened a communication with the Prince of Orange, and affected to take counsel with Mountjoy, and with others who, though they had not thrown off their alle- giance to James, were yet firmly attached to the Estab- lished Church and to the English connection. In one quarter, a quarter from which William was jus- tified in expecting the most judicious counsel, there was a strong conviction that the professions of Tyrconnel were sincere. No British statesman had then so high a reputa- tion throughout Europe as Sir William Temple. His diplomatic skill had, twenty years before, arrested the progress of the French power. He had been a steady and a useful friend to the United Provinces and to the House * The Orange Gazette, Jan. 10, 1689. ii8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, of Nassau. He had long been on terms of friendly confi- dence with the Prince of Orange, and had negotiated that marriage to which England owed her recent deliverance. With the affairs of Ireland Temple was supposed to be pe- culiarly well acquainted. His family had considerable property there: he had himself resided there during sev- eral years: he had represented the county of Carlow in Parliament; and a large part of his income was derived from a lucrative Irish office. There was no height of power, of rank, or of opulence to which he might not have risen, if he would have consented to quit his retreat, and to lend his assistance and the weight of his name to the new government. But power, rank and opulence had less attraction for his epicurean temper than ease and security. He rejected the most tempting invitations, and continued to amuse himself with his books, his tulips, and his pine- apples, in rural seclusion. With some hesitation, however^ he consented to let his eldest son, John, enter into the ser- vice of William. During the vacancy of the throne, John Temple was employed in business of high importance; and on subjects connected with Ireland, his opinion, which might reasonably be supposed to agree with his father's, had great weight. The young politician flattered himself that he had secured the services of an agent eminently qualified to bring the negotiation with Tyrconnel to a pros- perous issue. This agent was one of a remarkable family which had sprung from a noble Scottish stock, but which had long been settled in Ireland and which professed the Roman Catholic religion. In the gay crowd which thronged Whitehall, during those scandalous years of jubilee which immediately followed the Restoration, the Hamiltons were pre-eminently conspicuous. The long fair ringlets, the radiant bloom, and the languishing blue eyes of the lovely Elizabeth still charm us on the canvas of Lely. She had the glory of achieving no vulgat conquest. It was reserved for her voluptuous beauty and for her flippant wit to over- come the aversion which the cold-hearted and scoffing Grammont felt for the indissoluble tie. One of her broth- ers, Anthony, became the chronicler of that brilliant and dissolute society of which he had been not the least bril- liant nor the least dissolute member. He deserves the high praise of having, though not a Frenchman, written the book which is, of all books, the most exquisitely French, WILLIAM AND MARY. both in Spirit and in manner. Another brother, named Richard, had, in foreign service, gained some military ex- perience. His wit and politeness had distinguished him even in the splendid circle of Versailles. It v^as whispered that he had dared to lift his eyes to an exalted lady, the natural daughter of the Great King, the wife of a legiti- mate prince of the House of Bourbon, and that she had not seemed to be displeased by the attentions of her pre- fcumptuous admirer."^ Richard had subsequently returned to his native country, had been appointed brigadier-gen- eral in the Irish army, and had been sworn of the Irish Privy Council. When the Dutch invasion was expected, he came across Saint George's channel with the troops which Tyrconnel sent to reinforce the royal army. After the flight of James, those troops submitted to the Prince of Orange. Richard Hamilton not only made his own peace with what was now the ruling power, but declared himself confident that, if he were sent to Dublin, he could conduct the negotiation which had been opened there to a happy close. If he failed, he pledged his word to return to Lon- don in three weeks. His influence in Ireland was known to be great: his honor had never been questioned; and he was highly esteemed by John Temple. The young states- man declared that he would answer for his friend Richard as for himself. This guarantee was thought sufficient; and Hamilton set out for Ireland, proclaiming everywhere that he should soon bring Tyrconnel to reason. The offers which he was authorized to make to the Roman Catholic? and personally to the Lord Deputy were most liberal. f It is not impossible that Hamilton may have really meant to keep his promise. But when he arrived at Dub- hn he found that he had undertaken a task which he could not perform. The hesitation of Tyrconnel, whether genu- ine or feigned, was at an end. He had found that he had no longer a choice. He had with little difficulty stimu- lated the ignorant and susceptible Irish to fury. To calm them was beyond his skill. Rumors were abroad that the Viceroy was corresponding with the English; and those rumors had set the nation on fire. The cry of the com- mon people was that, if he dared to sell them for wealth and honors, they would burn the Castle and him in it, and ♦ Memoires de Madame de la Fayette. t Burnet, i. $08; Life of James, ii. 320; Commons' Journals, July 29, i68^, 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. would put themselves under the protection of France.* It was necessary for him to protest, truly or falsely, that he had never harbored any thought of submission, and that he had pretended to negotiate only for the purpose of gaining time. Yet before he openly declared against the English settlers, and against England herself, what must be a war to the death, he wished to rid himself of Mountjoy, who had hitherto been true to the cause of James, but who, it was well known, would never consent to be a party to the spoliation and oppression of the colo- nists. Hypocritical professions of friendship and of pacific intentions were not spared. It was a sacred duty, Tyrcon- nel said, to avert the calamities which seemed to be im- pending. King James himself, if he understood the whole case, would not wish his Irish friends to engage at that moment in an enterprise which must be fatal to them and useless to him. He would permit them, he would com- mand them, to submit to necessity, and to reserve them- selves for better times. If any man of weight, any man loyal, able, and well informed, would repair to Saint Germains and explain the state of things, His Majesty would easily be convinced. Would Mountjoy undertake this most hon- orable and important mission? Mountjoy hesitated, and suggested that some person more likely to be acceptable to the King should be the messenger. Tyrconnel swore, ranted, declared that, unless King James were well ad- vised, Ireland would sink to the pit of hell, and insisted that Mountjoy should go as the representative of the loyal members of the Established Church, and should be ac- companied by Chief Baron Rice, a Roman Catholic high in the royal favor. Mountjoy yielded. The two ambas- sadors departed together, but with very different commis- sions. Rice was charged to tell James that Mountjoy was a traitor at heart, and had been sent to France only that the Protestants of Ireland might be deprived of a favorite leader. The King was to be assured that he was impa- tiently expected in Ireland, and that, if he would show himself there with a French force, he might speedily re- trieve his fallen fortunes. f The Chief Baron carried with him other instructions which were probably kept secret April L ^' t Clarke's Life of James, ii. 331- Mountjoy's Circular Letter, dated Jan. 10, 1688-9; King, iv. 8. In Light to the Blind, Tyrconners ''wise dissimulation" is commended. WILLIAM AND MARY. 121 even from the Court of Saint Germains. If James should be unwilling to put himself at the head of the native pop- ulation of Ireland, Rice was directed to request a private audience of Lewis, and to offer to make the island a pro- vince of France.* - As soon as the two envoys had departed, Tyrconnel set himself to prepare for the conflict which had become in- evitable; and he was strenuously assisted by the faithless Hamilton. The Irish nation was called to arms; and the call was obeyed with strange promptitude and enthusiasm. The flag on the Castle of Dublin was embroidered with the words, ^^Now or never! Now and forever!" Those words resounded through the whole island. f Never in modern Europe has there been such a rising up of a whole people. The habits of the Celtic peasant were such that he made no sacrifice in quitting his potato ground for the camp. He loved excitement and adventure. He feared work far more than danger. His national and religious feelings had, during three years, been exasperated by the constant application of stimulants. At every fair and market he had heard that a good time was at hand, that the tyrants who spoke Saxon and lived in slated houses were about to be swept away, and that the land would again belong to its own children. By the peat fires of a hundred thousand cabins had nightly been sung rude bal- lads which predicted the deliverance of the oppressed race. The priests, most of whom belonged to those old families which the Act of Settlement had ruined, but which were still revered by the native population, had, from a thousand altars, charged every Catholic to show his zeal for the true Church by providing weapons against the day when it might be necessary to try the chances of battle in her cause. J The army, which, under Ormond, had consis- ted of only eight regiments, was now increased to forty- eight: and the ranks were soon full to overflowing. It was impossible to find at short notice one tenth of the number of good officers which was required. Commissions were scattered profusely among idle cosherers who claimed to ♦ Avaux to Lewis, April 13-23, 1689. t Printed Letter from Dublin, Feb. 25, 1689; Mephibosheth and Ziba, 1689. $ The connection of the priests with the old Irish families is mentioned in Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland. See the short view by a Clergyman lately escaped, 1689; Ireland's Lamentation, by an English Protestant that lately narrowly escaped with life from thence, i68g; A True Account of the State of Ireland, by a person who with Great Difficulty left Dublin, 1689; King, ii. 7. Avaux confirms all that these writers say about the Irish officers. Vol. m-d 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. be descended from good Irish families. Yet even thus the supply of captains and lieutenants fell short of the de- mand; and many companies were commanded by cobblers, tailors, and footmen. The pay of the soldiers was very small. The private had no more than three pence a day. One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money; and that half was often in arrear. But a far more seductive bait than his miserable stipend was the prospect of boundless li- cense. If the government allowed him less than sufficed for his wants, it was not extreme to mark the means by which he supplied the deficiency. Though four-fifths of the population of Ireland were Celtic and Roman Catholic, more than four-fifths of the property of Ireland belonged to the Protestant Englishry. The garners, the cellars, above all the flocks and herds of the minority, were abandoned to the majority. Whatever the regular troops spared was devoured by bands of marauders who overran almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now universal. No man dared to present himself at mass without some weapon, a pike, a long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong ashen stake, pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were exhorted by their spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter, every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely possible to get a horse shod. If any Protest- ant artisan refused to assist in the manufacture of imple- ments which were to be used against his nation and his religion, he was flung into prison. It seems probable that, at the end of February, at least a hundred thousand Irish- men were in arms. Near fifty thousand of them were sol- diers.* The 1 est were banditti, whose violence and licen- tiousness the government affected to disapprove, but did not really exert itself to suppress. The Protestants not only were not protected, but were not suffered to protect themselves. It was determined that they should be left unarmed in the midst of an armed and hostile population. * At the French War Office is a report on the State of Ireland in February, 1689. In that report it is said that the Irish who had enlisted as soldiers were, forty-five thousand, and that the number would have been a hundred thousand if all who volunteered had been admitted. See the Sad and Lamentable Condition of the Protestants in Ireland, 1689; Hamilton's True Relation, 1690; The State of Papist and Protestant Properties in the Kingdom of Ireland, 1689; A True Representation to the King and People of Eng- land, how Matters were carried on a]l alc.ng in Ireland, licensed Aug. 16, 1689; Letter from Dublin, 1689: Ireland's Lamentation, 1689; Compleat History of the Life and Mili- tary Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, Generalissimo of the Irish forges now io arms, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. 123 A day was fixed on which they were to bring all their swords and firelocks to the parish churches; and it was notified that every Protestant house in which, after that day, a weapon should be found should be given up to be sacked by the soldiers. Bitter complaints were made that any knave might, by hiding a spearhead or an old gun- barrel in a corner of a mansion, bring utter ruin on the owner. Chief Justice Keating, himself a Protestant, and almost the only Protestant who still held a great place in Ireland, struggled courageously in the cause of justice and order against the united strength of the government and the populace. At the Wicklow Assizes of that spring, he, from the seat of judgment, set forth with great strength of language the miserable state of ihe country. Whole coun- ties, he said, were devastated by a rabble resembling the Vultures and ravens which follow the march of an army. Most of these wretches were not soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law. Yet it was, he owned, but too evident that they were encouraged and screened by some who were in high comma'nd. How else could it be that a market overt for plunder should be held within a short distance of the capital? The stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of Good Hope were realized in Leinster. Nothing was more common than for an honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the industry of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was, however, to small purpose that. Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the bench for the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the robbers. One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear. Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders of his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons of higher station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in court. Two only of the Merry Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and the Chief Justice indignantly told the jury- men that the guilt of the public ruin lay at their door.* When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy to imagine what must have been the state of districts naore barbarous and more remote from the seat of government. * See the Proceedings in the State Trials, 124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Keating appears to have been the only magistrate who strenuously exerted himself to put the law in force. In- deed Nugent, the Chief Justice of the highest criminal court of the realm, declared on the bench of Cork that, without violence and spoliation, the intentions of the gov- ernment could not be carried into effect, and that robbery must, at that conjuncture, be tolerated as a necessary evil.^ The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks would be incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses unconnected with each other and attached to very different interests. There is a close, and sometimes almost a verbal, agreement between the descriptions given by Protestants, who, d uring that reign of terror^ escaped, at the hazard of their lives, to England, and the descrip- tions given by the envoys, commissaries, and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that it would take many years to repair the waste which had been wrought in a few weeks by the armed peasantry.f Some of the Saxon aristocracy had mansions richly furnished, and sideboards gorgeous with silver bowls and chargers. All this w^ealth disappeared. One house, in which there had been three thousand pounds' worth of plate, was left without a spoon. J But the chief riches of Ireland consisted in cattle. Innu- merable flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated with the moisture of the Atlantic. More than one gentleman possessed twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen. The freebooters who now overspread the country belonged to a class which was accustomed to live on potatoes and sour whey, and which had always regarded meat as a luxury reserved for the rich. These men at first revelled in beef and mutton, as the savage invaders, who of old poured down from the forests of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Faler- nian wines. The Protestants described with contemptuous disgust the strange gluttony of their newly liberated slaves. Carcasses, half raw and half burned to cinders, sometimes still bleeding, sometimes in a state of loathsome decay, were torn to pieces, and swallowed without salt, bread, or herbs. Those marauders who preferred boiled meat, being often in want of kettles, contrived to cook the steer in his * King, iii, lo. t Ten years, says the French Ambassador; twenty years, says a Protestant fugitive, $ Animadversions on the proposal for sending back the nobility and gentry of Ireland, 1689-90. WILLIAM AND MARY. own skin. An absurd tragi-comedy is still extant, which was acted, in tliis and the following year, at some low theater, for the amusement of the English populace. A crowd of half-naked savages appeared on the stage, howl- ing a Celtic song and dancing round an ox. They then proceeded to cut steaks out of the animal while still alive, and to fling the bleeding flesh on the coals. In truth the barbarity and filthiness of the banquets of the Rapparees was such as the dramatists of Grub Street could scarcely car- icature. When Lent began,the plunderers generally ceased to devour, but continued to destroy. A peasant would kill a cow merely in order to get a pair of brogues. Often a whole flock of sheep, often a herd of fifty or sixty kine, were slaughtered; the beasts were flayed; the fleeces and hides were carried away; and the bodies were left to poison the air. The French ambassador reported to his master that, in six weeks, fifty thousand horned cattle had been slain in this manner, and were rotting oa the ground all over the country. The number of sheep that were butch- ered during the same time was popularly said to have been three or four hundred thousand. Any estimate which can now be framed of the value of the property destroyed dunng this fearful conflict of races must necessarily be very inexact. We are not however ab- solutely without materials for such an estimate. The Quakers were neither a very numerous nor a very opulent class. We can hardly suppose that they were more than a fiftieth part of the Protestant population of Ireland, or that they possessed more than a fiftieth part of the Protestant wealth of Ireland. They were undoubtedly better treated than any other Protestant sect. James had always been partial to them; they own that Tyrconnel did his best to * King, iii. lo; The Sad Estate and Condition of Ireland, as represented in a Letter from a worthy Person who was in Dublin on Friday last, March 4, 1689; Short View by a Clergyman, 1689; Lamentation of Ireland, 1689; Compleat History of the Life and Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689; The Royal Voyage, acted in 1689 and 1690. This drama, which, I believe, was performed at Bartholomew Fair, is one of the most curious of a curious class of compositions, utterly destitute of literary merit, but valuable as showing what were then the most successful claptraps for an audience composed of the common people. "The end of this play," says the author in his preface, "is chiefly to expose the perfidious, base, cowardly, and bloody nature of the Irish." The account which the fugitive Protestants give of the wanton destruction of cattle is confirmed by Avaux in a letter to Lewis, dated April 13-23, 1689, and by Desgrigny in a letter to Lou- vois, dated May 17-27, 1690. Most of the despatches written by Avaux during his mis- sion to Ireland are contained in a volume of which a very few copies were printed some years ago at the English Foreign Office. Of many I have also copies made at the French Foreign Office. The letters of Desgrigny, who was employed in the Commis- sariat, I found in the Library of the French War Office. I cannot too strongly express my sense of the liberality and courtesy with which the immense and ad mirably arranged Storehouses of curious information at Paris were thrown open to me, t26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. protect them: and they seem to have found favor even in the sight of the Rapparees.* Yet the Quakers computed their pecuniary losses at a hundred thousand pounds. f In Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, it was utterly impossible for the English settlers, few as they were and dispersed, to offer any effectual resistance to this terrible outbreak of the aboriginal population. Charleville, Mal- low, Sligow, fell mto the hands of the natives. Bandon, where the Protestants had mustered in considerable force, was reduced by Lieutenant General Macarthy, an Irish officer who was descended from one of the most illustrious- Celtic houses, and who had long served, under a feigned name, in the French army. J The people of Kenmare held out in their little fastness till they were attacked by three thousand regular soldiers, and till it was known that sev- eral pieces of ordnance were coming to batter down the turf wall which surrounded the agent's house. Then at length a capitulation was concluded. The- colonists were suffered to embark in a small vessel scantily supplied with food and water. They had no experienced navigator on board: but after a voyage of a fortnight, during which . they were crowded together like slaves in a Guinea ship, and suffered the extremity of thirst and huxiger, they reached Bristol in safety§ When such was the fate of the towns, it was evident that the country seats which the Protestant landowners had recently fortified in the three southern provinces could no longer be defended. Many families submitted, delivered up their arms, and thought themselves happy in escaping with life. But many reso- lute and high-spirited gentlemen and yeomen were deter- mined to perish rather than yield. They packed up such Valuable property as could easily be carried away, burned whatever they could not remove, and, well armed and mounted, set out for those spots in Ulster which were the strongholds of their race and of their faith. The flower of the Protestant population of Munster and Connaught found shelter at Enniskillen. Whatever was bravest and * A remarkable thing never to be forgotten was that they that were in government then"— at the end of 1688— '^seemed to favour us and endeavour to preserve Friends." —History of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers in Ireland, by Wight and Rutty, Dublin, 1751. King indeed (iii. 17) reproaches the Quakers as allies and tools of the Papists. t Wight and Rutty. t Life of James, ii. 327. Orig. Mem. Macarthy and his feignea name are repeatedly mentioned by Dangeau. § Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies and Losses sustained by the Protest' ints of Kilmare in Ireland, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. 127 most true-hearted in Leinster took the road to London- derry.* The spirit of Enniskillen and Londonderry rose higher and higher to meet the danger. At both places the tidings of what had been done by the Convention at Westminster were received with transports of joy. William and Mary were proclaimed at Enniskillen with unanimous enthu- siasm, and with such pomp as the little town could furnish. f Lundy, who commanded at Londonderry, could not ven- ture to oppose himself to the general sentiment of the citi- zens and of his own soldiers. He therefore gave in his ad- hesion to the new government, and signed a declaration by which he bound himself to stand by that government, on pain of being considered a coward and a traitor. A vessel from England .soon brought a commission from William and Mary which confirmed him in his officcj To reduce the Protestants of Ulster to submission before aid could arrive from England was now the chief object of Tyrconnel. A great force was ordered to move northward, under the command of Richard Hamilton. This man had violated all the obligations which are held most sacred by gentlemen and soldiers, had broken faith with his most in- timate friends, had forfeited his military parole, and was now not ashamed to take the field as a general against the government to which he was bound to render himself up as a prisoner. His march left on the face of the country traces which the most careless eye could not during many years fail to discern. His army was accompanied by a rab- ble, such as Keating had well compared to the unclean birds of prey which swarm wherever the scent of carrion is strong. The general professed himself anxious to save from ruin and outrage all Protestants who remained quietly at their homes; and he most readily gave them protections under his hand. But these protections proved of no avail; and he was forced to own that, whatever power he might be able to exercise over his soldiers, he could not keep order among the mob of camp followers. The country behind him was a wilderness; and soon the country before him became equally desolate. For, at the fame of his approach, the colonists burned their furniture, * A true Representation to the King and People of England how matters were carried on all along in Ireland by the late King James, licensed Aug. 16, 1689; A True Account of the Present State of Ireland by a person that with Great Difficulty left DubUn, sensed June 8, 1689. + Hamilton's Accounts of the Inniskilling Men, i68§, If Walker's Account. 16B9. 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. pulled down their houses, and retreated northward. Som ' of them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but were broken and scattered. Then the flight became wild and tumultuous. The fugitives broke down the bridges and burned the ferry-boats. Whole towns, the seats of the Protestant population, were left in ruins without one in- habitant. The people of Omagh destroyed their own ^ dwellings so utterly that no roof was left to shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of Cavan migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy. The road was deep in mire. It w^as a piteous sight to see, mingled with the armed men, the women and children weeping, famished, and toiling through the mud up to their knees. All Lisburn fled to Antrim; and, as the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn and Antrim together came pouring into Londonderry. Thirty thousand Prot- estants, of both sexes and of every age, were crowded be- hind the bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at length, on the verge of the ocean, hunted to the last asylum, and baited into a mood in which men may be destroyed, but will not easily be subjugated, the imperial race turned des- perately to bay.* Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James determined to comply with the invi- tation which Rice had brought, and applied to Lewis for the help of a French army. But Lewis, though he showed, as to all things which concerned the personal dignity and comfort of his royal guests, a delicacy even romantic, and a liberality approaching to profusion, was unwilling to send a large body of troops to. Ireland. He saw that France would have to maintain a long war on the Continent against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and most perverse of human be- ings. The folly of James, his incapacity to read the char- ♦ Mackenzie's Narrative; Mac Cormick's Further Impartial Account; Story's Impar- ial History of the Affairs of Ireland, 1691; Apology for the Protestants of Ireland- Le^- pf from Dublin of Feb. 35, 16891 Avaux to Lewis, 15-25, X689. WILLIAM AND MARY, acters of men and the signs of the times, his obstinacy, always most offensively displayed when wisdom enjoined concession, his vacillation, always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies which required firmness, had made him an outcast from England and might, if his counsels were blindly followed, bring great calamities on France. As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as a confessor of the true faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the house of Bourbon, who had seated himself on the hearth of that House, he was entitled to hospitality, to tenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should have a stately palace and a spacious forest, that the household troops should salute him with the highest military honors, that he should have at his command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the Grand Fal- coner. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet and army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook to furnish plans for naval and military expeditions; when a prince, who had been undone by his profound ignorance of the temper of his own countrymen, of his own soldiers, of his own domestics, of his own chil- dren, undertook to answer for the zeal and fidelity of the Irish people, whose tongue he could not speak, and on whose land he had never set his foot; it was necessary to receive his suggestions with caution. Such were the senti- ments of Lewis; and in these sentiments he was confirmed by his Minister of War, Louvois, who, on private as well as on public grounds, was unwilling that James should be accompanied by a large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was a favorite at Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honor which has very seldom been conferred on aliens who were not sovereign princes. It was believed indeed at the French Court that, in order to distinguish him from the other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he had been decorated with that very George which Charles the First had, on the scaffold, put into the hands of Juxon.* Lauzun had been encouraged to hope that, if French forces were sent to Ire- land, he should command them; and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on disappointing.f An army was therefore for the present refused: but ♦ Meraoires de Madime de la Fayette; Madame de Sevign6 to Madame de Grignan. February 28, 1689. t Burnet, ii. 17; Life of James II,, ii. 320, 321, 323. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. everything else was granted. The Brest fleet was ordered to be in readiness to sail. Arms for ten thousand men and great quantities of ammunition were put on board. About four hundred captains, lieutenants, cadets, and gunners were selected for the important service of organizing and disciplining the Irish levies. The chief command was held by a veteran warrior, the Count of Rosen. Under him were Maumont, who held the rank of lietenant gen- eral, and a brigadier named Pusignan, Five hundred thousand crowns in gold, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling, were sent to Brest.* For Jameses personal comforts provision was made with anxiety resembling that of a tender mother equipping her son for a first campaign. The cabin furniture, the camp furniture, the tents, the bedding, the plate, were luxurious and superb. Nothing which could be agreeable or useful to the exile was too costly for the munificence, or too trifl- ing for the attention, of his gracious and splendid host. On the fifteenth of February, James paid a farewell visit to Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and plantations with every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played in his honor. It was the season of the Carnival: and never had the vast palace and the sumptu- ous gardens presented a gayer aspect. In the evening the two kings, after a long and earnest conference in private, made their appearance before a splendid circle of lords and ladies. *'I hope," said Lewis, in his noblest and most winning manner, "that we are about to part, never to meet again in this world. That is the best wish I can form for you. But, if any evil chance should force you to return, be assured that you will find me to the last such as you have found me hitherto." On the seventeenth, Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace, he said, with his most amiable smile, "We have forgotten one thing, a cuirass for your- self. You shall have mine." The cuirass was brought, and suggested to the wits of the Court ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and his wife, overcome with sickness and sorrow, shut herself up with her child to weep and pray.f * Maumont's Instructions. t Dangeau, Feb. 15-25, 17-27, 1689; Madame de S^vign6, Feb. 18-28, Mar^ji;^ moires do Madame de la Fayette. WILLIAM AND MARY. James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick, Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis^ Dover, and Melfort. Of all the retinue, none was so odi- ous to the people of Great Britain as Melfort. He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate; and the insolent, arbitrary, and menacing lan- guage of his state papers disgusted even the Jacobites. He was therefore a favorite with his master: for to James? unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the great- est recommendations that a minister could have. What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character of ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at Versailles. Barillon could not be passed over without a marked slight. But his self-indulgent habits, his want of energy, and, above all, the credulity with which he had listened to the professions of Sunder- land, had made an unfavorable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done in Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in that kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of an envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching every part of the political and military ad- ministration of the country in which he would represent the most powerful and the most beneficent of allies. Bar- illon was therefore suffered to retire into privacy. He af- fected to bear his disgrace with composure. His political career, though it had brought great calamities both on the House of Stuart and on the House of Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to himself. He was old, he said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the honor of living on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs: he would try to console himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumored, however, that he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to conceal: his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long after his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation."* * Memoirs of La Fare and St. Simon; Note of Renaudot on English affairs, 1697, in the French Archives; Madame de Sevigne, ^^^^^ ^ March 11-21, 1689; Letter of Madame de Coulanges to M. de Coulanges, July 23, 1691. 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of William, and who had in vain recommended a policy which would probably have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplo- matists whom his country then possessed. His demeanor was singularly pleasing, his person handsofne, his temper bland. His manners and conversation were those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite and mag- nificent of all courts, who had represented that court both in Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources, and skillful in discovering the weak parts of a character. His own character, however, was not without its weak parts. The consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and ludicrous. Able, experienced, and ac- complished as he was, he sometimes, under the influence of this mental disease, descended to the level of Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a Mamamouchi.'* It would have been well if this had been the worst. But it is not too much to say that of the difference between right and wrong Avaux had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of religion and morality, a superstitious and in- tolerant devotion to the crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his despatches, and gives a color to all his thoughts and words. Nothing that tended to pro- mote the interest of the French monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken it for granted that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that whoever hesi- tated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House was a traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well-intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious politician if he had ♦ See St. Simon's account of the trick by which Avaux tried to pass himself off at Stockholm as a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. WILLIAM AND MARY. sympathized more with those feelings of moral approba- tion and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such that, in his schemes, he made no al- lowance for the consci*ences and sensibilities of his neigh- bors. More than once he deliberately recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples intelligible to him. To every re- monstrance he listened with a cynical sneer, wondering himself whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming. Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the com- panion and monitor of James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication with the malcontents in the English Parliament: and he was authorized to ex- pend, if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them. James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board of a man-of-war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty-eight hours. He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some of the faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he was about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the har- bor of Brest that it would not be easy to conduct any im- portant business in concert with the King of England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from anybody. The very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him say things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his confidential advisers."^ The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the afternoon of the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbor of Kinsale. By the Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an enemy of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they might reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more respect for law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and Rapparees. The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who * This letter, written to Lewis from the harbor of Brest, is in the Archives of th« French Foreign (7^^?5f* but is wanting in the very rare volume printed in PQwnin|f Street. 134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. went to pay their duty: he was presented by the Bishops of Chester, and was not ungraciously received.* ' James learned that his cause was prospering. In t^ie three southern provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and were so effectually bowed down by terror that he had nothing to apprehend from them. In the North there was som.e show of resistance: but Hamilton was marching against the malcontents; and there was little doubt that they would easily be crushed. A day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms and ammunition out of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few trav- ellers were with some difficulty procured; and, on the four- teenth of March, James proceeded to Cork.f We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he entered that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach which strikes the traveller of the nine- teenth century with admiration. At present Cork, though deformed by many miserable relics of a former age, holds no mean place among the ports of the empire. The ship- ping is more than half what the shipping of London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs exceed the whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the most peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stu- arts. The town is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a Corinthian portico which would do honor to Palladio, and by a Gothic College worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford, In 1689, the city ex- tended over about one-tenth part of the space which it now covers, and was intersected by muddy streams, which have long been concealed by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the waterfowl sank deep in water and mire at every step, cov- ered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the pal- aces of great commercial societies. There was only a sin- gle street in which two-wheeled carriages could pass each other. From this street diverged to right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those who have formed their notions of misery from the most miserable parts of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys, called, and, by comparison, justly called. Broad Lane, is about ten feet wide From such places, now seats * A full and true account of the Landing and Reception of the late King James at Kinsale, in a letter from Bristol, licensed April 4, 1689; Leslie's Answer to King; Ireland's Lamentation; Avaux, March 13-23. t Avaux, ?>Iarch 13-23, 1689,* Life of James, ii, 327, Orig. Mem. WILLIAM AND MARY. ^35 of A^nger and pestilence, abandoned to the most wretched cf mankind, the citizens poured forth to welcome James. He was received with military honors by Macarthy, who held the chief command in Munster. It was impossible for the King to proceed immediately to Dublin; for the southern counties had been so com^ pletely laid waste by the banditti whom the priests had (Jailed to arms that the means of locomotion were not easily to be procured. Horses had become rarities: in a large district there were only two carts; and those Avaux pro- nounced good for nothing. Some days elapsed before the money which had been brought from France, though no very formidable mass, could be dragged over the few miles which separated Cork from Kinsale.* While the King and his Council were employed in trying to procure carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived from Dublin. He held encouraging language. The opposition of Enniskillen he seems to have thought deserving of little consideration. Londonderry, he said, was the only im- portant post held by the Protestants; and even London- derry would not, in his judgment, hold out many days. At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital. Oil the road, the shrewd and observant Avaux made many remarks. The first part of the journey was through wild highlands, where it was not strange that there should be few traces of art and industry. But, from Kilkenny to the gates of Dublin the path of the travellers lay over gently undulating ground, rich with natural verdure. That fer- tile district should have been covered with flocks and herds, orchards and cornfields; but it was an untilled and un- peopled desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very few. Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could be procured only at immense prices. The envoy at first attributed the desolation which he saw on every side to the tyranny of the English colonists. In a very short time he was forced to change his opinion. f James received on his progress numerous marks of the good-will of the peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of France and England, haid an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though very few laborers were see* at work in the fields, the road was lined by Rapparees * Avaux, March 15-25, 1689. rr-7-^1689 April ^ 136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who crowded u/ look upon the deliverer of their race. The highway alon/ which he travelled presented the aspect of a street m which a fair is held. Pipers came forth to play before him in a style which was not exactly that of the French opera; and the villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze mantles, resembling those which Spenser had, a century before, described as meet beds for rebels and apt cloaks for thieves, were spread along the path which the caval- cade was to tread; and garlands in which cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels, were offered to the royal hand. The women insisted on kissing His Majesty; but it should seem that they bore little resemblance to their posterity; for this compliment was so distasteful to him that lie ordered his retinue to keep them at a distance.* On the twenty-fourth of March he entered Dublin. That 5, it would be the lamentation of the author of the Londeriad.* " The wretched youth against his friend exclaims, And in despair drowns himself in the Thames.'* WILLIAM AND MARY. which has been too little noticed, and which is the key to much that has been thought mysterious in the history of those times. Between English Jacobitism and Irish Jacobitism there was nothing in common. The English Jacobite was ani- mated by a strong enthusiasm for the family of Stuart; and in his zeal for the interests of that family he too often forgot the interests of the state. Victory, peace, prosperity, seemed evils to the stanch nonjurer of our island, if they tended to make usurpation popular and permanent. De- feat, bankruptcy, famine, invasion, were, in his view, pub- lic blessings, if they increased the chance of a restoration. He would rather have seen his country the last of the na- tions under James the Second or James the Third, than the mistress of the sea, the umpire between contending potentates, the seat of arts, the hive of industry, under a Prince of the House of Nassau or of Brunswick. The sentiments of the Irish Jacobite were very different, and, it must in candor be acknowledged, were of a noble character. The fallen dynasty was nothing to him. He had not, like a Cheshire or Shropshire cavalier, been taught from his cradle to consider loyalty to that dynasty as the first duty of a Christian and a gentleman. All his family traditions, all the lessons taught him by his foster mother and by his priests, had been of a very different tendency. He had been brought up to regard the foreign sovereigns of his native land with the feeling with which the Jew regarded Caesar, with which the Scot regarded Edward the First, with which the Castilian regarded Joseph Bonaparte, and with which the Pole regards the Autocrat of the Russias. It was the boast of the high- born Milesian that, from the twelfth century to the seven- teenth, every generation of his family had been in arms against the English crown. His remote ancestors had contended with Fitzstephen and De Burgh. His great- grandfather had cloven down the soldiers of Elizabeth in the battle of the Blackwater. His grandfather had con- v^pired with O'Donnel against James the First. His father liad fought under Sir Phelim O'Neil against Charles the First. The confiscation of the family estate had been rat- ified by an Act of Charles the Second. No Puritan, who had been cited before the High Commission by Laud, who had charged by the side of Cromwell at Naseby, who had t)een prosecuted under the Conventicle Act, and who had HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been in hiding on account of the Rye House Plot, bore less affection to the House of Stuart than the O'Haras and Macmahons, on whose support the fortunes of that House now seemed to depend. The fixed purpose of these men was to break the foreign yoke, to exterminate the Saxon colony, to sweep away^the Protestant Church, and to restore the* soil to its ancient proprietors. To obtain these ends they would without the smallest scruple have risen up against James; and to ob- tain these ends they rose up for him". The Irish Jacobites, therefore, were not at all desirous that he should again reign at Whitehall: for they were perfectly aware that a sovereign of Ireland, who was also sovereign of England, would not, and, even if he would, could not, long admin- ister the government of the smaller and poorer kingdom in direct opposition to the feeling of the larger and richer. Their real wish was that the crowns might be completely separated, and that their island might, whether with James or without James they cared little, form a distinct state under the powerful protection of France, While one party in the Council at Dublin regarded James merely as a tool to be employed for achieving the deliverance of Ireland, another party regarded Ireland merely as a tool to be employed for effecting the restora- tion of James. To the English and Scotch lords and gen- tlemen who had accompanied him from Brest, the island vn which they now sojourned was merely a stepping-stone by which they were to reach Great Britain. They were still as much exiles as when they were at Saint Germains; and indeed they thought Saint Germains a far more pleas- ant place of exile than Dublin Castle. They had no sym- pathy with the native population of the remote and half barbarous region to which a strange chance had led them. Nay, they were bound by common extraction and by com- mon language to that colony which it was the chief object of the native population to root out. They had indeed, j Jlke the great body of their countrymen, always regarded the aboriginal Irish with very unjust contempt, as inferior to other European nations, not only in acquired knowl- edge, but in natural intelligence and courage; as born Gibeonites, who had been liberally treated in being per- mitted to hew wood and to draw water for a wiser and mightier people. These politicians also thought, — and here they were undoubtedly in the right, — that, if their WILLIAM AND MARY. 141 master's object was to recover the throne of England, it would be madness in him to give himself up to the guid- ance of the O's and the Macs who regarded England with mortal enmity. A law declaring the crown of Ireland inde- pendent, a law transferring mitres, glebes, and tithes from the Protestant to the Roman Catholic Church, a law transferring ten millions of acres from Saxons to Celts, would doubtless be loudly applauded in Clare and Tip- perary. But what would be the effect of such laws at Westminster? What at Oxford? It would be poor policy to alienate such men as Clarendon and Beaufort, Ken and Sherlock, in order to obtain the applause of the Rap- parees of the Bog of Allen.* Thus the English and Irish factions in the Council at Dublin were engaged in a dispute which admitted of no compromise. Avaux meanwhile looked on that dispute from a point of view entirely his own. His object was neither the emancipation of Ireland nor the restoration of James, but the greatness of the French monarchy. In what way that object might be best attained was a very complicated problem. Undoubtedly a French statesman could not but wish for a counter-revolution in England. The effect of such a counter-revolution would be that the power which was the most formidable enemy of France would become her firmest ally, that William would sink into insignificance, and that the European coalition of which he was the chief would be dissolved. But what chance was there of such a, counter-revolution? The Eng- lish exiles indeed, after the fashion of exiles, confidently anticipated a speedy return to their country. James him- self loudly boasted that his subjects on the other side of the water, though they had been misled for a moment by the specious names of religion, liberty, and property, were warmly attached to him, and would rally round him as soon as he appeared among them. But the wary envoy tried in vain to discover any foundation for these hopes. He could not find that they were warranted by any intelli- gence which had arrived from any part of Great Britain; and he was inclined to consider them as the mere day- dreams of a feeble mind. He thought it unlikely that the usurper, whose ability and resolution he had, during an unintermitted conflict of ten years, learned to appreciate, ♦ Much light is thrown on the dispute between the English and Irish parties in iames's council, by a remarkable letter of Bishop Maloney to Bishop Tyrrel, which wiU e found in the Appendix to King's State of the Protestants. 142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. would easily part with the great prize which had been won by such strenuous exertions and profound combinations. It was therefore necessary to consider what arrangements would be most beneficial to France, on the supposition that it proved impossible to dislodge William from Eng- land. And it was evident tTiat, if William could not be dislodged from England, the arrangement most beneficial to France would be that which had been contemplated eighteen months before when James had no prospect of a male heir. Ireland must be severed from the English crown, purged of the English colonists, reunited to the Church of Rome, placed under the protection of the House of Bourbon, and made, in everything but name, a French province. In war, her resources would be absolutely at the command of her Lord Paramount. She would furnish his army with recruits. She would furnish his navy with fine harbors commanding all the great western outlets of the English trade. The strong national and religious antipa- thy with which her aboriginal population regarded the in- habitants of the neighboring island would be a sufficient guarantee for their fidelity to that government which could alone protect her against the Saxon. On the whole, therefore, it appeared to Avaux that, of the two parties into which the Council at Dublin was di- vided, the Irish party was that which it was at present for the interest of France to support. He accordingly con- nected himself closely with the chiefs of that party, ob- tained' from them the fullest avowals of all that they de- signed, and was soon able to report to his government that neither the gentry nor the common people were at all unwilling to become French.* The views of Louvois, incomparably the greatest states- man that France had produced since Richelieu, seem to have entirely agreed with those of Avaux. The best thing, Louvois wrote, that King James could do would be to for- get that he had reigned in great Britain, and to think only of putting Ireland into a good condition, and of establish- ing himself firmly there. Whether this were the true in- terest of the House of Stuart may be doubted. But it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of Bourbon. f * Avaux, ^2p^rV/' ^^^^^ 13-23- But it is less from any single letter, than from the whole tendency and spirit of the correspondenceof Avaux, that I have formed my no- tion of his objects. t "II faut done, oubliant qu'il a este Roy d'Angleterre et d'Escosse, nc penscr qu'i cc WILLIAM AND MARY. About the Scotch and English exiles, and especially about Melfort, Avaux constantly expressed himself with an asperity hardly to have been expected from a man of so much sense and so much knowledge of the world. Melfort was in a singularly unfortunate position. He was a rene- gade: he was a mortal enemy of the liberties of his coun- try: he was of a bad and tyrannical nature; and yet he was, in some sense, a patriot. The consequence was that he was more universally detested than any man of his time. For, while his apostasy and his arbitrary maxims of government made him the abhorrence of England and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity and integrity of the empire made him the abhorrence of the Irish and of the French. The first question to be decided was whether James should remain at Dublin, or should put himself at the head of his army in Ulster. On this question the Irish and British factions joined battle. Reasons of no great weight were adduced on both sides; for neither party ven- tured to speak out. The point really in issue was whether the King should be in Irish or in British hands. If he re- mained at Dublin, it would be scarcely possible for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented to him by the Parliament which he had summoned to meet there. He would be forced to plunder, perhaps to attaint, innocent Protestant gentlemen and clergymen by hundreds; and he would thus do irreparable mischief to his cause on the other side of Saint George's Channel. If he repaired to Ulster, he would be within a few hours' sail of Great Britain. As soon as Londonderry had fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall of Londonderry could not be long delayed, he might cross the sea with part of his forces, and land in Scotland, w^here his friends were supposed to be numerous. When he was once on British ground, and in the midst of British adherents, it would no longer be in the power of the Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of spoliation and revenge. The discussions in the Council were long and warm. Tyrconnel, who had just been created a Duke, advised his master to stay at Dublin. Melfort exhorted His Majesty to set out for Ulster. Avaux exerted all his influence in sup- port of Tyrconnel; but James, whose personal inclinations qui peut bonifier I'Irlande, et luy faciliter les moyens d'y subsister,"— Louvois to Avaux, June 3-1J, 1689. 144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. were naturally on the British side of the question, deter* mined to follow the advice of Melfort.* Avaux was deeply mortified. In his official letters he expressed with great acrimony his contempt for the King's character and un- derstanding. On Tyrconnel, who had said that he de- spaired of the fortunes of James, and that the real ques- tion was between the King of France and the Prince of Orange, the Ambassador pronounced what was meant to be a warm eulogy, but may perhaps be more properly called an invective. '^If he were a born Frenchman, he could not be more zealous for the interests of France. "f The conduct of Melfort, on the other hand, was the sub- ject of an invective which much resembles eulogy: ^*He is neither a good Irishman nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his own country.^J Since the King was determined to go northward, Avaux did not choose to be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving Tyrconnel in charge at Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the thirteenth of April. The journey was a strange one. The country all along the road had been completely deserted by the industrious population, and laid waste by bands of robbers. This," said one of the French officers, is like travelling through the deserts of Arabia. "§ Whatever effects the colonists had been able to remove were at Londonderry or Enniskillen. The rest had been stolen or destroyed. Avaux informed his court that he had not been able to get one truss of hay for his horses without sending five or six miles. No laborer dared bring anything for sale lest some marauder should lay hands on it by the way. The ambassador was put one night into a miserable tap-room full of soldiers smoking, another night into a dismantled house without windows or shutters to keep out the rain. At Charlemont, a bag of oatmeal was, with great difficulty, and as a matter of favor, procured for the French legation. There was no wheaten bread ex- cept at the table of the King, who had brought a little flour from Dublin, and to whom Avaux had lent a servant who knew how to bake. Those who were honored with an invitation to the royal table had their bread and wine measured out to them. Everybody else, however high in ♦ See the despatches written by Avaux during April 1689; Light to the Blind. t Avaux, April 6-16, 1689. . X Avaux, May 8-18, 1689. e Pusignan to Avaux» ^^pruT ' WILLIAM AND MARY. rank, ate horsecorn, and drank water or detestable beer, made with oats instead of barley, and flavored with some nameless herb as a substitute for hops.* Yet report said that the country between Charlemont and Strabane was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of provisions. The roads were so bad, and the horses so weak, that the baggage wagons had all been left far be- hind. The chief officers of the army were consequently in want of necessaries; and the ill-humor which was the natural effect of these privations was increased by the in- sensibility of James, who seemed not to be aware that everybody about him was not perfectly comfortable. f On the fourteenth of April the King and his train pro- ceeded to Omagh. The rain fell: the wind blew: the horses could scarcely make their way through the mud, and in the face of the storm; and the road was frequently intersected by torrents which might almost be called riv- ers. The travellers had to pass several fords where the water was breast high. Some of the party fainted from fatigue and hunger. All around lay a f rightfuLwilderness. In a journey of forty miles Avaux counted only three mis- erable cabins. Everything else was rock, bog, and moor. When at length the travellers reached Omagh, they found it in ruins. The Protestants, who were the majority of the inhabitants, had abandoned it, leaving not a wisp of straw nor a cask of liquor. The windows had been broken: the chimneys had been beaten in: the very locks and bolts of the doors had been carried away. J Avaux had never ceased to press the King to return to Dublin: but these expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The obstinacy of James, however, was an obsti- nacy which had nothing in common with manly resolution, and which, though proof to argument, was easily shaken by caprice. He received at Omagh, early on the sixteenth of April, letters which alarmed him. He learned that a strong body of Protestants was in arms at Strabane, and that English ships of war had been seen near the mouth of Lough Foyle. In one minute three messages were sent to summon Avaux to the ruinous chamber in which the * This lamentable account of the Irish beer is taken from a despatch which Desgrigny wrote from Cork to Louvois, and which is in the archives of the French War Office. Avaux, April 13-23, 1689; April 20-30. t Avaux to Lewis, April 15-2,5, 1689, Louvois, of the s^in^ 4atf, 146 HISTORY OF ENGLANDo royal bed had been prepared. There James^ half dressed, and with the air of a man bewildered by some great shock, announced his resolution to hasten back instantly to Dub- lin. Avaux listened, wondered and approved. Melfort seemed prostrated by despair. The travellers retraced their steps, and, late in the evening got back to Charlemont. There the King received dispatches very different from those which had terrified him a few hours before. The Protestants who had assembled near Strabane had been attacked by Hamilton. Under a true-hearted leader they would doubtless have stood their ground. But Lundy, who commanded them, had told them that all was lost, had ordered them to shift for themselves, and had set them the example of flight.* They. had accordingly retired in confusion to Londonderry, The King's correspondents pronounced it to be impossible that Londonderry should hold out. His Majesty had only to appear before the gates; and they would instantly fly open. James now changed his mind again, blamed himself for having been persuaded to turn his face southward, and, though it was late in the evening, called for his horses. The horses were in miserable plight; but, weary and half-starved as they ^ were, they were saddled. Melfort, completely victorious, carried off his master to the camp. Avaux, after remon- strating to no purpose, declared that he was resolved to return to Dublin. It hiay be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had undergone had something to do with this resolution. For complaints of that discomfort make up a large part of his letters; and, in truth, a life passed in the palaces of Italy, in the neat parlors and gar- dens of Holland, and in the luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris, was a bad preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to his master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward. The journey of James had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous sense of the Irish, and had excited great alarm among them. They apprehended that he meant to quit them, and to make a descent on Scotland. They knew that once landed in Great Britain, he would have neither the will, nor the power to do those things which they most desired. Avaux, by refusing to proceed further, gave them an assurance that, whoever ♦ Commons' Journals, Aug. 12, 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative. WILLIAM AND MARY. 147 might betray them, France would be their constant friend.* While Avaux was on his way to Dublin, James hastened to- wards Londonderry. He found his army concentrated a few miles south of the city. The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest were in his train; and two of them, Rosen and Maumont, were placed over the head of Richard Hamilton. f Rosen was a native of Livonia, who had in early youth become a soldier of fortune, who had fought his way to distinction, and who, though utterly destitute of the graces and accomplishments character- istic of the court of Versailles, was nevertheless high in favor there. His temper was savage: his manners werecoarse; his language was a strange jargon compounded of various dialects of French and German. Even those who thought best of him, and who maintained that his rough exterior cov- ered some good qualities, owned that his looks were against him, and that it would be unpleasant to meet such a figure in the dusk at the corner of a wood. J The little that is known of Maumont is to his honor. In the camp it was generally expected that London- derry would fall without a blow. Rosen confidently pre- dicted that the mere sight of the Irish army would terrify the garrison into submission. But Richard Hamilton, who knew the temper of the colonists better, had misgiv- ings. The assailants were sure of one important ally with- in the walls. Lundy, the Governor, professed the Protest- ant religion and had joined in proclaiming William and Mary; but he was in secret communication with the ene- mies of his Church and of the Sovereigns to whom he had sworn fealty. Some have suspected that he was a con- cealed Jacobite, and that he had affected to acquiesce in the Revolution only in order that he might be better able to assist in bringing about a Restoration, but it is prob- able that his conduct is rather to be attributed to faint- heartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal for any public cause. He seems to have thought resistance hope- less; and in truth, to a military eye, the defences of Lon- donderry appeared contemptible. The fortifications con- sisted of a simple wail overgrown with grass and weeds: * Avaux, April 17-27, 1689. The story of these strange changes of purpose is told very disingenuously by James in his Life, ii. 330, 331, 332. Orig. Mem. t Life of James, ii. 334, 335. Orig. Mem. X Memoirs of Saint bimon. Some English writers ignorantly speak of Rosen as hav- ing been, at this time, a Marshal of France. He did not become so till 1703. He had long been a Marechal de Camp, which is a very different thing, and had been recently promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General, «»i«i«sssai. ^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. there was no ditch even before the gates: the draw-bridgeS had long been neglected: the chains were rusty and could scarcely be used: the parapets and towers were built after a fashion that might well move disciples of Vauban to laughter; and these feeble defences were on almost every side commanded by heights. Indeed those who laid out the city had never meant that it should be able to stand a regular siege, and had contented themselves with throw- ing up works sufficient to protect the inhabitants against a tumultuary attack of the Celtic peasantry. Avaux as- sured Louvois that a single French battalion would easily storm such a fastness. Even if the place should, notwith- standing all disadvantages, be able to repel a large army directed by the science and experience of generals who had served under Conde and Turenne, hunger must soon bring the contest to an end. The stock of provisions was small; and the population had been swollen to seven or eight times the ordinary number by a multitude of colon- ists flying from the rage of the natives.* Lundy, therefore, from the time when the Irish army entered Ulster, seems to have given up all thought of ser- ious resistance. He talked so despondingly that the citi- zens and his own soldiers murmured against hirn. He seemed, they said, to be bent on discouraging them. Meanwhile the enemy drew daily nearer and nearer; and it was known that James himself was coming to take the command of his forces. Just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared. On the fourteenth of April ships from England anchored in the bay. They had on board two regiments which had been sent, under the command of a colonel named Cun- ningham, to reinforce the garrison. Cunningham and sev- eral of his officers went on shore and conferred with Lundy. Lundy dissuaded them from landing their men. The place, he said, could not hold out. To throw more troops into it would therefore be worse than useless: for the more numerous the garrison, the more prisoners would fall into the hands of the enemy. The best thing that the two regiments could do would be to sail back to England. He meant, he said, to withdraw himself privately; and the in- habitants must then try to make good terms for them- selves. ♦ Avaux, April 4-14, 1689. Ampng the MSi(ifc if^ ^he British Museum is a curious re- port on the defences of Londonderry, draw» «p in 1705 for the Duke of Ormond by 9 french engineer named Thomas. WILLIAM AND MARY. 149 He went through the form of holding a council of war, but from this council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose sentiments he knew to be different from his own. Some who had ordinarily been summoned on such occasions, and who now came uninvited, were thrust out of the room. Whatever the Governor said was echoed by his creatures. Cunningham and Cunningham's com- panions could scarcely venture to oppose their opinion to that of a person whose local knowledge was necessarily far superior to theirs, and whom they were by their in- structiojis directed to obey. One brave soldier murmured, "Understand this," he said: " to give up Londonderry is to give up Ireland." But his objections were contemptu- ously overruled.* The meeting broke up. Cunningham and his officers returned to the ships, and made prepara- tions for departing. Meanwhile Lundy privately sent a messenger to the headquarters of the enemy, with assur- ances that the city should be peaceably surrendered on the first summons. But as soon as what had passed in the council of war was whispered about the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and fierce against the das- tardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them. Many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought them- selves bound to obey him. Voices were heard threatening, some ttiat his brains should be blown out, some that he should be hanged on the walls. A deputation was sent to Cunningham imploring him to assume the command. He excused himself on the plausible ground that his orders were to take directions in all things from the Governor.f Meanwhile it was rumored that the persons most in Lun- dy's confidence were stealing out of the town one by one. . Long after dusk on the evening of the seventeenth it was found that the gates were open and that the keys had dis- appeared. The officers who made the discovery took on themselves to change the passwords and to double the guards. The night, however, passed over without any assault.;]; After some anxious hours the day broke. The Irish, with James at their head, were now within four miles of the city. A tumultuous council of the chief inhabitants * Commons' Journals, August 12, 1689. t The best history of these transactions will be found in the Journals of the House o£ Commons, August 12, 1-689. See also the narratives of Walker and Mackenzie. ^ Mackenzie 8 Narrative- ^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. was called. Some of them vehemently reproached the Governor to his face with his treachery. He had sold them, they cried, to their deadliest enemy: he had refused admission to the force which good King William had sent to defend them. While the altercation was at the height, the sentinels who paced the ramparts announced that the vanguard of the hostile army was in sight. Lundy had given orders that there should be no firing: but his author- ity was at an end. Two gallant soldiers, Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, called the people to arms. They were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman, George Walker, rector of the parish of Do- naghmore, who had, with many of his neighbors, taken refuge in Londonderry. The whole crowded city was moved by one impulse. Soldiers, gentlemen, yeomen, artisans,rushed to the walls and manned the guns. James, who, confident of success, had approached within a hun- dred yards of the southern gate, was received with a shou*- of ^*No surrender," and with a fire from the nearest bastion. An officer of his staff fell dead by his side. The King and his attendants made all haste to get out of reach of the cannon balls. Lundy, who was now in imminent danger of being torn limb from limb by those whom he had betrayed, hid himself in an inner chamber. There he lay during the day, and, with the generous and politic connivance of Murray and Walker, made his escape at night in the disguise of a porter."^ The part of the wall from which he let himself down is still pointed out; and people still living talk of having tasted the fruit of a pear tree which assisted him in his descent. His name is, to this day, held in execration by the Protestants of the North of Ireland; and his effigy is still annually hung and burned by them with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in England are appropriated to Guy Faux. And now Londonderry was left destitute of all military and of all civil government. No man in the town had a right to command any other: the defences were weak: the provisions were scanty: an incensed tyrant and a great army were at the gates. But within was that which has often, in desperate extremities, retrieved the fallen fortunes of nations. Betrayed, deserted, disorganized, unprovided with resources, begirt with enemies, the noble city was still no easy conquest. Whatever an engineer might think * Walk»r and MackMuie. WILLIAM AND MARY. of the Strength af the ramparts, all that was most intel- ligent, most courageous, most high-spirited among the Knglishry of Leinster and of Northern Ulster was crowded behind them. The number of men capable of bearing arms within the walls was seven thousand; and the whole world could not have furnished seven thousand men bet- ter qualified to meet a terrible emergency with clear judg- ment, dauntless valor, and stubborn patience. They were all zealous Protestants; and the Protestantism of the ma- jority was tinged with Puritanism. They had much in common with that sober, resolute, and God-fearing class out of which Cromwell had formed his unconquerable army. But the peculiar situation in which they had been placed had developed in them some qualities which, in the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which had been enabled, by superior civilization, by close union, by sleepless vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a numerous and hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in some measure trained both to military and to political functions. Almost every one was familiar with the use of arms, and was accustomed to bear a part in the administration of justice. It was remarked by contemporary writers that the colonists had something of the Castilian haughtness of manner, though none of the Castilian indolence/ that they spoke English with remark- able purity and correctness, and that they were, both as militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the mother country.* In all ages, men situated as the Anglo- Saxons in Ireland were situated have had peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices and virtues of masters, as opposed to the vices and virtues of slaves. The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent, — for fraud is the resource of the weak, — but imperious, insolent, and cruel. To- wards his brethren, on the other hand, his conduct is generally just, kind, and even noble. His self-respect leads him to respect all who belong to his own order. His in- terest impels him to cultivate a good understanding with those whose prompt, strenuous, and courageous assistance may at any moment be necessary to preserve his property ♦ See the Character of the Protestants of Ireland, 1689, and the Interests of England in the Preservation of Ireland, 1689. The fonuer pamphlet is the work of an en^jay. the ktter of a ?calpu§ fri^ii^, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and life. It is a truth ever present to his mind that his own well-being depends on the ascendency of the class to which he belongs. His very selfishness therefore is sub- limed into public spirit; and this public spirit is stimulated to fierce enthusiasm by sympathy, by the desire of ap- plause, and by the dread of infamy. For the only opinion which he values is the opinion of his fellows; and in their opinion devotion to the common cause is the most sacred of duties. The character, thus formed, has two aspects- Seen on one side, it must be regarded by every well con^ stituted mind with disapprobation. Seen on the other, it irresistibly extorts applause. The Spartan, smiting an-d spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what he well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be contemplated without admiration. To a superficial observer it may seem strange that so much evil and so much good should he found to- gether. But in truth the good and the evil, which at first sight appear almost incompatible, are closely connected, and have a common origin. It was because the Spartan had been taught to revere himself as one of a race of sovereigns, and to look down on all that was not Spartan as of an inferior species, that he had no fellow feeling for the miserable serfs who crouched before him, and that the thought of submitting to a foreign master, or of turning his back before an enemy, never, even in the last extre- mity, crossed his mind. Something of the same character, compounded of tyrant and hero, has been found in all na- tions which have domineered over more numerous nations. But it has nowhere in modern Europe shown itself so con- spicuously as in Ireland. With what contempt, with what antipathy, the ruling minority in that country long re- garded the subject majority may be best learned from the hateful laws which, within the memory of men still living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws were at length annulled: but the spirit which had dictated them survived them, and even at this day some- times breaks out in excesses pernicious to the com- monwealth and dishonorable to the Protestant re- ligion. Nevertheless it is impossible to deny that the English colonists have had, with too many of the faults, all the noblest virtues of a sovereign caste. The fault;^ have^ as was natural^ been most offensively exhibited WILLIAM AND MARY. in times of prosperity and security: the virtues have been most resplendent in times of distress and peril; and never were those virtues more signally displayed than by the de- fenders of Londonderry, when their governor had aband- oned them, and when the camp of their mortal enemy was pitched before their walls. No sooner had the first burst of the rage excited by the perfidy of Lundy spent itself than those v/hom he had be- trayed proceeded, with a gravity and prudence worthy of the most renowned senate, to provide for the order and de- fence of the city. Two governors were elected. Baker and Walker. Baker took the chief military command. Wal- ker's especial business was to preserve internal tranquillity, and to dole out supplies from the magazines.* The in- habitants capable of bearing arms were distributed into eight regiments. Colonels, captains, and subordinate offi- cers were appointed. In a few hours every man knew his post, and was ready to repair to it as soon as the beat of the drum was heard. That machinery, by which Oliver had, in the preceding generation, kept up among his soldiers so stern and so pertinacious an enthusiasm, was again employed with not less complete success. Preaching and praying occupied a large part of every day. Eighteen clergymen of the Established Church and seven or eight non-conformist ministers were within the walls. They all exerted themselves indefatigably to rouse and sustain the spirit of the people. Among themselves there was for the time entire harmony. All disputes about church govern- ment, postures, ceremonies were forgotten. The Bishop, having found that his lectures on passive obedience were derided even by the Episcopalians, had withdrawn himself first to Raphoe, and then to England, and was preaching in a chapel in London. f On the other hand, a Scotch fan- atic named Hewson, who had exhorted the Presbyterians not to ally themselves with such as refused to subscribe the Covenant, had sunk under the well-merited disgust and scorn of the whole Protestant community.]; The as- pect of the Cathedral was remarkable. Cannon were ♦ There was afterwards some idle dispute about the question whether Walker was properly governor or not. To me it seems quite clear that he was so. t Mackenzie's Narrative; Funeral sermon on Bishop Hopkins, 1690. % Walker's True Account, 1689. See also the Apology for the True Account, and the Vindication of the True Account, published in the same year. I have called this man by the name by which he was known in Ireland. But his real name was Houstoun. He is frequently mentioned in the strange volume entitled Faithful Contendings Dis- played. V01-. iii-e. 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. planted on the summit of the broad tower which has since given place to a tower of different proportions. Ammuni- tion was stored in the vaults. In the choir the liturgy of the Anglican Church was read every morning. Every after- noon the Dissenters crowded to a simpler worship.* James had waited twenty-four hours, expecting, as it should seem, performance of Lundy's promises; and in twenty-four hours the arrangements for the defence of Londonderry were completCc On the evening of the nine- teenth of April, a trumpeter came to the southern gate, and asked whether the engagements into which the gov- ernor had entered would be fulfilled. The answer was that the men who guarded these walls had nothing to do with the governor's engagements, and were determined to re- sist to the last. On the following day a messenger of the higher rank was sent, Claude Hamilton, Lord Strabane, one of the few Roman Catholic peers of Ireland. Murray, who had been appointed to the command of one of the eight regiments into which the g'arrison was distributed, advanced from the gate to meet the flag -of truce; and a short conference was held. Strabane had been authorized to make large promises. The citizens should have a free pardon for all that was past if they would submit to their sovereign. Mur- ray himself should have a colonel's commission, and a thousand pounds in money. ''The men of Londonderry," answered Murray, "have done nothing that requires a pardon, and own no Sovereign but King William and Queen Mary. It will not be safe for your lordship to stay longer, or to return on the same errand. Let me have the honor of seeing you through the lines. "f James had been assured, and had fully expected that the city would yield as soon as it was known that he was be- fore the walls. Finding himself mistaken, he broke loose from the control of Meifort, and determined to return in- stantly to Dublin. Rosen accompanied the King. The di- rection of the siege was entrusted to Maumont. Richard Hamilton was second and Pusignan third, in command. The operations now commenced in earnest. The be- siegers began by battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs and upper stories of houses, fell in, and crushed the inmates. During a short time thegar- * A. view of the Danger and Folly of bcins; public-spirited, by William Hamill, 172;. t See Walker's True Account and IVl^ckcnaie's Narrative. WILLIAM AND MARY. 155 rison, many of whom had never before seen the effect of a cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the crash oi chimneys, and by the heaps of ruin mingled with disfig- ured corpses. But familiarity with danger and horror pro- duced in a few hours the natural effect. The .spirit of the people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on the offensive. On the twenty-first of April a sally was made under the command of Murray. The Irish stood their ground resolutely; and a furious and bloody contest took place. Maumont, at the head of a body of cavalry, flew to the place where the fight was raging. He was struck in the head by a musket ball, and fell a corpse. The besiegers lost several other officers, and about two hun- dred men, before the colonists could be driven in. Murray escaped with difficulty. His horse was killed under him; and he was beset by enemies: but he was able to defend himself till some of his friends made a rush from the gate to his rescue, with old Walker at their head.* In consequence of the death of Maumont, Richard Ham- ilton was. once more commander of the Irish army. His exploits in that post did not raise his reputation. He was a fine gentleman and a brave soldier; but he had no pre- tensions to the character of a great general, and had never, in his life, seen a siege. f Pusignan had more science and energy. But Pusignan survived Maumont little more than a fortnight. At four in the morning of the sixth of May, the garrison made another sally, took several flags, and killed many of the besiegers. Pusignan, fighting gallantly^ was shot through the body. The wound was one which a skillful surgeon might have cured: but there was no such surgeon in the Irish camp, and the communication with Dublin was slow and irregular. The poor Frenchman died, complaining bitterly of the barbarous ignorance and negligence which had shortened his days. A medical man, who had been sent down express from the capital, arrived * Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, ^p^^' 1689. There is a tradition among the Protest- ants of Ulster that Maumont fell by the sword of Murray; but on this point the report made by the French ambassador to his master is decisive. The truth is that there are almost as many mythical stories about the siege of Londonderry, as about the siege of Troy. The legend about Murray and Maumont dates from 1689. In the Royal Voyage^ which was acted in that year, the combat between the heroes is described in these sonc^ rous lines: ** They met; and Monsieur at the first encounter Fell dead, blaspheming, on the dusty plain, And dying, bit the groand.'' t "Si c'est celuy qui est sorti de France le dernier, qui s'appelloit Richard, il n'a jamais reu de si^ge, ayant tousjours sepvi en Rousillon," — Louvois to Avaux, June .vi3, x689. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. after the funeral. James, in consequence, as it should seem, of this disaster, established a daily post between Dublin Castle and Kamiltort's headquarters. Even by this conveyance letters did not travel very expeditiously: for the couriers^ went on foot, and, from fear probably of the Enniskilleners, took a circuitous route from military post to military post.* May passed away: June arrived; and still Londonderry held out. There had been many sallies and skirmishes w ith various success: but. on the W'hole, the advantage had been w4th the garrison. Several officers of note had been carried prisoners into the city; and two French banners, torn after hard fighting from the besiegers, had been hung as trophies in the chancel of the cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned into a blockade. But before the hope of reducing the tow^n by mjain force was relin- quished, it was determined to make a great effort. The point selected for assault was an outwork called Windmill Hill, which was not far from the southern gate. Religious stimulants were employed to animate the courage of the forlorn hope. Many volunteers bound themselves by oath to make their w^ay into the works or to perish in the at- tempt. Captain Butler, son of the Lord Mountgarret, undertook to lead the sworn men to the attack. On the vvalls the colonists were drawn up in three ranks. The office of those who were behind was to load the muskets of those who were in front. The Irish came on boldly and with a fearful uproar, but after long and hard fighting were driven back. The women of Londonderry were seei;i amidst the thickest fire serving out water and ammunition to their husbands and brothers. In one place, where the w^all was only seven feet high, Butler and some of his sworn men succeeded in reaching the top; but they were all killed or made prisoners. At length, after four hun- dred of the Irish had fallen, their chiefs ordered a retreat to be sounded. f Nothing was left but to try the effect pf hunger. It was known that the stock of food in the rlty was but slender. ♦ Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux to Lo'-'.eoic, May c-i;?, 4-14, 1689; James to Hamilton, ^^-in the library of the Roy^sl Irish Aca'^iemy, Louvois wrote to Avaux in great in- diKnation. ''La mauvaise conduitc que Ton a tenue devant Londondery a coust^ la vi« k M. de IMaumont et a M. de PusiKnan. II nc faut pas que sa Majesty Britannique croye qu'en faisant tuer des cfficiers generaux conmie des soldats, on puissc ne Ten point laisser manquer. Ces sortes de gens sont larcs en tout pays, et doivent estrc menagex.' t Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, June iC-uG, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. Indeed it was thought strange that the supplies should have held out so long. Every precaution was now taken against the introduction of provisions. All the avenues lead- ing to the city by land were closely guarded. On the south were encamped, along the left bank of the Foyle, the horse- men who had followed Lord Galmoy from the valley of the Barrow. Their chief was, of all the Irish captains, the most dreaded and the most abhorred by the Protestants. For he had disciplined his men with rare skill and care; and many frightful stories were told of his barbarity and perfidy. Long lines of tents, occupied by the infantry of Butler and O'Neil, of Lord Slane and Lord Gormanstown, by Nugent's Westmeath men, by Eustace's Kildare men, and by Cavanagh's Kerry men, extended northward till they again approached the water side."^ The river was fringed with forts and batteries, which no vessel could pass without great peril. After some time it was deter-' mined to make the security still more complete by throw- ing a barricade across the stream, about a mile and a half below the city. Several boats full of stones were sunk. A row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the river. Large pieces of fir- wood, strongly bound together, formed a boom which was more than a quarter of a mile in length and which was firmly fastened to both shores by cables a foot thick. f A huge stone, to which the cable on the left bank wa^ attached, was removed many years later, for the purpose of being polished and shaped into a column. But the intention w^as abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies, not many yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard by is a well from which the besiegers drank. "A little further off is a burial ground where they laid their slain, and where even in our own time the spade of the gardener has struck upon many skulls and thigh- bones at a short distance beneath the turf and flowers. While these things were passing in the North, James was holding his court at Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he received intelligence that the French * As to the discipline of Galmoy's Horse, see the letter of Avaux to Louvois, dated September 10-20. Horrible stories of the cruelty, both of the colonel and of his men, are fold in the Short View, by a Clergyman, printed in 1689, and in several other pam- phlets of that year. For the distribution of the Irish forces, see the contemporary maps of the siege. A catalogue of the regiments meant, I suppose, to rival the Catalogue in the Second Book of the Iliad, will be found in the Londeriad. t Life of Admiral Sir John Leake, by Stephen M. Leake, Clarencieux King at Arias, 1750. Of this book only fifty copies were printed. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fleet, commanded by the Count of Chateau Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put on shore a large quantity of military stores and a supply of money. Her- bert, who had just been sent to those seas with an English squadron for the purpose of intercepting the communica- tions between Britanny and Ireland, learned where the enemy lay, and sailed into the bay with the intention of giving battle. But the wind was unfavorable to him: his force was greatly inferior to that which was opposed to him; and, after come firing, which caused no serious loss to either side, he thought it prudent to stand out to sea, while the French retired into the recesses of the harbor. He steered for Scilly, where he expected to find reinforce- ments; and Chateau Renaud, content with the credit whicL he had acquired, and afraid of losin'^ &iw ^tayea, hac tened back to Brest^ tyouga earnestly entreated by Jam.ec to come aroiii.a to Dublin^ iioch sides claimed the victory. The Commons at West m ister absurdly passed a vote of thanks to Herber:, James, not less absurdly, ordered bonfires to be lighted, and a Te Deum to be sung. But these marks of joy by no means satisfied Avaux, whose national vanity was too Stri i-^ even for his characteristic prudence and politeness. H --^rrplained that James was so unjust and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late action to the reluct- ance with which the English seamen fought against their rightful King and their old commander, and that His Majesty did not seem to be well pleased by being told that they were flying over the ocean pursued by the triumph- ant French. Dover, too, was a bad Frenchman. He seemed to take no pleasure in the defeat of his country- men, and had been heard to say that the affair in Ban- try Bay did not deserve to be called a battle.* On the day after the Te Deum had been sung at Dublin for this indecisive skirmish, the Parliament convoked by Tames assembled. The number of temporal peers of Ire- land, when he arrived in that kingdom, was about a hun- dred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his summons- Of the fourteen, ten were Roman Catholics. By the re- versing of old attainders, and by new creations, seventeen * Avaux, May 8-18, , ^ ' 1689: London Gazette, May g,- Life of James, ii. 370; ' ^ June 5, burchett's Naval Transactions; Commons' Journals, May 18, 21. From the Memoirs of Madame de la Fayette it aopears that this paltry affair was correctly appreciated at V^fsaillea, WILLIAM AND MARY more Lords, all Roman Catholics, were introduced into the Upper House. The Protestant Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and Limerick, whether from a sincere con- viction that they could not lawfully withhold their obe- dience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope that the heart even of a tyrant might be softened by their patience, made their appearance in the midst of their mortal ene- mies. The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and Papists. With the writs the returning offi- cers had received from Tyrconnel letters naming the per- sons whom he wished to see elected. The largest constit- uent bodies in the kingdom were at this time very small. For scarcely any but Roman Catholics dared to show their faces, and the Roman Catholic freeholders were then very few, not more, it is said, in some counties, than ten 01 twelve. Even in cities so considerable as Cork, Limerick, and Galway, the number of persons who, under the new charters, were entitled to vote, did not exceed twenty-four. About two hundred and fifty members took their seats. Of these only six were Protestants.* The list of the names sufficiently indicates the religious and political temper of the assembly. Alone among the Irish parliaments of that age, this parliament was filled with Dermots and Geohe- gans, O'Neils and O'Donovans, Macmahons, Macnamaras, and Macgillicuddies. The lead was taken by a few men whose abilities had been improved by the study of the law, or by experience acquired in foreign countries. The Attorney General, Sir Richard Nagle, who represented the county of Cork, was allowed, even by Protestants, to be an acute and learned jurist. Francis Plowden, the Commis- sioner of Revenue who sate for Bannow, and acted as chief minister of finance, was an Englishman, and, as he had been a principal agent of the Order of Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have been an excellent man of business. f Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for the county of Carlow, had served long in France, and had brought back to his native Ireland a sharpened intellect and polished manners, a flattering tongue, some skill in war, and much more skill in intrigue. His elder brother, Colonel Simon Luttrell, who was member for the county * King. iii. la; Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration, 1716. Lists of both Houses will be found in King's Appendix. 1 1 found proof of Plowden's connection with the Jesuits in a Treasury Letter-boQk, June i», 1689, i6o HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of Dublin, and military governor of the capital, had also resided in France, and, though inferior to Henry in parts and activity, made a highly distinguished figure among tlie adherents of James. The other member for the county of Dublin was Colonel Patrick Sarsfield. This gallant oiicer was regarded by the natives as one of themselves: for his ancestors on the paternal side, though originally English, \ were among those early colonists who were proverbially said to have become more Irish than Irishmen. His mother was of noble Celtic blood; and he was firmly attached to the old religion. He had inherited an estate of about two thousand a year, and was therefore one of the wealthiest Roman Catholics in the kingdom. His knowledge of courts and camps was such as few of his countrymen pos- sessed. He had long borne a commission in the English Life Guards, had lived much about Whitehall, and had fought bravely under Monmouth on the Continent, and against Monmouth at Sedgemoor. He had, Avaux wrote, more personal influence than any man in Ireland, and was indeed a gentlemen of eminent merit, brave, upright, hon- orable, careful of his men in quarters, and certain to be always found at their head in the day of battle. His in- trepidity, his frankness, his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of ordinary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained for him the aftectionate admiration of the populace. It is re- markable that the Englishry generally respected him as a Valiant, skillful, and generous enemy, and that, even in the most ribald farces which were performed by mounte- banks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the dis- graceful imputations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation.* But men like these were rare in the House of Commons which had met at Dublin. It is no reproach to the Irish nation, a nation which has since furnished its full propor- tion of eloquent and accomplished senators, to say that, of all the parliaments which have met in the British islands, Barebone's parliament not excepted, the assembly convoked * ''Sarsfield," Avaux wrote to Louvois, Oct.,11-21, 1689, "n'est pas un homme de la naissance de mylord Galloway" (Galmoy, I suppose) "ny de Makarty: mais c'est un gentilhomme distingue par son m^rite. qui a plus de credit dans ce royaume qu'aucun homme que je connoisse. II a de la valeur, mais surtout de I'honneur et de la probity k toute epreuve . . . homme qui sera toujours a la tete de ses troupes, et qui en aura grand soin." Leslie, in his Answer to King, says that the Irish Protestants did justice to Sarsfield's integrity and honour. Indeed, justice is done to Sarsfiejd even in suph scurrilous pieces as the Royal Flight. WILLIAM AND MARY. 161 by James was the most deficient in all the qualities which a legislature should possess. The stern domination of a hostile class had blighted the faculties of the Irish gen- tleman. If he was so fortunate as to have lands, he had generally passed his life on them, shooting, fishing, car- ousing and making love among his vassals. If his estate^ had been confiscated, he had wandered about from bawn to bawn and from cabin to cabin, levying small contribu- tions, and living at the expense of other men. He had never sate in the House of Commons: he had never even taken an active part at an election: he had never been a magistrate: scarcely ever had he been on a grand jury. He had therefore absolutely no experience of public af- fairs. The English squire of that age, though assuredly not a very profound or enlightened politician, was a states- man and a philosopher when compared with the Roman Catholic squire of Munster or Connaught. The parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of assembling. Indeed they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would hardly have been worth while to build and furnish a palace for their special use. It was not till the Hanoverian dynasty had been long on the throne, that a senate house which sustains a comparison with the finest compositions of Inigo Jones arose between the Col- lege and the Castle. In the seventeenth century there stood, on the spot where the portico and dome of the Four Courts now overlook the Liffey, an ancient building which had once been a convent of Dominican friars, but had, since the Reformation, been appropriated to the use of the legal profession, and bore the name of the King's Inns. There accommodation had been provided for the parliament. On the seventh of May, James, dressed in royal robes and wearing a crown, took his seat on the throne in the House of Lords, and ordered the Commons to be summoned to the bar.* He then expressed his gratitude to the natives of Ireland for having adhered to his cause when the people of his other kingdoms had deserted him. His resolution to abolish all religious disabilities in all his dominions he de- clared to be unalterable. He invited the Houses to take the Act of Settlement into consideration, and to redress the * Journal of the Parliament in Ireland, 1689. The reader must not imagine that this Journal has an official character. It is merely a compilation made by a Protestant para^ phleteer, and printed in London. t62 HISTORY OF ENGLANt). injuries of which the old proprietors of the soil had reason to complain. He concluded by acknowledging in warm terms his obligations to the King of France.* When the royal speech had been pronounced, the Chan- cellor directed the Commons to repair to their chamber and to elect a Speaker. They chose the Attorney Gener^ij Nagle; and the choice was approved by the King.f The Commons next passed resolutions expressing warm gratitude both to James and to Lewis. Indeed it was proposed to send a deputation with an address to Avaux; but the Speaker pointed out the gross impropriety of such a step; and, on this occasion, his interference was success- ful. J It was seldom however that the House was disposed to listen to reason. The debates were all rant and tumult. Judge Daly, a Roman Catholic, but an honest and able man, could not refrain from lamenting the indecency and folly with which the members of his Church carried on the work of legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a parliament: they were a mere rabble: they resembled noth- ing so much as the mob of fishermen and market gardeners, who, at Naples, yelled and threw up their caps in honor of Massaniello. It was painful to hear member after member- talking wild nonsense about his own losses, and clamor- ing for an estate, when the lives of all and the independ- ence of their common country were in peril. These words were spoken in private; but some tale-bearer repeated them to the Commons. A violent storm broke forth. Daly was ordered to attend at the bar; and there was little doubt that he would be severely dealt with. But, just when he was at the door, one of the members rushed in shouting, *^Good news: Londonderry is taken." The whole House rose. All the hats were flung into the air. Three loud huzzas were raised. Every heart was softened by the happy tidings. Nobody would hear of punishment at such a moment. The order for Daly's attendance was dis- charged amidst cries of ^'No submission: no submission: we pardom him." In a few hours it was known that Lon- donderry held out as obstinately as ever. This transaction, in itself unimportant, deserves to be recorded, as showing how destitute that House of Commons was of the qualities which ought to be found in the great council of a king- * Life of James, ii. 355. t Journal of the Parliament in Ireland, * Avaux, 1689. WILLIAM AND MARY. 163 dom. And this assembly, without experience, without gravity, and without temper, was now to legislate on ques- tions which would have tasked to the utmost the capacity of the greatest statesmen.* One Act James induced them to pass which would have been most honorable to him and to them, if there were . not abundant proofs that it was meant to be a dead letter. * It was an Act purporting to gr^nt entire liberty of con- science to all Christian sects. On this occasion a procla- mation was put forth announcing in boastful language to the English people that their rightful King had now sig- nally refuted those slanderers who had accused him of af- fecting zeal for religious liberty merely in order to serve a turn. If he were at heart inclined to persecution, would he not have persecuted the Irish Protestants? He did not want power. He did not want provocation. Yet at Dub- lin, where the members of his Church were the majority, as at Westminster, where they were a minority, he had firmly adhered to the principles laid down in his much maligned Declaration of Indulgence, f Unfortunately for him, the same wind which carried his fair professions to England carried thither also evidence that his professions were irt- sincere. A single law, worthy of Turgot or of Franklin, seemed ludicrously out of place in the midst of a crowd of laws which would have disgraced Gardiner or Alva. A necessary preliminary to the vast work of spoliation and slaughter on which the legislators of Dublin were bent, was an Act annulling the authority which the En- glish Parliament, both as the supreme legislature and as the supreme Court of Appeal, had hitherto exercised over Ireland. J This Act was rapidly passed; and then followed, in quick succession, confiscations and proscriptions on a gigantic scale. The personal estates of absentees above the age of seventeen years were transferred to the King. When lay property was thus invaded, it was not likely that the endowments^ which had been, in contravention of every sound principle, lavished on the Church of the mi- nority, would be spared.- To reduce those endowments, * A True Account of the Present State of Ireland, by a Person that with Great Diffi- culty left Dublin, 1689; Letter from Dublin, dated June 12, 1689; Journal of the Parlia- ment in Ireland. t Life of James, ii. 361, 362, 363. In the Life it is said that the proclamation was r-nt forth without the privity of James, but that he subsequently approved of it. See Vvel- wood's Answer to the Declaration. i68g. % Light to the Blind; An Act declarincr that the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland againstWrivs of Error and Appeals, printed in London, 1690. 164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. without prejudice to existing interests, would have been a reform worthy of a good prince and of a good parliament. But no such reform would satisfy the vindictive bigots who sate at the King's Inns. By one sweeping Act the greater part of the tithe was transferred from the Protestant to the Roman Catholic clergy; and the existing incumbents were left, without one farthing of compensation, to die of hunger."'^ A Bill repealing/he Act of Settlement and trans- ferring many thousands of square miles from Saxon to Celtic landlords w^as brought in and carried by accla- mation. f Of legislation such as this it is impossible to speak too severely: but for the legislators there are excuses which it is the duty of the historian to notice. They acted unmer- cifully, unjustly, unwisely. But it would be absurd to ex- pect mercy, justice, or wisdom from a class of men first abased by many years of oppression, and then maddened by the joy of a sudden deliverance, and armed with irresis- tible power. The representatives of the Irish nation were, with few exceptions, rude and ignorant. They had lived in a state of constant irritation. With aristocratical senti- ments they had been in a servile position. With the high- est pride of blood, they had been exposed to daily affronts, such as might well have roused the choler of the humblest plebeian. In sight of the fields and castles which they re- garded as their own, they had been glad to be invited by a peasant to partake of his whey and his potatoes. Those violent emotions of hatred and cupidity which the situa- tion of the native gentleman could scarcely fail to call forth appeared to him under the specious guise of patriotism and piety. For his enemies were the enemies of his nation; and the same tyranny which had robbed him of his patrimony had robbed his Church of vast wealth bestowed on her by the de- votion of an earlier age. How was power likely to be used by an uneducated and inexperienced .man, agitated by strong desires and resentments which he mistook for sacred duties? And, when two or three hundred such men were brought together in one assemby, what was to be ex- pected but that the passions which each had long nursed in silence would be at once matured into fearful vigor by the influence of sympathy? * An Act concerning Appropriate Tythes and other duties payable to Ecclesiastical Dignitaries. London, 1690. t An act for repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, and all Grants, Pat-» cnts, and Certificates pursuant to theni or any of them. London, 1690. WILLIAM AND MARY, Between James and his parliament there was little in common, except hatred of the Protestant religion. He was an Englishman. Superstition had not utterly extin- guished all national feeling in his mind; and he could not but be displeased by the malevolence with which his Celtic supporters regarded the race from which he sprang. The range of his intellectual vision was small. Yet it was im- possible that, having reigned in England, and looking con- stantly forward to the day when he should reign in Eng- land once more, he should not take a wider view of poli-^ tics than was taken by men w^ho had no objects out of Ire- land. The few Irish Protestants who still adhered to him and the British nobles, both Protestant and Roman Catho Jic, who had followed him into exile, implored him to r6. strain the violence of the rapacious and vindictive senate which he had convoked. They with peculiar earnestnes!* implored him not to consent to the repeal of the Act of Settlement. On what security, they asked, could any man invest his money or give a portion to his children, if he could not rely on positive laws and on the uninterupted possession of many years? The military adventurers among whom Cromwell portioned out the soil might perhaps be regarded as wrong-doers. But how large a part of their estates had passed, by fair purchase, into other hands! How much money had proprietors borrowed on mortgage, on statute merchant, on statute staple! How many capitalists had, trusting to legislative acts and to royal promises, come over from England, and bought land in Ulster and Leinster, without the least misgiving as to the title! What a sum had those capitalists expended, dur- ing a quarter of a century, in building, draining, enclosing, planting! The terms of the compromise which Charles the Second had sanctioned might not be in all respects just. But was one injustice to be redressed by commit- ting another injustice more monstrous still? And what effect was likely to be produced in England by the cry of thousands of innocent English families whom an English king had doomed to ruin? The complaints of such a body of sufferers might delay, might prevent, the restoration to which all loyal subjects were eagerly looking forward; and, even if His Majesty should, in spite of those complaints, be happily restored, he would to the end of his life feel the pernicious effects of the injustice which evil advisers were now urging him to commit. He would find that, in trying i66 HISTORY OF ENGLANP, to quiet one set of malcontents, he had created another. As surely as he yielded to the clamor raised at Dublin for a repeal of the Act of Settlement, he would, from the day on which he returned to Westminster, be assailed by as loud and pertinacious a clamor for a repeal of that repeal. He could not but be aware that no English parliament, however loyal, would permit such laws as were now pass- ing through the Irish parliament to stand. Had he made up his mind to take the part of Ireland against the uni- versal sense of England? If so, to what could he look for- ward but another banishment and another deposition? Or would he, when he had recovered the greater kingdom, re- voke the boons by which, in his distress, he had purchased the help of the smaller? It might seem an insult to him even to suggest that he could harbor the thought of such unprincely, of such unmanly, perfidy. Yet v/hat other course would be left to him? And was it not better for him to refuse unreasonable concessions now than to retract those concessions hereafter in a manner which must bring on him reproaches insupportable to a noble mind? His situation was doubtless embarrassing. Yet in this case, as in other cases, it would be found that the path of justice was the path of wisdom.^ Though James had, in his speech at the opening of the session, declared against the Act of Settlement, he felt that these arguments were unanswerable. He held several con- ferences with the leading members of the House of Com- mons, and earnestly recommended moderation. But his exhortations irritated the passions which he washed to allay. Many of the native gentry held high and violent language. It was impudent, they said, to talk about the rights of purchasers. How could right spring out of wrong? People who chose to buy property acquired by in- justice must take the consequences of their folly and cupid- ity. It was clear that the Lower House was altogether impracticable. James had, four years before, refused to make the smallest concession to the most obsequious par- liament that has ever sat in England; and it might have been expected that the obstinacy, which he had never wanted when it was a vice, would not have failed him now when it would have been a virtue. During a short time he seemed determined to act justly. He even talked of dis- * See the paper delivered to James by Chief Justice Keating, and the speech of th^ fcishop of Meath. Both are in King's appendix, Life of James ii, 357-361, WILLIAM AND MARY. 167 solving the Parliament. The chiefs of the old Celtic fami- lies on the other hand, said publicly that, if he did not give them back their inheritance, they would not fight for his. His very soldiers railed on him in the streets of Dub- lin. At length he determined to go down himself to the House of Peers, not in his robes and crown, but in the garb in which he had been used to attend debates at West- minster, and personally to solicit the Lords to put some check on the violence of the Commons. But just as he was getting into his coach for this purpose he was stopped by Avaux.' Avaux was as zealous as any Irishman for the bills which the Commons were urging forward. It was enough for him that those bills seemed likely to make the enmity between England and Ireland irreconcileable. His remonstrances induced James to abstain from openly op- posing the repeal of the Act of Settlement. Still the un- fortunate Prince continued to cherish some faint hope that the law for which the Commons were so zealous would be rejected, or at least modified, by the Peers. Lord Granard, one of the few Protestant noblemen who sate in that Par- liament, exerted himself strenuously on the side of public faith and sound policy. The King sent him a message of thanks. "We Protestants," said Granard to Powis, who brought the message, " are few in number. We can do little. His Majesty should try his influence with the Roman Catholics." " His Majesty," answered Powis with an oath, dares not say what bethinks." A few days later James met Granard riding towards the parliament house. "Where are you going, my Lord?" said the King. " To enter my protest, sir," answered Granard, "against the repeal of the Act of Settlement." "You are right," said the King: " but I am fallen into the hands of people who will ram that and much more down my throat."* James yielded to the will of the Commons: but the un- favorable impression which his short and feeble resistance had made upon them was not to be removed by his sub- mission. They regarded him with profound distrust: they considered him as at heart an Englishman; and not a day passed without some indication of this feeling. They were in no haste to grant him a supply. One party among them planned an address urging him to dismiss Melfort as an enemy of their nation. Another party drew up a bill Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, ^j^^^^^' i6Sg; Life of James, ii. 358, i68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. for deposing all the Protestant blsliops, even .the four who were then actually sitting in Parliament. It was not with- out difficulty that Avaux and Tyrconnel, whose influence in the Lower House far exceeded the King's, could re- strain the zeal of the majority.* It is remarkable that, wiiile the King was losing the con- fidence and good will of the Irish Commons by faintly de- fending against them, in one quarter, the institution of property, he was himself, in another quarter, attacking that institution with a violence, if possible, more reckless than theirs. He soon found that no money came into his exchequer. The cause was sufficiently obvious. Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. Of the fixed capital snuch had been destroyed, and the rest was lying idle. Thous- ands of those Protestants who were the most industrious and intelligent part of the population had emigrated to England. Thousands had taken refuge in the places which still held out for William and Mary. Of the Roman Catholic peasantry who were in the vigor of life the major- ity had enlisted in the army or had joined gangs of plun- derers. The poverty of the treasury was the necessary effect of the poverty of the country: public prosperity could be restored only by the restoration of private prosperity: and private prosperity could be restored only by years of peace and security. James was absurd enough to imagine that there was a more speedy and efficacious remedy. He could, he conceived, at once extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the simple process of calling a farthing a shilling. The right of coining was undoubtedly a flower of the prerogative: and, in his view, the right of coining included the right of debasing the coin. Pots, pans, knockers of doors, pieces of ordnance which had long been past use, were carried to the mint. In a short time lumps of base metal, nominally worth near a million sterling, intrinsically worth about a sixtieth part of that sum, were in circulation. A royal edict declared these pieces to be legal tender in all cases whatever. A mortgage for a thousand pounds was cleared off by a bag of counters made out of old kettles. The creditors who complained to the Court of Chancery were told by Fitton to take their * Avaux, 1689, and 4^"t^'- l^he author of Light to the Blind strongly ' June 7 July condemns the indulgence shov/n to the rrotestant Bishops who adhered to James. WILLIAM AND MARV. 169 money and be gone. But of all classes the tradesmen of Dublin, who were generally Protestants, were the greatest losers. At first, of course, they raised their demands: but the magistrates of the city took on themselves to meet this heretical machination by putting forth a tariff regulating prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now domi- nant might walk into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass worth three pence, and carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal redress was out of the questiox. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves happy if, by the sacrifice of their stock in trade, they could redeem their limbs and their lives. There was not a baker's shop in the city round which twenty or thirty soldiers were not constantly prowling. Some persons who refused the base money were arrested by troopers and carried before the provost marshal, who curssd them, swore at them, locked them up in dark cells, and by threatening to hang them at their own doors, soon overcame their resistance. Of all the plagues of that time none made a deeper or more last- ing impression on the minds of the Protestants of Dublin than the plague of the brass money.* To the recollection of the confusion and misery which had been produced by James's coin must be in part ascribed the strenuous oppo- sition which, thirty-five years later, large classes, firmly at- tached to the House of Hanover, offered to the govern- ment of George the First in the affair of Wood's patent. There can be no question that James, in thus altering, by his own authority, the terms of all the contracts in the kingdom, assumed a power which belonged only to the whole legislature. Yet the Commons did not remonstrate. There was no power, however unconstitutional, which they were not willing to concede to him, as long as he used it to crush and plunder the English population. On the other hand, they respected no prerogative, however an- cient, however legitimate, however salutary, if they appre- hended that he might use it to protect the race which they abhorred. They were not satisfied till they had extorted his reluctant consent to a portentous law, a law without a parallel in the history of civilized countries, the great Act of Attainder. A list was framed containing between two and three * King, iii. 11; Brief Memoirs by Haynes, Assay Master of the Mint, among the Lansdowne MSS. at the British Museum, No. 801. I have seen several specimens of this coin. The execution is surprisingly good, all circumstances considered. 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, thousand names. At the top was half the peerage of lre= land. Then came baronets, knights, clergymen, squires, merchants, yeomen, artisans, women, children. No inves- tigation was made. Any member who wished to rid him- self of a creditor, a rival, a private enemy, gave in the name to the clerk at the table, and it was generally in- serted without discussion. The only debate of which any account has come down to us related to the Earl of Straf- ford. He had friends in the House who ventured to offer something in his favor. But a few words from Simon Luttrell settled the question. I have," he said, ^'heard the King say some hard things of that Lord." This was thought sufficient, and the name of Strafford stands fifth in the long table of the proscribed."* Days were fixed before which those whose names were on the list were required to, surrender themselves to such justice as was then administered to English Protestants in Dublin. If a proscribed person was in Ireland, he must surrender himself by the tenth of August. If he had left Ireland since the fifth of November, 1688, he must surren- der himself by the first of September. If he had left Ire- land before the fifth of November, 1688, he must surrender himself by the first of October. If he failed to appear by the appointed day, he was to be hanged, drawn, and quar- tered without a trial, and his property was to be confiscated. It might be physically impossible for him to deliver him- self up within the time fixed by the Act. He might be bedridden. He might be in the West Indies. He might be in prison. Indeed there notoriously were such cases. Among the attained Lords was Mountjoy. He had been induced, by the villainy of Tyrconnel, to trust himself at Saint Germains: he had been tlirown into the Bastile: he was still lying there; and the Irish Parliam.ent was not ashamed to enact that, unless he could, within a few weeks, make his escape from his cell, and present himself at Dub- lin, he should be put to death. f As it was not even pretended that there had been any inquiry into the guilt of those who were thus proscribed, as not a single one among them had been heard in his own defence, and as it was certain that it would be physically im- possible for many of them to surrender themselves in time, * King, iii. 12. t An Act for the Attainder of divers Rebels and for preserving the Interest of loyal Subjects, London, 169a WILLIAM AND MARY. 171 it was clear that nothing but a large exercise ot the royal prerogative of mercy could prevent the perpetration of iniquities so horrible that no precedent could be found for them even in the lamentable history of the troubles of Ire- land. The Commons therefore determined that the royal prerogative of mercy should be limited. Several regula- tions were devised for the purpose of making the passing of pardons difficult and costly; and finally it was enacted that every pardon granted by His Majesty, after the end of November, 1689, to any of the many hundreds of per- sons who had been sentenced to death without a trial, should be absolutely void and of none effect. Sir Richard Nagle came in state to the bar of the Lords and presented the bill with a speech worthy of the occasion. Many of the persons here attainted," said he, have been proved traitors by such evidence as satisfies us. As to the rest we have followed common fame."* With such reckless barbarity was the list framed that fanatical royalists, who were, at that very time, hazarding their property, their liberty, their lives, in the cause of James, were not secure from proscription. The most learned man of whom the Jacobite party could boast was Henry Dodwell, Camdenian Professor in the University of Oxford. In the cause of hereditary monarchy he shrank from no sacrifice and from no danger. It was about him that William uttered those memorable words: He has set his heart on being a martyr; and I have set mine on disappointing him." But James was more cruel to friends than William to foes. Dodwell was a Protestant: he had some property in Connaught: these crimes were sufficient; and he was set down in the long roll of those who were doomed to the gallows and the quartermg block. f That James would give his assent to a bill which took from him the power of pardoning, seemed to many persons impossible. He had, four years before, quarrelled with the most loyal of parliaments rather than cede a preroga- . live which did not belong to him. It might, therefore, well be expected that he would now have struggled hard to retain a precious prerogative which had been enjoyed by his predecessors ever since the origin of the monarchy, and * King, iii. 13. i His name is in the first column of page 30, in that edition of the List which was li- censed March 26, 1690. I should have thought that the -proscribed person must have been some other Henry Dodwell. But Bishop KenneU's second letter to the Bishop of parlisle, 1716, leaves np doubt about the matter, HISTORY OF ENGLAND, which even the Whigs allowed to be a flower properly be- longing to the Crown. The stern look and raised voice with which he had reprimanded the Tory gentlemen, who, in the language of profound reverence and fervent affection, implored him not co dispense with the law^s, w^ould now have been in place. He might also have seen that the right course was the wise course. Had he, on this great occasion, had the spirit to declare that he would not shed the blood of the innocent, and that, even as respected the guilty, he w^ould not divest himself of the power of tempering judgment with mercy, he would have regained more hearts in England than he would have lost in Ireland. But it w^as ever his fate to resist where he should have yielded, and to yield where he should have resisted. The most wicked of all laws received his sanction; and it is but a very small extenuation of his guilt that his sanction was somewhat reluctantly given. That nothing might be wanting to the completeness of this great crime, extreme care was taken to prevent the persons who were attainted from know^ing that they were attained, till the day of grace fixed in the Act was passed. The roll of names was not published, but kept carefully locked up in Fitton's closet. Some Protestants, who still adhered to the cause of James, but who were anxious to know^ whether any of their friends or relations had been proscribed, tried hard to obtain a sight of the list: but solicitations, remonstrance, even bribery, proved vain. Not a single copy got abroad till it was too late for any of the thousands who had been condemned without a trial to obtain a pardon.* Towards the close of July James prorogued the Houses. They had sate more than ten weeks: and in that space of time they had proved most fully that, great as have been the evils which Protestant ascendency has produced in Ire- land, the evils produced by Popish ascendency would have been greater still. That the colonists when they had won the victory, grossly abused it, that their legislation w^as, during many years, unjust and tyrannical, is most true. But it is not less true that they never quite came up to the * A list of most of the names of the Nobility, Gentry, and Commonalty of Enp:land and Ireland (amongst whom are several Women and Children) who are all, by an Act of a Pretended Parliament assemjjled in Dublin, attainted of High Treason, 1690; An Ac- count of the Transactions of the late King James in Ireland^ 1690; King, iii. 13; Me- moirs of Ireland. 1716. WILLIAM AND MARY. atrocious example set by their vanquished enemy during his short tenure of power. Indeed, while James was loudly boasting that he had passed an Act granting entire liberty of conscience to all sects, a persecution as cruel as that of Languedoc was rag- ing through all the provinces which owned his authority. It was said by those who wished to find an excuse for him that almost all the Protestants, who still remained in Mun- ster, Connaught, and Leinster, were his enemies, and that it was not as schismatics, but as rebels in heart, who wanted only opportunity to become rebels in act, that he gave them up to be oppressed and despoiled; and to this excuse some weight might have been allowed if he had stren- uously exerted himself to protect those few colonists, who, though firmly attached to the reformed religion, were still true to the doctrines of non-resistance and of indefeasible hereditary right. But even these devoted royalists found that their heresy was in his view a crime for which no services or sacrifices would atone. Three or four noblemen, members of the Anglican Church, who had welcomed him to Ireland, and had sate in his par- liament, represented to him that, if the rule which forbade any Protestant to possess any weapon were strictly en- forced, their country houses would be at the mercy of the Rapparees, and obtained from him permission to keep arms sufficient for a few servants. But Avaux remon- strated. The indulgence, he said, was grossly abused: these Protestant lords were not to be trusted: they were turning their houses into fortresses: His Majesty would soon have reason to repent his goodness. These represen- tations prevailed; and Roman Catholic troops were quar- tered in the suspected dwellings.^ Still harder was the lot of those Protestant clergymen who continued to cling, with desperate fidelity, to the cause of the Lord's Anointed. Of all the Anglican divines the one who had the largest share of James's good graces seems to have been Cartwright. Whether Cartwright could long have continued to be a favorite without being an apostate may be doubted. He died a few weeks after his arrival in Ireland; and thenceforward his Church had no one to plead her cause. Nevertheless a few of her pre- lates and priests continued for a time to teach what they * Avaux, July 27, Aug, 6, ^74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had taught in the days of the Exclusion Bill. But it was at the peril of life and limb that they exercised their func- tions. Every wearer of a cassock was a mark for the in- sults and outrages of soldiers and Rapparees. In the country his house was robbed and he was fortunate if it was not burned over his head. He was hunted through the streets of Dublin with cries of ''There goes the devil of a heretic." Sometimes he was knocked down; sometimes he w^as cudgelled."* The rulers of the University of Dublin^ trained in the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience, had greeted James on his first arrival at the Castle, and had been assured by him that he would protect them in the en- joyment of their property and their privileges. They were now, without any trial, without any accusation, thrust out of their house. The communion plate of the chapel, the books in the library, the very chairs and beds of "^the col- legians were seized. Part of the building was turned into a magazine, part into a barrack, part into a prison. Si- mon Luttrell, who was governor of the capital, was, with great difficulty and by powerful intercession induced to let the ejected fellows and scholars depart in safety. He at length permitted them to remain at large, with this con- dition, that, on pain of death, no three of them should meet together.f No Protestant divine suffered more hard- ships than DoctorWilliam King, Dean of Saint Patrick's. He had been long distinguished by the fervor with which he had inculcated the duty of passively obeying even the worst rulers. At a later period, when he had published a defence of the revolution, and had accepted a mitre from the new government, he was reminded that he had invoked the divine vengeance on the usurpers, and had declared himself willing to die a hundred deaths rather than desert the cause of hereditary right. He had said that the true religion had often been strengthened by persecution, but could never be strengthened by rebellion; that it would be a glorious day for the Church of England when a whole cartload of her ministers should go to the gallows for the doctrine of non-resistance; and that his highest ambition was to be one of such a company.]; It is not improbable that, when he spoke thus, he felt as he spoke. But his principles, though" they might perhaps have held out against the severities and the promises of William, were not proof * King's SUte of the Protestants in Ireland, iii, 19. f Ibid, iii. 15. $ Leslie's Answer to Kin^. William and mar v. 175 against the ingratitude, of James. Human nature at last asserted its rights. After King had been repeatedly im- prisoned by the government to which he was devotedly at- tached, after he had been insulted and threatened in his own choir by the soldiers, after he had been interdicted from burying in his own churchyard, and from preaching in his own pulpit, after he had narrowly escaped with life from a musket-shot fired at him in the street, he began to think the Whig theory of government less unreasonable and unchristian than it had once appeared to him, and per- suaded himself that the oppressed Church might lawfully accept deliverance, if God should be pleased, by whatever means, to send it to her. In no long time it appeared that James would have done well to hearken to those counsellors who had told him that the acts by which he was trying to make himself popular in one of his three kingdoms, would make him odious in the other. It was in some sense fortunate for England that after he had cea&ed to reign here, ^e continued during more than a year to reign in Ireland. The revolution had been followed by a reaction of public feeling in his favor. That reaction, if it had been suffered to proceed uninter- rupted, might perhaps hot have ceased till he was again King: but it was violentl}^ interrupted by himself. He would not suffer his people to forget: he would not suffer them to hope; while they were trying to find excuses for his past errors, and to persuade themselves that he would not repeat those errors, he forced upon them,, in their own despite, the conviction that he was incorrigible, that the sharpest discipline of adversity had taught him nothing, and that, if they were weak enough to recall him, they would soon have to depose him again. It was in vain that the Jacobites put forth pamphlets about the cruelty with which he had been treated by those who were nearest to him in blood, about the imperious temper and uncourteous manners of William, about the favor shown to the Dutch, about the heavy taxes, about the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, about the dangers which threatened the Church from the enmity of Puritans and Latitudinarians. James refuted these pamphlets far more effectually than all the ablest and most eloquent Whig writers united could have done. Every week came the news that he had passed some new Act for robbing or murdering Protestants. Every colonist who succeeded in stealing across the SQ8i, i70 HISTORY OF ENGLANB. from Leinster to Holyhead or Bristol, brought fearful re- ports of the tyranny under which his brethren groaned. What impression these reports made on the Protestants of our island may be easily inferred from the fact that they moved the indignation of Ronquillo, a Spaniard and a bigoted member of the Church of Rome. He informed his Court that, though the English laws against Popery might seem severe, they were so much mitigated by the prudence and humanity of the government, that they caused no an- noyance to quiet people; and he took upon himself to as- sure the Holy See that what a Roman Catholic suffered in London was nothing when compared with what a Pro- testant suffered in Ireland.* The fugitive Englishry found in England warm sympa- thy and munificent relief. Many were received into the houses of friends and kinsmen. Many were indebted for the means of subsistance to the liberality of strangers. Among those who bore a part in this work of mercy, none contributed more largely or less ostentatiously than the Queen. The House of Commons placed at the King's dis- posal fifteen thousand pounds for the relief of those refu- gees whose wants were most pressing, and requested him to give commissions in the army to those who were quali- fied for military employment. f An Act was also passed enabling beneficed clergymen who had fled from Ireland to hold preferment in England. J Yet the interest which the nation felt in these unfortunate guests was languid when compared with the interest excited by that portion of the Saxon colony which still maintained in Ulster a desperate conflict against overwhelming odds. On this subject scarcely one dissentient voice w^as to be heard in our is- land. Whigs, Tories, nay even the Jacobites in whom Jacobitism had not extinguished every patriotic sentiment, gloried in the glory of Enniskillen and Londonderry. The House of Commons was all of one mind. This is no time to be counting cost," said honest Birch, who well remem- bered the way in which Oliver had made war on the Irish. "Are those brave fellows in Londonderry to be deserted? If we lose them will not all the world cry shame upon us? A boom across the river! Why have we not cut the boom in * "En comparazion de lo que se hace in Irlandacon los Protestantes, es nada,'* ■ ^^y^^' 1689; ''Para que vea Su Santitad que aqui estan los Catolicos mas benigna. mente tratados que los Protestantes in Irlanda." June 19-29. t Commons' Journals, June 15, 1689. t Stat, i W. & M. sess., c. 39. WILLIAM AND MARY. 177 pieces? Are our brethren to perish almost in sight of Eng- land, within a few hours voyage of our shores? "* Howe, the most veherrient inan of one party, declared that the hearts of the people were set on Ireland. Seymour, the leader of the other party, declared that, though he had not taken part in setting up the new government, he should cordially support it in all that might be necessary for the pre- servation of Ireland. f The Commons appointed a committee to inquire into the cause of the delays and miscarriages which had been all but fatal to the Englishry of Ulster. The officers to whose treachery or cov^ardice the public ascribed the calamities of Londonderry were put under arrest. Lundy was sent to the Tower, Cunningham to the Gate House, The agitation of the public mind was in some degree calmed by the announcement that, before the end jf sum- mer, an army powerful enough to re-establish the English ascendency in Ireland would be sent across Saint George's Channel, and that Schomberg would be the ger.eral. In the meantime an expedition which was thought to be suf- ficient for the relief of Londonderry was despatched from Liverpool under the command of Kirke. The dogged obsti- nacy with which this man had, in spite of royal solicita- tions, ^adhered to his religion, and the part which he had taken in the Revolution, had perhaps entitled him to an amnesty for past crimes. But it is difficult to understand why the government should have selected for a post of the highest importance, an officer who was generally and justly hated, who had never shown eminent talents for war, and who, both in Africa and in England, had notoriously tolerated among his soldiers a licentiousness, not only shocking to humanity, but also incompatible with disci- pline. On the sixteenth of May, Kirke's troops embarked: on the twenty-second they sailed: but contrary winds made the passage slow, and forced the armament to stop long at the Isle of Man. Meanwhile the Protestants of Ulster were defending themselves with stubborn courage against a great superiority of force. The Enniskilleners had never ceased to wage a vigorous partisan war against the native popu- lation. Early in May they marched to encounter a large body of troops from Connaught, who had made an inroad into Donegal. The Irish were speedily routed, and fled to Sligo with the loss of a hundred and twenty men killed and * Grey's Debates, June 19, 1689- t Grey's Debates, June 22, 1689, 178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. sixty taken. Two small pieces of artillery and several horses fell into the hands of the conquerors. Elated by this success, the Enniskilleners soon invaded the county of Cavan, drove before them fifteen hundred of James's troops, took and destroyed the castle of Ballincarrig, reputed the strongest in that part of the kingdom, and carried off the pikes and muskets of the garrison. The next incursion was into Meath. Three thousand oxen and two thousand sheep were swept away and brought safe to the little is- land in Lough Erne. These daring exploits spread terror even to the gates of Dublin. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was ordered to march against Enniskillen with a regiment of dragoons and two regiments of foot. He carried with him arms for the native peasantry, and many repaired to his standard. The Enniskilleners did not wait till he came into their neighborhood, but advanced to encounter him. He declined an action, and retreated, leaving his stores at Belturbet under the care of a detachment of three hun- dred soldiers. The Protestants attacked Belturbet with vigor, made their way into a lofty house which overlooked the town, and thence opened such a fire that in two hours the garrison surrendered. Seven hundred muskets, a great quantity of powder, many horses, many sacks of biscuits, many barrels of meal, were taken, and were sent to Ennis- killen. The boats which brought these precious spoils were joyfully welcomed. The fear of hunger was removed. While the aboriginal population had, in many counties, altogether neglected the cultivation of the earth, in the expectation, it should seem, that marauding would prove an inexhaustible resource, the colonists, true to the provi- dent and industrious character of their race, had, in the midst of war, not omitted carefully to till the soil in the neighborhood of their strongholds. The harvest was now not far remote; and, till the harvest, the food taken from the enemy would be amply sufficient.* Yet in the midst of success and plenty, the Enniskil- leners were tortured by a cruel anxiety for Londonderry. They were bound to the defenders of that city, not only by religious and national sympathy, but by common in- terest For there could be no doubt that, if Londonderry fell, the whole Irish army would instantly march in irre- *Hamilton'.s True Relation; Mac Cormiek's Further Account. Of the island generally, Avaux says, '"On n'attend ncn de ct tte rec(.lte cy, les paysans ayant presc^ue tous pris les armes."— Letter to Louvois, March 19-29, 1689. WILTJAM ANP MARV. 179 sistible force upon Lough Erne. Yet what could be done? Some brave men were for making a desperate attempt to relieve the besieged city; but the odds were too great. De- tachments, however, were sent which infested the rear of the blockading army, cut off supplies, and, on one occasion, carried away the horses of three entire troops of cavalry."* Still the line of posts which surrounded Londonderry by land remained unbroken. The river was still strictly closed and guarded. Within the walls the distress had be-* come extreme. So early as the eighth of June horseflesh was almost the only meat which could be purchased; and of horseflesh the supply was scanty. It was necessary to make up the deficiency with tallow; and even tallow was doled out with a parsimonious hand. On the fifteenth of June a gleam of hope appeared. The sentinels on the top of the cathedral saw sails nine miles off in the bay of Lough Foyle. Thirty vessels of different sizes were counted. Signals were made from the steeples and returned from the mastheads, but were imperfectly understood on both sides. At last a messenger from the fleet eluded the Irish sentinels, dived under the boom, and informed the garrison that Kirke had arrived from Eng- land with troops, arms, ammunition, and provisions, to re- lieve the city.f In Londonderry expectation was at the height: but a few hours of feverish joy were followed by weeks of mis- ery. Kirke thought it unsafe to make any attempt, either by land or by water, on the lines of the besiegers, and re- tired to the entrance of Lough Foyle, where, during sev- eral weeks, he lay inactive. And now the pressure of famine became every day more severe. A strict search was made in all the recesses of all the houses of the city; and some provisions, which had been concealed in cellars by people who had since died or made their escape, were discovered and carried to the magazines. The stock of cannon balls was almost ex- hausted; and their place was supplied by brickbats coated with lead. Pestilence began, as usual, to make its appear- ance in the train of hunger. Fifteen officers died of fever in one day. The governor, Baker, was among those who sank under the disease. His place was supplied by Col- onel John Mitchelburne.J ^Hamilton's True Relation. t Walker; Mackenzie. t Walker. iBo MiSTORY OF ENGLAND* Meanwhile it was know^n at Dublin that Kirke and his squadron were on the coast of Ulster. The alarm was great at the Castle. Even before this news arrived, Avaux had given it as his opinion that Richard Hamilton was un- equal to the difficulties of the situation. It had therefore been resolved that Rosen should take the chief command. Fie was now sent down with all speed.* On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the headquarters of the besieging army. At first he attempted to under- mine the walls; but his plan was discovered; and he was compelled to abandon it after a sharp fight, in which more than a hundred of his men were slain. Then his fury rose to a strange pitch. He, an old soldier, a Marshal of France in expectancy, trained in the school of the greatest generals, accustomed, during many years, to scientific war, to be baffled by a mob of country gentlemen, farmers, shopkeepers, who were protected only by a wall which any good engineer would at once have pronounced unten- able! He raved, he blasphemed, in a language of his own, made up of all the dialects spoken from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He would raze the city to the ground; he would spare no living thing; no, not the young girls; not the babies at the breast. As to the leaders, death was too light a punishment for them: he would rack them: he would roast them alive. In his rage he ordered a shell to be flung into the town with a letter containing a horrible menace. He would, he said, gather into one body all the Protestants who had remained at their homes between Charlemont and the sea, old men, women, children, many of them near in blood and affection to the defenders of Londonderry. No protection, whatever might be the au- thority by which it had been ^iven, should be respected. The multitude thus brought together should be driven under the walls of Londonderry, and should there be starved to death in the sight of their countrymen, their friends, their kinsmen. This was no idle threat. Parties were instantly sent out in all directions to collect victims. At dawn, on the morning of the second of July, hundreds of Prot- estants, who were charged with no crime, who were in- capable of bearing arms, and many of whom had protec- tions granted by James, were dragged to the gates of the city. It was imagined that the piteous sight would quell the spirit of the colonists. But the only effect was to * Avaux, June 16-26, 1689, WILLIAM AND MARY. rouse that spirit to still greater energy. An order was immediately put forth that no man should utter the word Surrender on pain of death; and no man uttered that \j^ord. Several prisoners of high rank were in the town* Hitherto they had been well treated, and had received as good rations as were measured out to the garrison. They were now closely confined. A gallows was erected on one of the bastions; and a message was conveyed to Rosen, re- questing him to send a confessor instantly to prepare his friends death. The prisoners in great dismay wrote to the savage Livonian, but received no anawer. They then addressed themselves, to their countryman, Richard Hamilton. They were willing, they said, to shed their blood for their King; but they thought it hard to die the ignominious death of thieves in consequence of the bar- barity of their own companions in arms. Hamilton, ttiough a man of lax principles, was not cruel. He had been disgusted by the inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command, could not venture to express publicly, all that he thought. He however remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion as it was natural that brave men should feel, and declared, weeping with pity and indignation, that they should never cease to have in their ears the cries of the poor women and children who had been driven at the point of the pike to die of famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted during forty-eight hours. In that timemany un- happy creatures perished: but Londonderry held out as resolutely as ever; and he saw that his crime was likely to produce nothing but hatred and obloquy. He at length gave way, and suffered the survivors to withdraw. The garrison then took down the gallows which had been erected on the bastion.* When the tidings of these events reached Dublin, James, though by no means prone to compassion, was startled by an atrocity of which the civil wars of England had fur- nished no example, and was. displeased by learning that protections, given by his authority, and guaranteed by his honor, had been publicly declared to be nullities. He com- plained to the French ambassador, and said, with a warmth which the occasion fully justified, that Rosen was a barbarous Muscovite. Melfort could not refrain from * V/alker; Mackenzie; Light to the Blind; King, iii, 13; Leslie's Answer to King; Life of James, ii. 366. I ought to say that on this occasion King is unjust to James, HISTORY OF ENGLANt). adding that, if Rosen had been an Englishman, he would have been hanged. Avaux was utterly- unable to under- stand this effeminate sensibility. In his opinion, nothing had been done that was at all reprehensible; and he had some difficulty in commanding himself when he heard the King and the secretary blame, in strong language, an act of wholesome severity."* In truth the French ambassador and the French general were well paired. There was a great difference, doubtless, in appearance and manner, be- tween the handsome, graceful, and refined'-^olitician, whose dexterity and suavity had been renowned at the most polite courts of Europe, and the military adventurer, whose look and voice reminded all who came near him that he had been born in a half savage country, that he had risen from the ranks, and that he had once been sen- tenced to death for marauding. But the heart of the diplomatist was really even more callous than that of the soldier. Rosen was recalled to Dublin; and Richard Hamilton was again left in the chief command. He tried gentler means than those which had brought so much reproach on his predecessor. No trick, no lie, which was thought likely to discourage the starving garrison was spared. One day a great shout was raised by the whole Irish camp. The defenders of Londonderry were soon informed that the army of James was rejoicing on account of the fall of Enniskillen. They were told that they had now no chance of being relieved, and were exhorted to save their lives by capitulating. They consented to negotiate. But what they asked was, that they should be permitted to de- part armed and in military array, by land or by water at their choice. They demanded hostages for the exact ful- filment of these conditions, and insisted that the hostages should be sent on board of the fleet which lay in Lough Foyle. Such terms Hamilton durst not grant: the Gov- ernors would abate nothing: the treaty was broken off; and the conflict recommenced. f By this time July was far advanced; and the state of the city was, hour by hour, becoming more frightful. The number of inhabitants had been thinned more by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that fire . * Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, July 5-15, 1689. "Je trouvay I'expression bien forte: mais je ne voulois rien repondre, car le Roy s'estoit desja fort emport6." t Mackenzie. WILLIAM AND MARY. 183 was more constant than ever. One of the gates was beaten in: one of the bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made by day were repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack was still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them in the act of striking at the enemy, fell dowm from mere weakness. A very small quantity of grain remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was consid- erable, and by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied round the town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive, and but barely alive. They were so lean that little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food. The people per- ished so fast, that it was impossible for the survivors to perform the rights of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some corpse was not decaying. Such was the extremity of distress that the rats who came to feast in those hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily devoured. A small fish, caught in the river, was not to be purchased with money. The only price for which such a treasure could be obtained was some handfuls of oatmeal. Leprosies, such as strange and unwholsome diet engen- ders, made existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned by the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead. That there should be fits of discontent and insubordination among men enduring such misery was inevitable. At one moment it was suspected that Walker had laid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private, while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house was strictly ex- amined; his innocence fully proved: he regained his pop- ularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with delight, and went forth from the house of God with haggard faces and tottering steps, but with spirit still unsubdued. There were, indeed, som.e secret plottings. A very few obscure traitors opened com- munications with the enemy. But it was necessary that all such dealings should be carefully concealed. None dared to utter publicly any v^^ords save words of defiance 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the gen- eral cry was, No surrender." And there were not want- ing voices which, in low tones, added, First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other." It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bujk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal looks whenever he appeared in the streets.* It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle. Communication between the fleet and the city was almost impossible. One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was hanged. The language of signals was hardly intelligible. On the thirteenth of July, however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth button came to Walker's hands. It was a letter from Kirke^ and contained assurances of speedy relief. But more than a fortnight of intense misery had since elapsed; and the hearts of the most sanguine were sick with deferred hope. By no art could the provisions which were left be made to hold out two days more.f Just at this time Kirke received from England a des- patch, which contained positive orders that Londonderry should be relieved. He accordingly determined to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success, six weeks earlier. J Among the merchant ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his convoy was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning, a native of Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo of provisions. He had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated against the inac- tion of the armament. He now eagerly volunteered to * Walker's Account. "The fat man in Londonderry" became a proverbial expression for a person whose prosperity excited the envy and cupidity of his less fortunate neigh- bor.'?. t This, according to Narcissus Luttrell, was the report made by Captain Withers, afterwards a highly distinguished officer, on whom Pope wrote an epitaph. $ The despatch, which positively commanded Kirke to attack the boom, was signed by Schomberg, who had already been appointed commander-in-chief of all the En- glish forces in Ireland, A copy of it is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Li- brary. Wodrow, on no better authority than the gossip of a country parish in Dum- bartonshire, attributes the relief of Londonderry to the exhortations of a heroic Scotch preacher named Gordon. I am .inclined to think that Kirke was more likely to be in- fluenced by a peremptory order from Schomberg, than by the united eloquence of v^hole synod of Presbyterian divines. WILLIAM AND MARY. take the first risk of succoring his fellow citizens; and his offer was accepted. Andrew Douglas, master of the Phoe- nix, who had on board a great quantity of meal from Scot- land, was willing to share the danger and the honor. The two merchantmen were to be escorted by the Dartmouth, a frigate of thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain John Leake, afterwards an admiral of great fame. It was the twenty-eighth of July. The sun had just set: the evening sermon in the cathedral was over: and the heart-broken congregation had separated; when the senti- nels on the tower saw the sails of three vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the alert for miles along both shores. The ships were in extreme peril: for the river was low; and the only navigable channel ran very near to the left bank, where the headquarters of the enemy had been fixed, and where the batteries were most numerous. Leake per- formed his duty with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his guns with great effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and went right at the boom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way: but the shock was such that the Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph rose from the banks: the Irish rushed to their boats, and were preparing to board: but the Dart- mouth poured on them a well directed broadside which threw them into disorder. Just then the Phoenix dashed at the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the tide was rising fast. The Mountjoy began to move, and soon passed safe through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave master was no more. A shot from one of the bat- teries had struck him; and he died by the rnost enviable of all deaths, in sight of the city which was his birthplace, which was his home, and which had just been saved by his courage and self-devotion from the most frightful form of destruction. The night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began: but the flash of the guns was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and ghastly multitude which covered the walls of the city. When the Mountjoy grounded, and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides of the river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. One who endured the unutterable an- Voi,. iii-r. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. guish of that moment has told us that they looked fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible half hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the quay. The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect the landing place from the batteries on the other side of the river; and then the work of unloading began. First were rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal. Then came great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of pease and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a pound of tallow and three quarters of a pound of salted hide had been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of pease. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns con- tinued to roar all night; and all night the bells of the- res- cued city made ansv/er to the Irish guns with a peal of joy- ous defiance. Through the three following days the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, on the third night, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citi- zens saw far off the long column of pikes and standards re- treating up the left bank of the Foyle towards Strabane.* So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the British isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The garrison had been reduced from about seven thousand effective men to about three, thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained. Walker estimated it at eight thousand men. It is certain from the despatches of Avaux that the regiments which returned from the blockade had been so much thinned that many of them were not more than two hundred strong. Of thirty-six French gunners who had superintended the cannonading, thirty-one had been killed or disabled. f The * Waljcer; Mhc.] .' nzi^': TTist r)!rr c'c la Revolution d'Irlande, Amsterdam, 1691; Londor. Ga/ette. A.'! ' IUk ban among the NairneMSS. ; Life of Sir Jobt^ Leake; tli' en Mr. Walker's isocount of the Siege of Londofv derry, lie* .. 'i'Avaux lo ocij^ucla^, jul> 10- '^o; to Lewis, Aug. 9-19, WILLIAM AND MARY. 187 means both of attack and of defence had undoubtedly been such as would have moved the great warriors of the Con- tinent to laughter; and this is the very circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the history of the con- test. It was a contest, not between engineers, but between nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior in number, was superior in civilization, in capacity for self-government, and in stubbornness of resolution.* As soon as it was known that the Irish Army had re- tired, a deputation from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invited Kirke to take the command. He came ac- companied by a long train of officers, and was received in state by the two governors, who delivered up to him the authority which, under the pressure of necessity, they had assumed. He remained only a few days; but he had time to show enough of the incurable vices of his character to disgust a population distinguished by austere morals and ardent public spirit. There was, however, no outbreak. The city was in the highest good humor. Such quantities of provisions had been landed from the fleet that there was in every house a plenty never before known. A few days earlier a man had been glad to obtain for twenty pence a mouthful of carrion scraped from the bones of a starved horse. A pound of good beef was now sold for three half- pence. Meanwhile all hands were busied in removing corpses which had been thinly covered with earth, in filling up the holes which the shells had ploughed in the ground, and in repairing the battered roofs of the houses. The re- collection of past dangers and privations, and the con- sciousness of having deserved well of the English nation and of all Protestant churches, swelled the hearts of the towns-people with honest pride. That pride grew stronger when they received from William a letter, acknowledging, in the most affectionate language, the debt which he owed to the brave and trusty citizens of his good city. The whole population crowded to the Diamond to hear the royal epistle read. At the close all the guns on the ramparts sent forth a voice of joy: all the ships in the river made * ''You will see here, as you have all along, that the tradesmen of Londonderry had more skill in their defence than the great officers of the Irish Army in their attacks." — Light to the Blind. The author of this work is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom, he thinks, would never have been broken if they had done their duty. Were they drunk? Were they traitors? He does not determine the point. "Lord," he exclaimSi who seest the hearts of people, we leave the judgment of this affair to thy mercy. Iq ihe interim those gunners lost Ireland." ^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND, answer: barrels of ale were broken up; and the health oi Their Majesties was drunk with shouts and volleys of musketry. Five generations have since passed away; and still the wall of Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore during many weeks the heaviest fire of the enem.y is seen far up and far down the Foyle. On the sumimit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and most terrible emergency, his elo- quence roused the fainting courage of his brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible. The other, pointing down the river, seems to direct the eyes of his famished audience to the English topmast in the distant bay. Such a monu- ment was well deserved: yet it was scarcely needed: for in truth the whole city is to this day a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health or convenience be held by the in- habitants sufficient to justify the demolition of that sacred enclosure which, in the evil time, gave shelter to their race and their religion.* The summit of the ramparts forms a pleasant walk. The bastions have been turned into little gardens. Here and there, among the shrubs and flowers, may be seen the old culverins which scattered bricks, cased with lead, among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the gift of the Fishmongers of London, was distinguished, during the hundred and five memorable days, by the loud- ness of its report, and still bears the name of Roaring Meg. The cathedral is filled with relics and trophies. In the ves- tibule is a huge shell, one of many hundreds of shells which were thrown into the city. Over the altar are still seen the French flag-staves, taken by the garrison in a des- perate sally. The white ensigns of the House of Bourbon have long been dust: but their place has been supplied by new banners, the work of the fairest hands of Ulster. The anniversary of the day on which the gates were closed, and the anniversary of the day on which the Siege was raised, have been down to our own time celebrated by salutes, processions, banquets, and sermons: Lundy has been exe- cuted in effigy; and the sword, said by tradition to be that of Maumont, has, on great occasions, been carried in triumph. There is still a Walker Club and a Murray Club. ♦In a collection entitled ''Deriana," which was published more than sixty yeftrs ago, is B curious letter on this subject. WILLIAM AND MARY. The humble tombs of the Protestant captains have been carefully sought out, repaired, and embellished. It is im- possible not to respect the sentiment which indicates itself by these tokens. It is a sentiment which belongs to the higher and purer part of human nature, and which adds not a little to the strength of states. A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. Yet it is impossible for the moralist or the statesman to look with unmixed com- placency on the solemnities with which Londonderry com- memorates her deliverance, and on the honors which she pays to those who saved her. Unhappily the animosities of her brave champions have descended with their glory. The faults which are ordinarily found in dominant castes and dominant sects have not seldom shown themselves without disguise at her festivities; and even with the ex- pressions of pious gratitude which have resounded from her pulpits have too often been mingled words of wrath and defiance. The Irish army which had retreated to Strabane re mained there but a very short time. The spirit of thG troops had been depressed by their recent failure, and was soon completely cowed by the news of a great disaster in another quarter. Three weeks before this time the Duke of Berwick had gained an advantage over a detachment of the Enniskil- leners, and had, by their own confession, killed or taken more than fifty of them. They were in hopes of obtaining some assistance from Kirke, to whom they had sent a de- putation; and they still persisted in rejecting all terms of- fered by the enemy. It was therefore determined at Dub- lin that an attack should be made upon them from several quarters at once. Macarthy, who had been rewarded for his services in Munster with the title of Viscount Mount- cashel, marched towards Lough Erne from the east with three regiments of foot, two regiments of dragoons, and some troops of cavalry. A considerable force, which lay encamped near the mouth of the river Drowes, was at the same time to advance from the west. The Duke of Berwick was to come from the north, with such horse and dragoons as could be spared from the army which was besieging Lon- donderry. The Enniskilleners were not fully apprised of tne whole plan which had been laid for their destruction: 195 * HISTORY OF ENGLAND. but they knew that Macarthy was on the road with a force exceeding any which they could bring into the field. Their anxiety was in some degree relieved by the return of the deputation which they had sent to Kirke. Kirke could spare no soldiers: but he had sent some arms, some am- munition, and some experienced officers, of whom the chief were Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant Colonel Berry. These officers had come by sea round the coast of Donegal, and had run up the Erne. On Sunday, the tw^enty-ninth of July, it was known that their boat was approaching the island of Enniskillen. The whole population, male and female, came to the shore to greet them. It was with dif- ficulty that they made their way to the Castle through the crowds which hung on them, blessing God that dear old England had not quite forgotten the Englishmen who were upholding her cause against great odds in the heart of Ireland. Wolseley seems to have been in every respect well qual- ified for his post. He was a stanch Protestant, had dis- tinguished himself among the Yorkshiremen who rose up for the Prince of Orange and a free Parliament, and had, even before the landing of the Dutch army, proved his zeal for liberty and pure religion, by causing the Mayor of Scarborough, who had made a speech in favor of King James, to be brought into the market-place and well tossed there in a blanket.* This vehement hatred of Popery was, in the estimation of the men of Enniskillen; the first of all the qualifications of a leader; and Wolsele}^ had other and more iniportant qualifications. Though himself regularly bred to war, he seems to have had a peculiar aptitude for the management of irregular troops. He had scarcely taken on himself the chief command when he received notice that Mountcashel had laid siege to the Castle of Crum. Crum was the frontier garrison of the Protestants of Fermanagh. The ruins of the old fortifications are now among the attractions of a beautiful pleasure-ground situated on a woody promontory which overlooks Lough Erne. Wolseley determined to raise the siege. He sent Berry forward with such troops as could be instantly put in motion, and promised to follow speedily with a larger force. Berry, after marching some miles, encountered thirteen • Bernardi's Life of Himself, 17^7. Wolseley's exploit at Scarborough is mentioned in one of the letters pnblished by Sir Henry Ellis. WILLIAM AND MARY. 191 companies of Macarthy's dragoons, commanded by An- thony, the most brilliant and accomplished of all who bore the name of Hamilton, but much less successful as a soldier than as a courtier, a lover, and a writer. Hamilton's dragoons ran at the first fire: he was severely wounded; and his second in command was shot dead. Macarthy soon came up to support Hamilton; and at the same time Wolseley came up to support Berr3^ The hostile armies were now in presence of each other. Macarthy had above five thousand men and several pieces of artillery. The Enjiiskilleners were under three thousand; and they had marched in such haste that they had brought only one day's provisions. It was therefore absolutely necessary for them either to fight instantly or to retreat. Wolseley determined to consult the men; and this determination, which, in ordinary circumstances, would have been most unworthy of a general, was fully justified by the peculiar composition and temper of the little army, an army made up of gentlemen and yeomen fighting, not for pay, but for their lands, their wives, their children, and their God. The ranks were drawn up under arms; and the question was put, Advance or Retreat?" The answer was a uni- versal shout of ^' Advance." Wolseley gave out the word No Popery." It was received with loud applause. He instantly made his dispositions for an attack. As he ap- proached, the enemy, to his great surprise, began to retire. The Enniskilleners were eager to pursue with all speed: but their commander, suspecting a snare, restrained their ardor and positively forbade them to break their ranks. Thus one army retreated and the other followed, in good order, through the little town of Newton Butler. About a mile from that town the Irish faced about, and made a stand. Their position was well chosen. They were drawn up on a hill at the foot of which lay a deep bog. A nar- row paved causeway which ran across the bog was the only road by which the cavalry of the Enniskilleners could advance; for on the right and left were pools, turf pits and quagmires, which afforded no footing to horses. Macarthy placed his cannon in such a manner as to sweep this cause- way. Wolseley ordered infantry to the attack. They strug- gled through the bog, made their way to firm ground, and rushed on the guns. There was then a short and desperate fight. The Irish cannoneers stood gallantly to their piecQ§ 192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. till they were cut down to a man. The Enniskillen horse, no longer in danger of being mowed down by the fire of the artillery, came fast up the causeway. The Irish dragoons who had run away in the morning were smitten with another panic, and, without striking a blow, galloped from the field. The horse followed the example. Such was the terror of the fugitives that many of them spurred v hard till their beasts fell down, and then continued to fly on foot, throwing away carbines, swords, and even coats, as incumbrances. The infantry, seeing themselves deserted, flung down their pikes and muskets and ran for their lives. The conquerors now gave loose to that ferocity which has seldom failed to disgrace the civil wars of Ireland. The butchery was terrible. Near fifteen hundred of the van- quished were put to the sword. About five hundred more, in ignorance of the country, took a road which led to Lough Erne. The lake was before them; the enemy be- hind: they plunged into the waters and perished there. Ma- carthy, abandoned by his troops, rushed into the midst of the pursuers, and very nearly found the death which he sought. He was wounded in several places: he was struck to the ground; and in another moment his brains would have been knocked out with the butt end of a musket, when he was recognized and saved. The colonists lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded. They took four hundred prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder, all the drums and all the colors of the vanquished enemy.* The battle of Newton Butler was won on the third day after the boom thrown over the Foyle was broken. At Strabane the news met the Celtic army w^hich was retreat- ing from Londonderry. All was terror and confusion: the tents were struck: the military stores were flung by wagon loads into the waters of the Mourne; and the dismayed Irish, leaving many sick and wounded to the mercy of the victorious Protestants, fled to Omagh, and thence to * Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account; London Gazette, Aug. 22, 1689; Life of James, ii. 368, 369; Avaux to Lewis, Aug. 4-14, and to Louvois of the same date. Story mentions a report that the panic among the Irish was caused by the mistake of an officer who called out "Right about face" instead of ''Right face." Neither Avaux nor James had heard anything about this mistake. Indeed the dragoons who set the example of flight were not in the habit of waiting for orders to turn their backs on an enemy. They had run away once before on that very day. Avaux gives a very simple account of the defeat: ''Ces mesmes dragons qui avoient fuy le matin lascherent le pied avec tout le reste de la cavalerie, sans tirer un coup de pistolet; et ils s'enfuirent tous avec une telle epouvante qu'ils jett^rent mousquetons, pistolets, et espees; et la plupart d'eux, ayant creve leurs chevauu, se d^»habill6r : V '-i av's Analecta; Douglas's Peerage; Lock- hart's Memoirs; the Satyre on tiK < if Stairs; the Satyric iiines upon the long wished for and timely Death of the i ; : ; ■ >i]o;'r.;bIe Lady Stairs; Law's Memoria4s; and the Hyndford Papers, written in i t*; ;-?, and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockhart, though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, "There was none in thi? pailiament capable to take up the cudgels with hin*. 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, his absence he was accused of treason, and was convicted on evidence which would not have satisfied any impartial tribunal. He was condemned to death: his honor and lands were declared forfeit: his arms were torn with con- tumely out of the Heralds' Book; and his domains swelled the estate of the cruel and rapacious Perth. The fugitive, meanwhile, with characteristic wariness, lived quietly on the Continent, and discountenanced the unhappy pro- jects of his kinsman Monmouth, but cordially approved of the enterprise of the Prince of Orange. Illness had prevented Melville from sailing with the Dutch expedition: but he arrived in London a . few hours after the new Sovereigns had been proclaimed there. William instantly sent him down to Edinburgh, in the hope, as it should seem, that the Presbyterians would be disposed to listen to moderate counsels proceeding from a man who was attached to their cause, and who had suffered for it. Melville's second son, David, who had inherited, through his mother, the title of Earl of Leven, and who had acquired some military experience in the service of the Elector of Brandenburgh, had the honor of being the bearer of a letter from the new King of England to the Scottish Convention."* James had entrusted the conduct of his affairs in Scot- land to John Graham, Viscount Dundee and Colin Lind- say, Earl of Balcarras. Dundee had commanded a body of Scottish troops which had marched into England to oppose the Dutch: but he had found, in the inglorious cam- paign which had been fatal to the dynasty of Stuart, no opportunity of displaying the courage and military skill which those who most detest his merciless nature al- low him to have possessed. He lay with his forces not far from Watford, when he was informed that James had fled from Whitehall and that Feversham had ordered all the royal army to disband. The Scottish regiments were thus left, without pay or provisions, in the midst of a foreign and indeed a hostile nation. Dundee, it is said, wept with grief and rage. Soon, however, more cheering intelligence arrived from various quarters. William wrote a few lines to say that, if the Scots would remain quiet, he would pledge his honor for tlieir safety; and, some hours later, it was known that James bad returned * As to Melville, see the Leven and Melville Papers, and the prelacc; the Act Pari. Scot., June i6, 1685; and the Appendix. 1""^; 13, Eyrnet, ii. 24: apd the Pwmet MS, Harl, 6§&^ William and mary. 211 to his capital. Dundee repaired instantly to London.* There he met his friend Balcarras, who had just arrived from Edinburgh. Balcarras, a man distinguished by his handsome person and by his accomplishments, had, in his youth, affected the character of a patriot, but had deserted the popular cause, had accepted a seat in the Privy Coun- cil, had become a tool of Perth and Melfort, and had been one of the commissioners who were appointed to execute the office of Treasurer, when Queensbury was disgraced for refusing to betray the interests of the Protestant re- ligion. f Dundee and Balcarras went together to Whitehall, and had the honor of accompanying James in his last walk up and down the Mall. He told them that he intended to put his affairs in Scotland under their management. ^'You, my Lord Balcarras, must undertake the civil business: and you, my Lord Dundee, shall have a commission from me to command the troops." The two noblemen vowed that they would prove themselves deserving of his confidence, and disclaimed all thought of making their peace with the Prince of Orange.J On the following day James left Whitehall forever; and the Prince of Orange arrived at Saint James's. Both Dun- dee and Balcarras swelled the crowd which thronged to greet the deliverer, and were not ungraciously received. Both were well known to him. Dundee had served under him on the continent;§ and the first wife of Balcarras had been a lady of the House of Orange, and had worn on * Creichton's Memoirs. + Mackay's Memoirs. $ Memoirs of the Lindsays. § About the early relation between William and Dundee, some Jacobite, many years after they were both dead, invented a story which by successive embellishments was at last improved into a romance such as it seems strange that even a child should believe to be true. The last edition runs thus; William's horse was killed under him at Seneff, and his life was in imminent danger. Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highness again. William promised to reward this service with promotion, but broke his word, and gave to another the commission which Graham had been led to expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successful competitor and gave him a box an the ear. The punishment for striking in the palace was the loss of the offending right hand; but this punishment the Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted. ''You," he said, "saved my life; I spare your right hand; and now we are quits." Those who, down to our time, have repeated this nonsense seem to have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth ''for punishment of murder and malicious blood- shed within the King's Court" (Stat. 33 Hen.VIIL c, 2) was law in Guelders; and, seoond- 1)^, that, in 1674, William was a King, and his house a King's Court. They were also not aware tkat he did not purchase Loo till long after Dundee had left the Netherlands. See Harris's Description of Loo, 1699. This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the slightest trace in the volu- minous Jacobite literature of William's reign, seems to have originated about a quarter iDf a oentury after Dundee's death, and to have attained its full absurdity in another quarter of a century. 612 HISTOPY OF ENGLAND. her wedding day, a superb pair of emerald earrings, tbe gift of her cousin the Prince.* The Scottish Whigs, then assembled in great uumbers at Westminster, earnestly pressed William to proscribe by name four or five men who had, during the evil times, borne a conspicuous part in the proceedings of the Privy Council at Edinburgh. Dundee and Balcarras were partic- ularly mentioned. But the Prince had determined that, as far as his power extended, all the past should be covered with a general amnesty, and absolutely refused to make any declaration which could drive to despair even the most guilty of his uncle's servants. Balcarras went repeatedly to Saint James's, had several audiences of William, professed deep respect for His High- ness, and owned that King James had committed great er- rors, but would not promise to concur in a vote of deposi- tion. William gave no signs of displeasure, but said at parting: ^'Take care, my Lord, that you keep within the law; for, if you break it, you must expect to be left to it."f Dundee seems to have been less ingenuous. He em.- ployed the mediation of Burnet, opened a negotiation with Saint James's, declared himself willing to acquiesce in the new order of things, obtained from William a promise of protection, and promised in return to live peaceably. Such credit was given to his professions, that he was suffered to travel down to Scotland under the escort of a troop of cavalry. Without such an escort the man of blood, whose name was never mentioned but with h shudder at the hearth of any Presbyterian family, would, at that conjunc- ture, have had but a perilous journey through Berwick- shire and the Lothians.J February was drawing to a close when Dundee and Bal- carras reached Edinburgh. They had some hope that they might be at the hea'd of a majority in the Convention. They therefore exerted themselves vigorously to consoli- date and animate their party. They assured the rigid royalists, who had a scruple about sitting in an assembly convoked by an usurper, that the rightful King particularly wished no friend of hereditary monarchy to be absent. More than one waverer was kept steady by being assured, in confident terms, that a speedy restoration was inevita- * Memoirs of the Lindsays. t Memoirs of the Lindsays. t Burnet, ii, 22; Memoirs of the Lindsays, WILLIAM AND MARY. able. Gordon had determined to surrender the CastH, and had begun to remove his furniture: but Dundee and Bal- carras prevailed on him to hold out some time longer. They informed him that they had received from Saint Ger- mains full powers to adjourn the Convention to Stirling, and that, if things went ill at Edinburgh, those powers would be used.* At length the fourteenth of March, the day fixed for the meeting of the Estates, arrived, and the Parliament House, was crowded. Nine prelates were in their places. When Argyle presented himself, a single lord protested against the admission of a person whom a legal sentence, passed in due form and still unreversed, had deprived of the hon- ors of the peerage. But this objection was overruled by the general sense of the assembly. When Melville ap- peared, no voice was raised against his admission. The Bishop of Edinburgh officiated as chaplain, and made it one of his petitions that God would help and restore King James. f It soon appeared that the general feeling of the Convention was by no means in harmony with this prayer. The first matter to be decided was the choice of a presi- dent. The Duke of Hamilton was supported by the Whigs, the Marquess of Athol by the Jacobites. Neither candi- date possessed, and neither deserved, the entire confidence of his supporters. Hamilton had been a Privy Councillor of James, had borne a part in many unjustifiable acts, and had offered but a very cautious and languid opposition to the most daring attacks on the laws and religion of Scot- land. Not till the Dutch guards were at Whitehall had he ventured to speak out. Then he had joined the victorious party, and had assured the Whigs that he had pretended to be their enemy, only in order that he might, without in- curring suspicion, act as their friend. Athol was still less to be trusted. His abilities were mean, his temper false, pusillanimous, and cruel. In the late reign he had gained a dishonorable notoriety by the barbarous actions of which he had been guilty in Argyleshire. He had turned with the turn of fortune, and had paid servile court to the Prince of Orange, but had been coldly received, and had now, from mere mortification, come back to the party * Balcarras's Memoirs. t Act Pari, Scot., Mar. 14, 1689; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Au Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, fol. Lond. 1689, iiiSTORY OF ENGLAND. which he had deserted.* Neither of the rival noblemeft had chosen to stake the dignities and lands of his house on the issue of the contention between the rival kings. The f eldest son of Hamilton had declared for James, and the eldest son of Athol for William, so that, in any event, both coronets and both estates were safe. But in Scotland the fashionable notions touching politi- cal morality were lax; and the aristocratical sentiment was •strong. The Whigs were therefore willing to forget that Hamilton had lately sate in the council of James. The Jacobites were equally willing to forget that Athol had lately fawned on William. In political inconsistency those two great lords were far indeed from standing by them- selves: but in dignity and power they had scarcely an equal in the assembly. Their descent was eminently illus- trious: their influence was immense: one of them could raise the Western Lowlands; the other could bring into the field an army of northern mountaineers. Round these chiefs therefore the hostile factions gathered. The votes were counted; and it appeared that Hamilton had a majority of forty. The consequence was that about forty of the defeated party instantly passed over to the vic- tors. f At Westminster such a defection would have been thought strange: but it seems to have caused little surprise at Edinburgh. It is a remarkable circumstance that the same country should have produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both extremes of human nature. No class of men mentioned in history has ever adhered to a principle with more inflexible pertinacity than was found among the Scotch Puritans. Fine and impris- onment, the shears and the branding iron, the boot, the thumbscrew, and the gallows could not extort from the stubborn Covenanter one evasive word on which it was pos- sible to put a sense inconsistent with his theological sys- tem. Even in things indifferent he would hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to consider all who recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause of truth. On the other hand, the Scotchmen of that gene- ration who made a figure in the Parliament House and in the Council Chamber were the most dishonest and un- blushing time-servers that the world has ever seen. The * Balcarras's narrative exhibits both Hamilton and Athol in a most unfavorable light. See also the Life of James, ii 338, 339. t Act Pari. Scot., March 14th, 1688-Q; Balcarras's Memoirs: History of the late Rev- olution in Scotland; Life of James, ii. 34*. WILLIAM AND MARY. English marvelled alike at both classes. There were many stout hearted non-conformists in the South; but scarcely any who in obstinacy, pugnacity, and hardihood coMld bear a comparison with the men of the school of Cameron. There were many knavish politicians in the South; but few so utterly destitute of morality, and still fewer so utterly destitute of shame, as the men of the school of Lauder- dale. Perhaps it is natural that the most callous and im- . pudent vice should be found in the near neighborhood of unreasonable and impracticable virtue. Where enthusiasts are ready to destroy or to be destroyed for trifles magnified into importance by a squeamish conscience, it is not strange that the very name of conscience should become a byword of contempt to cool and shrewd men of business. The majority, reinforced by the crowd of deserters from the minority, proceeded to name a Committee of Elections. Ffteen persons, were chosen, and it soon appeared that twelve of these were not disposed to examine severely into the regularity of any proceeding of v/hich the result had been to send up a Whig to the Parliament House. The Duke of Hamilton is said to have been disgusted by the gross partiality of his own followers, and to have exerted himself, with but little success, to restrain their violence.* Before the Estates proceeded to deliberate on the busi- ness for which they had met, they thought it necessary to provide for their own security. They could not be per- fectly at ease while the roof under which they sate was commanded by the batteries of the Castle. A deputation was therefore sent to inform Gordon that the Convention required him to evacuate the fortress within twenty-four hours, and that if he complied, his past conduct should not be remembered against him. He asked a night for consideration. During that night his wavering mind was confirmed by the exhortations of Dundee and' Balcarras, On the morrow he sent an answer drawn in respectful but evasive terms. He was very far, he declared, from medi- tating harm to the City of Edinburgh. Least of all could he harbor any thought of molesting an august assembly which he regarded with profound reverence. He would willingly give bond -for his good behavior to the amount of twenty thousand pounds sterling. But he was in com- munication with the government now established in Eng- land. He was in hourly expectation of important des- * 3alcaras's Memoirs; History of the late Rsvoltion in Scotland, 1690, 2l6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. patches from that government; and, till they arrived, he should not feel himself justified in resigning his command. These excuses were not admitted. Heralds and trumpet- ers were sent to summon the Castle in form, and to de- nounce the penalties of high treason against those who should continue to occupy that fortress in defiance of the authority of the Estates. Guards were at the same time posted to intercept all communication between the garrison and the city.* Two days had been spent in these preludes, and it was expected that on the third morning the great contest would begin. Meanwhile the population of Edinburgh was in an excited state. It had been discovered that Dun- dee had paid visits to the Castle; and it was believed that his exhortations had induced the garrison to hold out. His own soldiers were known to be gathering round him; and it might well be apprehended that he would make some desperate attempt. He, on the other hand, had been informed that the Western Covenanters, who filled the cel- lars of the city, had vowed vengeance on him ; and, in truth, when we consider that their tem.per was singularly savage and implacable, that they had been taught to regard the slaying of a persecutor as a duty, that no examples fur- nished by Holy Writ had been more frequently held up to their admiration than Ehud stabbing Eglon, and Samuel hewing Agag limb from limb; that they had never heard any achievement in the history of their own country more warmly praised by their favorite teachers than the butchery of Cardinal Beatoun and of Archbishop Sharpe, we may well wonder that a man who had shed the blood of the saints like water should have been able to walk the High Street in safety during a single day. The enemy whom Dundee had most reason to fear was a youth of distin- guished courage and abilities named William Cleland. Cleland had, when little more than sixteen years old, borne arms in that insurrection which had been put down at Bothwell Bridge. He had since disgusted some virulent fanatics by his humanity and moderation. But with the great body of Presbyterians his name stood high. For with the strict morality and ardent zeal of a Puritan he united some accomplishments of which few Puritans could boast. Flis manners were polished, and his literary and * Act Pari. Scot,, March 14, and 15, 1689; Balcarras's Memoirs; London Gaz. March 25; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of ^Estates of Scotland, i6§9, WILLIAM AND MARY. 217 scientific attainments respectable. He was a linguist, a mathematician, and a poet. It is true that his hymns, odes, ballads, and Hudibrastic satires are of very little intrinsic value; but, when it is considered that he was a mere boy when most of them were written, it must be ad- mitted that they show considerable vigor of mind. He was now at Edinburgh: his influence among the West Country Whigs assembled there was great: he hated Dun- dee with deadly hatred, and was believed to be meditating some act of violence.* On the fifteenth of March Dundee received information that some of the Covenanters had bound themselves to- gether to slay him and Sir George Mackenzie, whose elo- quence and learning, long prostituted to the service of tyranny, had made him more odious to the Presbyterians than any other man of the gown. Dundee applied to Hamilton for protection; and Hamilton advised him to - bring the matter under the consideration of the Conven- tion at the next sitting.f Before that sitting a person named Crane arrived from France with a letter addressed by the fugitive King to the Estates. The letter was sealed: the bearer, strange to say, was not furnished with a copy for the information of the heads of the Jacobite party; nor did he bring any message, written or verbal, to either of James's agents. Balcarras and Dundee were mortified by finding that so little con- fidence was reposed in them, and were harassed by pain- ful doubts^ touching the contents of the document on which so much depended. They were willing, however, to hope for the best. King James could not, situated as he was, be so ill advised as to act in direct opposition to the coun- sel and entreaties of his friends. His letter, when opened, * See Cleland's Poems, and the commendatory poems contained in the same volume, Edinburgh, 1697. It has been repeatedly asserted that this William Cleland was the father of William 'Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, who was well known twenty years later in the literary society of London, who rendered some not very reputable services to Pope, and whose son John was the author of an infamous book but too wide- ly celebrated. This is an entire mistake. William Cleland, who fought at Bothwell Bridge, was not twenty-eight when he was killed in August 1689; and William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, died at sixty-seven in September 1741. The former thera- fore cannot have been the father of the latter. See the Exact Narrative of the battle of Dunkeld; the Gentleman's Magazine for 1746; and , Warburton's note on the Letter to the Publisher of the Dunciad, a letter signed W. Cleland, but really written by Pope. In a paper drawn up by Sir Robert Hamilton, the oracle of the extreme Covenanters, and a blood-thirsty ruffian, Cleland is mentioned as having been once leagued with those fanatics, but afterwards a great opposer of their testimony. Cleland probably did not agree with Hamilton in thinking it a sacred duty to cut the throats of prisoners of war who had been received to quarter. See Hamilton's Letter to the Societies, Dec. 7» 1685. t Balcarras's Memoirs, VpL. ni-A 2l8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. must be found to contain such gracious assurances as would animate the royalists and conciliate the moderate Whigs. His adherents, therefore, determined that it should be produced. When the Convention reassembled on the morning of Saturday the sixteenth of March, it was proposed that measures should be taken for the personal security of the members. It was alleged that the life of Dundee had been threatened; that two men of sinister appearance had been watching the house where he lodged, and had been heard to say that they would use the dog as he had used them. Mackenzie complained that he too was in danger, and, with his usual copiousness and force of language, de- manded the protection of the Estates. But the matter was lightly treated by the majority; and the Convention passed on to other business^* It was then announced that Crane was at the door of the Parliament House. He was admitted. The paper of which he was in charge was laid on the table. Hamilton remarked that there was, in the hands of the Earl of Leven, a communication from the Prince by whose au- thority the Estates had been convoked. That communica- tion seemed to be entitled to precedence. The Convention was of the same opinion; and the well-weighed and pru- dent letter of William was read. It was then moved that the letter of James should be opened. The Whigs objected that it might possibly con- tain a mandate dissolving the Convention. They therefore proposed that, before the seal was broken, the Estates should resolve to continue sitting, notwithstanding any such mandate. The Jacobites, who knew no more than the Whigs what was in the letter, and were impatient to - have it read, eagerly assented. A vote was passed by which the members bound themselves to consider any order which should command them to separate as a nullity, and to remain assembled till they should have ac- complished the Work of securing the liberty and religion of Scotland. This vote was signed by almost all the lords and gentlemen who were present. Seven out of nine bishops subscribed it. The names of Dundee and Bal- carras, written by their own hands, may still be seen on * Balcarras's Memoirs. But the fullest account of these proceedings is furnished by some manuscript notes which are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. Balcarras's dates are not quite exact. He probably trusted to his memory for them. I have Q09 rected them from the parliamentary record. WILLIAM AND MARY. 219 the original roll. Balcarras afterwards excused what, on his principles, was, beyond all dispute, a flagrant act of treason, by saying that he and his friends had, from zeal for their master's interest, concurred in a declaration of rebellion against their master's authority; that tliey had anticipated the most salutary effects from the letter; and that, if they had not made some concession to the major- ity, the letter would not have been opened. In a few minutes the hopes of Balcarras were grievously disappointed. The letter from which so much had been hoped and feared was read with all the honors which Scottish Parliaments were in the habit of paying to royal communications: but every word carried despair to the hearts of the Jacobites. It was plain that adversity had taught James neither wisdom nor mercy. All was obsti- nacy, cruelty, insolence. A pardon was promised to those traitors who should return to their allegiance within a, fortnight. Against all others unsparing vengeance was denounced. Not only was no sorrow expressed for past offences: but the letter was itself a new offence: for it was written and countersigned by the apostate Melfort, who was, by the statutes of th' it was resolved that the kingdom should be put into a posture of defence. The preamble of this resolution contained a severe reflection on the perfidy of the traitor who, within a few hours after he had, by an engagement subscribed with his own hand, bound himself not to quit his post in the Convention, had set the example of desertion and given the signal of civil war. All Protes- tants, from sixteen to sixty, were ordered to hold them- selves in readiness to assemble in arms at the first summons; and, that none might pretend ignorance, it was directed that the edict should be proclaimed at all the market crosses throughout the realm. f * Balcarras's Memoirs; MS. in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. 1 Act Pari. Scot., March 19, i68g-9.- History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690. ^22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The Estates then proceeded to send a letter of thanks to William. To this letter were attached the signatures of many noblemen and gentlemen who were in the interest of the banished king. The bishops, however, unanimously refused to subscribe their names. It had long been the custom of the Parliaments of Scot- land to entrust the preparation of Acts to a select number of members who were designated as the Lords of Articles. In conformity with this usage, the business of framing a plan for the settling of the government was now confided to a committee of twenty-four. Of the twenty-four, eight were peers, eight representatives of counties, and eight representatives of towns. The majority of the committee were Whigs; and not a single prelate had a seat. The spirit of the Jacobites, broken by a succession of disasters, was, about this time, for a moment revived by the arrival of the Duke of Queensberry from London. His rank was high: his influence was great: his character, by comparison with the characters of those who sur- rounded him, was fair. When Popery w^as in the ascen- dent, he had been true to the cause of the Protestant Church; and, since Whiggism had been in the ascendent, he had been true to the cause of hereditary monarchy. Some thought that, if he had been earlier in his place, he might have been able to render important service to the House of Stuart.* Even now the stimulants which he ap- plied to his torpid and feeble party produced some faint symptoms of returning animation. Means were found of communicating with Gordon; and he was earnestly so- licited to fire on the city. The Jacobites hoped that, as soon as the cannon balls had beaten down a few chimneys, the Estates would adjourn to Glasgow. Time would thus be 'gained; and the royalists might be able to execute their old project of meeting in a separate convention. Gordon however positively refused to take on himself so grave a responsibility on no better warrant than the request of a small cabal. f By this time the Estates had a guard on which they could rely more firmly than on the undisciplined and tur- bulent Covenanters of the West. A squadron of English men of war from the Thames had arrived in the Frith of Forth. On board were the three Scottish regiments which had accompanied William from Holland. He had, with ♦ B-alcarras. t Ibid, WILLIAM AND MARY. 223 great judgment, selected them to protect the assemby which was to settle the government of their country; and, that no cause of jealousy might be given to a people ex- quisitely sensitive on points of national honor, he had purged the ranks of all Dutch soldiers, and had thus re- duced the number of men to about eleven hundred. This little force was commanded by Hugh Mackay, a High- l mder of noble descent, who had long served on the con- tinent, and who was distinguished by courage of the truest temper, and by a piety such as is seldom found in soldiers of fortune. The Convention passed a resolution appointing Mackay general of their forces. When the question was put on this resolution, the Archbishop of Glasgow, unwill- ing doubtless to be a party to such an usurption of powers which belonged to the King alone, begged that the pre- lates might be excused from voting. Divines, he said, had nothing to do with military arrangements. The Fathers of the Church," answered a member very keenly, '^have been lately favored with a new light. I have my- self seen military orders signed by the most reverend per- son who has suddenly become so scrupulous. There was indeed one difference: those orders w^ere for dragooning Protestants; and the resolution before us is meant to pro- tect us from Papists."* The arrival of Mackay's troops, and the determination of Gordon to remain inactive, quelled the spirit of the Jacobites. They had indeed one chance left. They might possibly, by joining with those Whigs who were bent on a union with England, have postponed during a consider- able time the settlement of the government. A negotia- tion was actually opened with this view, but was speedily broken off. For it soon appeared that the party which was for James was really hostile to the union, and that the party which was for the union was really hostile to James. As these two parties had no object in common, the only effect of a coalition between them must have been that *one of them would have become the tool of the other. The question of the union therefore was not raised. f Some Jacobites retired to their country seats: others, though they remained at Edinburgh, ceased to show them- selves in the Parliament House: many passed over to the ♦Act Pari. Scot.; History of the late Bevolution, 1690; Memoirs of North Britain, t Bsilcarras. 224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. winning side; and, when at length the resolutions prepared by the Twenty-Four were submitted to the Convention, it appeared that the great body which on the first day of the session had rallied round Athol had dwindled away to nothing. The resolutions had been framed, as far as possible, in conformity with the example recently set at Westminster. ^ In one important point, however, it was absolutely neces- sary that the copy should deviate from the original. The Estates of England had brought two charges against James, his misgovernment and his flight, and had, by us- ing the soft word "Abdication," evaded, with some sacri- fice of verbal precision, the question whether subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That question the Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend that James had deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to the throne, resided in Scotland. During many years that kingdom had been ruled by sovereigns who dwelt in another land. The whole machinery of the ad- ministration had been constructed on the supposition that the king would be absent, and was therefore not neces- sarily deranged by that flight which had, in the south of the island, dissolved all government, and supended the or- dinary course of justice. It was only by letter that the King could, when he was at Whitehall, communicate with the Council and the Parliament at Edinburgh; and by letter he could communicate with them when he was at Saint Germains or at Dublin. The Twenty-Four were therefore forced to propose to the Estates a resolution dis- tinctly declaring that James the Seventh had by his mis- conduct forfeited the crown. Many writers have inferred from the language of this resolution that sound political principles had made a greater progress in Scotland than in England. But the whole history of the two countries, from the Restoration to the Union, proves this inference to be erroneous. The Scottish Estates used plain language, simply because it was impossible for them, situated as they were, to use evasive language. The person who bore the chief part in framing the reso- lution, and in defending it, was Sir John Dalrymple, whc had recently held the high office of Lord Advocate, and had been an accomplice in some of the misdeeds which he now arraigned with great force of reasoning and eloquence. He vva§ strenuously supported by Sir James Montgomery, William and Uam. tiiember for Ayrshire, a man of considerable abilities, but of loose principles, turbulent temper, insatiable cupidity, and implacable malevolence. The Archbishop of Glasgow and Sir George Mackenzie spoke on the other side: but the only effect of their oratory was to deprive their party of the advantage of being able to allege that the Estates were under duress, and that liberty of speech had been de- nied to the defenders of hereditary monarchy. When the question was put, Athol, Queensberry, and some of their friends withdrew. Only five members voted against the resolution which pronounced that James had forfeited his right to the allegiance of his subjects. When it was moved that the Crown of Scotland should be set- tled as the Crown of England had been settled, Athol and Queensberry reappeared in the hall. They had doubted, they said, whether they could justifiably declare the throne vacant. But, since it had been declared vacant, they felt no doubt that William and Mary were the persons who ought to fill it. The Convention then went forth in procession to the High Street. Several great nobles, attended by the Lord Provost of the capital and by the heralds, ascended the octagon tower from which rose the city cross surmounted by the unicorn of Scotland.* Hamilton read the vote of the Convention; and a King at Arms proclaimed the new Sovereigns with sound of trumpet. On the same day the Estates issued an order that the parochial clergy should, on pain of deprivation, publish from their pulpits the proc- lamation which had just been read at the city cross, and should pray for King William and Queen Mary. Still the interregnum was not at an end. Though the new Sovereigns had been proclaimed, they had not yet been put into possession of the royal authority by a formal tender and a formal acceptance. At Edinburgh, as at Westminster, it was thought necessary that the instrument which settled the government should clearly define and solemnly assert those privileges of the people which the Stuarts had illegally infringed. A Claim of Right was therefore drawn up by the Twenty-Four, and adopted by the Convention. To this claim, which purported to be merely declaratory of the law as it stood, was added a sup- piemen^^ a list of grievances which * Every reader will remember the malediction which Sir Walter Scott, in the Fifth Oanto of Marraion, pronounced on the dunces who removed this interesting moDti* inent. 5^6 HISTORY or ENGLAND. could be remedied only by new laws. One most Important article, which we should naturally expect to find at the head of such a list, the Convention, with great practical pru- dence, but in defiance of notorious facts and of unanswer- able arguments, placed in the Claim of Right. Kobody could deny that prelacy was established by Act of Parlia- ment. The power exercised by the bishops might be per- nicious, unscriptural, antichristian : but illegal it certainly was not; and to pronounce it illegal was to outrage com- mon sense. The Whig leaders, however, were much more desirous to get rid of episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and logicians. If they made the abolition of episcopacy an article of the contract by which William was to hold the crown, they attained their end, though doubtless in a manner open to much criticism. If, on the other hand, they contented themselves with resolv- ing that episcopacy was a noxious institution which at some future time the legislature would do well to abolish, they might find that their resolution, though unobjection- able in form, was barren of consequences. They knew that William by no means sympathized with their dislike of bishops, and that, even had he been much more zealous for the Calvinistic model than he was, the relation in which he stood to the Anglican Church would make it difficult and dangerous for him to declare himself hostile to a fundamental part of the constitution of that Church. If he should become King of Scotland without being fet- tered by any pledge on this subject, it might well be ap- prehended that he would hesitate about passing an Act which would be regarded with abhorrence by a large body of his subjects in the south of the island. It was therefore most desirable that the question should be settled while the throne was still vacant. In this opinion many poli- ticians concurred, who had no dislike to rochets and mitres, but who wished that William might have a quiet and pros- perous reign. The Scottish people, — so these men rea- soned, — hated episcopacy. The English loved it. To leave William any voice in the matter was to put him under the necessity of deeply wounding the strongest feelings of one of the nations which he governed. It was therefore plain- ly for his own interest that the question, which he could not settle in any manner without incurring a fearful amount of obloquy, should be settled for him by others who were exposed to no such danger. He was not yet WILLIAM AND MARY. 227 Sovereign of Scotland. While the interregnum lasted, the supreme power belonged to the Estates; and for what the Estates might do the prelatists of his southern kingdom could not hold him responsible. The elder Dalrymple wrote strongly from London to this effect; and there can be little doubt that he expressed the sentiments of his master. William would have sincerely rejoiced if the Scots could have been reconciled to a modified episcopacy. But, since that could not be, it was manifestly desirable that they should themselves, while there was yet no king over them, pronounce the irrevocable doom of the institution which they abhorred.* The Convention, therefore, with little debate as it should seem, inserted in the Claim of Right a clause declaring that prelacy was an insupportable burden to the kingdom, that it had been long odious to the body of the people, and that it ought to be abolished. Nothing in the proceedings at Edinburgh astonishes an Englishman more than the manner in which the Estates dealt with the practice of torture. In England torture had always been illegal. In the most servile times the judges had unanimously pronounced it so. Those rulers w^ho had occasionally resorted to it had, as far as was possible, used it in secret, had never pretended that they had acted in conformity with either statute law or com- mon law, and had excused themselves by saying that the extraordinary peril to which the state was exposed had forced them to take on themselves the responsibility of employing extraordinary means of defence. It had therefore never been thought necessary by any English Parliament to pass any Act or resolution touching this matter. The torture was not mentioned in the Petition of Right, or in any of the statutes framed by the Long Par- liament. No member of the Convention of 1689 dreamed of proposing that the instrument which called the Prince and Princess of Orange to the throne should contain a declaration against the using of racks and thumb-screws for the purpose of forcing prisoners to accuse themselves. Such a declaration would have been justly regarded as weakening rather than strengthening a rule which, as far back as the days of the Plantagenets, had been proudly * *'It will be neither secair nor kynd to the King to expect it to be (by) Act of Parlia- ment after the settlement, which will lay it at his door." Dalrymple to Melville, s April, 1689; Leven and Melville Papers. 228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. declared by the most illustrious sages of Westminstef Hall to be a distinguishing feature of the English juris- prudence.* In the Scottish Claim of Right, the use of torture without evidence, or in ordinary cases, was de- clared to be contrary to law. The use of torture, there- fore, where there was strong evidence, and where the crime was extraordinary, was, by the plainest implication, declared to be according to law; nor did the Estates men- tion the use of torture among the grievances which re- quired a legislative remedy. In truth, they could not con- demn the use of torture without condemning themselves. It had chanced that while they were employed in settling the government, the eloquent and learned Lord President Lockhart had been foully murdered in a public street through which he was returning from church on a Sunday. The murderer was seized, and proved to be a wretch who, having treated his wife barbarously and turned her out of doors, had been compelled by a decree of the Court of Session to provide for her. A savage hatred of the judges by whom she had been protected had taken possession of his mind, and had goaded him to a horrible crime and a horrible fate. It was natural that an assassination attend- ed by so many circumstances of aggravation should move the indignation of the members of the Convention. Yet they should have considered the gravity of the conjunc- ture and the importance of their own mission. They un- fortunately, in the heat of passion, directed the magis- trates of Edinburgh to strike the prisoner in the boots, and named a committee to superintend the operation. But for this unhappy event, it is probable that the law of Scot- land concerning torture would have been immediately as- similated to the law of England. f Having settled the Claim of Right, the Convention pro- ceeded to revise the coronation oath. When this had been done, three members were appointed to carry the Instrument of Government to London. Argyle, though not in strictness of law, a Peer, was chosen to represent the Peers: Sir James Montgomery represented the Com- missioners of Shires, and Sir John Dalrymple the Com- missioners of Towns. The Estates then adjourned for a few weeks, having first passed a vo te which empowered Hamilton to take such i ♦ There is a striking passage on this subject in Fortescue. + Act Pari, Scot., April x, 1689; Orders of Committee of Estates, May x6, 1689; Loadoa Gazette, April xx. WILLIAM AND MARY. 229 measures as might be necessary for the preservation of the public peace till the end of the interregnum. The ceremony of the inauguration was distinguished from ordinary pageants by some highly interesting cir- cumstances. On the eleventh of May the three Commis- sioners came to the Council Chamber at Whitehall, and thence, attended by almost all the Scotchmen of note who were then in London, proceeded to the Banqueting House. There William and Mary appeared seated under a canopy. A splendid circle of English nobles and statesmen stood round the throne: but the sword of state was committed to a Scotch Lord; and the oath of office was administered after the Scotch fashion. Argyle recited the words slow- ly. The royal pair, holding up their hands towards heav- en, repeated after him till they came to the last clause. There William paused. That clause contained a promise that he would root out all heretics and all enemies of the true worship of God; and it was notorious that, in the opinion of many Scotchmen, not only all Roman Catho- lics, but all Protestant Episcopalians, all Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, all Lutherans, nay all British Pres- byterians who did not hold themselves bound by the Sol- emn League and Covenant, were enemies of the true worship of God.* The King had apprised the Commision- ers that he could not take this part of the oath without a distinct and public explanation; and they had been au- thorized by the Convention to give such an explanation as would satisfy him. "I will not," he now said, lay myself under any obligation to be a persecutor.'* ^'Neither the words of this oath," said one of the Commissioners, "nor the laws of Scotland, lay any such obligation on Your Majesty." "In that sense, then, I swear,^' said William; "and I desire you all, my lords and gentlemen, to witness * As it has lately been denied that the extreme Presbyterians entertained an unfavor- able opinion of the Lutherans, I will give two decisive proofs of the truth of what I have asserted in the text. In the book entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed is a report of what passed at the General Meeting of the United Societies of Covenanters ©n the 24th of October, i688. The question was propounded whether there should be an association with the Dutch. "It was concluded unanimously," says the Clerk of the Societies, "that we could not have an association with the Dutch in one body, nor come formally under their conduct, being such a promiscuous conjunction of reformed Luther- an malignants and sectaries, to join with whom were repugnant to the testimony of the Churcn of Scotland." In the Protestation and Testimony drawn up on the 2d of Octo- ber 1707, the United Societies complain that the crown has bee^ settled on" the Prince of Hanover, who has been bred and brought up in the Lutheran religion, which is not only different from, but even in many things contrary unto that purity in doctrine, re- formation, and religion, we in these nations had attained unto, as is very well known." They add: "The admitting such a person to reign over us is not only contrary to our Sol- ewn League and Covenant, but to the very Word of Q'^r^ls '^nd gi>e^d manners." ■ ^oi*tJi«/ *4xv'j\x',^t< Scotland by the author of the Journey through England, 1723, WILLIAM AND MARY. the bad qualities of an uncivilized nation. He would have found that the people had no love for their country or for their king; that they had no attachment to any com- monwealth larger than the clan, or to any magistrate superior to the chief. He would have found that life was governed by a code of morality and honor widely different from that which is established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would have learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind a fragment of rock, were approved modes of taking satisfaction for insults. He would have heard men relate boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked on hereditary enemies in a neighboring valley such vengeance as would have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent, but honorable. He would have seen, wherever he turned, that dislike of steady industry, and that disposition to throw on the weaker sex the heaviest part of manual labor, which are characteristic of savages. He would have been struck by the spectacle of athletic men basking in the sun, angling for salmon, or taking aim at grouse, while their aged mothers, their pregnant wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of oats. Nor did the women repine at their hard lot. In their view it was quite fit that a man, especially if he assumed the aristo- cratic title of Duinhe Wassel, and adorned his bonnet with the eagle's feather, should take his ease, except when he was fighting, hunting, or marauding. To mention the name of such a man in connection with commerce or with any mechanical art was an insult. Agriculture was indeed less despised. Yet a high-born warrior was much more becomingly employed in plundering the land of others than in tilling his own. The religion of the greater part of the Highlands was a rude mixture of Popery and Paganism. The symbol of redemption was associated with heathen sacrifices and incantations. Baptized men poured libations of ale to one Dsemon, and set out drink offerings of milk for another. Seers wrapped themselves up in'bulls' hides, and awaited, in that vesture, the inspi- ration which was to reveal the future. Even among those minstrels and genealogists whose hereditary vocation was to preserve the memory of past events, an inquirer would have found very few who could read. In truth, he might easily have journeyed from sea to sea without discovering MlStOkY OF ENGLAND. a page of Gaelic printed or written. The price which he would have had to pay for his knowledge of the coun- try would have been heavy. He would have had to en- dure hardships as great as if he had sojourned among the Esquimaux or the Samoyeds. Here and there, indeed, at the castle of some great lord who had a seat in the Parlia- ment and Privy Council, and who was accustomed to pass a large part of his life in the cities of the South, might have been found wigs and embroidered coats, plate and fine linen, lace and jewels, French dishes and French wines. But, in general, the traveller would have been forced to content himself with very different quarters. In many dwellings the furniture, the food, the clothing, nay the very hair and skin of his hosts, would have put his philos- ophy to the proof. His lodging would sometimes have been in a hut of which every nook would have swarmed with vermin. He would have inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat smoke, and foul with a hundred noisome exhala- tions. At supper grain fit only for horses would have been set before him, accompanied by a cake of blood drawn from living cows. Some of the company with which he would have feasted would have been covered with cutaneous eruptions, and others would have been smeared with tar, like sheep. His couch would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad with the itch.* This is not an attractive picture. And yet an enlight- ened and dispassionate observer would have found in the character and manners of this rude people something which might well excite admiration and a good hope. Their courage was what great exploits achieved in all the four quarters of the globe have since proved it to be. Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to their own patriarch, though politically a great evil, partook of the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill regulated; but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member and the leader who m he follows with a love ♦ Almost all these circumstances are taken from Burt's Letters. For the tar I am in* debted to Cleland's poetry. In his verses on the ''Highland Host" he says: The reason is, they're smeared with tar, Which doth defend their head and neck, Just as it doth their sheep protect," j WILLIAM AND MARY. Stronger than the love of life. It was true that the High- lander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy: but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies and hospitality to guests. It was true that his predatory habits were most pernicious to the commonwealth. Yet those erred greatly who imagined that he bore any resemblance to villains who, in rich and well governed communities, live by steal- ing. When he drove before him the herds of Lowland farmers up the pass which led to his native glen, he no more considered himself as a thief than the Raleighs and Drakes considered themselves as thieves when they di- vided the cargoes of Spanish galleons. He was a warrior seizing lawful prize of war, of war never once intermitted during the thirty-five generations which had passed away since the Teutonic invaders had driven the children of the soil to the mountains. That, if he was caught robbing on such principles, he should, for the protection of peaceful industry, be punished with the utmost rigor of the law, was perfectly just. But it was not just to class him morally with the pickpockets who infested Drury Lane Theater, or the highwaymen who stopped coaches on Blackheath. His inordinate pride of birth and his contempt for labor and trade were indeed great weaknesses, and had done far more than the inclemency of the air and the sterility of the soil to keep his country poor and rude. Yet even here there was some compensation. It must in fairness be acknowledged that the patrician virtues were not less widely diffused among the population of the Highlands than the patrician vices. As there was no other part of the island where men, sordidly clothed, lodged, and fed, indulged themselves to such a degree in the idle saunter- ing habits of an aristocracy, so there was no other part of the island where such men had in such a degree the better qualities of an aristocracy, grace and dignity of manner, self-respect, and that noble sensibility which makes dis- honor more terrible than death. A gentleman of Sky or Lochaber, whose clothes were begrimed with the accuftiu- lated filth of years, and whose hovel smelt worse than an English hog-stye, would often dg the honors of that hovel with a lofty courtesy worthy of the splendid circle of Ver- sailles. Though he had as little book-learning as the most stupid plough-boys of England, it would have been a great error to put him in th^ same intellectual r^nk with such HISTORY OF ENGLAND. plough-boys. It is indeed only by reading that men can be- come profoundly acquainted with any science. But the arts of poetry and rhetoric may be carried near to absolute per- fection, and may exercise a mighty influence on the public mind, in an age in which books are wholly, or almost wholly, unknown. The first great painter of life and manners has described with a vivacity which makes it impossible to doubt that he was copying from nature, the effect produced by eloquence and song on audiences ignorant of the alpha- bet. It is probable that, in the Highland councils, men who would not have been qualified for the duty of parish clerk sometimes argued questions of peace and war, of tribute and homage, with ability worthy of Halifax and Caermarthen, and that, at the Highland banquets, minstrels who did not know their letters sometimes poured forth rhap- sodies in which a discerning critic might have found pas- sages such as would have reminded him of the tenderness of Otway or of the vigor of Dryden. There was therefore even then evidence sufficient to jus- tify the belief that no nat.ural inferiority had kept the Celt far behind the Saxon. It might safely have been predicted that, if ever an efficient police should make it impossible for the Highlander to avenge his wrongs by violence and to supply his wants by rapine, if ever his faculties should be developed by the civilizing influence of the Protestant re- ligion and of the English language, if ever he should trans- fer to his country and to her lawful magistrates the affec- tion and respect with which he had been taught to regard his own petty community and his own petty prince, the kingdom would obtain an immense accession of strength for all the purposes both of peace and of war. Such would doubtless have been the decision of a well- informed and impartial judge. But no such .judge was then to be found. The Saxons who dwelt far from the Gaelic provinces could not be well informed. The Saxons who dwelt near those provinces could not be impartial. National enmities have always been fiercest among border- ers; and the enmity between the Highland borderer and the Lowland borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages, and was kept fresh by constant injuries. One day many square miles of pasture land were swept bare by armed plunderers from the hills. Another day a score of plaids dangled in a row on the gallows of Crieff Qr Stirling. Fairs were indeed held on the debatable land WILLIAM AND MARY. for the necessary interchange of commodities. But to those fairs both parties came prepared for battle; and the day often ended in bloodshed. Thws the Highlander was an object of hatred to his Saxon neighbors; and from his Saxon neighbors those Saxons who dwelt far from him learned the very little that they cared to know about his habits. When the English condescended to think of him at all, — and it was seldom that they did so, — they consid- •ered him as a filthy abject savage, a slave, a Papist, a cut- throat, and a thief.* This contemptuous loathing lasted till the year 1745, and was then for a moment succeeded by intense fear and rage. England, thoroughly alarmed, put forth her whole strength. The Highlands were subjugated rapidly, com- pletely, and forever. During a short time the English nation, still heated by the recent conflict, breathed nothing but vengeance. The slaughter on the field of battle and on the scaffold was not sufficient to slake the public thirst for blood. The sight of the tartan infl-amed the populace of London with hatred which showed itself by unmanly out- rages to defenceless captives. A political and social revo- lution took place through the whole Celtic region. The pow- er of the chiefs was destroyed: the people were disarmed: the use o-f the old national garb was interdicted : the old pre- * A striking illustration of the opinion which was entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbors, and which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a volume of Miscellanies'published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the most cu- rious pieces in the collection is a coarse and profane Scotch poem entitled, ''How the first Hielandman was made." How and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate. The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be quoted. I hope, without much offence: Says God to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?' 'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.' *Ffy,' quod St. Peter, 'thou wilt never do weel, *An thou, but new made, so sune gais to steal,' 'Urnff,' quod the Hielandman, and swore by yon kirk, 'So long as I may geir get to steal, will I nevir work,' " An eminent Lowland Scot, the brave Colonel Cleland," about the same time, described the Highlander in the same manner: "For a misobliging word She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board, If any ask her of her drift. Forsooth, her nainself lives by theft." Much to the same effect are the very few words which Franck Philanthropus (1694) spares to the Highlanders: "They live like lairds and die like loons, hating to work and no credit to borrow: they make depredations and rob their neighbours, " In the History of the Revolution in Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1690, is the following passage: ''The Highlanders of Scotland are a sort of wretches that have no other consideration of honour, friendship, obedience, or government, than as, by any alteration of affairs or revolution in the government, they can improve to themselves an opportunity of rob» bing or plundering their bordering neighbours. «44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. datory habks were effectually broken; and scarcely had this change been accomplished when a strange reflux of public feeling began. Pity succeeded to aversion. The •nation execrated the cruelties which had been committed on the Highlanders, and forgot that for those cruelties it was itself answerable. Those very Londoners, who, while the memory of the march to Derby was still fresh, had thronged to hoot and pelt the rebel prisoners, now fasten- ed on the prince who had put down the rebellion the nick- name of butcher. Those barbarous institutions and usages, which, while they were in full force, no Saxon had thought worthy of serious examination, or had mentioned except with contempt, had no sooner ceased to exist than they became objects of curiosity, of interest, even of admira- tion. Scarcely had the chiefs been turned into mere land- lords, when it became the fashion to draw invidious com- parisons between the rapacity of the landlord and the in- dulgence of the chief. Men seemed to have forgotten that the ancient Gaelic polity had been found to be incom- patible with the authority of law, had obstructed the progress of civilization, had more than once brought on the empire the curse of civil war. As they had formerly seen only the odious side of that polity, they could now see only the pleasing side. The old tie, they said, had been parental: the new tie was purely commercial. What could be more lamentable than that the head of a tribe should eject, for a paltry arrear of rent, tenants who were his own flesh and blood, tenants whose forefathers had often with their bodies covered his forefathers on the field of battle? As long as there were Gaelic marauders, they had been regarded by the Saxon population as hateful vermin who ought to be exterminated without mercy. As soon as the extermination had been accomplished, as soon as cattle were as safe in the Perthshire passes as in Smithfield mar- ket, the freebooter was exalted into a hero of romance. As long as the Gaelic dress was worn, the Saxons had pronounced it hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly indecent. Soon after it had been prohibited, they discovered that it was the most graceful drapery in Europe. The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic usages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfully neglected during many ages, began to attract the attention of the learned from the moment at which the peculiarities of the Gaelic race began to disappear. So strong was this impulse that, WILLIAM AND MARY. where the Highlands were concerned, men of sense gave ready credence to stories without evidence, and men of taste gave rapturous applause to compositions without merit. Epic poems, which any skillful and dispassionate critic would at a glance have perceived to be almost en- tirely modern, and which, if they had been published as mod- ern, would have instantly found their proper place in com- pany with Blackmore's Alfred and Wilkie's Epigoniad, were pronounced to be fifteen hundred years old, and were gravely classed with the Iliad. Writers of a very differ- ent order from the imposter who fabricated tliese forgeries saw how striking an effect might be produced by skillful pictures of the old Highland life. Whatever was repul- sive was softened down: whatever was graceful and noble was brought prominently forward. Some of these works were executed with such admirable art that, like the his- torical plays of Shakespeare, they superseded history. The visions of the poet were realities to his readers. The places which he described became holy ground, and were visited by thousands of pilgrims. Soon the vulgar imag- ination was so completely occupied by plaids, targets, and claymores, that, by most Englishmen, Scotchman and Highlander were regarded as synonymous words. Few people seemed to be aware that, ar no remote period, a Macdonald or a Macgregor in his tartan was to a citizen of Edinburgh or Glasgow what an Indian hunter in his war paint is to an inhabitant of Philadelphia or Boston. Artists and actors represented Bruce and Douglas in striped petticoats. They might as well have represented Washington brandishing a tomahawk, and girt with a string of scalps. At length this fashion reached a point beyond which it was not easy to proceed. The last British King who held a court in Holyrood thought that he could not give a more striking proof of his respect for the us- ages which had prevailed in Scotland before the Union, than by disguising himself in what, before the Union, was considered by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. Thus it has chanced that the old Gaelic institutions and manners have never been exhibited in the simple light of truth. Up to the middle of the last century, they were seen through one false medium: they have since been seen through another. Once they loomed dimly through an obscuring and distorting haze of prejudice; and no sooner 246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had that fog dispersed than they appeared bright wltti al^ the richest tints of poetry. The time when a perfectly fair picture could have been painted has now passed away. The original has long disappeared: no authentic effigy exists; and all that is possible is to produce an imperfect likeness by the help of two portraits, of which one is a coarse caricature and the other a masterpiece of flattery. Among the erroneous notions which have been commonly received concerning the history and character of the High- landers is one which it is especially necessary to correct. During the century which commenced with the campaign of Montrose, and terminated with the campaign of the young Pretender, every great military exploit which was achieved on British ground in the cause of the House of Stuart was achieved by the valor of Gaelic tribes. The English have therefore very naturally ascribed to those tribes the feelings of English cavaliers, profound reverence for the royal office, and enthusiastic attachment to the royal family. A close inquiry however will show that the strength of these feelings among the Celtic clans has been greatly exaggerated. In studying the history of our civil contentions, we must never forget that the same names, badges, and war-cries had very different meaning, in different parts of the British isles. We have already seen how little there was in com- mon between the Jacobitism of Ireland and the Jacobitism of England. The Jacobitism of the Scotch Highlander was, at least in the seventeenth century, a third variety, quite distinct from the other two. The Gaelic population was far indeed from holding the doctrines of passive obe- dience and non-resistance. In fact disobedience and resist- ance made up the ordinary life of that population. Some of those very clans which it has been the fashion to de- scribe as so enthusiastically loyal that they were prepared to stand by James to the death, even when he was in the wrong, had never, while he was on the throne, paid the smallest respect to his authority, even when he was clearly in the right. Their practice, their calling, had been to disobey and to defy him. Some of them had actually been proscribed by sound of horn for the crime of withstanding his lawful commands, and would have torn to pieces with- out scruple any of his officers who had dared to venture beyond the passes for the purpose of executing his warrant The English Whigs were accused by their opponents oi WILLIAM AND MARY. 247 holding doctrines dangerously lax touching the obedience due to the chief magistrate. Yet no respectable English Whig ever defended rebellion, except as a rare and extreme remedy for rare and extreme evils. But among those Celtic chiefs whose loyalty has been the theme of so much warm eulogy were some whose whole existence from boy- hood upwards had been one long rebellion. Such men, it is evident, were not likely to see the Revolution in the light in which it appeared to an Oxonian non-juror. On the other hand they were not, like the aboriginal Irish, urged to take arms by impatience of Saxon domination. To such domination the Scottish Celt had never been subjected. He occupied his own wild and sterile region, and followed his own national usages. In his dealings with the Saxons, he was rather the oppressor than the oppressed. He ex- acted blackmail from them: he drove away their flocks and herds; and they seldom dared to pursue him to his native wilderness. They had never portioned out among themselves his dreary region of moor and shingle. He had never seen the tower of his hereditary chieftains occupied by an usurper who could not speak Gaelic, and who looked on all who spoke it as brutes and slaves: nor had his national and re- ligious feelings ever been outraged by the power and splen- dor of a church which he regarded as at once foreign and heretical. The real explanation of the readiness with which a large part of the population of the Highlands, twice in the seven- teenth century, drew the sword for the Stuarts, is to be found in the internal quarrels which divided the common- wealth of clans. For there was a commonwealth of clans, the image, on a reduced scale, of the great commonwealth of European nations. In the smaller of these two com- monwealths, as in the larger, there were wars, treaties, alliances, disputes about territory and precedence, a system of public law, a balance of power. There was one inex- haustible source of discontents and quarrels. The feudal system had, some centuries before, been introduced into the hill country, but had neither destroyed the patriarchal system nor amalgamated completely with it. In general, he who was lord in the Norman polity was also chief of the Celtic polity; and, when this was the case, there was no conflict. But, when the two characters were sepa- rated, all the willing and loyal obedience was reserved for the chief, The lord h^d only what he could get and hol4 24? HISTORY OF ENGLAND. by force. If he was able, by the help of his own tribe, to keep In subjection tenants who were not of his own tribe, there was a tyranny of clan over clan, the most galling, perhaps, of all forms of tyranny. At different times dif- ferent races had risen to an authority which had produced general fear and envy. The Macdonalds had once posses- sed, in the Hebrides and throughout the mountain country of Argyleshire and Ivernesshire, an ascendency similar to that which the House of Austria had once possessed in ChtTStendom. But the ascendency of the Macdonalds had, like the ascendency of the House of Austria, passed aw j^^^j' the greatest and most dreaded. It was while his neighbOi were watching the increase of his power with hatred which fear could scarcely keep down that Montrose called them to arms. The call was promptly obeyed. A powerful coali- tion of clans waged w^ar, nominally for King Charles, but really against Mac Galium More. It is not easy for any person who has studied the history of that contest to doubt that, if Argyle had supported the cause of monarchy, his neighbors would have declared against it. Grave writers tell of the victory gained at Iverlochy by the royalists over the rebels. But the peasants who dwell near the spot speak more accurately. They talk of the great battle won there by the Macdonalds over the Campbells. The feelings which had produced the coalition against the Marquess of Argyle retained their force long after his death. His son. Earl Archibald, though a man of many eminent virtues, inherited, with the ascendency of his an- cestors, the unpopularity which such ascendency could scarcely fail to produce. In 1675, several warlike tribes formed a confederacy against him, but were compelled to submit to the superior fprce which was at his command. There was therefore great joy from sea to sea when, in 1681; he was arraigned on a futile charge, condemned to death, driven into exile, and deprived of his dignities: there was great alarm when, in 1685, he returned from banish- ment, and sent forth the fiery cross to summon his kins- men to his standard; and there was again great joy when his enterprise had failed, when his army had melted away, when his head had been fixed on the Tolbooth of Edin- burgh, and when those chiefs who had regarded him as an oppressor had obtained from the Crown, on easy terms, re- missions of old debts and grants of new titles. While England and Scotland generally were execrating the tyf- anny of James, he was honored as a deliverer in Appin and Lochaber, in Glenroy and Glenmore.* The hatred excited by the power and ambition of the House of Argyle was not satisfied even when the head of that House had perished, when his children were fugitives, when strangers garrisoned * In the introduction to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron is a very sensible remark: "It may appear paradoxical: but the editor cannot help hazarding the conjecture that the motives which prompted the Highlanders to support King James were substantially the same as those by which the promoters of the Revolution were actuated." Th« whole introduction, indeed, well deserves to be read. Vol. III-9, 245 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. by force. keep In --^^^^ Inverary, and when the whole shore of Loch there been laid waste by fire and sword. It was said that pet^ie terrible precedent which had been set in the case of the f Macgregors ought to be followed, and that it ought to be made a crime to bear the odious name of Campbell. On a sudden all was changed. The Revolution came. The heir of Argyle returned in triumph. He was, as his predecessors had been, the head, not only of a tribe, but of a party. The sentence which had deprived him of his estate and of his honors was treated by the majority of the Convention as a nullity. The doors of the Parliament House were thrown open to him: he was selected from the whole body of Scottish nobles to administer the oath of office to the new Sovereigns; and he was authorized to raise an army on his domains for the service of the Crown. He would now, doubtless, be as powerful as the most powerful of his ancestors. Backed by the strength of the Government, he would demand all the long and heavy ar- rears of rent and tribute which were due to him from his neighbors, and would exact revenge for all the injuries and insults which his family had suffered. There was terror and agitation in the castles of twenty petty kings. The uneasiness was great among the Stewarts of Appin, whose territory was close pressed by the sea on one side, and by the race of Diarmid on the other. The Macnaghtens were still more alarmed. Once they had been the masters of those beautiful valleys through which the Ara and the Shira flow into Loch Fyne. But the Campbells had pre- vailed. The Macnaghtens had been reduced to subjection, and had, generation after generation, looked up with awe and detestation to the neighboring Castle of Inverary. They had recently been promised a complete emancipa- tion. A grant, by virtue of which their chief would have held his estate immediately from the Crown, had been prepared and was about to pass the seals, when the Re- volution suddenly extinguished a hope which amounted almost to certainty.* The Macleans remembered that, only fourteen years be- fore, their lands had been invaded and the seat of their chief taken and garrisoned by the Campbells. f Even be- * Skene's Highlanders of Scotland; Douglas's Baronage of Scotland. t See the Memoirs of the life of Sir Ewan Cameron, and the Historical and Genealog- ical Account of the Clan Maclean, by a Senachie. Though this last work was published to late as 1838, the writer seems to have been inflamed by animosity as fierce as ti^ with which the Macleans of the seventeenth century regarded the CampbclU. In tli WILLIAM AND MARY. fore William and Mary had been proclaimed at Edinburgh, a Maclean, deputed doubtless by the head of his tribe, had crossed the sea to Dublin, and had assured James that, if two or three battalions from Ireland landed in Argyleshire, they would be immediately joined by four thousand four hundred claymores.* A similar spirit animated the Camerons. Their ruler, Sir Ewan Cameron, of Lochiel, surnamed the Black, was in personal qualities unrivalled among the Celtic princes. He was a gracious master, a trusty ally, a terrible enemy. His countenance and bearing were singularly noble. Som& persons who had been at Versailles, and among them the shrewd and observant Simon Lord Lovat, said that there was, in person and manner, a most striking resemblance between Lewis the Fourteenth and Lochiel; and whoever compares the portraits of the two will perceive that there really was some likeness. In stature the difference was great. Lewis, in spite of high-heeled shoes and a towering wig, hardly reached the middle size. Lochiel was tall and strongly built. In agility and skill at his weapons he had few equals among the inhabitants of the hills. He had re- peatedly been victorious in single combat. He was a hunter of great fame. He made vigorous war on the wolves which, down to his time, preyed on the red deer of the Grampians; and by his hand perished the last of the ferocious breed which is known to have wandered at large in our island. Nor was Lochiel less distinguished by in- tellectual than by bodily vigor. He might indeed have seemed ignorant to educated and travelled Englishmen, who had studied the classics under Busby at Westminster and under Aldrich at Oxford, who had learned something about the sciences among Fellows of the Royal Society, and something about the fine arts in the galleries of Flor- ence and Rome. But though Lochiel had very little knowledge of books, he was eminently wise in council, eloquent in debate, ready in devising expedients, and skillful in managing the minds of men. His understand- short compass of one page the Marquis of Argyle is designated as *'the diabolical Scotch Cromwell," ''the vile vindictive persecutor," ''the base traitor," and "the Argyle im- postor." In another page he is "the insidious Campbell, fertile in villany," "the avari- cious slave," "the coward of Arffyle," and "the Scotch traitor." In the next page he is ''the base and vindictive enemv of the House of Maclean," "the hypocrftical Coven- anter," "the incorrigible traitor, "the cowardly and malignant enemy." It is a hap* py thing that passions so violent can now vent themselves only in scolding. ♦ Letter of Avaux to Louvois, Apiil 6-16, 1689, enclosing a paper entitled Memoire du Chevalier Macklean. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ing preserved him from those follies into which pride and anger frequently hurried his brother chieftains. Many, therefore, who regarded his brother chieftains as mere bar- barians, mentioned him with respect. Even at the Dutch Embassy in Saint James's Square he was spoken of as a man of such capacity and courage that it would not be easy to find his equal. As a patron of literature, he ranks with the magnificent Dorset. If Dorset out of his own purse allowed Dryden a pension equal to the profits of the Laureateship, Lochiel is said to have bestowed on a cele- brated bard, who had been plundered by marauders, and who implored alms in a pathetic Gaelic ode, three cows, and the almost incredible sum of fifteen pounds sterling. In truth, the character of this great chief was depicted two thousand five hundred years before his birth, and depicted, — such is the power of genius, — in colors which will be fresh as ma-ny years after his death. He was the Ulysses of the Highlands."* He held a large territory peopled by a race which rever- enced no lord, no king but himself. For that territor}^, however, he owed homage to the House of Argyle; and he was deeply in debt to his feudal superiors for rent. This vassalage he had doubtless been early taught to consider as degrading and unjust. In his minority he had been the ward in chivalry of the politic Marquess, and had been educated at the Castle of Inverary. But at eighteen the boy broke loose from the authority of his guardian, and fought bravely both for Charles the First and for Charles the Second. He was therefore considered by the English as a Cavalier, was well received at Whitehall after the Restoration, and was knighted by the hand of James. The compliment, however, which was paid to him, on one of his appearances at the English Court, would not have seemed very flattering to a Saxon. *Take care of your pockets, my lords," cried His Majesty; ''here comes the king of the thieves." The loyalty of Lochiel is * See the singularly interesting Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, printed at Edinburgh for the Abbotsford Club in 1842. The MS. must have been at least a century older. See also in the same volume the account of Sir Ewan's death, copied from the BaJhadie papers. I ought to say that the author of the Memoirs of Sir Ewan, though evmently well informed about the affairs of the Highlands and the characters of the most distinguished chiefs, was grossly ignorant of English politics and history. I will quote what Van Citters wrote to the States General about Lochiel, ^ ' 1689- "Sir Evan Cameron, Lord Locheale, een man,— soo ik hoor van die hem lange gekent en dagelyk hebben mede omgegaan,— van so groot verstant, courage, en beleyt, als weyniges Syns gelycke syn," WILLIAM AND MARY. almost proverbial; but it was very unlike what was called loyalty in England. In the records of the Scottish Parlia- ment he was, in the days of Charles the Second, described as a lawless and rebellious man, who held lands master-, fully and in high contempt of the royal authority.* On one occasion the Sheriff of Invernesshire was directed by King James to hold a court in Lochaber. Lochiel, jealous of this interference with his own patriarchal despotism, came to the tribunal at the head of four hundred armed Camerons. He affected great reverence for the royal com-, mission, but he dropped three or four words which were perfectly understood by the pages and armor-bearers who watched every turn of his eye. ^^Is none of my lads so clever as to send this judge packing? I have seen them get up a quarrel when there was less need of one.'* In a moment a brawl began in the crowd, none could say how or where. Hundreds of dirks were out: cries of ^^Help,'* and ^^Murder,*' were raised on all sides: many wounds were inflicted: two men were killed: the sitting broke up in tumult; and the terrified Sheriff was forced to put him- self under the protection of the chief, who, with a plausi- ble show of respect and concern, escorted him safe home. It is amusing to think that the man who performed this feat is constantly extolled as the most faithful and dutiful of subjects by writers who blame Somers and Burnet as contemners of the legitimate authority of sovereigns. Lochiel would undoubtedly have laughed the doctrine of non-resistance to scorn. But scarcely any chief in Inver- nesshire had gained more than he by the downfall of the House of Argyle, or had more reason than he to dread the restoration of that House. Scarcely any chief in Inver- nesshire, therefore, was more alarmed and disgusted by the proceedings of the Convention. But of all those Highlanders who looked on the recent turn of fortune with painful apprehension the fiercest and the most powerful were the Macdonalds. More than one of the magnates who bore that widespread name laid claim to the honor of being the rightful successor of those Lords of the Isles, who, as late as the fifteenth century, disputed the pre-eminence of the Kings of Scotland. This genea- logical controversy, which has lasted down to our own time, caused much bickering among the competitors. But they all agreed in regretting the past splendor of their * Act Pari., July 5, 2661, HISTORY OiF ENGLAND. dynasty, and in detesting the upstart race of Campbell. The old feud had never slumbered. It was still con- stantly repeated, in verse and prose, that the finest part of the domain belonging to the ancient heads of the Gaelic nation, Islay, where they had lived with the pomp of royalty, lona, where they had been interred with the pomp of religion, the paps of Jura, the rich peninsula of Kintyre, had been transferred from the legitimate possessors to the insatiable Mac Galium More. Since the downfall of the House of Argyle, the Macdonalds, if they had not regained their ancient superiority, might at least boast that they had now no superior. Relieved from the fear of their mighty enemy in the West, they had turned their arms against weaker enemies in the East, against the clan of Mackintosh and against the town of Inverness. The clan of Mackintosh, a branch of an ancient and re- nowned tribe which took its name and badge from the wild cat of the forests, had a dispute with the Macdonalds, which originated, if tradition may be believed, in those dark times when the Danish pirates wasted the coasts of Scotland. Inverness was a Saxon colony among the Gelts, a hive of traders and artisans, in the midst of a popula- tion of loungers and plunderers, a solitary outpost of civ- ilization in a region of barbarians. Though the buildings covered but a small part of the space over which they now extend; though the arrival of a brig in the port was a rare event; though the Exchange was the middle of a miry street, in which stood a market cross much resembling a broken milestone; though the sittings of the municipal council were held in a filthy den with a rough-cast wall; though the best houses were such as would now be called hovels; though the best roofs were of thatch; though the best ceilings were of bare rafters; though the best windows were, in bad weather, closed with shutters for want of glass; though the humbler dwellings were mere heaps of turf, in which barrels with the bottoms knocked out served the purpose of chimneys; yet to the mountaineer of the Grampians this city was as Babylon or as Tyre. Nowhere else had he seen four or five hundred houses, two churches, twelve maltkilns, crowded close together. Nowhere elsa had he been dazzled by the splendor of rows of booths, where knives, horn spoons, tin kettles, and g